or was it fenugreek, which actually does smell mapley.

Fenugreek sounds right.

I'm pretty sure that one company made a nasty NYC smell perfume.

Bond NYC, and it's pricy: [link]

Yes, it was a fenugreek factory.

I was actually thinking of Demeter, but I guess not. [link]

Billytea, yes - and to do that you have to have enforced/enforceable laws/policies.

Quite so, and part of my point. Though my use of the term 'manage' rather than, say, 'control' or 'enforce' was deliberate.

However, no one in this conversation, nor in the wider political discourse, is proposing the abolition of immigration (explicitly or de facto), so that's a minor point at best. The more important point is that immigration law should be based on the same principles as the rest of the legal system. More important questions include, is the current law just? Is it discriminatory? Does it deny due process? Does it violate human rights? Does it violate international treaties? Is it proportional to the offence? (More controversially, I remain interested too in its degree of compassion, its social implications and its economic implications.

The AZ law, IMO, is bad law on these considerations. But my point is that the significant elements in both our countries that demonise illegal immigrants make such rational discourse and analysis of the situation difficult at best. We wind up with law and law enforcement that violates the principles on which our countries were founded and are detrimental to our countries' interests.

The alienating (so to speak) rhetoric is IMO the element that most threatens effective management of immigration policy. And while I can't speak for the US on this point, it's been immensely damaging to Australian values. Immigration itself has not. Australia is a far more open and confident member of the international community thanks to our immigrants. The current environment threatens exactly that.

Billytea, you most logically stated several points that I completely agree with, as do I agree with (More controversially, I remain interested too in whether it's compassionate, its social implications and its economic implications.

Well, and then the other question is, if you break the law, what are the penalties? I think many of us obviously feel that part of the answer is changing the immigration laws in terms of what makes an immigrant "illegal", but also...there are lots of laws people break, every day, here. Sometimes the penalty is a fine (traffic tickets). Sometimes it's community service. Sometimes it's probation, or jail time. Does the penalty for illegal immigration need to be "Go back to where you came from and NEVER COME BACK"?

OK, this may have ended hours ago but the "illegall immigration is ILLEGAL" argument is nothing but eye-rolling to me.

When you and even a dozen other people you know never speeds, never smoked pot, didn't have a single drink before they were 21, never snuck into a second movie, has never fudged something on their taxes, never ate a grape while shopping, scrupulously tells the waitress if she left off an app, hasn't gotten a discount of one sort or another from a friend working at whatever store and has only had sex in full compliance of whatever state they were in at the time (check the rules on fellatio, people). THEN get back to me about "but they're ILLEGAL!!!!"

Nearly everyone does illegal shit or has done illegal shit. It's a bullshit argument and it somehow gets treated as valid.

So that makes rioting okay? Shall we just give back Texas and California back then?

So what should we do with him? Nothing?

Y'know, I have a real problem with this kind of thing.

There are reasons that people commit crime. There are reasons that they riot. There are reasons that they commit acts of terrorism. We may disagree about what those reasons are, but attempting to understand why these things happen is not offering excuses or saying "Oh well, nothing can be done about it, because it turns out there were reasons ." It's the opposite. If we want to prevent something from happening again, it helps to know why it happened the first time.

Maybe I'm the only one bothered by it, but I think it's rude and dismissive to respond with straw man arguments. And I suspect that you'd be (rightly) offended if someone else had put words in your mouth that way.

Thanks, Strega, I am just now catching up since I've gotten home.

So that makes rioting okay? Shall we just give back Texas and California back then? Would that make something better? How does any country move on from its past evil deeds?

Shari, my response was not a "this is vengeance and doesn't it suck" thrown off post. It's more to do with a specifically post-colonial concern that, especially, Britain is encountering. It isn't about sins of past deeds; it's about real consequences of "owning" a massive amount of land around the world for a couple of centuries (and enslaving a lot of them) and now being responsible for the outcome of those occupations.