February 2006
 

Salman Rushdie, other writers rail against Islamic 'totalitarianism'   [2/28/06]
Nice to hear the right word used, and from a literary heavyweight, particularly one who has lived with a fatwa for years.

PARIS (AFP) - The recent violence surrounding the publication in the West of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed illustrate the danger of Islamic "totalitarianism", Salman Rushdie and a group of other writers said in a statement obtained.
    Rushdie, French philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy and exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen were among those putting their names to the statement, to be published Wednesday in the French weekly Charlie Hebdo, one of several French newspapers which reprinted the Mohammed cartoons.
    "After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new global threat: Islamism," they wrote.
    "We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all."
    They added that the clashes over the caricatures "revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. The struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field.
    "It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats."

•   •   •  

Yo quiero 'Dora': Latino characters catch on with kids   [2/28/06]
Click around the kiddie channels and PBS in the morning, and you will find that programming is no longer entirely in English. Children are being prepared for a "bilingual" (aka official Spanish) America, courtesy of the liberal media agenda. Today's kids are being deluged with propaganda that a hispanicized America is no problema. U.S. citizens are already being passed over for jobs because they do not speak Spanish, an obstacle that will only get worse.

Each episode of "Dora the Explorer" starts with the animated heroine dashing from her family's hacienda, waving to her Mami and Papi and scooting off into the jungle.
    "Ready to explore?" asks the brave and curious 7-year-old. "Vamos arriba!" [...]
    But now PBS has more Latino offerings. "Dragon Tales" was revamped last year to highlight Latino issues and include Enrique, an immigrant who is Puerto Rican and Colombian. "Jay Jay the Jet Plane" added a new bilingual plane named Lina. PBS Kids Go, a 24-hour cable station to launch this fall, will include two hours a day of shows in Spanish with English subtitles, said Lesli Rotenberg, a Public Broadcasting System senior vice president.
    The Disney Channel will debut "Handy Manny," a preschool cartoon about a bilingual Manny Garcia and talking tools, later this year. The Cartoon Network, meanwhile, has "Mucha Lucha," a Mexican wrestling cartoon, while the animated "Maya & Miguel" is produced by Scholastic Entertainment and aimed at Spanish-speaking kids just starting school.

•   •   •  

Fugitive on FBI Top 10 List Arrested   [2/28/06]
The arrest of Genero Espinosa Dorantes in Mexico is a major success for law enforcement. While not as well known as some who have escaped to Mexico (like the recently arrested Armando Garcia for the murder of Deputy David March), Dorantes tortured a child to death and was on the FBI Top Ten Most Wanted List.
    Dorantes is accused of killing his girlfriend's 6-year-old son Luis, whose body "had been scalded, had infected burns from his waist down and had internal head injuries."
    However, the bad news is that because Dorantes was arrested in Mexico by Mexicans, his extradition (if it occurs) will take place only if the American prosecuter promises that the death penalty will not be pursued.

•   •   •  

The End of Tolerance   [2/28/06]
This is Newsweek, so the prose is somewhat hyperventilated. Still, an important point is made about the Netherlands' change in attitude about the faulty idea that all cultures are morally equal.

How different things look today. Dutch borders have been virtually shut. New immigration is down to a trickle. The great cosmopolitan port city of Rotterdam just published a code of conduct requiring Dutch be spoken in public. Parliament recently legislated a countrywide ban on wearing the burqa in public. And listen to a prominent Dutch establishment figure describe the new Dutch Way with immigrants. "We demand a new social contract," says Jan Wolter Wabeke, High Court Judge in The Hague. "We no longer accept that people don't learn our language, we require that they send their daughters to school, and we demand they stop bringing in young brides from the desert and locking them up in third-floor apartments." [...]

•   •   •  

We should fear Holland's silence   [2/27/06]
British writer Douglas Murray notes the atmosphere of anxiety surrounding the recent Pim Fortuyn Conference, such as how there was security all around and many speakers stayed in the hotel under fake names.

Last weekend, four years after his murder, Pim Fortuyn's political party, Lijst Pim Fortuyn, held a conference in his memory on Islam and Europe. The organisers had assembled nearly all the writers most critical of Islam's current manifestation in the West. The American scholars Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer were present, as were the Egyptian-Jewish exile and scholar of dhimmitude, Bat Ye'or, and the great Muslim apostate Ibn Warraq. [...]
    The event was scholarly, incisive and wide-ranging. There were no ranters or rabble-rousers, just an invited audience of academics, writers, politicians and sombre party members. As yet another example of Islam's violent confrontation with the West (this time caused by cartoons) swept across the globe, we tried to discuss Islam as openly as we could. The Dutch security service in the Hague was among those who considered the threat to us for doing this as particularly high. The security status of the event was put at just one level below "national emergency".
    This may seem fantastic to people in Britain. But the story of Holland — which I have been charting for some years — should be noted by her allies. Where Holland has gone, Britain and the rest of Europe are following. The silencing happens bit by bit. A student paper in Britain that ran the Danish cartoons got pulped. A London magazine withdrew the cartoons from its website after the British police informed the editor they could not protect him, his staff, or his offices from attack. This happened only days before the police provided 500 officers to protect a "peaceful" Muslim protest in Trafalgar Square. [...]
    Europe is shuffling into darkness. It is proving incapable of standing up to its enemies, and in an effort to accommodate the peripheral rights of a minority is failing to protect the most basic rights of its own people.
    The governments of Europe have been tricked into believing that criticism of a belief is the same thing as criticism of a race. And so it is becoming increasingly difficult and dangerous to criticise a growing and powerful ideology within our midst. It may soon, in addition, be made illegal.
    I had planned — the morning after my speech — to see Geert Wilders, but instead spent the time catching up with his staff. Their leader had been called in by the police to discuss more than 40 new death threats he had received over the previous days.
    As I left the Netherlands I once again felt terrible sorrow for a country that is slowly being lost. A society which should be carefree and inspiring has become dark and worried. The jihad in Europe is winning. And Holland, and our continent, takes one step further into a dark and menacing future.

•   •   •  

Jihadi Turns Bulldog   [2/27/06]
John Fund is just a little shocked that the former mouthpiece for the murderous Taliban regime is now attending Yale University.

Never has an article made me blink with astonishment as much as when I read in yesterday's New York Times magazine that Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, former ambassador-at-large for the Taliban, is now studying at Yale on a U.S. student visa. This is taking the obsession that U.S. universities have with promoting diversity a bit too far.
    Something is very wrong at our elite universities. Last week Larry Summers resigned as president of Harvard when it became clear he would lose a no-confidence vote held by politically correct faculty members furious at his efforts to allow ROTC on campus, his opposition to a drive to have Harvard divest itself of corporate investments in Israel, and his efforts to make professors work harder. Now Yale is giving a first-class education to an erstwhile high official in one of the most evil regimes of the latter half of the 20th century--the government that harbored the terrorists who attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001.
    "In some ways," Mr. Rahmatullah told the New York Times. "I'm the luckiest person in the world. I could have ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Instead I ended up at Yale." One of the courses he has taken is called Terrorism-Past, Present and Future.

•   •   •  

Exit exam a test of determination — Language barrier adds unfair burden, critics say of requirement   [2/27/06]
Should acquiring a California high school graduation certificate mean the holder can speak English? This no-brainer is a problem for the no-borders reconquista crowd, naturally.

"I need a diploma," said Iris, a chestnut-haired girl who was born in Los Angeles and grew up in the Mexican state of Jalisco. "I want it. I deserve it. I've been going to school and studying. I want to have a profession."
    Iris said all of this in Spanish. She returned to California in 2004 after the grandmother she'd been living with in Mexico died. Now she lives with her Spanish-speaking mother in an apartment near Richmond High in the West Contra Costa Unified School District.
    Iris' English is so iffy that pronouncing the words makes her blush. When pressed, she easily identified a shrimp but was stumped by a spoon. Asked by a reporter to write something in English, Iris crafted several simple sentences, including, "I was born in the United States," and "I think that the exit exam is innecesary." But like many students in her position, she's studying hard.

•   •   •  

Wages not keeping pace with inflation, survey finds   [2/26/06]
Washington is using immigration as a population Ponzi scheme to mask to lowered living standards of American workers. Bush et al trumpet growth as a whole (GNP) which is largely a result of increasing population, while incomes are losing ground when measured at an individual level.

American families saw their real incomes fall to an average of $70,700 in 2004, down 2.3 percent from 2001, according to a Federal Reserve survey of consumer finances released Thursday.
    Average net worth rose 6.3 percent during the same period to $448,200, buoyed by the often-dramatic appreciation of house values and the increased rate of homeownership. All figures in the Survey of Consumer Finances, which is released every three years, are adjusted for inflation.
    "This is a tremendously detailed, comprehensive look at the American family's balance sheet and it ain't pretty," said Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group in Washington.
    Bernstein pointed to the disparity between the economy's robust performance during the three-year period and the benefits -- or lack thereof -- reaped by wage earners.
    "Between 2001 and 2004, productivity was up almost 12 percent," he said. "That's supposed to mean a significant improvement in living standards, but in terms of net worth, you just don't see it."

•   •   •  

Border security or boondoggle? A plan for 700 miles of Mexican border wall heads for Senate -- its future is not assured   [2/26/06]
Typically, the San Francisco Chronicle sniffs at the idea of the proposed fence on the border and apparently regards Mexico as friendly to American interests.

The plan already has roiled diplomatic relations with Mexico. Leaders in American border communities are saying it will damage local economies and the environment. And immigration experts say that -- at a cost of at least $2.2 billion -- the 700-mile wall would be an expensive boondoggle.
    The December House vote of 260-159 is the strongest endorsement yet for building a wall, which Rep. Duncan Hunter, a San Diego County Republican, has been pushing for two decades as a tactic against illegal immigration. Support for the wall was even stronger than for the bill it was attached to -- a larger plan to curb terrorism and illegal immigration sponsored by Wisconsin Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner that passed 239 to 182.

•   •   •  

Needed: Mature, Moderate Muslims   [2/26/06]
The world is still looking for the Mostly Mythical Moderate Muslim. (The dearth of this long-sought creature reaffirms the position of Robert Spencer/Jihadwatch.org that Islam has been inherently violent throughout its history because of a holy book which stresses punishment against the hated infidel. Only a barbaric faith has to repeat the ridiculous mantra that "Islam is the Religion of Peace." You don't hear similar propaganda from Buddhism or Christianity on a daily basis. Throughout the Cartoon Jihad, Muslims have been literally killing people because of a few scribbles showing Islam as a violent religion, and don't see a problem in that.)
    Derek Murdock's article is subtitled "The cartoon rage is infantile" and has photos to prove it, particularly the rioting and killing which result whenever Muslims express their endless anger about everything.

"Grow up."
    This should be the civilized world's two-word response to the staggering overreaction to those cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, first published in the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten. Its editors' attempt to fuel debate ignited an inferno of Islamic rage that has consumed nearly four-dozen human beings, and counting. As Western embassies, fast-food shops, and even a statue of Ronald McDonald have gone up in Shiite and Sunni-stoked flames, what also has receded into the smoke is any sense of maturity among the rampaging, Hitler-praising Muslim mobs that have dragged this global outrage into its third week.
    These fanatics are violent and deadly. But they also are infantile. Their unrestrained orgy of mayhem looks like a Romper Room full of homicidal babies screaming for fresh diapers at the tops of their tiny lungs.

•   •   •  

With 6.5 billion, it's hardly a lonely planet   [2/25/06]
World population continues to grow into unexplored territory of what the earth can support, with today's numbers a quadrupling since 1900. The article cited follows journalistic boilerplate by pointing out all the predictions Paul Ehrlich made which turned out to be wrong, while ignoring the scientist's essential message that unrestrained population growth was a train ride off a cliff for the human race.

But by the reckoning of the U.S. Census Bureau's World Population Clock, the planet will pass the population milestone of 6.5 billion people sometime this evening.
    Yet our world growth is leveling off — in some places, already dropping. And whether imploding or exploding, population changes are shaking societies.
    Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich created a sensation in 1968 with his book The Population Bomb. It sounded an alarm that the world's fast-doubling population doomed the planet to suffocating pollution and mass starvation.
    "At this late date, nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate," he wrote. Without radical changes, Ehrlich predicted, "mankind will breed itself into oblivion."
    The world, he said, was on a path to a population of 5 billion by the Orwellian date of 1984 (off by six years). We would zip past 7 billion before the turn of the century (now demographers see that coming around 2013).

•   •   •  

Self-Styled Justice in Guatemala   [2/25/06]
The Washington Post is describing death squads here, but you wouldn't know that from the gentle headline. Some things haven't changed from the time of the country's brutal 36-year civil war in which 200,000 died.

SANTIAGO ATITLAN, Guatemala -- People here call it limpieza social, Spanish for "social cleansing." But the recent surge in armed abductions and murders by self-appointed anti-crime squads throughout Guatemala is leaving a messy trail of blood and tears.
    Almost every night, teams of gunmen storm into the nation's poorest neighborhoods to seize another man, woman, or teenager deemed guilty of wrongdoing. Almost every morning, another corpse turns up showing signs of torture or strangulation.
    Already this year, Guatemalan human rights monitors say, as many as 98 people in this nation of about 13 million are known to have been murdered by such groups, and 364 others have been killed by methods that suggest such groups could be responsible. Last year, nearly 3,000 murders similar to these took place, and officials predict the total this year could exceed that.
    Often the targets are petty thieves or tattooed members of the fearsome gangs that have terrorized residents across Central America for the past decade. But just as often, they appear to be victims of mistaken identity, false accusations or petty personal feuds.

•   •   •  

A Rally for Freedom   [2/24/06]
Columnist Christopher Hitchens called a few days ago for a free speech rally showing solidarity with Denmark to take place at the Danish Embassy in Washington. The photos show the event was a great success, with lots of cheerful people in attendence.
    The Political Pit Bull has more pictures, including organizer Christopher Hitchens and Weekly Standard publisher William Kristol.
    More photos at Corsair. Additional pictures at Crossing Wall Street including a swell dump truck. Still more at Vodkapundit.
    The Washington Times has a news story.

About 150 conservatives, liberals and libertarians gathered peacefully yesterday in front of the Danish Embassy -- at the behest of author Christopher Hitchens -- to support free speech and protest Islamic radicalism.
   "We are not for profanity or for disrespect, but we are ... without any conditions or any ifs or any buts, for free expression in all times at all places," said Mr. Hitchens, a former Marxist who in recent years has become more conservative and is now one of the most prominent defenders of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
   Mr. Hitchens proposed the demonstration in a column he wrote Tuesday about the ongoing violent reaction in Europe and the Middle East to cartoons, published in a Danish newspaper, that mocked the prophet Muhammad and the religion of Islam.
   Only three major U.S. newspapers -- the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Austin-American Statesman in Texas and the New York Sun -- have reprinted the cartoons.
   A State Department spokesman called the cartoons "offensive to the beliefs of Muslims" and said that a free press "must be coupled with press responsibility."

•   •   •  

State strips schools of $3.5 million   [2/24/06]
A Mexican-American education official removed a large sum from the budget of a Chicago school district because the immigration status of a couple students was questioned.

State Board of Education officials, led by an angry Mexican-American chairman, stripped Elmwood Park School District 401 of all state funding Thursday, saying officials there had illegally asked at least two potential students about their immigration status.
    The Elmwood Park district stands to lose $3.5 million of its $30 million budget this year as a result of the state board's decision to "non-recognize'' the west suburban district. That could threaten teacher pay, the district's attorney said.
    "As the son of a Mexican American who was here illegally for eight years, you would have denied me an education,'' an angry Ruiz told Elmwood Park officials during the board's monthly meeting. "You are not supposed to discriminate against any children based on any immigration status.''

•   •   •  

FBI informant says terror suspect took interest in violent groups   [2/23/06]
The Lodi terrorism trial is moving along, and recent snippets underline how Islamic immigration is dangerous.

SACRAMENTO - The FBI informant who befriended a Lodi man charged with attending an al-Qaida training camp said Thursday that the defendant took an interest in terrorist groups and spoke admiringly about jihad.
    A federal prosecutor asked the informant, Naseem Khan, how defendant Hamid Hayat saw himself in relation to the Taliban, al-Qaida and other such groups.
    "He never, ever considered himself American," said Khan, who was on the witness stand during the fourth day of testimony in Hayat's terrorism trial in U.S. District Court.

•   •   •  

Temporary Permits to Be Extended   [2/23/06]
Another demonstration that the word "temporary" has lost all meaning when used in an immigration context.

The Bush administration has decided to grant a one-year extension of temporary permits allowing about 300,000 Salvadoran, Nicaraguan and Honduran immigrants to remain legally in the United States, officials said last night.
    The move is expected to benefit thousands of immigrants in the Washington area, who otherwise would lose their ability to live and work legally in the country. The decision on whether to extend the program, known as Temporary Protected Status, had been hotly debated in the federal bureaucracy.

•   •   •  

3 indicted in terror plots   [2/22/06]
Three Toledo men were indicted on terror charges yesterday, showing how foreign sleeper agents have burrowed into the heartland. Their American Dream is to kill Americans.

A federal grand jury in Ohio has indicted three men on charges of conspiring to kill American and coalition troops in Iraq and to recruit, finance and train others for "violent jihad" against the United States and its allies overseas.
    Mohammad Zaki Amawi, Marwan Othman el-Hindi and Wassim Mazloum, all of Toledo, are accused of using code words beginning in November 2004 to communicate with Middle East co-conspirators to locate funding sources and buy firearms and other equipment needed to train recruits.
    According to the indictment, unsealed yesterday, Mr. Amawi, 26, is a citizen of Jordan and the United States, Mr. Mazloum, 24, is a legal U.S. resident, and Mr. el-Hindi, 42, is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Jordan. All three are charged with conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim or injure people in a foreign country, conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, and harboring or concealing terrorists.

•   •   •  

Lodi terrorist trial: Suspect targeted California buildings   [2/22/06]
This case with a Pakistani father and son accused of terrorism has gotten almost no national attention. The topic of immigrant terrorists embedded in our communities makes the MSM queasy, apparently.

SACRAMENTO -- Hospitals, supermarkets and other large buildings in California were among the possible terrorist targets of a man charged with attending an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan, according to a videotaped interview played for jurors Tuesday.
    Hamid Hayat told FBI agents he was awaiting orders to strike buildings in Los Angeles and perhaps San Francisco after he returned to the U.S. last year.
    He said the targets might include "big buildings, like finance buildings, banks, stores." When asked to be specific, Hayat, 23, told the agent he meant food stores.
    "Why would you hit a food store?" the agent asks on the videotape.
    "I think just to hurt people," Hayat responded.

•   •   •  

Hispanics rush in to rebuild New Orleans   [2/22/06]
The long, painful reconstruction of the city is made worse by the fact that illegal aliens are doing the work, not Americans and not New Orleaneans.

NEW ORLEANS -- Pinto Robson has seen a big change in the number of migrant laborers gathering each morning by the Gen. Robert E. Lee statue since he started parking his silver breakfast truck nearby three months ago.
    "In December, there were about 100 people; now, there are about 600 every morning," he said, gesturing toward the bronze figure of the Confederate icon, which looms over a scene that seems as good an indicator as any of the changes this city faces in its recovery from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
    "They come from countries across Latin America," said Mr. Robson, 62, an immigrant from Brazil, who is friendly with many of the laborers as he sells them a breakfast of chicken, rice and hard-boiled eggs.
    Although hard statistics may be impossible to come by, it appears the number of Hispanic laborers arriving along the Gulf Coast from New Orleans to Mobile, Ala., to gut houses, fix roofs and take on other day labor jobs continues to increase. [...]
    "I speak English, so a lot of times, I'll project my voice over the crowd and I'll get hired," said Jay Mack, 33, who is black and from Philadelphia. A certified asbestos remover and a labor union member, Mr. Mack said he came seeking work because business is slow in the North during the winter.
    He said that work in New Orleans was plentiful but difficult and that the hiring process can be racially charged. "A lot of people that come out here are looking for Mexicans because they think they can pay them less," he said. "A lot of times, that's true."

•   •   •  

Furor Over Cartoons Pits Muslim Against Muslim   [2/22/06]
It's tough sledding these days for those rare Muslim journalists who believe in freedom of the press. There are 11 such in five countries who face prosecution for publishing the controversial Danish cartoons.

The heated emotions, the violence surrounding protests and the arrests have sent a chill through people, mostly writers, who want to express ideas contrary to the prevailing sentiment. It has threatened those who contend that Islamic groups have manipulated the public to show their strength, and that governments have used the cartoons to establish their religious credentials.
    "I keep hearing, 'Why are liberals silent?' " said Said al-Ashmawy, an Egyptian judge and author of books on political Islam. "How can we write? Who is going to protect me? Who is going to publish for me in the first place? With the Islamization of the society, the list of taboos has been increasing daily. You should not write about religion. You should not write about politics or women. Then what is left?"

•   •   •  

Texans, Mexicans worlds apart on immigration   [2/21/06]
Here's another dopey viewpoint item from the MSM, in which attention is paid to the fact that Mexicans think illegal immigration is just fine and dandy for the United States.
    Hello? It's not their country. Mexicans' opinion about a domestic matter within the U.S. is really of no concern whatsoever. (When was the last time you read about American public opinion concerning el Presidente Fox? Never.)
    More of the same...

Mexicans tend to applaud fusion with the United States. They sent home $20 billion in earnings and celebrate the undocumented worker. One of the top songs in Latin America recently was "Mojado," or "Wetback," by Guatemalan Ricardo Arjona and the Mexican band Intocable.

•   •   •  

Bush, Fox join forces to cut violence on border   [2/21/06]
You might think that the recent revelations of hundreds of Mexican military incursions into American territory over the last decade would cool the President's excessively pandering relationship with el Presidente, since Fox is the leader of a hostile power. But no.

President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox agreed yesterday to try to reduce violence on the U.S.-Mexico border and pledged to have their countries' domestic security departments work together on the issue. [...]
    Concern over border violence is growing as violent encounters in Mexico increase, spreading rapidly throughout northern Mexico from the lawless confines of Nuevo Laredo, which lies across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas.
    Last week, two police chiefs were killed within hours of each other in what U.S. and Mexican law-enforcement authorities have described as an escalating war among drug cartels for control of key smuggling routes into the United States.
    Hector Ayala, chief in San Pedro Garza Garcia, outside Monterrey, was killed Feb. 13 when a car passed his vehicle and opened fire. Four hours earlier, Sabinas Hidalgo Police Chief Javier Garcia was abducted by armed men, bound and shot in the back of the head.
    The violence has not been confined to Mexico. Since Oct. 1, the start of the fiscal year, there have been more than 200 assaults on U.S. agents in the Tucson sector alone, and the Border Patrol has warned agents in Arizona of incursions by men dressed in Mexican military uniforms.

•   •   •  

Multiculturalism needs better promotion: Democrats   [2/21/06]
This is Australia, but the syndrome is the same: liberals continue flogging a clearly failed ideology on the basis of political correctness and the belief that people can be duped into believing a falsehood through propaganda.

The Australian Democrats say politicians need to promote the benefits of multiculturalism to reduce community fears about Muslim extremists. [...]
    Meanwhile, an Islamic leader says Australia's politicians are not doing enough to embrace multiculturalism.
    Keysar Trad, from the Islamic Friendship Association, says the Federal Government needs to be more pro-active about multiculturalism.

•   •   •  

Ports of CFIUS call   [2/21/06]
Columnist Frank Gaffney calls the Bush administration's handover of several American ports to an Arab-government-owned firm a Harriet Meirs moment.

In the latest of a series of approvals of questionable foreign takeovers of American interests, CFIUS [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] has given the green light to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to acquire contracts to manage port facilities in New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami and New Orleans. The company, Dubai Ports World (DP World), would do so by purchasing a British concern, Peninsula and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P and O).
    Experts have long identified America's sea ports as weak links in the chain of our homeland security. With their proximity to major U.S. population centers, expensive infrastructure vital to the regional and, in many cases, national economy and their throughput of large quantities of poorly monitored cargo, they are prime targets for terror.

•   •   •  

Eurabia Scholars Gather in The Hague   [2/21/06]
The recent Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference in The Hague must have been quite a party, with speakers like Ibn Warraq, Bat Ye'or, Daniel Pipes, Andrew Bostom and Robert Spencer, among others. Certainly Robert will be writing more about what happened at his essential website JihadWatch.org.

Bat Ye'or convincingly argues that the transformation of Europe into Eurabia is the result of a deliberate strategy that was foolishly set in motion by French Gaullists who wanted to create a European-Arab counterweight to the United States. Today the European Union is continuing this policy, which aims to create a united Mediterranean continent based on a symbiosis between the Northern and the Southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In her Eurabia book she meticulously describes how this strategy has been implemented during the past 35 years and how the promotion of Muslim immigration to Europe constitutes part of this plan. [...]
    "Immigration," Bat Ye'or says, "is part of the whole strategy, which is an ambition to create a new civilizational concept based on multiculturalism, on the dissolution of people's typical characteristics." To Bat Ye'or the Danish cartoon affair is "a revolt to assert Western values of freedom of opinion, speech, and religion."

•   •   •  

Happy Presidents' Day!

Shown is our 34th President when he was the Supreme Allied Commander and visited with the 101st Airborne as they prepared to jump into Nazi-held Europe on D-Day. Unlike the last several Presidents of both parties, Dwight Eisenhower was an American patriot, not a double-talking globalist ready to dissolve our nation's sovereignty for a misguided economic agenda.
    When President, Eisenhower distinguished himself by deporting a million foreign nationals with no right to be here in Operation Wetback. (BTW, that now-discredited term was used by even left-wingers like Molly Ivins until recently.)
    These days, we are not supposed to use the word "crusade" because Muslims will be offended. But Ike's call for a "Great Crusade" among the Allies on the eve of D-Day was stirring and noble. Have a listen.

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Forces: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
    Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.
    But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to Victory!
    I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory!

•   •   •  

L.A. Workers Join Fierce Debate Over Immigration   [2/20/06]
Black Americans have been getting the shaft for years from illegal immigration, as they are displaced from blue-collar jobs by foreigners willing to work for peanuts. Therefore the idea that millions of non-Americans will be welcomed as "temporary" employees if the President has his way is NOT appreciated by citizen workers, both black and white.

So the news that President Bush and some members of Congress are pushing to bring more blue-collar guest workers into the country — perhaps 400,000 annually — leaves the contractors indignant.
    "Hell, no, don't bring no one in from nowhere," said Johnson, a 47-year-old Mississippi native who founded his consortium of 35 minority contractors a decade ago. "Train the people here. Give the people here the same opportunity you're willing to give someone out of this country."
    The guest-worker proposals have reignited fierce debate — and sharply divided the Republican Party — over some of the most controversial aspects of national immigration policy. Do immigrants take jobs from Americans? Or are they needed to fill jobs Americans won't do? Do they lower the wages of America's least-educated workers? Or do they benefit most Americans by providing cheap labor for a wide range of jobs, from nannies to construction workers?
    Such questions are particularly critical in California, where immigrants make up one-third of the state's labor force, the highest percentage in the nation.

•   •   •  

They've got game--and hijab   [2/20/06]
Muslim girl hoopsters in Chicago are sad because they don't have many teams against which to play. One little impediment is the prohibition against males watching them at all.
    (Not only should females wear burqas, they should also stand perfectly still at all times, apparently. Not that Muslim girl hoops includes much movement.) But anyway, they hope some other private school girls will come and play despite the restrictions.
    Not bloody likely, I'd guess.
    My letter to the editor reads as follows:

Editor:
    The differing values apparent in the basketball hijab story are not cheerful examples of diversity, but instead indicate the vast cultural chasm between the Islamic world and western civilization.
    The Muslims' insistence on their rules -- no males in attendance at games, period -- indicates how they are still mired in 7th century sexism and oppression of women.
    American women are not interested in the sort of bondage that females normally experience in Muslim societies. We don't want that here.
    Unfortunately, multicultural immigration has brought a raft of objectionable cultural practices, particularly in regard to women's rights and safety. Washington should change the law to welcome new immigrants who are more likely to share our national values of law, fairness and equality.

•   •   •  

Two Worlds in One City   [2/19/06]
Fresno has become so overwhelmed by poverty that Mayor Autry called for a moratorium on immigration some months ago, a fact not mentioned in this article.

Drawing on the 2000 census, the Brookings report examined extremely poor neighborhoods with high crime, poor housing and a lack of stable jobs and good schools in 50 of America's largest cities.
    Fresno, population 427,660, was placed ahead of New Orleans; Louisville, Ky.; and Miami as a city where the highest concentration of the most economically vulnerable citizens live in poverty. Long Beach ranked sixth, Los Angeles 14th.
    The irony is that the 400-mile-long Central Valley, where Fresno sits, is flush with rich farmland that produces at least one-fourth of the nation's food. But the low wages of farm work are reflected in the conditions of Fresno's south.
    This is where newly arrived immigrants have historically been able to afford to live. According to recent census figures, 11.2% of the city's population is Asian, mostly Hmong, some of them recently arrived. Latinos represent 39.9% of the city, whites 50.2% and African Americans 8.4%. The total is more than 100 because the census allows people to identify themselves as of more than one race or ethnicity.

•   •   •  

Coal Co. Takes Heat for Recruitment Plan   [2/19/06]
It's an incredible insult to American miners to say they have "bad attitudes" considering how difficult the work is, particularly after the recent deaths in mining accidents. But of course, the real issue is more money for mine owners, who are lying about there being a "miner shortage."

(AP) Sidney Coal Co. President Charlie Bearse was expressing an opinion that many in these mountains secretly share. Problem was, he put that opinion in writing.
    "It is common knowledge that the work ethic of the Eastern Kentucky worker has declined from where it once was," Bearse wrote to the state mining board. Bad attitudes and drug abuse, he argued, were affecting attendance "and, ultimately, productivity."
    Bearse's appeal to the board: Relax an English-only policy in the mines so he could bring in Hispanic workers.
    U.S. companies are constantly complaining they need migrant workers to do the low-paying, menial tasks Americans just won't. But at $18 an hour and up, plus benefits, these are some of Appalachia's best jobs.
    Here in Hatfield-McCoy country — where Hispanics make up less than 1 percent of most counties' populations — Bearse's comments were fighting words.
    "They bring Mexicans in here, they'll get 'em killed," disabled miner Homer Black said over the rumble at the company's massive coal preparation plant. "These people ain't going to put up with it."
    Added 23-year-old Shannon Gibson, who recently took the state test for the "green card" that would allow him to work underground: "They're just looking for more workers who'll work cheaper and work longer."

•   •   •  

Poll reveals 40pc of Muslims want sharia law in UK   [2/19/06]
Sharia law is the legal system of Islam, in which a woman's voice is counted as one-fourth of a man's, where amputation is the punishment for theft and where women are stoned to death for adultery. In one recent case, a 17-year-old girl was sentenced to death in Iran because she defended herself against a gang of rapists. That's sharia.

Four out of 10 British Muslims want sharia law introduced into parts of the country, a survey reveals today.
    The ICM opinion poll also indicates that a fifth have sympathy with the "feelings and motives" of the suicide bombers who attacked London last July 7, killing 52 people, although 99 per cent thought the bombers were wrong to carry out the atrocity.
    Overall, the findings depict a Muslim community becoming more radical and feeling more alienated from mainstream society, even though 91 per cent still say they feel loyal to Britain.

•   •   •  

Lawmaker seeks border forces   [2/18/06]
Georgia Congressman Charlie Norwood has been one of the better members of the Immigration Caucus, providing strong leadership on important issues. Unlike many, he understands the relentless mathematics of demography. In the Feb 16 House statement referenced here, Rep. Norwood referred to "a very subtle illegal guestworker plan," meaning the one million illegal aliens which inadequate border security allows yearly.

A Georgia Republican says President Bush needs to immediately order at least 36,000 federal troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to stop a flood of illegal aliens.
    "There's no excuse for this. We know right now how to bring this flood of illegal immigration to a virtual halt within the next two weeks," Rep. Charlie Norwood said during a House floor speech this week. "We need somewhere between 36,000 and 48,000 troops immediately deployed to the southern border.
    "We need the president to order the Department of Defense to fund the mission 100 percent," Mr. Norwood said. "And we need new legislation forcing the issue if action is not forthcoming."
    Mr. Norwood has submitted legislation to give 600,000 state and local police officers authority to enforce U.S. immigration law, but it has stalled in the House Judiciary Committee. [...]
    "We'll rattle on about how we're adding technology and fencing that won't be ready until 2010, allowing another million illegals in," he said. "Right now, with our current budget and reform plans, we are by default agreeing to allow an additional 4 million illegal aliens into our country, the equivalent of the entire population of South Carolina." [...]
    Mr. Norwood said the deployment of troops to the border would cost $2.5 billion a year, less than 4 percent of the minimum $70 billion a year the nation currently is spending covering the health care, education and incarceration costs of illegal aliens.

•   •   •  

City Hall staff to get Hmong instruction   [2/18/06]
St. Paul employees will learn Hmoob — not the most useful language in the world. Wouldn't it make more sense to expect the Hmong to learn English?

City government in St. Paul may soon get a little easier for speakers of Hmong to navigate.
    The city is going to offer basic Hmong instruction to staff members in City Hall starting Feb. 23. Mayor Chris Coleman has asked his policy associate Va-Megn Thoj, who speaks the language, to offer help to other city employees who might want or need to communicate with Hmong speakers, spokesman Bob Hume said Friday afternoon.
    The Coleman administration is also weighing an effort to offer some of the city's Web content in Hmong. There are some elements of the site in other languages: The city, for instance, offers snow emergency information in a dozen languages besides English, including Spanish, Hmong and even Serbo-Croatian and Amharic, which is spoken by Ethiopians.

•   •   •  

Appeasement markers   [2/18/06]
Historian Victor Davis Hanson compares the dangerous appeasement politics popular in Chamberlain's Europe to that of today.

Appeasement in the 1930s was popular with the European public for various reasons. All are instructive in our hesitation about stopping a nuclear Iran, or about defending the right of Western newspapers to print what they wish -- or about fighting radical Islamism in general.
    First, Europe was nearly destroyed in the Great War, a mere 20 years earlier. No responsible postwar leader wished to risk a second Continental bloodbath.
    Unfortunately, Hitler understood that all too well. In a game of diplomatic chicken, he figured many responsible democratic statesmen had more to lose than he did, as the weaker and once-beaten enemy.
    British intellectuals, like European Union idealists today, wrote books and treatises on the obsolescence of war. Conflicts were supposedly caused only by rapacious arms merchants and profiteers at home, not by antidemocratic dictators who saw forbearance as weakness. Winston Churchill was a voice in the wilderness -- and demonized as a warmonger and worse.
    Today, the 50-year Cold War is over, and Europe is at last free of burdensome military expenditure and the threat of global annihilation. Like Osama bin Laden, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad senses a certain weariness in much of the West as it counts on perpetual peace.

•   •   •  

Protester dumps family   [2/17/06]
Ever wonder why so many jihadists settle in Great Britain? The taxpayers are ever so generous, even to wannabe killers.

The organiser of London's Muslim cartoon protests has gone abroad to fight holy war — leaving taxpayers to foot the bill to keep his family.
    Anjem Choudary, 38, walked out on Rubana Akhgar to launch a new Islamic fundamentalist group in Lebanon.
    But his wife will not have to worry about money when he's gone — she gets £1,700-a-month in state handouts. [Ed note: about $2,959]
    And Choudary himself raked in thousands in benefits for years while plotting to destroy British society.
    Rubana, 34, was heartbroken after he followed his evil hero Omar Bakri to Lebanon.
    Choudary returned to organise the Danish Embassy outrage, where protesters carried banners proclaiming: "Behead Those Who Insult Islam."
    He found time to visit Rubana, sons Luqman, six, and Hediyah, one, and daughter Bintanjan, eight, amid fury over the protests.

•   •   •  

Illinois Student Paper Prints Muslim Cartoons, and Reaction Is Swift   [2/17/06]
For the "No good deed goes unpunished" file. Freedom of the press is practiced by student journalists and they are smacked down, with the editors being fired for their courage.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill., Feb. 16 — Since the morning the cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad were republished in the student newspaper at the University of Illinois here, response has been swift and split.
    Muslim students and others held a protest on the main quadrangle on Tuesday, saying they were stunned and hurt by The Daily Illini's publication on Feb. 9 of the images that had stirred so much violence and caused so much pain in other parts of the world. Some members of The Daily Illini staff said they were furious, too, and in Wednesday's editions, the publisher announced that the editor in chief and opinions page editor had been suspended, pending an investigation into how the cartoons had ended up in the paper.

•   •   •  

The Second Mexican War   [2/17/06]
Lawrence Auster reminds us of what is really going on with our southern neighbor.

The Mexican invasion of the United States began decades ago as a spontaneous migration of ordinary Mexicans into the U.S. seeking economic opportunities. It has morphed into a campaign to occupy and gain power over our countr—a project encouraged, abetted, and organized by the Mexican state and supported by the leading elements of Mexican society.
    It is, in other words, war. War does not have to consist of armed conflict. War can consist of any hostile course of action undertaken by one country to weaken, harm, and dominate another country. Mexico is waging war on the U.S. through mass immigration illegal and legal, through the assertion of Mexican national claims over the U.S., and through the subversion of its laws and sovereignty, all having the common end of bringing the southwestern part of the U.S. under the control of the expanding Mexican nation, and of increasing Mexico's political and cultural influence over the U.S. as a whole.

•   •   •  

Fresh Pakistan cartoon protests   [2/16/06]
The MSM has grown bored with covering the cartoon jihad protests and rioting, but the sons of Allah are still peppy in Pakistan, where five people have been killed in the last few days.

On Wednesday, three people died in protests across Pakistan.
    Thousands of supporters of hardline Islamic groups marched up to the main business district in the north-western city of Peshawar and attacked shops and businesses, setting a KFC outlet on fire.
    The office of a Norwegian mobile phone company was also attacked.
    Violence also broke out in the town of Tank in North-West Frontier, near the Iranian border. In Punjab province, hundreds of Islamic students took to the streets of the eastern city of Lahore despite a ban on public protests.

•   •   •  

Happy Birthday, Susan B. Anthony   [2/15/06]
On the birthday of the great suffragist, I reflect upon the state of women's rights and safety, and how they are threatened by misogynous immigration.

However, there is a skunk at the garden party of American women's progress: immigration from countries where the status of females is still stuck in the bad old days... or worse.
    And, while European countries are beefing up entry requirements as a result of disenchantment with multiculturalism, the United States sails along with "family unification" a.k.a. chain migration still firmly in place.
    That means Third World immigration, including Islamic, continues to accumulate—and it strongly suggests the struggle for women's equality is by no means over.
    In fact, we may already have passed the high point of women's rights—and safety—in the U.S.

•   •   •  

Immigrants march for rights   [2/15/06]
It's disturbing to read an article like this in a black newspaper. The piece continues the fiction that blacks and browns are united in a rainbow coalition against the racism of the oppressive white majority. The detail is omitted that those brown people are illegal aliens and are here to steal jobs from African-American citizens.

Many marchers associated the fight for immigrant rights with the Black Civil Rights Movement: "The connection is more than just symbolism," said Karla Smith.
    In an interview with the Spokesman-Recorder, Smith pointed out that while the particulars of Black oppression under Jim Crow segregation may have differed from what immigrant workers face today, "the goal of the Jim Crow system and the conditions many immigrants live under today are much the same. They want to create a second-class, super-exploited section of the population that has no legal rights that are bound to be respected."

•   •   •  

Trial of father, son caught in Lodi terror probe set to begin   [2/14/06]
Remember the father and son duo arrested in Lodi for being terrorists? The trial is finally starting.

Umer Hayat, 48, is an ice cream vendor charged with two counts of making false statements to FBI agents about his son attending an al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan. He faces eight years in prison if convicted.
    His 23-year-old son is charged with three counts of making false statements to the FBI about attending the camp and with providing material support to terrorists. If convicted, he faces up to 31 years in prison. [...]
    Nationwide, 407 people have been charged with domestic and foreign terrorism-related crimes since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Of those, 228 have been convicted or pleaded guilty.

•   •   •  

U.S. gives Mexico millions for security   [2/13/06]
This is unconscionable. Mexico is rich, corrupt and acts as a hostile power against the U.S. in many ways, including allowing its military to enter the United States hundreds of times in the last decade.

The U.S. government has sent more than $376 million to Mexico in the past decade for that country's military and police to help stop alien and drug smugglers, guard against terrorists and protect America's southern border, including $50 million due this year.
    The money, quietly authorized through State and Defense department programs, has been used to train and equip the Mexican military and police, drawing disagreement on whether those institutions are part of the solution for U.S. border security, or are part of the problem.
    Rep. Rick Renzi, Arizona Republican and a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said the program has had "great success" and helped put narcoterrorists and smugglers "on the defense."
    "While Mexico does have too much corruption, there are elements within the Mexican government on the front lines of the war against terrorists and smugglers willing to fight and die to bring back honor and integrity," he said. "The United States and Mexico must stay engaged, so we both can be successful in this battle."
    But T.J. Bonner, a veteran U.S. Border Patrol agent who heads the 10,000-member National Border Patrol Council, described the program as "appalling," saying it amounted to the U.S. government funding attacks on U.S. law-enforcement personnel along the border by rogue Mexican military troops.
    "This funding program should cease immediately, and the Mexican government needs to be placed on notice that any further incursions by its military or police will not be tolerated," he said, referring to recent incidents on the border in which men in Mexican military uniforms confronted U.S. law-enforcement officers in this country.
    "If they have this kind of money to give away, there are better ways to spend it," Mr. Bonner said. "Mexico cannot control its own military, and it makes no sense to give them better weapons and equipment they can use to attack and threaten our own law-enforcement officers," he said.

•   •   •  

Hmong urge America to open doors to more refugees   [2/12/06]
The logic here is that Hmong suffered in the long-ago Vietnam war; therefore they should be welcomed as refugees to the United States.

Only now have Hmong like Yang gained enough financial and political clout to persuade the State Department to open America's doors to more Hmong refugees.
    Because they had aided the United States during the Vietnam War, Hmong weren't welcome in Laos. Thailand mostly confined them to a squatters camp near a Buddhist temple, about 80 miles north of Bangkok.
    Until recently, the U.S. government was unwilling to allow more Hmong to enter as refugees. Most of the arriving refugees either were born or have lived more than a decade of their lives in that camp.
    In Sacramento, Calif., Minneapolis and now Kansas City, Hmong are reconnecting with long-lost relatives. About 186,000 Hmong live in the United States, according to the 2000 Census.
    Yang's newly arrived relatives - seven persons ranging in age from 1 to 91 - are among the 16,000 Hmong recently allowed to enter the United States.

•   •   •  

Right says Bush is wrong   [2/12/06]
The San Francisco Chronicle sent a reporter to the C-PAC conference, the big conservative confab in DC, and he picked up a lot of anti-Bush grumbling from the folks in attendance.

While Bush has always been more attentive to, and had stronger support among conservatives than his father had, he is under increasing fire for growing the national debt to $8.2 trillion, nearly a 50 percent jump since he became president.
    "The American people don't understand what Republicans stand for anymore,'' roared Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., who proudly declared that he had voted against Bush's prescription drug plan, his Central American trade proposal and his "$100 billion Katrina slush fund.''
    "American conservatives have watched dumbfounded as their Congress -- their Republican Congress -- and the Republican White House engineered the largest expansion of the federal government in modern history,'' Tancredo said. [...]
    At this year's conference, which sponsors said would attract 5,000 participants, Tancredo received a standing ovation after his remarks in which he said: "It is the president who is out of step with his party.'' [...]
    Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies chided Bush's guest-worker plan for being too accommodating to illegal immigrants, asserting that "the White House has an office that comes up with euphemisms for amnesty.''
    Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the conservative Eagle Forum, called Bush's immigration plan "a bad mistake -- and we should tell him that.''

•   •   •  

Nation facing intensifying drug violence   [2/11/06]
The "nation" in question would be Mexico, as it continues its rapid meltdown into the chaos of being a failed state. The Mexican government simply cannot control the drug cartels, even a little.

Drug-related violence surged on Friday with two attacks - one in the coastal city of Acapulco and another in the northern city of Nuevo Laredo - and the discovery of two bodies with the signature signs of drug assassinations in the state of Michoacan.
    In Acapulco, assailants lobbed grenades at a police station and a prosecutors“ office early Friday, causing building damage but no serious injuries. The perpetrators escaped without being identified.
    Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca said in a press conference that his office is investigating the incidents, adding that Acapulco has become "a major site for drug trafficking."
    The first attack happened about 3 a.m. local time at city police outpost just 50 meters from Acapulco's main tourist strip, police representative Salvador Vargas Villanueva said.

•   •   •  

Voodoo head found in air luggage   [2/11/06]
Did you know that voodoo is a officially recognized religion in Haiti? The Haitian person in this news story was apparently looking forward to celebrating diversity in the United States using her extra head.

US immigration officials have arrested a Haitian woman after baggage screeners found a human head in her luggage at a Florida airport.
    Myrlene Severe, 30, has been charged with failing to declare the head on a customs form and transporting "hazardous material".
    She arrived at Florida's Fort Lauderdale airport on Thursday on a flight from Cap Haitien in north Haiti.
    Ms Severe said that the head was to ward off evil sprits, officials said.
    "Severe stated that she had obtained the package, which contained a human head, from a male in Haiti for use as part of her voodoo beliefs," the US Attorney's Office said in a statement.

•   •   •  

Cartoon Rage   [2/10/06]
Diana West explains the concept of dhimmitude to readers who may still be a bit, er, dim on the topic. Getting up to speed on the Islamic way of oppression is vital.

We need to learn a new word: dhimmitude. I've written about dhimmitude periodically, lo, these many years since September 11, but it takes time to sink in. Dhimmitude is the coinage of a brilliant historian, Bat Ye'or, whose pioneering studies of the dhimmi, populations of Jews and Christians vanquished by Islamic jihad, have led her to conclude that a common culture has existed through the centuries among the varied dhimmi populations. From Egypt and Palestine to Iraq and Syria, from Morocco and Algeria to Spain, Sicily and Greece, from Armenia and the Balkans to the Caucasus: Wherever Islam conquered, surrendering dhimmi, known to Muslims as "people of the book [the Bible]," were tolerated, allowed to practice their religion, but at a dehumanizing cost.
    There were literal taxes (jizya) to be paid; these bought the dhimmi the right to remain non-Muslim, the price not of religious freedom, but of religious identity. Freedom was lost, sorely circumscribed by a body of Islamic law (sharia) designed to subjugate, denigrate and humiliate the dhimmi. The resulting culture of self-abnegation, self-censorship and fear shared by far-flung dhimmi is the basis of dhimmitude. The extremely distressing but highly significant fact is, dhimmitude doesn't only exist in lands where Islamic law rules.
    This is the lesson of Cartoon Rage 2006, a cultural nuke set off by an Islamic chain reaction to those 12 cartoons of Muhammad appearing in a Danish newspaper. We have watched the Muslim meltdown with shocked attention, but there is little recognition that its poisonous fallout is fear. Fear in the State Department, which, like Islam, called the cartoons unacceptable. Fear in Whitehall, which did the same. Fear in the Vatican, which did the same. And fear in the media, which have failed, with few, few exceptions, to reprint or show the images. With only a small roll of brave journals, mainly in Europe, to salute, we have seen the proud Western tradition of a free press bow its head and submit to an Islamic law against depictions of Muhammad. That's dhimmitude.
    Not that we admit it: We dress up our capitulation in fancy talk of "tolerance," "responsibility" and "sensitivity." We even congratulate ourselves for having the "editorial judgment" to make "pluralism" possible. "Readers were well served... without publishing the cartoons," said a Wall Street Journal spokesman. "CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons in respect for Islam," reported the cable network. On behalf of the BBC, which did show some of the cartoons on the air, a news editor subsequently apologized, adding: "We've taken a decision not to go further... in order not to gratuitously offend the significant number" of Muslim viewers worldwide. Left unmentioned is the understanding (editorial judgement?) that "gratuitous offense" leads to gratuitous violence. Hence, fear — not the inspiration of tolerance but of capitulation — and a condition of dhimmitude.

•   •   •  

Diversity Is Strength! It's Also... Ethnic Come-ons   [2/9/06]
College student Athena Kerry confirms what I've been saying for some time, that women's rights and safety are endangered by the presence of millions of immigrants from misogynous cultures. And that means Mexican piggymen, not just the famously anti-woman sons of Allah (e.g. one of whom murdered a Dutch filmmaker for portraying the normal Muslim oppression of women).

But it's in the time spent outside the classroom—walking through the nearby parks, down sidewalks, past train platforms or construction crews, across streets, down grocery store aisles—basically anywhere groups of Mexican males, young or old, may be assembled—that my girlfriends are exposed to these outbursts. It's not unusual to hear foul language, suggestive references to food, motherhood or specific body parts. Ultimately, it's loathsome and humiliating.
    Once, while ascending as mall escalator, I found myself behind a Mexican family consisting of what appeared to be a mother, father, and two very cute twin girls. Halfway up, the father leaned over the banister and made a vulgar gesture toward a display on a lower floor. Turning to the mother of his children he said with a grin, "That mannequin has nice tits."
    She didn't respond. She seemed to be used to it.
    Is this what President Bush means when he says "Family Values don't stop at the Rio Grande?"

•   •   •  

Americans First   [2/9/06]
Steve Sailer expounds upon his idea of citizenism, including an immigration policy that would be beneficial to the society as a whole. Imagine that.

Unskilled illegal immigrants pound down the wages of those of our fellow American citizens least able to afford the competition. For example, the wages of slaughterhouse workers today are barely half what they were two decades ago, even without adjusting for inflation. By cutting pay for the worst jobs, illegal immigrants have made honest work less appealing to many citizens, especially young African-American males, too many of whom have dropped out of the workforce and into the lumpenproletariat world of crime. That's bad for both black Americans and for our country as a whole.
    One subtle advantage of citizenism is there would be less need for the politically correct censorship to "celebrate diversity," which has become such a blight on free speech in America. We would no longer feel so obliged to browbeat each other into claiming that other citizens are exactly the same in their behavior as we are. That constant lying becomes morally irrelevant because under citizenism, the duty toward solidarity means that the old saying "he's a son of a bitch but he¹s our son of a bitch" turns into a moral precept.

•   •   •  

Amnesty won't fix immigration woes   [2/9/06]
This opinion piece was written by Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio, a rare liberal Democrat who gets it, who understands that America's workers are enormously harmed by illegal immigration. In fact, he may be the only House Democrat with an A voting record from BetterImmigration.org, an essential resource to find the truth about our elected officials. Rep. DeFazio is certainly to be commended for his courageous position against the pro-illegal immigration majority of his party.

I am not convinced there is a labor shortage that requires the importation of 550,000 or more guest workers every year, as envisioned by the immigration reform bill sponsored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. - which also allows family members to come along, doubling or tripling the number of new arrivals. Only after improving wages and working conditions and proving that no Americans are available for the job should an employer be able to recruit guest workers.
    I am concerned that guest worker proposals will continue to erode the wages and working conditions of tens of millions of Americans and legal immigrants. The Commission on Immigration Reform, created in 1995 by President Bill Clinton, reported, "Guest worker programs have depressed wages" and reduced employment opportunities for "unskilled American workers, including recent immigrants," who can be easily "displaced by newly entering guest workers."
    Other studies, including research by the National Research Council and the liberal Economic Policy Institute, show immigrants under guest worker programs are paid 15 percent to 33 percent less than U.S. citizens, even in highly skilled jobs, driving down wages for all workers.
    All workers deserve the protection of labor laws. In fact, existing guest worker programs already nominally provide such protections, but they are not enforced. The lack of enforcement has reached crisis proportions. I don't believe that will magically change under a new guest worker program.

•   •   •  

Defusing the real cartoon culture   [2/8/06]
Columnist Froma Harrop correctly berates the American press for its cowardice in not printing the rather sedate Danish cartoons which are causing so much rage in the Muslim community from London to Indonesia.

The American media's generally spineless response has been likewise embarrassing. As of this writing, only one major U.S. paper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, has published the offending cartoon (which shows the prophet Mohammed with a bomb as a turban). Papers that ran cartoons of pedophilic Catholic priests chasing altar boys would not print the Danish drawing.
    Britain's media were no better. The editor at The Independent gave as his singularly lame excuse that it was not a "good" cartoon. This is the same newspaper that portrayed a naked Ariel Sharon eating a Palestinian baby. The Independent's cartoon judgment is clearly based, not on what offends an audience, but on which audience it is afraid of.
    By contrast, newspapers in France, Spain and elsewhere on the Continent showed solidarity for their besieged Danish colleagues by publishing the cartoon. The Italian daily La Stampa put it on its front page.
    As everyone knows, the cartoon is important not because it is a good cartoon, but because it is news. That America's great dailies forced their readers to go to the Drudge Report to see what the story was about will be discussed for years to come.

•   •   •  

Dallas school board to discuss hiring illegal immigrants   [2/8/06]
Funny how more and more people regard American law as just a suggestion when the subject is immigration.

A Dallas school official said changing employment laws that restrict hiring illegal immigrants could help the district overcome its shortage of bilingual teachers.
    School board member Joe May said the Dallas Independent School District should be able to recruit college-educated illegal immigrants who qualify for its emergency teaching certification program. But federal law prohibits knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.
    The school board was set to discuss May's idea at a Tuesday meeting, although some board members urged caution, The Dallas Morning News reported for its Tuesday editions.
    The Dallas district, which has about 161,000 students, currently recruits Spanish-speaking teachers from foreign countries and then helps the applicants obtain their work visas.
    May said laws regarding the employment of illegal immigrants who've been in the United States for years should be changed.
    "It makes sense if we set up shop over here," May said. "We can build an employment base in our own market."
    Board member Hollis Brashear said he wants to hear how the district's attorneys respond to the idea. "But I don't know if we can discuss something that involves not complying with U.S. law," he said.

•   •   •  

Britons Urge Arrest of Protesters Advocating Violence   [2/7/06]

Is there anything more disturbing than politically correct policing? Multiculturalism's burrowing into public policy puts innocent people at risk, while excusing the guilty. One example is Australia, where police have been told to ignore Islamic beach thugs, a tactic which guarantees more violence against Australian citizens.

LONDON, Feb. 6 -- "Behead the one who insults the prophet," read one placard a Muslim protester held at a weekend demonstration here against cartoon depictions of Islam's prophet Muhammad. "Butcher those who mock Islam," and "Be Prepared for the Real Holocaust," read other signs. One demonstrator wore a mock suicide vest, seven months after four suicide bombers killed themselves and 52 other people in London.
    These protesters are now at the center of an impassioned debate here about whether British police should arrest them for inciting violence. Moderate Muslim leaders have joined in condemning the extremists and calling for their arrest.
    "Let us be clear," David Davis, a leader of the opposition Conservative Party, said Monday. "Placards carrying the slogans calling for people who insult Islam to be 'beheaded' or 'massacred' or 'annihilated' are direct incitements to violence." Davis added, "I do expect that action should be taken against those who have clearly incited violence, and taken soon."
    A police spokeswoman said Monday that police officers have to consider the effect on public order that immediate arrests could trigger. She also said that police have videotape of the protests held Friday and Saturday and that if arrests are made they would be done at "the appropriate time."
    But while some people praised Scotland Yard for judiciously avoiding violence by not arresting extremists on the spot, others said they feared that police are so worried about Muslim violence they are backing off enforcement of the country's laws.
    "Of course there is a double standard," said Phil Edwards, a spokesman for the anti-immigration British National Party, whose leader was put on trial and acquitted of charges of inciting racial hatred for calling Islam a "wicked, vicious faith." Edwards said while its people were prosecuted for saying such words, the Muslim protesters "say they are going to kill us all and the police do nothing. It's pathetic."

•   •   •  

Let's be honest: Multiculturalism can kill a nation   [2/7/06]
Columnist Jim Pinkerton states the obvious conclusion one must draw from the continuing cartoon jihad, that multiculturalism is a failed ideology.

The lesson of the Muhammad cartoon controversy is: Multiculturalism between nations is inevitable, but multiculturalism within nations is disastrous.
    Protests, many of them violent, have erupted across the world - including Europe, Australia and New Zealand - after the appearance of cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad in unflattering ways.
    It's time for all of us to recognize that different cultures have different values. For the West, broadly speaking, the highest value is freedom, including freedom of religious expression. But for the Muslim world, the highest value seems to be Islamic piety. To draw such a distinction between West and East is not to endorse cultural relativism; it's simply to take note of cultural reality.
    Not everyone thirsts for liberty. Plenty of people around the world, maybe most, thirst instead to restrict liberty. And so, if Muslim crowds can't kill the Muhammad-mocking Danish cartoonists for "blasphemy," they will settle for burning Western embassies, at least for now.

•   •   •  

Request falls short of full funding for border agents   [2/7/06]
Nothing reveals priorities like the budget. Once again, the President has shown his disregard for national security and sovereignty.

President Bush's new budget again fails to fund the entire number of Border Patrol agents mandated by Congress but for the first time includes funds for his proposed guest-worker program.
    The budget calls for 1,500 new U.S. Border Patrol agents and 6,700 new detention beds for illegal aliens awaiting deportation -- far more than last year's budget, but still short of the 2,000 new agents and 8,000 new beds per year that he and Congress agreed to in the December 2004 intelligence-overhaul bill. [...]
    The 1,500 Border Patrol agents bring the total authorized to 13,819 -- a 42 percent increase since September 11, 2001, but still at least 1,000 short of the number for which the December 2004 bill called.
    Those who want stricter immigration controls said Mr. Bush has shown that he recognizes the need for more enforcement but must meet the promises of the 2004 bill.
    "He couldn't have just gone an extra 1,300?" asked Rosemary Jenks, government relations director for NumbersUSA, about the shortfall on detention beds. "The idea they're going to stop the catch-and-release policy without adequately funding those detention beds is just ludicrous."
    She also said Mr. Bush's "one-track focus on the temporary-worker program is detrimental" to the other border- and immigration-security efforts, but was pleased that the administration included money to begin funding a proposed employer-verification system that passed the House last month.

•   •   •  

No Beheadings, Please, We're British.   [2/7/06]
The wonderful Theodore Dalrymple piles a lot into a few words.

The weekend edition of Le Monde carried on its front page a startling photograph of a masked protester in London, holding up a placard demanding the death of those who insult Islam. Policemen flanked him on either side, as if protecting him from the vicious assaults of cartoonists.
    Nothing could have captured better the cowardly and pusillanimous response of the British government to the crisis deliberately stirred up in many Muslim countries four months after the publication in a Danish newspaper of 12 cartoons depicting Muhammad (only one of which was remotely funny).
    In condemning the cartoons, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, a man with all the qualities of Neville Chamberlain except his fundamental decency, attempted to curry favor with the Muslim world, or at least to avoid its wrath. Revealing the practical value of such appeasement is the way in which Muslims burned down the Danish consulates and embassies even after the Danes, with equal cowardice, had apologized. But at least the Danes have the excuse of being a very small nation indeed—although their country produces far more, oil excepted, than the whole Arab world put together.
    Instead of protecting the protester (whose placard, incidentally, was comparatively moderate compared with some others), the police should surely have arrested him for incitement to murder. After all, the cartoonists who had "insulted" Islam were individuals known to the public: in the context, the protester must have been referring to them. Even if the subsequent prosecution did not ultimately succeed, it would remind Muslim extremists in Britain that they remain subject to the law of the land just like anyone else.

•   •   •  

Der Spiegel Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali   [2/7/06]
The Dutch Member of Parliament criticized European self-censorship around Islam.

SPIEGEL: Was apologizing for the cartoons the wrong thing to do?
Hirsi Ali: Once again, the West pursued the principle of turning first one cheek, then the other. In fact, it's already a tradition. In 1980, privately owned British broadcaster ITV aired a documentary about the stoning of a Saudi Arabian princess who had allegedly committed adultery. The government in Riyadh intervened and the British government issued an apology. We saw the same kowtowing response in 1987 when (Dutch comedian) Rudi Carrell derided (Iranian revolutionary leader) Ayatollah Khomeini in a comedy skit (that was aired on German television). In 2000, a play about the youngest wife of the Prophet Mohammed, titled "Aisha," was cancelled before it ever opened in Rotterdam. Then there was the van Gogh murder and now the cartoons. We are constantly apologizing, and we don't notice how much abuse we're taking. Meanwhile, the other side doesn't give an inch.
SPIEGEL: What should the appropriate European response look like?
Hirsi Ali: There should be solidarity. The cartoons should be displayed everywhere. After all, the Arabs can't boycott goods from every country. They're far too dependent on imports. And Scandinavian companies should be compensated for their losses. Freedom of speech should at least be worth that much to us.

•   •   •  

A European Awakening Against Islamic Fascism?   [2/6/06]
Victor Davis Hanson analyzes recent events in Europe...

Yet suddenly in 2006, the Europeans seem to have collectively resuscitated. The Madrid bombings, the murder of Theo van Gogh, the London subway attacks, and the French rioting in October and November seem to have prompted at least some Europeans at last to question their once hallowed sense of multiculturalism in which Muslim minorities were not asked to assimilate at home and Islamic terrorists abroad were seen as mere militants or extremists rather than enemies bent on destroying the West.
    On January 19, Jacques Chirac warned that his military would use its nuclear forces to target states that sponsored terrorism against France—El Cid braggadocio that made George Bush's past Wild West lingo like 'smoke 'em out' and 'dead or alive' seem Pollyannaish by comparison. Not long after, it was disclosed that the French and the Americans have coordinated their efforts to keep Syria out of Lebanon and to isolate Bashar Assad's shaky Syrian regime. And in a recent news conference Donald Rumsfeld and the new German defense minister Franz Josef Jung sounded as if they were once more the old allies of the past, fighting shoulder to shoulder against terrorists who would like to do to Berlin what they did to New York.

•   •   •  

Later than we think   [2/6/06]
Arnaud de Borchgrave has some alarming background information on what is happening in Iran, that the president there is acting out an apocalyptic vision that could affect everyone on earth.

The man in charge of hoodwinking the Western powers about Iran's now 18-year-old secret nuclear program believes the apocalypse will happen in his own lifetime. He'll be 50 in October.
    President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Shi'ite creed has convinced him lesser mortals can not only influence but hasten the awaited return of the 12th Imam, known as the Mahdi. Iran's dominant "Twelver" sect holds this will be Muhammad ibn Hasan, the righteous descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. He is said to have gone into "occlusion" in the 9th century, at age 5. His return will be preceded by cosmic chaos, war, bloodshed and pestilence. After this cataclysmic confrontation between the forces of good and evil, the Mahdi will lead the world to an era of universal peace.
    "The ultimate promise of all Divine religions," says Ahmadinejad, "will be fulfilled with the emergence of a perfect human being [the 12th Imam], who is heir to all prophets. He will lead the world to justice and absolute peace. Oh mighty Lord, I pray to you to hasten the emergence of your last repository, the promised one." He reckons the return of the Imam, AWOL for 11 centuries, is only two years away.
    Mr. Ahmadinejad is close to the messianic Hojjatieh Society, which is governed by the conviction the 12th Imam's return will be hastened by "the creation of chaos on Earth." He has fired Iran's most experienced diplomats and scores of other officials, presumably those who don't share his belief in apocalyptic conflagration.
    The Iranian leader's finger on a nuclear trigger would be disquieting under any circumstances. Positively alarming would be a nuclear weapon in the hands of a man who badgers Israel, the U.S. and the European Union in belief a pre-emptive aerial attack on Iran's nuclear facilities will hasten the return of the missing Mahdi. Such an attack presumably would trigger anti-Western mayhem throughout the Middle East.

•   •   •  

Catholic church gets in on immigration debate   [2/6/06]
The Catholic Church is one of the loudest voices for open borders. Illegal aliens keep the pews full, don't ask any inconvenient questions about pedophile priests, and keep taxpayer money flowing into Catholic Charities which provides "immigrant" services. (See my recent article, "America's Vaticrats Wish You Happy National Migration Week!".)
    Furthermore, as a tax-exempt organization, the church is supposed to keep its nose out of political affairs. Instead, the Bishops use their vast pulpit to undermine American sovereignty.

AUSTIN, Texas — Mining the depths of what it means to be a Catholic, the Rev. John Korcsmar broached the subject of illegal immigration on a recent Sunday morning at Dolores Catholic Church in East Austin. Consider, he asked parishioners, that Jesus, Mary and Joseph were refugees fleeing King Herod's terror.
    The Gospel, Korcsmar said, illustrates church teaching that immigrants, like all people, have inherent human rights and dignity.
    "I think we as Catholics have a duty to welcome the newcomer, to be open," Korcsmar said later.
    Comparable messages repeated lately in Austin area parishes, and across the country, underpin a controversial new campaign by U.S. bishops urging Congress and the White House to legalize potentially millions of immigrants already in the country.
    The campaign, Justice for Immigrants: A Journey of Hope, aims to create a political will for change by first winning the hearts and minds of the nation's 65 million Catholics, including an estimated 450,000 in the 25-county Austin diocese.

•   •   •  

France eyes a more selective immigration system   [2/6/06]
At least some in the French government want to keep out jihadists (the sort of foreigners who might spend every night for three weeks rioting and torching cars).

PARIS (Reuters) - France's interior minister will submit a draft law this week that proposes a more selective immigration system, rewarding skilled and educated applicants and making it easier to expel unwanted foreign workers.
    "We no longer want an immigration that is inflicted (on us) but an immigration that is chosen, this is the founding principle of the new immigration policy I advocate," Nicolas Sarkozy told Le Journal du Dimanche.
    In an interview published on Sunday, he said: "The system of integration the French way no longer works."
    At the end of November, France said it planned to tighten immigration controls in response to its worst urban rioting in almost 40 years. [...]
    The draft law will also require that those granted a 10-year resident permit have to prove they are learning French and respecting the country's laws, such as those defending equality between men and women. "If a wife is kept hostage at home without learning French, the whole family will be asked to leave (the country)," Sarkozy said.

•   •   •  

Danish cartoonists fear for their lives   [2/5/06]
Another result of Muslim immigration in Europe is the end of freedom for anyone who seriously challenges Islam. Dutch politicians Geert Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali live with 24/7 police guard, and now Danish cartoonists have gone into hiding because of the cartoon jihad.

TWELVE Danish cartoonists whose pictures sparked such outcry have gone into hiding under round-the-clock protection, fearing for their lives.
    The cartoonists, many of whom had reservations about the pictures, have been shocked by how the affair has escalated into a global "clash of civilisations". They have since tried, unsuccessfully, to stop them being reprinted.
    A spokesman for the cartoonists said: "They are in hiding around Denmark. Some of them are really, really scared. They don't want to see the pictures reprinted all over the world. We couldn't stop it. We tried, but we couldn't."
    Mogens Blicher Bjerregaard, president of the Danish Union of Journalists, told The Times: "They are keeping a very low profile. They are very concerned about their safety. They feel a big responsibility on their shoulders. It's blown up so big. It is tough for them."

•   •   •  

Immigration puts species in danger   [2/5/06]
Here's some attention paid to the Defenders of Wildlife report discussing the damage done to the land and animals in the Arizona border area by the millions of illegal aliens passing through.

But thousands of migrants and increasing enforcement of border security have resulted not just in trash heaps and abandoned vehicles, but also in long-term damage to environmentally sensitive areas and degradation of several species: mammals, birds and fish.
    Much of the blame falls, the report argues, on federal policies designed to reduce immigration by forcing it out of urban areas, which took effect in the mid-1990s. But migration levels did not decline, and now an estimated half a million people are crossing the desert in search of work.
    The report cites another report, from the Government Accountability Office, that says habitat can take decades to recover, which in turn affects wildlife.
    Among the most strongly affected are the Sonoran pronghorn. Once found throughout the Sonoran Desert, it has been reduced to three small, isolated populations. The only one on this side of the border is at Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in southwestern Arizona.

•   •   •  

Small Towns and Immigration   [2/4/06]
Listen to 40 minutes of the National Public Radio show, Talk of the Nation, as it chats up elected officials about the Hmong refugee dumping that demographically transformed the town of Wausau, Wisconsin.

Small-town America is not as homogenous as it used to be. Take Wausa, Wisc., home to more than 4,000 Hmong refugees from Southeast Asia. In a special broadcast from Wausau, guests and callers discuss small-town immigration.

•   •   •  

Mosque seen as spurring boom for real estate in Orland Park   [2/4/06]
In 2004, the Chicago Tribune ran an excellent series about the extreme radical nature of the Muslim community in the Chicago area, particularly in Bridgeview. Now we read a cheerful puff piece about real estate.

For more than a decade, Mohammed Alqadhi watched the Mosque Foundation transform a slice of Bridgeview into a thriving Muslim enclave as families in search of an Islamic place to pray bought up the modest homes around the green-domed house of worship.
    Late last month, a dome was placed atop a similar mosque that's set to open in the spring in Orland Park, and Alqadhi, a Yemeni immigrant and entrepreneur, is keeping an eye out for property nearby. He already has bought a vacant store with plans to open a grocery.
    "Everything that happened in Bridgeview will happen here," Alqadhi predicted. "People will want to be near the mosque. Housing prices will go up. They'll need a convenience store."
    That rosy prediction runs counter to some reactions when Muslim leaders applied two years ago for a permit to build a mosque and school on 104th Avenue. Then, residents worried about traffic congestion and noise, fretted over who was funding the facility and feared housing prices would plummet. [...]
    The area was transformed into a Middle Eastern mantiqa--a tight-knit community--where headscarves and hijabs are common sights. Middle Eastern groceries and restaurants soon followed, and as the area changed, housing demand soared.

•   •   •  

Third man wanted over stabbings   [2/4/06]
Of course there is more beach violence in Australia, since the perps (young Islamic males) in the last round received no punishment for widespread physical attacks and property damage.

Two men were arrested today and are being questioned about two separate attacks, seven minutes apart, on five males and a female in Bondi about midnight (AEDT) Friday, police said. [...]
    The six teenagers, aged 16 to 19 years, were injured when three men, described as being of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean appearance and armed with small knives, set upon the group.
    Superintendent Mark Walton said the attacks were "vicious and unprovoked".

•   •   •  

Protesters on the march   [2/3/06]
The ongoing Mohammed cartoon kerfuffle makes it abundantly clear that many Muslims have neither the desire nor the aptitude to assimilate into western civilization. This BBC story includes a timeline of the building crisis over free speech.

Hundreds of Muslims have staged angry protests in London following the publication of cartoons satirising the prophet Mohammed.
    Scores waved placards bearing angry messages, one declaring: "Behead the one who insults the prophet".
    Others said: "Free speech go to hell" and "Europe: Your 9/11 will come".

•   •   •  

New Border Incursion In Hudspeth County   [2/2/06]
Another Mexican border outrage caught on film. In this case, Mexican soldiers pulled a flanking maneuver on an American sheriff, forcing him to retreat for safety's sake.

For the second time in two weeks, American law enforcement officers say men carrying high powered automatic weapons and who appeared to be Mexican soldiers violated the international boundary and crossed into the United States in Hudspeth County, East of El Paso. In the past the Mexican Consulate in El Paso had stated that their Government policy is that no armed Mexican soldiers are allowed closer than three miles to the U.S. border.
    The latest incident happened just before sunset on Tuesday night, as a KFOX crew was on the scene. As a Hudspeth County sheriff's deputy was describing what happened during a reported incursion last week - suddenly one 'soldier' emerged from the brush on the Mexican side of the border and darted back under cover. Moments later though, two other men who appeared to be soldiers marched across a clearing, in plan view. Shortly after that, the Deputy spotted soldiers who were well hidden and out of camera range crossing into the United States - attempting to flank the Deputy and the news crew.

•   •   •  

Diversity Is Strength! It's Also... Poaching   [2/2/06]
My latest Vdare.com article shines a light on the immigrant poaching problem, since many foreigners believe America's fish and game laws are merely suggestions.

Indeed, one of the most horrendous mass murders of recent years started out as a poaching incident. Hmong immigrant Chai Vang shot eight and killed six Wisconsin hunters who found him on property owned by two of their group. Vang was perched in a private tree stand in hopes of shooting a deer. When he was ordered to leave, Vang attacked the Americans, all but one of whom were unarmed. Four were shot in the back, and 20-year-old Joey Crotteau was killed after he ran nearly 500 feet.
    Clearly, some poachers take their thieving very seriously. It doesn't help that Hmong values do not include respect for private property.

•   •   •  

On The Line: The Impacts of Immigration Policy on Wildlife and Habitat in the Arizona Borderlands   [2/1/06]
The Defenders of Wildlife organization is a rare environmentalist group to spotlight the destruction caused by the ingress of millions of illegal aliens across the border. You can download the 41-page report in PDF at the link above, or read the press release here.

The report focuses largely on the damage done to the Arizona borderlands, in particular Arizona's two largest wilderness areas: the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. These areas encompass more than one million acres of desert wilderness and are home to a stunning array of imperiled wildlife including the Sonoran pronghorn, jaguar, desert bighorn sheep, Gila monster, tropical kingbird, and desert tortoise. But immigrant traffic and border patrol activities have severely damaged these areas in ways that could take decades to repair.

•   •   •  

© 2006 Brenda Walker All rights reserved.