LimitsToGrowth Archive

 

May 2008
 

After livers, cash to UCLA   [5/31/08]
Among the most insufferable do-gooders are those in the medical profession, who believe their social status enables them to redesignate their extreme liberal views as medical ethics. One serious area of disengagement from normal morality is their belief that criminals (including prisoners and illegal aliens) should receive organ transplants. Not only are organ transplants very expensive, there are never enough donated organs to supply the need, so every organ given to a criminal means a law-abiding person does not get one.
    One recent example was a 21-year-old illegal alien about to receive her fourth liver transplant: Million-Dollar Mexican Medical Moocher. In 2003, illegal alien teen Jesica Santillan received two sets of heart-lung transplants after her parents smuggled her into this country for free medical care. The surgeon at Duke University Hospital inserted a heart and lungs with the wrong blood type, and she died after the second set failed to remedy the mistake. (Interestingly, the parents refused to donate the salvageable organs they had received.)
    A couple days ago, the LA Times reported scandalous organ transplants for known foreign criminals: Four Japanese gang figures received livers at UCLA. The article noted that in each year between 2000 and 2004, "more than 100 patients died awaiting liver transplants in the greater Los Angeles region."
    Here is today's update about the procedure done for yakuza criminal Tadamasa Goto:

    A powerful Japanese gang boss who received a liver transplant at UCLA Medical Center donated $100,000 to the Westwood hospital shortly after the surgery, The Times has learned.
        A plaque dated November 2001 at the entryway to a seventh-floor surgery office reads, "In grateful recognition of the Goto Research Fund established through the generosity of Mr. Tadamasa Goto."
        UCLA confirmed the amount of the donation Friday. Law enforcement sources say Goto, 65, is the leader of the ruthless Goto-gumi gang. He received a transplant at UCLA in July 2001, The Times reported Thursday. He made his donation less than three months later. [...]
        "If you want to destroy public support for organ donation on the part of Americans, you'd be hard pressed to think of a practice that would be better suited," said Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania.
Yep, the big fear is that the suckers will quit signing up to donate their organs. It would kill off a golden goose for elite specialists who do transplant operations.
    For some PC MD BS, see DukeHealth's Jesica Santillan: What We Learned. (Of course there is no mention of her immigraton status.)
    One of the sad facts of organ transplantation is that there are simply not enough organs available to save everyone who needs a transplant. Because too few Americans become organ donors, 17 people die every day waiting for transplants that never happen.
See, it's Americans' fault again!

•   •   •  

Slowdown has a long reach   [5/31/08]
This article from the Houston Chronicle is such a prime example of sob-story journalism done to wretched excess that I couldn't resist posting it.

    LA PAROTA, MEXICO Ñ Freddy Arroyo's wife was nearly nine months pregnant, but the $10 a day he earned delivering water couldn't feed his two children, let alone a new baby.
As my family used to say, if you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em. It's a basic responsibility thing.
    Villages across Mexico depend on money from migrant workers in cities like Houston. But now, as the U.S. economy slows, relatives in industries like construction are increasingly limited in what they can give.
        "These days you just scrape by, nothing else. You can't afford to send anything back," Alberto Cruz, an illegal Mexican day laborer, said by telephone from Houston.
        After oil, remittances are Mexico's biggest source of foreign cash. By 2006, remittances had soared to $24 billion a year, but last year they barely grew and, in fact, fell in some states, like Michoac‡n.
According to the Houston Chronicle, it's a terrible thing that remittances are failing to increase, even though the amount "nearly tripled over four years to $23.7 billion in 2006." (Even so, the LA Times reports Mexico prospering despite U.S. slowdown.)
    "It's very hard to find anyone here without a relative in Houston," local teacher Alfredo Mart’nez said.
        Houston has been the lifeblood of 63-year-old corn farmer Constantino Santos' family for three generations. His father worked in the area under the post-World War II bracero program.
Mexicans have used Houston as a cash cow in the past and they expect that situation to continue. However, as a result of easy money from remittances, Mexico has not pursued long-needed reforms. If it weren't for the United States being used as a pressure-release valve for Mexico's dysfunction, the country would surely have sorted out their affairs more equitably. Mexico is a crack whore in search of easy money, and America is the dealer.
    Of course, the arrangement is deadly for the United States as well. But this discussion concerns bad reporting about Mexico.
    Since her daughter's birth on March 27, Catalina Orozco has only received $150 from her husband, who has struggled to find work painting houses. She has moved back to her family home Ñ a tumbledown shack that lodges 12 people who depend on relatives in Houston for money.
        Orozco sleeps with the baby, her 7-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son on a battered red sofa and armchairs.
        Her diabetic grandmother, Maria Pati–o, who can barely walk, depends on three sons and a daughter in Houston. Their dwindling remittances also support Pati–o's son Angel, a 25-year-old with Down syndrome.
The litany of misery which comprises the finale suggests all the suffering is America's fault. But Mexico has a government that is supposed to be responsible for some measure of its citizens' well being, but you would never know that from reading sob stories like this in the MSM.

•   •   •  

Tax money scattered in sacred pots one reason for state's huge deficit   [5/30/08]
As a result of the initiative process in California, billions of tax dollars are stashed in special accounts for dopey, unnecessary projects where the distributors can't even spend the available cash because there is no need for its use. Worse, the state is $15 billion in the hole, but the special accounts cannot be tapped.

    SACRAMENTO Ñ Money, money everywhere and not a buck to spend -- at least from the barrels of billions locked up by ballot-box budgeting.
        That money can only be spent on specific programs previously approved by voters. It can't be used to help balance the books in Sacramento or pay down the state's rising debt or avoid slashing programs for the elderly poor and disabled. [...]
        Ten years ago, voters narrowly approved filmmaker Rob Reiner's Proposition 10 to raise the cigarette tax by 50 cents a pack to pay for early childhood development. That program has more than $2.4 billion sitting idle.
Here are some examples of the silly programs that have run amok under the initiative process.
    Laurel Kloomok, executive director of First5 San Francisco, complains that her organization has gotten a bum rap. Such controversial programs, she says, amount to only 2% of the commission's spending. Other programs, she adds, include helping non-English-speaking parents enroll their kids in school, Spanish music classes, "community building," parent-child interaction -- plus child screening for health and developmental problems.
More details about spending from the San Francisco Chronicle: Not all First 5 grants are helping poor kids.

•   •   •  

Islam's growth result of western relativism, warns Muslim convert   [5/30/08]
Here's a warning to Europe, from someone who knows what he's talking about.

    Rome - Italian journalist and Muslim convert to Catholicism, Magdi Allam, warned this week that Islam is growing as a result of the ideology of relativism that pervades the West and claims that there are many truths instead of one unique Truth.
        In an article published by the magazine Mundo Cristiano and quoted by Analisis Digital, Allam explained that relativism, which attributes Òequal dignity to everything regardless of the contentÓ has made it possible for extremism and Islamic terrorism Òto be introduced and to take rootÓ in Europe, to the point that there are Islamic extremists with European citizenship who Òact upon and spread an ideology of hatred and violence.Ó
        Likewise, Allam, who was recently baptized by Benedict XVI, said it was impossible to be a moderate Muslim, because the religion of Islam is Òphysiologically violent, as confirmed by certain verses from the Koran that defend an ideology of hatred, violence, death and condemnation of those who are not Muslims.Ê This way of thinking comes from Mohammed,Ó Allam said, adding that Islam is an Òintrinsically violentÓ religion.
Below, Pope Benedict baptized Muslim convert to Christianity, Magdi Allam, on Easter Sunday.


•   •   •  

In Miami, Spanish Is Becoming the Primary Language   [5/29/08]
Miami shows us the future of America -- bilingual, hostile and balkanized -- unless legal and illegal immigration are profoundly reduced.

    In many areas of Miami, Spanish has become the predominant language, replacing English in everyday life. Anyone from Latin America could feel at home on the streets, without having to pronounce a single word in English.
        In stores, shopkeepers wait on their clients in Spanish. Universities offer programs for Spanish speakers. And in supermarkets, banks, restaurants Ñ even at the post office and government offices Ñ information is given and assistance is offered in Spanish. In Miami, doctors and nurses speak Spanish with their patients and a large portion of advertising is in Spanish. Daily newspapers and radio and television stations cater to the Hispanic public.
        But this situation, so pleasing to Latin American immigrants, makes some English speakers feel marginalized. In the 1950s, it's estimated that more than 80 percent of Miami-Dade County residents were non-Hispanic whites. But in 2006, the Census Bureau estimates that number was only 18.5 percent, and in 2015 it is forecast to be 14 percent. Hispanics now make up about 60 percent.
        "The Anglo population is leaving," said Juan Clark, a sociology professor at Miami Dade College. "One of the reactions is to emigrate toward the north. They resent the fact that (an American) has to learn Spanish in order to have advantages to work. If one doesn't speak Spanish, it's a disadvantage."
        According to the Census, 58.5 percent of the county's 2.4 million residents speak Spanish Ñ and half of those say they don't speak English well. English-only speakers make up 27.2 percent of the county's residents.
Just yesterday, Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama opined in Colorado that all "Everybody should be bilingual."
    "When it comes to second-language learners, the most important thing is not to get bogged down in ideology, but figure out what works," Obama says. "Everybody should be bilingual, or everybody should be trilingual." The comments drew loud applause.

•   •   •  

Concerns about immigration affect attitudes about public spending, UCR study finds   [5/29/08]
This is certainly true in my case. Since becoming knowledgeable about the illegal immigration tsunami, I have voted against all local and state measures to increase funding for schools.

    Californians concerned about immigration are less likely to support increases in public spending, early results from a study by a UC Riverside professor emeritus has found. [...]
        Max Neiman, a professor emeritus at UC Riverside and associate director of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, said a study he conducted with the institute's Eric McGhee found that non-Hispanic whites who listed immigration as the most important issue facing California were less likely to support greater spending for public services such as libraries and children's health care.
        That held true even when controlled by ideology, meaning, for example, that liberals who had concerns about immigration were less likely to support higher spending than other liberals.
        "People tend to be more generous when they see themselves as part of a community made up of people like themselves," he said.
Actually, most citizens don't like like being forced to pay tax dollars for the upkeep of thieves, which is what illegal aliens are. But the point about community is true enough.
    How interesting that this article admits that some who favor immigration restriction are liberals.

•   •   •  

Drug dealer's wait for Jesus denied by federal agents   [5/29/08]
Those darn Mexicans are so inventive when it comes to smuggling. They have stuck a girl in a pinata, crammed a woman into a dashboard and encased a man in a car seat. Is there anything they won't do to smuggle people and drugs into America?
    Of course not -- they're Mexicans!
    The latest colorful border seizure is a statue of Jesus made out of cocaine...

    Drug traffickers mixed as much as six pounds of the illicit white powder into a paste and used it to make a regal statue of the Christian savior, complete with painted-on flowing hair and a gold cape.
        Smugglers were likely hoping the statue, which could be worth as much as $30,000 on the streets, would be dismissed by border guards as just another of the hundreds of plaster representations hawked to borderland tourists.
        But a dog trained to sniff out drugs confirmed it was anything but another religious memento.
It's a perfect time for an update of the popular song, Plastic Jesus.
    I don't care if it rains or freezes,
    'Long as I got my Cocaine Jesus
    Riding in the trunk space of my car.
    Across the border into Texas
    I'll be buying a brand new Lexus.
    With my Cocaine Jesus I'll go far.
(Here's Paul Newman's low-key version of Plastic Jesus in Cool Hand Luke.)

VDARE.com version: Mexicans Love Jesus Art (Particularly When It's Made of Cocaine) .

•   •   •  

Lead exposure in children linked to violent crime   [5/29/08]
In my 2006 blog item Will California Get Mexican Lead Out?, I discussed the scandalous situation of toxic amounts of lead ppresent in many varieties of Mexican candy imported to California. The poisonous candy was allowed to remain on store shelves because "It would seem culturally insensitive" to crack down. However, even tiny amounts of lead consumed by children can cause measurable declines in intelligence, and around half of hispanic students don't finish high school.
    Now we learn that there is a crime connection as well.

    The first study to follow lead-exposed children from before birth into adulthood has shown that even relatively low levels of lead permanently damage the brain and are linked to higher numbers of arrests, particularly for violent crime.
        Earlier studies linking lead to such problems used indirect measures of both lead and criminality, and critics have argued that socioeconomic and other factors may be responsible for the observed effects.
        But by measuring blood levels of lead before birth and during the first seven years of life, then correlating the levels with arrest records and brain size, Cincinnati researchers have produced the strongest evidence yet that lead plays a major role in crime.
        The researchers also found that lead exposure is a continuing problem despite the efforts of the federal government and cities to minimize exposure.
See the Orange County Register's 2004 investigative report, Toxic Treats. The landmark series was vital in focusing public attention. In 2007, the Califoria Department of Health issued a warning against one of the most egregious brands of Mexicqn candy.

•   •   •  

Some Muslims in U.S. Quietly Engage in Polygamy   [5/28/08]
This being an NPR story, the criminal aspect of polygamy is not stressed.

    All Things Considered, May 27, 2008 á Although polygamy is illegal in the U.S. and most mosques try to discourage plural marriages, some Muslim men in America have quietly married multiple wives.
        No one knows how many Muslims in the U.S. live in polygamous families. But according to academics researching the issue, estimates range from 50,000 to 100,000 people.
        You can see some of the women involved in polygamous marriages in the lobby of Sanctuary for Families, a nonprofit women's center in New York City. It bursts with color as a dozen women in bright African dresses and head wraps gather for a weekly noon meeting for West African immigrants. The women come each week to this support group where they discuss hard issues, such as domestic abuse, medical problems, immigration hurdles and polygamy.
        Polygamy is freely practiced in parts of Africa, and almost every one of the women in the group has experienced polygamy firsthand Ð either as a wife in a plural marriage or having been raised in families with one father who has two or more wives.
Polygamy is specifically mentioned in the requirements for citizenship as a disqualifying behavior, showing a lack of Good Moral Character. It is a crime against women, first because the word means multiple wives, and very few cultures permit the opposite arrangement (polyandry) of a woman having several husbands. In many situations, the additional wives are underage or coerced in some way or the first wife objects. More modern Muslim women reject the practice, because it is often the source of enormous family stress and unhappiness.
    Polygamy fits well into cultures where women are second-class citizens, because it reinforces the idea that wives are replaceable parts, rather than half of a unique partnership of two consenting individuals.
    In western nations where polygamy is illegal, the problem is worsened by the spare family members receving welfare benefits. (In dhimmified Britain, the government has welcomed polygamous wives and kiddies to the welfare roles.) So not only are our laws broken and our western culture insulted, we have to pay with our tax dollars to support illegal family members.

UPDATE: Part Two of this NPR report is even worse than Part One in terms of a touchy-feely approach with no mention of the costs to society and families.

•   •   •  

L.A. parishes help pay archdiocese's $720 million in abuse settlements   [5/28/08]
Remember the court-ordered payout of several hundred million dollars for victims of pedophile priests? Now the Los Angeles archdiocese is trying to scrape up an enormous amount of money by hitting on the little churches.

    Blessed with a nest egg of nearly $1.5 million, a Woodland Hills parish donated almost all of it, leaving just $1,000 in its savings account. An Encino church offered a $100,000 interest-free loan. And a Boyle Heights parish decided it could spare $500 after ruling out the idea of raising money with tamale sales.
        With gifts large and small, parishes across the sprawling Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles are answering an appeal from Cardinal Roger M. Mahony to help the archdiocese dig out of the financial hole resulting from its multimillion-dollar legal settlements with victims of clergy sexual abuse. [...]
        Mahony, 72, whose remarks at one session were recorded for distribution to the parishes, apologized for "mistakes and miscalculations" he said he had made in handling the abuse crisis. He asked for help, saying the settlement costs were more than expected. To pay its $292-million share of the bill, he said, the archdiocese had cut administrative staff, liquidated investments and begun to sell off about 50 properties, including its headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard.
The continuing crimes of pedophile priests resulted from Catholic management protecting criminals. The responsibility lies with people like Cardinal Roger Mahony (a big supporter of amnesty for illegal aliens), who personally protected numerous child-molesting priests. See Details on 11 Priests Missing in '04 Report (Los Angeles Times, 4/6/06) about Mahony's conduct unbecoming a Cardinal:
    Cardinal Roger M. Mahony acknowledged to Los Angeles Catholics in his 2004 "Report to the People of God" that he left five priests in ministry despite complaints that they had molested children.
        But a Times analysis of church records released since then shows that he left 11 other priests in ministry for periods up to 13 years after parishioners raised concerns about inappropriate behavior with children.
Why does Cardinal Mahony still have a job? Why doesn't he give up his cushy home paid for by parishioners? What sacrifices has he made for the moral and financial disaster he created? If he has given up anything, it is not mentioned in this news report. All the parishioners got was a dinky apology.
    Mahony, 72, whose remarks at one session were recorded for distribution to the parishes, apologized for "mistakes and miscalculations" he said he had made in handling the abuse crisis. He asked for help, saying the settlement costs were more than expected. To pay its $292-million share of the bill, he said, the archdiocese had cut administrative staff, liquidated investments and begun to sell off about 50 properties, including its headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard.
Last September, the Archdiocese sold a convent in Santa Barbara for the pedophile priest pay-out and made old women leave who had dedicated their entire lives to serving the Church: Facing Their Convent's Closure. Again, I can find no mention of Cardinal Mahony being inconvenienced in any way by his criminal actions.

•   •   •  

Prisons prepare to integrate cellmates   [5/27/08]
The California prisons are embarking on a dangerous program of social engineering, as a result of a court ruling, that cells will not be shared on the basis of race. Prisons are the most violently racist places you can find in America, but the powers that be hope to change that by mixing it up in the tiny cells prisoners share. Good luck.

    San Quentin and 30 or so other state penal facilities are gearing up to carry out a federal court mediation agreement for integrating double cells and ending the use of race as the sole determining factor in making cell assignments.
        Men in California's prisons have long been segregated in cells to quell racial tensions. [...]
        Lt. Rudy Luna, assistant to the warden at San Quentin, said there is some concern among prison officials about the change because much of the violence is already based around racial gangs.
The policy looks boneheaded and likely to produce more prison violence. The guards have one of the toughest jobs on earth already, and this won't help.
    The article did have a fascinating statistic tucked in the lower paragraphs:
    Among the state's male inmates, about 28.9 percent are black, 39.3 percent are Latino, 25.9 percent are white, and 5.9 percent are classified as other, according to figures from the state Department of Corrections.
It's nice to know that prisons are diverse!

VDARE.com version: Prison Diversity to Be Pumped Up.

•   •   •  

Best Wishes on Memorial Day, with Deep Gratitude to Those Whose Sacrifice Keeps Us Free



   

•   •   •  

"A Washington town confronts its language barrier"   [5/25/08]
The Justice Department is forcing the farm town Matawa, Washington, (population around 3200) to provide services in Spanish. It's another little town that has been Mexicanized by Washington's open-border policy, yet now the place is being further punished by being forced to implement a "language assistance plan." Talk about social engineering from hell...

    Nine out of 10 Mattawa residents speak Spanish at home, and 8 out of 10 adults speak English "less than very well," according to the 2000 U.S. Census. [...]
        The Justice Department said the town had to provide translation for people who aren't English-proficient.
        In places that have a high percentage of monolingual Spanish speakers, that means all city services, including law enforcement, have to be available in Spanish.
This instance of Washington meddling violates a widely held belief of Americans that immigrants must assimilate. A 2005 Rasmussen poll showed that this conviction remains strong despite years of multicultural propaganda: 79%: No English, No Citizenship.
    Two-thirds (67%) of Americans say that those who move to the USA should "adopt America's culture, language, and heritage. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 17% believe immigrants should maintain the culture of their home country.
        Seventy-nine percent (79%) say immigrants should be required to learn English before they are allowed to become citizens. Fourteen percent (14%) disagree.
        Sixty-four percent (64%) believe U.S. schools should teach all students in English. Twenty-nine percent (29%) believe some schools should offer courses in different languages.
The public has been pummelled by multiculturalism propaganda for decades, but still hangs tough to the belief in assimilation. The people still prefer American values to "diversity."
    VDARE.com version: Washington Turns Up the Heat against English.

•   •   •  

Border Violence   [5/25/08]
Bad getting worse in Mexico border towns. When police chiefs flee to the USA for asylum and cartels can mass murder at will, it's anarchy. AKA, a failed state.

    CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico Ð This border city stood eerily quiet Saturday as gunmen killed at least 14 people in 24 hours, making good on a promise to turn this weekend into a bloodbath.
        Eleven people were gunned down Friday, and by 6 p.m. Saturday, at least three more had been killed.
        In signs of panic, concerts planned for the weekend were canceled, nightclubs closed early on Friday and Ju‡rez Mayor JosŽ Reyes Ferriz cut short his visit to Colombia, returning Friday night.
        The city across the border from El Paso was on red alert Saturday, and the mayor said extra forces were on duty.
        "I can't recall a more grave time in Ju‡rez," said Alfredo Quijano, editor of the newspaper Norte de Ciudad Ju‡rez. "We've had other massacres ... but never anything like this."
        The hysteria began Thursday with an e-mail warning that gunmen would fire at malls and restaurants and threatening "killings all over the city."
        On Friday night, El Paso's TV stations and the El Paso Times reported about the e-mail, deepening the alarm on the U.S. side of the border.
        "I've cut my trips short to Ju‡rez because of long bridge lines and killings there," said El Paso resident Oscar Rodriguez, 34, a telemarketing specialist. "But with this, I'll be crazy to return to Ju‡rez anytime soon. It's crazy. Where is the rule of law?"
Where indeed?

Below, a map of the cartels which are battling each other and Mexico City for control of territory.


See also Bloody Saturday Lives Up To Name In Juarez.
    VDARE.com version: Meltdown in Ciudad Juarez.

•   •   •  

"Accept polygamy and be patient with your husband"   [5/24/08]
This just in from the moderate Muslims of Malaysia: you women need to cower under the rule of the all-powerful household male -- or else.

    A Malaysian MP told parliament that there would be fewer marital problems and a lower divorce rate if Muslim women were taught to accept polygamy, news reports said today.
        Ibrahim Ali, an independent parliamentarian, proposed moves to address the issue in response to complaints that women were always blamed for marital issues.
        "Such problems happen because women cannot accept polygamy. From a preventive point of view, what about doing a big campaign so that women can accept polygamy?" Ibrahim was quoted saying in the Star daily.
        The ethnic Malay Muslim lawmaker said women who are pregnant or who have "problems" when they hit their 50s do not understand that men still want to "have fun". [...]
        Islam is the official religion of Malaysia, where more than 60 per cent of its 27 million people are Muslim Malays. Polygamy is illegal for non-Muslims.

•   •   •  

Florida Muslims sue feds over citizenship delays   [5/24/08]
Pushy Muslims have learned the two door-opener words in today's America: "racism" and "lawsuit."

    Nationally, lawsuits against the immigration agency are becoming more common, especially in places with large Muslim populations. Central Florida has an estimated 40,000 followers of Islam.
        "The lawsuits say, 'Listen, this is ridiculous and prejudicial,' " said Lisa Krueger Khan of the Central Florida chapter of the American Immigration Lawyer Association. "They force the FBI to finish the background check and Immigration [Services] to act."
        U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agency that processes citizenship applications, does not comment on pending lawsuits, but Ana Santiago, an agency spokeswoman in Miami, said the delays don't target one group of people.
Hugh Fiztgerald from JihadWatch.org had some excellent remarks...
    Why is Husain, a "machinist from Iraq," here? If he were ever a "refugee" he is a refugee no longer. He has no special skills, desperately needed. Why isn't he back building the new Iraq? If he is a Shi'a Arab, then Shi'a Arabs have, thanks to the American invasion, inherited Iraq, or at least Baghdad, and all points south, including the major oilfields. If he is a Sunni (not everyone named "Husain" need be a Shi'a) he has all of the area west and north of Baghdad, save where the Kurds now run things.
        Why is he here? Is he here because he must be here to avoid persecution? From Muslim countries, the only justified immigration should be that of non-Muslims. Does he fully support the American Constitution, does he even understand its contents -- or is this not necessary for winning citizenship? [...]
        Or why, given all that has happened, and all that is likely to happen, and all that we Americans can see happening in all the countries of Western Europe where, foolishly and with criminal negligence, ruling elites have permitted the large-scale immigration of Muslims, who pose the same problems, no matter what Infidel country they end up in and, among all the vast and various groups of immigrants, present -- uniquely present -- certain problems that show no signs of going away, because they emanate not from "poverty" nor from any other external cause, but rather, from the texts, tenets, attitudes, and atmospherics of Islam.

•   •   •  

Report: Wildlife Refuges Underfunded   [5/24/08]
It is so tragic to see our wildlife protection areas left to fall apart and be taken over by illegal aliens for growing drugs and taking over places reserved for nature.

    "Without adequate funding, we are jeopardizing some of the world's most spectacular wildlife and wild lands," said Evan Hirsche, president of the National Wildlife Refuge Association and chairman of the Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement.
        The cooperative said in a report released Thursday to Congress that the nation's 548 refuges and the 100 million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System Ñ about the size of California Ñ is underfunded by 43 percent. The refuge system needs at least $765 million a year but is receiving only $434 million, the report says.
        A decrease in law enforcement has left the refuges vulnerable to criminal activity, including prostitution, torched cars and illegal immigrant camps along the Potomac River in suburban Washington, D.C.; methamphetamine labs in Nevada; and pot growing operations in Washington state, Hirsche said. [...]
        The nation's refuge system was created in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt after a trip to tiny Pelican Island in South Florida. There, giant shotguns were being used to kill hundreds of birds to satisfy the market for fashionable feathers. Roosevelt went on to create 50 more refuges, stretching from Florida to Alaska.

•   •   •  

Guest opinion: Raza studies gives rise to racial hostility   [5/23/08]
Retired teacher John A. Ward wrote recently about his experience being part of an ethnic curriculum in a Tucson high school, where he was asked to be the "teacher of record" meaning he should assign grades only while the Raza expert dispensed the Mexican view of history.

    Where history was missing from the course, it was filled by controversial and biased curriculum.
        The basic theme of the curriculum was that Mexican-Americans were and continue to be victims of a racist American society driven by the interests of middle and upper-class whites.
        In this narrative, whites are able to maintain their influence only if minorities are held down. Thus, social, political and economic events in America must be understood through this lens.
        This biased and sole paradigm justified teaching that our community police officers are an extension of the white power structure and that they are the strongmen used "to keep minorities in their ghettos."
        It justified telling the class that there are fewer Mexican-Americans in Tucson Magnet High School's advanced placement courses because their "white teachers" do not believe they are capable and do not want them to get ahead.
        It justified teaching that the Southwestern United States was taken from Mexicans because of the insatiable greed of the Yankee who acquired his values from the corrupted ethos of Western civilization.
        It was taught that the Southwest is "Atzlan," the ancient homeland of the Aztecs, and still rightfully belongs to their descendants - to all people of indigenous Mexican heritage.
        As an educator, I refused to be complicit in a curriculum that engendered racial hostility, irresponsibly demeaned America's civil institutions, undermined our public servants, discounted any virtues in Western civilization and taught disdain for American sovereignty.
        When I raised these concerns, I was told that I was a "racist," despite being Hispanic. Acknowledging my heritage, the Raza studies staff also informed me that I was a vendido, the Spanish term for "sellout."
Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne was interviewed on May 22 about the controversy: Audio file.
    See also two articles writen by columnist Doug MacEachern early this year about the "ethnic studies" program in a Tucson high school, reprinted on the Rose City Rumbings blog Anti-American teachings in Tucson.
    Interestingly, this Aztlan propaganda is the sort of thing dismissed as a myth by left-wing media provocateurs Media Matters in its new hatchet job, Fear & Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News. Page 14 of the PDF version remarks, "Another myth that has circulated on cable news with little refutation is the concept of 'reconquista'."
    On the contrary, the junior shock troops for reconquista are being indoctrinated right now as they are filled with anger about fake grievances. The Tucson example shows how much the anti-American poison developed in universities with "chicano studies" has filtered down to the high school level, where the kids are even more impressionable.


•   •   •  

Mexico prospering despite U.S. slowdown   [5/23/08]
Mexico's economy is doing quite well, yet George Bush wants to send our corrupt neighbor $1.4 billion in military aid (aka Merida initiative). If the US had GDP growth as good as wealthy Mexco's, the Bush administration would be handing out rosey press releases.

    MEXICO CITY Ñ A sizzling stock market. A strengthening peso. Good economic growth. Someone forgot to tell Mexico that the U.S. has been flirting with recession.
        Mexico's gross domestic product expanded at an annualized rate of 2.6% in the first three months of the year compared with a year earlier, according to government figures released Thursday. It's a respectable performance that highlights the nation's surprising resilience in the face of a U.S. slowdown.
        The growth appeared muted compared with the fourth quarter of 2007, when Mexico's GDP expanded by 3.8%. But there was statistical noise in the first-quarter numbers. The government this year adopted a new international standard for calculating GDP, which is the value of all goods and services produced in the economy. And the January-to-March period was hobbled by this year's early Easter week holiday, which resulted in fewer working days compared with the first three months of last year. Adjusting for those factors, first-quarter GDP growth was a solid 3.7%, according to the Treasury secretariat.

•   •   •  

LA welcomes 18,000 new citizens, a city record   [5/23/08]
For an indication of how permissive Washington remains about handing out citizenship, check out this cheerful story about a naturalization ceremony. Some of the details are very troubling.

    In becoming a citizen, radio host Eduardo "Piolin" Sotelo was taking the advice he has frequently dispensed on the nation's most popular Spanish-language radio show.
        "This is a new page in my life," the native of Mexico said as he was swarmed by well wishers and fans clamoring for a photo. "We have to make a difference."
        Sotelo, who came to the country illegally 22 years ago in a car trunk, chronicled his own citizenship process as he urged fellow Hispanics to seek citizenship at a time when immigration is still a hot-button issue and a presidential election is underway.
Not only did Piolin come here in a car trunk, he is an enemy of this country and its sovereignty. As the top Spanish radio host in Los Angeles, he was active in organizing the May Day 2006 march where tens of thousands showed up in LA to support amnesty for illegal aliens. His loyalty is to Mexico, period. His radio shtick is to urge Mexicans to become citizens to undermine America.

In this clip he cries about amnesty being defeated. Not my choice for American citizen material.

Here's a Washington Post puff piece on his ascendance from Mexo-scab to well paid radio jock and political activist: An Immigrant DJ's Morning in America.
    And one memorable number from the original article...

    The government administered 468,878 oaths of citizenship in the U.S. from Oct. 1 through April 30, up 35 percent from 348,591 during the same period a year earlier, said Chris Rhatigan, a spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

•   •   •  

Congress Trims BushÕs Anti-Drug Plan for Mexico   [5/22/08]
Uh oh, Mexico is miffed that it may not get the entire big enchilada of free money from the American taxpayer.

    The United States Congress has scaled back on President BushÕs anti-drug plans for Mexico and put human rights conditions on some of the aid, drawing fire from some Mexicans who accuse American lawmakers of meddling in their countryÕs internal affairs.
        As part of a broader emergency appropriations bill that remains under discussion and could face a presidential veto, the Senate Thursday approved $350 million to aid Mexico in what has become a pitched battle against drug trafficking. The Senate would also give another $100 million to countries in Central America that are in drug wars of their own, as well as to the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
        Besides reducing the Bush administrationÕs request, which would have sent $500 million to Mexico and $50 million to Central America, the Senate adopted language similar to that in a recently passed House bill that would hold up a quarter of the money until the State Department rules that Mexico is meeting certain human rights markers. The House approved $400 million for Mexico, one of several differences that will be worked out in a House-Senate conference in the coming weeks.
Someone should tell Mexico about the American expression, "Beggars can't be choosers," meaning that mooches have no right to complain about what they get. Presidente Calderon asked for a free handout from his pal George Bush, according to a Council on Foreign Relations interview: OÕNeil: $1.4 Billion Anti-Drug Plan for Mexico Likely to Win Congressional Approval, 11/6/07.
    Now where did this initiative come from?
    It actually came from the Mexican side. Calderon proposed to Bush to do some sort of joint project back in March when they met together in Merida, so hence it becomes the Merida Initiative. In the first year, Bush is proposing $500 million of aid to Mexico and over the next three years $1.4 billion worth of aid to help Calderon build up his technological equipment and police and military forces to combat the drug cartels.
In fact, we shouldn't send riff-raff Mexico any money, any time. Not only is it riddled with corruption throughout, the country is nevertheless quite wealthy and consistently ranks among the top 15 nations in GDP -- Calderon can pay for what he wants. Why send resources to Mexico to fight the border drug problem when it should be spent in the United States where we can control it?
    See my article from last year about the Merida Initiative scam, A "Marshall Plan For Mexico"ÑSending Welfare To A Crack House.

•   •   •  

"Could the Quintero verdict have damaging effects for immigrants?"   [5/22/08]
Here's another bogus backlash story from the permissive, open-borders-loving press. A convicted cop killer gets a cushy sentence of life in prison and the MSM are worried that the case might cause citizens to reflect negatively on the crimes committed by illegal aliens.
    Ya think?

    Quintero was in the country illegally when he killed Johnson. HeÕd already been deported once after he was convicted for indecency with a child.
        Rafael Perez, a Houstonian who became a naturalized U.S. citizen Wednesday, said he worried the verdict would negatively affect other immigrants.
        ÒPeople are going to think that people who are trying to do things the correct way, that they shouldnÕt have a citizenship,Ó Perez said.
How often do you hear conflation paranoia so elegantly expressed?!
    Meanwhile, the stone-cold killer is amazed at his good fortune: Killer of Houston policeman surprised he won't go to death row.
    Almost two years ago, Juan Leonardo Quintero predicted in a jail house interview that he would be sent to the death chamber for shooting Houston police officer Rodney Johnson.
        "I was wrong," he said Wednesday from a Harris County jail a day after he was sentenced to life in prison without chance of parole.
This article included informative statistics about the frequency of the death penalty against cop killers in Harris County.
    Since 1990, at least nine men have been sentenced to death in police officer slayings. At least four others have been sentenced to life in prison, although the law has continued to change regarding the minimum amount of time they have to spend behind bars.
In my opinion, a death sentence should be understood by criminals as automatic for murdering an officer. Otherwise the job of police will be even more hazardous than it already is.

Below, cop-killer illegal alien Juan Quintero at the time of an early court appearance (left) and after his trial make-over (right). It's amazing what defense attorneys can do.


UPDATE (5/23): Quintero juror 'outraged' over killer's life sentence

    [Juror Cindy] Bradford said she and one other juror supported a death sentence. She did not name that juror.
        "I'm as outraged as anyone else about this," Bradford said. "... We're telling everyone that you can enter this country illegally, plead guilty to indecency with a child, get deported, come back anyway, execute a police officer and that's OK. Now we get to take care of him for the rest of his natural life, and I personally have a problem with that."
        Bradford took exception to the argument of fellow jurors, who, she said, suggested police officers are aware of the risks of their profession.

•   •   •  

Illegal immigrant gets 15 years for fatal hit-run   [5/21/08]
You can't call it justice when a drunk-driving illeal alien gets such a low sentence for killing a teenager, Paul Watry of Port Washington, Wisconsin, with his whole life ahead of him.
    The killer, Eddie Carbajal-Lile, ran a stop sign after drinking and struck a car with three young people inside. He fled the scene and was caught two weeks later in Ohio after he was arrested for harassing a bartender.
    Fifty friends and family of Paul Watry were present for the sentencing on Monday.

    Larry Watry, 50, Watry's father, told the judge the family would like an 18-year sentence, but also suggested that Carbajal-Lile should face 60 years behind bars, to match his son's life expectancy.
        "Today does nothing for us. We've lost our son, and nothing can change that, and nothing will erase the time we had together," a tearful Watry told reporters after the hearing. "He was a remarkable young man."
        During the hearing, Watry spoke passionately about his son for about five minutes, and then played an emotional 10-minute video montage of Paul Watry's life, with a portion of the musical backdrop performed by Paul, who owned eight guitars and headed a rock band called Ubiquitous Scab.
The video tribute to the dead young man is a moving reminder of the human cost of open borders.

•   •   •  

HPD officer's family shocked by life sentence   [5/20/08]
What has happened to Texas that a Houston jury would let a cop-killer illegal alien off with just life in prison? This sentence is a huge disappointment.
    For details on the murder of Officer Rodney Johnson, see Officer Down in Houston. He had arrested Juan Leonardo Quintero for driving without a license, but Johnson's frisking missed a gun hidden in the perp's waistband, which was used in the murder. Quintero was an illegal alien who had been previously deported in 1999 for indency with a child and arrested for drunk driving as well.

    "We're just very upset," said Lorraine Crawford, mother of the slain officer's widow, Joslyn Johnson.
        "We wanted the death penalty," Crawford said. "He had nothing but malice in his heart."
        She added that the jury did not seem to understand the difficulty of a police officer's job.
        The officer's brother, David Johnson, was in the courtroom with his wife, Donna Mack, when the sentence was announced. He said he and his wife also had wanted to see Quintero sentencedÊto death.
        "He shot him four times in the back, three times in the head," Johnson said. "I can't believe that. What's mitigation?"
One bit of good news is that the employer of the killer has not gotten off scot free: Slain Officer's Widow Sues Killer's Employer.
    Ben Dominguez, Johnson's attorney, also announced that a civil suit has been filed against Quintero's employer, Robert Camp of Camp Landscaping in Deer Park. Dominquez said Josslyn Johnson is suing him for negligence.
        "The owner of the company gave a man with a warrant out for his arrest, and who had alcohol and drug problems, a car to drive," said Dominguez. "He did not have a driver's license and he did not train him or teach him well. We believe if Camp did not employ Quinterro, Officer Johnson's death might have never happened."
        Dominguez said Johnson wants damages of no less than $10 million from Camp. KPRC Local 2 was unsuccessful in attempts to reach anyone with Camp Landscaping for comment.
        Camp has also been charged with a federal crime. In January, the U.S. Attorney's Office charged him with harboring an illegal alien. United States Attorney Don DeGabrielle said Camp helped Quintero illegally enter the United States in 1999 and gave him a job and a place to live after Quintero was deported in 1998. Camp also posted bond for Quintero in 1998 when Quintero was charged with indecency with a child.
More about Robert Camp's criminal charges: Feds arrest Deer Park businessman.
    A Deer Park business owner has been arrested for harboring an illegal alien accused of capital murder of a Houston Police Department officer.
        Robert Lane Camp, 47, the owner of Camp Landscaping, Deer Park, was charged by criminal complaint with encouraging Juan Leonardo Quintero-Perez, the accused killer of HPD Officer Rodney Johnson, to unlawfully enter the U. S. and with harboring Quintero.

•   •   •  

Drug war shutters businesses on Mexico border   [5/19/08]
Border towns like Nuevo Laredo and Tijuana have taken it in the neck, now that the drug cartels' war with the Mexico City government has heated up.
    The upshot today is that the warfare on the steets of Tijuana have scared away visitors and forced businesses to close up shop. The breakdown of normal commerce out of fear is one symptom of a failing state. Mexico is far down the road to becoming another Colombia in terms of cartel violence.

    A decade ago, economists hailed Tijuana as a place where cheap Mexican labor and U.S. financing could meet, attracting Asian firms eager to set up manufacturing plants to export to the United States.
        Now, that vision is slipping away, a victim of drug violence that has been exploding this side of the U.S.-Mexico border for the past three years.
        Once a freewheeling city that has served Americans cheap tequila since the U.S. prohibition era, Tijuana is at the center of a three-way drug war between rival gangs and Mexico's military. Drug-related murders are a daily occurrence.
        The violence is scaring away tourists who came for everything from prostitutes and dental work to medicine. A lively artistic community is also dwindling.
        While most assembly-for-export businesses, or maquiladoras, continue to operate normally, drug violence is such that they risk losing new investment to competitors like China. Other businesses are seeing their livelihoods disappear.


•   •   •  

Wildlife populations 'plummeting'   [5/18/08]
It's tragic that human overpopulation is having such a devastating effect on the planet's biodiversity, not to mention its wild creatures.

    Between a quarter and a third of the world's wildlife has been lost since 1970, according to data compiled by the Zoological Society of London.
        Populations of land-based species fell by 25%, marine by 28% and freshwater by 29%, it says.
        Humans are wiping out about 1% of all other species every year, and one of the "great extinction episodes" in the Earth's history is under way, it says.
        Pollution, farming and urban expansion, over-fishing and hunting are blamed.

•   •   •  

A SurgeonÕs Path From Migrant Fields to Operating Room   [5/17/08]
The New York Times is known for standing strongly on the side of open borders and supporting nonexistent "rights" of foriegners residing here illegally. But the paper has certainly broken new ground with this interview of a one-time illegal Mexican farmworker who is now a Brain Surgeon, Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa. The article is thick with implied praise for the man's professional success, but has zero condemnation for his illegal acts.
    The message is that we better keep borders open because America wouldn't want to miss out on a potential neurosurgeon lurking among all the grade-school dropouts picking tomatoes.

    Q. WHERE DID YOU GROW UP?

    A. Mexicali. My father had a small gas station. The familyÕs stability vanished when there was a devaluation of the Mexican peso in the 1980s. My father lost the gas station, and we had no money for food. For a while, I sold hot dogs on the corner to help.
        As the economic crisis deepened, there seemed no possibility for any future in Mexico. I had big dreams and I wanted more education. So in 1987, when I was 19, I went up to the border between Mexicali and the United States and hopped the fence.
        Some years later, I was sitting at a lunch table with colleagues at Harvard Medical School. Someone asked how IÕd come to Harvard. ÒI hopped the fence,Ó I said. Everyone laughed. They thought I was joking.

This illegal alien (who later became a citizen) took up slots at UC Berkeley and Harvard Law School that could have gone to law-abiding citizen students, whose parents' taxes pay for state schools like the University of California system. No mention of that by the Times, however; only a wrap-up question calling for a typical liberal response. Senor Doctor Hinojosa complies:
    Q. WHEN YOU HEAR ANTI-IMMIGRANT EXPRESSIONS ON TALK RADIO AND CABLE TELEVISION, HOW DO YOU FEEL?

    A. It bothers me. Because I know what it was that drove me to jump the fence. It was poverty and frustration with a system that would have never allowed me to be who I am today.
        As long as there is poverty in the rest of the world and we export our culture through movies and television, people who are hungry are going to come here. ThereÕs no way to stop it.

It's the old "force of nature" argument, recently disproved by the success of law enforcement in places like Arizona and Oklahoma. Perhaps Dr. Quinones-Hinojosa has not yet heard the good news that America as a nation of laws has not been completely obliterated. You can contact him at aquinon2@jhmi.edu.
    VDARE.com version: Brilliant Neurosurgeon Discovered in Tomato Fields!

•   •   •  

Identity theft in America goes hand and hand with illegal immigration.   [5/16/08]
Steven Malanga's article about the fraudulent document crime wave is fact-packed and deserves your close attention.
    Pictured is Audra Schmierer, a Dublin, California, woman whose Social Security number has been used by more than 200 illegal aliens (as reported by Lou Dobbs).

    As everyone knows, America is experiencing an epidemic of identity theft. In the last five years alone, complaints to the Federal Trade Commission from U.S. residents who have had their identity stolen have skyrocketed 60 percent, to 258,427 in 2007Ñone-third of all consumer fraud complaints that the commission receives. WhatÕs less well understood, however, is how illegal immigration is helping to fuel this rash of crime. Seeking access to jobs, credit, and driverÕs licenses, many undocumented aliens are using the personal data of real Americans on forged documents. The immigrantsÕ identity theft has become so pervasive that the need to combat it is Òa disturbing front in the war against illegal immigration,Ó according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
        The FTCÕs latest statistics help show why. The top five states in terms of reported identity theft in 2007 all have large immigrant populationsÑthe border states of Arizona, California, and Texas, as well as Florida and Nevada. People who pilfer legitimate identities in these states are much more likely than in other parts of the country to use them to gain employment unlawfullyÑthe most common reason that illegal aliens steal personal information. In Arizona, for instance, 36 percent of all identity theft is for employment purposes, compared with only 5 percent in Maine, a state with far fewer illegal aliens. ÒTo many law enforcement leaders in Arizona, this suggests that ArizonaÕs identity-theft epidemic is directly linked to the problem of illegal immigration,Ó says a recent report by Identity Theft 911, an Arizona company that helps businesses and individuals protect themselves.
        Government investigations have only begun to uncover the extent of the crime wave. When ICE agents raided six Swift meat-processing plants in December 2006, they found widespread evidence of fraud involving the use of real peopleÕs identities; the feds eventually charged 148 illegal aliens in the case with crimes related to identity theft. In the first year and a half after Arizona created a special unit to deal with identity theft, investigators said that they were able to purchase more than 1,000 phony documents that made use of real peopleÕs identities. A so-called three-packÑa Social Security card, a driverÕs license, and a permanent-resident cardÑcosts on average just $160 in the state.

•   •   •  

U.S.-trained forces reportedly helping Mexican cartels   [5/16/08]
It's not exactly news that the Zeta high-end cartel enforcers were trained at the infamous School of the Americas. I blogged about it in 2005 from MSM news reports.
    However, the article linked here from the Houston Chronicle was the only news story I could find about Ted Poe's testimony.

    As many as 200 U.S.-trained Mexican security personnel have defected to drug cartels to carry out killings on both sides of the border and as far north as Dallas, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble, told Congress on Wednesday.
        The renegade members of Mexico's elite counter-narcotics teams trained at Fort Benning, Ga., have switched sides, contributing to a wave of violence that has claimed some 6,000 victims over the past 30 months, including prominent law enforcement leaders, the Houston-area Republican told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
        The slaughter has gained urgency amid high-profile assassinations of law officers in Mexico since May 1, claiming six senior officers, five of them with the federal police.
        Poe held aloft a dramatic, poster-board-size photograph that he said showed guerrilla-style commandos crossing into the United States. He said the Department of Homeland Security had documented "over 250 incursions by suspected military forces" into the United States over the past decade.
Ted Poe is a stand-up guy, a former Texas judge who is tough as nails against open borders. The Zeta story is one more example of how corrupt Mexico is, and how foolish it would be to send military hardware to Mexico via the Merida Initiative that will probably end up in the hands of the drug cartels.

Here's Ted explaining how expensive it is to taxpayers to have permissive immigration.

Check out the April memo from the State Department warning American citizens about the increasing dangers in Mexico: Travel Alert

    Recent Mexican army and police force conflicts with heavily-armed narcotics cartels have escalated to levels equivalent to military small-unit combat and have included use of machine guns and fragmentation grenades.ÊÊ Confrontations have taken place in numerous towns and cities in northern Mexico, including Tijuana in the Mexican state of Baja California, and Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juarez in the state of Chihuahua.Ê The situation in northern Mexico remains very fluid; the location and timing of future armed engagements there cannot be predicted.
        Armed robberies and carjackings, apparently unconnected to the narcotics-related violence, have increased in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez.Ê Dozens of U.S. citizens were kidnapped and/or murdered in Tijuana in 2007.Ê Public shootouts have occurred during daylight hours near shopping areas.Ê
See also a report from Stratfor, Mexico: On the Road to a Failed State?.

•   •   •  

Immigration and Gang Violence Propel Crusade   [5/15/08]
It's remarkable that the New York Times has published a story on the Jamiel Shaw murder. It actually discusses the relevent issues, like Los Angeles' criminal-friendly sanctuary policy.

    Councilman Dennis Zine, a former police officer, has proposed amending Special Order 40 to require that gang members found to be illegal immigrants be reported to federal authorities. Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group based in Washington, has filed a suit in federal court seeking to do away with the order, arguing that it unconstitutionally impedes cooperation between the local police and federal immigration agents.
        And Mr. Shaw and other grass-roots activists have called upon the police chief, William J. Bratton, to intervene.
        ÒAll we are saying is that when an officer encounters an individual who is in the gang file, they would check the name through the system,Ó Mr. Zine said. ÒIf they are a known gang member, they would then inquire of their immigration status.Ó
How could such a basic approach to public safety be at all controversial? The fact that it is shows how completely Los Angeles has come under the thrall of Mexican criminality.
    As Heather MacDonald wrote in Immigration and the Alien Gang Epidemic, sanctuary policies give foreign criminals advantages that citizen thugs do not receive.
    Sanctuary laws, present in such cities as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Austin, Houston, and San Francisco, generally forbid local police officers from inquiring into a suspectÕs immigration status or reporting it to federal authorities.Ê Such laws place a higher priority on protecting illegal aliens from deportation than on protecting legal immigrants and citizens from assault, rape, arson, and other crimes.
        LetÕs say a Los Angeles police officer sees a member of Mara Salvatrucha hanging out at Hollywood and Vine. The gang member has previously been deported for aggravated assault; his mere presence back in the country following deportation is a federal felony. Under the prevailing understanding of Los AngelesÕs sanctuary law (special order 40), if that officer merely inquires into the gangbangerÕs immigration status, the officer will face departmental punishment.

•   •   •  

Immigrant workers in New Orleans start leaving   [5/15/08]
Illegals from all over Latin America figure they have milked the New Orleans disaster for all its worth, and are ready to pack it in.

    Josue Vega was one of thousands of immigrant workers who flocked to New Orleans in 2005 in hopes of finding a rebuilding job in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
        He worked seven days a week and earned more than twice his normal earnings. But with work now down to three days a week, the 20-year-old is planning to go home to Honduras.
        "My goal is to be here until November, and then never come back," he said. "I've had enough." [...]
        U.S. Census data indicates nearly 100,000 Hispanics moved to the Gulf Coast after Katrina, but the Census tends not to reach undocumented immigrants.
However, it's doubtful that many who managed to pop a jackpot baby will leave.

•   •   •  

Violence in Mexico spills across US border   [5/15/08]
It had to happen. Top cops are fleeing in fear, given the recent assassinations of high-profile police officers in Mexico.

    Three Mexican police chiefs have requested political asylum in the U.S. as violence escalates in the Mexican drug wars and spills across the U.S. border, a top Homeland Security official told The Associated Press.
        In the past few months, the police officials have shown up at the U.S. border, fearing for their lives, according to Jayson Ahern, the deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection.
        "They're basically abandoned by their police officers or police departments in many cases," Ahern told AP.

•   •   •  

The Assimilation Factor   [5/14/08]
The Manhattan Institute has produced a new report, comparing the assimilation of immigrants today with earlier times.

    Public concern about the impact of new immigration on America has reached a pitch not seen since the early 20th century. Americans have experienced an immigration surge unprecedented in their lifetimes. This is an unsurprising coincidence in light of the fact that our immigrant population of 37 million is, in absolute numbers, greater than it has been at any time in our history. ItÕs nearly as large a percentage, 12.5%, of the population as it was at its historic peak at 14.5% in 1890. Today, there are more immigrants from Mexico than there were foreign-born residents from all countries in 1970.
        Most of the debate over immigration has focused on whom we admit and why, and why our border control is so ineffective. At least nine million immigrants are here illegally, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. [...]
        But is the melting pot still working? A new Manhattan Institute report by an economist at Duke University Jacob Vigdor, ÒMeasuring Immigrant Assimilation,Ó uses Census data to determine how similar immigrants from some 120 countries are to native-born Americans Ñ in other words, how assimilated they are.
Here's another article, one that cuts to the chase: Slowdown found in assimilation of immigrants
    Current immigrants Ñ especially Mexicans Ñ are less assimilated than those 100 years ago, a study to be released today found.
        The study uses Census data going back more than a century to measure assimilation through various indicators such as English-learning, employment, home ownership, rates of marriage to native-born people, child bearing, naturalization, educational attainment, military service and many others.
While it may seem commonsense that citizens would expect newbies to assimilate -- remember "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" -- not everyone agrees. In February, the Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, declared to an expat audience in Germany, "Assimilation is a crime against humanity."
    Here's the Manhattan Institute page with the report available for downloading and an executive summary: Measuring Immigrant Assimilation in the United States.

•   •   •  

Mariachi gets probation in menacing case   [5/14/08]
Mexicans can become downright fierce when it comes to their music -- that attitude must derive from their high regard for the arts.

    A gun-toting mariachi who held a gun on a musician who wanted to quit his band was sentenced to probation today in Denver District Court.
        Alvaro Alvarado-Amarias, 31, was given a three-year prison sentence suspended as long as he stays out of trouble for his three-year probation term.
        Originally charged with kidnapping, false imprisonment and assault, Alvarado-Amarias pleaded guilty to menacing.
        He was arrested Jan. 5 for holding Ervey Ruiz, 52, at gunpoint for five hours, threatening to kill him because Ruiz told him he was joining another band.
        For the past several years, Alvarado-Amarias has led Toros de la Sierra, a three-man mariachi group.
        Ruiz said he decided to leave because drinking was a higher priority with his bandmates than practicing their music.
Below is the band Toros de la Sierra. Poor Ervey Ruiz on the left was the victim held at gunpoint because he wanted to quit the band.


For an earlier example of musical seriousness, see Really Tough Music Critics in Mexico, detailing the murder of popular Mexican singer Valentin Elizalde after he apparently displeased some narco-thug -- perhaps with some lyric that wasn't adulatory enough. Mariachis better watch out for the high standards of the Mexican audience!

•   •   •  

East Bay water users may have to slash usage   [5/13/08]
Welcome to Crowdifornia 2008! Navy showers all around. Even better, shower with a Mexican!

    Contra Costa and Alameda county residents would be forced to immediately slash their use of water by nearly 20 percent - and some large-scale users by 30 percent - under the first water-rationing proposal by the East Bay district in nearly two decades.
        The board of the East Bay Municipal Utility District is expected today to declare a water-shortage emergency and approve a drought management program that would cut overall use among its 1.3 million customer base by 15 percent and shore up a water supply in dire condition after two consecutive dry years and the driest spring on record.
        Water managers opted to take a drastic step after a voluntary program last year seeking 15 percent conservation fell short of goals.
        The district, which serves customers from Berkeley to Danville and from Crockett to Castro Valley, expects its reservoirs to contain about 415,000 acre-feet of water - about two-thirds of normal - by Oct. 1. One acre-foot equals roughly 326,000 gallons and can support a family of four for one year.
The article contained only one tiny mention of the population growth behind the increased use of natural resources.
    Still, even after 15 or more years of relatively good rainfall, California's booming population leaves little room for error. Last week, the state Department of Water Resources warned that the Sierra Nevada snowpack - a key source of California's water supply - was only two-thirds of normal, and experts warned the state could be teetering on the edge of a long-term drought. Recent environmental rulings and fallout from climate change also have many worried about the long-term prospects for water supply.
When the state had a moderate drought in the late 1970s, the population was fewer than 24 million. Today there are many more thirsty residents: California's Population Tops 38 Million
    Mary Heim [chief of demographic research for the Department of Finanace]: And then we also have an excess of immigrants coming into the state. So we are growing from immigration. But we still are losing population to other states, so there are more people leaving California for other parts of the United States than coming into California from other states.
Yes, Americans are fleeing Mexifornia in droves to areas that are "less crowded."
    (See Census Projections 2000 to 2030 in PDF.)
    In another sign of California overpopulation, traffic is up: Bay Area traffic congestion reaches highest level since dot-com boom. (But without a corresponding increase in employment or wages.)
    Traffic delays last year in the Bay Area reached their highest level since the peak of the dot-com boom and Santa Clara County ranked second among the nine counties with the most hours spent idling on state highways.

•   •   •  

Hit-run rampage suspect enters insanity plea   [5/13/08]
In August 2006, Omeed Aziz Popal, a Muslim born in Afghanistan, purposely ran down more than a dozen people in San Francisco after killing Stephen Jay Wilson in Fremont by the same means. Another victim, Susan Rajic, then a 43-year-old massage therapist, may be a quadriplegic for the rest of her life. See my report from the time of the crime, SUV Jihad in San Francisco?
    Naturally, he is pleading insanity rather than jihad. But in a KTVU television segment shortly after the rampage was stopped, a witness reportedly said the driver (Popal) called himself a "terrorist."

    A 31-year-old Fremont man accused running down and trying to kill pedestrians in San Francisco entered a plea today of not guilty by reason of insanity to 35 felony counts.
        Omeed Aziz Popal is accused of 16 counts of attempted murder, 16 assault charges and other crimes stemming from the attack Aug. 29, 2006, in which people were run down in at least 11 spots from the Tenderloin to Laurel Heights.
        Prosecutors have argued that Popal drove around the city seeking out victims, even circling the block to return to "kill zones" by aiming his Honda Pilot at people prone in the street from his first try.
I find it curious that Popal drove from Fremont to San Francisco (a 33-mile trip that includes crossing the 8.4-mile Bay Bridge and would take at least 40 minutes midday traffic) in order to kill random people when he was already in a gigantic urban zone. More curious is how his route within the city brought him close to the two synagogues on California Street. One victim was a block away from the synagogue located at the corner of Webster (see map). When Popal reached the Jewish Community Center near Presidio, he ran down two people on the sidewalk.
    Did Popal travel to San Francisco to kill Jews? Maybe. Or was his Muslim sensitivity offended by San Franciscans' edgy lifestyles enough to make that city his target? Also possible. And given the political correctness of the "justice" system, we'll probably never know for sure.

•   •   •  

"Hate": Will B.C. tribunal know it when it sees it?   [5/12/08]
Oh, Canada! Its policy of official multiculturalism has fostered an extreme level of political correctness without a proportional loyalty to the freedom of expression that is the keystone of representative government. The upshot is this: when liberals have to choose between free speech and speak-no-evil about immigrants and other diversity, freedom of expression generally loses.
    So it is with the Human Rights Commission of British Columbia, which has decided to protect Muslims from the verbal barbs of author Mark Steyn.
  Here's a limp defense of First Amendment principles from the Seattle Times...

    Canada, which has made "hate speech" against the law, now struggles to balance political correctness with freedom.
        We do not envy the Canadians. They have entrusted to their government a power Americans never would, and they follow it into foolishness.In the week of June 2, a body of bureaucrats called the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal will call on the carpet author Mark Steyn. A bellicose champion of the West, Steyn predicts in his new book, "America Alone," that Muslims will swarm over Europe, ban alcohol and put women in veils. Maclean's magazine printed an excerpt that outraged Islamic Canadians, who complained to human-rights tribunals in Ottawa and the provinces.
"Hate" incidentally is a relatively new offense on the front lines of the culture war, cooked up by the multiculturalists as part of the moral relativism package. If you harbor negative feelings toward the Muslims who called for the death of the Pope and think they come from a retrograde culture at war with our own, then you must be some crazy right-winger. Etc.
    The Bible, however, recommends properly directed hate as a perfectly reasonable response to the worst in human nature.
    Psalms 97:10 says, "Hate evil, you who love the Lord." In the New Testament (Romans 12:9), we read, "Hate what is evil; cling to what is good."
    Unfortunately we have become so politically correct and fearful of giving offense that an accusation of "hate" is the worst calumny imaginable. Furthermore, attempts to banish so-called "hate" are often a transparent strategy to shut down free speech when pertinent facts are unpleasant to some interest group.
    If Mark Steyn has engaged in "hate" by smacking around totalitarian Islam, it is of the righteous variety of which our cultural tradition approves.
    A recent Steyn column in MacLeans (Chirpiness that'll be the death of us) has a fine one-iiner about endless Muslim touchiness from a surprising source...
    If you're that eager to take offence, it's not difficult to find it. Or as President Bush said to me around the same time: "If it's not the Crusades, it's the cartoons."
        Which would make a great bumper sticker. It encapsulates perfectly not only the inability of the perpetually aggrieved to move on, millennium-in millennium-out, but also the utter lack of proportion.
You can watch Mark Steyn on a Canadian talk show The Agenda on May 6, where he discusses the controversy and challenges some of his Muslim accusers in the studio to debate him. His post-mortem comments on the show: Islamophobe meets Sock Puppets!

•   •   •  

At home in a foreign land: Somalian refugees adjust to a new life   [5/11/08]
This is a typical MSM exercise in celebrating diversity, as well as documenting (probably inadvertently) the strategy of business to avoid paying citizen workers a decent wage.
    Greeley, Colorado, was the site of some well reported workplace enforcement at the local slaughterhouse in December 2006 when Mexicans were rounded up and deported. They complained because it was a special saint day: "This is an insult to us as Mexicans because today is El Dia de la Vigen de Guadalupe." (Latino community outraged at timing of ICE raid). Like they wouldn't have minded being deported on some other day.
    Anyhow, Swift & Co. has moved on, and has chosen legal refugees from Somalia as its alternative cheapo labor force. So today, we read about happy Somalis, grateful to be working for peanuts in a slaughterhouse.

    It's noon on Wednesday, and in three hours they [four Somalis] will be working along with scores of Somalis at the JBS Swift & Co. meatpacking plant.
        Mohamed, who speaks English, is a trainer for new employees, making $12.10 an hour, while Abdi, in the hijab headscarf worn by Somali women, works in packaging. [...]
        Ibraham Mohamed is a Greeley caseworker for Lutheran Family Services, which provides refugee resettlement services. He estimates that about 300 east Africans are in Greeley, and that "every day, 20 or 30 people are coming to get started at Swift, maybe 15 (a day). It depends on how they get the job."
Some of these refugees are likely to be preliterate and may require instruction on how to hold a pencil. In addition, Somali culture includes social norms of polygamy, wife-beating and female genital mutilation. They are Muslims, and women are covered up in the Islamic style.


The article Various agencies help Somalis integrate into new culture notes how local police are being trained by Lutheran employees of the Refugee Industrial Complex in the politically correct manner to treat sensitive Muslims.

    Ibraham Mohamed, the Lutheran group's local caseworker, has worked with the Greeley Police Department to spread the word about outreach sessions. The Somalis learn the rules of U.S. roads and other local laws. Meanwhile, the police get a lesson in Somali customs.
        "We don't want to unintentionally insult them," said Greeley Police Chief Jerry Garner.
Poor Greeley. They can't be happy about this latest assault.

•   •   •  

2,000 soldiers can't stop the bloodshed in Juarez   [5/10/08]
If a substantial chunk of the Mexican Army can't return Juarez to law and order, you have to chalk up that region as lost to federal control, at least for the time being. And one definition for "failed state" is the inability to enforce the law and preserve order over territory.
    There is an ongoing struggle for turf among the drug cartels, and the warfare continues. Presidente Calderon has sent 20,000 troops throughout the country, and any sign of victory remains too subtle to detect. (Stratfor analysts say Mexico City has "limited options for responding to the attacks in Mexico City and for containing the violence in Sinaloa state.")

    More than a month after Mexican President Felipe Calder—n dispatched more than 2,000 soldiers to the troubled border city, execution-style murders remain commonplace -- and usually unsolved -- as heavily armed drug cartels battle for control of lucrative drug-smuggling routes into the United States. [...]
        At least 10 federal police officers have been killed in the past three weeks, and pitched shootouts have raged from the Pacific Coast to central Zacatecas, where three died in clashes Wednesday morning, including a young girl believed to have caught a stray bullet, authorities said.
        It has been a particularly violent year in Ciudad Juarez. Once the undisputed turf of the Juarez Cartel, the city of 1.3 million people has become the scene of an epic turf battle, as elements of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel try to muscle their way in.
        Nearly 300 have died in the violence so far this year, some of their bodies dumped in mass graves.
To showcase their power, cartels have engaged in a recent assassination spree of top cops in the nation's capital city: 2 top Mexican police officials killed in 2 days.
    The commander of Mexico City's investigative police force was shot and killed Friday morning as he left his home, authorities said.
        The death of Esteban Robles Espinosa comes a day after Mexico's federal police chief was shot dead in a northwestern Mexico City neighborhood.
        Robles headed Mexico City's anti-kidnapping unit until 2003, according to the city's judicial police. He was also on the internal affairs commission, the department said. [...]
        The federal police chief, Edgar Eusebio Millan Gomez, was fatally shot around dawn Thursday in a street in Colonia Guerrero in Mexico City, the country's public safety department said.
Gov Bill Richardson had a case of bad timing when he visited Mexico Wednesday and praised the improved safety along the border region after a period of worsening violence: N.M. Gov. Richardson calls US-Mexico Border more secure.
    Richardson said he would ask U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza to reevaluate a travel alert, issued by the U.S. State Department in April, that warned U.S. citizens of rising violence in northern Mexico but stopped short of suggesting that Americans avoid traveling in the region.
Yes, let's all vacation in beautiful scenic Mexico!


Unfortunately, all this carnage has led some less-than-astute minds (like President Bush) to support the Merida Initiative, an equipment giveaway on the back of the taxpayer to the tune of $1.4 billion. Of course, Mexico is a wealthy nation, consistently ranking among the top 15 countries in GDP, and could easily afford to purchase their crime-fighting technology. Presidente Calderon could easily write out a check for items he needs, just as the Saudis do for military hardware.
    The House Committee on Foreign Affairs had a hearing on the Merida Initiative on Thursday. Here are the members of the Committee, in case you want to suggest better ways to spend our money to protect America.

•   •   •  

Hispanic growth fueled by higher fertility rates   [5/09/08]
Clueless Republicans like to jabber about hispanics sharing conservative social values about responsible family rearing. Au contraire, according to a recent Pew Hispanic study. When it comes to giving birth to lots of kiddies out of wedlock, hispanics are numbero uno. And when there is no daddy present, the American taxpayer is usually required to pony up money for welfare, food stamps, housing etc.
    Shown is Mexican citizen Socorro Gonzalez (with Jackpot Baby #4), who has done her part to add to the hispanic population of the United States.

    Hispanic women born in the United States are more likely to have children out of wedlock than women who are immigrant Hispanics or non-Hispanics, according to an analysis released by Pew Hispanic Center Thursday.
        Hispanic women generally, both U.S.-born and immigrants, have higher fertility rates than non Hispanics Ñ 84 births per 1,000 Hispanic women compared with 63 per 1,000 non-Hispanic women.
        The differences can also be found between Hispanic women born in this country Ñ 73 births per 1,000 women Ñ and immigrant Hispanic women Ñ 96 per 1,000 women. Hispanics are now 15.1 percent of the U.S. population, according to Census data released last week. Their numbers are growing more because of births than immigration.
        One-in-four children under 5 years old in the U.S. is Hispanic, the Census Bureau reported. These numbers are likely to fuel growth of the Hispanic population in this country.
These facts and the sociology behind them are not exactly news, though. See Heather MacDonald's 2006 article, Hispanic Family Values? Runaway illegitimacy is creating a new U.S. underclass.
    On May 1, the Census updated the current numbers of latinos residing in the USA: U.S. Hispanic Population Surpasses 45 Million, Now 15 Percent of Total.

•   •   •  

Court denies Islamic divorce   [5/08/08]
This is a welcome development. Islam's women-hating customs are not accepted as legally binding in the state of Maryland, at least.

    Saying "I divorce thee" three times, as men in Muslim countries have been able to do for centuries when leaving their wives, is not enough if you're a resident of Maryland, the state's highest court ruled yesterday.
        Yesterday, the Court of Appeals rejected a Pakistani man's argument that his invocation of the Islamic talaq, under which a marriage is dissolved simply by the husband's say-so, allowed him to part with his wife of more than 20 years and deny her a share of his $2 million estate.
        The justices affirmed a lower court's decision overturning a divorce decree obtained in Pakistan by Irfan Aleem, a World Bank economist who moved from London to Maryland with his wife, Farah Aleem, in 1985.
Additional reportage from the Washington Post: Islamic Divorce Ruled Not Valid in Maryland.
    The state Court of Appeals issued a unanimous 21-page opinion Tuesday declaring that talaq is contrary to Maryland's constitutional provisions providing equal rights to men and women.
This is more of the wonderful immigration-fueled diversity we are supposed to celebrate!


•   •   •  

Acting Mexican police chief killed   [5/08/08]
Mexico Meltdown Watch update. Cartels are getting pretty nervy to assassinate a top cop in Mexico City: they are showing off their power.

    MEXICO CITY (AP) Ñ Mexico's acting federal police chief was shot dead Thursday outside his home Ñ a brazen attack that comes as drug traffickers increasingly lash back at a nationwide crackdown on organized crime.
        Edgar Millan Gomez was shot 10 times after he opened the door to his Mexico City apartment complex, where at least one gunman was waiting for him before dawn, the Public Safety Department said. Two bodyguards were also wounded. Millan died hours later in a hospital. [...]
        Since taking office in 2006, Calderon has sent more than 24,000 soldiers to drug hotspots, and Millan was in charge of coordinating operations between the federal police and those troops.
        Cartels have responded fiercely to the nationwide offensive, killing soldiers and federal police in unprecedented attacks. But until recently, most of those killings took place in northern Mexico where drug gangs rule large areas of territory. Now criminals appear to be getting more brash with daring slayings in the capital.
        George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William & Mary in Virginia, said Millan's death "shows the increasing audacity of the cartels."
        "This happened in Mexico City where people like Millan tend to be quite cautious, often sleeping in different houses on different nights, and who have their own security patrols," he said. "When you can get someone like this, no one is safe."
Also, the New York Times report: Gunmen Kill Chief of MexicoÕs Police

•   •   •  

Surge in immigrant births is reshaping Massachusetts in ways that are both subtle and profound   [5/07/08]
The government could shut down the border today, and the balkanization of America would still continue for decades because of the higher fertility of immigrants, both legal and illegal. Massachusetts is hardly a border state.

    Of all the births in Massachusetts, the percentage of babies born to immigrant mothers has nearly doubled since 1989. Back then, 14 percent of all births were to foreign-born women; by 2006, the percentage had surged to 27 percent, according to the most recent figures from the state Department of Public Health.
        It is a remarkable figure, which one scholar said the state hasn't seen since the immigrant wave of the early 20th century. And the rise in immigrant births is reshaping the state in ways that are both subtle and profound.
        In maternity wards, nurses increasingly chant "push" in Spanish, Portuguese, and Urdu; in schools, translators show bewildered parents how to scrutinize report cards; and in some neighborhoods, more children are debating whether they are African-American, Haitian-American, or black.
        "That's a major demographic and social development for the Commonwealth," said Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University. "It's extraordinary . . . You'd have to go back to the 1910s to find anything like that." [...]
        Nationally, the percentage of births to immigrant mothers rose from 14 percent in 1995 to 21 percent in 2004, according to the most recent figures available from the US Census.

•   •   •  

England's Call to Repeal Our Declaration of Independence   [5/07/08]
In case there is any doubt that ruling elites have bought the globalization craziness hook, line and sinker, consider British PM Gordon Brown's speech a couple weeks back.
    Phyllis Schlafly was not amused...

    Brown's tedious, hour-long speech impudently demanded that we issue a "Declaration of Interdependence" in order to submit to global governance. That's another way of calling on us to repeal our Declaration of Independence. [...]
        Brown rejected the traditional concept of national sovereignty, which means an independent nation not subservient to any outside control, telling us to replace it with "responsible sovereignty," which he defined as accepting what he calls our global "obligations." Hold on to your pocketbook.
        Brown admitted that his "main argument" is that we must accept "new global rules," "new global institutions," and "global networks." Brown's global rules include massive U.S. cash handouts and opening U.S. borders to the world.
        Brown's use of well-known American political phrases was tacky. He tried to morph FDR's New Deal into a "New Global Deal," and JFK's New Frontier into "the New Frontier is that there is no frontier."
        Brown even slipped in an attempt at thought control: "Americans must learn to think inter-continentally." He declaimed, "We are all internationalists now."
Speak for yourself, bub. I'm not an internationalist; I am an American citizen. As Czech President Vaclav Klaus remarked astutely, "You cannot have democratic accountability in anything bigger than a nation state."
    We've seen what Europe has done with freedom, namely turned it into an oppressive bureaucratic super-state, the European Union, bent on destroying national sovereignty to increase the power of Brussels. See How Nation States Are Dismantled for a recent skirmish.
    In 2005, the French and the Dutch voted down the so-called Constitution for the EU. In a countering action, the EU bureaucrats concocted a revised scheme to erase Europe's borders, the Lisbon Treaty. Recently a concerned British citizen (who has the good fortune of being wealthy) launched a lawsuit to force a vote on the treaty: Victory in first round of campaign to force EU treaty referendum.
    The news was welcomed by the Conservatives who failed to force the Government to hold a referendum on the treaty in the Commons last month.
        The Tories and some Labour MPs believe the treaty is a near-copy of the discredited EU constitution, which Labour had agreed to hold a referendum on if the proposals were brought back.
        Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague said: ÒThe Government promised a referendum on the EU Treaty which is the Constitution in disguise.
        ÒIt would be a great day for democracy if they were forced to honour that promise.Ó
Gordon Brown has already beaten back an attempt in Parliament to put this turkey before the British people: The EU Lisbon Treaty: Gordon Brown Surrenders Britain's Sovereignty. He wants the same smiley-face totalitarianism for Americans as well.
    Click here for the anti-democracy speech Gordon Brown delivered at the Kennedy Library April 18.

•   •   •  

Britain to be most crowded nation in Europe   [5/06/08]
Polls consistently show the British people don't want this, but elites soldier on to destroy the country. Seventy percent of population growth comes from immigration, according to Sir Andrew Green, and one in five babies born in the UK has immigrant parents. There are lots of angry comments here.

    London (PTI): Britain will become the most crowded major nation in Europe with its population set to increase by a third over the next 50 years, suggests a forecast that could further raise demands by anti-immigrants to check migration into the UK.
        According to the Office for National Statistics, England's population will be 68 million or 1,349 for every square mile by 2056. Presently with a population of 50 million there are 1,010 people per square mile.
        The population density in the capital London will surge from 12,377 people per square mile to 13,910 over the next 20 years.
        "This demonstrates the real pressure public services are being put under as a result of Labour's immigration policy," Damian Green, the shadow immigration minister, was quoted as saying by the Daily Telegraph today.

•   •   •  

Immigrants Riled by Irish Push for Special Status   [5/05/08]
Uh oh, somebody's getting their sombreros in a twist over the meltdown of the great open-borders coalition. Once a upon a time, illegal alien Irish supported a massive amnesty for 20 million foreigners in order to advantage their group of an estimated 50,000. You can't get much more selfish than that.
    Now the arrogant Irish (sorry for being repetitious) want a special deal for themselves only, and the Mexicans are miffed.

    Although immigrant organizations officially have refrained from criticizing the Irish, many rank-and-file Hispanic immigrants Ñ who say their families have been hit hardest by deportations Ñ are saying they are shocked that the Irish are quietly working for a separate pact with federal officials.
        "It's absurd that they're working alone. We should unite together," Segundo Alvarez, 54, said at a May 1 rally in Union Square for workers' rights, during which participants criticized a recent wave of workplace raids and deportations, mostly of Hispanic immigrants. [...]
        "We need more people in government who are Hispanic, and Mexican," Noel Silva, 29, of Oaxaca, Mexico, said as he towed his 3-year-old son and carried his year-old daughter to a Cinco de Mayo festival in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens yesterday.
If Americans called for more Presbyterians in government (for example), La Raza would be squawking "Racist!" in a heartbeat. But when Mexicans complain that their demographic assault is not proceeding fast enough, that's just ethnic solidarity.
    Squabbling nationalities, olé!

•   •   •  

Ringo's Pictures: May Day Demonstrations, Los Angeles   [5/05/08]
Here is a fine collection of very scary photos from Ringo the Gringo. Hint: they are not at all like the cheerful pictures shown in the LA Times to reassure Americans that there's no problem, e.g., May Day march smaller, but festive.
    Mexicans and communists and anarchists, oh my. Check it out.


In addition, see blogger-snapped photos from Seattle, Portland. New York City and San Francisco.

•   •   •  

Cell phone firms' dream demographic: Latinos   [5/05/08]
Leave it to the Chronicle to chirp about hispanics being "open to new technology" while ignoring that cell phones are the ideal communications device for criminals at worst and temporary worker-lurkers at best.

    The cell phone also better serves a more untethered community, especially recent immigrants who value portability over traditional landlines, said Federico Subervi, a journalism and mass communication professor at Texas State University.
        According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Latinos were the most likely among racial and ethnic groups to have abandoned a landline, with 15.3 percent of adults saying they have cut the cord in favor of a mobile phone.
        "If you're a recent immigrant moving up the ladder, getting different jobs in different places, there is higher fee to disconnect and install a landline," Subervi said. "With a cell, you just go down and buy it at the mall or corner shop. It's easier."
Right, and La Migra has a harder time finding them. Who wants to be tied down with a landline when leaving quickly may be necessary?
    Izaac Mizrahi, director of multicultural marketing for Sprint said Latinos are quick to embrace new technology, seeing in it as way to get ahead in life. The mobile phone as a piece of technology, he said, seems uniquely suited to Latinos.
        "Latinos are open to new technology. The marriage of all these wireless services makes it relevant to these consumers," Mizrahi said. "It's a perfect marriage between Hispanics and mobile telephone service."
And literacy isn't required with a phone.

•   •   •  

Mother of slain girl supports immigration agents in jail   [5/04/08]
The murder of Jenny Garcia in her own bedroom in her parents' home in Austin was one of the most terrible crimes imaginable. The 18-year-old college freshman was discoved by her two younger sisters tied up and naked on her bed with a butcher knife in her chest. Jenny had been brutally killed by a Mexican illegal alien who was acquainted with her from their both working at the same restaurant.

    Hayden and her husband Humberto Garcia, who has since died, sued the City of Austin in 2005, alleging it had a policy of not reporting undocumented immigrants, which contributed to their daughter's death.The city says it has no policy that prevents employees, including police, from calling immigration officials.
        A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that the slain girl's parents did not show a link between the alleged policy and her death.
        Jenny Garcia Hayden, 18, was killed in her family's North Austin home by David Diaz Morales, who pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence. Her parents said that Austin police should have turned Diaz over to federal authorities for deportation when they suspected him of child molestation two years earlier. Diaz wasn't arrested in that case; the district attorney's office said there was insufficient evidence to charge him.
One of the most shocking things about this case is how Auston authorities actually protected a child molester from prosecution because of his immigration status. Austin has been a sanctuary city for illegal alien criminals, although there may be change on that front.
    Now Jenny's mother is speaking out in support of the proposed policy of having federal agents in Travis County jails to find and deport foreign criminals upon the completion of their sentences. What could be controversial about that idea?
    Diaz "should have never been in our country," said Ann Hayden, who now lives in El Paso. She said her husband died of a heart attack last Thanksgiving during a visit to Austin, when he visited his daughter's grave. Her murder caused his death, too, Hayden said.
        "Our entire family was destroyed. He suffered the most," Hayden said during an emotional telephone interview. "He would tell anyone, 'All I want is to be with my daughter.'"
See the VDARE.com version: VictimÕs Mom Supports Deportation of Criminal Aliens.

•   •   •  

Speed, alcohol thought to be factors in fatal Merrillville crash   [5/03/08]
There's more preventable carnage to report on America's roads, due to America's open borders: in this case a drunk-driving illegal alien living in Indiana, Mario Cardena, killed three innocent citizens (and himself) in a horrific crash that left three twisted vehicles indicating the force of the impact.

    MERRILLVILLE Ñ Friends and family mourned the death of a prominent attorney, a young couple soon to be married and a Mexican immigrant who had long struggled with a drinking problem Ñ all four of them killed in three-car collision Wednesday near the border of Merrillville and Winfield.
        As Hough and Weiss pulled into the intersection of Randolph and 101st Avenue, Mario Cadena sped west, past a stop sign and into HoughÕs Ford Explorer, driving the truck into WeissÕ Mustang. No one emerged alive from the twisted wreckage.
        Merrillville police declined comment on the crash but said high speed was a factor. The Lake County coroner will not have results of blood toxicology reports for several days. Police sources say they believe Cadena had been drinking, and a beer bottle was on the front seat of his ruined Jeep Cherokee at the police impound yard.
Stephen Hough, 26, and Amy Bartelmey, 25, (shown above) had planned to be married soon, and he was about to graduate from Purdue with a degree in public relations. She had a two-year-old son from a previous relationship.
   
Another victim in a separate vehicle was a well known local attorney Garry Weiss, 53, who is survived by his wife Cindy and two teenage children: Speed, Alcohol Factors In Collision That Killed Four.
    "He was the love of my life. Everybody loves him. He just ... he was perfect. No, not always perfect, but a wonderful husband, wonderful father, wonderful lawyer, wonderful friend, son, brother ... there's not enough to be said about him," his wife, Cindy Weiss, said. "I love him and I miss him."
The killer is also dead, so there will be no trial and public exposure of his previous arrests -- he is another criminal foreigner who should have been earlier punished and then deported to his legal home, an act of justice that would have saved his own and three other lives. He had previously been arrested for drunk driving, so this crime was not unforseeable: Driver in fatality had long history.
    Cadena was charged with driving without ever having been issued a license and driving while intoxicated after a 2001 arrest by Lake County Sheriff's police.
        A plea deal with prosecutors reduced the drunken driving charge to reckless driving, and Cadena was given a suspended jail sentence of 180 days and paid $480 in fees and fines.
        In October 2003, Cadena was pulled over by State Police for unsafe lane movement and driving while intoxicated with a blood-alcohol level above 0.15 percent -- nearly double the 0.08 percent required for a drunken driving charge. Cadena again reached a plea deal with prosecutors and received a suspended sentence of one year by Judge Julie Cantrell.
        Cantrell also saw Cadena in court in June 2006, when he was charged with driving 77 miles per hour in a 55-mile-per hour zone, failure to register his vehicle and driving without a license.
It's a situation that is painfully similar to many others. Had Judge Cantrell and the rest of the justice system not been weak in dealing with an obviously dangerous man, this terrible crime could have been prevented.
    See the VDARE.com version: Three Americans Killed in Indiana in Another Preventable Crime

•   •   •  

Mexican bus lines under scrutiny after wrecks, indictments   [5/03/08]
I suppose it's understandable that a Mexican bus company with routes from Texas to south of the border has to traverse American roads. After all, AeroMexico operates out of Oakland Airport and elsewhere.
    However, the dangerous shananigans of these Mexican buses driving on US highways must be curtailed by better regulation. Not only are the buses hazardous, they are also used for drug smuggling.
    And cheapo buses going to the interior are transporting mostly Mexicans and are part of the illegal immigration infrastucture.

    HOUSTON Ñ Juan Martinez has seen drivers doze off from fatigue while he's taking a bus from Houston to his hometown in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.
        "This is very dangerous," Martinez said, waiting with suitcase in hand in front of Autobuses Lucano, one of the many smaller bus companies that offer service from the United States to Mexico. [...]
        Houston attorney Terry Bryant, who represents 12 of the passengers injured in January's crash, also represented passengers in a September 2002 accident in Mississippi caused when the driver and replacement driver tried to switch seats while the bus was going 70 mph.
        "That's where efficiency outweighs safety. It's ridiculous," Bryant said. "It's the kind of prank you'd see in an awful TV show."
Those wacky Mexicans!

•   •   •  

Muslims feel under siege as Italian Right sets up town vigilante groups   [5/03/08]
My reading of history indicates that so-called "vigilante" groups arise when there is no law (such as on the frontier) or when people feel that existing law enforcement does not protect them.
    In Padua, some Italians have self-organized into neighborhood patrols, because crime committed by immigrants is a major issue in the country. The press calls the participants Vigilantes, although their activity has included no extra-legal arrests or punishment.
    The San Francisco Committees of Vigilance, formed in the 1850s, were known to hang the occasional bad guy, but today's citizen defenders of law from the Minutemen to the Paduans have done no such thing.

    Immigration, and the perceived crime spree, has become a key issue in the city once best known for its ancient university and elegant piazzas Ð so much so that Northern League supporters have set up vigilante groups.
        ÒWe have formed citizen street patrols, together with residentsÕ associations,Ó Mr Comacchio said. ÒA minimum of four people, but often up to ten, all with phosphorescent jackets carrying the Lion of St Mark, the symbol of the Veneto region.Ó
        Mr Comacchio does not like the term vigilantes, prefering instead Òconcerned residentsÓ who call the police when necessary.
Paul Belian agrees that intelligent life has not died out in Europe just yet: WhatÕs Going Right in Europe--How Localism Might Save the Continent.

•   •   •  

More data points to dry spell in the state   [5/02/08]
In February, California's snowpack was above average and had high water content. But now state water officials are talking "drought."
    Funny how they discuss diminished supply at length, but never mention the greatly increased demand part of the equation. A population of 38 million means there is no wiggle room at all -- even a slight shortage of rainfall creates a crisis.

    State water officials reported today that the Sierra Nevada snowpack, the source of a huge portion of California's water supply, was only 67 percent of normal, due in part to historic low rainfall in March and April.
        With many reservoirs at well-below average capacity from the previous winter and a federal ruling limiting water pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, today's data added another dimension to a crisis already complicated by crumbling infrastructure, surging population and environmental concerns.
        "We're in a dry spell if not a drought," said California Secretary for Resources Mike Chrisman. "We're in the second year, and if we're looking at a third year, we're talking about a serious problem." Chrisman stopped short of saying the state would issue mandatory water rationing, which appears only possible if the governor declares a state of emergency. Rather, the burden will fall on local water agencies. Many, such as San Francisco, Marin County and others have asked residents and businesses over the last year to cut water usage voluntarily by 10 to 20 percent.
See the VDARE.com version: Water Shortage or Population Longage?* California Drying Up.

•   •   •  

Law Day, U.S.A., 2008   [5/01/08]
May 1 is Law Day, Presidente Bush reminds us, by means of a Proclamation from the White House.

    The right of ordinary men and women to determine their own future, protected by the rule of law, lies at the heart of America's founding principles. As our country celebrates the 50th anniversary of Law Day, we renew our commitment to the ideals on which this great Nation was established and to a robust system of ordered liberty.
        The American legal system is central to protecting the rights and freedoms our Nation holds dear. The theme of this year's Law Day, "The Rule of Law: Foundation for Communities of Opportunity and Equity," recognizes the fundamental role that the rule of law plays in preserving liberty in our Nation and in all free societies. We pay tribute to the men and women in America's legal community. Through hard work and dedication to the rule of law, members of the judiciary and the legal profession help secure the rights of individuals, bring justice to our communities, and reinforce the proud traditions that make America a beacon of light for the world.
While the Mexichurian President is providing lip service to America's legal framework, his government continues an open-borders policy which shreds the idea of a Nation of Law. A 2007 CIS study found that nearly 6 million illegal immigrants have entered the country during Bush's administration. On the subject of borders and immigration at least, Bush has been the most lawless President in history.
    Of course, May 1 has a different significance to the Marxican extremists who have been rallying today in citiies across the country. Here's one representative photo, snapped by blogger Urban Infidel in New York City Union Square Park. The guy's sign combines a screw-you-America element with a sentimental appeal using a teary-eyed baby, plus there is a Mexican flag nearby -- a 3-fer!


See the VDARE.com version: Happy Law Day!.

•   •   •  

Immigrants strain our resourcesÊ   [5/01/08]
Many of the strongest voices for borders and sovereignty are people who became interested in immigration because of environmental concerns. People who have read Paul Ehrlich's Population Bomb and such understand that today's 300 million plus will rapidly balloon to half a billion and beyond because of improved individual and public healthcare. We could end immigration today and America's population growth would not begin to level off for several decades because of population momentum.
    But the official environmental movement (following the financially corrupted Sierra Club) has turned increasingly leftward over recent years, and the connection between immigration-fueled population growth and environmental degradation can no longer be discussed among polite greenies.

    One of the early casualties of the rancorous debate over immigration to the United States, both legal and illegal, has been the ability to discuss openly the staggering effects of population growth on critical resources such as water. Because immigration -- and particularly illegal immigration -- is the human engine driving sustained population growth in California and the U.S., addressing population growth means wading into the immigration debate.
        Thus, academics, environmentalists and elected officials alike run the very real risk of being tarred as "racist" by immigrant advocacy groups if they dare to suggest serious limitations to immigration as part of an overall strategy to stabilize our population growth.
This opinion piece is in response to an earlier item, Learning from our arid past, written by climate historian Brian Fagan.
    As an example of California's population growth (now officially 38 million) and its threat to natural resources, we residents of the East Bay now face water restrictions because of insufficient rainfall in light of increased demand (a situation further indicated by a decent snowpack this season): East Bay water managers plan for drought.
    "All the research around the impact of climate change in California shows potential prolonged droughts, drier winters, more wild swings between drier years and wet years," said Tony Winnicker, spokesman for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which provides water to residents of the city as well as communities on the Peninsula. "As water agencies and as consumers, we need to manage our water more wisely. There will never again be a period in California where we don't have to think about water conservation."
Talking heads accept the idea of global warming as causing decreased rainfall to California. However, tree ring studies show that extreme droughts lasting many years are not ususual in the state. The Medieval megadrought occurred lasted from 900 to 1400 AD and had severe effects on North America, including California. Another 400-year drought would make the 1930's Dust Bowl seem minor. If such a climate unpleasantry were to occur now, as our world population approaches seven billion, the outcome would be unimaginably catastrophic.

•   •   •  

Fewer Latino Migrants Send Money Home, Poll SaysÊ   [5/01/08]
Boo hoo. Fewer illegal aliens are sending less money in remittances home. So sad.

    The economic downturn and efforts to crack down on illegal immigrants in many U.S. communities are prompting fewer Latin American immigrants to send money back home, a survey found.
        The survey, released Wednesday by the Inter-American Development Bank, found that the percentage of immigrants who report sending remittances to their country of origin has dropped to half in early 2008 compared with 73% two years ago, even though migrants continue to flock to the U.S.
        Also Wednesday, the Central Bank of Mexico reported that remittances from the U.S. dropped 2.9% for the first three months of the year compared with the first quarter of 2007.
Further on, after additional hand wringing, you read that foreigners are still sending a massive amount of money out of this country that has not declined in total.
    It found that immigrants who have continued to send money home are sending larger sums and with greater frequency, as longtime U.S. residents contribute more and as the cost to transmit money falls. Thus, the total value of remittances to Latin America could still reach last year's $45.9 billion, the bank said. [...]
        The U.S. economic decline, particularly the construction slump, has contributed to a rise in unemployment among Hispanics, to 7.1% in the first quarter of 2008 from 5.2% in 2006. Construction employs one in five Latin American immigrants, Mr. Terry said.
        The U.S. is home to 18.8 million Latin American adults, of whom nearly half are illegal immigrants, the survey said. The immigrants send home, on average, $325 per remittance about 15 times in a year.
Below is more sob story crap from the MSM. Why else would they put remittance information with reports of vague "discrimination"?


Here's the New York Times reporting on the story: Fewer Immigrants Send Money Home

•   •   •  

 

© 2008 Brenda Walker All rights reserved.