DOBBS: Two years ago the Council on Foreign Relations published a report titled "Building a North America Community." among the goals expressed, to break down trade regulations between the United States and Canada. Between Canada and Mexico and of course, then the United States. But without congressional approval or certainly without congressional oversight or voter approval.
    Critics call the plan the North America Union. And many say that it would ultimately destroy U.S. sovereignty.
    Robert Pastor is a member of the group that broke the original report. He joins us tonight. It's good to have you with us.
    ROBERT PASTOR, CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN STUDIES: Thank you very much.
    DOBBS: Robert Pastor, you were co-chairman of an independent task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, and in this report titled "Building a North American Community" the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass states, "The Task Force's central recommendation is establishment by 2010 of a North American economic and security of community, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter."
    At this point what is the basis for moving forward on that?
    PASTOR: Well, the United States, Canada and Mexico now are already the largest free trade area in the world. We have $800 billion worth of trade. This is a source of comparative advantage for the United States. But the council report feels that we could take greater advantage if we were deepen economic integration, if we can secure ourselves better, not only at our borders, but also by thinking about continental security perimeter as well.
    DOBBS: Why would you think about, just out of curiosity, a common security perimeter when the United States does not have secure ports nor does it have anything approaching secure borders?
    PASTOR: Well, it's precisely because our ports are not secure and our borders are not secure that we need to find not only better ways to do that but also better ways to turn our two neighbors into partners to enhance our security and to enhance our prosperity as well.

•   •   •  

Laredo Texas: Daring program would force English, Spanish   [1/25/07]
This is how America is being coerced to become a bilingual, Spanish-speaking country, one school district at a time. They will start with kindergarten children and call the Dual Language instruction a "benefit" -- only a racist could object to that, right?

The program, known as Dual Language, would be implemented at all 26 UISD elementary schools. It would begin with kindergarten and progress to the next grade level, each year thereafter until 12th grade.
    Language arts would be taught in the student's primary language, as required by state law.
    By the time students reach second grade, UISD hopes to have 50 percent of all classroom instruction in English and 50 percent in Spanish, said Pamela R. Juarez, UISD associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction. [...]
    Most UISD elementary students — nearly 65 percent, or more than three out of every five — are Spanish dominant, according to district data, and the district receives a significant amount of revenue for bilingual education.
    UISD gets roughly $18.5 million each year from the state and federal governments to educate its limited English proficient, or LEP, students, according to district data.
    Some researchers and bilingual education experts, such as Wayne P. Thomas and Virginia P. Collier, say Dual Language is the model that school districts with large numbers of Spanish dominant students should adopt.
    For the past 10 years, the effectiveness of Dual Language has been tracked at several school districts on the Texas-Mexico border, namely Ysleta ISD near El Paso and Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD in the Rio Grande Valley.

Meanwhile on other fronts, grassroots Texans are fighting back against the merger with Mexico.

•   •   •  

Tax to fight gangs set for ballot   [1/25/07]
In Los Angeles, gang violence has gotten so bad that the city council wants to raise taxes in order to fight it. Overall, the crime rate is down, but LA suffered 267 gang-related homicides last year and a 14% increase in gang crime citywide. Councilwoman Janice Hahn advocates a $72 annual parcel tax to raise $50 million to fund more social intervention programs. The city already spends $82 million on gang outreach, with little result.
    Much of the recent outrage comes from the December 15 murder of Cheryl Green, a 14-year-old black girl who was killed simply for being present on Hispanic turf, just a block from her apartment. The photo shows mother Charlene Lovett holding a picture of Cheryl.

Desperate to stem the rise of gang violence in Los Angeles, the City Council agreed Tuesday to draft a ballot measure that would impose a parcel tax to raise $50 million or more annually for intervention and prevention programs.
    However, council members said it was unlikely the proposal would go onto the ballot until next year, skipping the municipal election in May.
    Also Tuesday, City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo released his plan for reducing gangs, which includes a call for school uniforms to be required for all Los Angeles Unified School District students, legal action to shut down the headquarters of the 10 worst gangs, and expanding his assignment of prosecutors to every police station and to neighborhoods around gang-plagued schools.

LA's gang violence has a strong racial component. Of an estimated 39,000 gang members, about 56 percent are in Latino gangs and 40 percent are in black gangs. Many hispanic gang-bangers are illegal aliens. Increasingly, hispanic gang members kill random blacks to drive them out of the area -- ethnic cleansing, in other words. Interestingly, even the hacks at the Southern Poverty Law Center, who have attacked the Minutemen and other friends of borders, have noticed the purposeful, racist attacks on black Americans.
    Instead of enacting another immigration tax, the city should end Special Order 40, the sanctuary law that protects illegal aliens from normal police inquiries and is quite a boon to gang members.

•   •   •  

Islam flexes its muscles   [1/24/07]
Scary stuff going on in Britain, according to columnist Peter Hitchens. Talk about surrender without a fight...

The real menace to this country does not come from terrorist bombs, which a calm, resolute people can cope with. It comes from the liberal elite's decision to appease Islam.
    The louder the Blairites talk about the 'threat to our way of life' from Muslim extremists, the more they themselves increase that threat.
    Criticism of Islam, jokes about Islam, are rapidly becoming taboo, even legally restricted. Yet Muslims have total freedom to say what they like about the rest of us.
    Quietly, the Civil Service, the police and the education system (and many big companies) have already begun to adapt themselves to the idea of an Islamised Britain.

•   •   •  

Sound File of Tom Tancredo's Response to State of the Union Speech   [1/24/07]
Just over a minute in length, this sound clip notes Rep Tancredo's disappointment with the continuing state of the border, our "Achilles heel."

•   •   •  

Democrats' silence on jihad is deadly   [1/24/07]
What's with Democrats and their inability to grasp reality? Their minds reside in a pre-9/11 state of denial, still in snooze mode about the clearly established intention of Muslim jihadists to destroy western civilization and institute a fascist state under sharia law.

Sounding nearly as resolute is former governor Mitt Romney, whose campaign website puts "Defeating the Jihadists" first in its list of key campaign issues. "The jihadists are waging a global war against the United States and its allies," Romney is quoted as saying, "with the ambition of replacing legitimate governments with a caliphate -- a theocracy." Speaking in Israel yesterday, Romney asserted that "a central purpose of NATO should be to defeat radical Islam," through means both military and ideological.
    The Democratic candidates, by contrast, are virtually silent on the subject.
    Barack Obama launched his exploratory committee with an online video that mentioned the economy, healthcare, vanishing pensions, college costs, and the fractiousness of partisan politics. His only nod to national security was a passing reference to the war in Iraq, which he opposes. But 9/11 and its aftermath? The worldwide jihad? The global conflict between democratic freedom and Taliban-style repression? Not a word.
    Hillary Clinton's highly praised kickoff video likewise included nothing about the overriding threat of our time. Her website does contain a speech she gave at the Council on Foreign Relations last October, but it is filled with vague rhetoric about diplomacy and international conferences and how we must address the "troubled conditions terrorists seek out." New Yorkers don't need to be told "that we are in a war against terrorists who seek to do us harm," Clinton says. But if she recognizes that the future of the civilized world depends on winning that war, she shows little sign of it.
    What is true of Obama and Clinton is more or less true of Edwards, Richardson, and the others. The Democrats seem prepared to emulate John Kerry, who insisted in 2004 that "we have to get back to the place we were" before 9/11. Back, that is, to treating Islamist terrorism not as "the focus of our lives," but merely as "a nuisance" that we need "to reduce" -- like gambling, he said, or prostitution.

Right on cue, here's Jimmy Carter, who seems increasingly out of touch (i.e. the accusations of anti-semitism that caused 14 board members to resign from the Carter Center and his dependence on questionable Middle Eastern money): Carter urges Americans to abandon fear, hatred.

On a weekend in which Carter celebrated the 30th anniversary of his inauguration and the 25th year since its abrupt conclusion, it was left to the former president to update his peace efforts in the Middle East to today's world by talking about terrorism and about harsh feelings against people of other faiths.
    "We are developing an ingrained hatred for people who aren't Christians," said Carter, a Sunday School teacher since he was 18 years old.
    Unwarranted fear of terrorism is behind these feelings, he said.

Let's review. We were attacked on our own soil in our two major cities with the deaths of thousands of citizens. Our enemies vow to destroy our way of life and kill millions of Americans. Yet the government maintains the open borders and permissive immigration that allowed the 9/11 hijackers to enter and remain. In fact, Muslim immigration is increasing.
    How could a fear of terrorism be unwarranted? Carter's brain is in Kumbaya-land.

•   •   •  

Senate bill aims to repeal 'Real ID' law   [1/23/07]
More bad news from the Senate from Hell -- but I repeat myself.
    The Democrats have been making a lot of noise about implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. In this case, members of the Senate are working to disassemble one that has already been passed, namely the REAL ID, the full implementation of which would make identification far more secure.

Faced with having to pay $500 million for federally mandated driver's licenses aimed at identifying illegal immigrants, California officials are looking to the new Democratic Congress for financial relief.
    And they may find it in a Senate bill that essentially would repeal the so-called "Real ID" law, condemning it as an "unrealistic and unfunded burden on state governments."
    Introduced by Sens. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, and John Sununu, R-N.H., the bill would eliminate a cascade of federal driver's license standards that Congress passed last year and states must implement by May 2008.
    In its place, the senators would set up a process that lets states and the federal government jointly create license standards. [...]
    "The costs associated with it are out of reach for California," state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez said during a recent trip to Washington to lobby for federal funding. "My hope is that Congress will roll it back."
    Nunez and others estimate the state will have to spend at least $500 million to prepare for an estimated 15 million Californians who will have to get a new license from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

California evidently has enough spare change rolling around to give welfare benefits to illegal alien pickers affected by the freeze. But spending money to protect citizens from terrorists would interfere with the Mexican colonization agenda, as noted by Mexico's Interior Minister Santiago Creel when he expressed his displeasure that REAL ID would prevent Mexicans from getting US drivers' licenses.
    Below is a photo of Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez in Mexico City, saluting the Mexican flag and its national anthem.

•   •   •  

In Arab Capital of U.S., Ethnic Divide Remains   [1/23/07]
Diversity immigration enthusiasts love to fantasize that America is somehow more welcoming and better at assimilating than Europe. As a result, they believe, Muslims pose no terrorist danger because they are happy immigrants successfully blending into society as they become hypenated residents.
    In the real world, foreigners bring a passel of cultural and historical baggage with them, from misogyny to tribal animosities. Dearborn is Exhibit A, where as the "Arab Capital" of America, the local Mooslims are too strife-ridden to elect an Arab mayor. (The Dearborn mosque belonging to the Islamic Center of America is the largest in America.)

Internal rivalries echoing those that beset the Arab world, along with the general electorate's lingering unease about Muslims, combined to derail what many here had hoped would be the chance to prove that Arab-Americans had arrived politically — at least in Dearborn, their unofficial capital in this country.
    "One day, an Arab-American will be in office at the top, but this will not be the time," said Osama Siblani, the burly publisher of the weekly Arab American News, whose friends tease him about his perennial "this is the time" editorial at every election. "There is no doubt that electing an Arab-American to the City Hall in Dearborn would have sent a strong message to the rest of the country that Arab-Americans are part of the political process. Would we want it? Yes. Is it possible? No."

In nearby Detroit, local Sunni-Shia feuding connected with Iraq politics has recently been expressed in vandalism: Importing Sectarian Warfare?

•   •   •  

Details Emerge About Possible Terror Threat   [1/22/07]
Get this — terrorists planned to use America's flimsy borders and rubber-stamp student visas against us! We are so surprised.

Mimicking the hijackers who executed the Sept. 11 attacks, insurgents reportedly tied to al Qaeda in Iraq considered using student visas to slip terrorists into the United States to orchestrate a new attack on American soil.
    Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, recently testified that documents captured by coalition forces during a raid of a safe house believed to house Iraqi members of al Qaeda six months ago "revealed [AQI] was planning terrorist operations in the U.S." [...]
    U.S. officials now require universities to closely track foreign nationals who use student visas to study in the United States. University officials must report international students who fail to arrive on campus or miss class regularly. [...]
    Still, despite the heightened precautions, some security analysts fear that skilled terrorists -- handpicked because of their clean records and because they are carefully trained -- could still slip through an academic setting.

Presidente Bush personally pushed the idea of allowing 20,000 Saudi students to use American college slots in order to please his pals in The Kingdom.
    Plan B could just as easily be to dress those bomber boys up as Mexicans and bring them across the open border along with the millions of real Mexicans, a strategy noted in Congressional testimony by border sheriffs.

•   •   •  

Support grows to make English official   [1/22/07]
Good news here from Washington. Dare we hope that the bipartisan support for English indicates that the more conservative freshman class of Democrats is speaking up?
    Liberals support for turning the country into Babel with their false generosity of "bilingual" (Spanish) education is simply a pandering strategy designed to get more votes for Democrats.

[Rep. Steve] King is expected next month to reintroduce the English Language Unity Act, which seeks to make English the nation's official language. However, he said that timetable had been postponed until House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could complete the Democrats' "first 100 hours" agenda. "Nancy Pelosi has us under martial law," he said.
    "The states have been wonderful on this," said Jim Boulet Jr., executive director of English First, an organization that supports making English the official language. "The problem isn't getting bills passed, it's getting them enforced." Mr. Boulet described Mr. King's bill as "a good first step."
    In the last session of Congress, Mr. King drafted similar legislation and counted 160 co-sponsors, placing the bill in the top 2 percent of co-sponsored legislation. Although control of Congress has switched hands, the bill's advocates say the issue has broad, bipartisan support. "We don't necessarily expect them to jump in and say they support this unanimously," said Rob Toonkel, spokesman for U.S. English Inc., a group that supports making English the official language.

Support for American cultural values comes not a moment too soon, as evidenced by the latest demands: In Boston, Hispanics press for cultural recognition

Boston's Spanish-speaking Jamaica Plain neighborhood, which teemed with European factory workers in the 19th-century, is now the city's unofficial "Latin Quarter" -- and its residents are flexing their political muscle. [...]
    [Felix] Arroyo, a native of Puerto Rico, wants to change a half-mile stretch of Jamaica Plain's Center Street to "Avenue las Americas," one of several proposals he is resubmitting to Boston's City Council. [...]
    As in other U.S. regions, Boston's Hispanic identity is growing fast. Over the last 25 years, the share of immigrants in the Massachusetts workforce has nearly doubled, according to independent research group MassInc.
    Today, 17 percent of the state's workforce are immigrants -- up from roughly 9 percent in 1980. Nearly half of all new immigrants are from Latin American and the Caribbean; between 2000 and 2003, nearly one out of every five immigrants entering the state was Brazilian.

Renaming streets is one way foreigners work to remake cities in their own image and obliterate America. The most extreme example is Miami, once a nice southerly city: it has been remade by Cuban "exiles" and is now called the capital of Latin America.

•   •   •  

Police respond to handshake snub   [1/21/07]
Britain appears to be barreling ahead in the competition to be the first in Europe to succumb to Islam out of pure political correctness. The latest is a Muslim policewoman who refused to shake hands with her boss, Metropolitan police chief Ian Blair at a graduation ceremony. (Generic London police hijab shown.)

The woman, who wore a uniform hijab, also refused to be pictured with Sir Ian at the event on 21 December as she did not want a photo used for "propaganda purposes", the paper said.

How, pray tell, will this precious lady slap a pair of cuffs on a male in the act of arrest? Will she only arrest women? Direct traffic? File?
    Remember that last year the police allowed a Muslim to refuse to guard the Israel embassy.
    In other British Muslim police news, jihadist Omar Bakri Mohammed stated that Muzzie cops are loyal to Allah only, particularly when a serious Islamic insurrection comes down [Muslims in police will rise up, Bakri insists].

Moderate British Muslims in the police, Armed Forces and Civil Service will one day revolt against the system to "crush it from within", according to Omar Bakri Mohammed, the notorious Islamic extremist.
    In claims condemned as a cynical attempt to create division, the co-founder of the extremist al-Muhajiroun group said that Britain was "digging a deep hole" for itself by allowing Muslims into the Services and Whitehall.
    Speaking exclusively to The Sunday Telegraph in Lebanon, where he moved in August 2005 — at about the time it emerged the British authorities might charge him with incitement to treason — he claimed police officers, soldiers and civil servants would one day become radicalised.

•   •   •  

Sensitivity Lesson   [1/20/07]
All across the western world, Muslim immigrants have created a tsunami of complaints about their ill treatment here, when in fact the supposed backlash against Islamic terrorism has been practically nonexistant. No one forced these immigrants to come and no one prevents them from returning to the world of Islam, which is geographically quite large.
    Yet, the response in many societies has not been the obvious "Buzz Off" but instead a cowering deference (AKA dhimmitude), a fear that convinces our enemies that we are weak and ready to be conquered through immigration and terrorism. It's a strategy that has worked very well so far — you have to wonder why Hitler bothered to build all those tank battalions and bombers.
    Britain has been one of the worst in terms of appalling weakness in the face of Islam.

Here is an interesting little slice of contemporary English life.
    The police go to a pub in a small town in Devon, looking for a suspect. They see a man there who they think resembles the suspect, and approach him. He becomes abusive and they arrest him and take him down to the station. He is drunk.
    After a couple of hours in a jail cell, he says he feels sick and demands a doctor. The police call the police surgeon. When he arrives (he is an Indian), the arrested man says, "I want an English doctor, not a fucking Paki."
    The police then charge the man with racially aggravated insulting behavior. He elects for a superior court trial, and the prosecution proceeds with the case as though it were a very serious one.

Here in America, a pro-terrorist group, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), masquerades as a civil-rights organization, and the media and government go along with the falsehood. It recently received $50 million over 5 years for a media campaign to "dispel Islamophobia." That works out to $10 million a year, over $192,000 per week and more than $27,000 per day to be spent on pro-Islam jabbering in the press.
    We see the results constantly of all this propaganda money, most recently in CAIR's whine-fest about the television action series 24, which has had the temerity to show Muslims as terrorists in America: Hit US television show '24' under fire from Muslim group

Hit US television show "24" came under fire from a Muslim group, which accused the program's makers of fuelling anti-Muslim prejudice with its latest storyline.
    The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said "24's" season premiere, in which Islamic terrorists detonated a nuclear bomb near Los Angeles, risked stoking racial hatred.

Small detail is that in 2004 Osama has expressed his intention to kill 4 million Americans, with nuclear weapons being the means of choice. So one suitcase nuke would be only the beginning in the terrorist master plan.

•   •   •  

Smoke Screen: Hezbollah Inside America   [1/19/07]
Fox News has a special scheduled for Saturday (8 PM Eastern) about the Iran-connected terrorist group and their activities in this country. The top link has several video clips from the program.

•   •   •  

Violence against agents up 59 percent over fiscal year 2005   [1/19/07]
Border Patrol agents are in an impossible position, with increasing anarchy encroaching from Mexico but they do not have any support from the White House to do their job.

Between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, 2006, Yuma sector Border Patrol agents have been the victims of border violence 86 times — a 59 percent increase compared to 51 incidents during the same period the year prior, according to a news release.
    However, total apprehensions of illegal immigrants at the Yuma Sector was one of two ports along the southern U.S. border to experience a significant decline.
    During the last three months of 2006, Yuma agents made 9,320 apprehensions — a 63 percent decrease from the same period the year prior.
    U.S. Customs and Border Protection state that this is an indication that the Border Patrol is becoming better equipped to respond to and resolve border security threats between the ports of entry, according to a news release.
    Total apprehensions along the southern border from Oct. 1 through Dec. 31 dropped from 207,197 last year to 158,818 this year.

The figures show there is more violence from fewer people coming across; that sounds like more drug smugglers and serious bad guys in the mix.
    Here's another example of the growing violence on the border: Yuma Border Agent Dragged Into Canal.

•   •   •  

Top Ten Reasons Why the US Should Not Marry Mexico   [1/18/07]
My article criticizing a political merger with Mexico based on cultural dissimilarities is posted at VDARE.com.

#10 The legal age of heterosexual consent in Mexico is 12.
    As with many laws, there is some diversity according to locale and other variables, but this discussion of statutes agrees that 12 is the legally acceptable age for straight sex to occur in Mexico.
    Mexican men have a reputation for leering and worse at little girls, which shouldn't surprise us, since sex with children is socially acceptable in Mexico. Fifteen-year-old girls have a ceremony called a Quinceanera which announces their availability to become wives, mothers and girlfriends. In America, children of that age are expected to complete three more years of high school, to be followed hopefully by a college education. But in Mexico, young girls are considered available, according to law and custom.

•   •   •  

New "9-11 Commission" Bill Does Not Seal Immigration Loopholes   [1/18/07]
One of the promises of the Democrats in Congress was that they would implement all of the 9/11 Commission's recommendations, including those referring to immigration. Not the case, according to Mike Cutler.

The truth is that the House bill does not address the need to restore meaningful integrity to the immigration system and also secure our nation's borders. The Visa Waiver Program continues on and the President has recently called for the expansion of this program that imperils our nation's security. The proposed legislation does not address this loophole that makes it far easier for criminals and terrorists to enter the United States. While American citizens are required to remove their shoes before boarding airliners because Richard Reid, the notorious "Shoe Bomber" secreted explosives in his shoes. Meanwhile, what is ignored is that as a British citizen, Reid was able to board that airliner he intended to destroy in midair with his bombs, without first applying for and receiving a visa, because of the Visa Waiver Program. We are highly restricted in being able to bring any fluids on board airliners because a number of terrorists had planned to bring quantities of liquids on board airliners that are harmless by themselves, but become explosives when mixed together with other fluids. This ingenious scheme involving binary explosives was put together by more citizens of Great Britain. They too, could have boarded airliners without first obtaining visas.

•   •   •  

Judge denies agents' request to remain free   [1/17/07]
Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos [shown here with his wife Monica] and Jose Compean have been denied their last possibility to stay out of jail with the refusal of a federal judge denial of their appeal to remain free while their appeal is argued. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher has been a leader in their defense and an outspoken critic of the President.

"I'm ashamed of this president," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who with a group of lawmakers has been entreating the president to intercede in this case on behalf of the agents. "If this president had Christian charity in his heart he would have reached out to Ramos and Compean in some way."
    Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, had asked Bush to pardon the agents. When that didn't happen, the group of lawmakers asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales not to oppose the defense motion to continue their bail. Justice Department officials sent Cardone a letter saying they had no position on the motion. [...]
    "What I'm not optimistic about is that the two border patrol agents will survive when they are thrown in a cage with the criminals they've arrested in the last five or 10 years," Rohrabacher said.

A few days ago Rep Rohrabacher was even more blunt:

"We're going to find out whose side you're on ... the American people or the side of our enemies," Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican, said of Mr. Bush in a press conference this week. "If you let these two men go to jail for defending us, then we'll know you're on the side of our enemies."

Update: See photos from El Paso as Agents Compean and Ramos surrender to serve their prison terms -- from KFI radio in Los Angeles.

•   •   •  

A city divided: Farmers Branch residents take sides over laws   [1/17/07]
Farmers Branch, Texas, is one of the small towns that has stood up to the illegal alien invasion on its own, since the feds are so useless. The town council passes measures to make English the official language, to prohibit rentals to illegal aliens and train a town police officer to handle immigration cases. Of course, no good deed goes unpunished with the ACLU around, and the town has been clobbered with lawsuits.
    At least there is a little discussion of cultural issues, that Americans don't want their nation overwhelmed by an alien society.

David Landes, professor emeritus of history and economics at Harvard University who studies the role of culture in human affairs, says he believes that most opponents of illegal immigration hide their prejudices behind claims that they just want to see the law enforced.
    "I think the Anglos are unfavorable or hostile to the culture of Mexican immigrants or would-be immigrants, and would like to enforce the law as a way of keeping them out," he said.

What's wrong with being "hostile" to Mexican culture? What knowledgeable person wouldn't be? Mexican culture is sexist, violent, corrupt and apathetic toward education.

But that view is not shared by Lawrence Harrison, a senior research fellow at the Fletcher School, a graduate school of international affairs at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., who focuses on culture.
    He says he believes that there are too many Hispanic immigrants for America's melting pot to smooth out differences -- and that citing the law is not wrong. He says deference to the law illustrates a cultural difference between Anglo-Americans and Hispanic immigrants.
    "The rule of law is something that is much more well-established in our culture than it is in Latin American cultures, so it is relevant," he said. "It's sort of a symbol of the cultural difference."

Incidentally, Lawrence Harrison has a fascinating analysis of progress-prone versus progress-averse cultures (from the Social Contract article, Immigrants and Culture -- Two Value Systems), expressed below in a chart.

•   •   •  

Longshot Hunter Touts Win in Arizona Straw Poll, as McCain Runs Fourth   [1/16/07]
Oops! Wasn't Sen. McCain supposed to be a first-tier candidate and Rep Duncan Hunter a relative nobody? Apparently the death of conservatism in Arizona has been overstated a tiny bit by the MSM. And certainly Hunter's fine record on immigration enforcement (career voting grade A+) appealed to voters more than McCain's open-borders stance (career voting grade D).

It is hard to portray California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter as anything but an underdog as he explores a bid for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.
    Though the recent past chairman of the House Armed Services Committee is well known in national security circles, he is known to few voters outside his San Diego area 52nd District. He has never run statewide in populous California, much less cut a high national profile. [...]
    In an interview with CQPolitics.com on Tuesday, Maricopa County Republican Chairman Lyle Tuttle called the results "surprising," but said Hunter's strong opposition to illegal immigration, taxes and abortion rights — as well as his former chairmanship and current position as ranking Republican on Armed Services — are reasons why he led the poll among Republican activists who mainly lean strongly to the right.

Rep. Duncan Hunter is certainly a longshot for the Presidency, but he is a far more interesting candidate than most news coverage has indicated.
    Though he is conservative, he has important qualities that reach across the political spectrum. Unlike many in high office today, Rep. Hunter remains loyal to America as a nation state under the Constitution.
    Rep. Hunter was an early leader in opposing globalist schemes. He joined Ralph Nader and Democrat Marcy Kaptur in the early 1990s working to stop NAFTA, the "free trade" agreement which has grown into a Trojan horse to dismantle nationhood.
    Since the House of Representatives is arguably the area of government most attuned to the popular will, we should probably pay more attention to candidates from its halls, as should the press.

•   •   •  

Choice of Martinez sparks GOP rebellion   [1/16/07]
Intramurals taking place among the Rs over immigration over the hideous choice of Sen. Martinez for RNC Chair.

Rebellion is brewing among conservatives on the Republican National Committee over President's Bush's attempt to "impose" Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida as "general chairman" of the party, who favors "amnesty" for illegal aliens. [...]
    "Martinez's support of [Arizona Sen. John] McCain's immigration bill on amnesty for illegal aliens is causing a lot of concern among our base," said Mr. [Randy] Pullen. "I happen to know that people -- our $25 and $35 donors -- are writing on the back of our RNC solicitations for donations: 'When you close the border to illegal aliens, we'll open our checkbooks.' "

•   •   •  

Economic Costs of Illegal Immigration   [1/16/07]
There are a kazoodle of articles about the price tag on open borders for us taxpayers. This one has some good links and it is current, although it does understate the amount of remittances to Mexico by a factor of three (SB $20 billion in 2005).

As detailed in Importing Poverty: Immigration and Poverty in the United States: A Book of Charts the bottom line is that illegal immigration brings in a tremendous number of poor and uneducated people along with all their inherent problems. As noted in the KGTV report, Illegal Immigration Could Cost Taxpayers Trillions, “The influx of illegal immigrants has effectively "imported about 10 million high school dropouts into the United States," said Robert Rector, a senior research fellow in welfare and family issues for the Washington, D.C.-based think tank. [...]
    A 2004 study from the Center for Immigration Studies, The High Cost of Cheap Labor - Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget, was one of the first to estimate the impact of illegal immigration on the federal budget. Based on Census Bureau data, the study estimates that households headed by illegal aliens used $10 billion more in government services than they paid in taxes in 2002. These figures are only for the federal government; costs at the state and local level are also likely to be significant. The study also finds that if illegal aliens were given amnesty, the fiscal deficit at the federal level would grow by nearly $29 billion. Note that number is the direct costs and does not count all the indirect costs of the collateral damage being inflicted.

•   •   •  

For many minorities, UC Riverside is the campus of choice   [1/15/07]
Today is Martin Luther King Day, and apparently the media has decided to use the occasion to push its liberal diversity agenda: MLK Day — Diversity Hectoring Opportunity?
    Exhibit A, from the LA Times, is a feature on the most "diverse" campus in the UC system, which apparently means having the fewest whites, just 18.7 percent. Is zero the ideal?
    A negative kind of tribalism is encouraged by the university, sorting people into their ethnic groups in many instances. Say, wasn't diversity supposed to bring us all together, holding hands and singing kumbaya? It's not working out that way at all.

But some students say the university could do more to bring students of various ethnic groups together. There is too much emphasis on racial identity and not enough integration of the student body, they say. Campus clubs too often recruit solely along ethnic lines.
    "Everyone is very compartmentalized," says Amanda Moreno, 20, a third-year student who is half Mexican and half Italian. "It's never about integration. It's about making sure we maintain our identity."
    Other students complain that disciplines such as the sciences are not racially mixed. Gretchen Stanton, an African American chemistry major, says she sees few blacks in her classes.
    "While it looks very diverse, people are in their own groups a lot of the time," she says.

Many of a certain age went to schools where American civic values were emphasized and the differences between people were not stressed to such an extreme degress as today. The latest demographic educational fad does not seem an improvement.

•   •   •  

Former Mexican President Fox plans to develop tourist attraction   [1/15/07]
What happens to Mexican presidentes after their term of office is up?
    Well, some have to flee abroad to escape the wrath of the citizens, like Carlos Salinas. He has to live in Ireland in order not to be lynched for his criminal way in which he ran the economy into the ground, as well as connections to drug cartels.
    Vicente Fox appears to be taking the good works/entertainment route, creating a new destination for Mexico travelers.

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox and his wife have presented plans to convert a small rural community in Fox's central home state of Guanajuato into a major tourist attraction complete with a museum and five-star hotel, Mexican news media reported Saturday.
    The proposed development, which the newspaper Reforma dubbed "Foxilandia," or "Foxland," would be located in San Cristobal, a rural community of 2,500 people where Fox has his ranch, Reforma and the news agency Notimex reported.
    The complex also would include a museum, library, commercial center and a so-called postgraduate Center for Democracy Studies, the news reports said.
    "It is an ambitious project that will permit San Cristobal to have national and international prestige, in addition to converting it into a tourist attraction," Antonio Salvador Garcia, an area mayor who said he attended a private meeting on the project with Fox and others last week, told Reforma.

•   •   •  

Immigration 'out of control and harming our culture'   [1/15/07]
Here's another coffin nail in the death of multiculturalism, as more people refuse to celebrate diversity, no matter how much they are hectored by liberal media. In this case, the British are growing more alarmed at the breakdown of their society because of too much immigration.

MPs say the survey, commissioned by the Speakout Campaign, which is calling for a referendum on returning key powers from Brussels to Britain, shows the strength of feeling in the region and should be "an absolute wake-up call" to politicians.
    An alarming 72 per cent of the 1,225 people surveyed think Britain is losing its identity, while 72 per cent believe current levels of immigration are making community relations more difficult.

The sentiment is growing in Europe, even among the political class, that more enforcement is needed.

•   •   •  

Los Angeles Rally for Border Patrol Agents Compean and Ramos   [1/14/07]

Check out the other pictures from Save Our State showing the terrific rally on Saturday in support of the Border Patrol agents who are being railroaded to prison by the US Justice Dept. That's homeless activist and Minuteman Ted Hayes speaking, with Jim Gilchrist to the left of him. (Youtube of Ted.)
    Here are some remarks on the case from Lou Dobbs Tonight on Jan 10:

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Texas congressman Ted Poe led a group of lawmakers demanding the Justice Department not oppose a request that former Border Patrol agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos remain out of prison while their convictions for shooting an illegal alien Mexican drug smuggler are appealed. As we've reported, Ramos and Compean received 11 and 12-year sentences, while the Bush administration gave the wounded, allegedly unarmed drug smuggler, immunity from prosecution.
    REP. TED POE (R), TEXAS: And our federal government had the choice to make of being on the side a drug dealer who was bringing in a million dollars worth of drugs, or the side of two border agents that apparently were just enforcing the rule of law.
    WIAN: Among issues expected to be raised during the agents' appeal, the grant of immunity and other benefits given to Oscar Aldrete-Davila, who was caught again smuggling an even bigger load of dope into the United States. And allegations of jury misconduct. [...]
    [REP. DANA] ROHRABACHER: Well, it is bizarre. There's a bizarre policy in place here. The president's not wanted to admit to us like in the totalization agreement where they've included illegal immigrants to get Social Security benefits. He hasn't wanted to admit to us exactly what his policy is towards Mexico.
    And who has to pay for it? Who ends up getting hurt? Our Border Patrol agents, the guys who are trying to protect us. Of course, the other people getting hurt are the people who are being raped and murdered by illegal immigrants who come into our society, the criminals who now know the southern border is opened.

See also the Ramos family website, and the petition against injustice.

•   •   •  

World Day of Migrants and Refugees on Sunday   [1/14/07]
What would this Catholic day of migrant celebration be without a suitable sob story of families looking for reunification? Pope Benedict reminds the faithful that the holy family was forced into exile by the murderous King Herod, suggesting that the Baby Jesus was an illegal immigrant.
    Hardly, since the nation-state and the idea of legal boundaries didn't occur until much later in history. In addition, the population of the whole world in AD 1 was only 250 million, considerably less that just the USA today, with over 300 million and growing fast. Big difference.
Anyway, back to the present-day sniffler...

The quest to reunite families Somalis Fathia and Deka have one thing in common apart from their nationality, they both lost a loved one in the Mediterranean when the boats they were travelling in capsized. Fathia's calmness hid her deep sadness as she recounted how five months ago her six-month-old daughter Sihem drowned during a perilous journey from Libya.
    With the help of an interpreter, Deka narrated a similar fate. In November her husband died while they were crossing from Libya in the hope of reaching a European shore.
    The similarities do not stop there. Both women managed to save their own lives by holding on to a jerry can and waiting for someone to pull them out of the water.

Remember that these heart-tugging victims left their homelands voluntarily to travel in rickety boats to Malta, where the many thousands of new illegal aliens are not welcome on the tiny island, which is increasingly feeling "engulfed."
    Meanwhile, Catholic Bishops in Spain are rightly concerned about the influx of Muslim immigrants and their relentless demands for more influence in pursuit of jihad and a worldwide Caliphate. A recent Islamist ploy suggesting the Cordoba cathedral be opened to Muslim worshippers was rejected, for example.
    The moral is that immigration looks different when it is your own culture that is threatened by demographic warfare.

•   •   •  

A nation in search of 30 million brides for 30 million bachelors   [1/13/07]
The latest report of China's growing gender imbalance is another warning of a nation threatened by internal instability. We have to worry that future Chinese leaders will focus their aimless young men into foreign military adventures.

China will be short of 30 million brides within 15 years, according to an official report into the country's burgeoning population. About one in every ten men aged between 20 and 45 — equivalent to almost the entire population of Canada — will be unable to find a wife.
    The findings, from the State Population and Family Planning Commission, outline bleak prospects — and not only for bachelors. The report says that the gender imbalance could result in social instability — a threat that the Communist Party regards as the greatest risk to its grip on power.
    It is nearly three decades since China's rulers implemented a strict "one-couple, one-child" policy. It replaced Chairman Mao's focus on a high birth rate, which had been intended to ensure that China could fend off enemies with human-wave warfare. The unintended consequences of those severe controls have become increasingly pronounced.
    China's population is forecast to peak at 1.5 billion in 2033. That growth, coupled with demographic imbalances, will threaten social stability, the economy, the environment and jobs.
    One effect of China's strict population control has been a jump in gender selection of babies. The traditional preference for a son means that more and more women abort their baby if an early-term ultrasound examination shows it to be a girl. Officials deny that the gender imbalance is a result of the family planning policy.

Central is the deeply rooted sexism of tradition Chinese culture, a problem that is only worsening with technology [China confronts imbalance of sexes].

"Discrimination against the female sex remains the primary cause of China's growing gender imbalance," Liu Bohong, vice director of the women's studies institute under the All-China Women's Federation, was quoted as saying in a report from the State Population and Family Planning Commission.
    Sex-selective abortion is prohibited, but the government says the practice remains widespread, especially in rural areas.
    The report, carried in the newspaper, said China's sex ratio for newborn babies in 2005 was 118 boys to 100 girls, a major jump from 110 to 100 in 2000.

Both Indian and Chinese immigrants bring this cultural attribute with them to America.

•   •   •  

Nothing flat about tortilla prices   [1/13/07]
A few days ago, a LULAC mouthpiece declared that the meanie United States had corrupted angelic Mexicans: America to Blame for Illegal Aliens Turning to Crime, Latino Advocate Says.
    Now we're at fault for rising tortilla prices because of America's increased use of corn for ethanol, even though ethnanol corn is a different variety than the type used for food in Mexico.

"The price of oil is driving up the price of corn (because of increased ethanol production), which is driving up the price of tortillas," said Peter Navarro, a business professor at UC Irvine. "You push on one thing and another thing moves," added Navarro, the author of "If It's Raining in Brazil, Buy Starbucks."
    He said the U.S. ethanol stampede could be thought of "as a regressive tax on Mexico, because it raises the price of a basic commodity. In economics, we call these general equilibrium effects. Something happens in one market and it ripples through other markets."

Americans take one tiny step to decrease energy dependence on terror-spreading Saudis and it's a "regressive tax" on Moochico. Oh brother.

•   •   •  

The Anti-Profiling Agenda   [1/12/07]
Robert Spencer discusses the foolish idea of Democrats that sensible, lawful profiling is somehow racist. Along the way, he mentions several Muslims recently in the news for terrorist activities.

[2] Mohammed Yousuf Mullawala, a Muslim citizen of India, is the subject of a continuing investigation in Rhode Island after enrolling in a truck driving school, inquiring about getting a permit to carry hazardous materials, and telling instructors that he did not need to learn how to back up. Also, Rhode Island State Police Major Steven O'Donnell revealed that "we've tied some of his cell-phone records to people of interest nationally" --that is, people who are suspected of terrorist activity. "They're not your typical person's cell-phone history ... the volume of contacts obviously raises the level of suspicion." [...]
    [3] Imam Fawaz Damra, the former leader of the largest mosque in Cleveland, was deported to the West Bank last Thursday. When he arrived, Israeli authorities promptly arrested him for his ties to the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. His failure to disclose those ties got him deported in the first place. He was also captured on videotape telling an Islamic audience that "the first principle is that terrorism, and terrorism alone, is the path to liberation.... If what they mean by jihad is terrorism, then we are terrorists" -- despite having been a signer of the Fiqh Council of North America's much lionized condemnation of terrorism.
    [4] On Monday, a Pakistani Muslim, Shahawar Matin Siraj, was sentenced to thirty years in prison for his plan to blow up a Manhattan subway station.
    [5] Last Friday in Palm Springs, a man named Haider Mohammad, who claimed to be an Al-Qaeda operative, was arrested in a bar after threatening to "kill all Jews."

As I've noted before, there have been literally hundreds of foreigners prosecuted, deported and imprisoned on terrorist charges since 9/11, yet the media and Congress act like there's not a serious infiltration problem brought on by permissive immigration laws and open borders.

•   •   •  

Administration Offers Plan to Ease Rules on Asylum   [1/12/07]
Bush is the Energizer Bunny in all ways to make America the universal flophouse. The latest is a plan to create more Victim Visas for asylees.

After months of pressure from lawmakers, conservative groups and advocates for immigrants, the Bush administration announced plans on Thursday to seek legislation that would provide relief to thousands of refugees and asylum seekers who have been inadvertently denied refuge because of antiterrorism laws.
    The laws, including the USA Patriot Act and the Real ID Act, deny entry to anyone who belongs to or has provided material support to armed rebel groups, even if that support was coerced and even if the armed groups fought alongside American troops or opposed authoritarian governments criticized by the Bush administration.

Keep in mind that abuse of asylum laws is enormous. Paul Nachman cited a conversation with Professor Jan Ting of Temple University:

Learning that Professor Ting had been Assistant Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) from 1990 - 1993, under the first President Bush, I immediately asked him, "Is it true that 90 percent of refugee and asylum applications are fraudulent?"
    "95 percent," he replied.

•   •   •  

Why I hate my health insurance   [1/11/07]
Columnist Maggie Gallegher muses on medical care in general, what with ArnoldCare on the horizon, personal difficulties getting her diabetes treated, and then drops this item:

Meanwhile, this fall a dear friend and (uninsured) former baby-sitter of mine was diagnosed with bladder cancer. I offered to pay for the surgeon. She launched on an intensive search to find the resources to pay for the hospital expenses. The doctor who diagnosed her told her there was something called "emergency Medicaid" for which she qualified. The Medicaid bureaucrats told her there was no such thing. Finally one of them confessed that emergency Medicaid does exist, but you have to be an illegal alien to qualify.

What has happened to our Nation of Laws, when the government punishes the innocent and rewards the guilty?
    Meanwhile, Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan for taxpayer-subsidized healthcare for illegal aliens is a loser with California voters [Part of Schwarzenegger's health plan faces tough sell to public]:

Asked whether the state should guarantee health insurance for illegal immigrants, 37% answered yes, 52% no. The negative reaction was even stronger among registered voters: 32% yes, 58% no.
    Democrats are about evenly split on the question. But nearly three-fourths of Republicans and independents oppose guaranteeing health insurance for illegal immigrants.
    Two-thirds of Latino voters favor it. But only roughly a quarter of white voters do.
    There's an intriguing L.A. finding. Attitudes in Los Angeles County differ sharply from all other major regions of the state. In L.A., 52% of voters favor insuring illegal immigrants and only 42% oppose it. And that's not just because there are a lot of Latino immigrants in L.A. County.
    L.A. Latinos do overwhelmingly favor the notion — even more so than Latinos statewide — but a small plurality of whites also support it.
    By contrast, 56% of voters in the liberal San Francisco Bay Area oppose insuring illegal immigrants; only 32% favor it.

Schwarzenegger (aka The Spendinator) should remember that he became governor only after the recall of his predecessor Gray Davis for awarding a new benefit (state drivers licenses) to illegal aliens.

•   •   •  

A New Era of Refugee Resettlement   [1/10/07]
Don Barnett is a "recovering refugee worker" who has the scoop on the Refugee Industrial Complex. Unfortunately, he forecasts increasing numbers of refugees in the next year, many of whom will be financial drains on this society for their entire lives.

Once a group is selected for resettlement, most obstacles that might otherwise affect immigrants are cleared away.
    Economic integration is not an issue as it is for other immigrants since refugees are eligible for all forms of welfare on the same basis as U.S. citizens. Until the 1980s, the program was limited by the responsibilities and absorptive capacity of the organizations that "sponsor" refugees. But, as the program evolved into a federal responsibility, the charities turned into federal contractors and public money drove out private money.
    Most medical bars to immigration are waived for refugees. The U.S. public health service has committed to "curing" cases of TB among refugees selected for the program before carriers are admitted to the United States. HIV/AIDS is no longer a bar to the admission of refugees under a regulation promulgated in the last days of the Clinton administration.

•   •   •  

Damage to businesses and mosques in Detroit raises wider fears   [1/9/07]
Has the violent Sunni-Shiite feud of centuries' duration reached the United States? Some in Michigan believe so. The idea that Muslim immigrants in America have been more welcomed and are therefore better assimilated has always been a dreamy fantasy of multiculturalists with no basis in reality.

As they repaired the broken windows of at least a dozen businesses and mosques along Warren Avenue in Detroit, many Iraqi Shi'ite Muslims wondered Monday if the vandalism was retaliation by local supporters of Saddam Hussein who resented that they celebrated the hanging of the Iraqi dictator.
    Sometime late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, someone vandalized at least nine businesses and three mosques, all but one Shi'ite, according to Ali Zwen, manager of the Kufa Cultural Forum, a mosque at Warren and Archdale that sustained $4,000 in damage.

Here's the story from the other Detroit paper: Vandals hit Shi'a stores.

DETROIT -- Muslim leaders say a spate of vandalism over the weekend involving stores owned by local Iraqis could stem from brewing sectarian Islamic tension over the execution of Saddam Hussein.
    While Shi'a and Sunni Muslims are fighting in Iraq, the two groups generally get along in Metro Detroit and the United States. But Muslim and Arab leaders say the hanging of Saddam, and especially the timing of the execution, spurred hard feelings.
    They say the vandalized property was owned or operated by people of Iraqi descent who are Shi'a.
    "People are scared to come here. It's very dangerous, this place," said Inaam Alkhafaji [shown here], referring to her Detroit business, Dana Media, whose windows were broken.
    "It's a war with the Iraqi people. Maybe next time they kill us."

Can we chill on Muslim immigration yet?

•   •   •  

Manhattan Subway Bomb Plotter Sentenced to 30 Years   [1/8/07]
A Pakistani, Shahawar Matin Siraj, was just given hard time in the big house for attempted terrorism in New York City, and there is zip about it on the news. What's up with that?
    Probably the big brains at the networks don't want us to worry about all the Muslim terrorists, er immigrants who keep pouring in.

NEW YORK (AP) -- A Pakistani immigrant was sentenced on Monday to 30 years in prison for hatching an unsuccessful plot to blow up a busy Manhattan subway station as revenge for wartime abuses of Iraqis.
    Shahawar Matin Siraj, 24, was arrested Aug. 27, 2004, on the eve of the Republican National Convention. Though there was no proof he ever obtained explosives or was linked to any terror organizations, prosecutors said his intentions were ominous: He wanted to blow up the Herald Square subway station, a bustling transportation hub located beneath Macy's flagship department store.

Speaking of the blessings of diversity and culturally inappropriate immigration run amok, check out the horror stories from people in Britain...

In London today moslems dress differently, are rude to locals, jump queues, shout at us, wave their fists at us, call us 'worthless infidel' in public and in loud voices. I have, just four days ago, been elbowed aside by a moslem couple, with sidekicks, whilst trying to top up my Oyster card at a tube station at the automatic machine. Apparently, I had taken longer than the ten seconds that they were prepared to wait and so three burly males forced me aside and, when I objected, pushed me to the floor and - quite literally - and took over the machine which I was attempting to use.
    Not, in a crowded and impatient city like London that this was a surprise, but that in this instance that I was insulted by these people was a surprise. The eldest male in the group, dressed in the usual and ridiculous garb of mohammedans everywhere, looked directly at me amd said, in quite clear English, (and I quote verbatim) "Get out of our way infidel slave".

•   •   •  

In Mexico, 'People Do Really Want to Stay'   [1/8/07]
The millions of Mexicans fleeing their country only come for the money, not to join the American national community. Most would rather stay in their homeland than come illegally to the United States, where they are despised and exploited. Of course, they are plenty exploited at home.

PEGUEROS, Mexico -- Even as his village emptied, Pedro Martin stayed behind. His schoolmates abandoned the scrub-covered hills of central Mexico for the land they called El Norte-- the North. They mopped floors in Fresno, poured concrete in Tempe and tended other people's children in Galveston, measuring their lives in dollars.
    Martin worked at a poultry farm. His wages rose to 2,000 pesos per week, about $185. Meager by the standards of the north, it was enough to build a brick house with white tile floors. Enough to buy a car, and to stay in the village and watch his three boys grow, resisting the gravitational pull the United States exerts on much of rural Mexico.
    "Up north, even though they pay more, you're not necessarily living as well," Martin said, as church bells echoed down lanes of pastel-painted houses. "You feel out of place. Here, you can walk around the whole town and it's comfortable. Life is easier."

The article continues with an interesting analysis of NAFTA vis-a-vis a growing Mexican population. It notes additionally, "Mexico's government squandered opportunities for growth by failing to improve highways and ports." However, it doesn't mention how Marxican businessmen did not take advantage of the NAFTA opportunity by reinvesting their profits, instead payed themselves fat salaries, figuring the gravy train would last. Then China came along with even cheaper labor and took away their manufacturing.
    But it's small-scale agriculture that has really suffered under NAFTA.

Two hours south, in the village of Ejido Modelo Emiliano Zapata, Ruben Rivera sat on a bench in a forlorn plaza, rather than working on his seven-acre farm. He used to grow tomatoes and onions, hiring 150 workers to help at harvest. Now he doesn't even bother to plant. He can buy onions in the supermarket more cheaply than he can grow them. A crop of tomatoes yields less than the taxes. He lives off the $800 sent home monthly by his three sons, who run a yardwork business in Macon, Ga.

•   •   •  

Meet the New Swedes   [1/8/07]
Forget your Ingmar Bergman image of Sweden filled with blond, blue-eyed fellows; the most common name for baby boys in Malmo, Sweden, is Mohammed. And the generous, egalitarian Swedes can't pile on welfare benefits fast enough. Muslim immigrants don't have to work or learn to speak Swedish or assimilate in any way. Swedes hope that the kindness will convince immigrants to become part of mainstream society, but one gets the impression that Muslims see their benefactors as rich fools.

Most people think of Sweden as a land of tall, blue-eyed blondes. Yet this nation of nine million includes more than 1.2 million people who were born somewhere else. Immigration rates have doubled since the early 1980s, and have almost reached Canadian levels.
    Most of Sweden's newcomers are Muslims. Many of them settle in Malmo, which, with a Muslim population pushing 20 per cent of its 285,000 residents, has become one of the most Muslim cities in Western Europe. And Sweden, with 300,000 to 400,000 Muslims, is rapidly becoming one of Europe's most Muslim countries.

•   •   •  

Toys 'R' Us Reverses Controversial New Years Baby Decision   [1/7/07]
Yesterday I wrote about the unseemly squawking from the Chinese community about the outcome to a recent contest: Jackpot Baby Loses Extra Freebies; Complaints Ensue.
    The rules for the sweepstakes clearly state that "Sweepstakes only open to women... who are legal residents of the 50 United States or Washington DC." What could be more clear? Births to illegal aliens are not eligible.
    Yet when Chinese race hustlers shrieked "discrimination" Toys 'R' Us folded like a cheap lawn chair. The company decided to give $25,000 savings bonds to the top three babies, hoping to keep everyone happy. However, no friend of American law and sovereignty could find this an equitable outcome.

"This is particularly troublesome given the history of Asian-Americans in the United States, where we have been seen as invisible or treated as perpetual foreigners or second class citizens," said Liz OuYank of the Organization of Chinese Americans. "And here, clearly, she was born in the United States, is a U.S. citizen and the award should be based on simply that."

It's also tiresome that Chinese can continue to whine about how rotten America has been to them when they are doing quite well indeed as a group (e.g. the household income of Asians living in the US is 117% that of non-Hispanic Whites). A story in today's New York Times described at length how UC Berkeley has become "overwhelmingly Asian" as noted in the post just below.

When NY1 visited the baby and her parents Monday, through a translator Yuki Lin's father said, "the baby will bring us much more luck this year."

Another article ended with a threat from one of the Chinese shakedown artists who stirred up all this trouble [In Reversal, Toys 'R' Us Gives 3 Baby Prizes].

Some people were concerned that the parents' status had been exposed, he said. "But the safest place is actually the eye of the storm," Mr. Wang said, "and any politician who says we should deport the parents, it would be the end of their political career."

•   •   •  

Little Asia on the Hill   [1/7/07]
Take a walk on the UC Berkeley campus today, and you might think you had wandered into Chinatown, given the prevalence of Asian students. Meanwhile, ethnic organizations like Chinese for Affirmative Action (about preferences for Chinese, natch) continue to pursue race-based victimhood.

"Here, many people speak Chinese as their primary language," says Mr. Hu, a sophomore. "It's nice. You really feel like you donąt stand out." [...]
    I ask Mr. Hu what it's like to be on a campus that is overwhelmingly Asian — what it's like to be of the demographic moment. This fall and last, the number of Asian freshmen at Berkeley has been at a record high, about 46 percent. The overall undergraduate population is 41 percent Asian. On this golden campus, where a creek runs through a redwood grove, there are residence halls with Asian themes; good dim sum is never more than a five-minute walk away; heaping, spicy bowls of pho are served up in the Bear's Lair cafeteria; and numerous social clubs are linked by common ancestry to countries far across the Pacific. [...]
    But as the only son of professionals born in China, Mr. Hu fits the profile of Asians at Berkeley in at least one way: they are predominantly first-generation American. About 95 percent of Asian freshmen come from a family in which one or both parents were born outside the United States.

Interestingly, Chancellor Bergenau has complained of a "diversity crisis" on the Berkeley campus, completely ignoring the success of Asian students. UC Berkeley has plenty of diversity, it just doesn't correspond to the Chancellor's politically correct vision that has more to do with social engineering than with the pursuit of scholarship.

•   •   •  

Toys "R" Us Baby Contest Sparks Fuss   [1/6/07]
What is it about today's immigrants that they seem unable to abide by stated rules? Now there's a controversy about which child should be the winner of a contest for the first baby born in 2007. The originally announced winner was found not to meet the requirement that parents must be legal residents.

Although promotional materials called for "all expectant New Year's mothers" to apply for the contest, Waugh said eligibility rules required babies' mothers to be legal residents. Many sweepstakes have such requirements, Waugh said.
    Although Yuki was born an American citizen, Waugh said the contest administrator was told that Yuki's mother "was not a legal resident of the United States."
    Attempts to reach Yuki's parents, Yan Zhu Liu and Han Lin, 22, for comment were unsuccessful early Saturday. Their immigration status was not clear.
    The prize went instead to runner-up Jayden Swain, [shown here with mother Renee Swain] born 19 seconds after midnight at Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville, Ga.

As a result, some in the Chinese community were "outraged" that Toys 'R' Us would follow its own rules for its own contest, which the Chinese saw as treating the jackpot kid as a "second-class citizen" [