LTG: Archive February 2008

LimitsToGrowth Archive

February 2008

Muslim medics refuse to roll up their sleeves in hygiene crackdown - because it's against their religion [2/29/08]
Muslims living in Britain continue to push against the country's traditional culture, not to mention standard health practices. Female medical personnel refuse to scrub up properly because of Islamic ideas of "modesty." Didn't anyone tell them about hospital requirements of cleanliness?

Health officials are having crisis talks with Muslim medical staff who have objected to hospital hygiene rules because of religious beliefs.
Medics in hospitals in at least three major English cities have refused to follow the regulations aimed at helping tackle superbugs because of their faith, it has been revealed.
Women medical students at Alder Hey children's hospital in Liverpool objected to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands and removing arm coverings in theatre, claiming it is regarded as immodest.
Similar concerns were raised at Leicester University -and Sheffield University reported a case of a Muslim medic refusing to "scrub" because it left her forearms exposed.

There's no mention of any dismissals or punishment, though.

• • •

High school dropouts cost state billions [2/29/08]
California's descent into becoming the backward society of Mexifornia is mirrored most sharply in the failing school system, because so many children are foreign born (particularly from Mexico and other hispanic countries) or live in households where English is not spoken and scholarship is not valued. According to California's Legislative Analyst Office, 25 percent of the state's K-12 students are English language learners.
(In the US as a whole, approximately 5.5 million students, nearly one-tenth of the total, are ESL students, who speak English as a second language if at all: No Spanish-Speaking Child Left Behind.)

Each year, about 120,000 students fail to get a diploma by age 20, according to the California Dropout Research Project, which on Wednesday released detailed recommendations for state lawmakers and educators.
Each annual wave of dropouts costs the state $46.4 billion over their lifetimes because people without a high school diploma are the most likely to be unemployed, turn to crime, need state-funded medical care, get welfare and pay no taxes, according to the report.

But instead of preventing the entrance of millions of foreign students (many from Mexico, which has one of the world's most anti-education cultures), the report suggests that standards be lowered.

spend less time on academics

teach more "soft skills" such as how to be punctual, persistent and work well in groups

Dumbing down schools to make them appear like they are accomplishing education when they are not is absolutely a strategy for creating the third world within the first -- pronto!

• • •

9/11 Redux: 'Thousands of Aliens' in U.S. Flight Schools Illegally [2/28/08]
Remember the shock after 9/11, when we learned that obviously suspect foreigners were attending American schools and learning to fly airplanes? Supposedly the permissive situation that allowed that situation to occur was cleaned up after the terrorist attacks, but apparently not so.

Thousands of foreign student pilots have been able to enroll and obtain pilot licenses from U.S. flight schools, despite tough laws passed in the wake of the 9/ll attacks, according to internal government documents obtained by ABC News.
"Some of the very same conditions that allowed the 9-11 tragedy to happen in the first place are still very much in existence today," wrote one regional security official to his boss at the TSA, the Transportation Security Administration.
"Thousands of aliens, some of whom may very well pose a threat to this country, are taking flight lessons, being granted FAA certifications and are flying planes," wrote the TSA official, Richard A. Horn, in 2005, complaining that the students did not have the proper visas.
Under the new laws, American flight schools are only supposed to provide pilot training to foreign students who have been given a background check by the TSA and have a specific type of visa.
But in thousands of cases that has not happened, according to the documents and current and former government officials involved in the program.

Aren't we grateful that we have the "tough-on-terrorist" Bush administration in charge of homeland security, and not those pansy-ass Democrats?

• • •

Sierra snowpack is up but more snow needed [2/28/08]
The water supply is looking far better for California this year than last, when Los Angeles had the least rainfall in its history. The rainfall is at seasonal levels or above in many places, but more importantly, the snowpack is in the Sierras is good.

The Sierra snowpack continues to exceed normal levels, meaning good news for skiers and the state's water users, but state water officials say more above-average snowfall is needed this season to wipe out the state's water-supply deficit.
A sampling of four Sierra monitoring stations Wednesday and today showed snow levels ranging between 110 and 138 percent of normal for this time of year, compared to a 74-85 percent subnormal range at the same time last year, according to the state Department of Water Resources.
Estimated water content of the snowpack is at about 120 percent of normal, compared to 68 percent last year, said Elissa Lynn, a meteorologist with the state Department of Water Resources."That's so much better than a year ago," she said.
Today's results are the latest in monthly snowpack surveys. The results for all of the Sierra's 260 monitoring stations showed the snowpack water-content at 131 percent of normal for end of January, Lynn said.
But even with the extra snow, the state's reservoirs are not expected to fill up this year because of the shortages last year, when the water content of the peak snowpack on April 1 was only 40 percent, she said.

The chart below (from Jan 25, 2008) shows the effect of just one year of below-average rainfall when a state has become as overpopulated as California (now around 38 million).

Unfortunately, California's leaders have not figured out that the answer to the water supply crisis is to decrease demand by cracking down on the immigration-fueled population explosion: Schwarzenegger, Feinstein seek new water bond talks (Feb 22).

$11.6 billion for water projects

From the California Chamber of Commerce, see a brief video about storage and its page about water supply.
Perhaps if the Governator hadn't wasted so much time and voter trust trying to get healthcare for illegal aliens and $5 billion in increased school spending for English language learners when the state was deep in debt, the public might listen to warnings about water.

• • •

The Future with Europe [2/28/08]
Classics writer Victor Davis Hanson is interviewed by Swiss newspaper Junge Freiheit and discusses the Mexican thing before he expounds on Europe "as a class-bound, hopelessly aristocratic static society, warped by Old World factionalism, and prone to dangerously wide springs between totalitarian fascism and totalitarian Marxism." Worth reading in its entirety...

JF: Professor Hanson, you criticize U.S. immigration policy in your recent book Mexifornia. What is it that bothers you about the development at the Southern border?
VDH: Many things. 1)We are wide open to terrorist infiltration; 2) We privilege illegal immigration from Mexico, while penalizing and delaying legal immigration from Asia, Africa, and Europe; 3) We serve as a safety valve and enabler for Mexico, which therefore will never make needed reforms; 4) We are creating a chauvinistic tribalism, a race industry that tries to convert the presence of 15 million illegal aliens into some sort of political movement; 5) We use cheap illegal labor to ensure our own entry level workers cannot bargain or organize.As you see, I could go on ad nauseam.

JF: The U.S. did steal Texas from the Mexicans in the 19th century. IsnÕt there a certain justice in what is happening now, the land being gradually reclaimed by its original owners?
VDH: In the sense of the irony that Mexico stole its land from Spain, that stole it from the Indians. Though unlike Mexico, the U.S. legitimized its forced annexation through a treaty and payment. There surely is irony on all sides that long ago mobs of European Texans encroached on Mexican land and now their descendants face the same from Mexicans. That said, the greatest irony is the majority of Mexican citizens in Mexico who poll that (1) they think the southwestern U.S. really belongs to Mexico, and (2), the majority of such respondents still wish to leave Mexico and emigrate to the U.S.: the subtext being âwe want the status and prestige of being Mexico, but donÕt wish to live in what we subsequently create.Õ

• • •

McCain Retools Immigration Stance [2/27/08]
Sen McAmnesty is doing the tapdance and counting on Americans' famous short attention span. He regularly recites that he "got the message" about immigration and now supports border enforcement -- maybe -- but will promise nothing beyond that. An appearance of crackdown on the border will only be a prelude and excuse for widespread forgiveness for tens of millions of illegal aliens residing in this country.

John McCain faces a dilemma on immigration as he works to persuade conservatives he's tough enough on the issue without erasing his historic appeal to Hispanic voters. Once a crusader for offering the nation's roughly 12 million undocumented immigrants a way to get legal status, McCain now says his first priority is fortifying U.S. borders.
The metamorphosis reflects McCain's intensifying effort to consolidate his support among conservatives, who deride the Arizona senator's past proposals on immigration as offering amnesty to lawbreakers, and bitterly resent his work with Democrats, including Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, on the issue.
Coming off a primary season where his immigration stance was seen as a major liability and GOP opponents hammered him for having an overly permissive approach, McCain is remaking his image with an eye toward the general election.
If he goes too far in the other direction, though, he could alienate the Hispanic voters who he's counting on to siphon support from a Democratic rival in states like Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and to be competitive in California.
"He's focusing on enforcement, and in this community, enforcement means deportation, and that means separating more families, and more racial profiling and more of the incredible hardship that is affecting not just immigrants, but native-born Latinos," said Cecilia Munoz of the National Council of La Raza.

• • •

24% Have Favorable Opinion of New York Times [2/27/08]
From the Rasmussen Reports polling organization...

Just 24% of American voters have a favorable opinion of the New York Times. Forty-four percent (44%) have an unfavorable opinion and 31% are not sure. The paper's ratings are much like a candidate's and divide sharply along partisan and ideological lines.
By a 50% to 18% margin, liberal voters have a favorable opinion of the paper. By a 69% to 9%, conservative voters offer an unfavorable view. The newspaper earns favorable reviews from 44% of Democrats, 9% of Republicans, and 17% of those not affiliated with either major political story.

The fact that opinion divides sharply upon ideological lines shows how the iconic American newspaper has failed in its basic mission, to report the news fairly.

• • •

The End of Multiculturalism [2/26/08]
No one does this topic better than Prof Lawrence Harrison, the author of several excellent books concerning the relationship of culture to progress. The link includes a nine-minute audio interview with Harrison that is worth your attention.
Prof Harrison puts his ideas into practice at Tufts' Cultural Change Institute.

Since the 1960s, multiculturalism has become a dominant feature of the political and intellectual landscape of the West. But multiculturalism rests on a frail foundation: cultural relativism, the notion that no culture is better or worse than any other Ð it is merely different.
When it comes to democratic continuity, social justice, and prosperity, some cultures do far better than others. Research at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, summarized in my recent book, "The Central Liberal Truth: How Politics Can Change a Culture and Save It From Itself," makes this clear.
Extensive data suggest that the champions of progress are the Nordic countries Ð Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden Ð where, for example, universal literacy was a substantial reality in the 19th century. By contrast, no Arab country today is democratic, and female illiteracy in some Arab countries exceeds 50 percent.
Culture isn't about genes or race; it's about values, beliefs, and attitudes. Culture matters because it influences a society's receptivity to democracy, justice, entrepreneurship, and free-market institutions.

Below is Prof Harrison's chart comparing progress-friendly to progress-averse cultures, taken from his Social Contract article, Immigrants and Culture.

• • •

"US Protestants could become minority" [2/26/08]
Leave it to an Australian newspaper to say the un-PC truth about how America's founding people are being displaced by immigration. As recently as the 1970s, Protestants accounted for about two-thirds of the population. The article is reporting on a Pew study, U.S. Religious Landscape Survey.

PROTESTANTS are on the verge of becoming a minority in the United States, a country they helped to found, as immigration reshapes the religious landscape and people change creed or drop religion altogether.
"The number of Americans who report that they are members of Protestant denominations now stands at barely 51 per cent," compared to nearly two-thirds of the population in the 1960s, the first US Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life said.
"The proportion of the population that is Protestant has declined markedly in recent decades, while the proportion of the population that is not affiliated with any particular religion has increased significantly,'' the survey, which interviewed 35,000 adult Americans, showed.
The declining share of the US religious market that is held by Protestantism would likely impact on US culture and politics, John Greene, a senior fellow at Pew, told reporters.
Immigration has helped Roman Catholicism hold steady in its share of the US religious market, despite the faith having one of the highest attrition rates among adherents.

Concerning the culture of Protestant America, Prof Sam Huntington has remarked,

"If America had been settled not by British Protestants but by French, Spanish, or Portuguese Catholics, it would not be America; it would be Quebec, Mexico, or Brazil."

• • •

Immigrants Fear Backlash From Morales [2/25/08]
Here's more "backlash" BS, in this case concerning the terrible Minnesota schoolbus crash that killed four children caused by an illegal alien driver from Guatemala, Olga Marina Franco. (She originally identified herself as Alainiss Morales from Mexico.)
A local reporter interviewed an illegal alien for his unique insights...

Because of the situation in Minnesota, Jauregui feels that all immigrants...legal or illegal...will be viewed differently by the public.
"Because of one incident, they judge everyone," he said.
And Jauregui doesn't think that's fair because people aren't the same just because they're the same race.
"There's good people, there's bad people, in any race, in any country," Jauregui said.
He points out anyone could've been the driver of the van involved in the deadly crash.
"I know there's a lot of illegal people, there's a lot of legal people here. It could've happened to anyone," Jauregui said.

Both the reporter and the illegal alien interviewee are unclear on the concept of causality: the point is that if the illegal aliens were in their home country where they belong, then they wouldn't be here killing innocent American children.

• • •

Google and Facebook founders at TED [2/25/08]
In case you have never heard of the TED conference, it is a yearly gathering of celebs and thinkers of various disciplines who brainstorm about the future -- like businessman Richard Branson and former Vice President Al Gore shown below.

That's the good news -- that concerned people are talking about the crises facing the nation and planet. The bad news is how left-liberal assumptions permeate everything. An example was the decision to award one of the three 2008 TED prizes to dhim-witted Islam apologist Karen Armstrong.
(On the conservative side, the only thinker who regularly grapples with the big questions is Newt Gingrich. His most recent book is titled Real Change, and proposes real-world fixes. See also Newt's American Solutions website. But it's not likely that the TEDsters will invite him to speak.)
Back to the article about TED...

On stage is a cosmologist you've never heard of; in the audience is Bill Clinton, Goldie Hawn, Cameron Diaz, the Google founders, Richard Branson and countless dotcom millionaires.
They are rapt as he explains what quantum physics tells us about the universe, before giving him a standing ovation. Far-fetched it may seem, but TED is where the rich, the famous and the curious come to be inspired.
To say TED (it stands for technology, entertainment, design) is the biggest tech conference of the year is rather like describing Davos as a jolly week away for businessmen in the Alps.

For the best of TED, I recommend the 20-minute speech of biologist and writer E.O. Wilson proposing to catalog life on earth. The "impressionistic film" several minutes in of varieties of life with music by Bille Holiday is not to be missed. Wilson was a recipient of the 2007 TED Prize.

As E.O. Wilson accepts his 2007 TED Prize, he makes a plea on behalf of his constituents, the insects and small creatures, to learn more about our biosphere. We know so little about nature, he says, that we're still discovering tiny organisms indispensable to life; yet we're still steadily destroying nature. Wilson identifies five grave threats to biodiversity (a term he coined), using the acronym HIPPO, and makes his TED wish: that we will work together on the Encyclopedia of Life, a web-based compendium of data from scientists and amateurs on every aspect of the biosphere.Incidentally, Wilson supported the effort of a group of Sierra Club members (SUSPS) to reform the club into recognizing mass immigration as having negative environmental effects.

• • •

Expats hope to rule their little Britain in France [2/25/08]
When foreigners gather in their enclaves, they want things done their way, from bilingual whatnot to increased political clout.
But this instance isn't Mexicans taking over southern California, it's Britons marking territory in France in the town of Eymet.

Eymet lies in the heart of the south-western French department mockingly dubbed Dordogneshire, with a total British population of up to 10,000.
The first wave of Britons settled in the town in the 1960s, and today it has its own cricket club, a Franco-British choir and even a corner shop selling supplies of British pork sausages and Marmite.
Despite the growing number of Britons, they have never played a role in local politics. However, all that will change on March 9 when new rules come into force allowing non-French citizens to stand in council elections. [...]
If elected, he intends to set up weekly open days run by his two Anglophone councillors to help the British community with administrative questions, and even push for bilingual newspapers and electricity bills.

It's a common problem everywhere.

• • •

Muslims want university classes to fit prayer times [2/25/08]
In Australia, Muslim students are demanding that colleges redesign their schedules and physical plants in order to accommodate them, the foreigners.
Someone should tell the Sons of Allah about the old western custom of "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."

MUSLIM university students want lectures to be rescheduled to fit in with prayer timetables and separate male and female eating and recreational areas established on Australian campuses.
International Muslim students, predominantly from Saudi Arabia, have asked universities in Melbourne to change class times so they can attend congregational prayers. They also want a female-only area for Muslim students to eat and relax.
But at least one institution has rejected their demands, arguing that the university is secular and it does not want to set a precedent for requests granted in the name of religious beliefs.

• • •

Study: 3 in 4 U.S. mosques preach anti-West extremism [2/25/08]
This study is in line with the Freedomhouse investigation of a few years back that found similarly that the majority of mosques in the United States are enemies of this country. (The 2005 Freedomhouse publication, Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Invade American Mosques can be downloaded in PDF.)

The Mapping Sharia in America Project, sponsored by the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, has trained former counterintelligence and counterterrorism agents from the FBI, CIA and U.S. military, who are skilled in Arabic and Urdu, to conduct undercover reconnaissance at some 2,300 mosques and Islamic centers and schools across the country.
"So far of 100 mapped, 75 should be on a watchlist," an official familiar with the project said.
Many of the Islamic centers are operating under the auspices of the Saudi Arabian government and U.S. front groups for the radical Muslim Brotherhood based in Egypt.
Frank Gaffney, a former Pentagon official who runs the Center for Security Policy, says the results of the survey have not yet been published. But he confirmed that "the vast majority" are inciting insurrection and jihad through sermons by Saudi-trained imams and anti-Western literature, videos and textbooks.

• • •

Increased Hurricane Losses Due to More People, Wealth Along Coastlines, Not Stronger Storms, New Study Says [2/24/08]
Many people will pounce on this report as another refutation of climate change. Since I am not a climate scientist, I am agnostic on the subject.
However, the human race has been pumping increasing pollutants into the atmosphere since the advent of the industrial revolution. My common-sense brain thinks that so much crud may very well be having a cumulative effect. I am currently reading the Little Ice Age, after seeing a History Channel documentary of the same name. (Watch an online video beginning here.) Both the book and doc concern the period of colder weather from 1300 to 1850 and the many historic events propelled by a tiny amount of climate change. It does get your attention.
But back to the study in hand, the hurricane study underlines the need for more attention to the cost of so much growth. America's population has more than doubled since 1950, from 150 million residents then to well over 303 million now. The pro-growth forces in society, particularly the business lobby, are never criticized for their policy of continuing population expansion as the national economic strategy.

A team of scientists have found that the economic damages from hurricanes have increased in the U.S. over time due to greater population, infrastructure, and wealth on the U.S.Ê coastlines, and not to any spike in the number or intensity of hurricanes. [...]
The Natural Hazards Review paper, ÒNormalized Hurricane Damage in the United States: 1900-2005,Ó was written by Roger A. Pielke Jr. (University of Colorado), Joel Gratz (ICAT Managers, Inc.), Chris Landsea, Douglas Collins (Tillinghast-Towers Perrin), Mark A. Saunders (University College London), and Rade Musulin (Aon Re Australia).
The team used two different approaches, which gave similar results, to estimate the economic damages of historical hurricanes if they were to strike today, building upon the work published originally by Landsea and Pielke in 1998, and by Collins and Lowe in 2001. Both methods used changes in inflation and wealth at the national level. The first method utilized population increases at the county coastal level, while the second used changes in housing units at the county coastal level.
The results illustrate the effects of the tremendous pace of growth in vulnerable hurricane areas. If the 1926 Great Miami Hurricane were to hit today, the study estimated it would cause the largest losses at $140 billion to $157 billion, with Hurricane Katrina second on the list at $81 billion.
The team concludes that potential damage from storms Ð currently about $10 billion yearly Ð is growing at a rate that may place severe burdens on exposed communities, and that avoiding huge losses will require a change in the rate of population growth in coastal areas, major improvements in construction standards, or other mitigation actions.

• • •

FOX News Poll: Obama Has Slim Edge Over McCain [2/24/08]
Television networks can't stop themselves from polling, and the recent Fox News survey is more of the same old, same old in many ways. However, there is an item tucked at the end of the rather lengthy collection of data that is very interesting indeed. (See full text here of the Feb 21 FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll in PDF.)

40. Some people celebrate the multiculturalism and wide diversity of people in the United States, while others celebrate the countryÕs unity and shared values. In general, are you more likely to vote for a presidential candidate who celebrates the wide diversity of Americans or the shared values of Americans?

Despites decades of daily propaganda from the elite liberal media that multiculturalism is the highest good, 61 percent of voters polled thought that a Presidential candidate who represents America's Shared Values was more desirable than a celebrator of Wide Diversity (23 percent).
See the VDARE.com version Citizens Still Prefer American Values to ÒDiversityÓ.

• • •

Piggy banks are given the chop as bank tries to attract young Muslims [2/24/08]
In the Netherlands, political correctness on behalf of the Muslim invaders has won another round against the European people.

Knorbert the piglet has been dropped as the mascot of Fortis Bank after it decided to stop giving piggy banks to children for fear of offending Muslims.
The decision has been viewed in the Netherlands as the ritual slaughter of a popular pig by political correctness. To some, it is the latest sign of uncertainty in Europe's most tolerant country about how far it should go to accommodate the sensitivities of minorities. It comes as the country is braced for a backlash against the plans of Geert Wilders, a right-wing politician, to release a critical film about the Koran.
Pigs are considered an unclean animal by Muslims and Jews, and Knorbert was culled after seven years as the Fortis mascot. A spokesman told the Dutch media that ÒKnorbert does not meet the requirements that the multicultural society imposes on usÓ. The bank added that there had been Òa number of reactions to the pigÓ and that a new gift and character were being developed that would be Òfun for children of any persuasionÓ. Children who had received a Knorbert piggy bank for opening a EuroKids account will be given a junior encyclopaedia instead.

What's next? Female bank tellers forced to wear burqas? That would make the Muslims happy.

• • •

Driver Charged In Collision That Killed Deputy [2/23/08]
In Houston, another police officer has been killed by an illegal alien, in this case as a result of a vehicle crash. Deputy Craig Miller died immediately when his vehicle was struck by box truck recklessly driven by Jose Vieyra, who was charged with criminally negligent homicide. (Television news video here.)

A man has been charged with criminally negligent homicide after a sheriff's deputy was killed in a collision with a truck on Thursday, KPRC Local 2 reported. Harris County sheriff's deputies said Deputy Craig Miller, 43, died when his undercover unit collided with a truck in west Houston.
Officials said Jose Vieyra was driving a box truck when he left a car dealership, crossed all three lanes of the Katy Freeway eastbound feeder road near Mason Road and hit the deputy's unmarked sport utility vehicle shortly before 8 p.m.

Below left, Deputy Craig Miller; illegal alien Jose Vieyra on the right.

Deputy Miller's colleagues recalled him fondly: Deputy remembered as serious, but fun-loving, cop.

• • •

State budget deficit grows $1.5 billion [2/23/08]
Listening to California State Sen Tom McClintock on the John and Ken radio show was disturbing to hear, as he discussed the continuing refusal of Sacramento to deal with the looming financial crisis. (Listen here.)
Every bit of news is worse than the last...

California's budget gap is expected to grow by $1.5 billion more than was projected a month ago, the nonpartisan legislative analyst said Wednesday, as deteriorating revenues worsen the state's fiscal crisis.
The deepening deficit is a result of lower-than-expected tax receipts in the state's three major revenue areas - personal income tax, sales tax and taxable corporate profits, Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill said. [...]
The governor's budget, released last month after Schwarzenegger estimated the state's budget shortfall through the next fiscal year at $14.5 billion, included controversial plans to release prisoners early, close some state parks and suspend mandated funding for K-12 education.

• • •

Federal Immigration Officials Now Looking Into Fatal Minnesota Bus Crash [2/22/08]
The terrible bus crash that killed four school children and injured over a dozen others earlier this week was the fault of an unlicensed illegal alien, Alianiss Nunez Morales. She was driving a van that ran through a stop sign and ran into the bus. (Computer animation of the crash here.)

Days after the Lakeview School bus crash, the U.S. ImmigrationÊ& Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE)Êjoins the investigation.
"We are working closely with the state patrol into the circumstances surrounding the accident, including the legal status of the driver of the van," said ICE agent Tim Counts.
23-year-old Alianiss Nunez Morales had been driving the van, which investigators say smacked into a Lakeview school bus. That accident sent her to the hospital. When Morales was released Thursday afternoon, the Minnesota State Patrol made a probable cause arrest for criminal vehicular operation. Lyon County Sheriff Joel Dahl said, "They have talked to the prosecutor. They have enough information whatever that has entails at this point to take her into custody."

Shown below are the four children killed (clockwise from top left) Hunter Javens, 9, and his brother Jesse Javens, 13, both of Cottonwood; Emilee Olson, 9, of Cottonwood; and Reed Stevens, 12, of Marshall, MN.

VDARE.com version: Four Minnesota School Children Killed by Illegal Alien.

• • •

Activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali tells Dallas crowd of Islam honor killings [2/22/08]
The Somali-born critic of Islam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, explained the cultural background of the double murder of two high school girls near Dallas.

She began her speech by pointing to the killings of Sarah and Amina Said, Lewisville sisters whose father, Yaser Said, disappeared after the two were shot and left to die in his parked cab at an Irving hotel in January.
"I want to tell you why their father killed them," Ms. Hirsi Ali said.
Mr. Said's daughters were known to date non-Muslim men and dress in Western clothing, Ms. Hirsi Ali said, and in her estimation, the perceived loss of honor motivated Mr. Said, an Egyptian-born Muslim, to take his children's lives.
Mr. Said is accused by police in connection with his daughters' slayings. Family members have denied that his religion or culture had anything to do with the killings.
Ms. Hirsi Ali described a "cult of virginity" in Islam directed only toward women, wherein men are absolved of their sexual urges and are charged with protecting the honor of the family at all costs. The honor and shame code is an integral part of a culture that values virginity before marriage and fidelity afterward.
"The essence of a woman in this culture is reduced to the value of their hymen," she said. "In countries ruled by Islam, women are treated as slaves or pets."She quickly pointed out, "I must add that not all Muslim men are perpetrators and not all Muslim women are victims."

• • •

Growth threatening growers [2/21/08]
The loss of farmland in northern California is the focus here. The article chats up the advantages of so-called "smart growth" but that strategy of housing density does not address the many other problems associated with too rapid population growth, including increased pollution, unsustainable use of natural resources like water and more stress-inducing noise in closer living situations.

Most of the conversion of farmland to urban uses occurred in Southern California (including Riverside, San Diego and San Bernardino counties) and the San Joaquin Valley, the state's leading agricultural region. The valley lost almost twice as much farmland to urbanization than other parts of California, the trust found.
The Bay Area saw the third-highest losses at 74,473 acres during those 14 years,
Contra Costa ranked ninth among California counties, according to the report, with a loss of 18,052 acres of farmland, including land used for field crops and orchards in East Contra Costa County and livestock grazing in the San Ramon Valley. The more urbanized Alameda County converted 11,276 acres. [...]
Acres of farmland lost to new development from 1990 to 2004:
• 538,273 in California
• 74,473 in the Bay Area
• 18,052 in Contra Costa County
• 11,276 in Alameda County

You can download the original report Paving Paradise from the Farmland Trust website.

• • •

Urban flight from Los Angeles [2/21/08]
"Black flight" to escape Mexicanized neighborhoods isn't exactly news but the Economist has taken notice. Black citizens are leaving places like Compton and Watts to settle further east, where English is still spoken.

Victorville's gain is Los Angeles' loss. Since 1990 the city's black population has dropped by a quarter, from 488,000 to 364,000, even as the overall number of residents rose. The exodus is most noticeable in areas where blacks were once concentrated, such as Compton and Crenshaw. The population of the 35th congressional district, over which the old-fashioned race warrior Maxine Waters holds sway, is now less than one-third black. ÒIt's becoming hard to find black neighbourhoods,Ó says Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California. [...]
A big reason is immigration. New arrivals from Latin America and Asia have pushed up rents in the metropolis. Until recently they pushed up house prices, too, benefiting the roughly 40% of black householders in south-central Los Angeles who own property. They could afford to move on. Immigrants have also blurred racial lines, producing a kind of confused tolerance. Boundaries that might be stark if there were only two races are a lot harder to police when there are more, especially since the groups are gradually blending.

• • •

Why Belgium Loves Kosovo. And the Consequences for Southern California [2/20/08]
Kosovo has been a source of concern for some time among friends of the American nation state because of the terrible precedent it sets. Giving Kosovars their own state against the wishes of Serbia whose territory it is could encourage Mexicans residing in the US southwest to insist upon their own revanchist state of Aztlan.

The province of Kosovo lies to the northeast of Albania. It, too, was originally inhabited by Illyrians but by 850 it had become the heartland of the Slavic Serbs. In the 14th century it fell to the Ottomans. The Turkish occupation imposed Islam and brought in Muslim Albanians. When the province was reunited with Serbia in 1912, the Muslim Albanians had already begun to replace the Christian (Orthodox) Serbs as the predominant people in the province. Today, owing to their demographic growth, 90% of Kosovo is Muslim and Albanian.
Contrary to what George Bush thinks, the Kosovo Albanians do not regard themselves as constituting a Kosovar Ònation.Ó Their nation is Albania, their national hero is Skanderbeg, their flag is the black double-headed eagle. What they long for is unification with their Albanian compatriots in their motherland Albania. The Kosovo Albanians aim for a greater Albania, not for a new Ònation of KosovoÓ that has never existed in history. [...]
America, however, should fear other consequences, too. The Kosovo Albanians claimed Kosovo for two reasons: (a) because long, very long ago, before the province was Serbian, it used to be theirs and (b) because today they have become a majority in the province. America granted them their wish and forced Serbia out.
What if tomorrow Hispanics in California (or Texas) push for the independence of Southern California (or Southern Texas), arguing (a) that a long time ago, before these provinces became Anglo-American, they were Mexican and (b) that Hispanics have now become a majority there? Applying the Kosovo logic of Bill Clinton and George Bush, Washington should then be forced out of Southern California by an international army of European, Russian and Chinese troops who would establish an independent ÒnationÓ there. All this would be done in violation of the international rule that international borders can only be changed with the agreement of all parties. This is how Washington is treating Serbia today. If one day Washington were to be treated in a similar fashion it would only be getting its due.

Another article from the Brussels Journal emphasizes the demographic aspect of what happens when one tribe replaces another. KosovoÕs Present Is EuropeÕs Future
See also a 9-minute video of blogger Mickey Kaus discussing Kosovo-on-Rio Grande.

• • •

Drought spreading in Southeast [2/20/08]
The historic drought continues in the Southeast. Georgia won a lawsuit that allows it to keep more of its water and responded by lifting outdoor watering restrictions. That does not seem a wise policy decision, more political than anything else. It's been raining some, but nothing like what's needed to fill up the reservoirs.
The Georgia governor, Sonny Perdue, famously called a prayer service to petition a higher power for additional rainfall, so planning has not been a strong suit, something mentioned in this article.

North Carolina environmentalists say Raleigh shouldn't aspire to be like Atlanta in water management. "Up here, we constantly point to Atlanta as the failed example of what happens when you don't plan," says Dean Naujoks of the Neuse River Foundation. "I'm hopeful we don't make the same mistakes Atlanta has made."
Others say it's unfair to single out Atlanta because the entire Southeast has taken water for granted for centuries. In recent decades, the region has been a Sun Belt growth engine, adding people and impervious surfaces such as concrete and rooftops with little regard to whether there would be enough water.
"I would not just point the finger at Atlanta," says Graeme Lockaby, director of the Auburn University Water Resources Center in Alabama. "All of us in the Southeast are probably guilty of that. Until the last 10, 15, 20 years, we always had plenty of water. Then we had this acceleration of people and development."

• • •

Illegal emigres defy the image [2/19/08]
Not every illegal alien wears a sombrero and picks tomatos. Quite a few of them are from India and provide cheap, often untalented computer programming. (Related to the photo, Google was the creation of two young men, one of whom was an immigrant from Russia, Sergey Brin.)

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates that there are 270,000 unauthorized Indian natives in the United States - a 125 percent jump since 2000, the largest percentage increase of any nation with more than 100,000 illegal immigrants in the United States.
The number of undocumented Indians is dwarfed by the estimated 6.6 million illegal residents from Mexico, according to the estimates from homeland security's Office of Immigration Statistics. Yet, considering the high level of education of many Indians, immigration experts say the federal report hints at a new phenomenon: a high-skilled undocumented workforce to go along with the nation's sizable numbers of low-skilled illegal workers.
If trends continue, within three years India would trail only Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala as a source of illegal immigration. Another national immigration expert, Jeffrey S. Passel of the Pew Hispanic Center, estimates that the number of illegal Indians is even higher, at 400,000 people. [...]
Santa Clara County has the largest Indian-born population, and Alameda County ranks fifth, among the nation's 3,141 counties, according to 2006 census data. But there is no way to know what share of Bay Area Indian immigrants are illegal.
The Census Bureau does not ask people about their immigration status, and the Office of Immigration Statistics report did not provide state or local estimates. Of the 2.5 million people of Indian ancestry living in the United States, about 1 million are not U.S. citizens. [...]
"America is a very attractive country; everybody who comes here wants to stay," said Shah Peerally, a Silicon Valley immigration lawyer. "I can tell you right now, there are nearly 1 billion people in India, of which maybe 800 million want to come here."

Obviously, we as a nation must work to be less "attractive" to lawbreaking Indians. We could begin by deporting some. A good place to start cracking down would be Microsoft -- Bill Gates has called for unlimited H-1b visas in order to increase his profits, and he has replaced many capable American tech workers with cheap foreigners.
(See also my article about the repellent aspects of Indian culture, Dogs, Frogs and Dalits: The Indian Model Minority Has A Dark Side.)

• • •

Anti-DUI campaign targets Hispanic young men [2/18/08]
Uh oh, here comes a profiling lawsuit. Don't tell the ACLU. Not only that, but the Tennessee taxpayers are being hit for $60,000 to try to convince Mexicans not to get blotto and drive. Good luck with that.
Seriously, Tennessee has had several terrible deaths at the hands of drunk-driving illegal aliens. The victims include college student Joycelyn Gardiner, renowned mandolin craftsman Charlie Derrington and married couple Sean and Donna Wilson.
If the $60K program could prevent one more family tragedy, the cost would be well worth it. But drunk driving is a big component in Mexican macho culture and is unlikely to be rooted out with a few TV spots.

Nationwide in 2007, car wrecks were the leading cause of death for Latinos between ages 1 and 34, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data.
About half of those crashes involved alcohol. For other ethnic and racial groups, alcohol was involved in about 40 percent of fatal wrecks. [...]
In one ad an older woman in a Mexican graveyard bemoans the loss of her son, killed in a drunken driving incident, and the loss of the income he sent from the United States.

This article bends over backwards to deny any cultural component to drunk driving behavior. But even hopelessly PC NPR admitted that Latinos are responsible for a disproportionate number of DWI arrests and alcohol-related car accidents. In North Carolina, a state study found that Hispanics involved in car crashes were two-and-a-half times more likely to be drunk than white drivers.
A government crime victim site has an interesting Crime Clock. E.g. One person is killed in an alcohol-related traffic crash every 29 minutes.

• • •

Nashville may get new wave of refugees [2/18/08]
Poor Nashville. It doesn't deserve this. No American community does.

The State Department says it plans to admit up to 70,000 refugees this year. And refugee resettlement agencies working in Nashville have been asked to prepare to resettle a small number.
Nashville already is home to an estimated 3,000 Somalis, 4,000 Sudanese and 5,000 to 7,000 Kurds.
A trip along some of south Nashville's major streets reveals stores that sell African garments, and Southeast Asian beauty products, as well as grocery stores where indoor and outdoor signs are written in Arabic. Nashville is also home to four mosques.
In the area of southeast Nashville some call "Little Kurdistan," it's not uncommon for people to speak Kurdish, for women to wear traditional Kurdish garments and for 3,000 people to attend a single Kurd's funeral.
"When people come out here from California, they can't believe it," said Kovan Muratt, 22, a student at Middle Tennessee State University. In the early 1990s, his Kurdish family was resettled in Nashville after four years in a Turkish refugee camp.
Refugees have continued to be settled in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, the top three cities on the Brookings list. But in the latter part of 2007, the average cost of a two-bedroom apartment in Chicago was $1,424 a month, according to Nashville Chamber of Commerce data. The average two-bedroom apartment in Nashville cost $687.

For more on Kurds in Nashville, see What The New York Times DidnÕt Tell You About NashvilleÕs Kurdish GangsÑAnd The Patriotic Backlash.

• • •

Tournament of blood: The sheer horror of horse-fighting [2/18/08]
The barbaric bloodsport of horse-fighting is popular on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines and in parts of China. Spectators place bets on the bloody spectacle and eat barbecued horsemeat cut from the unfortunate losers. The activity is officially illegal, but no one pays any attention to the law.

The horrific tournament captured in our photographs happened in the town of Don Carlos and involved 54 horses, many of which had gruesome injuries.
Thousands of people turned out to watch the bloodbath, including hundreds of children. Many of the adults were drunk and spent their time gambling and jeering at the battling animals.
Though horses do not normally fight one another, these stallions had been whipped into a fighting frenzy by the presence of a young mare who was "in season" and had been staked to the ground in the middle of the muddy arena. [...]
Veterinary care is too expensive for most owners to bother with, so wounded horses are often killed for their meat and the choicest cuts barbecued and sold to the crowd.

As I've written before, aversion to animal cruelty is not a cultural norm in many societies: Diversity Is Strength! ItÕs AlsoÉ Cruelty To Animals
See also the VDARE.com version, Asian Cruelty to Horses on Display.

• • •

Citizen 'integration' courses: a good idea for the U.S.? [2/17/08]
If we must have immigration at all (and America is beyond full by any environmental measure), then much more must be done to assimilate the millions of foreigners in residence within our borders.

"There is a crisis of assimilation," said John Fonte, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute in Washington. "For American representative government to work, people have to believe we're all in this together."
Fonte said that required language and culture courses would be a positive step because many immigrants are not developing emotional attachments to the United States. He also advocates making English the nation's official language and eliminating ballots in other tongues. [...]
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank that advocates a reduction in immigration, said that many immigrants in the United States are not "psychologically" or "emotionally" assimilated, in part because of the Internet and affordable air travel, which allows them to stay in constant contact with their place of birth.
"Communications and transportation technology mean that immigrants just never really leave the old country," he said.
In addition, Krikorian said that the U.S. government, businesses and institutions do not demand that immigrants adapt to American culture by offering services in other languages and celebrating multi-culturalism.

On a related matter, see Amy Chua's op-ed Is Our National Identity in Danger?

The greatest empire in history, ancient Rome, collapsed when its cultural and political glue dissolved, and people who had long thought of themselves as Romans turned against the empire. In part, this fragmentation occurred because of a massive influx of immigrants from a very different culture. The ÒbarbariansÓ who sacked Rome were Germanic immigrants who never fully assimilated.

• • •

'I don't hate Muslims. I hate Islam,' says Holland's rising political star [2/17/08]
Geert Wilders is a member of the Netherland's parliament, and has been a stalwart defender of western values. His country is on edge as it awaits his short film about Islam to be released in March. The Dutch fear another outburst of violence of the sort that happens whenever Muslims' famously sensitive feelings are ruffled.

Wilders has been immersing himself in the suras and verse of seventh-century Arabia. The outcome of his scholarship, a short film, has Holland in a panic. He is just putting the finishing touches to the 10-minute film, he says, and talking to four TV channels about screening it.
'It's like a walk through the Koran,' he explains in a sterile conference room in the Dutch parliament in The Hague, security chaps hovering outside. 'My intention is to show the real face of Islam. I see it as a threat. I'm trying to use images to show that what's written in the Koran is giving incentives to people all over the world. On a daily basis Moroccan youths are beating up homosexuals on the streets of Amsterdam.'
Wilders is lucid and shrewd and the provactive soundbites trip easily off his tongue. He was recently voted Holland's most effective politician. If 18 months ago he sat alone in the second chamber or lower house in The Hague, his People's Party now has nine of 150 seats and is running at about 15 per cent in the polls. His Islam-bashing seems to be paying off. And not only in Holland. All across Europe, the new breed of right-wing populists are trying to revive their political fortunes by appealing to anti-Muslim prejudice.

There is a clip of Wilders as part of a British documentary about Islam in which he says the Dutch will lose their country unless they get a grip on immigration. In other sections of the doc, Religion of Peacers do their thing in Europe: Nuke! Nuke! USA! In another, teacher Ray Honeyford of Bradford England was hounded out of his job for insisting that Muslim children learn British values.
And finally, a selected short subject about the problems with Chinese products, particularly the ones that explode.

• • •

Why I Published Those Cartoons, By Flemming Rose [2/16/08]
The famous cartoons portraying Muhammed were republished last week in Denmark to express their support of free speech and outrage at the plot to murder one cartoonist -- five Muslims were arrested for conspiring to kill artist Kurt Westergaard whose toon was considered the most incendiary. As a result, followers of the "Religion of Peace" have rioted for six straight nights in Denmark.
"You say my religion is violent? I'll kill you!"
In the article linked above, the editor of Jyllands-Posten explains the difficulties of practicing free speech when there are a lot of Muslim immigrants raising a stink over every imagined criticism of Islam. The Muslim strategy is pure and simple intimidation, and the Danes are standing up against it.

At the end of September, a Danish standup comedian said in an interview with Jyllands-Posten that he had no problem urinating on the Bible in front of a camera, but he dared not do the same thing with the Koran.
This was the culmination of a series of disturbing instances of self-censorship. Last September, a Danish children's writer had trouble finding an illustrator for a book about the life of Muhammad. Three people turned down the job for fear of consequences. The person who finally accepted insisted on anonymity, which in my book is a form of self-censorship. European translators of a critical book about Islam also did not want their names to appear on the book cover beside the name of the author, a Somalia-born Dutch politician who has herself been in hiding.
Around the same time, the Tate gallery in London withdrew an installation by the avant-garde artist John Latham depicting the Koran, Bible and Talmud torn to pieces. The museum explained that it did not want to stir things up after the London bombings. (A few months earlier, to avoid offending Muslims, a museum in Goteborg, Sweden, had removed a painting with a sexual motif and a quotation from the Koran.)
Finally, at the end of September, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen met with a group of imams, one of whom called on the prime minister to interfere with the press in order to get more positive coverage of Islam.
So, over two weeks we witnessed a half-dozen cases of self-censorship, pitting freedom of speech against the fear of confronting issues about Islam. This was a legitimate news story to cover, and Jyllands-Posten decided to do it by adopting the well-known journalistic principle: Show, don't tell. I wrote to members of the association of Danish cartoonists asking them "to draw Muhammad as you see him." We certainly did not ask them to make fun of the prophet. Twelve out of 25 active members responded.

See also videos of rather threatening chants of Allahu Ackbar on the streets of Copenhagen and other unfriendly behavior on the part of youths, etc. protesting free speech in a western nation. Here's a YouTube of Muslims going nuts in 2006 at the Danish Embassy in London.
Don't forget to buy Danish products since Muslims are boycotting them again. It seems like old times -- see my 2006 photos of a Denmark-support rally in San Francisco.

• • •

On Single-Sex Buses, Relief From Unwanted Contact [2/16/08]
I've written before on the new women-only buses in Mexico City: Mexican Men Are Fenced OutÉ and Mexican Women Are Thrilled. The piece from the New York Times is worth your attention in particular for the 3:47 minute video where average Mexican women talk about how unpleasant it is to ride public transportation with lecherous Mexican men.
Transcribed from the video, four women speak...

"It's hard. They dont respect you. It doesn't matter whether you are young, pretty, big, or old. They don't respect you."
Woman at a window seat: "So, if you're sitting like this on this side, men might start putting their, their little instrument on your arm and start rubbing..."
"You don't even have to have short skirts or cleavage or anything. You just hear those comments all the time and it's like a common thing. As a woman you get very bad every day."
"What happens is that women here stay quiet until the few of us who will say something, the men suddenly get scared. So you have to speak. If someone touches you, say something."

Unsurprisingly, the women are very appreciative that the city has actually done something for their benefit.
One of the men complains that it's women's fault for wearing revealing clothes, but other men readily admit to the extent of the problem. (Again the following quotes are taken from the video, which has much more descriptive speech than the Times' written article.)

There you have it -- out of their own mouths. Have a look.

• • •

Calderon returns to Mexico with much to do [2/15/08]
La Times admits that not everyone was happy to see the Mexican Presidente here to meddle in America's internal affairs.

Mexican immigrants sent home about $26 billion last year, according to Mexican government figures. That money supports millions of families and sustains many regions of Mexico.
"We in Mexico miss you," Calderon said, referring to the immigrants. "We know life has rooted you here."
Calderon spoke at a banquet attended by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at the Omni Los Angeles Hotel downtown. Outside, Minutemen protesters waved signs urging the United States to "adopt Mexico's immigration policies," which are far stricter.
Other signs called on Calderon to "fix Mexico."

Meanwhile, Mexicans keep coming, as shown in a recent photo near Sasabe Mexico.

• • •

Lou Dobbs Transcript: California to Be Surrendered? [2/15/08]
Lou Dobbs Tonight reported on Thursday that the League of United Latin American Citizens supports turning California into part of Mexico.

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The California chapter of LULAC, the League of United Latin American Citizens unanimously voted to declare call what it called California Del Norte, a sanctuary for illegal immigrants. The group, the largest and oldest Latino group in the U.S. demands an end to all state and local police cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Things like immigration and customs enforcement raids of businesses employing illegal aliens.
JAN TUCKER, CALIFORNIA LULAC: Most responsible law enforcement officials would agree with us on -- at least to the extent that when local police get involved in trying to enforce immigration laws, that it just creates an environment that's hostile towards the police, no one cooperates with them whether they're here legally, illegally.
WIAN: California LULAC also wants the Mexican government to seek the assistance of a third nation to resolve disputes with the United States over American immigration laws and their enforcement. The group cites Article XXI of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War and transferred part of northern Mexico to the United States. LULAC sanctuary state declaration seemed ironic to this California lawmaker.
CHUCK DEVORE, CALIF. STATE ASSEMBLY: I guess one could argue we are in effect already a sanctuary state. If you look at our $103 billion annual general fund budget, most estimates are that we spend in upwards of $11 billion of that money caring for, providing welfare, educating, housing people who are here illegally.
WIAN: Devore has introduced a bill that would end California's policy of subsidizing state college tuition for illegal aliens. Instead, he wants to provide free tuition to members of the California National Guard. Devore estimates the proposal would save the state well over $100 million a year.
(on camera): Because California's Legislature is dominated by Democrats who favor amnesty for illegal aliens Devore's bill is not expected to pass. The LULAC declaration, of course, carries no legal authority, but both demonstrate the deep divide that remains in California over illegal immigration.

• • •

Adrienne Shelly's Killer Pleads Guilty, Gets 25 Years [2/14/08]
Adrienne Shelly was an independent film director whose first big film "Waitress" opened to excellent reviews last year after her death at the hands of an illegal alien. (See my blog from from November 2006, Actress and Mother Murdered to Hide Illegal AlienÕs Status.)
The killer's story has changed in the time since Shelly's death, which Diego Pillco made to look like a suicide. Her family had to convince the police that the happily married mother whose career was on the upswing absolutely did not kill herself.

A construction worker admitted in chilling detail today that he strangled indie-actress Adrienne Shelly in the Greenwich Village apartment where she worked because she caught him trying to rob her.
In his courtroom confession, Diego Pillco, an illegal immigrant from Ecuador, recounted how he choked the wife and mother with a sheet, strung her body up from a shower rod and fled -- hoping to make the murder look like a suicide.
Pillco, 20, will get 25 years in prison -- almost certainly followed by deportation -- as a result of today's Manhattan Supreme Court guilty plea to first degree manslaughter.
The confession differed radically from what Pillco had long told cops -- that he sparred verbally with Shelly after she came downstairs to complain of construction noise.

I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see how the crime is manslaughter and not murder. Pillco knocked her out and then hanged her from a shower rod. It's another weak plea deal from the court system, and a real disappointment. The guy should never see the light of day again.
More crime details here: Construction worker pleads guilty in slaying of actress Adrienne Shelly.
VDARE.com version: Adrienne ShellyÕs Killer Gets 25 Years.

Update: When researching this story yesterday, it didn't occur to me to look at the New York Times coverage, because of the paper's blatant bias. But the Times is getting worse, if such a thing is possible.
In a new level of gutter-scraping journalism, the piece started by blaming the victim for a couple paragraphs and essentially taking the side of the illegal alien murderer: In Guilty Plea, ActressÕs Killer Changes Story to Robbery (Feb 15).

His original confession had the ring of truth

imperious woman

Pillco's original confession did not have the "ring of truth" to me: it had Lie written all over it. The New York Post reported (Nov 7, 2006):

Pillco, who is from Ecuador and speaks only Spanish, also claimed that Shelly slapped him first.A woman (a serious indie film director) supposedly goes to complain about noise and immediately slaps the guy? Didn't pass the credible test, particularly when she was dead and he was trying to save his skin.
Later in the piece, the Times at least added some explanation about why the killer was not prosecuted for murder. The prosecutor decided to go for a plea deal of 25 years that would prevent a possible lesser sentence.

• • •

Saudis to Execute a Woman for Witchcraft [2/14/08]
Bush's friends in the home of the "Religion of Peace" are busy fighting non-existent crime. How typical that the stone-age Saudis intend to head-chop a powerless woman for a chunk of retro Muslim superstition.

A leading human rights group appealed to Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah on Thursday to stop the execution of a woman accused of witchcraft and performing supernatural acts.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement that the kingdom's religious police who arrested and interrogated Fawza Falih, and the judges who tried her in the northern town of Quraiyat never gave her the opportunity to prove her innocence in the face of "absurd charges that have no basis in law."
Falih's case underscores shortcomings in Saudi Arabia's Islamic legal system in which rules of evidence are shaky, lawyers are not always present and sentences often depend on the whim of judges.
The most frequent victims are women, who already suffer severe restrictions on daily life in Saudi Arabia: They cannot drive, appear before a judge without a male representative, or travel abroad without a male guardian's permission.
Witchcraft is considered an offense against Islam in the conservative kingdom.

And make no mistake, the punishment for alleged spell-flinging is the separation of head from body: International fury over Saudi Arabia's plans to behead woman accused of being a witch.
VDARE.com version: Saudis Cracking Down on Witchcraft.

• • •

Parents protest test in English [2/14/08]
In Chicago, hipanic parents are refusing to let their children take an important achievement test in English, and plan to keep them home the day of the test.

Angry Chicago Latino parents threatened Tuesday to keep their kids home on test day next month if state education officials insist on giving students who are still learning English an achievement test in English.
Facing threats of federal sanctions, state officials were ordered last October to give the same state tests native English speakers take to some 60,000 Illinois public school kids who haven't yet mastered English. [...]
Speaking through a Spanish-English translator, parent Erika Soto said her third-grade daughter is "very smart, but because of this test, she is going to be labeled a failure. So how is she going to feel?"

Education is no longer about achievement, but aims to make the kiddies feel good about themselves, despite their inability to communicate in the language of the oountry where they have inserted themselves.

• • •

Mexico Tries to Help Deportees [2/13/08]
Marginally increased border enforcement has given rise to a new sub-category of the sob story genre -- Mexican citizens forced to live in their own country. Elvira Arellano (a convicted felon) is the queen of this category, since she was repatriated to Mexico last year.

Carlos Martinez was in a state of total panic after being deported from the United States to the Mexican border city of Matamoros Ñ he had no money, nowhere to go, and, worst of all, he didn't speak Spanish. The 30-year-old New Yorker had left Mexico as a baby; when the Department of Homeland Security sent him south last May after he had served a prison term, he landed in a foreign land.
"I was crying when I went over the border. It was just a big joke to the U.S. immigration officials to have this Mexican who doesn't speak Spanish. But I was terrified," Martinez said.

Funny how Raza types demand that us American citizens speak Spanish; but Mexicans, not so much.

• • •

Lake Mead Could Dry Up by 2021 [2/12/08]
More bad news about water supply in the Southwest. Lake Mead is the body of water held in place by Hoover Dam.

Lake Mead, a key source of water for millions of people in the southwestern United States, could go dry by 2021, a new study finds.
The study concludes that natural forces such as evaporation, changes wrought by global warming and the increasing demand from the booming Southwest population are creating a deficit from this part of the Colorado River system.
Along with Lake Powell, which is on the border between Arizona and Utah, Lake Mead supplies roughly 8 million people in the cities of Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Diego, among others, with critical water supplies.
The system is currently only at half capacity thanks to a recent string of dry years, researchers say.
The studyÕs findings indicated that there is a 10 percent chance that Lake Mead could be dry by 2014 and a 50 percent chance that reservoir levels will drop too low to allow hydroelectric power generation by 2017. There is a 50 percent chance the lake will go dry by 2021, the study says.

See also NASA's satellite images of Lake Mead, including an interactive photo showing the reduction in lake area from 2000 to 2003.

• • •

U.S. to Skirt Green-Card Check [2/12/08]
This sounds familiar: there is a big backlog of immigrants wanting to become naturalized, so the government intends to lower standards and rubber-stamp their applications. It's a really bad idea, what with terrorists and all, but the open-borders lobby has a lot more clout than citizens rightfully demanding security in the immigration system.

Facing a rapidly growing backlog of immigration cases, the Bush administration will grant permanent residency to tens of thousands of legal U.S. immigrants without first completing required background checks against the FBI's investigative files.
The change affects a large but unknown number of about 47,000 permanent residency, or green-card, applicants whose cases are otherwise complete but whose FBI checks have been pending for more than six months, U.S. officials said. Overall, about 44 percent of the 320,000 pending immigration name checks before the FBI -- including citizenship as well as green-card requests -- have waited more than six months. [...]
Steven A. Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which calls for stricter limits on immigration, said the shift reflects the government's ongoing efforts to run its immigration system "on the cheap."
"You end up with people waiting longer than they should, and getting approved when they shouldn't," Camarota said. "It's bad for crime prevention, national security and customer service."

Here's another report: Green cards will go out, background check or not.

To ease an application backlog, the federal government plans to issuegreen cards to about 47,000 immigrants before the FBI finishes acomplete background check ÷ a move that critics warned could compromisenational security.

• • •

Erdogan cheered by 16,000 Turks in Cologne [2/11/08]
Erdogan would be the current Prime Minister of Turkey, visiting his outsourced brethren in Germany, much as Felipe Calderon checks up on his Mexicans abroad here in the USA.
Turkey currently gets $7.5B in remittances annually, so the Turkish PM doesn't want his boys forgetting about the dear homeland. Assimilation to a new country could be bad for his cash flow of free money.

A crowd of 16,000 expatriate Turks cheered Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a vast indoor auditorium in Germany on Sunday as he told them to resist assimilation into the West.
The political rally by Germany's biggest ethnic minority upset German politicians, who objected to a major public event on German soil being advertised on posters in Turkish only.
Erdogan indirectly addressed those concerns, saying it was right for Turkish immigrants to learn German and other languages so they could integrate, but wrong to abandon their Turkish heritage and assimilate.
"Assimilation is a crime against humanity," he told the crowd. Many Turks had travelled from France, Belgium and the Netherlands to hear his hour-long address in the shiny venue, the Koelnarena.

• • •

Devil May CAIR [2/11/08]
CAIR is of course the Council on American Islamic Relations, a group which has numerous ties to terrorists, yet many Democrats and a few Republicans continue to treat it as some sort of civil rights organization. Today's piece from Investors Business Journal indicates the noose is tightening, but we citizens continue to wait for a serious perp walk for these enemies.

CAIR's boosters on the Hill, where it's headquartered just three blocks from the Capitol, have known for some time that several people in positions of power within the group have been directly connected to terrorism and have either been prosecuted or thrown out of the country. Yet lawmakers have gone right on singing CAIR's praises and doing its bidding. That agenda includes suing John Doe witnesses, censoring critics of Islamism and denying the FBI antiterror tools.
These cheerleaders, who include a handful of Republicans (see box), also know by now that CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror-fundraising case last year. And that FBI wiretaps revealed that CAIR's founder, Omar Ahmad, and executive director, Nihad Awad, last decade attended a secret meeting in Philadelphia with Hamas leaders and other terrorist sympathizers.
In fact, Ahmad himself was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the terror case, which counts a CAIR founding director among its criminal defendants.
But now, in a separate case involving a senior CAIR official who trained to kill American soldiers in jihad, prosecutors are tying CAIR even closer to terror. In court papers filed in December, federal prosecutors described CAIR as not just an apologist or sympathizer, but a supporter of terrorists.
"From its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders," the filing states, "CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists." The government also cited evidence "the conspirators used deception to conceal from the American public their connections to terrorists."

See Anti CAIR for the lowdown.

• • •

Building a Wall between Worlds Crucial Factor [2/10/08]
Congressman Duncan Hunter has long been a leader in the construction of a barrier between the United States and Mexico. In this opinion piece, he makes the case that fences work, as demonstrated by the decreased crime and numbers of illegal aliens in San Diego after a wall was built there.

In San Diego County, border fencing remains a critical part of our effort to prevent and deter illegal immigrants and drug smugglers from entering the local community. Since construction of the San Diego border fence began in 1996, the smuggling of people and narcotics has dropped drastically; crime rates have been reduced by half, according to FBI statistics; vehicle drug drive-throughs have been eliminated; and apprehensions have decreased as the result of fewer crossing attempts.
This level of success illustrates that border fencing works. In fact, the San Diego border fence is serving to benefit both sides of the border. As conditions in San Diego County have improved, communities on the Mexican side of the border are no longer at the mercy of the armed gangs and drug smugglers who once roamed and controlled the Tijuana smuggling corridor.
It is no surprise that when I proposed extending this infrastructure across 700 miles of our southern land border, critics immediately dismissed the idea that border fencing would serve any functional purpose. Recognizing the success of the San Diego border fence, however, the Secure Fence Act, which required the construction of double-layered fencing at strategic points along the U.S.-Mexico border, passed the House and Senate overwhelmingly and was signed into law by President Bush.

• • •

Mexican Robin Hood Figure Gains a Kind of Notoriety in U.S. [2/10/08]
Jesus Malverde was a legendary thief in Mexican folklore, whose image has grown from a homemade shrine in rural Mexico north to a larger audience, carried by Mexican criminals who believe trinkets portraying the patron saint of drug smuggling will protect them. (A belief which is very helpful for police.)
Mexican marketing experts chose Malverde for a new beer identity because he was "the most recognizable and admired figure in focus groups." Apparently their research was accurate, since drug smugglers now swill the new Malverde beer "like holy water." As a result, the Jesus Malverde image has been recognized as a genuine phenom by the New York Times.
What a long strange trip it's been for the Narco Saint of Sinaloa.

Now, immigrants have brought his legend to the United States. His image, which is thought to offer protection from the law, can be found on items that include T-shirts and household cleaners.
Malverde is widely considered the patron saint of drug dealers, say law enforcement officials and experts on Mexican culture. A shrine has been erected atop his grave in the remote city of Culiac‡n in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, which has long been associated with opium and marijuana trafficking.
ÒThe drug guys go to the shrine and ask for assistance and come back in big cars and with stacks of money to give thanks,Ó said James H. Creechan, a Canadian sociologist and adjunct professor at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa in Culiac‡n. [...]
ÒThe appeal of Jesœs Malverde is that he was a nonconformist,Ó said Guillermo AvilŽs-Rodr’guez, artistic director of the Watts Village Theater. That the Roman Catholic Church does not recognize Malverde as a saint fits his outsider image.
ÒThereÕs a beauty to that, because it was the people who decided he was a saint,Ó Mr. AvilŽs-Rodr’guez said. ÒHe represents the belief, power and will of the people.Ó

Only crime-loving Mexico could elevate a low-rent criminal to sainthood. Chicago admired Al Capone back in the day for his bootlegging acumen, but no one there ever suggested that he deserved a halo.
These days, Jesus Malverde shares the stage (and store shelves) with a mainline saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe (aka "patronness of the Americas"!), who shows up wherever Mexicans are marking territory.

Below, a Compton store displays Mexican paraphernalia for sale.

• • •

In Reversal, Courts Uphold Local Immigration Laws [2/10/08]
The reversal in the title refers to the court decision in the Hazleton case against local immigration-control ordinances. The Times notes three recent examples across the country of judges affirming the right of local governments to take action against the illegal alien onslaught.

On Thursday, a federal judge in Arizona ruled against a lawsuit by construction contractors and immigrant organizations who sought to halt a state law that went into effect on Jan. 1 imposing severe penalties on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. The judge, Neil V. Wake of Federal District Court, methodically rejected all of the contractorsÕ arguments that the Arizona law invaded legal territory belonging exclusively to the federal government.
On Jan. 31, a federal judge in Missouri, E. Richard Webber, issued a similarly broad and even more forcefully worded decision in favor of an ordinance aimed at employers of illegal immigrants adopted by Valley Park, Mo., a city on the outskirts of St. Louis.
And, in an even more sweeping ruling in December, a judge in Oklahoma, James H. Payne, threw out a lawsuit against a state statute enacted last year requiring state contractors to verify new employeesÕ immigration status. Judge Payne said the immigrants should not be able to bring their claims to court because they were living in the country in violation of the law.

• • •

Minister warns of ÔinbredÕ Muslims [2/09/08]
More problems in Britain resulting from Muslim immigration: now it's birth defects resulting from insufficient gene diversity --though that fact is not exactly news. A noteworthy 55 percent of Paks residing in Britain are married to first cousins.
Resarch from a few years ago found that while British Pakistanis accounted for just 3.4 percent of all births, they had 30% of all British children with recessive disorders and a higher rate of infant mortality. At that time (2005), an MP called for an end to marriage among first cousins, but we see how far that intelligent idea got...

A government minister has warned that inbreeding among immigrants is causing a surge in birth defects - comments likely to spark a new row over the place of Muslims in British society.
Phil Woolas, an environment minister, said the culture of arranged marriages between first cousins was the Òelephant in the roomÓ. Woolas, a former race relations minister, said: ÒIf you have a child with your cousin the likelihood is thereÕll be a genetic problem.Ó
The minister, whose views were supported by medical experts this weekend, said: ÒThe issue we need to debate is first cousin marriages, whereby a lot of arranged marriages are with first cousins, and that produces lots of genetic problems in terms of disability [in children].Ó
Woolas emphasised the practice did not extend to all Muslim communities but was confined mainly to families originating from rural Pakistan. However, up to half of all marriages within these communities are estimated to involve first cousins.

Along with the extra welfare benefits given to Muslim polygamous families in Britain, taxpayers have to pay for treatment of birth defects among immigrants too ignorant or stubborn to avoid tragic defects whih are the source of much suffering caused by cousin marriage.

The minister who spoke out in order to protect children was accused of Islamophobia. Where Islam is concerned, no good deed goes unpunished.

• • •

Archbishop under pressure to quit [2/09/08]
A couple days ago, LTG reported the idiotic statements made by the Archbishop of Canterbury that Muslims in Britain should be permitted to choose sharia courts if they wished.
There has been quite a controversy as a result, as the British people have voiced their objections to Dr Rowan Williams' multicultural dhimmitude.
You can contact the Archbishop at this page and express your polite, well considered criticism. I did.

The Archbishop of Canterbury continues to face calls for his resignation despite attempts to defuse the row over his Islamic Sharia law comments.
Dr Rowan Williams has been condemned from inside and outside his church for saying the adoption of parts of the law was "unavoidable" in Britain.
At least two General Synod members have called for him to quit and he has been heckled as he left a church service.

For citizen outrage, see the comments at a recent Daily Mail article, Sharia law row: Archbishop is in shock as he faces demands to quit.
Willaims' clerical colleagues are not happy either: Bishops' Backlash As Archbishop of Canterbury Defends Calls for Sharia Law
See also Pat Condell's YouTube commentary.

• • •

Harems pay off for Muslims [2/09/08]
I wrote a few days ago about the shocking news that Muslim males in Britain with several wives would receive welfare benefits for their extras (Polygamy Diversity to Be Rewarded).
However, governments much closer than that are handing out taxpayer money to bigamist arrangements. In Canada, standards are low enough for Muslims to be able to game the system.

Hundreds of GTA [Toronto] Muslim men in polygamous marriages -- some with a harem of wives -- are receiving welfare and social benefits for each of their spouses, thanks to the city and province, Muslim leaders say.
Mumtaz Ali, president of the Canadian Society of Muslims, said wives in polygamous marriages are recognized as spouses under the Ontario Family Law Act, providing they were legally married under Muslim laws abroad.
"Polygamy is a regular part of life for many Muslims," Ali said yesterday. "Ontario recognizes religious marriages for Muslims and others."
He estimates "several hundred" GTA husbands in polygamous marriages are receiving benefits. Under Islamic law, a Muslim man is permitted to have up to four spouses.

• • •

Making for easier assimilation [2/08/08]
The Los Angeles Times believes that we citizens don't expect foreigners coming here to live permanently to become loyal Americans. The Times thinks it's fine that they just come to make money and live in their separate ethic communities. The foreigners need to learn English, not to become part of our national community, but to get better-paying jobs.

In her heart, Sonia Galdamez is Salvadoran. She speaks Spanish at home and cooks Salvadoran food for her family.
But since arriving in Los Angeles nearly two years ago, she has been sworn in as a U.S. citizen and is studying English at L.A. City College.
Galdamez said she doesn't have to sacrifice her traditions, roots or language to become American.
"But in this country, really, they speak English," she said. "If I want to find a good job, I have to learn it."

On the contrary to the Times' view, most Americans still believe in the tradition that immigrants should assimilate to the culture of this nation.
A 2005 Rasmussen poll supports this view (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.

Another indication is the 2006 Zogby poll that found 67 percent of citizens wanted immigration decreased so we can assimilate those already here.
In addition, the popular Sensenbrenner immigration bill that passed the House of Representatives a couple years ago with strong bipartisan support included an Oath of Allegiance provision that demanded new citizens renounce political loyalty to their birth nations.
VDARE.com version: La Times Touts Economic Assimilation Only.

• • •

Mexican president foresees friendlier U.S. [2/07/08]
Presidente of Mexico and general bottom feeder Felipe Calderon is enormously cheered by recent political events in America. He is rubbing his grubby hands together in glee as a result of the disappearance of the last pro-borders Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney.
Plus, Calderon is planning a visit to Mexifornia next week to check on his outsourced citizens who supply billions of dollars annually in remittances (nearly $24 billion in 2007, see below). Hopefully he will get the kind of welcome he deserves.

"My hope is that whoever the next president is, and whoever is in the new [U.S.] Congress, will have a broader and more comprehensive view" of the immigration problem, Calderon said. Speaking at the presidential residence Los Pinos on the morning after the Super Tuesday presidential primaries in the U.S., Calderon said he took heart from the results, though he did not mention specific candidates.
"It seems to me that the most radical and anti-immigrant candidates have been left behind and have been put in their place by their own electorate," Calderon said.
He arrives in Sacramento on Feb. 13 on the final leg of a five-day U.S. trip that will also take him to Chicago, Boston and New York to visit local officials and representatives of Mexican immigrant communities.
In Sacramento, he is scheduled to meet with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Latino legislators. In Los Angeles the following day, he is to meet Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and migrant groups' representatives assembled by the nine Mexican consulates in California.

Plus, Calderon is still yapping for his handout of free money from Uncle Sucker, which will total $1.4 billion over a couple years rather than the sub-billion amount mentioned in La Times.

U.S. legislators are debating a $550-million proposal by the Bush administration to assist Mexico and Central America in the battle against traffickers.Below, a chart showing the growth of remittances over the last few years.

On a slightly different matter, there is an interesting comment in the blog from which I pulled the chart directly above. It has a quote from the Mexican author Octavio Paz that lines up with the scholarship of Prof Lawrence Harrison concerning how culture affects national progress.

ÒTo us, valuable is a synonym for enduring. The pre-Colombian heritage accentuates this inclination: the pyramid is the very image of immutability. The polar opposites that exist between Americans and Mexicans are epitomized in our attitudes toward change. To us the secret lies not in getting ahead but in managing to stay where we already are. It is the opposition between the wind and the rockÉ we instinctively relate the present to the past, where as Americans relate it to the future.Ó

For more on Harrison's work, see his chart comparing cultural attributes taken from the Social Contract article Immigrants and Culture -- here in PDF.
VDARE.com version: In Mexico, Joy Abounds

• • •

Hazleton Mayor Runs for Congress [2/07/08]
Lou Barletta, the Mayor of Hazelton Pennsylvania, has famously defended the town from the illegal alien invasion. Now he hopes to get a seat in Congress.

Mayor Lou Barletta, whose local crackdown on illegal immigration made him a national hero among those seeking tighter borders, said Thursday he will try to parlay that celebrity into a seat in Congress.
Barletta announced he will seek the Republican nomination to challenge 12-term Democratic Rep. Paul Kanjorski. He lost to Kanjorski by more than 13 percentage points in 2002, but the mayor's illegal-immigration stance has raised his profile significantly since then.
"I've done as much as I can fighting illegal immigration as the mayor of a city," he told The Associated Press. "I need to take this fight to Washington, because that's where the problem needs to be fixed."
Barletta has been a staple of talk radio and cable TV news for nearly two years, since he began a campaign to get illegal immigrants out of Hazleton, a city of about 30,000. He was courted heavily by Republicans hoping to pick up a seat in Kanjorski's blue-collar, heavily Democratic district in northeastern Pennsylvania.
"I will stand up for all of the victims of crime committed by illegal aliens. I will speak out for the American workers who can't find a decent job because of a depressed wage scale," Barletta said Thursday at a news conference packed with supporters.

For the campaign website, see LouBarletta.com

• • •

Sharia law in UK is 'unavoidable' [2/07/08]
In Britain, Rowan Williams is the Archbishop of Canterbury (as well as occasional Druid) and the top religious leader in the country. Therefore his statements about morality presumably have some weight in the public mind. His acceptance of Islam's brutal, misogynist sharia law is another sad accommodation of an anti-western culture by British elites who have consistently refused to defend traditional values.
Don't they care that Islamists repeatedly state their intention to destroy the West and institute a worldwide Muslim goverment?

The Archbishop of Canterbury says the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK "seems unavoidable".
Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4's World at One that the UK has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.
Dr Williams argues that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion. [...]
But Dr Williams said an approach to law which simply said "there's one law for everybody and that's all there is to be said, and anything else that commands your loyalty or allegiance is completely irrelevant in the processes of the courts - I think that's a bit of a danger".

Is not "equality under the law" the basis of citizenship in western democracies? Permitting some residents to choose the system of law under which to be judged is a recipe for social anarchy. Cultural relativism has no place in the courts, to say the least.
In 1940, Winston Churchill swore that Britain would never surrender to its hostile enemies without.
Now a culturally devastated Britain is surrendering at every opportunity to the enemies within -- the Muslims who have already murdered dozens of British citizens for jihad.

• • •

Kidnappings of U.S. citizens on rise [2/06/08]
Kidnapping for ransom by Mexicans continues to affect growing numbers of Americans who are foolish enough to travel in the Narco-state. That crime was "nearly non-existent" in America until recently when the Mexican crime incursion has worsened.

Organized, well-financed and violent Mexican kidnapping cells are targeting a growing number of U.S. citizens visiting communities popular with San Diegans and other California residents.
Last year, at least 26 San Diego County residents were kidnapped and held for ransom in Tijuana, Rosarito Beach or Ensenada, local FBI agents overseeing the cases said yesterday. In 2006, at least 11 county residents had been kidnapped in the three communities.
ÒSome of the 26 were recovered, some were hurt and some were killed,Ó said agent Alex Horan, who directs the FBI's violent-crime squad in San Diego.
ÒIt's not a pleasant experience. Victims have reported beatings, torture and there have been rapes. . . . Handcuffs and hoods over the head are common,Ó he said.

See the future in this article from 2005 about the violence of Mexican criminals, Mexico kidnappings deadliest in Latin America.

• • •

Nina Reiser was all set to start new job, would-be boss says [2/06/08]
This is a crime story about a missing woman in Oakland that has been in local news, but contains an interesting aside about Your Tax Dollars At Work...

Two days before she disappeared, Nina Reiser accepted a $50,000-a-year job with the San Francisco Department of Public Health to help Russian immigrants improve their health, the woman who hired her testified today.

The nanny state is alive and well in San Francisco for sure!

• • •

Issues Start Rush to Citizenship by Hispanics [2/05/08]
According to the New York Times, Hispanics feel victimized by cruel Americans who insist that our immigration laws be obeyed. Curiously, the Times' reporting does not mention that Mexico is quite strict about its borders, laws and sovereignty, yet Americans are condemned merely for demanding that immigration be legal and controlled.
The upshot is that hispanics are getting naturalized (when possible) in order to vote in open borders for those of their tribe. Nice.

Hispanics regard voting this year as a strategy of self-defense, said Sergio Bendixen, a pollster based in Miami. For many of them, Mr. Bendixen said, Òthe immigration debate has not been about immigration policy; it has been about whether Hispanics belong in America.Ó
Hispanics Òfeel they need to vote to show they are a group that cannot be abused or discriminated against,Ó said Mr. Bendixen, who surveys Hispanics for the Clinton campaign. [...]
ÒThe hard-line rhetoric on immigration is turning off all Latinos,Ó said Lionel Sosa, a Republican advertising executive in San Antonio who handled Hispanic outreach in the presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan and both President Bushes. ÒWhen people talk about building a wall and sending those Mexicans back, it comes off as anti-Latino. We say: ÔYouÕre talking about my family, and I donÕt like it.ÕÊÓ

If citizens do indeed assume that non-English-speaking hispanics are illegal aliens, why is that unreasonable? The same newspaper reported in 2005 that most recent "immigrants" from Mexico are illegal (Record Immigration Is Changing the Face of New York's Neighborhoods).

nationally, 80 to 85 percent of all Mexican immigration since 1990 was undocumented

There are many persons from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds who are border jumpers and have disrespected America's law and sovereignty. However, as the chart shows, the great majority of illegal aliens in this country are hispanic, particularly Mexican.
If legal hispanics want respect and security in America, they should support tough immigration enforcement. Otherwise, citizens will continue to assume reasonably that any hispanic who doesn't speak English is likely a lawbreaking illegal alien. It's a statistical fact.

• • •

Immigration Reversals [2/05/08]
Garrett Hardin thought that "it takes five years to change your mind about anything important" and the process of that change is always interesting to observe and examine.
In this piece, editor Myron Magnet describes how he changed from an uncritical worshipper of massive immigration to a person who recognizes the current crisis in law, assimilation and social costs. In short, the overwhelming mountain of evidence finally forced him to reverse his views. He doesn't specify the number of years it took to change his mind but does remark at the outset, "I'm embarrassed it took me so long to grasp the phoniness of the charge that it's "anti-immigration" to oppose current U.S. immigration policy."

But weren't my grandparents' generation of immigrants also unskilled? In fact, the National Research Council reports, they were slightly more skilled than the native population, and the rapidly urbanizing U.S. economy of that time desperately needed all the tailors, stonecutters, retail clerks, and so on, arriving by the shipload. Unlike today's knowledge-based economy, it also needed plenty of unskilled labor to build its new cities and work its unmechanized and still inefficient farms. In addition, Malanga argues, those earlier immigrants brought with them a rich store of social capital: strong families, self-reliance, entrepreneurialism, a belief in education for their children, optimism about the future and belief in their new land rather than fatalism and cynicism. That's why their children were just as likely to end up lawyers, engineers, or accountants as the children of native-born Americans. By contrast, the American-born children of Mexican immigrants, two and a half times likelier to drop out of high school than the average American-born kid, earn less than the national average as adults. [...]
The crime statistics are stark. Nationally, the Hispanic felony arrest rate approaches triple that of non-Hispanic whites, and 30 percent of federal prisoners in 2000 were foreign-born. In California, home to 40 percent of America's immigrant population, Hispanics, who in 1970 were 12 percent of the state's population and 16 percent of its new prison admits, grew to 30 percent of its population in 1998 and 42 percent of its new prisoners. In Los Angeles, almost all of the more than 1,200 outstanding murder warrants were for illegal aliens. In a heavily Hispanic Manhattan neighborhood, cops estimate that 70 percent of the drug dealers and other criminals are illegal aliens. If, as the widely accepted "broken windows" theory of policing has it, such low-level crimes of disorder as subway fare-beating or public urination encourage more serious crime, since the criminally inclined conclude that no one cares about lawbreaking, then surely our nation's non-enforcement of its immigration laws, Mac Donald concludes, especially in the big cities that have adapted "sanctuary" policies for illegal aliens, is the biggest crime breeder of them all.

• • •

A Reason to Vote Hillary [2/04/08]
Mickey Kaus is one of my favorite bloggers (www.kausfiles.com) and today he presents his immigration voter guide. I am posting it for your edification only and not as a recommendation. Of course, he is not the only pro-borders pundit who thinks that McCain is the next best thing to Satan.

Mickey's Single Issue Voter's Guide: Suppose you were a single issue voter, and your single issue was immigration. Specifically, you were opposed to legislation that combines some form of amnesty (legalization of existing illegal immigrants) with tougher border enforcement. If so, you would probably be pretty depressed right now--three of the four leading presidential candidates explicitly favor such "comprehensive" reform. The fourth, Mitt Romney is the least likely to win. And even he's suspected of being a closet comprehensivist.
But you still have to vote. Before you did, you'd want to ask: Which of the three pro-legalization candidates is least likely to accomplish their legislative goal? When you think about it this way, a clear and somewhat surprising ranking of top three emerges.
1) Hillary Clinton would probably be the best president for anti-comprehensivists. She's cautious. She's been burned by GOP opposition before (to her 1994 health plan). Is she really going attempt both health care reform and immigration reform in her first two years? Remember, Rahm Emmanuel's swing-state Democratic congressmen typically ran tough-on-illegals campaigns. They're squeamish about voting for "amnesty." If Hillary is president (meaning John McCain isn't president) the Republicans are likely to unite against a Democratic legalization plan. Meanwhile, Hillary's political adviser James Carville is on record suggesting that legalization, like welfare, is a potential election-loser. Hillary suppporter Paul Krugman seems one of those remaining economists who actually believe in supply and demand--i.e., that an increase in the supply of immigrant labor can drive down unskilled wages. And Hillary herself has made anti-illegals noises in the past, including reversing her endorsement of Gov. Spitzer's drivers license plan.

The other candidates are considered as well.
For more electoral fun, see the New York Times' Endorsement Checker -- just click on the mug of some public figure (from Howard Stern to Henry Kissinger) and their choice for President pops up.

• • •

Support for 'no-go' bishop after death threats [2/04/08]
Britain should be Exhibit A of what happens when a country allows Muslim immigrants in any substantial number. A Christian cleric who merely stated that some areas are hazardous for non-Muslims now lives under a death threat. The free speech of democratic societies in under extreme attack by Muslims, as they try to shut us up in our own countries.

Dr Nazir-Ali was warned that he would not "live long" and would be "sorted out" if he continued to criticise Islam, following his claim that parts of Britain had become "no-go" areas for non-Muslims.
Police have launched inquiries into the phone calls that were made to his home and have put him and his family under police protection with the use of an emergency line.
Surveillance cameras around the building have been improved. The bishop's mail is being screened by the Post Office as an added precaution.
"The irony is that I had similar threats when I was a bishop in Pakistan, but I never thought I would have them here," the bishop said. Meanwhile, Muslim leaders are to meet him in an emergency summit to challenge him over his claims, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

In other Muslim intimidation news, westerners all over the world may be made to suffer for Geert Wilders' critical documentary: Dutch soldiers 'at risk' over anti-Koran film

• • •

Immigrants Stream Into Utah in Search of Better Life [2/03/08]
It's often interesting to read deep into these cookie cutter "better life" stories, to see what the "migrants" value. Hint: it's not America's traditional culture.

In Salt Lake City, where the U.S. flag looms over many buildings, small Mexican flags can be found among housing tracts in West Jordan and West Valley west of the city. In driveways, pickups advertise national pride south of the border, proclaiming in white Gothic fonts the owner's state of origin, like Jalisco in central Mexico. [...]
At Rita Valencia's candy and candle shop, one can buy a spiritual candle promising help finding a job, or a Mexican product with an American twist. Hanging above Valencia's candy shelves are Hannah Montana and Spider-Man pi–atas, designed for a child weaned on American culture.
"Utah, it's just like a flower that's going to start blooming," Valencia said.

Note the diverse belief in superstition. Along with the desire to turn America into Mexico. Except for the dollar bills. Mexicans are happy with American money.

• • •

Ethnic Studies program at Tucson High School, Part II [2/03/08]
In case there was ever any question that Raza hispanic chauvinists use the public school system to subvert the minds of young people, here is another reminder. In this instance, a hispanic teacher (John Ward) was asked to run a class in "ethnic studies" which was neither balanced nor truthful. (Part I of this piece appears to be Secretive raza studies in Tucson district need close look, Jan 20.)

The school administration asked Ward to teach a class in conjunction with the Tucson Unified School District's nascent Ethnic Studies program, which recently had set up a pilot project at Tucson High. As he understood it at first, Ward would be the "teacher of record," while facilitators from the Ethnic Studies group would make presentations. But that's not exactly how the class turned out.
"I was told it would be a standard history class with a Mexican-American influence," said Ward, who no longer teaches. "But the whole inference and tone was anger. (They taught students) that the United States was and still is a fundamentally racist country in nature, whose interests are contrary to those of Mexican-American kids.
"Individuals in this (Ethnic Studies) department are vehemently anti-Western culture. They are vehemently opposed to the United States and its power. They are telling students they are victims and that they should be angry and rise up."

Is it any wonder that hispanic high-school kids hate America? They are taught to be reconquista-supporting Marxicans in their classrooms.

For an alternative view of how hispanic kids can be taught American values, see Victor Davis Hanson's remembrance of his school days in the California valley, The Civic Education America Needs

• • •

Bush Against Romney [2/03/08]
The Mexichurian President is down on Mitt Romney because he has spoken out strongly against illegal immigration.

While President George W. Bush has maintained neutrality among contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, he privately expresses to friends his exasperation with Mitt Romney's hard-line stance on immigration.
Bush is upset that Romney changed his position on the issue, compared to what it had been when he was governor of Massachusetts, at the expense of the president's immigration reform. Bush and Sen. John McCain are not close, but the president is grateful for McCain's support on Iraq and immigration.

Romney has obviously done his homework on the issue, as one can tell by listening to his answers to a detailed policy quiz by well informed radio hosts John and Ken on February 1, which is well worth hearing.
In addition, immigration legal expert Kris Kobach has joined the Romney campaign as an advisor.

• • •

Multiple wives will mean multiple benefits [2/02/08]
Here's another episode in the cultural suicide of Great Britain: polygamous Muslim families will receive welfare benefits via tax money from British citizens while the Muslims engage in illegal behavior.

Husbands with multiple wives have been given the go-ahead to claim extra welfare benefits following a year-long Government review, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.
Even though bigamy is a crime in Britain, the decision by ministers means that polygamous marriages can now be recognised formally by the state, so long as the weddings took place in countries where the arrangement is legal.
The outcome will chiefly benefit Muslim men with more than one wife, as is permitted under Islamic law. Ministers estimate that up to a thousand polygamous partnerships exist in Britain, although they admit there is no exact record.
The decision has been condemned by the Tories, who accused the Government of offering preferential treatment to a particular group, and of setting a precedent that would lead to demands for further changes in British law.
New guidelines on income support from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) state: "Where there is a valid polygamous marriage the claimant and one spouse will be paid the couple rate ... The amount payable for each additional spouse is presently £33.65."
Income support for all of the wives may be paid directly into the husband's bank account, if the family so choose. Under the deal agreed by ministers, a husband with multiple wives may also be eligible for additional housing benefit and council tax benefit to reflect the larger property needed for his family.
The ruling could cost taxpayers millions of pounds. Ministers launched a review of the benefit rules for polygamous marriages in November 2006, after it emerged that some families had benefited financially.

If multiple marriage is now acceptable in Britain, can non-Muslims engage in it? Can a Methodist woman have two or three husbands?
If not, then equality under the law is dead in that country.

In other British diversity news, a Pakistani girl of 15 was tricked by her family into marrying a retarded man in Sheffield with a mental age of five, and more: Family of teen Muslim invited men to rape her.
Additionally, when a young Muslim woman tries to escape being forced into marriage by her family, Islamic immigrants in Britain collude against her safety and cover up honor murders: Study alleges 'honour killings conspiracy'
VDARE.com version: Polygamy Diversity to Be Rewarded
In addition, here is the Daily Mail polygamy welfare story: Husbands with multiple wives to get extra benefits after Government gives the green light.

• • •

Somalis, Shelbyville and Severe Culture Shock: An Interview with Brian Mosely [2/02/08]
Brian Mosely is a reporter from a small Tennessee paper who wrote a series of articles about how badly the influx of hundreds of Somali refugees had gone in that town. The culture clash could hardly have been worse, from the Somalis' drugs and gangs to a downright rude attitude of entitlement that just won't quit.

Brian Mosely:Ê There are so many difficulties; itÕs hard to know where to begin. At the top of the list would have to be the attitude of the Somali refugees, which locals have consistently described as Ôrude and demandingÕ. This description comes from practically everyone who have encountered or interacted with them, from your average convenience store clerk all the way to law enforcement officers and other officials.
Given that this area of Tennessee is known for their southern hospitality, the behavior of the Somalis has really angered many people in the community, even those who would typically welcome people from other cultures. But what is really infuriating many residents are that the groups who bring the Somalis into the country appear to expect the local community to practice the same type of moral and cultural relativism they do. [...]
Then there is the issue of religion. Bedford County has an extremely strong Christian faith and the sudden introduction of hundreds of Muslims into this small southern town has resulted in a massive culture shock. For the past 30 years, the predominate image of Muslims seen in mass media are of the ones yelling Ôdeath to AmericaÕ and blowing themselves up. Suddenly, they are in line with grandma at Wal-Mart. The Somalis began to move to this area just a short time after 9/11 and the release of the DVD of ÔBlack Hawk Down,Õ which doesnÕt exactly portray them in a favorable light. As a result, there is a tremendous amount of fear in some parts of the community due to this perception. I have also heard many opinions of disgust and disbelief that our own government would let these people in here. Anger from members of the public over the issue of illegal immigration is already high in this community and the introduction of the Somalis has only made these feelings much worse. [...]
Off the record comments from public service officials have been worrisome as well. Firefighters have told me that the Somalis refused to evacuate their apartment complex during a blaze and when they respond to alarm calls, [a frequent occurrence] the firemen are told to leave and that they are not welcome there. Law enforcement reports a similar Ôlack of respectÕ for their authority and I have been told off the record that many officers are hesitant to even patrol after dark the apartment complex where the Somalis live.

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Sierra snowpack good - drought fears lessen [2/01/08]
The good news in California is a January of heavy rain and snow, which will end up as our water supply for the rest of the year. We are not out of the woods yet because the rains could stop at any time, but so far so good.

The winter snowpack in the Sierra is not only important to skiers and snowboarders, it is an essential part of the state's water supply. Up to 60 percent of the state's water is contained in the Sierra snowpack, Hart said. When it melts in the spring and summer, the water is used to irrigate 775,000 acres of farmland and quench the thirst of California's 36 million people. About a quarter of the state's power comes from hydroelectric plants that count on heavy mountain runoff.
"Even in an average year it is absolutely critical," Hart said. "This is water on the ground that will melt during the spring. We depend on it." [...]
It is, however, dangerous to think that average or even slightly above average at this time means the state is sitting pretty, Hart said.
"It used to be good when you had 20 million people, but now we have more than 35 million people in the state," he said. "And in the past we didn't have the demand for environmental uses of water," like fisheries restoration.
"We need to be better than average if we're going to make up for the deficit from last year," he continued. "We've got all these people in Southern California now and they all want lawns. And they don't have rain down there."

Even a mild drought will be a disaster for California because of the increased demand of so many people (over 37 million). And all of the state's population growth in recent decades is immigration driven.

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'Costco' for stolen property busted in Oakland [2/01/08]
A couple of illegal aliens stole so much stuff that the police described their house as looking like a store.

Oakland police showed off a roomful of fenced loot today that was found in a West Oakland home and invited anyone who may have had construction tools, computers and stereos stolen to come take a look at the items Saturday.
Some $500,000 worth of items were found last Thursday at a home on the 2100 block of Myrtle Street, police said at a news conference while surrounded by stacks of stolen property, which included drills, tool boxes, air compressors, saws, bikes, a scooter and a deluxe armchair.
Prosecutors have charged each man with one count of possession of stolen property. Solano is being held without bail because he is suspected of being in the country illegally. Reyes, who police said was arrested in 2006 for allegedly smuggling illegal immigrants, posted $50,000 bail, jail records show.

Police are having a showing of the stolen items on Saturday so citizens can claim their property. This news website has a slideshow of the voluminous loot.

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"Don't teach children patriotism" [2/01/08]
More bad craziness from Great Britain. This is getting ugly.

Patriotism should be avoided in school lessons because British history is Òmorally ambiguousÓ, a leading educational body recommends.
History and citizenship lessons should stick to the bare facts rather than encouraging loyalty to Britain when covering subjects such as the Second World War or the British Empire, the Institute of Education researchers said. Teachers should not instill pride in what they consider great moments of British history, as more shameful episodes could be downplayed or excluded.
The slave trade, imperialism and 20th century wars should be taught as controversial issues while students are deciding how they feel about their country, the report says.
Three quarters of teachers felt obliged to tell students about the danger of patriotism. The survey suggested neither pupils nor teachers wanted patriotism endorsed by schools.
Historians said last night, however, that it was impossible to teach the subject without patriotism or a recognition that British values were rooted in the past.
The report criticises the current drive to use citizenship lessons as a way of promoting pride in being British and developing a sense of belonging. It said: ÒTo love what is corrupt is itself corrupting, not least because it inclines us to ignore, forget, forgive or excuse the corruption. And thereÕs the rub for patriotism.
ÒCountries are morally ambiguous entities: they are what they are by virtue of their histories.Ó
The authors added: ÒIt is hard to think of a national history free from the blights of warmongering, imperialism, tyranny, injustice, slavery and subjugation, or a national identity forged without recourse to exclusionary and xenophobic stereotypes.Ó

It is very disturbing to see a society commit cultural suicide with such determination.

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