"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
Yeh. It’s Monday.
And looks like rain, too.
I gotta case of it.
And lotsa stuff to do.
I’ll add to this post later,[see below] but for now, link here and trackback. Need to go outside and take a bead on the vretin driving his “thumper” down the street…
Check here for more Open Posts:
OK, here’s your treat for today, folks. Best piece of writing I’ve read for a while.
h.t. James Lileks (who provides no mean read himself… )
By Heidi
[Crossposted from Euphoric Reality]
This first month of 2006 has seen a spate of unprecedented media attention to on-going border breaches such as drug smuggling tunnels and Mexican Army incursions. Deceitful Mexican government officials have disavowed any knowledge of such breaches, instead presenting laughable theories of “American soldiers disguised as Mexicans”. Even our own Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, has covered for the Mexicans by dismissing border incursion as mere navigational “mistakes”. (He’s failed to comment on the gunfire from said “lost” Mexican soldiers.)
No one is fooled. Our border agents continue to risk their lives confronting heavily armed Mexican soldiers and smuggling gangs, while our own American citizens living on the border continue to petition our government for security – to no avail. Two American states, Arizona and New Mexico, have declared a state of emergency in their states, as the financial and societal obligation of caring for illegal immigrants crushes their economy and resources.
In four states, the two above plus Texas and California, the new majority is the Hispanic, though mostly illegal. Such a disparity between law-abiding, tax-paying American citizens has caused the unconscionable situation to develop that the minority now pays for the services and support of the majority.
In the meantime, trillions of American dollars flow out of our economy and into Mexico’s in the form of tax-free cash remittances from illegal labor. These cash disbursements are the largest form of income for the country of Mexico:
Remittances “are our biggest source of foreign income, bigger than oil, tourism or foreign investment,” Fox told reporters after a meeting with Mexican-American businessmen.
“The 20 million Mexicans in the United States generate a gross product that is slightly higher than the $600 billion generated by Mexicans in Mexico,” Fox said, adding that his country has the ninth-largest economy in the world.
“If we could add up the two products, Mexico would be the third or fourth economy in the world,” he said.
Three years later, the number of illegal Mexicans in America is higher than ever, their impact on U.S. social services even more draining, and the free income is flowing ever-faster into Mexico’s coffers. Think of it, their largest source of income costs them nothing in terms of infrastructure, research and development, education, and social services! They export their poorest, neediest citizens (at no cost to themselves) and sit back to wait for the free income to flow. No wonder they feel the need to ease their citizens’ illegal entry into America by providing handbooks and maps – it has a direct impact on their economy! What other income-producing activity could they undergo that would require no construction, no training, no law enforcement, and no responsibilities whatsoever to their citizens? Why would they want to curb a free and very lucrative income? The illegality of it bears no consequences or costs, so the Mexican government has no incentive to fix a system that works wonders for them!
I do not know how much longer we can afford to single-handedly support an entire nation through second-hand disbursements. The trillions of American dollars that boost Mexico’s economy are trillions of dollars not strengthening our own. Possibly even more important, the cultural impact of the burgeoning class of illegals is superseding American traditions and values and having a severe impact on our elections and government.
Our country was founded upon the premise “of the People, by the People, for the People” – and those People are constitutionally meant to be AMERICANS. Yet, foreign interest lobbies are having an ever-increasing detrimental effect on our local, state, and federal government as non-citizens are accorded most of the rights and privileges of American citizenship and garner actual governmental representation. This corruption of the intent of our Constitution has been allowed through the steady erosion of our national sovereignty.
Today, there are an estimated 23 million Mexicans working and living in America, according to Vicente Fox, who claims he is the leader of 123 million citizens: 100 million in Mexico and 23 million in America. Is it any wonder that he and like-minded special interest lobbies feel the RIGHT to demand more and more from our acquiescent government? Americans watch incredulously as they get most of what they demand, at our expense. To our shame, our nation’s government has abdicated our rule of law concerning national sovereignty and national security.
We now have a large foreign presence within our borders that is NOT American, has no intention of ever becoming American, has no regard for American law, nor loyalty to America. This is akin to hosting a nation within a nation – and worse, one that is loyal to a foreign power.
Last week, in a related article, I summarized our current scenario as such:
Let’s recap: we’ve got your basic violent criminals (mafia, drug smugglers, rapists, killers, etc) crossing UNDER our border with impunity…we’ve got heavily armed Mexican military blatantly crossing OVER our border to protect such criminals…firing on American Border Patrol agents to collect $200,000 bounties…plus, we’ve got ongoing sightings of enemy soldiers from other nations, possibly China or North Korea, crossing our border…also firing at our Border Patrol agents…we’ve got Muslim terrorists infiltrating easily and regularly from Mexico…we’ve got Muslim terrorists that have already successfully smuggled in nukes from Mexico…we’ve got American citizens living armed in a border zone that has become lawless…though we are at war, our borders are undefended and breached on a regular basis… our sovereignty as a nation is defiled…and WE’VE GOT AN AMERICAN GOVERNMENT THAT KNOWS ALL OF THE ABOVE AND HAS NEVER DONE ANYTHING ABOUT IT!!!
Our government today has monumentally failed in its most foundational duties to our lawful citizenry, as guaranteed by our Constitution. There is no doubt in my mind that our conflicted and disloyal elected “leaders” politicians desperately need the following reminder, from President Theodore Roosevelt:
“In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all.
We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
–Theodore Roosevelt 1907
This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It was started by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we’re going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terror. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration facing our country, join our blogburst! Just send an email with your blog name and url to euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com.
Blogs already on board:
Euphoric Reality
A Lady’s Ruminations
TMH’s Bacon Bits
Part-Time Pundit
The Right Track
Cao’s Blog
Ogre’s Politics and Views
In The Bullpen
Stuck on Stupid
NIF
Kender’s Musings
Watchman’s Words
third world county
Gribbit’s Word
Right on the Right
Team Swap
Gina’s Rantings
The Irate Nation
Publius Rendezvous
Freedom Folks
Bear Creek Ledger
Something and Half of Something
Mover Mike
Independent Conservative
The Neo-Con Blogger
Ravings of a Mad Tech
Parrot Check
Curley’s Corner
Mensa Barbie Welcomes You
Intergalactic Source of Truth
A short bits roundup of sorts…
Point Five wants us all to align our monitors pointing North (but doesn’t say which end to point that way).
Kender and Cao each go on a tear (and rightly so!) at The Wide Awakes.
The MaryHunter pulls a “Wait ’til your daddy gets home!” with “When Jesus Returns, Boy Oh Boy…” *heh*
Musings from Brian J. Noggle poses a bad analogybetween home ownership and “blaster cars'” stereos owned by cretinous vermin who think nothing of assaulting people with physically harmful noise. Nice try, Bri, but motor vehicles are licensed for a good reason: public safety. And my hearing’s safety is in danger with those abominations on the road…
Check out Kris’ ongoing auction at Anywhere but Here. Some really nice artwork going out the door.
“If You Believe In Nothing You’ll Fall For Anything” Riffing off a comment on her blog, Alexanfra von Maltzen disects The Hollow Men. No, not the poem; the Democratic Party. You tell ’em, Alexandra!
Just a neat find: The Two Grenadiers (in English and German–and an mp3 performance in English). Not just a neat song, something a little more behind the curtain… h.t. to one of Jerry Pournelle’s readers.
Speaking of Pournelle, his brief (very brief) discourse on governance in the Middle East is provocative, to say the least. Pay attention while Professor Pournelle *s* holds forth.
There. A very brief roundup. Let me once again recommend The Founders Constitution and The Fair Tax Book, as well, for longer reads.
Bolivian leader cuts his salary in half
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) – Bolivian President Evo Morales cut his salary in half and ordered that no Cabinet minister collect a higher wage than his own, with the savings being used to hire more public school teachers.
Yeh, now that’s something we need from prezes and congresscritters. Include all the perks, too. Cut ’em to the bone. Not only that, but make ’em ALL give up their cushy government pensions and rely on Social Security.
No, let’s go a little further: Congresscritters should make not one dime more than the mean after tax income of all citizens over the age of 16 in their congressional district (or state, in the case of senators). And that income should reflect ALL benefits, perks and retirement. President and cabinet members, etc.? Not one thin dime more in income, benefits, etc., than the mean after tax income of citizens of the United States 16 years of age and older.
Judges and Supremes? Limit them the same. (Oh, and select 50% of all government workers-by lot or by whim or by salary: highest first to go and work on down ’til half are excised- build a fence in Utah around the most desolate land available, confine these critters there and “pension” ’em off at half pay. Better yet, just feed ’em and warehouse ’em. Allow vigilance groups to patrol the fence with open season on any “retired” civil service “workers” who attempt to leave.Do not hire replacements for these “retired” civil service “workers.”)
Extend this “rule of income” for five years (or longer) after the fed official leaves office and bar them and any member of their family from anything remotely resembling lobbying for life.
You know who we’d then have running for office? People who were a LOT closer to the citizen-statesmen the Founders envisioned. People who would truly be more likely to enter public office to serve, and then go back to their private lives.
And MUCH less likely to take from those who work for a living and waste on pork.
What chance is there of something like this happening? Well, you know that proverbial snowball in hell? About that. Or, maybe about the chance of Diogenes finding an honest congresscritter in D.C.
Lobbying for this amendment at TMH’s Bacon Bits.
Making a hard left, here, in response to one of Woody’s comments. Here’s a repost of a business card I pulled off a local TWC bulletin board…
Yep. That does indeed say “We clean meth houses… ”
Just another way that druggies (and the “war” on them) benefit enterprising TWC residents…
…Wherever you are…
Today (edit: well, OK, yesterday when this post was written–heh) marks the 250th anniversary of the birthday of Mozart. Below is a short piece written by the pre-teen (nine years old) Mozart during a visit to London in 1765. It’s the only known piece of his that was originally written in English. From Psalm 46:1, God Is Our Refuge and Strength:
The graphic is linked to a Sibelius Music version of the piece. You can view/play it using the free Scorch plugin (available at the site) or view it there and listen to it by clicking below.
Happy Birthday, Wolfie!
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Singing out loud and strong at The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Don Surber’s, NIF, Basil’s Blog, TMH’s Bacon Bits and Weekend Specials at Jo’s Cafe.
Now call me a right-winger if you want (says I, aghast at being called a liberal by someone before), but I think that that this opening paragraph of the ABC News article really puts this whole thing into perspective:
The U.S. Army in Iraq has at least twice seized and jailed the wives of suspected insurgents in hopes of “leveraging” their husbands into surrender, U.S. military documents show.
So let me get this right: the US Army, in the three years it has been operating in Iraq, and the thousands of people it has arrested, detained, imprisoned, questioned etc., has arrested just two wives of suspected insurgents and the media is clamouring that this was a form of “leverage” to get their husbands to surrender. Note part of the Hammer of Truth‘s quotation, from an Iraqi human rights activist (Hind al-Salehi).
Two.
Out of thousands, maybe tens of thousands, maybe a hundred thousand. Just two. And that’s a pattern of “leverage” because a civilian intelligence officer suggested it in his memo (pdf)? Isn’t this like saying acts of violence were occurring in the middle of a war? The law of statistics surely would allow for one or two arrestees to be related to suspected/known terrorists.
Here’s the thing, if you or I, the average person, gave shelter to a murderer on the run, we would be committing a felony. Why would it be any different for the wife of a terrorist? Does that law not exist in Iraq right now? Seems to me that it would.
Human Rights Watch sent a letter to Donald Rumsfeld indicating that the US had violated the Fourth Geneva Convention by arresting relatives of Iraqi fugitives (their wives). But again, I contend that in the US such a thing would be commonplace, if they were giving assistance to known criminals (which, the terrorists could be considered, in Iraq).
Finally, something from that article which I wanted to point out, by the brigade’s deputy commander…
Two days later, the brigade’s deputy commander advised the higher command, “As each day goes by, I get more input that these gals have some info and/or will result in getting the husband.”
He went on, “These ladies fought back extremely hard during the original detention. They have shown indications of deceit and misinformation.”
… and this by Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a US Army spokesmam…
Of this episode, Johnson said, “It is clear the unit believed the females detained had substantial knowledge of insurgent activity and warranted being held.”
’nuff said.
Crossposted at The English Guy.
Well, perhaps.
Apple’s recent announcement that it’s building PC clones with Intell-based chipsets prettily painted over with a veneer of OS X is really just making lemonade out of a whole big bunch of sour lemons. Why choose Intel chips? Well, cos Motorola and IBM have been wanting out of the PowerPC chip business for years-development had languished and setting up to fab new runs of the things for Apple wasn’t great business, since Apple has such a small market share in its idiosyncrastic hardware.
Sooo… go with Intel. The chips are good, their characteristics well-known and not at all difficult for Apple to port OS X to (after all, nearly every other OS will run on Intel chipsets), they’re just not “Apple” hardware…
Oh, and this: Apple’s Switch to Intel Could Allow OS X Exploits
The recent move by Apple Computer to begin shipping Macintosh computers that use microprocessors from Intel could open the door to more attacks against computers running the company’s OS X operating system, security experts warn.
The shift to Intel processors from the Motorola Power PC processors will make it easier to create software exploits for Macintosh systems, and could result in a steady stream of Mac exploits in years to come.
Yeh, the Law of Unintended Consequences. Caught between a rock and a hard place with its perennial chip fabbing problems, Apple bit the bullet, forsook its hard line stance on hardware (like, you couldn’t see that coming, as Apple had already adopted the PC’s PCI bus, PC-style memory architechture and all the other trappings of a regular old PC) and adopted an Intel chipset.like you’d find in any beige box. Sure Apple dressed it up in pretty, cutsy (impractical) iMac clothing, presented it as “setting the Intel chip free” (in qa Mac OS straight jacket) and loudly trumpeted “Pay no attention to the man behind the cutain!”
But really. Apple’s become just another Intell PC choice. Spend an arm and a leg on an Apple Intel box… or get very similar functionality (and expansion limited to snaking a buncha wires around your worspace) by spending $300-$400 at WallyWorld for a Mandriva Linux box.
And have the same security issues all Intel-based boxes have. Sure, Wintel boxes more than most, in part because M$ is still not really serious about security (can anyone say “Internet Exploder” and “WMF flaw”?) and even more because nobody bothers to steal from the guy who has nothing worth stealing… When there’s an almost overwhelming wealth of Wintel boxes to choose to attack, concentrating on a niche market like Mac users is naturally less appealing.
But now, if Apple makes this run, similarities at low-level-even machine code level-code base could make attacking Apple machines more appealing. And it’s not as though Apple users were automatically secure, anyway, as my recent check of Mac security sites rvealed when one of the highly-referenced Mac security sites turned out to have been hacked.
Not a really security-conscious group, as a whole… In fact, Mac users as a class (note: I do know some very sharp, intelligent, competent Mac users who simply like the interface) seem to me to have more in common with AOL users than any other group…
There, now I’ve slammed both Mac users and AOL users. *heh* That feels pretty good. If I could add enviro-cultists who do their computer faking modeling on Macs I’d have a hat trick.
linkposted at Stuck on Stupid, cos it just seemed appropriate…
Yet another 0pen Post. Check the OTA link below for more information about Open Posts, if the concept’s new to you. Otherwise, links away! Oh, and once you’ve linked to this post, trackback to it so I don’t have to go hunting down your brilliant prose, ‘K?
See for more linkfests, as well as the Open Trackback Alliance
What is it with the Dems, anyway? I mean, seriously: at the national level there are NO real liberals left. No, not one. You may have been thinking of someone like Joe Lieberman, but if you look closely, you can see a mostly empty suit with ocassional relapses to humanity, even a flash or two of recognizable liberal tendencies. What passes for liberalism nowadays is tyranny cloaked disingenuously in self-righteous doogooder nannyism. Every single damned one of ’em (and I use the term theologically to refer to habitual liars) lies about their own positions and the actions of their political opponents. Oh, yeh, there are a couple who seem to have some shreds of shame, but given their track record, I am reluctantly compelled to believe that’s a sham as well.
*sigh*
And oh, those wonderful Republican’ts! While there remain a few with some sort of backbone and committment to principle (mostly in the administration), not a one can truthfully call themselves conservatives, as far as I can tell. (Please prove me wrong!)
Leadership in neither party is willing to actually do what’s necessary to fulfill the primary Constitutionally-mandated functions of the federal government: the securing of our borders, and only the Republican’ts are willing to in any way defend this country’s citizens against attack by foreign agents who intend to do them harm.
Both parties leadership seem committed to the continued destruction of public education.
Despair, I am often reminded, is a deadly sin. But this year is an election year. And once again, I fear being presented with more choices of “the lesser of two evils” to vote for. And that’s the problem: choosing the lesser of two evils still makes me complicit in voting for evil…
*sigh*
Cheer me up, wouldya? Link to this post and trackback with some good reads, ‘K?
A voice crying out in the wilderness at a buncha places once the lazy bums get their open posts up… including Adam’s Blog,
Want to know how to win the war on Islamic jihadist butchers? Jerry Pournelle points out some strategic steps we NEED to take in order to win this thing the smart way… Not the whole answer, but absent what he advocates, the task will be much higher in blood and treasure, as well as a lot less sure.
The Iraqi War continues, but we don’t do anything about the underlying causes of the war, which is our dependence on the Middle East for vital resources. If we were independent of Middle Eastern Oil, the Arab world would have to develop a real economy, learn to make things and sell them, and in general live with the rest of the world, instead of supporting people with too much time and too much money. They might actually learn to extract the oil themselves, which would require that they develop some actual capabilities other than bomb making and persuading young people to blow themselves up and kill policemen, or sit on the floor learning the Koran, or turning out Wahhabi preachers.
Read the whole thing, would you? OK, another teaser from Dr. Pournelle’s post:
I said back in A Step Farther Out that there were three great examples of the futility of vast centralized bureaucracies: the Soviet system of agriculture, the American System of Education, and NASA. One of those has crumbled, and while the Ukraine has not returned to its pre-Stalin status as the breadbasket of Europe, production is higher than under Communism. There is no longer one big central Soviet system of agriculture. In America, though, the education establishment, and NASA/Aerospace Industry are even more centralized and accomplish even less than when I first wrote all that.
Setting up the chess board at TMH’s Bacon Bits
Just read The Real Ugly American’s post, Commie Radio Comes Crashing Down! Yeh, it’s about a radio station, but really about so very much more. As I read it, I saw the obvious parallells even before Rick drew the straight black lines connecting the dots…