December 2005
 
Su Casa Offers a Home Free of Violence   [12/31/05]
It's fascinating how the MSM tapdances around the misogyny of third world cultures. Here's an article about a shelter in Los Angeles for the victims of domestic violence.

Most of the women sheltered by Su Casa are immigrant Latinas. Counselors say domestic violence seems especially rampant among Mexican immigrants because Mexican law deems a woman to have abandoned her family and strips her of rights to her children and property if she leaves her husband without official permission.
    So, many women of Mexican heritage — such as the 44-year-old whose own family refused to help protect her — remain with their batterers because they mistakenly believe U.S. law is similar.

•   •   •  

Virginia Denies Benefits to Illegals   [12/31/05]
It's looks like a happy new year for Virginia taxpayers.

RICHMOND -- A new Virginia law that bars illegal aliens from receiving state-funded benefits goes into effect tomorrow.
    The law restricts anybody without a Social Security number from receiving Medicaid, temporary assistance for needy families, and help from several other state and local programs.
    Supporters say the measure could save the state millions.
    "A lot of us were saying, instead of raising taxes, why don't we start prioritizing where we're spending our existing money," said Delegate David B. Albo, Fairfax Republican, who sponsored the bill. "One of the things we found was the state was not checking for legal presence for Medicaid." [...]
    Mr. Albo could not specify how many illegal aliens might be receiving public benefits. But he said the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles rejected 187,000 applicants the first year after 2004 legislation restricted illegals from obtaining driver's licenses.

•   •   •  

World Education Development Fund — Education Gap   [12/31/05]
C-SPAN had a representative from this organization on its Washington Journal call-in program this morning, suggesting that the U.S. send some of its USAID development funds to Mexico to improve its schools. Unsurprisingly, callers were not positive.
    USAID is a federal agency, dispensing taxpayer funds to foreign nations.
    Anyone familiar with Mexico and its exported citizens knows that education is not a cultural value there. Statistics bear out that fact.

Less than 75% of children in developing countries reach 5th grade. Only 13% of Mexican adults of productive age have receieved a high school diploma versus 87% of Americans. Less than 8% of Mexicans earn university level degrees. Only 4% of 15-year-old Brazilians score at the highest reading proficiency levels versus 34% of Americans.

•   •   •  

U.S. population nears 298 million   [12/30/05]
The U.S. population will reach 300 million in a few months from now, a doubling from 1950's 150 million. If not for firehose numbers of immigrants, both legal and illegal, the nation's population would gradually level off.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- The population of the United States will be slightly less than 298 million as the country heads into the new year.
    The U.S. Census Bureau, in a release Friday, projected the U.S. population will be 297,821,175 on New Year's Day, an increase of 2,713,518 -- about 0.9 percent -- from Jan. 1, 2005.
    The Census Bureau said the United States in January will register a birth every eight seconds and a death every 12 seconds. When immigration, which adds a person to the population every 31 seconds, is factored in, the overall U.S. population shows a net gain of one person every 14 seconds.

•   •   •  

Magna Cum Saudi   [12/30/05]
It's truly shameful that Harvard University, which is not exactly poor, has accepted a huge sum from a Saudi prince. Investor's Business Daily issues a proper smackdown.

But if opposition to repugnant views is the issue, why did Harvard, while it was justifying the ban on military recruiters, accept a $20 million gift from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and agree to set up a Middle East research center?
    We could be wrong, but it's doubtful that the center will be involved in defending Israel's right to exist.
    Talal, a member of the ruling family of a repressive, totalitarian, sexist theocracy, is the individual whose $10 million gift to 9-11 families was returned by then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani after Talal said, "Our Palestinian brethren continue to be slaughtered at the hands of Israelis while the world turns the other cheek."
    Putting his money where his mouth is, the prince in 2002 participated in a Saudi-sponsored live-broadcast telethon to benefit the families of homicide bombers who killed Israelis. It eventually raised $100 million, $27 million of which was his personal donation.
    In Saudi Arabia, homosexuality is a capital crime, and penalties allowed by Sharia law for such "deviant sexual behavior" range from imprisonment to flogging to death. In the past, people accused of homosexual behavior have been beheaded.
    Maybe Harvard's policy on Saudi repression is "don't ask, don't tell."

•   •   •  

In Mexico, culture of corruption runs deep   [12/29/05]
This is the country President Bush wants the U.S. to marry via the planned "North American Community" as visualized by the Council on Foreign Relations. Mexico is "considered one of the most corrupt countries in the hemisphere" and would never be chosen for partnership except for the unfortunate geography of the continent.

The videotaped allegations are a reminder, analysts say, that in Mexico corruption not only is a disease that afflicts government and public officials, but also a national pathology.
    And, some add, corruption is so deeply embedded in the society that there's no prospect of eliminating or even curbing it anytime soon.
    "Unfortunately, corruption seems to be part of our DNA," said political analyst Jorge Chabat.
    "What we have discovered ... is that this is not endemic," said Eduardo A. Bohorquez, executive secretary of Transparencia Mexicana, or Mexican Transparency. "It's more epidemic."
    For Bohorquez, whose agency measures corruption in Mexico, "Corruption is the abuse of the public trust to gain a private benefit. You take a mandate from a public group and act on your own behalf."
    But other experts say the problem goes far beyond that, extending from the ordinary citizen to high reaches of government. They say most Mexicans have become accustomed to paying bribes and to the notion that the average police officer will try to shake them down in some way.
    Children are told from an early age that they should not trust authorities - including the police, experts say.

•   •   •  

Watch Out for Saudi Charm Offensive   [12/29/05]
This piece is my blog at Vdare.com about the thousands of Saudi students coming to American campuses.

•   •   •  

On TV: love, jealousy - and a primer on good credit   [12/29/05]
The local production of a Spanish-language telenovela in the United States shows how far the invasion of Mexico into America has succeeded.

"[The show] is not necessarily about assimilation as much as how to be successful in this country," says Wilmington, N.C.'s Dilsey Davis, a Hollywood actress who created and directs the show. "In order to do that, you need to have financial literacy, know how to buy a home, how to go to college. What we're trying to do is get people interested in the possibility of that dream."
    Yet critics say the decision by TV executives to slide such a show into the lineup is also a symbol of the rise of a second American mainstream that threatens to destroy the traditional assimilation of immigrants into America.
    "What [Nuestro Barrio is part of], because of the size and lack of diversity of the new immigrant flow, is the creation of an alternative mainstream, a Spanish-language mainstream," says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C.
    "The fear is that we're not going to have a common culture, but two separate societies inhabiting the same territory."

•   •   •  

Pakistani man discusses 'honor' killings   [12/29/05]
Familiar drill here. Muslim male believes that a female relative has behaved in an incorrect way, and a bloodbath ensues. What's odd is that reports say that Pakistan is shocked over the murders, even though this sort of slaughter happens there all the time.

Bibi recounted how she was woken by a shriek as Ahmed put his hand to the mouth of his stepdaughter Muqadas and cut her throat with a machete. Bibi looked helplessly on from the corner of the room as he then killed the three girls — Bano, 8, Sumaira, 7, and Humaira, 4 — pausing between the slayings to brandish the bloodstained knife at his wife, warning her not to intervene or raise alarm.
    "I was shivering with fear. I did not know how to save my daughters," Bibi, sobbing, told AP by phone from the village. "I begged my husband to spare my daughters but he said, 'If you make a noise, I will kill you.'"
    "The whole night the bodies of my daughters lay in front of me," she said.
    The next morning, Ahmed was arrested.
    Speaking to AP in the back of police pickup late Tuesday as he was shifted to a prison in the city of Multan, Ahmed showed no contrition. Appearing disheveled but composed, he said he killed Muqadas because she had committed adultery, and his daughters because he didn't want them to do the same when they grew up.

•   •   •  

Judge Orders Accused Nazi Guard Deported   [12/29/05]
How screwed up is this? The government has been trying to deport a Nazi concentration camp guard for 30 years, and it's still not done. He gets another appeal to the immigration court. Incredible.

CLEVELAND, (AP) -- An immigration judge Wednesday ordered John Demjanjuk, a retired auto worker accused of being a Nazi concentration camp guard, deported to his native Ukraine, bringing him a step closer to being permanently removed from the U.S. after a 30-year legal battle.
    Demjanjuk, 85, has been fighting to stay in this country since the 1970s. He was suspected for a time of being the notoriously brutal guard known as Ivan the Terrible and was nearly executed in Israel.
    Chief U.S. Immigration Judge Michael Creppy ruled that there was no evidence to substantiate Demjanjuk's claim that he would be tortured if deported to his homeland. He said Demjanjuk should be deported to Germany or Poland if Ukraine does not accept him.
    Demjanjuk can appeal the ruling to the Board of Immigration Appeals within 30 days.
    Demjanjuk lost his U.S. citizenship after a judge ruled in 2002 that documents from World War II prove he was a Nazi guard at various death or forced labor camps

•   •   •  

Radioactive Mosques?   [12/28/05]
Robert Spencer of the essential JihadWatch.org reflects on the recent reports of FBI radioactivity surveillance of mosques located in the United States.

But of course, no Muslims who believe that four million Americans should be murdered are actually on American soil, right? Unfortunately, we have no way to know this for sure. Political correctness and unproven assumptions have kept the media and even law enforcement officials from asking the hard questions they should ask of Muslim leaders in the U.S. Absurdities consequently abound. One police official lamented: "We'll come back from a Kumbayah meeting with a local mosque and realize that these guys who just agreed to help us are in our terror files!"

•   •   •  

Hmore Electoral Justice?   [12/28/05]
Read my Vdare.com blog piece about the admission of outgoing St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly that his ill-informed city immigration policy was at least partially to blame for his defeat at the polls.

•   •   •  

Scandals tarnish Mexico's elite police: Indictments, claims of corruption mar image of new force   [12/28/05]
Keep this story in mind when you are bombarded with positive Mexican messages from the PR blitz financed by Mexico City. The country is falling apart because of corruption, yet will spend millions of dollars to fight America's proposed border fence (which is supported by 60 percent of US citizens). It should be getting its own house in order.

Mexico City -- A recent series of indictments and revelations about corrupt federal agents has rocked the attorney general's office here and undermined one of President Vicente Fox's few solid accomplishments: the creation of an elite, honest federal force to fight kidnappers and drug dealers.
    It has been four years since Fox established the force, known as the Federal Investigation Agency, under the attorney general, intended to rid Mexico of the scourge of kidnappers and drug kingpins. Since then, the agents and the prosecutors who work with them have won praise here and in Washington as an effective crime-fighting force, Mexico's version of the Untouchables.
    But the recent accusations against the force, known by its Spanish acronym, AFI, have shaken that image and undermined Fox's claim to have dealt a body blow to organized crime. The charges accuse federal agents of doing the bidding of drug traffickers and carrying out kidnappings and extortion plots -- the same kind of corruption the agency was created to stop.
    In one measure of the problems, a report released recently by the attorney general's office said 1,493 of the agency's 7,000 officers had been investigated for possible wrongdoing, and 457 had been indicted.

•   •   •  

Citizenship debate still simmers   [12/28/05]
The Sensenbrenner immigration enforcement bill which the House passed this month (details at NumbersUSA) did not end birthright citizenship. Many legal scholars believe that the 14th Amendment does not grant citizenship to the children born to illegal aliens, even though that interpretation has been followed for decades.

Mr. Deal has said he will continue pushing the issue. He describes birthright citizenship as "a huge magnet" attracting illegal aliens.
    He cited estimates -- challenged by immigrant advocates -- that roughly 10 percent of births in the United States, or close to 400,000 a year, are babies born to illegal aliens.
    "It's an issue that we are very concerned about," said Michele Waslin, director of immigration policy research for the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy organization that opposes any effort to revoke birthright citizenship.
    "This was always seen in the past as some extreme, wacko proposal that never goes anywhere," she said. "But these so-called wacko proposals are becoming more and more mainstream. It's becoming more acceptable to have a discussion about it."

•   •   •  

GOP Lawmaker Relishes Role as a Flamethrower   [12/28/05]
Can we expect a spate of Tom Tancredo articles after the New York Times piece a few days back? La Times does a credible job and is not a slash and burn expedition.

Tancredo dates his interest in immigration to his years as a teacher dealing with bilingual education. "It was far more political than educational," says Tancredo, the grandson of Italian immigrants. He suggests that today's newcomers are more likely to segregate themselves as "some hyphenated something or other" than try to assimilate.
    He sees his work on immigration as part of a larger fight to save Western civilization from a "cult of multiculturalism" that threatens to cleave the country into ethnic fiefs.
    "It's of no consequence to me where you're from," he says, shouting over the roar of the Orange County crowd. "All that I ask of you is that when you get here, you become an American!"

•   •   •  

In French suburbs, rage 'is only asleep'   [12/27/05]
After three weeks of nightly rioting and burning 10,000 cars, Muslim young men just got tuckered out. But essentially nothing has changed and the violence could bubble up at any time.

"The rage in the suburbs is only asleep," said Balastik, a French youth of Mauritanian origin who has been jobless since dropping out of school seven years ago and is dreaming of a career as a rapper with his band, Styladone. "It wouldn't take much to wake it up again."  
    Social workers and nongovernmental organizations working in the suburbs say they are managing the calm from one day to the next. The police are on high alert ahead of what promises to be a tense New Year's Eve in France, where even in normal years hundreds of cars are torched.  
    "The apparent calm that reigns today should not suggest that the real problem is solved," the French police intelligence service, the Renseignements Generaux, said in a report leaked to Le Parisien newspaper this month. Indeed, a Nov. 10 ban on sales of gasoline in plastic containers remains in place, as does a state of emergency that allows the local authorities to impose a curfew and gives special powers to the police.

•   •   •  

Counselors address teen anxieties for Hmong New Year   [12/26/05]
Where's Senator Proxmire* when you need him? The nation's budget is $8 trillion in the hole and the feds are throwing money away on counseling Hmong's "teen anxieties." You can't make this stuff up.

The Fresno Unified School District will send counselors to the Hmong New Year celebration this week for the first time out of concern for emotional stress some Hmong young people endure at this time of year.
    The counselors will be available to help teens with a variety of issues, including anxiety and anger, that can be brought on by family disagreements and relationship problems, said Molly Yang, a social worker who counsels Fresno Unified students through a federal grant.

•   •   •  

After tsunami, Islamic religious police gain power in Aceh   [12/26/05]
The Muslim religious fundies in Indonesia believe that last year's horrendous tsunami was a result of Allah's anger against human misbehavior. So the morality police have given themselves license to enforce their oppressive form of Islam — but I repeat myself.
    Unsurprisingly, women bear the brunt.

Since the tsunami hit Aceh, Islamic fundamentalists, emboldened by a common belief that the disaster was heaven-sent to punish nonpracticing Muslims, have redoubled their efforts to punish so-called sinners. Some have even blamed the giant waves on women for ignoring Islam.
    Al Yasa Abubakar, the director of Wilayatul Hisbah, insists his organization concentrates on gentle persuasion and setting a good societal example. But in smaller towns, witnesses say the religious police have unleashed bully-boy tactics against mainly poor women.
    Fatimah Syam, of Indonesian Women for Legal Justice, claims 20 women and girls have been publicly humiliated in the port town of Lhokseumawe in the past few months. They have not only been arrested, but all were given public haircuts and paraded through the streets while broadcasting their so-called sins over a megaphone.

•   •   •  

STEVE LEVY (D), SUFFOLK COUNTY, NEW YORK, EXEC.: We estimate, and this is very speculative, over 40,000 illegal immigrants in Suffolk County today. And that puts tremendous stress on our local infrastructure. Our emergency rooms get overwhelmed. We have a large number of people in our school districts we don't know, you know, where their parents came from.
    [CNN REPORTER BILL] TUCKER: The same problems are just as real and overwhelming in Danbury, Connecticut.
    MARK BOUGHTON (R), MAYOR OF DANBURY, CONNECTICUT: Our social services agencies become strained because of the overflow of people that have so many tremendous needs.
    Our education system becomes strained because of the extra services we have to offer. So, at any facet of -- of the community, you will see an area that's going to struggle to do this.
    TUCKER (on camera): Suffolk County, New York, and Danbury, Connecticut, are 100 miles apart. They're in different states and Boughton and Levy members of different political parties. Yet, they are united by the same problems. And they believe there are a lot more elected officials just like them across the country.
    (voice-over): Letters have gone out from each of their offices to mayors and local government executives, announcing the formation of the Mayors and Executives For Immigration Reform Coalition.
    A summit is planned for this February in Washington, D.C. The response has been immediate.
    BOUGHTON: We're getting calls literally every day related to the formation of the coalition. We're going to launch a Web site after the 1st of the year called ReformtheLaw.org.
    TUCKER: The message is nonpartisan and straightforward.
    LEVY: We're saying, federal government, it's your responsibility. Deal with it. Step up to the plate, because your ignoring of this problem for the last several decades has had tremendous pressure -- placed tremendous pressure on local governments.
    TUCKER: And in communities across the country.

Lawmakers across the country proposed hundreds of laws with immigration and refugee-policy themes this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
    That included nearly 300 immigration- and refugee-related measures considered during the first half of 2005, according to an August NCSL memo.

JOHN STAUBER, CENTER FOR MEDIA & DEMOCRACY: There are many coalitions of political and business interests. Even the Republican Party is divided on this issue. And we're going to see, probably, tens or hundreds of millions of dollars put into political fights over border issues just between the United States and Mexico.
    [CASEY] WIAN: For Mexico that's a small price to pay to protect the $20 billion a year it's citizens send home from the United States.

ALLYN: ... the job is to try to communicate facts and factual information about these issues. And I think if people had a fuller appreciation of what Mexico is really like and the role that Mexico plays in our economy, the positive role that Mexico plays as the second biggest trading partner of the United States, where we export $111 billion worth of U.S. products to Mexico every year.

In 1993, Republicans, by four to one, signed on to NAFTA. They believed the promises that our $5 billion trade surplus with Mexico would grow and illegal immigration would diminish. They were deceived. The NAFTA skeptics were proven right. The U.S. trade surplus with Mexico vanished overnight. Last year, we ran a $50 billion trade deficit. Since 1993, 15 million illegal aliens have been caught breaking into the United States. Five million made it, and their soaring demands for social services have driven California to bankruptcy. As for Mexico's major exports to us, they appear to be two: narcotics and Mexicans.

Among the upset attendees was Erik Rodriguez, a student at Southwest High School in Minneapolis. He wants to enroll in a Minnesota college next year but said he won't be able to afford it unless Pawlenty and the Legislature pass a law that would allow him and other undocumented but longtime Minnesota students to pay in-state tuition rates.

[CNN REPORTER CASEY] WIAN: Activists filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of 60,000 out- of-state U.S. students forced to pay higher tuition in California. They say the state has been violating a federal law since it began giving illegal aliens reduced tuition in 2002.
    KRIS KOBACH, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI: It's an incentive to stay illegally in California. And furthermore, we'll give you a very, very valuable benefit worth more than $130,000 in the UC system to stay here legally. And so it's encouraging illegal immigration.

•   •   •  

Muslim Gang Rapes and the Aussie Riots   [12/15/05]
One of the major factors in the recent Sydney unrest is the background of violence against Australian women and girls by Lebanese Muslims. Women enjoying the beach and engaging in other normal aspects of life are routinely insulted and harassed by misogynous Lebanese. Sometimes the hatred of women reaches a physical level that can only be considered torture, as in the horrific gang rapes of a couple years back which shocked Australia.
    The sentencing of one man found guilty for a series of brutal and humiliating gang rapes with his brothers occurred earlier this month.

Four days after he set foot in Australia, the rape spree began. And during his sexual assault trial in a New South Wales courtroom, the Pakistani man began to berate one of his tearful 14-year-old victims because she had the temerity to shake her head at his testimony.
    But she had every reason to express her disgust. After taking an oath on the Qur'an, the man -- known only as MSK -- told the court he had committed four attacks on girls as young as 13 because they had no right to say "no." They were not covering their face or wearing a headscarf, and therefore, the rapist proclaimed: "I'm not doing anything wrong."
    MSK is already serving a 22-year jail term for leading his three younger brothers in a gang rape of two other young Sydney girls in 2002. In his own defence, he argued that his cultural background, was responsible for his crimes.
    And he is right.
    In some parts of Pakistan, sexual assault -- including gang rape -- is officially sanctified as a legitimate form of enforcing the social value system.
    One village council recently ordered that five young girls should be "abducted, raped or murdered" for refusing to be treated as chattel. The girls were aged between six and thirteen when they were married without their knowledge, to pay a family debt.
    And when Mukhtar Mai's 12-year-old brother was alleged to have committed an offence in a small Pakistani farming village, the village council ordered that his sister be gang-raped. So, she was taken to a hut where four men repeatedly assaulted her.
    According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan there were 804 cases of such officially orchestrated sexual assault in 2000, and 434 of these were gang rapes. And if that isn't bad enough, the victims of these atrocities are then expected to commit suicide because rape victims bring irreparable shame upon their family.
    So as MSK committed his acts of rape while visiting Australia, he was simply perpetuating his own cultural heritage. He hails from a society where officially sanctioned sexual violence is commonly employed as a means to enforce the subservience of women.

•   •   •  

End of the Rainbow   [12/14/05]
The American Conservative chronicles the growing tensions between black and brown in Los Angeles. It was all to be expected.
    Mexicans have displaced citizen blacks in jobs by the thousands, and lowered wages to the point where formerly middle class positions now hardly keep body and soul together. Mexicans filled previously American schools with Spanish speaking kids, thereby lowering the standard of education for any remaining citizen children. Watts was once an iconic black community, but is now majority Hispanic.

Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition has a ways to go in Los Angeles, where Mexicans and blacks are killing each other at record rates. The action is particularly hot in South Central Los Angeles and in nearby Compton, two areas that have undergone a dramatic shift during the last two decades from virtually all black to half or more Hispanic.
    Most of the schools in these areas are now majority Latino, something I could not possibly have imagined when I was in high school in the early 1960s. By that time South Central and Compton had made a transition from virtually all white during the 1930s to virtually all black. They remained that way into the late 1970s, when the effects of illegal immigration from Mexico first began to be felt. By the 1990s, entire neighborhoods had been transformed.

•   •   •  

L.A.'s underground cash   [12/14/05]
In Los Angeles, what is genteelly called the "informal economy" by the LA Times continues to grow to the point where the number of workers in legitimate jobs has declined since 1990. The report being discussed, "Los Angeles Economy Project", was produced jointly by the Milken Institute and the Economic Roundtable, which authored an alarming 2002 study which found that up to 28 percent of the workforce was employed under the table, costing the city and feds billions of dollars in taxes.

Los Angeles County's underground cash economy is expanding rapidly, eroding the work force and sapping an estimated $2 billion a year from city, state and federal coffers, according to a key finding in a major regional report scheduled to be released today.
    Driven by what the report authors call economic desperation, the region's cash-only work force has grown about 5 percent in the past four years to nearly 680,000 workers - nearly half of them in the city of Los Angeles alone. They account for about 15 percent of the total Los Angeles County work force, according to the report on a Milken Institute study titled the "Los Angeles Economy Project."
    At the same time, payroll jobs in the entire county that contribute with taxes and fees to the social safety net declined by roughly 2 percent - from 3.9 million to 3.8 million.
    "Given this large number of informal jobs and the continuing practice by many employers of avoiding legally mandated payroll taxes, there is a real risk that a steadily increasing number of employers will adopt this illicit labor-management practice in order to remain competitive within the Los Angeles region," the authors concluded.

•   •   •  

4 Saudi teachers marry driver to stay close to work   [12/13/05]
Women are getting creative in repressive Saudi Arabia, but these gals better watch out for a fatwa.

RIYADH: Four Saudi women teaching in a remote village school have married their driver so they can live closer to work, Al-Watan newspaper has said.
    The newspaper said the women from Al-Baha province in south-west Saudi Arabia were impressed with the man's "good morals" and decided to marry him and live together in the village where they teach -- avoiding a tiring daily commute.
    They were married in a short ceremony, and have agreed to pay the driver a share of their monthly salaries, Al-Watan said yesterday.
    Women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, while men can marry up to four women according to Islamic law.

•   •   •  

Joining Hands around the Diversity Tree   [12/13/05]
See my blog Vdare blog piece about how immigration has effected the Christmas debate.

•   •   •  

Is Islam the problem?   [12/13/05]
MSM coverage of the riots in Sydney Australia has been particularly bad, focusing on white Australians' misbehavior while giving no background information about the years of growing anger at Lebanese Muslims who refuse to assimilate.

Australia does not have a race relations problem. We have a clash of cultures and that's a big difference -- and maybe the problem is certain forms of Islam.
    Of course, the marauding boneheads who rampaged through Cronulla on Sunday don't make this distinction. If they did, perhaps they would realise that when they screech "Lebs out" they are also referring to the majority of Lebanese Australians who are Maronite Christians, in communion with the Roman Catholic Church.
    When groups of young Muslim men stalk the beaches of Sydney making sexually threatening comments against women in bathing costumes, as they indisputably do; and when they believe they act with the license of a sheik who claims that such women are responsible for their own sexual violation, is their religion, at least in part, to blame?

•   •   •  

Growing number of illegal immigrants fleeing the law back home   [12/12/05]
The cheerleaders for open borders love to lie that "they only come to work." Obviously many come for criminal purposes, as shown by the 30 percent of federal prison inmates who are foreign born — more than double the overall national percentage.
    Now we learn that many have come to escape.

Of the 1.2 million illegal immigrants apprehended nationwide while entering the United States over the past year, fingerprint checks revealed that more than 26,000 were linked to major crimes, Border Patrol officials say.
    Many of the fugitives had already been convicted and served time while others were being sought on outstanding charges. From Nov. 25 to Dec. 1, border patrol agents arrested eight illegal immigrants charged with homicide, said Mario Villarreal, Washington spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security.

•   •   •  

Immigrants at Mid-Decade   [12/12/05]
Here is another of the Center for Immigration Studies' occasional analyses of the Census' Current Population Survey, data which updates the decennial information. The results are growth of the wrong kind — millions more poor and uneducated persons added to our homegrown people living in poverty. This report is jam-packed with disturbing statistics of a permissive immigration policy run amok.

•   The 35.2 million immigrants (legal and illegal) living in the country in March 2005 is the highest number ever recorded -- two and a half times the 13.5 million during the peak of the last great immigration wave in 1910.
•   Between January 2000 and March 2005, 7.9 million new immigrants (legal and illegal) settled in the country, making it the highest five-year period of immigration in American history.
•   Nearly half of post-2000 arrivals (3.7 million) are estimated to be illegal aliens.
•   Immigrants account for 12.1 percent of the total population, the highest percentage in eight decades. If current trends continue, within a decade it will surpass the high of 14.7 percent reached in 1910.
•   Of adult immigrants, 31 percent have not completed high school, three-and-a-half times the rate for natives. Since 1990, immigration has increased the number of such workers by 25 percent, while increasing the supply of all other workers by 6 percent.
•   Immigrants were once significantly more likely to have a college degree, but the new data show that natives are now as likely as immigrants to have a bachelor's or graduate degree.
•   The proportion of immigrant-headed households using at least one major welfare program is 29 percent, compared to 18 percent for native households.
•   The poverty rate for immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 18) is 18.4 percent, 57 percent higher than the 11.7 percent for natives and their children. Immigrants and their minor children account for almost one in four persons living in poverty.
•   One-third of immigrants lack health insurance -- two-and-one-half times the rate for natives. Immigrants and their U.S.-born children account for almost three-fourths (nine million) of the increase in the uninsured population since 1989.
•   The low educational attainment of many immigrants and resulting low wages are the primary reasons so many live in poverty, use welfare programs, or lack health insurance, not their legal status or an unwillingness to work.

•   •   •  

No such thing as 'temporary workers'   [12/11/05]
When you let your "guests" hang about for six years, they may grow comfy and not want to leave. Who is going to deport the 20 million foreigners six years from now?

Why is a guest-worker program being pushed? Because some employer and ethnic lobbies expect to benefit substantially and rapidly. There would be costs but these would be slower to appear, and would be paid for by the federal and local governments rather than by the interest groups that benefit. The result is politics driven by small, concentrated, and well-financed interest groups that expect to profit significantly in the short term.
    People, as economist Adam Smith once observed, are "the most difficult baggage to transport over borders." Among those who have carefully studied recent experience, there is an overwhelming and concise consensus: There is nothing more permanent than temporary workers.

•   •   •  

What immigration brings California: Study evaluates the costs, benefits of a huge influx of foreign workers   [12/11/05]
How typical of the San Francisco Chronicle to interview immigrants and illegal aliens for its human touch about employment, but no American workers are asked how they like the invasion. The dueling economists are present, disagreeing on the effects of unrestricted immigration on California, but those who get it in the neck are conspicuously absent. Instead, we read about Julio.

At Santiago's Body Shop in San Francisco's Mission District, the question of whether immigrants are taking jobs from native-born workers made Julio Flores bristle.
    "I never took anybody's job," said Flores, 41, who spoke no English when he arrived from Guatemala and started sweeping floors on his way to learning the trade. "I took the jobs nobody wanted."
    The debate is at the core of new report that says average wage and job growth in California have improved relative to the nation during a 15-year period in which the state has experienced a massive influx of both legal and undocumented immigrants.
    At the same time, the influx has, at least in the short term, strained state and local governments, which provide education and medical services to the poorest migrants, many of whom are undocumented.

•   •   •  

Former Sen. Eugene McCarthy, 89, Dies   [12/10/05]
Sen. McCarthy is best remembered for challenging fellow Democrat and sitting President Lyndon Johnson in the 1968 primaries on the issue of the Vietnam War. More than that, he was a fascinating man of many interests who wrote books of poetry, worked as a college sociology instructor and lived for a year in a monastery.

He was elected to the House in 1948. Ten years later he was elected to the Senate and re-elected in 1964. McCarthy left the Senate in 1970 and devoted much of his time to writing poetry, essays and books.
    With a sardonic sense of humor, McCarthy needled whatever establishment was in power. In 1980 he endorsed Republican Ronald Reagan with the argument that anyone was better than incumbent Jimmy Carter, a Democrat.

•   •   •  

Mayor Shares Vision for L.A.   [12/09/05]
Los Angeles' hispanic mayor has a vision thing happening, and he is visiting various areas of the city sharing his ideas of how he sees the future in the City of the Angels. Some might say it bears little resemblance to likely reality.

Diversity, he told Valley leaders, "is going to make us rich and prosperous, make no mistake about it."
    The racial differences that threatened to tear L.A. apart are to Villaraigosa a blessing: a city where 120 languages are spoken by ethnic groups whose ties to their home countries can mature into new avenues of trade. He noted that the Valley, once considered lily white, is now the most racially diverse area in Los Angeles — and one of its most economically vibrant.
    In previous speeches, the mayor has even been exhorting monolingual Angelenos to learn at least one other language — "like they do in Europe." [...]
    Perhaps Villaraigosa's boldest move has been his promise to take over the troubled Los Angeles Unified School District, following the lead of mayors in New York and Chicago.
    To the mayor, Los Angeles simply cannot compete if its main educational system is rife with dropouts and graduates who "can barely fill out a job application."

•   •   •  

Mexico's sinking city   [12/08/05]
This article is about Mexico City's failing water table, but the metropolis is sinking in other ways as well.

Not so long ago, you used to be able to stand on the green wooded slopes of the Popocatepetl volcano and look down on Mexico City.
    Now, the view is blocked by a dense brown cloud of pollution.
    Peel back this vile smog, and you uncover one of the biggest megalopolises in the world.
    In just half a century, its population has increased seven-fold.
    Now, more than 20 million people live and work in this hectic, expanding mass of concrete.
    The Mexican capital is host to an array of unenviable problems.
    The gap between rich and poor is among the biggest in the world. The violent crime rate is steadily climbing.
    More than four million cars clog the badly-planned and poorly-built streets.
    Its toxic air causes breathing and skin disorders.

•   •   •  

Russia's Muslims Want Christian Symbols Removed From Coat of Arms   [12/08/05]
For the "Muslims Increasing Demands" file: Muslims are demanding that Russians dismantle their history.

A group of top Muslim clerics have demanded that Orthodox Christian symbols be removed from the Russian coat of arms and have complained about the Russian authorities and power-wielding structures allegedly refusing to abide by the principle of secularity, the Interfax news agency reported.
    "This is not only a question of the Russian coat of arms. We can say that icons are all but put up on the walls of state offices," Nafigulla Ashirov, chairman of the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Asian Russia, told journalists.

•   •   •  

House GOP Favors Immigration Curbs, But Not The Senate   [12/08/05]
From Investors Business Daily, more astute, no-BS observations about what is going on in Washington, in this case, the chasm between the House and Senate.

The House will vote next week on a major border and immigration control bill, minus the guest-worker program proposed by President Bush. But getting the Senate to go along may take some doing.
    Leading Senate Republicans have put forth three plans tying guest-worker programs to tougher border controls and interior enforcement. President Bush also supports this strategy.
    The Senate, with White House help, may go along only with changes that approve more foreign workers.
    House leaders could be hard pressed to find common ground.
    "We do not have a clear consensus on what a guest-worker program should look like," said House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., this week.

•   •   •  

Houston, Haven for Illegal Immigrants, Pressured to Be Tougher   [12/07/05]
It is incomprehensible that numerous cities and the state of Maine protect illegal alien criminals who are committing acts of violence against citizens. So-called sanctuary policy is another way in which illegal aliens have more rights than citizens.

Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Houston Mayor Bill White is facing increasing pressure locally and from the federal government to toughen a policy that has helped make the fourth-largest U.S. city a haven for illegal immigrants.
    City Councilman Mark Ellis is trying to force a vote on a plan directing police to enforce immigration law and requiring proof of citizenship for people receiving social services. The local effort coincides with a push by President George W. Bush and bills in Congress to crack down on illegal immigration.
    "The federal government, they're not going to be able to get their arms around this issue alone," Ellis said in a telephone interview. "They're going to have to have assistance from the local government and state government."
    Houston police have refrained since 1992 from inquiring about the immigration status of people associated with minor crimes and investigations. The policy, General Order 500-5, is similar to one known as Special Order 40 in Los Angeles. It's designed to free up local resources and help build ties with immigrant communities.
    Thirty-two U.S. cities have so-called sanctuary policies similar to Houston's, according to a study last year by the Congressional Research Service. Austin, Texas's capital, and Katy, a Houston suburb, are among them.

•   •   •  

Testimony of Steven Camarota   [12/07/05]
On Dec 6, the House Government Reform and Census Committee held a hearing on the issue of how House seat apportionment is determined. The issue discussed was how representation is made less equal because districts are determined by the number of persons, not citizens. The problem is that some states have so many illegal aliens (like California) that it skews the number of Representatives, pulling down the number in other states. Change would require a Constitutional amendment, according to advocate Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI), to direct the Census to get information on citizenship status.
    Reviewed here is a written testimony presented.

If you take nothing else away from my testimony, it should be that allowing in people, even as guest workers or just tolerating illegal immigration, has board ranging effects. These effects include such things as the redistribution of House seats. For example, if we take the 11 million illegals already here and grant them temporary status, the Census in 2010 will still count them, and seats will still be apportioned to states based on their presence.  On the other hand, if we enforce the law and make most illegals go home, this too will have apportionment consequences in 2010. In our discussion of immigration, therefore, we should not compartmentalize its various impacts; instead, we must recognize the broad implications of immigration on virtually every aspect of American life, including apportionment.

•   •   •  

Lenders use looser credit rules to tap into illegal immigrants   [12/07/05]
How screwed up is this? Banks and other lending businesses ignore the law in order to market to illegal aliens, selling them home loans and other credit.

Whether they need credit for a new couch or a mortgage for a home, undocumented immigrants are finding it increasingly easy to go into debt here.
    Gone are the days when those who lacked a Social Security card had no chance of obtaining a loan. A recent liberalization among lending institutions means that those who are undocumented need not be unbanked.
    Spanish-language radio stations carry ads for furniture on credit, with "no social" necessary. Banks, including Banco Popular and now Citibank, have started programs that allow illegal immigrants to buy homes by using an identifier issued by the IRS, known as the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number. [...]
    Good statistics are hard to come by, but there is an indication that a number of illegal immigrants have managed to become homeowners. Recent interviews of Mexican immigrants at Mexican Consulates across the United States found that 10 percent of those with no valid U.S. identification own their homes, the Pew Hispanic Center said.

•   •   •  

Forced child marriage tests Pakistan law   [12/07/05]
Slavery remains the norm for women and girls in too many parts of the world.

Coming of age was a painful experience for the three Khan sisters.
    They discovered they'd been promised in marriage to their enemies when they were children, a practice in Pakistan known as vani.
    "When we grew up we came to know that a great injustice had been done to us," says Abda Khan, now 18.
    "Vani is equal to a murder. If we were to marry those boys, it would be the same as killing us."
    Vani is a tribal custom in which blood feuds are settled with forced marriages.
    The bride spends her life paying for the crime of her male relatives.
    "She's just like a slave in their house," says community activist Zia-Ullah Khan, "because she comes from the enemy's family, and the people took vani to compensate their revenge. They try to give pain to the girl and her family members."

•   •   •  

Fruit growers turn to technology to ease labor woes   [12/06/05]
Some of the loudest wailing for open borders comes from agricultural interests, which have not invested in technology for picking because there has been an unlimited supply of exploitable foreign labor. If the spigot were turned off, machinery would be bought and farm wages would go up.
    Farmwork has long been used as a temp job by new illegal aliens for a limited period until they find better paying jobs in construction, etc. For example, Hispanic farmworkers put down their hoes when they heard there was big money in rebuilding New Orleans.

WENATCHEE, Wash. -- Stymied in efforts to ease labor problems through a guest worker immigration program, Washington state orchardists have been advised to seek relief through technology.
    "Labor costs are going up and availability is going down. It's quite likely that the availability will continue to go down. This is where technology can help us," said Bob Brammer, president of Crane & Crane Inc. of Brewster, at the Washington State Horticultural Association's 101st annual meeting that began Monday.

•   •   •  

Sweden's rising Muslim tide   [12/06/05]
Malmo, Sweden's third-largest city, gets a look here regarding its restive Islamic population. The remarks of the Swedes sound like they are in total denial about the wolves in their midst.

But so far there have been no terrorist attacks or Paris-style revolts in Sweden, and violence in Malmo has been largely between criminal gangs, together with some sporadic attacks against Jewish targets and municipal buses.
    "France has a tradition of revolt and demonstration against the state," says Jonathan Friedman, professor of social anthropology at the nearby University of Lund. "But in Sweden it's almost as if the state has sided with the immigrants against the Swedish working class."
    "Sweden thinks of itself as immune from terrorism because of its foreign policies," adds Magnus Ranstorp, an analyst at the Swedish National Defence College.
    "But one has to be worried about issues like in Holland," he continues, referring to the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, "although it would take a lot for something like that to happen in Sweden."

•   •   •  

China Ventures Southward   [12/06/05]
Apparently labor is becoming too expensive in China, so industrialists are beginning to outsource.

"The competition in China is intense, and the investment in Vietnam made sense," Li said, sitting in his air-conditioned, glass-fronted office, as 500 workers toiled in an adjacent factory bay amid the clatter of machinery and the smell of melting plastic. "In this area, workers have a hard time finding jobs. They are happy for any work, and they are willing to eat a lot of bitterness."

•   •   •  

Dutch Islamist trial hears of gruesome films   [12/06/05]
The trial of Mohammed Bouyeri's fellow Islamic cell members has started in the Netherlands, prosecuting the 14 Muslims accused of being accessories to the murder of Theo van Gogh in terms of plotting the attack and belonging to a terrorist group. One witness described the sort of training the men underwent which was designed to instill brutality against the infidel.

"A throat must be cut from the front, but not entirely so there is maximum suffering. Fouad said this while a film was shown on which people were beheaded," her statement said.
    "He showed knives and films about slaughtering and showed us how to take a knife out of its scabbard and said he and Bouyeri stole sheep from a farm to practice slaughtering."

•   •   •  

Interview with Chief Garrett Chamberlain   [12/05/05]
Chief of Police Chamberlain of New Ipswich, New Hampshire, shows what one determined law enforcement officer can do. He arrested an illegal alien on the charge of criminal trespass, and the case was later dismissed by the state district court.

The publicity has helped to discourage illegal immigrants from entering or traveling through New Ipswich. The immigrant community in one of the biggest cities in the State told their residents to avoid New Ipswich and Hudson at all costs. A year ago, there were four houses in New Ipswich that were used specifically for housing illegal immigrants that were employed here. Since I have begun pursuing illegal immigrants, those houses now are empty and on the market, or have already been sold.

•   •   •  

Hmong keep old ways as they settle in   [12/05/05]
Remember assimilation? Immigrants used to come here to become Americans; now they set up their separate communities and interact with mainstream culture as little as possible. In many cases, they openly declare their disdain for our nation's traditions and social norms. Some Hmong have retained their homeland's customs of polygamy and opium smoking in spite of those activities being illegal here.
    But they all know the location of the welfare office, and are happy to cash their government checks, courtesy the U.S. taxpayer. As refugees, Hmong receive welfare benefits within 30 days of arriving. They are among the highest users of government assistance. The cash frees them to set up their little Hmong villages in the U.S.

A new 24-hour Hmong radio station, Hmong Wisconsin Radio, first broadcast in April from Wisconsin Avenue in Appleton to serve as a bilingual news and entertainment source for new and longtime resident families, said Kor Xiong, producer and president.
    "For the elderly, they've been here 20 and 30 years," Xiong said. "They sit at home and because of word of mouth, (the news) is not accurate. They need to know what is current and happening. Some folks call here and even cry because it was the first time they heard what is going on, and it was the first time they heard radio they used to listen to back in their country. They drop off homemade food for the staff. That's really neat, how supportive the community is of the radio station."
    Shows from Laos in the low-power FM station's airtime mix, Xiong said, help preserve native language and music for the younger Hmong born or raised here, and also serve as familiar sounds for newcomers.

•   •   •  

The New Berlin Wall   [12/04/05]
Germans have only recently awakened to the alien and hostile nature of the Muslim immigrant community in their midst. The honor killings have been a wake-up call, particularly that of Hatun Surucu whose declaration to her family that she was living as a western individual brought a death sentence.

Heavily veiled women wearing long coats even in summer are becoming an increasingly familiar sight in German Muslim neighborhoods. According to Necla Kelek's research, they are mostly under-age girls who have been bought - often for a handsome payment - in the Turkish heartland villages of Anatolia by mothers whose sons in Germany are ready to marry. The girls are then flown to Germany, and "with every new imported bride," Kelek says, "the parallel society grows." Meanwhile, Ates summarizes, "Turkish men who wish to marry and live by Shariah can do so with far less impediment in Berlin than in Istanbul."
    Before the murder of Hatun Surucu there were enough warnings to engage the Germans in a debate about the parallel society growing in their midst. There have been 49 known "honor crimes," most involving female victims, during the past nine years - 16 in Berlin alone. Such crimes are reported in the "miscellaneous" column along with other family tragedies and given a five-line treatment. Indeed, it's possible that the murder of Hatun Surucu never would have made the headlines at all but for another piece of news that stirred up the press. Just a few hundred yards from where Surucu was killed, at the Thomas Morus High School, three Muslim students soon openly declared their approval of the murder.

•   •   •  

Underground economy growing as illegal immigrants head to new states, more jobs   [12/04/05]
This is one of the better employment analyses you will read in the MSM.

"The toleration of illegal immigration undermines all of our labor," said Vernon Briggs, a Cornell University labor economics professor.
    "It rips at the social fabric. It's a race to the bottom. The one who plays by the rules is penalized. It becomes a system that feeds on itself. It just goes on and on and on." [...]
    The way Bob Justich sees it, America is hooked on cheap, illegal workers. As a senior managing director for Bear Stearns, he has spent the last two years meeting with immigrants, business owners, police and real estate agents to determine the size of the underground economy and its effect on the real economy.
    This he knows for sure: There are way more illegal immigrants in the country than the government estimates. The government puts the number at around 8.5 million; Justich says it is more than double that -- closer to 20 million, mainly because illegal immigrants don't bother to respond to Census Bureau forms.
    "If everybody was deported tomorrow, it would be like emptying the equivalent of New York state," he said. "And this source of labor has become vital to many businesses."
    Illegal immigrants hold about 12 million to 15 million jobs in the United States, or about 8 percent, according to Justich. That may seem a small percentage, but the pressure of its presence helps keep wages for unskilled jobs low. And many of the jobs are off the books, meaning the government may be foregoing $35 billion a year in income tax collections, he said.
    That figure, however, is partially offset by employers withholding taxes for illegal workers who never file returns or seek benefits, said Marti Dinerstein, a Center for Immigration Studies fellow.
    An analysis by Barron's estimated the size of the shadow economy at about $970 billion, or nearly 9 percent of the goods and services produced by the real economy.

•   •   •  

China to 'tidy up' trade in executed prisoners' organs   [12/03/05]
China has long denied that it sold the organs of prisoners executed there, but now admits that it does harvest the valuable organs of those freshly deceased persons.

CHINA broke its silence yesterday to admit for the first time that the organs of executed prisoners were sold to foreigners for transplant.
    For many years it has denied that such a trade existed. But Huang Jiefu, the Deputy Health Minister, acknowledged that the practice is widespread and promised to tighten the rules.
    "We want to push for regulations on organ transplants to standardise the management of the supply of organs from executed prisoners and tidy up the medical market," Mr Huang told Caijing magazine. [...]
    No official figures are available for the number of executions in China each year and legal experts say that this is partly because the authorities have never compiled a total. However, Amnesty International says that more people are executed in China than in the rest of the world combined, and estimates the total at about 3,400 each year — and possibly as many as 6,000.

•   •   •  

Muslim Students at Delta College Offended by Artwork   [12/03/05]
The sort of edgy free speech created by art is not Islam's cup of tea. Muslims are now upset over a minor sculpture at a small college in Stockton, California.

A ceramic assault rifle wrapped in the words of the Koran has Muslim students calling for its removal from an art exhibit at Delta College in Stockton.
    The piece is called "Kalashnikov Jihad," a reference to the Russian-made assault rifle commonly used in the Middle East. The artwork is part of an art show titled "My Country, Right or Left: Artists Respond to the State of the Union" in the L.H. Horton art gallery.
    Muslim students contend "Kalashnikov Jihad" descrecrates the Islamic holy book. Some also argue it equates Islam with terrorism.

•   •   •  

The Q-Word & American Realities   [12/03/05]
Former California Regent Ward Connerly argues, "You're either for meritocracy or you're not," regarding the initiative to be decided by Michigan voters in 2006.

One of the dirtiest words in the field of public policy is "quotas." I have never met an elected official or anyone running for public office — regardless of political affiliation — who proclaims support for quotas.
    Even when they hide behind the fig leaf of "diversity" and "affirmative action," which are the functional equivalents of quotas, virtually all political figures regard the characterization of being a supporter of quotas as "fightin' words."
    Recently, the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) — a ballot proposition patterned after California's Proposition 209 — won a court battle to be included on Michigan's Election Day 2006 ballot. MCRI would install language in the Michigan constitution preventing "the state from discriminating against, or granting preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, color, gender, ethnicity or national origin in public employment, public education, or public contracting."

•   •   •  

Illegals hurt Americans   [12/02/05]
Here is some simple common sense from the current and former chairs of the House Immigration Subcommittee, Reps. John Hostettler and Lamar Smith.

When there are many willing workers, employers cut wages. That is simple supply and demand. Illegal immigrants who take low-skilled jobs reduce wages and take jobs from both citizens and legal immigrants.
    A study by Harvard economist George Borjas shows that cheap immigrant labor has reduced by 7.4 percent the wages of American workers performing low-skilled jobs. A report by the Center for Immigration Studies concludes that "immigration may reduce the wages of the average native in a low-skilled occupation by... $1,915 per year." Illegal immigrants come here to find jobs. You cannot blame them when a typical Mexican worker, for example, earns one-tenth as much as their American counterpart and when American businesses are willing to hire them. One study estimates that illegal immigrants displace 730,000 American workers every year.
    Contrary to the assertion that Americans will not take low-skilled jobs, Americans in fact do these jobs every day. Americans mow lawns, wait tables and work in virtually all other low-skilled job categories. A report by the Center for Immigration Studies shows that more citizens than non-citizens are employed in construction and maintenance, which are thought of as having mostly immigrant laborers.
    Some claim that illegal immigrants are doing jobs that Americans will not do. But when an illegal immigrant finds a job here, that does not mean that no American will take the job. In fact, 79 percent of all service workers are native-born, as are 68 percent of all workers in jobs requiring no more than a high-school education.

•   •   •  

Man who caused fatal crash captured   [12/02/05]
This is terrific news which I never expected to hear: the illegal alien who killed 16-year-old Dustin Inman in a vehicle crash and later escaped custody has now been recaptured. The perpetrator, Gonzalo Harrell-Gonzalez, escaped from a hospital after the wreck and was never even arrested. A Gilmer County (Georgia) grand jury indicted Gonzalez on charges of vehicular homicide and serious injury by a vehicle.
    Dustin's parents, Billy and Kathy Inman, were so badly injured in the crash that they couldn't attend their son's funeral. Kathy remains in a wheelchair. Nothing will bring back Dustin of course, but seeing his killer behind bars instead of living free is a comfort to the family.

A southwest Cherokee County couple's long wait for the capture of the man who caused the car accident that killed their teenage son has ended.
    Gonzalo Harrell-Gonzalez, 37, is in the custody of the Birmingham Police Department and the extradition process to bring him from Alabama back to Georgia is under way, according to Lt. Henry Irby of the Birmingham Police Department.
    On June 16, 2000, a car driven by Harrell-Gonzalez struck a Pontiac carrying Billy and Kathy Inman and their 16-year-old son, Dustin, at a red light in Gilmer County.
    Dustin was killed in the accident. Both Billy and Kathy were knocked unconscious as a result of the impact. Kathy was left wheelchair-bound.
    Harrell-Gonzalez, who allegedly admitted to police he fell asleep behind the wheel, was taken to an Ellijay hospital then transferred to a hospital in Dalton. He disappeared after being mistakenly released from the hospital and police thought he had fled to Mexico or his father's home in Birmingham.
    The Inmans were thrilled with the news that he is in police custody.
    "We were excited. It was past time that something had happened," Mrs. Inman said Wednesday.

•   •   •  

My Afghan Captivity   [12/01/05]
Well known feminist author Phyllis Chesler explains why she never fell for the silly romanticizing of third-world cultures which liberal women accept as truth. Chesler lived for a time under the normal house arrest as an Afghan bride and therefore has no illusions of Islamic culture.

While multiculturalism has become increasingly popular, I never could accept cultural relativism. Instead, what I experienced in Afghanistan as a woman taught me the necessity of applying a single standard of human rights, not one tailored to each culture. In 1971 — less than a decade after my Kabul captivity — I spoke about rescuing women of Bangladesh raped en masse during that country's war for independence from Pakistan. The suffering of women in the developing world should be considered no less important than the issues feminists address in the West. Accordingly, I called for an invasion of Bosnia long before Washington did anything, and I called for similar military action in Rwanda, Afghanistan, and Sudan.
    In recent years, I fear that the "peace and love" crowd in the West has refused to understand how Islamism endangers Western values and lives, beginning with our commitment to women's rights and human rights. The Islamists who are beheading civilians, stoning Muslim women to death, jailing Muslim dissidents, and bombing civilians on every continent are now moving among us both in the East and in the West. While some feminist leaders and groups have come to publicize the atrocities against women in the Islamic world, they have not tied it to any feminist foreign policy. Women's studies programs should have been the first to sound the alarm. They do not. More than four decades after I was a virtual prisoner in Afghanistan, I realize how far the Western feminist movement has to go.

•   •   •  

Video offers brutal glimpse of drug cartel   [12/01/05]
The Dallas Morning News has a chilling view of the violence of Mexico's Gulf drug cartel. Shown below is a photo taken from a video showing the execution of one of the men.

MEXICO CITY ­ The four men sit bruised, bloody and bound on the floor before a curtain of black garbage bags. Prodded by an unseen interrogator, they coolly describe how they enforce the rule of Mexico's Gulf cartel: Enemies are kidnapped, tortured and shot in the head, their bodies burned to ashes.
    Among those killed, the men say in a video sent to The Dallas Morning News, were a radio reporter who "didn't want to work anymore" for their cartel and a chamber of commerce leader who called too loudly for federal help against the drug gangs. "Break him because he is causing controversy," was the order from his cartel boss, says one of the men.
    After six minutes of such confessions, a 9 mm pistol held by a black-gloved hand enters the picture and fires a bullet into the head of one of the self-proclaimed killers.
    Authorities on both sides of the border said the interrogation video appears genuine, offering a rare and extraordinary look into the Gulf cartel's inner workings and its well-armed allies, known as the Zetas. They also said the crude home movie raises unsettling questions about the cartels' possible reach into Mexico's government, military and media - though a government spokesman said that impression could be misleading.

•   •   •  

U.S. Muslim leaders must take stand   [12/01/05]
You don't find many nice surprises in the newspaper these days, but coming across a strong op-ed against Islamofascism in America from an Al Gore-connected guy must certainly count. Lawrence Haas, the former communications director for Vice President Al Gore, has named names among the Muslim fifth column — something even many Republicans avoid for the usual political reasons.

The roots of the problem are twofold. First, some Muslim-American leaders simply do not oppose terrorism. They have proclaimed support for some of the world's most lethal terrorist organizations and they have cavorted with prominent advocates of terrorism. Second, and worse, some of those leaders have been linked to, charged with or convicted of illegal activities related to terrorism.
    Consider the way some American Muslim leaders have spoken about terrorism and its manifestations:
    One of CAIR's founders, Nihad Awad, called himself a supporter of Hamas, the Iran-backed group that has waged a long campaign of terror against Israel. He also called the trial over the 1993 World Trade Center bombing "a travesty of justice" and suggested that Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, and Egyptian intelligence agents played a role in the bombing. In recent years, a CAIR spokesman repeatedly refused to condemn Hamas, Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad.

•   •   •  

© 2005 Brenda Walker All rights reserved.