LimitsToGrowth Archive

 

September 2005
 

Secure borders: the hot issue   [9/30/05]
Jim Pinkerton's column leans a little optimistic, but is still an interesting read.

    George W. Bush has been a victim of this political shift. He was pursuing the same lenient bipartisan immigration policy of his presidential predecessors, and hoped by speaking a little Spanish he could garner some Latino votes. But Congressional Republicans, galvanized by Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, rebelled against the latest lax amnesty plan, now shelved.
        Now Tancredo, a tireless advocate for better border control, says he will run for president if nobody else will adopt his platform. Adding weight to his threat, Tancredo just finished second in a 2008-preference straw poll conducted by Michigan Republicans. He finished second behind Sen. John McCain of Arizona, but ahead of such better-known White House hopefuls as Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee and Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. The Republican Party is changing.
        But interestingly, the Democrats are changing too. The Democratic governors of Arizona and New Mexico, Janet Napolitano and Bill Richardson, have both taken extraordinary steps to regain control over their border with Mexico.
    The President is hardly a victim. He is a leader among the anti-sovereignty globalists and has worked consistently to erase the border with Mexico.

•   •   •  

Jihad's Fellow Travelers   [9/29/05]
This important article is an excerpt from the forthcoming book Defeating Jihad by Srdja Trifkovic.

    An effective defense against terrorism demands a re-think of our foreign and military policies. American soldiers should patrol the border with Mexico, not the streets of Falluja. In an ever more globalized world that will also gradually become less Westernized, the United States may remain single most powerful actor economically, technologically, and militarily for many years, even decades. The shape and nature of international alignments are in a state of flux, however. Continued attempts by an America that will grow progressively weaker vis-a-vis its global competitors to continue projecting its power offensively—especially in the Middle East—will have the same reward reaped by the Soviet Union after Afghanistan. Pursuing the path of "benevolent global hegemony" is certain to take us the same way. That would be the greatest favor the terrorists could hope for.

•   •   •  

The ACLU vs. America   [9/28/05]
The ACLU has probably the most anti-American values of any well known political organization — and that's saying a lot! The ACLU supports polygamy and child porn as lifestyle choices, policies which put it far out of the mainstream, yet the MSM treats the ACLU as fine folks instead of the pariahs they really are.
    FrontPage has an interview with Alan Sears, co-author of the new book The ACLU Vs. America.

    FP: Tell us about some of the extreme positions of the ACLU that many Americans probably do not know about.
        Sears: There are so many, but let's start with the issue of marriage. The ACLU's policy guide states that all civil and criminal laws prohibiting polygamy should be done away with. Earlier this year, during a speech at Yale Law School, ACLU President Nadine Strossen said: "We have defended the right for individuals to engage in polygamy. We defend the freedom of choice for mature, consenting individuals." [...]
        To show how extreme this is, of 92% Americans oppose such practices today as they have for nearly 150 years. Opposition to polygamy was in the first platform adopted by the new Republican Party in 1856 and several western states, including Arizona, where I live today, were required by Congress to outlaw the practice in their state constitutions as a precedent of being admitted to the union and even to bar the future reconsideration of the issue.
        The ACLU also asserts that the First Amendment, which was NEVER meant by its authors to do so, "protects" child pornography. This is material so foul, that after my years as a federal prosecutor and Director of the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, I call it "crime scene photography" because of the actual abuse required for its production. The ACLU asserts there should be no federal or state governmental restriction on its distribution, reproduction, sale, and use by pedophiles and others. A very small minority of the American public shares this view.

•   •   •  

Prison gang 'Godfather' breaks ranks   [9/28/05]
Here is a rare look at Mexican gangs in American prisons.

    Rene, 43, formerly known as Boxer and once ranked as a Mexican Mafia "Godfather", is serving several life sentences for killings committed in the name of the gang.
        For nearly 20 years, nothing stopped Rene in his climb from street thug to top leader in the Mexican Mafia.
        He killed men and ordered hits, ran elaborate drug rings, laundered money, and mobilised thousands of Latino street gang members for battle.
        Remarkably, Rene committed many of these crimes while serving a life sentence in one of America's most fearsome "Supermax" prisons using complex systems of communication and subterfuge.

•   •   •  

Beheading video man sent to jail   [9/28/05]
This example of culture clash comes to us from Scotland.

    A man who used his mobile phone to replay footage of a beheading in Iraq to a hotel shop worker has been jailed for 60 days.
        Subhaan Younis, 23, played the images to shocked Charlotte McClay last September at a hotel in Glasgow.
        Sentencing him at the city's district court, the stipendiary magistrate said he could not understand why Younis had the images on his phone.
        Euan Edment said jail was a fitting penalty for the breach of the peace.
        The magistrate told Younis: "I struggle to understand why you had images on your phone entailing the death and degradation of another human being, regardless of their religion or race.
    Are beheading videos the latest tech approach to the eternal male problem of how to pick-up females? Do young Islamic men think that horrific snuff films are attractive to western women? Unfortunately we are not informed of the motive behind this bizarre act.

•   •   •  

Making Ends Meet   [9/28/05]
America is being rapidly remade into a Latin America-like society where the middle class is shrinking, the poor are struggling to survive and the rich are becoming even more wealthy. Costs are going up, particularly healthcare, but wages remain flat. Immigration is not mentioned in this article, but it is one of the major factors fueling the transformation, along with outsourcing.

•   •   •  

Illegal Immigration Has Increased   [9/27/05]
No surprise here, given the President's pro-Mexico attitude. But because this article is taken from a Pew Hispanic report, the less threatening factors are stressed and the dangers of terrorism are given short shrift.

    Immigration levels closely mirror economic conditions in the United States _ as the economy improves, immigration increases _ suggesting that the lure of jobs is a strong factor in attracting people to this country, the report says. The U.S. economy appears to be a stronger factor than economic conditions in the countries sending immigrants here, the report says.
    In this way, Pew pushes the view that illegal aliens just come for "jobs Americans don't want" — a lie which the open-borders lobby still promotes despite clear evidence that poverty in America remains entrenched. As Robert Samuelson recently wrote ["Discovering Poverty" Sept 21] ...
    Given these trends, the overall poverty rate should be drifting down. It isn't. The main reason, as I've written before, is immigration. We have uncontrolled entry of poor, unskilled workers across our southern border. Although many succeed, many don't, and many poor Latino immigrants have children, who are also poor. In 2004, 25 percent of the poverty population was Hispanic, up from 12 percent in 1980. Over this period, Hispanics represented almost three-quarters of the increase in the poverty population.

•   •   •  

Immigration Choice As Bad As Brown   [9/27/05]
President Bush has consistently shown disinterest in border security at best; at worst he appears to be actively sabotaging it. The latest is another clueless nominee, a well-connected political hack, to be head of ICE.

    The Bush administration should have learned enough from Mike Brown's downfall about the consequences of putting political hacks in critical positions. Yet, only days after Mr. Brown's forced departure as FEMA director, the administration was asking Congress to approve another unqualified candidate for an important job.
        Julie Myers, 36, is the White House nominee to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but when she appeared before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, it quickly became clear that there's virtually nothing on her resumé that qualifies her — no significant experience in customs, immigration or hands-on law-enforcement work. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, was so disturbed that he called on the administration and Ms. Myers to explain themselves. Her answer was that she would "seek to work with those who are knowledgeable in this area, who know more than I do." That list would include about everyone in the agency.
    In additional, the National Review has called for President Bush to rescind the Myers nomination, and seconds Michele Malkins' suggestion for an outstanding candidate for ICE chief, Peter Nunez. ["Withdraw Myers"]
    Columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin has suggested a much better pick for the ICE job: Peter Nunez — Navy veteran, Reagan-era U.S. Attorney in San Diego, and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Enforcement during the first Bush administration. His views on immigration are more in line with those of NR than the White House, but this should actually be an additional selling point: By selecting Nunez as the nation's top immigration-enforcement officer, the president would have much more credibility with Congress and the public in trying to sell his immigration proposals.
        The response of House Republicans to any talk of new immigration programs has been "Enforcement First." Replacing Myers with a more suitable candidate would signal that the White House takes these concerns seriously. Obstinately sticking to the nomination would send the opposite message.

•   •   •  

Governor's Initiatives Go It Alone   [9/26/05]
Interesting that California's Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger can still recognize and speak about facts that many in his position are too fearful to mention, e.g. Population in this case.

    "We have an increase of population of 500,000 people a year," Schwarzenegger told his San Diego audience. "That means 5 million more people in 10 years... If we cannot provide for the people already now, with 37 million, how can we provide for 42 million?"

•   •   •  

Swazi king picks young new wife   [9/26/05]
King Mswati is still one swinging monarch, having just chosen his latest bride (#13) from a gaggle of applicants, all dressed minimally so His Highness will know what he is getting. But tradition must be served, along with the kingly libido!

    Days earlier, the king had rescinded a ban on sexual relations for girls younger than 18.
        The ban was started by the king in 2001 to fight Aids in a country where some 40% of the population is HIV positive.
        But the move had been unpopular with Swazi youths and its implementation had sparked controversy.
        Just two months after imposing the ban, the king fined himself a cow for breaking it by taking a 17-year-old girl as his ninth wife.

•   •   •  

FBI: 'Jihad' prevented in Los Angeles   [9/26/05]
According to court documents, three men planned a mass killing spree in military recruitment centers as part of an Islamic attack against America. One of the accused is a student from Pakistan and the other two are home-grown.

    All accepted the possibility of dying in an attack, with Patterson believing "the ultimate goal is to die for Allah in jihad," according to the affidavit.
        Prosecutors contend the men were working at the behest of Kevin James, a California State Prison, Sacramento, inmate who founded the radical group Jamiyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh, or JIS. Washington converted to Islam while imprisoned there for a previous robbery conviction.

•   •   •  

Artist hits at Tate 'cowards' over ban   [9/26/05]
Once again, a British institution has buckled under the imagined fear that Muslims might be offended, in this case a well known museum which pulled a work of art using religious books. (See a photo at this link.)
    Isn't modern art supposed to challenge the mind? Obviously the Tate fears that jihadist sensibilities might be inclined toward explosive reaction, but the museum wasn't even threatened.

    John Latham's God Is Great consists of a large sheet of thick glass with copies of Islam, Christianity and Judaism's most sacred texts - the Koran, Bible and Talmud - apparently embedded within its surface. [...]
        Last night Latham, 84, who insists that the piece is not anti-Islamic, told The Observer: 'Tate Britain have shown cowardice over this. I think it's a daft thing to do because if they want to help the militants, this is the way to do it.
        'It's not even a gesture as strong as censorship: it's just a loss of nerve on the part of the administration.'
    Meanwhile on the continent, Muslim artist Chokri Ben Chikha has no problem offending Christians by a poster of a bare-breasted virgin Mary holding a bowl of blood and a squawling baby Jesus. The poster advertises a play, Our Lady of Flanders, to show the difficulties immigrants suffer at the hand of cold-hearted Europeans. The play also has plenty of anti-Semitic dialogue, which the artist says he wishes to "show" though not condemn. For his efforts, he is supported by the Belgian government.

•   •   •  

La Nueva Orleans   [9/25/05]
Naturally la Times' Mexican columnist thinks it's a fine idea that America's unique gem at the mouth of the Mississippi may well become another Los Angeles — a third-world city where English is disappearing.

    NO MATTER WHAT ALL the politicians and activists want, African Americans and impoverished white Cajuns will not be first in line to rebuild the Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast and New Orleans. Latino immigrants, many of them undocumented, will. And when they're done, they're going to stay, making New Orleans look like Los Angeles. It's the federal government that will have made the transformation possible, further exposing the hollowness of the immigration debate.
        President Bush has promised that Washington will pick up the greater part of the cost for "one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen." To that end, he suspended provisions of the Davis-Bacon Act that would have required government contractors to pay prevailing wages in Louisiana and devastated parts of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. And the Department of Homeland Security has temporarily suspended sanctioning employers who hire workers who cannot document their citizenship. The idea is to benefit Americans who may have lost everything in the hurricane, but the main effect will be to let contractors hire illegal immigrants.
        Mexican and Central American laborers are already arriving in southeastern Louisiana. One construction firm based in Metairie, La., sent a foreman to Houston to round up 150 workers willing to do cleanup work for $15 an hour, more than twice their wages in Texas. The men — most of whom are undocumented, according to news accounts — live outside New Orleans in mobile homes without running water and electricity. The foreman expects them to stay "until there's no more work" but "there's going to be a lot of construction jobs for a really long time."
        Because they are young and lack roots in the United States, many recent migrants are ideal for the explosion of construction jobs to come. Those living in the U.S. will relocate to the Gulf Coast, while others will come from south of the border. Most will not intend to stay where their new jobs are, but the longer the jobs last, the more likely they will settle permanently. One recent poll of New Orleans evacuees living in Houston emergency shelters found that fewer than half intend to return home. In part, their places will be taken by the migrant workers. Former President Clinton recently hinted as much on NBC's "Meet the Press" when he said New Orleans will be resettled with a different population.
        It is not the first time that hurricanes and other natural disasters have triggered population movements. In 1998, Hurricane Mitch slammed into Central America, sending waves of migrants northward. The 2001 earthquakes in El Salvador produced similar shifts. The effects of Hurricane Andrew may better foretell New Orleans' future. The 1992 storm displaced 250,000 residents in southeastern Florida. The construction boom that followed attracted large numbers of Latin American immigrants, who rebuilt towns such as Homestead, whose Latino population has increased by 50% since then.

•   •   •  

Homegrown Gangstas   [9/24/05]
In France, the homey Muslim boys are restless, angry, and are expressing themselves in violent anti-France rap music.

    IN THE AFTERMATH of the London bombings perpetrated by homegrown jihadists, Europeans are rethinking their approach to multiculturalism in general and their tolerance for hate speech--especially the sermons of radical imams--in particular. In France, which has long had hate-speech laws, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy moved swiftly in July to announce the expulsion of a dozen radical imams, though only two have actually been deported. But even as public alarm grows about radical sermons another form of incitement common in France has gone largely unnoticed--namely, anti-French rap music.
        During the mid-1990s, rap entered the mainstream of French popular culture. Since then, some of the most successful groups in French pop music have been rap bands made up mostly of French citizens of Arab or African descent. Among the most popular is NTM (which stands for Nique ta mere, "F--your mother"), a Sony Records group. NTM is famous for lyrics which attack France and especially the police. During a concert in 1995, NTM sang: "I f--the police, I sodomize and pee on the law! Our enemies are the men in blue" (French cops wear blue uniforms). This outburst earned NTM members a three-month prison sentence, later commuted to a fine (though NTM member Joey Starr has been in and out of prison for 15 years for drugs, assault, weapons charges, domestic-abuse, and for spitting on police).

•   •   •  

Democrats Try to Get Back in the Game   [9/23/05]
Columnist Cal Thomas considers the Dems attempt to wrest itself from the pacifist left and appeal more to heartland Americans. Apparently the Democrats might be willing to give up their obsession with "diversity" and open borders. Maybe.

    Democrats have indicated they might make illegal immigration a major issue in the next two campaigns because they see the Bush Administration's vulnerability on it. Whether they will risk offending the Hispanic voter base they — and Republicans — have tried to attract by doing more to reduce illegal immigration remains to be seen.
    Both political parties underestimate hispanics in this regard. A principled policy to make immigration controlled, legal and reduced would find many supporters among hispanic citizens.

•   •   •  

Homesick 'Lost Boy' returns to Syracuse   [9/22/05]
The well paid Refugee Industrial Complex, which provides "help" for its foreign charges, would have us believe that people from vastly different cultures happily adjust to living in America. Conveniently, the press likes diversity-affirming Horatio Alger stories of grateful refugees achieving their American dream.
    The truth is far less positive: some (many?) refugees remain homesick and wish they could return to their own familiar culture. Most are ill prepared to survive in our complicated world, much less thrive.
    The Syracuse Sudanese story is a rare example showing a refugee who was unhappy: he tried to return home to Africa, but was dragged back to New York state by his minders at Catholic Charities (which receives billions of taxpayer dollars annually for its refugee services).

    It was too cold in Syracuse, and he didn't feel comfortable, he said. He bought a car, then totaled it in an accident in October 2003.
        Manyang said he applied to U.S. immigration officials for a green card, which would allow him to travel outside of the United States, but the process takes up to three years. Last year, he also applied for travel documents that would allow him to leave the country.
        In February 2004, he talked to his mother by phone. He was homesick, he said. He tried to price plane tickets to Kenya and Sudan at Hancock Airport. But he got into a fight with a desk clerk, he said, and was taken to jail.
        He thought his immigration applications were taking too long, he said, and came up with a new plan: Lose his visa, travel to Mexico and get deported to Sudan.
    It's also worth noting that the American immigration system taught Manyang how to cheat; he merely chose poorly by going to Mexico to run his scheme.

•   •   •  

Muslim Students Protest Closure   [9/22/05]
Italian authorities closed the Islamic school for code violations and an "unauthorized curriculum" but the controversy shows that Muslims have no interest in assimilating to Italy's society.

    On Monday, about 30 children, some of the girls in head scarves, held a symbolic class session widely broadcast by Italian television. The students gathered on a busy Milan sidewalk on Via Quaranta between the school and the mosque. They raised their hands to answer mock questions, and several of their parents told reporters that they felt they were being discriminated against and were considering returning, reluctantly, to their native countries. [...]
        But the dispute goes far beyond whether the small, nondescript school was up to code. It reflects the wider debate in Italian society over the role of Muslim immigrants. Many Italians, and some immigrant groups, argue that running an independent Islamic school ghettoizes the children, and can even lead to their radicalization if they are not integrated.
        "Islamic children should go to state schools and learn Italian," Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said in the days after the closure order. "I do not want ghettos. Rather, I want an Italian Islam."
        A leading Roman Catholic newspaper editorialized against the school, which it said had emerged as the "most emblematic icon" of the "Islamic question" in Italy.
        "With the stated objective of preserving the culture of the countries that [the immigrants] came from, an impenetrable reality is being allowed to grow Š that can incubate hostile feelings toward a society they will see as impure," the Avvenire newspaper of the Catholic Bishops' Conference said. "This will create fertile ground for the manipulation of fundamentalism and terrorism."
    Interesting that the Catholic hierarchy in Italy sees lack of assimilation as a problem — unlike their counterparts in the US where the Vaticrats are among the biggest boosters of open borders.

•   •   •  

Governor defends border watchers   [9/22/05]
California's Gov. Schwarzenegger has again defended the Minutemen, and just before an official visit to Mexico.

    "It's no different than if you have a neighborhood watch person there that's watching your children at the playground. I don't see it any different," he said. "Or, if I have my personal guards at the house, because I feel like the police (are) not going to be able to take care of the job because they are overwhelmed. It's just that private citizens take on the responsibility."
        The governor stressed the Minutemen organization should be held to high standards. "(The) key to the whole thing that we have no violations, and we have no one carrying guns, and no one is harassing people," he said. "But they notify the border patrol if they miss somebody -- end of story. That's the mission.
        "I think no one in Mexico should be offended by that, because we are not harming anybody."
    Nice use of the word "we"!
    On the other hand, President Bush, Mexico's relentless advocate, has called the Minutemen "vigilantes." But if the federal government was doing its job of protecting the nation's borders, there would be no need for citizen border watchers.

•   •   •  

In Mexico, the underdog has his day   [9/21/05]
On the occasion of Mexican Independence Day, here's some pop psychology about why Mexicans are so consumed with their "dignity," e.g. going insane over soccer and similar inanities.

    George Grayson, a Mexico expert at The College of William and Mary, said the Old South in the United States, which suffered physical devastation or at least social upheaval from the Civil War, offers an analogy of what might be happening in Mexico.
        "Areas that have lost wars overcompensate for their defeats by manifesting excess patriotism," he said, noting the popularity of "Stars and Bars" symbols in the former Confederate states.
        Also, to keep Mexicans united in the face of elements such as large-scale migration to the United States, the proliferation and power of drug cartels and rise of indigenous Zapatista rebels, the government for years has taken symbolic counter-measures, he said.
        Those include emphasizing national holidays, protecting the nationalized petroleum industry from privatization efforts and placing huge flags in plazas across the country, from Mexico City to Nuevo Laredo.
    Perhaps if their nation weren't so corrupt, and the average education were more than the fifth grade, Mexicans wouldn't be living in a failed state. After all, Mexico is Latin America's wealthiest country, but its citizens are too lazy to do the hard work of political reform.

•   •   •  

Romney stands by comments about Muslims   [9/21/05]
It's so rare for a politician on the national stage to refute political correctness that sometimes you have to blink and read twice. Remember that Gov. Romney of Massachusetts had called for bugging mosques because some Muslims are terrorists and want to kill us. Of course he is being hammered by the usual suspects such as the ACLU.

    Romney said in a Wednesday speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., that U.S. counterterrorism efforts need to be focused on tracking Muslims that come into the U.S.
        "How many individuals are coming to our state and going to those institutions who've come from terrorist-sponsored states? Do we know where they are? Are we tracking them?" the governor said, according to a transcript provided by his press aides.
        He continued, "How about people in settings, mosques for instance, that may be teaching doctrines of hate and terror? Are we monitoring that? Are we wiretapping? Are we following what's going on? Are we seeing who's coming in? Are we seeing who's coming out? Are we eavesdropping, carrying out surveillance on those individuals from places that sponsor domestic terror?"
        While the Anti-Arab Discrimination Committee said Romney's remarks were "dangerous" and asked him to retract them, Romney told reporters that he stood by his comments.
        "When it comes to protecting our citizens, there is no place for political correctness," Romney said at an unrelated press conference. "We should be doing more in terms of intelligence and counterterrorism in the state to protect ourselves from terrorists. We spend a lot of our resources thinking about response, but response can't protect us. We have to be able to prevent attacks."
    Can you imagine President Bush ever saying something like that?!

•   •   •  

Hmong voters gave Kelly a lift in primary   [9/21/05]
Tucked away in this happy-face article about Hmong voters in St. Paul are indications of America's election system becoming that of the third world. Remember that a requirement of citizenship is the ability to speak and understand English!

    Another judge gave an almost identical estimate, noting that many of the Hmong voters also were elderly, didn't speak English and needed help to make their way through the voting process.
        Records show about a third were 70 or older, and a number of voters were unable to write their names and signed the registration book only with an "X."
    Under the federal Voting Rights Act, cities and counties must provide foreign-language ballots if 5 percent of the voting-age population or 10,000 residents have limited English proficiency and speak another language. Foreign language ballots are becoming very expensive for areas like California where there are many different groups of immigrants.

•   •   •  

We The (American) People   [9/20/05]
The anniversary of the signing of the Constitution was Sept. 17, and Investor's Business Daily uses the occasion to praise Supreme Court Chief Justice nominee John Roberts. IBD in particular approves of Roberts' American viewpoint, in comparison with the cosmopolitanism now in vogue in the Court.

    In a profile of [Justice] Kennedy in the Sept. 12 New Yorker, legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin noted that Kennedy "has become a leading proponent of one of the most cosmopolitan, and controversial, trends in constitutional law: using foreign and international law as an aid in interpreting the U.S. Constitution."
        That "cosmopolitan" trend, Rep. Steve King of Iowa notes, coincides with 93 foreign trips taken by Supreme Court justices between 1998 and 2003. As King states, "The implication is that there are at least a couple of justices, chiefly Kennedy and Breyer, who are more enamored of the 'enlightenment' of the world than they are bound by our own Constitution."
        O'Connor said recently, "I suspect that over time we will rely increasingly on... international and foreign courts in examining domestic issues."
        Roberts criticized such "cosmopolitan" nonsense, saying it "allows the judge to incorporate his or her own preferences, cloak them with the authority of precedent in foreign law and (then) use that to determine the meaning of the Constitution."
        Another problem, he said, is you can find anything you want in foreign law. "If you don't find it in the decisions of France or Italy, it's in the decisions of Somalia or Japan or Indonesia or wherever."
        Roberts has made clear that the meaning of the Constitution and the intent of those who wrote it are not to be found in Somalia, 2005, but in Philadelphia, 1787. That's all the precedent we need.

•   •   •  

Sudan's sick turn to spiritual healers for cures   [9/20/05]
Traditional medicine holds sway in Sudan, particularly since there are so few real doctors in the country and spiritual healers are familiar. (Remember the U.S. State Department granted 1015 diversity visas to Sudan in 2005.)
    Removing demons is a popular treatment:

    Aisha says she became possessed after her ex-husband went to a black magician to prevent her from marrying again. Mariam says a jealous colleague was responsible for creating her marital problems. Both women said they suffered headaches and vomiting.
        "People do not discuss their problems any more. These days, if someone has a problem with someone else they go straight to a witch-doctor to put a curse on them," said Aisha, a secondary school teacher.

•   •   •  

Sierra Club member calls for director's resignation over immigration debate   [9/20/05]
As noted several times on this website, the Sierra Club sold out environmentalism for $100 million dollars as clearly explained in the Los Angeles Times article, "The Man behind the Land" (Oct. 27, 2004). Nice that other environmentalists have noticed.

    RICHMOND, Va. - A Sierra Club member staged a small protest Monday calling for the resignation of the environmental group's executive director, accusing him of accepting money from a donor in exchange for halting the group's discussion of immigration policy.
        James McDonald, a 60-year-old Springfield attorney, said Carl Pope accepted more than $100 million from California donor David Gelbaum in 2001 only after promising Gelbaum the club would stay out of the immigration debate. Pope and leaders of the venerable conservation group called McDonald's allegations ridiculous.
        A faction within the San Francisco-based Sierra Club has long urged a stronger stance against immigration, arguing that the growing U.S. population is putting an enormous strain on natural resources. But the Sierra Club's members have twice voted to remain neutral in the immigration debate. [...]
        [Investor David] Gelbaum, the donor, was quoted last year by The Los Angeles Times as saying: "I did tell Carl Pope in 1994 or 1995 that if they ever came out anti-immigration, they would never get a dollar from me."
    See also the excellent background article on the Sierra election in question written by John Leo.

•   •   •  

Sanctuary Cities: A New Civil War   [9/19/05]
Sanctuary is one of the most damaging policies to emerge out of the meltdown of law and borders. A police officer who works in a sanctuary city is forbidden to inquire about the immigration status of a suspect, even if he knows from personal experience that the foreigner is an illegal alien.

    Cities began adopting sanctuary laws in the 1980s, supposedly to foster trust between illegal immigrants and police. Proponents argued that crimes would not be reported, witnesses to crime would not come forth and immigrants wouldn't cooperate with police if they feared deportation. Yet the policies adopted reflect the power of immigration advocacy groups more than concerns about crime prevention. Politicians in large cities with significant immigrant populations simply surrendered to the demands of immigrant rights groups that sought to minimize — if not extinguish — the distinction between legal immigrants and illegal aliens. [...]
        The resulting policies not only tolerate crime — after all, illegal immigrants are lawbreakers — but actively abet and protect criminal activity by handcuffing the powers of the police.

•   •   •  

The Chinese region with women in charge   [9/19/05]
The social standing of the Mosuo women is exceptional for China, one of the most brutally misogynist societies on earth.

    "Mosuo women have the responsibility for all family affairs," explained 42-year-old Ruhen Zashi Chili, in the lakeside hamlet of Lou Shui.
        "And most importantly, women determine the family line and only women have the right to inherit."
        Traditionally, sons live with their mothers, while their fathers have little to do with the child's welfare.
    In most parts of China, females are despised, and millions of female fetuses have been aborted because of their gender.

•   •   •  

Vang Defenders Question American Jurisprudence   [9/19/05]
Despite convicted mass murderer Chai Vang's shocking declaration that some of his victims deserved to be killed because they were disrespectful to him, the Hmong community continues to defend his actions.

    If only there had been a Hmong on the jury, the killer's advocates say, someone would have understood Vang's actions. Are they saying that Hmong normally excuse mass murder (in this case, where four people were shot in the back)? If so, then there is a very severe failure of Hmong to assimilate to the most basic of American values.

•   •   •  

Fox offer to send Mexican laborers spurned   [9/18/05]
Among the disgusting parasites attaching themselves to the tragedy of Katrina, you can add the country of Mexico. El Presidente Fox could hardly wait for the winds to stop before he suggested that normal laws prohibiting the hiring of illegal aliens be shelved, and Bush acquiesced.
    But Congressman Charlie Norwood has said No Thanks.

    "We should not allow our national tragedy to become Mexico's gain. The time for talk is over. The time for pleas for the administration to simply enforce the law is over," Mr. Norwood said. "Hardship has a way of bringing families together.
        "If there is anything positive that can come from such an incomprehensible disaster as Hurricane Katrina, it could likely be in forcing us to come back together to help defend each other, instead of letting potential taxpayer-funded jobs for storm victims to be looted by illegal immigrant labor cheered on by Mexican President Vicente Fox."
    Rebuilding the New Orleans area and southern Mississippi should be done by American workers, period.

•   •   •  

With Traffic at a Crawl, Planners Talk of Tunnels   [9/18/05]
In southern California, gridlock is apparently causing psychosis, at least among politicians. The problem is immigration-fueled overpopulation, and spending billions of dollars on hare-brained tunnel schemes won't solve it.

    With Southern California's population projected to grow from 18 million to 23 million by 2030 — and with three of four motorists still traveling alone — the average speed on most area freeways during the peak morning commute is expected to drop from 34 mph to 20 mph or less.
    Besides the ridiculous cost at a time when the US debt is nearing $8 trillion, the area is riven with earthquake faults! Even la Times' article admits that the previous model, Boston's Big Dig, has been a boondoggle, costing $15 billion (several times its original estimated price) and not alleviating much traffic.

•   •   •  

Ripe crops languish in the fields — It's harvest time in the Central Valley, but where are the farmworkers?   [9/18/05]
The raisin harvest is going unpicked because increasingly, agricultural labor is work that Mexicans just don't want to do. They would rather get better paid jobs higher up the food chain.

    Many of the farmworkers who year after year make the trip from their homelands to California, doing the work Americans shun, have found their own ladders of success to climb. They're taking better-paying jobs in construction and landscaping in the booming Central Valley communities where they once picked a cornucopia of crops. Construction alone may be taking 40 percent of the available workforce, growers estimate.
    Just a few years ago, construction paid middle class wages for American workers. Now it is dominated by exploitable illegals who work for a fraction of what citizens need to support a family. Why else would an employer hire someone who doesn't speak English?

•   •   •  

Mission park honors Mexican freedom day   [9/17/05]
San Francisco struggles to balance its budget, but it managed to find $30,000 to refurbish a statue of Father Hidalgo in Mission Delores Park.

    Adults such as Arturo Gonzalez, an activist in the city's Mexican community, said the day was an opportunity to honor its heritage.
        "The whole goal is never to forget where you're from," said Gonzalez, who was born in Mexico but grew up in San Francisco. "My kids were born here, but you never forget that Mexican heritage."
    By comparison, the city's 2004-5 budget for the Grants to the Arts recipients shows $6,000 allocated for the Memorial Day Ceremony and $13,500 for Veterans Day Parade. Furthermore, San Francisco Supervisors recently voted down the opportunity to welcome the historic battleship Iowa to the city.

•   •   •  

Burger King recalls 'sacrilegious' desserts   [9/17/05]
Keeping up with all the things that "insult" sensitive Muslims is time consuming, to say the least. The complaining Muslim said he felt "humiliated" by a simple graphic representing soft ice cream. (Mr. Softee better watch out.)
    It's quite a stretch to imagine that an ice cream swirl rotated 90 degrees approximates the name of Allah (check it out), but a major company is spending a pile of money in order not to go on the shakedown, er, fatwah list.

    The offending lid was spotted in a branch in Park Royal last week by business development manager Rashad Akhtar, 27, of High Wycombe.
        He was not satisfied by the decision to withdraw the cones and has called on Muslims to boycott Burger King. He said: "This is my jihad. How can you say it is a spinning swirl? If you spin it one way to the right you are offending Muslims."
    The last little while has been awash in Muslims taking offense at one thing or another...
    •   Similar to the ice cream kerfuffle, a Danish shoe company was taken to court for a doodle on flip-flops alleged to insult Allah by squishing his name with every step (according to Fjordman).
    •   A Maylasian "teapot cult" was found objectionable and later destroyed.
    •   Amsterdam artist Theo van Gogh was assassinated for making the film "Submission" because Mohammed Bouyeri thought it insulted Islam.
    •   Muslims residing in Scotland became irate when an Italian restaurant began serving drinks outdoors.
  Of course, "Freedom stops when Muslims feel insulted" as was noted during the anti-free-speech trial of Michel Houellebecq (who called Islam the "dumbest religion") in France. Shutting down even imagined slights to Islam is the daily strategy of its relentless propagandists.

•   •   •  

Annie Jacobsen: Another 9-11 could easily happen   [9/17/05]
Annie Jacobsen was the woman who wrote last year in WomensWallStreet.com about her terrifying experience of being aboard an airplane she and many other passengers believed was about to be hijacked. For her honesty and civic responsibility, she was berated as a racist and a fool. Now she is back with extensive research and has written a book. What she has found should make us all concerned that Middle Eastern men are probing commercial flights for another attack.

    After the article ran, hundreds of airline personnel contacted me to say they had witnessed similar events. Gary Boettcher, an American Airlines captain and president of the 22,000-member Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations, said that what happened on Flight 327 "is not a singular nor isolated experience. The terrorists are probing us all the time."
        Mark Bogosian, another American Airlines pilot, wrote: "The incident you wrote about and incidents like it occur more than you like to think. It is a 'dirty little secret' that all of us, as crew members, have known about for quite some time."

•   •   •  

Work of Mexican marines may score political points   [9/16/05]
Contrary to this puff piece, El Presidente Fox's contingent of Mexican troops sent to the Katrina disaster zone was a transparent public relations ploy, planned to generate positive media coverage, period. Fox is angling for an amnesty for millions of illegal aliens from his country, nothing more.
    In fact, anyone who believes the "good neighbor Mexico" propaganda has a short memory indeed. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when people around the world offered their condolences and words of support, Mexico was noticeably absent.
    The last time the American soccer team played in Mexico City, a near-riot ensued in front of the US embassy, as Mexicans who gathered for a "peaceful celebration" trampled an American flag and chanted "Osama!" (The US team had sweet revenge on September 4, however.)
    Furthermore, a 2002 Zogby poll found that 58 percent of Mexicans believe that the territory of the United States' southwest rightfully belongs to Mexico. Many Mexicans living in the US speak openly of the "reconquista" of that land.

•   •   •  

Vang: 3 hunters deserved to die   [9/16/05]
The brief trial of accused Hmong mass murderer Chai Vang has already been sent to the jury, with almost no attention from media (on television at least) about the brutal crime. If the facts had been reversed, and six Hmong had been slaughtered by a white American, the coverage would have been hysterical.
    Also noteworthy is that virtually every mention of the case since the murders parroted the killer's contention that he had been racially slandered by the victims, with no mention that the man lied about shooting the six hunters until he was confronted with irrefutable evidence by police. Futhermore, the two surviving victims denied the racial aspect which was not widely reported. Yet the unrelenting pro-diversity viewpoint of the press throughout has been that racist white hunters got what they deserved, despite the facts to the contrary.

    HAYWARD, WIS. -- A courtroom full of people sat in stunned silence Thursday as Chai Soua Vang ended his murder trial with the bold declaration that some of the six deer hunters he killed deserved to die because they were disrespectful.
        In a cross-examination that may devastate Vang's claim that he was acting in self-defense, he said landowner Robert Crotteau and his 20-year-old son, Joe, deserved what they got when Vang chased them down and fatally shot each in the back, though Vang acknowledged that neither was armed.
        Robert Crotteau deserved to die "because he's the one who confronted me and called me names and that's just who he is," Vang testified, as members of Crotteau's family appeared tearful and stunned.
        Joe Crotteau deserved to die " 'cause he accused me of giving him the finger and tried to cut in front of me," Vang said, after describing how the younger Crotteau blocked him from leaving as his father profanely berated Vang for trespassing on the family's hunting land. [...]
        [Terry] Willers and Lauren Hesebeck, the only two members of the group who survived, testified this week that Willers never shot at Vang or even pointed his gun toward him. They said Willers was the only member of the group who was armed. They acknowledged that Robert Crotteau yelled at Vang using the "f-word" and threatened to beat him up if he ever returned, but they said no one called Vang any racist names.
    In short, the facts have not been kind to the liberal media's agenda of immigrants good, gun-owning citizens bad, but the press has forged ahead nevertheless. Since the perp has shown with his own words that he is a heartless homicidal monster, the article before us adopts the kumbaya, let's-hold-hands-and-forgive approach.
    "My hope is that in the end," God will render justice, [Vang's mother] said. She ended with what she said were the words of her jailed son in a conversation with her the day before:
        "All of this could have been prevented if we could only learn to respect one another."
    Wisconsin does not have the death penalty, so the worst punishment Vang could get would be life in prison.
    Update: Vang found guilty after the jury deliberated just three hours.

•   •   •  

The menace of multiculturalism   [9/16/05]
The drumbeat is continuing, that the elites' adored ideology is nonsensical and damaging to American society.

    As a result, multiculturalism has become ideology that menaces a culture unable to defend itself. This multiculturalism undercuts assimilation and fosters an anti-American bias in favor of cultures determined to destroy our own. The British example says it all. Multiculturalism in England was shaped not only by academicians, but by civil servants, think tanks, minority pressure groups, center-left politicians, and what John O'Sullivan calls with irony "the Great and the Good." In the New Criterion magazine, he argues that certain government institutions, together with the popular media, created an ideology of institutional correctness" of condescending anthropology. The British government, unrestrained by constitutional guarantees of separation of church and state, subsidized ethnic, religious, and linguistic ghettoes by supporting "faith schools," where minority children were encouraged to maintain the cultures their parents fled.
        In the interest of tolerance men and women who knew better rationalized the suppression of women, genital mutilation and even "honor killings" by Muslims. Better to let the natives keep their quaint customs rather than impose common values that smack of "Britishness." The bombings in London, however, changed the debate. When the British learned that their suicide bombers were home-grown, recruited from minorities who were not marginalized — the bombers had grown up playing cricket — multiculturalism as a guiding ideology was suddenly suspect. The Dutch before them had begun to rethink multiculturalism as well, when a radical Muslim murdered the filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam for his criticism of Islamic suppression of women. The killer left an Islamist manifesto spiked to his breast.
        Though not as daffy over multiculturalism as the Netherlands or Britain, America has been moving that way. The melting pot of assimilation, which has nurtured the American dream for more than two centuries, has become ever more suspect. A poll for the Pew Hispanic Center finds that 55 percent of Americans of Mexican descent consider themselves Mexicans first. A similar study of Muslim immigrants in Los Angeles finds that only 10 percent think of themselves as Americans rather than citizens of the countries they abandoned for new lives here.

•   •   •  

Stalinism at CAIR: photo doctored for Islamic correctness   [9/15/05]
Don't miss JihadWatch.org's photo collection showing much of what's wrong with the Council on American Islamic Relations and other pro-terrorist fifth columns. An unveiled women shows up at a CAIR press conference, and the event is adjusted via crude PhotoShopping to suit the misogynous organization. The original picture is included, making clear how the woman was not allowed to keep her identity.

    What happens if a woman shows up for a CAIR photo-op without a hijab? No problem! They'll just Photoshop one on! [...]
        This is a small thing, of course. Just a bit of silliness. But coming from an organization that brands the truth about Islam "Islamophobia" and has never answered uncomfortable questions about its own loyalties and affiliations, it raises larger issues of trust. Why do the mainstream media and many government organizations still give CAIR a free pass as a neutral civil rights group when its commitment to the truth is so manifestly tenuous?
    Islam in the West uses lies to convince us that it is just another religion — the "religion of peace" — not that different from Christianity or Buddhism. But unlike other major religions, Islam recommends using lies in propagation of the faith, a practice known as taqiyyah. So a little Stalinesque revision of history is all in a day's work.
    For humorous alternative PhotoShop treatments, the ProtestWarrior forum.

•   •   •  

Latinos Souring on Gov. and His Party   [9/15/05]
California hispanics are miffed that Arnold hasn't appointed more of their "community" to high office, or so they say. Funny how this complaint appears a couple years after appointments are made, but just a few days after Gov. Schwarzenegger announced he would veto SB60, the legislation giving driver's licenses to illegal aliens.

    Since his election, however, the governor has taken a number of steps that have undermined his Latino support. Relations with Mexico have been frosty. He has wrangled with Latino lawmakers over legislation allowing driver's licenses for illegal immigrants. Perhaps most damaging, Schwarzenegger endorsed the Minuteman Project, a citizen's border patrol, that others — including Bush — have condemned as a vigilante group.
        More fundamentally, the governor and Latino voters are "worlds apart" when it comes to fiscal issues and the size and responsibilities of state government, said Baldassare.
        "Latinos, as a group, hold a position that government should be larger and provide more services, even if it means higher taxes," said Baldassare, who oversees the institute's polling. "Gov. Schwarzenegger has been fairly consistent that he does not stand for larger government, or more services or higher taxes."
    Hispanics voted for movie star, and got a Republican.

•   •   •  

Freeway traffic up last year for the first time since 2000   [9/15/05]
Bay Area traffic is worse, with increased hours of gridlock, and the brain-deadening misery is spun by the Chronicle as good news. Is that twisted or what?

    Congestion on Bay Area freeways rose last year for the first time since 2000, a possible indication of renewed economic life after the dot-com crash, transportation officials said today.
        The number of vehicle hours of delay due to congestion in the Bay Area was up 4 percent last year, after an 18 percent drop the year before and declines of 5 percent in 2002 and 12 percent in 2001, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and Caltrans said.
        "The increase in congestion largely reflects a general uptick in the Bay Area economy in 2004," said Jon Rubin, chairman of the transportation commission. "A brighter employment picture put more workers onto Bay Area freeways last year."
    Another traffic jam, oh joy!

•   •   •  

Southwest Conference on Illegal Immigration, Border Security and Crime   [9/14/05]
The Maricopa County Attorney is sponsoring a meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona, Nov. 3-5, with an impressive list of speakers including Rep. Tancredo, John Leo, Mark Krikorian, John Fund and others. Check it out!

•   •   •  

Undocumented aliens rebuilding Biloxi, say they deserve visas   [9/14/05]
No surprise that parasitic illegal aliens are using a tragedy to make demands. And a President who cared about Americans put out of work by Katrina wouldn't have made it safe for businesses to hire cheaper illegals.

    A visa "would help us to not have fear," said Hugo Martinez, 37, who has been working alongside Armenta.
        So far, there's been little risk. The Department of Homeland Security has announced a 45-day period in which employers would not be fined for hiring undocumented workers. It said that was because many people had lost their proof of citizenship or legal residence in the storm.

•   •   •  

Woman harnessed 'to till field'   [9/14/05]
Many Indians regard their homeland as a "forward-thinking nation" despite considerable evidence to the contrary. Some even believe that the next epoch will be "India's century." (Of course, being the recipient of industries desiring cheap labor is not the same thing as creating those businesses.)
    But the level of superstition still extant particularly in the countryside is deeply rooted and highly sexist.
    The current unpleasant example is of a women harnessed in the position of an animal because she touched a plow.

    A woman in the Indian state of Chattisgarh has been forced to plough a field harnessed alongside a bull.
        The move was ordered by village elders who said she had angered the rain god by breaking a taboo on women touching ploughs, thus risking a drought.
        Police are investigating the case but have made no arrests and the woman has not asked for charges to be brought.
        The belief in the area that a woman will bring bad luck if she touches a plough goes back centuries.

•   •   •  

At war with an enemy of an unspoken name   [9/14/05]
This is the third and final article in Tony Blankley's three-part series about the threat of radical Islam to America and western civilization. (Part 1 and Part 2)
    Tony Blankley was interviewed Sept. 13 about his new book "The West's Last Chance" on Lou Dobbs Tonight.

    DOBBS: You and I know the facts. Immigration and Naturalization do not know who is in this country. We do not know who is crossing our borders. We do not understand the affiliations of anyone, irrespective of ethnicity or race or religion. It's an impossibility that no one wants to recognize right now that we don't know who resides in this country.
        BLANKLEY: That's right. And the starting point is to secure our borders. Now, I quote Asa Hutchinson who when I talked to him last fall was at the head at Homeland Security for borders.
        He said we have -- it's not -- we don't have any plans, it's not practical to secure the borders or track down illegals. Two months later Admiral Loy, also the department high official, said we have -- based on our intelligence, we believe that al Qaeda is going to penetrate our southern border.
        You cannot have those two statements from deputies at Homeland Security which are fundamentally inconsistent, one saying we have a lethal threat, the other saying we have no plan or intention to deal with it.
        DOBBS: Or ability.
        BLANKLEY: Well, we do have an ability.
        DOBBS: Oh we do, but I'm saying they're saying we don't have the abilities.
        BLANKLEY: Well, yes. They haven't made the decision to have the ability. I understand, by the way -- and you might find this interesting, this came out since I've written the book -- that there is a study within Homeland Security that it would take 20 -- not official policy yet. It would take 20 to 50,000 border patrol plus sensor technologies to secure the border. That's a big number compared with how many border patrol we have, but it's a very small number compared to our nation.

•   •   •  

China Steps Up Its Lobbying Game   [9/13/05]
Between open borders and sending millions of jobs overseas, Washington politicians are selling off the assets of this country like a garage sale on steroids. But they don't call it treason: "free trade" sounds so much nicer.
    The Center for Public Integrity has researched some important facts, particularly timely since the President of China is visiting his friend in the White House this week.
    Los Dobbs Tonight had a segment about China buying influence in Washington:

    CHRISTINE ROMANS: China has been working behind the scenes in Washington for months escalating a lobbying campaign unlike any other. A special report for from the Center for Public Integrity released to LOU DOBBS TONIGHT outlined China's Washington ambitions.
        BOB WILLIAMS, CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY: They have the best access money can buy. They are hiring the top lobbying firms. Patton Boggs is well-known, has been in Washington for years, where basically you have former congressmen lobbying current congressmen. Most of these firms are in that same sort of category. They are really hiring the gold-plated firms.
        ROMANS: Firms like Akin Gump, whose strike team of top lobbyists in just nine days in June contacted federal officials 250 times, right up to the Oval Office, all on behalf of China's oil company, CNOOC.
        The Center for Public Integrity says China has spent almost $20 million since 1997 directly lobbying Washington, wining and dining members of Congress, giving them tours of Hong Kong and trying to influence reporters.
        But that is just a small percentage of China lobbying. Untold millions more are spent by American companies who lobby on China's behalf.

•   •   •  

Give Illegal Aliens' Jobs to Unemployed Katrina Victims   [9/13/05]
Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly invokes the famous speech of Booker T. Washington to assert the rights of American workers over the illegal aliens who are preferred by employers because of their exploitability.

    Our guide for dealing with the Katrina disaster should be Dr. Booker T. Washington's speech at the Atlanta Exposition in 1895. Known as one of the most memorable and influential speeches in American history, it is just as timely today as when it was given.
        Dr. Washington started by telling the story of a ship lost at sea for many days. When it sighted a friendly vessel, it sent a desperate signal from its mast: "Water, water; we die of thirst!" The friendly vessel signaled back, "Cast down your bucket where you are."
        The lost ship signaled again, "Water, water; send us water!" Again the friendly ship sent the message, "Cast down your bucket where you are."
        After a third and fourth such exchange, the captain of the distressed vessel finally heeded the injunction and cast down his bucket. It came up full of fresh, sparking water from the mouth of the Amazon River.
        Dr. Washington then admonished members of his own race to cast down their buckets "in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions." He cautioned that "in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands."
        "We shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labor and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life," he said. "No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem."
        "It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities."
        Booker T. Washington then gave a stern message "to those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South.... Cast down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labor wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth."

•   •   •  

Needed: Old war spirit in a new war   [9/13/05]
Here's part two of Tony Blankley's series warning about the real danger to America from a terrorist WMD attack, and why the battle against fascist Islam is just as much a fight to preserve our way of life as was World War II. (Link to part one is just below.)
    Blankley was interviewed on the O'Reilly Factor last night (no transcript) where he lamented the weak leadership from Washington generally about the threat. The main eye-opener was his mention that a large group of terror experts agreed that there was a 70 percent chance of a WMD attack on the United States in the next decade.
    This Washington Times editorial from July (after the London bus bombings) discusses that danger:

    Together, these bring to mind the conclusions of a survey last month by Sen. Richard Lugar of leading terrorism experts, including a former secretary of defense, a CIA director and a national security adviser: that "the estimated combined risk of a WMD attack over five years is as high as 50%. Over ten years this risk expands to as much as 70%." So, we are twice as likely as not to suffer a chemical, biological, nuclear or radiological attack by 2015, and still likelier to suffer the type of conventional attacks London suffered yesterday.
        Mr. Lugar's experts figure the United States is twice as likely to suffer a radiological or "dirty bomb" attack as it is to suffer a chemical, biological or nuclear attack. The chances of a nuclear attack stand at 10 percent over the next five years and almost 30 percent by 2015. Of the 85 experts surveyed, four think a nuclear attack is certain -- a 100 percent probability -- by 2015. There is about a 40 percent probability that we will suffer a radiological attack by 2015, the group thinks, a 32 percent chance that we will suffer a biological attack and a 31 percent chance of chemical attack. Putting all these together, we are twice as likely as not to suffer a major WMD-armed calamity at the hands of terrorists by 2015.

•   •   •  

Complacency and Survival   [9/12/05]
The thoughtful Tony Blankley has a new book just out (The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations?), and so is actively promoting the ideas he believes require more attention. He finds Bush insufficiently engaged on the President's main foreign policy venture, the so-called War on Terror. A point well taken, since the President still refuses to name the enemy and referred to Islam as the "religion of peace" a few days ago.

    We Americans are proud of our self-reliance. But today, that self-reliance requires each citizen to think for himself or herself about other dangers, such as the Islamist terrorist threat, and to inquire whether our government is complacent or seized with a sense of urgency to protect America.
        I happen to think that regarding the Islamist threat, President Bush has shown more concern and provided more action than most of politicians and journalists. But even the president's actions and thoughts are very dangerously short of what is needed. As much as he has done, it still falls within the category of complacency if one seriously thinks about the threat.
        The mortal danger we face comes not merely from Osama bin Laden and a few thousand terrorists. Rather, we are confronted with the Islamic world -- one-fifth of mankind -- in turmoil and insurgent as it has not been in at least 500 (if not 1,500) years.
    See also 'An Islamist threat like the Nazis', part one of a series on the same topic.

•   •   •  

Medicine Is Pork to Muslims   [9/12/05]
Uh oh, another culture clash between Islam and the West.

    Most pills contain pork gelatine. An immigration consultant says Muslim patients should be warned about the risk of consuming pig meat, but doctors reject the idea.
        Thousands of unsuspecting Muslims break one of the Koran's most important commandments every day and consume pig meat, as most prescription medicine contains gelatine made of hog's hide, daily newspaper Urban reported.
        'There is gelatine in almost every capsule and tablet today. It's also possible to process gelatine from cattle products, but because of the risk of mad cow disease, pig gelatine is the most frequent ingredient in medicine,' said department chief of the Danish Medicine Agency, Finn Clemmensen.
        Fahmy Almajid, immigration consultant, said he found the discovery shocking.
        'I've never heard before that medicines contain pork residues, and the average Muslim doesn't have a clue, either,' he said. 'Since Muslims will do anything in their power to avoid eating pig, I find it grotesque that doctors do not warn them about it.'
    (From the indispensible Fjordman blog.)

•   •   •  

Sharia law move quashed in Canada   [9/12/05]
The public outcry against Islamic law being permitted in Ontario has been successful. This is a welcome win for equality under the law and women's rights, all the more important since Canada has been one of the most passive nations regarding the Islamic incursion into the West.

    A report by Ontario's former attorney general Marion Boyd had recommended the use of Islamic law to settle issues such as divorce and child custody.
        But Premier Dalton McGuinty ruled against the move, saying there should be "one law for all Ontarians".
        Protests were held against the Sharia law proposal in major Canadian cities, as well as in Paris, London and Vienna.
        Critics said allowing Islamic tribunals could lead to discrimination against women.

•   •   •  

9/11 Slideshow   [9/11/05] WTC rubble

On the fourth anniversay of 9/11, the inevitable result of immigration anarchy, open borders and multiculturalism is not forgotten here.
    See also...

•   •   •  

Korean-born in U.S. return to a home they never knew   [9/11/05]
Not everyone wants to be an American. Koreans adopted by American parents are repudiating the United States and choosing to return to their homeland.

    Seoul is home to a vibrant community of adoptees who have reversed the overseas crossing made by more than 150,000 children in the last half-century, the world's first and largest wave of international adoptions. Many are coming to immerse themselves in their ancestral culture or reunite with their birth families.
        Some are here on a mission: to change the society they were born into but were forced to leave as children. They run nonprofit organizations to help one another, make political art and punk music together, and rally for their rights. There's even a new movement that seeks to end international adoption from South Korea.

•   •   •  

Fatwa for tennis star who wears short skirts   [9/10/05]
Popular tennis player Sania Mirza has received Islamic reproach for wearing normal athletic outfits like the other players.

    Sania Mirza, 18, who became the first Indian woman to reach the fourth round of a Grand Slam at the US Open last week, is hugely popular in India.
        The fatwa - in effect, a demand that she cover up - was issued by a senior cleric of the Sunni Ulema Board, a little-known group. Similar fatwas have been issued against Mirza, who comes from a devout Muslim family, but none has ever gained popular support among India's 130 million Muslims.
        "The dress she wears on the tennis court... leaves nothing to the imagination," Haseeb-ul-hasan Siddiqui told The Hindustan Times. "She will undoubtedly be a corrupting influence."
        He said she should follow the example of Iranian women who wore long tunics and headscarves to play in the Asian Badminton Championships.
    Mirza has been dealing with the controversy by refusing to be drawn in.

•   •   •  

N.Va. Man Indicted in Plot Against Bush   [9/10/05]
This story, given almost no media attention in the 24/7 Katrina coverage, should be another wake-up call regarding the criminal neglect of America's borders. No surprise that Mexico is a handy staging area for terrorist enterprises.

    An American student was charged yesterday in an al Qaeda plot to kill President Bush, with prosecutors alleging that Ahmed Omar Abu Ali and his confederates planned to use multiple snipers to shoot Bush or to blow him up in a suicide bombing.
        The expanded indictment of Abu Ali, returned by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, also claimed for the first time that he proposed a plan to bring members of an al Qaeda cell into the United States through Mexico. They would then link up with Abu Ali to conduct terrorist operations in this country, the indictment said.
        Abu Ali, 24, of Falls Church was first charged in February with terrorism counts that included trying to establish an al Qaeda cell in the United States. That indictment referred to the plot to kill Bush, but Abu Ali was not charged with conspiring to assassinate the president until yesterday. The case is among the highest-profile terrorism prosecutions in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

•   •   •  

Homeland Security suspends worker document checks   [9/9/05]
Doubtless most Americans want to see their fellow citizens put to work rebuilding New Orleans and the other Gulf communities devastated by Katrina. But George Bush (the Mexichurian President) sees the disaster as an job opportunity for illegal aliens, as shown by his open invitation that employers hire them. How shameful that he never forgets his beloved Mexicans, even in a time of national trauma, as a great city turns into a chemical Chernobyl.

    The Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday it will not sanction employers for the next 45 days for hiring people who cannot prove they are eligible to work in this country.
        The agency said it is temporarily suspending the sanctions required under immigration law because many Hurricane Katrina victims lost or left without documents needed to prove they are eligible to work.
        Immigration law requires employers to verify that applicants are citizens, legal residents or have permission to work in the country. [...]
        Last week, Mexican President Vicente Fox said the United States agreed not to prosecute undocumented Mexican migrants affected by Hurricane Katrina who turn to U.S. officials for help.
    Of course, the idea of employer sanctions for unlawfully hiring illegal aliens is a joke in the Bush administration.
    It also looks like illegal aliens will be receiving $2000 debit cards courtesy of our generous government.
    In addition, see "Mexico's Fox Says U.S. to Give Disaster Aid to Illegal Migrants."
    Mexico's President Vicente Fox helped persuade the U.S. government to relax controls on illegal immigrants so they can receive aid for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
        Any of the 145,000 Mexicans living in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama who don't have documents will qualify for help finding family members, getting food and receiving other assistance even if they don't have proper documents, according to Fox's office in Mexico City.

•   •   •  

Mexico economy shielded from polls, but growth limp   [9/9/05]
As this website has long maintained, the decadent remittance economy is very harmful to Mexico and prevents overdue reforms. Mexican rulers have little incentive to build expensive infrastructure and education when the worse they run the country, the more people leave and send back billions of dollars in remittances, $20 billion estimated for 2005 in fact.
    But it's extra nice when an economist from Morgan Stanley agrees:

    Other, longer-term motors of the economy, like huge remittances from workers abroad, tourism and foreign direct investment are fickle too and have a downside, said Newman [Gray Newman, head Latin America economist for Morgan Stanley].
        "These inflows have robbed the policy-making class of Mexico of any sense of urgency to move forward on a host of reforms that are needed to make Mexico more competitive and improve health, education and public and private investment," Newman said.

•   •   •  

Mexican Army assembles for hurricane "relief"   [9/8/05] Mexican soldiers

Did you ever think you would live to see the Mexican Army rolling over American soil? Apparently President Bush and the rest of the globalists in Washington see nothing wrong with it. As politicians work toward a unified North American continent, it must seem the most normal thing in the world to them to have the soldiers of an unfriendly country here in the hundreds.
    Our military has fought and died to protect the borders and sovereignty that today's politicians are giving away as fast as they can.
    Were the Mexican Army trucks inspected for WMD and drugs at the border? Was there a head count to be compared with the number of soldiers leaving — and when will that be? The Mexican Army is well known for being highly corrupt. "There's no doubt Mexican military units along the border are being controlled by the drug cartels, and not by Mexico City," according to Rep. Tom Tancredo.
    It's very unlikely that Mexico actually wants to help America, since they have been giving us nothing but trouble for years. But even if they did, why must it be delivered by the Mexican Army? Other nations have offered aid and none came wrapped in the package of an unfriendly military.

•   •   •  

Musharraf concern at women image   [9/8/05]
The President of Pakistan is miffed because he believes his country has received undue opprobrium for its treatment of women, that others are just as bad. True, the press has been bad about recent cases of gang rape, but it would have been nice if he had taken action to protect women, rather than just complain about Pakistan's bad image in the media.
    This BBC article invites readers to comment, and some are very enlightening.

    •   I moved to Islamabad from my village because it was the only safe place for women. At least they don't get raped in public here. I escaped rape narrowly two years ago. I never tried to make it public internationally and yet my complaints to the police just got me into more trouble. Musharraf survives on publicity and foreign relationships. His main worry is women exposing their sufferings to international media. Kajol, Islamabad, Pakistan
    •   I am a Pakistani woman living in the United States. As much as I love Pakistan, I am glad that I was not brought up there. Pakistan does have an image problem when it comes to women, and it is well-deserved. Mukhtar Mai's case is just the most prominent one - many women are languishing in Pakistani jails under the so-called "hudood" laws for committing "adultery" when all they've done is dared to marry for love or come forward to report a rape. Maleeha, Ann Arbor, United States

•   •   •  

Florida court upholds ban of Muslim veil   [9/8/05]
Sanity has prevailed against political correctness in this case, where a court has ruled that a driver's license photo must be of an uncovered face according to the pre-existing state law. Imagine that.

    DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- A Muslim woman who, for religious reasons, wanted to wear a veil in her driver's license photo must follow a Florida law that requires a picture of her full face, a state appeals court ruled.
        The Fifth District Court of Appeal upheld a 2003 ruling by an Orlando judge that Sultaana Freeman's right to free exercise of religion would not be burdened by the photo requirement.

•   •   •  

Canada grapples with Islamic sharia law   [9/7/05]
Politically active Muslims in Canada have been working for a while to gradually institute sharia law as a separate legal system within the country, with the effect of diminishing the rights of women naturally. But at least women and others are organizing to protest the loss of legal rights.

    Protests are planned in 12 cities in Canada and Europe over a Canadian province's bid to allow Islamic Shariah law to be used to arbitrate marital disputes.
        In Toronto, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's government appears poised to accept recommendations to allow such tribunals, in use by Christians and Jews in the province since 1991. [...]
        Protesters are planning to convene at the provincial parliament building midday Thursday, to coincide with marches in 11 other cities in Canada and Europe, including Victoria, British Columbia; Ottawa; Montreal; London; Paris and Stockholm.
    Meanwhile, in Britain, Islamic clerics who participate in forced marriages will face jail.
    Update September 8: For an example of sharia law in Canada, see "A Muslim woman's sharia ordeal".

•   •   •  

Mexico sending storm relief convoy to U.S.   [9/7/05]
Is anyone else uncomfortable with the idea of convoys of dozens of Mexican Army vehicles with hundreds of troops invading American sovereignty?! Will the trucks be inspected for drugs, WMD or other contraband? Will there be a head count going in and coming out? Frankly, the opportunity for mischief is serious given the corruption of the Mexican Army, and the symbolism couldn't be worse.

    Carrying water treatment plants, mobile kitchens and supplies to feed victims of Hurricane Katrina, the army convoy bound for Houston will be the first Mexican military unit to operate on U.S. soil since 1846.
        The convoy has "a very high symbolic content," said Javier Oliva, a political scientist at Mexico's National Autonomous University. "This is a very sensitive subject, for historic and political reasons."
        Large Mexican flags were taped to many of the 35 olive-green Mexican Army trucks and tractor trailers as they rumbled northward toward the border on Wednesday. The convoy was due to cross into Laredo, Texas, early Thursday, President Vicente Fox's office said.
    Other nations have managed to send aid without using troops; why not Mexico?

•   •   •  

Immigration Activists Seek Support in Black Community   [9/7/05]
Pull out the smelling salts — NPR has put together a semi-thoughtful piece on how illegal immigration is harmful to black Americans, or at least how the pro-borders message is presented in the black community.

    In southern California, some African Americans say illegal immigrants burden schools and hospitals, and they take away jobs. Now, groups that want to stop illegal immigration are reaching out to the black community for new support.
    At least listen to hear a clip from The Terry Anderson Show where he "articulates the popular rage" every Sunday night.
    Actually, the segment Illegal Immigration's Impact on the U.S. Economy from a few weeks ago was not half bad either. Someone better send MALDEF over to pitch a new sob story.

•   •   •  

Foreign workers feel left in limbo   [9/6/05]
Here's another boilerplate illegal alien sob story, with a natural disaster twist. But it has a little reminder that America's loss will be Mexico's gain, if Mexicans have anything to say about it:

    Jose, a Chiapas native, was among many immigrants who came as cheap labor to help rebuild Biloxi after Hurricane Ivan in September 2004. "If I get a chance to get out of here, I'm going," he said. "This is all I know."
    Many thousands of unwanted Mexicans will certainly be headed north once the start of rebuilding is announced. Would it be too much to ask that hurricane reconstruction jobs go to American citizens?

•   •   •  

Too many people in nature's way   [9/6/05]
As we approach the unfortunate milestone of a 300-million-person America in about a year's time (current number is over 297 million), the collateral damage is particularly noticeable now after the terrible Katrina catastrophe. The American population has nearly doubled since 1950, when our country numbered a manageable 150 million: this explosive growth is more typical of a third-world nation.

    The expanding U.S. population "has migrated to hazard-prone areas - to Florida, the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, particularly barrier islands, to California," noted retired U.S. government seismologist Robert M. Hamilton, a disaster-prevention specialist. "Several decades ago we didn't have wall-to-wall houses down the coast as we do now."
        The way America builds too often invites disasters, experts say - by draining Florida swampland and bulldozing California hillsides, for example, disrupting natural runoff and magnifying flood hazards.
        "We're building our communities in ways that aren't compatible with the natural perils we have," Miletti said.
        The more advanced the nations, the bigger the blow may be.
        Terry Jeggle, a U.N. disaster-reduction planner, cites the New Orleans levee system - dependent on pumps that run on electricity produced by fuel that must be transported in. One failure will lead to another along that chain.
        "Complex systems invite compounding of complexity in consequences, too," said the Geneva-based Jeggle.

•   •   •  

Civitas Institute Polls   [9/6/05]
The John William Pope Civitas Institute is a North Carolina think tank. Its August poll showed clearly that support for immigration law enforcement crosses the political divide: it is an American issue of citizenship and the rule of law. Even "very liberal voters" want immigration anarchy to end and order restored.
    Here are a few select points:

    •   90% support making English the official language in North Carolina. Even among very liberal voters, 76% support this proposal.
    •   Only 23% believe illegal immigrants should receive general health care benefits from North Carolina with 75% opposed. Among very liberal voters, 58% oppose providing this service making this an unpopular proposal.
    •   59% support providing emergency medical benefits for illegal immigrants and even among very conservative voters 50% support this need. Interestingly, 38% are opposed despite the nature of this particular service. Respondents with a high school degree or less are evenly divided on this issue and those who earn less than $25,000 a year are marginally supportive.
    •   27% believe they should receive education benefits while 69% are opposed. Even among very liberal voters, 51% are opposed while 47% are supportive.

•   •   •  

Outraged Europeans Take Dimmer View of Diversity   [9/5/05]
When the Europhile LA Times notices that the rosy glow has disappeared from the sacred multiculturalism, something is changing. Taciturn Britons are beginning to speak up about what has happened to their country.

    "My friends, who are all educated and professionals, they're saying, 'What gives those people the right to come up from other countries and set up homes and set up families and then start bombing and maiming people?' " the 33-year-old engineering consultant said. "They just don't move in and integrate with society. They move in and take over. I just think enough's enough." [...]
        Many Europeans' suspicion of Islam underscores deeper concerns about the failure to integrate ethnic communities that are now seen as spinning away from Western influence. Nations are confronting years of troubled immigration policies that critics say have produced false portraits of social harmony. Cities such as Amsterdam, for example, cast a veneer of tranquillity over smoldering ethnic tensions. Late last year, a Muslim radical with links to a terrorist cell fatally stabbed the Dutch director Theo van Gogh on a city bike path. The killer was apparently angered by a Van Gogh film that was critical of Islam.
    Yes, it's foolish to welcome millions of immigrants who hate your culture, want to enslave women and plan on an eventual Islamic Europe.
    Interestingly, France's small program of enforced assimilation has worked reasonably well: "Headscarf ban is judged success as hostility fades."

•   •   •  


The Undoing of America   [9/5/05]

Frank Gaffney has pointed our attention toward another stupid and highly dangerous idea bubbling out of Congress. The latest idiocy threatens to undermine the whole concept of citizenship and lay the groundwork for race-based secessions.

    The U.S. Senate is scheduled tomorrow to decide whether to clear the way for the most odious, anti-American piece of legislation in memory: S. 147, the "Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act." Incredibly, as of now, more than 61 senators are expected to vote to begin a process that would ineluctably unravel the United States as a nation.
        This legislation has been advanced in the spirit of pandering that has come to characterize all too much of our national political life. In this case, the pandering is on behalf of an ethnic community that is largely a figment of some politicians' imaginations -- a once-sovereign, identifiably blooded race of "Native Hawaiians" that are, if S. 147 were to become law, to be given the right to govern themselves as they see fit. This could involve creating a new Hawaiian monarchy and perhaps lead to the islands' secession from the Union. [...]
        Should senators violate their oath of office -- which obliges them to "support and defend the Constitution" -- by enacting S. 147, they will invite an even greater problem down the road. Other self-designating communities can be expected to demand recognition of their rights to have their own government and sovereign laws. These might include Chicanos, Cajuns, Amish and Puerto Ricans.
        Given the contortions involved in identifying, let alone conferring sovereignty upon, a "Native Hawaiian" community, who is to say other groups won't demand the right to govern themselves by their own rules, as well? Already, Islamists in Canada and elsewhere demand to have their affairs adjudicated by Shari'a -- a religious code that, taken to its extreme, produces Talibanlike repression of women and other living things. Lest we think it couldn't happen in a society like ours, international protests against the establishing Shari'a-ruled communities will be held Thursday across Canada and in France, Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands.
    Update: This article says the vote will be postponed a couple weeks, and that 2/3 of Hawaiians are against the Akaka bill.

•   •   •  

Deportation likely for ill immigrant   [9/4/05]
Here is just one illegal alien from Mexico sapping finite resources for $40,000. When this story was reported earlier, the nursing home staff supposedly didn't want to see him go because he was "loveable." (Say, they could pass around the hat... ) As it turns out, Mr. Gallegos has a rather lengthy criminal record.

    Santiago "Jimmy" Gallegos, 59, an undocumented immigrant with dementia who has run up a $40,000 bill at a Hill Country nursing home since December, will likely soon be deported to Mexico.
        "We're going to take him over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Del Rio, and they are going to take him to the Mexican Consulate. We're waiting for the call," said Tamara Scotch, who operates the Cedar Hills Geriatric Center in Camp Wood.
        Gallegos, who suffers from liver and kidney problems, came to Cedar Hills from a nursing home in San Antonio late last year. But it was months before Scotch figured out that he was not eligible for Medicaid benefits.
        Among his unpaid bills is one for about $18,000 for drugs.
        In addition to being deported several times from El Paso, most recently in November, Gallegos apparently has a lengthy criminal record, Scotch said.
        "We figured there was more to him than a lovable, demented old man, but we didn't expect this much. His criminal record goes back to 1964," Scotch said.
        "I don't know if all those names are him or if he's done all that stuff, but there are DWIs, stealing vehicles, drugs and the one that really got me was grave-robbing," she said.

•   •   •  

Border agency to aid in relief   [9/4/05]
In case there was ever any doubt that Washington regards border security as little more than window dressing, consider that 200 Border Patrol agents are being moved to aid in the Katrina relief effort. There is NO more understaffed agency in comparison to the job they are expected to do.

    More than 200 Border Patrol agents and 300 other U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel have been deployed to areas impacted by Hurricane Katrina, officials said. [...]
        But T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, argued that the Border Patrol was already stretched too thin and deployment would make a difficult situation on the border worse.
        "On the one hand, you go, 'It's such a mess down there... people need relief,'" he said. But "our borders are out of control at the same time. Where do you put your finite resources?"

•   •   •  

Church organizing anti-Minuteman campaign   [9/3/05]
Catholic churches in the Brownsville area are quite open in calling for the end to American sovereignty, that anyone who considers themselves a victim can just come on in to the United States. The Catholic Church has been a leader in the extremist movement for open borders.

    Organizing in conjunction with the Catholic church makes sense because the church's position is pro-immigration, said Father Michael Seifert of San Felipe de Jesus.
        "Any family in economic need has a right to immigrate, that's our posture, if a family is hungry and the family needs work, then society should provide a way for people to do that," Seifert said.
    Funny how Jesus' much-quoted admonition to obey civil law, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's," is forgotten by these so-called church people. The reference is Mark 12:17. That's in the Bible, a book Father Seifert might consult occasionally.
    In addition, immigration is viewed differently in Italy, where the influx is Muslim rather than Catholic. Cardinal Biffi of Bologna has strongly recommended that preference be given to Christian immigrants over Islamic ones in order to preserve Italian culture.
    "It's necessary to be seriously concerned about saving the nation's own identity," he wrote. "Italy is not a deserted or uninhabited land, without history, without living traditions and without an unmistakable cultural and spiritual shape."
        Biffi claims that most Muslims have come to Europe not to assimilate but with the hope of "making us all become essentially like them."
    Assimilation in America is at an all-time low, with increasing numbers of people who don't speak English and don't need to learn, since they can live entire lives in ethnic enclaves without becoming part of the national mainstream. The cultural traditions of this country are far more at risk than those of Italy, where "the number of Muslims estimated at 700,000 to 1 million among a total population of 57 million."

•   •   •  

Meet Nativo Lopez, the Latino Al Sharpton.   [9/3/05]
Nativo Lopez is an active low life in California politics, known for sowing discord and working for the Aztlan agenda. He is a hispanic Energizer Bunny who won't go away even when disrespected by his fellow Mexicans.

    Elected a decade ago to a seat on the Santa Ana school board of trustees, Lopez was recalled by residents of Orange County (just months before Gray Davis met the same fate) for his refusal to comply with California's Proposition 227, which ended bilingual education in public schools. The recall vote wasn't close: Lopez lost by a 40-point margin. He said he wanted to make Spanish California's primary language; he was rejected in every precinct of the most Spanish-speaking city in America.
        Normally, that would be the end of the story--gadfly gets swatted. However, Lopez continues to write new chapters in the art of race-baiting. For two years, Democrats have tried to convince Schwarzenegger to approve drivers' licenses for illegal aliens (Gray Davis signed such a law weeks before he was recalled; the legislature repealed it). In California, the topic divides Republicans and Democrats as it mixes messy concerns over national security with legal and social standing.
        Lopez's approach to the sensitive topic is to liken it to the Holocaust. When asked by La Opinion newspaper about an alternative that would place a special mark on California drivers' licenses to distinguish between legal residents and illegal aliens, Lopez declared that the latter "do not want to be the Jews of Nazi Germany in California" and "will not be the new black slaves of the surenos states of the United States in this state." He added, "We will not be the Palestinians either that in their own earth undergoes an oppression. We are pioneering in California, a creative town of values, peace and fighters."
    The fact that this noxious character hasn't faded into the obscurity he richly deserves shows how degraded California political discourse has become.

•   •   •  

The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly   [9/2/05]
This Reuters website is a rare case of the media cautiously admitting mistakes. Readers point out boneheaded screw-ups (like calling the Rolling Stones an American band) and obvious bias (even a photo of President Bush leaving church has a politically critical caption), and the editor politely agrees, if any response if made at all.
    Aside from the amusement factor (don't miss the smoking chimp), one gets the impression that Reuters reporters and caption writers are high-school dropouts with no adult supervision. The anti-American bias is off the chart:

    World's oldest person celebrates 115th birthday
    Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, a former needlework teacher, was born in 1890, the year Sioux Indians were massacred by the U.S. military at the Battle of Wounded Knee.

    •   I am an American of Native American descent. No one in their right mind would defend the actions of the U.S. Military at Wounded Knee. However, it seems the birth of a Dutch woman is hardly the venue to remind readers about such a tragedy. It's ironic that those who would use such a non-sequitur are often the ones who cry foul when George W. Bush mentions 9-11 in a speech about the war in Iraq. — O.G.C.
    •   This woman in the story is Dutch, I guess nothing happened in Holland that year... Oh, van Gogh shot himself and died in 1890. I think he was an artist or something, but I can't remember where he was from...maybe you do. — Ben C.
    •   Reuters anti-American bias strikes again in this gratuitous reference to Indian massacres in 1890. It is totally unrelated to the context of this Dutch woman's life. Lots of events occurred worldwide in 1890. Your bias and low standard of journalism makes your news products unfit to read. I have complained to Yahoo about using Reuters as a news source. — Penny H.

•   •   •  

Lawmaker Fights Immigrant 'Invasion'   [9/2/05]
Here is a feature piece on Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce, who has been a leader for stronger legislation for border and interior enforcement. He is a retired Maricopa County Sheriff officer.

    In December 2004, one of Pearce's five children, an Arizona sheriff's deputy, was shot by an illegal immigrant during an arrest on the same day the father was in Washington, D.C., to speak against illegal immigration.
        The son is recovering, but Pearce says it was a scary time for the family. The shooting only encouraged the state lawmaker to take on a greater role in the immigration issue, says one of Pearce's brothers.
        "Where many people would say it was time to take a back seat, that is not the way with him," said Lester Pearce, who also served in the Arizona Legislature.
        Pearce dismisses any suggestion that his family's trauma has skewed his politics.
        But Alexis Mazon, who fought against Proposition 200, said Pearce's law enforcement background has given him "this approach of criminalizing people of color." Kat Rodriguez, an organizer with the progressive Coalicion de Derechos Humanos (The Human Rights Coalition), described both Pearce and his policies as "mean-spirited."
    As usual, the enemies of American sovereignty have no arguments, only hateful name-calling.

•   •   •  

Resident's New Book Tackles Illegal Immigration   [9/2/05]
Dan Sheehy's new Fighting Immigration Anarchy is doing remarkably well for a book not backed by a big publishing house. It is attracting a lot of positive attention for its activist-centered theme, and Dan has had many requests for live speeches and radio interviews.

    According to Sheehy, the mainstream media for years have painted those opposed to illegal immigration as racists and white male conservatives. However, he said the subjects of his book are Democrats, Republicans and Independents. He also points to Coe, who is half Sioux Indian, and Anderson, who is African-American.
        "I wanted to write a book about people. I wanted to tell the story of mass uncontrolled immigration through the eyes of people," Sheehy said. "And I wanted to write a book of inspiration and hope."
        Though Sheehy credits the book's subjects as sources of hope who help to combat illegal immigration, he said the problem is out of control. Every day, he added, 10,000 illegal immigrants come into the United States, but authorities apprehend just 3,000 of them.

•   •   •  

Katrina Prompts Global Support for Victims   [9/1/05]
Words of concern are coming from around the world after seeing the terrible devastation in Louisiana and Mississippi, except from a certain religious group.

    Islamic extremists rejoiced in America's misfortune, giving the storm a military rank and declaring in Internet chatter that "Private" Katrina had joined the global jihad. With "God's help," they declared, oil prices would hit US$100 a barrel this year.
    These are the same folks (such as Palestinians) who celebrated the murder of 3,000 innocents on 9/11.

•   •   •  

Mexicans applaud new absentee vote for immigrants   [9/1/05]
The non-military invasion of the United States by Mexico continues apace, as our southerly neighbor works to implement easy absentee voting by its nationals here. Naturally "immigrants" (more often illegal aliens) are happy.

    "One citizen, one vote is a reality today for the first time in our history," Fox told a jubilant audience gathered in Mexico City's National Palace. "Generations of men and women have fought so that we would reach this moment."
        Immigrant activists traveled from throughout the United States to attend the celebration. For many, the event marked the end of a 17-year struggle for a right guaranteed under the Mexican Constitution but long denied by the Mexican Congress.
        "Finally, this has become a reality," said Jorge Navarrete, 51, who emigrated to the United States 25 years ago and lives near Dallas. "Now, I feel 100 percent Mexican."

•   •   •  

 

© 2005 Brenda Walker All rights reserved.