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Welcome to BoreAmerica!

BoreAmerica is a new blog that will occasionally monitor AirAmerica (a.k.a. "liberal talk radio") so you don't ever have to.

Sponsored by The Lonewacko Blog, BoreAmerica will be a group effort, and we're looking for contributors.

Contributors must have a blog or at least have published accessible editorial content to a website. Being a contributor shouldn't be that difficult. Simply listen to AirAmerica for a few minutes every once in a while, furiously write down all lies heard, and then post them to the web for the enjoyment of all. The blog will also feature things like AirAmerica satires, news about AirAmerica's contributors and its business dealings, and so forth.

We'll also be holding a contest to find a logo. Something like a radio listener falling asleep or something.

The URL to the blog will be BoreAmerica.com. However, for the next day or so you'll need to use this temporary address: tolstoy.com/boreamerica

If you would like to be considered for contributor status, contact abuse [at] tolstoy [dot] com with the following:

Your posting name/handle/nickname:
The password you want to use:
Your blog's URL:

Posted to Bloggage at 09:24 PM | Comments (0)

Michelle Malkin on the Karl Rove harrassers

Malkin discusses the NPA harrassment of Karl Rove in 'A closer look at left-wing thuggery':

...NPA members are funded by the usual suspects -- "progressive" charities such as the Tides Foundation, Ben & Jerry's Foundation, and the MacArthur, Ford and Rockefeller foundations. But they are also funded by your tax dollars. My research shows that the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Environmental Protection Agency and Massachusetts Department of Education have given tens of thousands of dollars in grants to NPA members. Their agenda is the usual big government, race card-playing, entitlement mentality claptrap: "homeowner security" (more government minority home loans), "workplace rights and training" (more government job programs), "good policing" (a ban on racial profiling), and "promoting security and opportunity for immigrants" (more benefits for illegal aliens)...

Previous coverage starts here.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 03:35 PM | Comments (0)

Important news on the brewing Kerry scandal

DaisyGate just keeps getting weirder and weirder. Some right-wing-wackos are speculating it's a Skull and Bones symbol. Others think it might contain the key to a secret Illuminati compound at the top of Baldy Mountain. Far-left-wingnuts think it might be a secret signal to them that Kerry still supports the McGovern Revolution.

I, on the other hand, think it's just a zipper pull or (much less likely) a key ring. What use does Kerry have for a key ring? His servants probably watch for his arrival at the various Kerry compounds. I noticed it 12 days ago and I didn't think anything of it. Those pictures were shot on the day that JFK did his big expedition: he snowshoed up a mountain and then 'boarded (dude!) back down. He would not have needed a ski-lift pass for that, since it was all done under his own power. It probably wasn't an area pass or something like that: a) he is, after all, JFK, and b) he had a member of the ski patrol with him leading the expedition.

There are better things to bash Kerry for, such as his brain-dead immigration policy. Not only are those policies in deep conflict with his supposed support for low-wage workers, they also appear not to be supported by the vast majority of people in his forums.

Posted to Politics at 03:28 PM | Comments (0)

Spain issues arrest warrants for 5 Moroccans, 1 Tunisian

The Reuters headline 'Spain Seeks Two-Time Bomb Suspect in Madrid Blasts' is a bit misleading. Mejjati was not one of those named on the arrest warrants:

Spanish investigators chasing suspects in the Madrid train bombings have identified as the suspected organizer a wealthy Moroccan also being sought in connection with bombings in Casablanca and Riyadh last year.

But the wanted man -- Abdelkarim el Mejjati -- was not among those who were the subject of an international arrest warrant, as sources close to the investigation said and Reuters reported earlier Wednesday.

Instead the Spanish judge investigating the Madrid train bombings, Juan del Olmo, issued six other arrest warrants for five Moroccans and one Tunisian.

Sources close the investigation held firm that Mejjati was perceived to be the organizer of the Madrid attacks that killed 191 people on March 11 -- and said del Olmo could still issue a warrant for him in the future...

Posted to Terrorism at 03:01 PM | Comments (0)

I support Sun's quixotic quest

Those of you who don't know about or care about Sun, Java, Java on the desktop, etc. can skip this entry.

For years I've railed about the direction Sun takes with Java. Here's an example; there are many many more, including dozens if not hundreds of Usenet postings and personal appearances at a few JavaOnes.

Now, Wal*Mart is selling cheap computers that run the Java Desktop System. It's Linux with Java and StarOffice built-in. I'd imagine it won't run Windows programs without something like WINE. Some people will no doubt be upset to find out that that new system they just bought not only won't run Windows software, it looks a little funny and it runs all these other strange programs.

And, considering that it's from Sun, I'm going to hazard a guess that it has nothing on the Mac in the usability arena. In fact, I'd imagine that there are all manner of weird things that will bite average consumers in the ass. I wouldn't be too surprised to find out that Sun thinks regular users are going to edit or write shell scripts or know how to set permissions or a multitude of other UnixElite tasks.

That said, it's finally an opportunity to get a mass market desktop that runs an up-to-date version of Java. Even if it just took Sun nearly a decade to do it.

Posted to Miscellania at 02:44 PM | Comments (0)

Slave work is better than no work at all, right?

The article 'US companies accused of condoning workers' rights abuses in China' is, unfortunately, based only on hearsay from a source that could be considered biased. However, it's probably not too far from the truth.

Posted to Politics at 02:22 PM | Comments (0)

How to Argue Like a "Liberal"

From this:

[...]

1. Make an untrue statement.

2. Deny that you said what you said.

3. Deny that the other party understood what you said.

4. Deny that the words you used mean what the other party claims they mean.

5. Redefine your definition and hope the other person forgets the previous one. Repeat as needed.

6. Assert that since definitions are irrelevant and subjective, the other person is mean-spirited, racist, sexist, intolerant and obsessive.

7. Change the subject.

See also this chestnut: 'How to Argue Like A Lefty in a Weblog Comments Board':

Posted to Politics at 12:42 AM | Comments (1)

"Spain probes Morocco link, press names FBI suspect"

From Reuters:

Spain refused to comment on Tuesday on the possible role of an FBI-wanted militant who is reported to be under suspicion in the Madrid bombings.

Interior Minister Angel Acebes confirmed on Tuesday that investigators were examining the bombers' ties to the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM), an extremist group which is believed to have links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.

Acebes would not speculate on the involvement of Abdelkarim el Mejjati, a Moroccan wanted in several countries who was the subject of an FBI worldwide alert last September.

Previous coverage of Mejjati here; a possible Balkans connection here.

North Africa analyst George Joffe, asked about the GICM soon after the March 11 attacks, told Reuters he had doubts about the operational existence of a group "whose name was probably coined as a cover for networks in Europe that include Algerians, Tunisians and Moroccans. When was the last time this group claimed responsibility for anything?"

...Known to the FBI as Karim El Mejjati, the 36-year-old comes from a prosperous family. He is the son of a Moroccan father and French mother, and according to acquaintances is married to an American of Tunisian origin...

It said Mejjati holds a French passport and his last recorded entry to the United States was between 1997 and 1999.

Posted to Terrorism at 12:19 AM | Comments (0)

What the heck is eDoDo?

I have no idea. However, they do have a work-safe biography of porn [deleted]-gobbler Gina Ryder. Apparently it's a cartoon strip or something and she did a voice-over for an episode or something. I don't believe there was any [deleted] or [deleted] in the cartoon strip.

Her bio doesn't discuss how she likes to [deleted] [deleted] or how she enjoys [deleted], but it does contain information on her educational background:

I guess we will start with high school. As a freshman I was accepted to be part of the first classes at Business Careers High School. This was a big deal for me because this meant that getting good grades and being in advanced classes was finally going to pay off. I was chosen out of hundreds of applicants from throughout the city to be one of the select few to be given the opportunity.

While attending Business Careers I was part of the pep squad team. My junior year of high school I returned to my home school where I attended 4 classes my junior year and 3 classes my senior year. I did this because I was tired of school and I wanted to work. My only motivation at this point was that I was in DECA (An Association of Marketing Students). I served as the Vice-president for one year and President of my chapter for another year. Being part of this organization gave me many valuable working and leadership skills, along with the opportunity to meet a lot of interesting people while traveling to New Orleans, Houston, St. Louis, Corpus Christi, Detroit, and Canada.

I graduated from high school in 1995. I took almost a year off from school before I enrolled at UTSA for the spring semester of 1996. My courses included Macro-Economics, Political Science, and Algebra with Calculus for Business, I got a promotion into a salary position half way through the semester and I stopped attending my classes at UTSA. For some reason I felt that working and making money were more important than obtaining an education. As I mature I am coming to the conclusion that school is important and that I hope to gain the discipline to continue my education someday.

Plus, she can [deleted] a mean [deleted]. And I mean that with the utmost respect.

Posted to WackyHumor at 10:34 PM | Comments (0)

John Kerry: "help will be on the way to California!"

The article 'Kerry offers aid in capital visit' appears in the SacBee, but I occasionally thought it might be in the Onion:

Presidential hopeful John Kerry said Monday that "help is on the way" to California if he is elected, suggesting that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would be better off if the Massachusetts Democrat is in the White House...

"We knew each other when he first came over to this country to make 'Pumping Iron,' and we've stayed in touch ever since then, and our families are friends, and so I hope California does well. When I am president, ladies and gentlemen, Governor Schwarzenegger, help will be on the way to California!"

...Kerry did not meet with Schwarzenegger while in town, his first visit to Sacramento since he became the presumptive Democratic nominee, his campaign said. But on Sunday night, shortly after touching down in the state capital, Kerry did sit down at the Esquire Grill for a glass of wine with Schwarzenegger's wife, Maria Shriver, a Democrat and a member of the Kennedy family...

A Vietnam veteran, Kerry told the crowd at the Sacramento fund-raiser, "I learned bitterly what it was like when a president and a government take a nation to war and leave them at war when the truth is left tattered in the background..."

I wonder, was that "Vietnam veteran" bit inserted because they couldn't find a quote where he mentioned that fact himself? Naw, that can't be the case.

The picture is from a celebration of California's newest state holiday, Cesar Chavez Day. Somehow I'm a little uncomfortable with schoolchildren waving a flag that a) represents a union, and b) has a racial component. See the history of the UFW flag:

The Aztec eagle is an historic symbol for the people of Mexico. The UFW incorporated the Aztec eagle into its design in order to show the connection the union had to migrant workers of Mexican-American descent, though not all UFW workers were Mexican-American...

Would the educational establishment allow schoolchildren to wave flags that represented, say, management and had a white-oriented symbol on them? I think not.

Also, note that John Kerry has gladly accepted the endorsement of Antonio Villaraigosa, the former president of the UCLA chapter of the racial separatist organization MEChA. Bush is bad for California, and Kerry would probably be even worse.

Posted to California at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)

"Sierra Club must save its soul"

From the NY Daily News:

Dick Lamm, public policy gadfly and former Democratic governor of Colorado, is being denounced these days as a right-wing extremist, neo-Nazi and racist. His offense is that he is one of three men running for the Sierra Club board of directors on a platform of limiting immigration to protect the environment. In response, the leadership of the club and its allies have been playing the race card with berserk ferocity. Among the charges are "environmental racism" and the "greening of hate."
These arguments assume that any urge to cap or slow immigration is a form of anti-Latino or anti-Asian bigotry. "It's hate," the Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope said of the splinter group endorsing the insurgent candidates...

Pope has shamelessly tried to connect Lamm, Morris and Pimentel to the most extreme anti-immigration people. He told The New York Times: "If somebody who isn't a Nazi is put on the ballot by the American Nazi Party" it can be difficult to tell the candidate from his dubious backers. Good grief. Next we will be hearing that Franklin Roosevelt may have been a commie because Stalin fought on his side during World War II...

Early media coverage has focused on incendiary charges of a hostile takeover of Sierra by extremists. Soon the media will figure out that the club is actually conducting a smear campaign.

This disgraceful effort by the Sierra Club has turned the spotlight on the leadership itself, its lack of candor about who its powerful donors might be, and its tactic of trying to sway an election with ugly charges. The organization should act quickly to make things right.

"Soon the media will figure out that the club is actually conducting a smear campaign"? And here I thought the media was a willing participant in the smear campaign. For an example, see the dissection of an L.A. Times article on the election.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 12:55 PM | Comments (0)

Even more on the Karl Rove harassment

Tasty Manatees has a very informative post about the leaders of the NPA harassment of Karl Rove. It turns out that the two leaders mentioned by the WaPo are school teachers. They may have commandeered students and school buses for their stunt, or they may have done it all legal like. In any case, they put those kids in harm's way, and TM has their supervisor's contact info.

Previous coverage starts here.

UPDATE: See FAIR's comments on the DREAM Act here.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 10:47 PM | Comments (0)

"immigration [to Europe] as a Trojan horse to expand jihad"

That's a quote from the WSJ. Yes, the same WSJ that calls those who don't support Open Borders "nativists."

See 'New Breed of Islamic Warrior Is Emerging' for the full article.

Excerpt:

Immigration is a key way to extend the radical ideas into Western Europe. One Takfiri scholar, Abu Basir, wrote in 2001 that "jihad and immigration go together...the one cannot be achieved without the other."

Fifteen of the 18 suspects jailed for the Madrid bombings come from cities in northern Morocco that have become front-line recruitment centers for the ultrafundamentalist message. One senior Moroccan official says "every country with an Arab or Muslim immigrant population now faces this problem" of potential sleeper cells...

Unlike previous generations of radical Islamists, who attracted police attention by their long beards, public proselytizing and orthodox postures, the newer generation of holy warrior blends in better. They are encouraged to lead a double life in the ultimate pursuit of jihad, according a German intelligence report.

"Outwardly they pretend to lead a modern lifestyle," says terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp. "But deep inside they adhere to a pure medieval strain of Islam." Many Takfiris shave their beards and avoid mosques for security reasons. "Recruits conceal their true beliefs until the time is right," Dr. Ranstorp says...

Damn those European nativists!

See this post for this quote from a Muslim scholar: "Islam will return once more to Europe as a conqueror and as a victorious power..." See this post and the one before it for more information on "al-Andalus."

Posted to Immigration_euro at 10:38 PM | Comments (2)

CNN announces new press release service

CNN has a new feature, and it's free! If you send CNN your press release, they'll weave it into a news story, even if they had a reporter there to report on it himself. Such a deal!

Of course, there are a few restrictions. First, your press release must be from a far-left group promoting an "action." Like, oh, say, harrassing Karl Rove chez lui. See 'Group protests outside Rove's house'. They even left out the bit about the protesters banging on Rove's windows, making it sound much more of a peaceful protest than as described in the WaPo. See this post and the previous one for more information.

Previous coverage of the Rove harrasment is here, and previous coverage of the DREAM Act is here.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 10:25 PM | Comments (1)

Jorge Castaneda running for president of Mexico

Former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castaneda is running for president of Mexico as an independent.

In addition to his many other noteworthy accomplishments, Castaneda uttered the following back in Nov. 2002:

[Mexico's foreign minister Jorge] Castaneda said Mexican officials will begin rallying unions, churches, universities and Mexican communities.

"What's important is that American society sees a possible migratory agreement in a positive light," Castaneda said. "We are already giving instructions to our consulates that they begin propagating militant activities -- if you will -- in their communities."

There's more on the presidential race in Mexico here.

There are several examples of those militant activities here, here, and here.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 02:38 PM | Comments (0)

3000 U.N. Staffers Probed (Oil-for-food)

From the NY Post:

Investigators probing the United Nations' Iraq oil-for-food program are taking a close look at allegations the scandal-plagued initiative was filled with spies, terrorists and do-nothing bureaucrats earning exorbitant salaries.
The activities of the estimated 3,000 U.N. staffers who were working on the $100 billion humanitarian aid program are emerging as a central focus of the investigations into the mushrooming scandal...

I did the math on the money Saddam pilfered from O4F here, and there's more on how much France would have got from exclusive oil contracts here.

Posted to Iraq at 02:32 PM | Comments (0)

I'm LOST again

The article 'UN Wants Control of the Seas with US Senate’s Help' has more on the LOST (the Law of the Sea Treaty.) If you've never heard of the LOST, but you want to prevent a U.N. power grab, read the article.

There's more on the LOST here.

Posted to Politics at 02:27 PM | Comments (0)

Karl Rove meets his new "voters"

This is funny, annoying, disturbing, heartening, and shocking all at the same time:

Several hundred people stormed the small yard of President Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, yesterday afternoon, pounding on his windows, shoving signs at others and challenging Rove to talk to them about a bill that deals with educational opportunities for immigrants [sic: it should read "illegal immigrants" -- LW]...

The crowd then grew more aggressive, fanning around the three accessible sides of Rove's house, tracking him through the many windows, waving signs that read "Say Yes to DREAM" and pounding on the glass...

And after about 30 minutes of goading by protesters in English and Spanish, Rove agreed to meet with two members of the coalition on the condition that the rest of the protesters board their buses and leave his street. The group obliged.

Rove opened his garage door and allowed Palacios and Inez Killingsworth to enter. The meeting lasted two minutes and ended with Rove closing the garage door on Palacios while she was still talking... Rove told them "he hoped we were proud to make his 14-year-old and 10-year-old cry..."

Closing the garage door on them is pretty sweet. In fact, I think the whole experience might do Karl some good. He actually got a chance to meet those people he thinks are going to vote for the Republicans. I'd say the chance of any of those "immigrant's rights advocates" of voting Republican is about one in a million.

I only hope some of them were waving Mexican flags, discussing how they were working closely with the Mexican consulate, building Communism, and all those other good Republican things.

This same group tried this same s*** last year at the offices of FAIR. Can you count all the lies in their press release?

Or, can you count all the lies in the press release for their Rove harassment? What's sad is the WaPo has simply parroted one of the main lies: the DREAM Act doesn't affect "immigrants," it affects "illegal immigrants." A big difference that both NPA and the WaPo gloss over.

For an earlier example of the elites getting a taste of their own medicine, see 'CEO of DC’s PBS Station Mad About Day Laborers Next to Studio'.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 11:31 PM | Comments (0)

"As Border Woes Strain Arizona, U.S. and Mexico Talk"

The NYT reports on the illegal alien situation in Arizona. As you read the excerpt, consider this astonishing fact: in FY2002, just 13 (thirteen) companies were fined for immigration violations. (source)

Now, here's the excerpt:

...In recent months, there has been an eruption of illegal immigration and related violence in Arizona, and with it has come a realization by federal officials: no matter how many hundreds of thousands of migrants they catch and send back over the border, many will return time and again unless the government finds better ways to keep them out of the country and out of harm's way.

Officials from Mexico and the United States began meeting last week in Mexico City on a plan to repatriate Mexican border crossers by sending them deep into their country, closer to their hometowns, rather than simply returning them near the border.

American and Mexican officials agreed in February to explore the repatriation plan, which is similar to a program that was scrapped in the mid-1990's. Though Mexico had resisted the idea in recent years, American officials saw the willingness to reconsider the plan partly as a sign of good will in response to President Bush's recent call for a temporary worker program. However, officials made clear that there were still potentially major issues involving logistics and financing [in English: Mexico wants more of our money --LW] to be worked out and that some issues remained off limits.

"We would never allow someone to be sent back to their hometown if they didn't agree to it," said a Mexican diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations were continuing. "The program has to be voluntary. That issue is not even on the table."

Asa Hutchinson, an under secretary in the Department of Homeland Security, said that American officials were committed to the repatriation idea and that "if it has to be voluntary, we'll make it work..."

While most other parts of the southern border have had a decline in illegal crossings, Arizona has recorded a 34 percent jump in the past six months. Federal officials say tightened security in areas like Southern California and Texas has pushed smuggling rings to Arizona, which now accounts for about 40 percent of all illegal entries. The shift to Arizona has brought with it a sharp increase in violent extortions and drug seizures as well as the deaths of dozens of migrants left in the desert, law enforcement officials say...

Once again: in FY2002, just 13 (thirteen) companies were fined for immigration violations.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 09:27 PM | Comments (0)

"Dress like you are going into a bar in Kansas to drink from the bottle"

Could you humor me and say the title to this post aloud?

Thanks, but you don't have the accent right. Here, say these words first:

savoir-faire
oui
grenouille
Je suis parisien a vie!

Now, say this in the same accent:

"American culture is an adolescent culture... In America, you have to be the common man, be able to make people think you are the common man..."

"...start giving one word or two answers to questions..."

"Go to K-Mart, buy jeans and cowboy boots... Dress like you are going into a bar in Kansas to drink from the bottle..."

Now, you might be wondering why I had you do that. Because the guy who said those things above is French-born, US-based, consultant and "medical anthropologist" Clotaire Rapaille.

He's been contacted by the Kerry campaign to give them advice.

I'm vaguely reminded of this non-Kerry-related piece of advice to peace protesters who want to reach out to mainstream Americans:

"Speak American," she said. "Strip down to the simple, metaphoric Anglo Saxon. Leave out long words, complex explanations, historical analysis or arguments supported by lots of reasons, facts, statistics."

(Via PoliBlog)

Posted to Politics at 04:13 PM | Comments (0)

A supposed Balkan connection to the Madrid bombings

I already linked to the LeMonde report saying that the alleged "orchestrator" of the attacks, Abdelkrim Thami Mejjati/Karim El Mejjati, was French-Moroccan. No other news source appears to be reporting about this. This old El Mundo story mentions him in relation to the Casablanca attacks.

One of the Madrid suspects lived in Germany.

Suspect Mohammed Bekkali grew up in Ireland.

There is also reportedly a link to the Balkans:

According to [investigation by the Italian authorities], mujahedin who participated in the Bosnian civil wars were imported from an al Qaeda training camp near Zenica to help with the bombings in Madrid, and other attacks possibly being planned for the future.

“Their road was from Zenica through Split to Ancona,” says the paper, citing Italian authorities who point to the Balkan map found in the Madrid apartment of Syrian-born terrorist mastermind Edin Barakat Yarkas, also know as Abu Dahdah, following the September 11th 2001 attacks. The map highlighted training camps and transport routes from Bosnia to Western Europe...

Posted to Terrorism at 03:46 PM | Comments (0)

Riding through Chernobyl

Here are several pictures from someone who tours the "the dead zone" of Chernobyl on her motorcycle.

Via Art Bell. In keeping with the source, do you notice something... strange... about the first photo on this page? Did "Elena" - if that is indeed her name - blur out the picture of a mutant space alien inhabitant of the Chernobyl dead zone?

UPDATE: The previous link was to an angelfire page which has since disappeared. Good thing considering their various attempts to take over my browser.

UPDATE 2: First, I changed the second link to point to a page not at Angelfire; the original page was located at www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/chapter13.html but all the angelfire pages appear to have gone away.

Second, an alternate address is www.kiddofspeed.com

Third, and most important, this site has now been determined to be a hoax.

Posted to Miscellania at 02:49 PM | Comments (1)

I guess this means six more weeks of Winter

Posted to WackyHumor at 02:24 PM | Comments (0)

That's a funny joke, but I was in Vegas last night

This is really strange. I've received reports that I supposedly attended an L.A. Blogs meeting last night. Which I was considering doing.

However, I decided to go to Vegas instead.

The picture above is from Vegas, and I shot it a few hours after this L.A. Blogs meeting supposedly took place.

Either I was in two places at the same time, or the L.A. Blogs people are making all of this up, or there's someone running around posing as me. I'll look into this and keep you informed.

Posted to Bloggage at 02:17 PM | Comments (0)

In Vegas, back Sunday

I'll be in Vegas until tomorrow. Here's a picture I just took 30 minutes ago at Red Rock State Park. Ain't WiFi great?

Posted to Miscellania at 05:30 PM | Comments (0)

Get Chipped[TM]!

Hey kids! Look what we've got in store for you:

VeriChip, the world’s first subdermal personal verification technology, announces a special, introductory pre-registration program. Sign up today to be among the first in the world to “Get Chipped.”

Why, they've even got a ChipMobile that's coming to a town near you!

It's quick, it's easy, and it's subdermal:

VeriChip is a subdermal, radio frequency identification (RFID) device that can be used in a variety of security, financial, emergency identification and other applications. About the size of a grain of rice, each VeriChip product contains a unique verification number that is captured by briefly passing a proprietary scanner over the VeriChip. The standard location of the microchip is in the triceps area between the elbow and the shoulder of the right arm. The brief outpatient "chipping" procedure lasts just a few minutes and involves only local anesthetic followed by quick, painless insertion of the VeriChip. Once inserted just under the skin, the VeriChip is inconspicuous to the naked eye. A small amount of radio frequency energy passes from the scanner energizing the dormant VeriChip, which then emits a radio frequency signal transmitting the verification number...

VeriChip definitely needs to get chipped and with feeling.

Posted to Privacy at 03:30 PM | Comments (1)

Chris Cannon [R-UT] is "loose with facts, demeans American public discourse"

From the SteinReport:

(Washington, D. C. - March 26, 2004) The FAIR Congressional Task Force today issued the following statement regarding comments made by Rep. Christopher Cannon:

At a recent hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives, Utah Rep. Christopher Cannon tried to indict American immigration reform activists with a series of smears, frauds and half-truths designed - at least in his mind - to discredit all Americans who believe in sensible immigration and border reform policies. In making these assertions, Congressman Cannon crosses the line into the realm of fabrication, taking what is a strength - the broad based nature of the nation's immigration reform lobby - and trying to make it into a weakness.

Contrary to Cannon's wild assertions, FAIR and the FAIR CTF have never taken any position on sterilization, abortion, eugenics or euthanasia.

Rep. Cannon claims that he has exposed the "anti-life" agenda of those who want better immigration enforcement and lower overall immigration levels. In repackaging tired, old and hackneyed allegations - mostly old lies and gross distortions - Cannon uses classic "red jacketing" or a heinous form of guilt by association by passing off inaccurate information about third parties and seeking to paint everyone with the same distorted brush. Rep. Cannon demeans the nature of American political discourse and deserves the censure of all right-thinking Americans...

...unfortunately for Rep. Cannon, his cheap labor agenda - rewarding law breakers and promoting taxpayer rip offs -- is opposed by most of those he purports to represent. He has also pursued reckless and obstructionist policies that are a clear threat to national security. He opposes improvements in state/local enforcement cooperation, opposes stronger border regulation, opposes effective interior enforcement, opposes efforts to deter illegal immigration by denying access to benefits and opposes any effort to rationalize the immigration system to reduce the overall flow and its burden on America's communities...

You can read Cannon's "expose" here and in this .doc file. He seems to want to compete with Dave Neiwert and the WSJ in the smear category.

For one small example, he quotes a Denver Post column that states that the group American Patrol "sends vigilantes to the southern border to capture illegal immigrants who sneak in." That's false. That group only observes illegal aliens and reports them to the Border Patrol, it does not attempt to apprehend illegals. Using the term "vigilantes" is indicative of the author's biases.

Cannon's "expose" references an easily discredited WSJ editorial. (As usual, the reader responses to this article are almost all negative. I don't know if they plan it that way or what.)

Many of Cannon's "revelations" have already been answered in the Front Page Magazine article 'Lies about the Immigration Reform Movement'.

See this page for Cannon's contact information:

118 Cannon House
Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-7751
Fax: (202) 225-5629
Email: cannon.ut03@mail.house.gov

Posted to Immigration2003 at 02:26 PM | Comments (0)

Oakland to create gay ghetto by government fiat, remove straights

Only in California! Specifically, the town that gave us Ebonics:

[Oakland Councilman Danny Wan] wants to cultivate a gay community in the area known as Eastlake [east of Lake Merritt], by using the business development and marketing powers of the area's nascent Redevelopment Agency to turn a tumble-down neighborhood into an economic and social hot spot...

Oakland is not alone in trying to create gay-focused neighborhoods, though districts in other large cities tend to grow out of community will, as opposed to government proposals... [yes, but that would run counter to the California Way]

"It's really about creating safe places where individuals can flourish and feel welcomed," [National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce co-founder Justin Nelson]said.

Yes, but will it be Feng Shuied?

But, seriously, I like Oakland. Every time I'm in the Bay Area I try to stop at Lake Merritt. Shouldn't things like this occur naturally rather than, as the article says, by government fiat? Will the City of Oakland be using eminent domain against straight businesses, or businesses which are judged to be not gay-friendly enough? Will there be a smashing of windows of straight businesses? Forced conversions perhaps? The mind reels and the legislators drool.

Posted to California at 01:18 PM | Comments (5)

"Southwestern schools root out illegal pupils"

From the CS Monitor:

From kindergartners to 12th-graders, these children routinely cross the US-Mexico border to attend Arizona schools. Some use fake documents. Others stay with US relatives. All pose as full-time US residents to obtain a better education than they would receive from Mexico's public schools.

Now, however, a growing number of school districts in the Southwest are cracking down on the presence of illegal immigrants in their classrooms as education budgets tighten.

The moves are touching off a deeper moral debate that underlies almost every issue dealing with illegal immigration: Is it better to help the immigrant children and thus improve their lives, or is their presence behind American desks robbing taxpayers - and schools - of much-needed money?

They aren't "immigrant children." They're citizens of another country. That country should take charge of educating its citizens, and not leech off our educational system.

While this might have the slight benefit of indoctrinating those children, it will also imprint in them the idea that America is a great big sucker.

And, there is another factor to consider in this debate. If the Mexican government can't educate its own citizens, perhaps those citizens will agitate for reform. Educating their citizens provides the Mexican elite with a safety valve and delays reform.

[Kelt Cooper, the superintendent of the Nogales Arizona Unified School District] estimates that up to 10 percent of his district's approximately 6,000 students may still live in Mexico. Each costs the district about $5,000 per year to educate, in what he calls "a fraud on the government and the taxpayers..."

To get a clearer picture of how many children cross the border, Arizona superintendent of public instruction Tom Horne has asked the state attorney general to investigate the scope of the problem. He says taxpayers deserve nothing less, especially since "state budgets are tight all over right now. People naturally feel uneasy if they feel their government is tolerating a scam without looking behind the surface."

In Chula Vista, parents increasingly complain that children from Tijuana add to crowded classrooms. In response, Chula Vista officials now require parents to provide proof of residency each year. While anger simmers, however, many Chula Vista residents are afraid to speak out, fearing they'll be labeled as racist. But when the San Diego Union Tribune highlighted the district in a recent story, the newspaper received a flood of e-mail supporting the crackdown...

Not all border community members want to keep Mexican children out. From her perch behind the counter at Andres Tienda general store in Nogales, Mercy Johansen watches youngsters pass by on their way to Arizona schools every day. The mother of two grown children, her heart goes out to them. "I think that all children should have the right to a good education, no matter where they live," says Ms. Johansen. "These kids are our future, on both sides of the border."

Ah, the good ol' "end the article with an idiot" trick. Perhaps Ms. Johansen should take her bleeding-heart-of-Sally-Struthers mindset one step further and sponsor one of those children.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 12:31 AM | Comments (1)

The disturbing ties of some of George W. Bush's Latino advisors

From the older article 'Los Amigos de Bush: The disturbing ties of some of George W. Bush's Latino advisors':

Those who say that George W. Bush has scant knowledge of foreign affairs don't understand his family's relationship with Mexico.

If one event could be said to make that relationship visible, it had to be the state dinner given eleven years ago by President Bush for Mexico's president, Carlos Salinas. It was an elegant yet boisterous gala, where the biggest movers and shakers in Texas and Mexico congregated and celebrated. This group was to become W's Mexican legacy, a gift of ties and connections passed on from the father to his son.

What was not visible was that the group included two men with numerous links to drug cartel figures. These men helped George W. Bush win the Latino vote in Texas. Which raises a few questions: How did these guys get into the Bush circle? What else do they do for him? And, to rephrase a famous query, what did the presidential candidate know and when did he know it?

It goes into great depth regarding Bush's very questionable ties with some bad people.

I found out about this article from Steve Sailer's 'The Bush Betrayal: Maybe He's Not Thinking But Feeling - Family Feeling, Mexican Style' in which he tried to figure out why Bush would propose the Bush/Fox Amnesty.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 11:27 PM | Comments (0)

"American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush"

The book American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush by Kevin Phillips is on my list of things to read. Here's the blurb from Amazon:

The Bushes are the family nobody really knows, says Kevin Phillips. This popular lack of acquaintance—nurtured by gauzy imagery of Maine summer cottages, gray-haired national grandmothers, July Fourth sparklers, and cowboy boots—has let national politics create a dynasticized presidency that would have horrified America’s founding fathers. They, after all, had led a revolution against a succession of royal Georges.

In this devastating book, onetime Republican strategist Phillips reveals how four generations of Bushes have ascended the ladder of national power since World War One, becoming entrenched within the American establishment—Yale, Wall Street, the Senate, the CIA, the vice presidency, and the presidency—through a recurrent flair for old-boy networking, national security involvement, and political deception. By uncovering relationships and connecting facts with new clarity, Phillips comes to a stunning conclusion: The Bush family has systematically used its financial and social empire—its "aristocracy"—to gain the White House, thereby subverting the very core of American democracy. In their ambition, the Bushes ultimately reinvented themselves with brilliant timing, twisting and turning from silver spoon Yankees to born-again evangelical Texans. As America—and the world—holds its breath for the 2004 presidential election, American Dynasty explains how it happened and what it all means.

An adapted version of a chapter from the book is in 'For Texas’ Elite, Is Open Immigration The New Slave-Holding?'

Posted to Immigration2003 at 10:42 PM | Comments (0)

"In Florida Groves, Cheap Labor Means Machines"

Some Florida orange growers are getting smart and using machines rather than foreign serf labor. From the NYT:

IMMOKALEE, Fla. — Chugging down a row of trees, the pair of canopy shakers in Paul Meador's orange grove here seem like a cross between a bulldozer and a hairbrush, their hungry steel bristles working through the tree crowns as if untangling colossal heads of hair.

In under 15 minutes, the machines shake loose 36,000 pounds of oranges from 100 trees, catch the fruit and drop it into a large storage car. "This would have taken four pickers all day long," Mr. Meador said...

But as globalization creeps into the groves, it is threatening to displace the workers. Facing increased competition from Brazil and a glut of oranges on world markets, alarmed growers here have been turning to labor-saving technology as their best hope for survival...

"The rest of the world hand-picks everything, but their wage rates are a fraction of ours," said Galen Brown, who led the mechanical harvesting program at the Florida Department of Citrus until his retirement last year. Lee Simpson, a raisin grape grower in California's San Joaquin Valley, is more blunt. "The cheap labor," he said, "isn't cheap enough..."

Investment in technology generally happened when the immigrant spigot was shut. After the bracero program ended and some farm wages began to rise, scientists at the University of California at Davis began work on both a machine to harvest tomatoes mechanically and a tomato better suited to mechanical harvesting...

In line with the last paragraph, consider this quote from "The Mirage of Mexican Guest Workers":

...California Farmer reported in 1963 that if the flow of braceros stopped, tomato growers and canners "agree the State will never [again be able to plant] the 100,000 to 175,000 acres planted when there was a guaranteed supplemental labor force in the form of the braceros..."

Reality, however, never confirmed these dire predictions. In 1960 some 45,000 farm workers (mostly braceros) had harvested 2.2 million tons of processing tomatoes. By 1999, it took only 5,000 workers to operate machinery that harvested some 12 million tons. Thanks to these efficiency gains from mechanization, the real price of processing tomatoes declined 54 percent while per capita consumption rose 23 percent...

California Farmer was lying in 1963, and the same groups are lying today.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 01:52 PM | Comments (0)

Guest Worker Residency Bill Is Taking Root in the Senate

The L.A. Times reports on the AgJobs bill:

The so-called AgJobs bill, which also would make it easier for growers to import foreign guest workers, has 55 co-sponsors — including Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) — in the 100-member Senate, its authors said Wednesday.

Sens. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said they hoped in the next few weeks to increase that number to more than 60. That would give the bill enough support to overcome delaying tactics on the Senate floor and force a vote on its passage...

The chairman of the [House] Agriculture Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), is opposed to AgJobs...

At a hearing on guest-worker programs Wednesday, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on immigration, Rep. John N. Hostettler (R-Ind.), contended that such programs reduced wages for American workers and that legalization of undocumented migrants encouraged more to come illegally.

"We have an untried alternative — simply to enforce employer sanctions — that would year by year brighten the prospects for American workers," he said...

...administration officials remained noncommittal about whether the president would support the bill...

"If we were able to gain the support of the president of the United States, this would go through the Senate of the United States in two hours," [Sen.] Kennedy said...

I previously discussed the AgJobs bill here. As stated above, it's supported by Barbara Boxer. The previous post has a list of the 400 organizations who support AgJobs. Most are the ultimate in special interest groups. Big ag business, grower's organizations, racial groups, radical groups, and so on. Some might even have connections with foreign governments. They don't have America's best interests at heart.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 12:43 PM | Comments (0)

French-Moroccan suspected of orchestrating the Madrid bombings

So reports LeMonde. French version here, translated version here. LeMonde reports that the Moroccans suspect him of involvement in the Casablanca attacks. After those attacks, he went to Spain, where they suspect him of having orchestrated the attacks. He was not the "inspirer" of the attacks, that was Zarqawi. His name is given as Abdelkrim Thami Mejjati, however, he appears to be the same person mentioned at this page under the name Karim El Mejjati.

Posted to Terrorism at 12:26 AM | Comments (0)

We're being sued by Mexico

No kidding. There's a case before the International Court of Justice entitled Avena and Other Mexican Nationals (Mexico v. United States of America).

It concerns Mexican citizens who face the death penalty in the U.S. Judgment will be rendered on March 31. Read the latest press release here, the first press release here, and the document index here.

This appears to be part of a larger attempt by Mexico to tie us up in litigation and force us to change our policies to fit their agenda. See, for instance, the earlier post "Mexico files human rights complaint against U.S. to the United Nations." This page suggests the possibility that Mexico might use the World Court to get compensation for their nationals who've died trying to get across our border. This CS Monitor report has some background.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 11:14 PM | Comments (0)

DOG Derb Discusses Diversity

The Derb has an interesting column on fake diversity.

(The titular "DOG" means "Designated Oppressor Group.")

Posted to MultiCultiCult at 10:41 PM | Comments (1)

"Stealth Invasion"

This long, sourced, and highly recommended article describes how agents of the Mexican government have infiltrated politics in Utah. They succeeded in defeating a bill that would stop illegal alien driver's licenses. Here's the summary:

Working through its consulates in the United States, the Mexican government is waging a war of subversion against our nation — with the silent complicity of Washington.

The next time someone regurgitates AILA talking points, just give them the link.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 02:54 PM | Comments (0)

Time to make some phone calls

From the John and Ken (KFI radio-Los Angeles) blog:

We have contacted all the Republicans in the State Senate and the State Assembly asking one question- how will you be voting on Senator Gil Cedillo’s Illegal Alien Driver License Bill (SB1160)?

...If you DO NOT see your Senator or Assembly member, then they have replied with a big fat NO to SB1160. For those who have not replied to any phone messages or seem to be on the fence about the issue, we have kindly made available their contact information. We urge you to call them and let them know that SB1160 is wrong for California.

Seem To Be “On The Fence”

1. Bill Maze ® District 34, Visalia
Capital Office: 916-319-2034
District Office: 559-636-3440
E-mail here

2. Abel Maldondo ® District 33, San Luis Obispo
Capital Office: 916-319-2033
District Office: 805-549-3381
E-mail here

3. Bonnie Garcia ® District 80, Cathedral City
Capital Office: 916-319-2080
District Office: 760-321-8410
E-mail here

UPDATE: Apparently they were able to get in touch with Steve Samuelian, and he's said he won't support the bill.

UPDATE 2: Like Samuelian, they took Dave Cogdill off the list.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 02:18 PM | Comments (0)

Remember the Alamo

There's a new Alamo movie coming out in a couple weeks (official site here). It features Dennis Quaid, Billy Bob Thornton, Jason Patric, and Patrick Wilson.

You can buy the novelization of The Alamo here.

You can buy the Original Uncut Version of the John Wayne version (1960) here.

And, if you'd like to read about President Bush forgetting about The Alamo, click here. Imagine, a U.S. President selling out the country on the 168th anniversary of the storming of the Alamo.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 01:54 AM | Comments (0)

Muppets Bringing Peace to the Middle East

Remember the picture above of OBL with his henchman Bert from Sesame Street?

Well, Ernie and the rest of the Sesame Street gang are now working against Bert and working for peace:

...A programing experiment using the Muppet characters was launched six months ago and was widely welcomed by parents, educators and the media. But the Muppets are not without their critics in Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan.

Sesame Workshop partnered with local producers to create "Sesame Stories," an adventurous initiative to use new and existing "Sesame Street" characters to foster respect and understanding among children in the region.

Gary Knell, president and chief operating officer of Sesame Workshop, says in an interview that producers knew that not everybody would be open to the idea of Elmo & Co. teaching Israeli kids to respect Palestinians and vice versa.

"It's a highly charged environment, and the press is going to reflect some of that," Knell says. "Yes, some Israeli reports accused us of being lackeys of the Palestinians, while another article accused us of being lackeys of the Bush White House and charged that Elmo was carrying the will of the White House to the Middle East. A Jordanian Internet site accused us of being Zionist lap dogs..."

Posted to Terrorism at 10:37 PM | Comments (0)

"Attacking Illegal Immigration From The Left"

RightWingNews links to this column about illegal immigration. It's by Marty Nemko, and it's generally opposed to illegal immigration and the current immigration system.

What's extra interesting is that Mr. Nemko is apparently a leftie.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 10:17 PM | Comments (0)

Mexico Arrests 42 [Government Employees] for Migrant Trafficking

From the AP:

Mexican police have arrested 42 immigration agents and other government employees accused of running a network that smuggled illegal immigrants into the United States, officials said Tuesday.

The suspects, arrested in raids last week in 12 of Mexico's 31 states, allegedly smuggled Cubans, Uruguayans, Brazilians, Asians and Central Americans through the southern border and guaranteed them safe passage into the United States. It was unclear how the ring operated in the United States.

Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha said his office was asking U.S. law enforcement agencies for help in determining whether any Americans were involved in the ring...

Those arrested included agents and ex-agents of Mexico's National Immigration Institute, the INM, the very agency Mexico relies on to detect illegal migrants and prevent the country from becoming staging base for migrants from other countries.

Even more chilling was the fact that seven of the 26 INM agents arrested were assigned to Mexico's Grupo Beta, a special force designed to protect immigrants...

For extra fun, flip back and forth between this story and the earlier story "Mexico asks to help oversee U.S. border protection plan."

Posted to Immigration2003 at 10:08 PM | Comments (0)

Truth must be ultimate weapon for Sierra Club

From the Arizona Republic:

Mark Twain said, "A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." It's astonishing how the media have been stampeded into a feeding frenzy by mostly one-sided stories charging that an army of racist, anti-immigrant, animal-loving vegetarians is about to take over the venerable Sierra Club...

In recent years, the environmental movement has lacked courage to address the root cause of most environmental problems: rapid and apparently endless U.S. population growth. With our high levels of consumption, we Americans are stealing the resources of the world from other species, other peoples and future generations.

The longer the environmental movement and its flagship, the Sierra Club, shirk their responsibility to speak out forcefully for a policy of U.S. population stabilization - that includes both reduced levels of fertility and immigration - the worse off all future generations will be...

Posted to Immigration2003 at 03:23 PM | Comments (0)

Will US tech pay fall to Indian levels?

From this:

Ultimately, says economics, America could become India, thanks to offshoring.

Say what?

OK, so we're exaggerating, as all theory tends to do when considered in isolation from reality. But an increasingly louder voice of warning is being heard in the US, saying that the creation of a global pool of knowledge workers - where Seattle is no different from Bangalore - will equalise compensation level for such workers...

Posted to Politics at 02:41 PM | Comments (0)

Autoeroticism, Michael Jackson style

"Hello, is this movie director Kevin Smith?"

"Yes"

"Please hold, I have a call from Michael Jackson"

"What? The King of Pop?"

"Yes, the King of Pop himself has a movie idea for you. Please hold..."

"Hello, this is Michael Jackson, and I have a movie I'd like you to direct."

"Well, OK. What's it about."

"It's a fantasy about me and a special friend of mine. I had a dream about this, and I want to make it into a movie. In the movie, I change into a car, and I get driven around by my little friend."

"That sounds, well, creepy and Freudian."

"Is that a movie director?"

"Er, yes."

Posted to WackyHumor at 02:21 PM | Comments (1)

Miami Herald "endorses indentured servitude"

That's what the Stein Report says regarding the Miami Herald's editorial supporting the AgJobs bill ('A win-win for growers, farmworkers, America'). That bill would provide an amnesty for half a million illegal aliens. As history shows, amnesties simply lead to more illegal immigration. One amnesty leads to more illegal immigration, which requires another amnesty, which leads to more illegal immigration, repeat.

As for the claim that the editorial supports indentured servitude, judge for yourself:

...AgJobs sets up a process by which illegal immigrants already working in agriculture could earn legal status. They would have to continue to toil in the fields a certain number of days for at least three more years to be eligible for residency, which would assure farmers of a legal labor pool.

At the same time, the bill provides better protections for the farmworkers who now too often are exploited by unscrupulous growers, directly or through labor contractors. The result should lessen abuses such as those documented last year in The Herald's series Fields of Despair: modern-day indentured servitude, slave wages, indecent housing and perilous working conditions. And it would benefit the honest growers who want to treat farmworkers fairly and won't have to worry about being fined for having illegal workers on their payroll...

I believe they'd have to be required by contract to work for the specified period for it to meet the legal definition of "indentured servitude." However, the requirements of this program come dangerously close.

I've included a list of the 400 organizations that support AgJobs below. I've divided them into categories. You tell me if these organizations have your best interests at heart. (Here's a hint: People for the American Way, AILA, MALDEF and all the rest do not. These are the ultimate in special interest groups).

There's also a list of good and bad immigration bills here. And, see "Florida Farmworkers Sue Dairy Owned by Family of Sen. Graham Over Wages."

The original list of the 400 supporters is here, and to see the categorized list, click the 'MORE' link directly below.

Usual suspects:
PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY
SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER

Businesses:
VLASIC PICKLE GROWERS (OH)

U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
U.S. HISPANIC CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
BIRDS EYE FOODS
DEERE & COMPANY
TYSON FOODS INC.
COBANK
FIRST PIONEER FARM CREDIT
MONROVIA GROWERS (CA, OR, GA, NC)
YANKEE FARM CREDIT
HARRY SINGH & SONS (CA)
John Harris Farms Inc (CA)
LASSEN CANYON NURSERY, INC. (CA)
CONNLEAF, INC (CT)
H.F. BROWN INC. (CT)
THE LYMAN FARM, INC. (CT)
LIVE OAK VILLAS, LLC (FL)
SKINNER NURSERIES (FL)
FARM CREDIT OF MAINE
ANGELICA NURSERIES (MD)
BELL NURSERY (MD)
JOHN SHORB LANDSCAPING, INC. (MD)
MARYLAND AQUATIC NURSERIES, INC.
QUINN'S KINGSVILLE FARMS (MD)
ROBIN HILL FARM NURSERY (MD)
SPEAKMAN NURSERIES, INC. (MD)
LEITZ FARMS LLC (MI)
ZELENKA NURSERY, LLC (MI)
FARM CREDIT OF WESTERN NEW YORK
LAKE PLACID GROVES LLC (NY)
TORREY FARMS (NY)
WILLET DAIRY(NY)
LATINO COMMUNITY CREDIT UNION (NC)
ZELENKA NURSERY, LLC (NC)
HIGH STAKES FARMS (OH)
EL VISTA ORCHARDS (WEXFORD, PA)
FIVE FORKS FRUIT (WAYNESBORO, PA)
AMICK FARMS (SC)
ELLISON'S (TX)
MIDLAND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORP. (TX)
UNDERWOOD FRUIT AND WAREHOUSE COMPANY (WA)

AGRI-PLACEMENTS INTERNATIONAL
COOPERATIVE PRODUCERS, INC.
COOPERATIVE THREE, INC.
COUNCIL OF NORTHEAST FARMER COOPERATIVES
DAIRYLEA COOPERATIVE
RANCH ONE COOPERATIVE, INC. (FL)
PRO-FAC COOPERATIVE (NY)
NASH PRODUCE COMPANY, INC. (NC)
PETER ORCHARDS (GARDNERS, PA)
GARDENS BEAUTIFUL GARDEN CENTERS (WI)

UNIVERSAL IMMIGRATION SERVICE (CA)

Ethnic organizations:
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA (NCLR)
MEXICAN AMERICAN LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATION FUND (MALDEF)
LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN AMERICAN CITIZENS (LULAC)
WILLIAM C.VELASQUEZ INSTITUTE
LA CLINICA DE LA RAZA (CA)
EL CENTRO DE LA RAZA (WA)
GRUPO MEXICO OF WASHINGTON STATE
INSTITUTO DEL PROGRESO LATINO (IL)
EL CENTRO, INC. - KANSAS
EL PUEBLO, INC (NC)
PINEROS Y CAMPESINOS UNIDOS DEL NOROESTE (PCUN) (OR)
FUNDACION SALVADORENA DE LA FLORIDA
GUATEMALAN UNITY INFORMATION CENTER (FL)
IMMOKALEE MULTICULTURAL MULTIPURPOSE COMMUNITY ACTION AGENCY, INC. (FL)
MUJER (FL)
CENTRO ROMERO (IL)
CONGUATE (IL)
CENTRO SAN MARTIN DEPORRES (MS)
Comite de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agricolas (NJ)
MEXICAN AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHERN NEW JERSEY
CENTRO HISPANO CUZCATLAN (NY)
CENTRO INDEPENDIENTE DE TRABAJADORES AGRICOLOS (CITA) - (NY)
CENTRO SALVADORENO, INC. (NY)
HIGH COUNTY AMIGOS INC. (NC)
VENEZUELAN AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF OKLAHOMA
CASA OF OREGON
JÓVENES INMIGRANTES POR UN FUTURO MEJOR (TX)
UMOS (WI)
IVAN KOHAR PARRA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LATINO COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CENTER (WI)
LATIN AMERICAN COMMUNITY CENTER (DE)
LATIN AMERICAN YOUTH CENTER (DC)
CENTRO CAMPESINO (FL)
CARLOS ROSARIO INT'L CAREER CENTER AND PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL
CENTRO PRESENTE (MA)
CASA OF MARYLAND
CENTRO DE LA COMUNIDAD, INC (MD)
MIGRANT AND REFUGEE CULTURAL SUPPORT, INC. (MIRECS) (MD)
MASSACHUSETTS FARM BUREAU
CENTRO DE SALUD FAMILIAR LA FE (TX)

KOREAN AMERICAN RESOURCE & CULTURAL CENTER (KRCC), CHICAGO
NATIONAL KOREAN AMERICAN SERVICE & EDUCATION CONSORTIUM (NAKASEC)
YKASEC - EMPOWERING THE KOREAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY (NY)
KOREAN RESOURCE CENTER, LOS ANGELES

IRISH IMMIGRATION CENTER (MA)

ARAB AMERICAN INSTITUTE (AAI)

SALVADORAN AMERICAN NATIONAL NETWORK
POLISH AMERICAN CONGRESS

CENTER FOR PAN ASIAN COMMUNITY SERVICES (GA)
ASIAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY SERVICE ASSOCIATION, INC

Growers associations:
AGRICULTURE COALITION FOR IMMIGRATION REFORM
AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF AGRICULTURAL EMPLOYERS
NATIONAL CATTLEMEN'S BEEF ASSOCIATION
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STATE DEPARTMENTS OF AGRICULTURE
AMERICAN NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
UNITED EGG PRODUCERS
NATIONAL CHRISTMAS TREE ASSOCIATION
UNITED FRESH FRUIT & VEGETABLE ASSOCIATION
U.S. APPLE ASSOCIATION
U.S. CUSTOM HARVESTERS, INC.
WESTERN GROWERS ASSOCIATION
WESTERN RANGE ASSOCIATION
WESTERN UNITED DAIRYMEN
AMERICAN HORSE COUNCIL
AGRICULTURAL AFFILIATES
NATIONAL POTATO COUNCIL
NEW ENGLAND APPLE COUNCIL
NATIONAL CHICKEN COUNCIL
NATIONAL MILK PRODUCERS FEDERATION
SOUTH EAST DAIRY FARMERS ASSOCIATION
NORTH EAST DAIRY PRODUCERS ASSOCIATION
NORTHWEST HORTICULTURAL COUNCIL
WINEAMERICA, THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN WINERIES
WINEGRAPE GROWERS OF AMERICA
AMERICAN MUSHROOM INSTITUTE
AMERICAN FROZEN FOOD INSTITUTE
GULF CITRUS GROWERS ASSOCIATION
SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FLORISTS
PERENNIAL PLANT ASSOCIATION
SOUTHERN NURSERY ASSOCIATION
ALABAMA NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
ARIZONA NURSERY ASSOCIATION
ARKANSAS GREEN INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION
ALLIED GRAPE GROWERS (CA)
ALMOND HULLERS AND PROCESSORS (CA)
CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF NURSERIES AND GARDEN CENTERS
CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF WINEGRAPE GROWERS
CALIFORNIA APPLE COMMISSION
CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF WINEGRAPE GROWERS
CALIFORNIA FLORAL COUNCIL
CALIFORNIA FARM BUREAU FEDERATION
CALIFORNIA GRAIN AND FEED ASSOCIATION
CALIFORNIA GRAPE & TREE FRUIT LEAGUE
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE FOR RURAL STUDIES
CALIFORNIA LANDSCAPE CONTRACTORS ASSOCIATION, INC
CALIFORNIA SEED ASSOCIATION
CALIFORNIA STRAWBERRY COMMISSION
CALIFORNIA WOMEN FOR AGRICULTURE
IMPERIAL VALLEY VEGETABLE GROWERS ASSOCIATION
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA GROWERS ASSOCIATION
NURSERY GROWERS OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Raisin Bargaining Association (CA)
VENTURA COUNTY (CA) AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION
VENTURA COUNTY (CA) FARM BUREAU
NISEI FARMERS LEAGUE (CA)
COLORADO NURSERY ASSOCIATION
COLORADO SUGAR BEET GROWERS ASSOCIATION
NORTHERN COLORADO ONION ASSOCIATION
CONNECTICUT FARM BUREAU
CONNECTICUT NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
DELAWARE NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
FLORIDA CITRUS PACKERS, INC.
FLORIDA FARM BUREAU FEDERATION
FLORIDA FRUIT AND VEGETABLE ASSOCIATION
FLORIDA NURSERYMEN & GROWERS ASSOCIATION
FLORIDA STRAWBERRY GROWERS ASSOCIATION
INDIAN RIVER CITRUS LEAGUE (FL)
WESTERN CAROLINAS HORTICULTURAL ALLIANCE
TURFGRASS PRODUCERS INTERNATIONAL
PACIFIC EGG AND POULTRY ASSOCIATION
SUGAR CANE GROWERS CO-OP OF FLORIDA
GEORGIA GREEN INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION
IDAHO FARM BUREAU
IDAHO FOOD PRODUCERS
IDAHO GRAIN PRODUCERS ASSOCIATION
IDAHO GROWER SHIPPERS ASSOCIATION
IDAHO NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
POTATO GROWERS OF IDAHO
SNAKE RIVER FARMERS ASSOCIATION (ID/MT)
ILLINOIS LANDSCAPE CONTRACTORS ASSOCIATION
ILLINOIS NURSERYMENS' ASSOCIATION
INDIANA NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
KANSAS FARM BUREAU
KANSAS NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
KENTUCKY NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
MAINE NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
MARYLAND NURSERY& LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
MASSACHUSETTS NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
MISSOURI NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
MONTANA NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
NEBRASKA NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
NEVADA LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
IRRIGATION ASSOCIATION OF NEW JERSEY
NEW JERSEY NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
EMPIRE STATE COUNCIL OF AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATIONS (NY)
NEW YORK FARM BUREAU
NEW YORK STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY
NEW YORK STATE APPLE GROWERS ASSOCIATION
NEW YORK STATE CHERRY GROWERS ASSOCIATION
NEW YORK STATE NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
NEW YORK STATE VEGETABLE GROWERS ASSOCIATION
NORTH CAROLINA ASSOCIATION OF NURSERYMEN
NORTH CAROLINA FARM BUREAU
NORTH CAROLINA LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
NORTHERN OHIO GROWERS ASSOCIATION
OHIO FARM BUREAU FEDERATION, INC.
OHIO FRUIT GROWERS SOCIETY
OHIO LANDSCAPERS ASSOCIATION
OHIO NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
OHIO VEGETABLE & POTATO GROWERS ASSOCIATION
OKLAHOMA NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
HOOD RIVER GROWER-SHIPPER ASSOCIATION (OR)
OREGON ASSOCIATION OF NURSERIES
OREGON FARM BUREAU
PENNSYLVANIA FARM BUREAU
PENNSYLVANIA LANDSCAPE & NURSERY ASSOCIATION
SOUTH CAROLINA GREENHOUSE GROWERS ASSOCIATION
SOUTH CAROLINA NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
SOUTH CAROLINA UPSTATE TREE GROWERS ASSOCIATION
RIO GRANDE VALLEY SUGAR GROWERS, INC. (TX)
TEXAS AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVE COUNCIL
TEXAS NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
TEXAS POULTRY FEDERATION
TEXAS EGG COUNCIL
TEXAS BROILER COUNCIL
TEXAS POULTRY IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION
TEXAS PRODUCE ASSOCIATION
TEXAS SEED TRADE ASSOCIATION
TEXAS STATE FLORIST'S ASSOCIATION
TEXAS TURKEY FEDERATION
TEXAS VEGETABLE ASSOCIATION
TURFGRASS PRODUCERS OF TEXAS
UTAH FARM BUREAU
UTAH NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA NURSERY AND LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
VIRGINIA GREEN INDUSTRY COUNCIL
VIRGINIA NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
WASHINGTON GROWERS CLEARING HOUSE ASSOCIATION
WASHINGTON GROWERS LEAGUE
WASHINGTON POTATO & ONION ASSOCIATION
WASHINGTON STATE NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
WASHINGTON SUSTAINABLE FOOD & FARMING NETWORK
COMMERCIAL FLOWER GROWERS OF WISCONSIN
GROUNDS MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION OF WISCONSIN
NORTHERN CHRISTMAS TREE GROWERS & NURSERY (WI)
WISCONSIN LANDSCAPE CONTRACTORS ASSOCIATION
WISCONSIN LANDSCAPE FEDERATION
WISCONSIN NURSERY ASSOCIATION
WISCONSIN SOD PRODUCERS
OFA - AN ASSOCIATION OF FLORICULTURE PROFESSIONALS
FLORIDA CITRUS MUTUAL
IOWA NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
MICHIGAN FARM BUREAU
MICHIGAN NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
MINNESOTA NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION
NEW JERSEY FARM BUREAU FEDERATION
RHODE ISLAND NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSN, INC.
TENNESSEE NURSERY & LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATION

Lawyers:
AMERICAN IMMIGRATION LAWYERS ASSOCIATION (AILA)
NATIONAL EMPLOYMENT LAW PROJECT
HISPANIC LAWYER'S ASSOCIATION OF ILLINOIS
LAW OFFICE OF SHIRLEY SADJADI (IL)
LAW OFFICE OF DOUGLAS W. WORRELL, CHTD. (IL)
NEBRASKA APPLESEED CENTER FOR LAW IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST
BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE AT NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW
OREGON LAW CENTER
MIGRANT LEGAL ACTION PROGRAM (DC)
LEGAL AID SERVICE OF BROWARD COUNTY, INC. (FL)
MIGRANT FARMWORKER JUSTICE PROJECT, FLORIDA LEGAL SERVICES, INC.
MICHIGAN MIGRANT LEGAL ASSISTANCE PROJECT
FARMWORKER LEGAL SERVICES OF NEW YORK
ADVOCATES FOR BASIC LEGAL EQUALITY (OH)
NATIONAL LEGAL AID & DEFENDER ASSOCIATION (NLADA)
NATIONAL ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LEGAL CONSORTIUM (NAPALC)
CALIFORNIA RURAL LEGAL ASSISTANCE FOUNDATION (CRLAF)

Religious:
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ECUMENICAL COUNCIL
MARIN INTERFAITH TASK FORCE FOR THE AMERICAS
CHRISTIAN BROTHERS (NY) [The Wine Company?]
NATIONAL FARM WORKER MINISTRY

EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA
GENERAL BOARD OF CHURCH AND SOCIETY, THE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
ST. JOSEPH THE WORKER CHURCH (MN)
IMMACULATE CONCEPCION CHURCH (NC)
UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST JUSTICE AND WITNESS MINISTRIES (OH)
VIRGINIA COUNCIL OF CHURCHES
WASHINGTON ASSOCIATION OF CHURCHES (WA)
WISCONSIN COUNCIL OF CHURCHES

CATHOLIC CHARITIES USA
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH, USA
CATHOLIC MIGRANT FARMWORKER NETWORK
CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE DIOCESE OF SANTA ROSA (CA)
CATHOLIC CHARITIES, SAN DIEGO
CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF ORLANDO, INC.
FLORIDA CATHOLIC CONFERENCE
IMMIGRATION OUTREACH OFFICE, CATHOLIC CHARITIES/ ARCHDIOCESE OF DUBUQUE
CATHOLIC CHARITIES ARCHDIOCESE OF NEW ORLEANS
OFFICE OF HISPANIC MINISTRY, CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF JACKSON (MS)
RICH SMITH, PASTOR OF ST. ANN CATHOLIC CHURCH, PAULDING, MS
THE SOCIAL CONCERNS COMMITTEE OF THE CATHOLIC COMMUNITY OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI (MS)
DAUGHTERS OF CHARITY IN ST. LOUIS (MO)
COMMISSION ON PEACE AND JUSTICE OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF ALBANY, NY
PUBLIC POLICY COMMITTEE, ROMAN CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF ROCHESTER, NY
RURAL AND MIGRANT MINISTRY (NY)
OFFICE OF HISPANIC MINISTRY, CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF CLEVELAND
CATHOLIC HISPANIC MINISTRY, DIOCESE OF KNOXVILLE (TN)
CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
REFUGEE AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES, CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF RICHMOND

EPISCOPAL FARMWORKER MINISTRY (NC)
LATIN AMERICAN ACTION TEAM, GIDDINGS-LOVEJOY PRESBYTERY (MO)
EN CAMINO, MIGRANT AND IMMIGRANT OUTREACH, DIOCESE OF TOLEDO

OUR LADY OF VICTORY MISSIONARY SISTERS (CA)
SISTERS OF LORETTO (CO)
SISTERS OF THE HUMILITY OF MARY - INDIAN RIVER (FL)
SISTERS OF CHARITY (IA)
MISSION EFFECTIVENESS, SCHOOL SISTERS OF NOTRE DAME, ST. LOUIS
Sisters of the Humility of Mary - Villa Maria, Pennsylvania - (Sister Ruth Mary Powers)

FRANCISCAN FRIARS OF ST. BARBARA PROVINCE (CA)
HOLLABAUGH BROTHERS, INC. (BIGLERVILLE, PA)
OREGON FARM WORKER MINISTRY
MID-SOUTH INTERFAITH NETWORK FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE (TN)
LUTHERAN PUBLIC POLICY OFFICE OF WASHINGTON STATE
MIGRATION AND REFUGEE SERVICES DIOCESE OF TRENTON

State (?) organizations:
IDAHO COMMISSION ON HISPANIC AFFAIRS
ILLINOIS COALITION FOR IMMIGRANT AND REFUGEE RIGHTS
ILLINOIS MIGRANT COUNCIL
EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY'S BILINGUAL BICULTURAL EDUCATION TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAM
STATE HORTICULTURAL ASSOCIATION OF PENNSYLVANIA
FEINSTEIN CENTER FOR CITIZENSHIP & IMMIGRATION SERVICES (RI)
HISPANIC COMMITTEE OF VIRGINIA
VIRGINIA JUSTICE CENTER FOR FARM AND IMMIGRANT WORKERS
WASHINGTON STATE COMMISSION ON HISPANIC AFFAIRS
OFFICE OF INTL. STUDENT SERVICES, UNIV. OF WISCONSIN-PLATTEVILLE

Unions:
AFL - CIO
UNITED FARM WORKERS (UFW)
UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS UNION (UFCW)
SERVICES EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION (SEIU)
FARM LABOR ORGANIZING COMMITTEE, AFL-CIO (FLOC)
LABOR COUNCIL FOR LATIN AMERICAN ADVANCEMENT (LCLAA)
CULINARY WORKERS UNION, LOCAL 226 - NEVADA
UNION OF NEEDLETRADES, INDUSTRIAL AND TEXTILE EMPLOYEES (UNITE)
UNITED FOOD AND COMMERCIAL WORKERS UNION (UFCW) LOCAL 1442 (CA)
EL PASO CENTRAL LABOR UNION
COALITION OF FLORIDA FARMWORKER ORGANIZATIONS
SOUTH CENTRAL FEDERATION OF LABOR, AFL-CIO (WI)

Other/Uncategorized:
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF ELECTED AND APPOINTED LATINO OFFICIALS (NALEO)
AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE (AJA)
TOGETHER IN AMERICA
JEWISH COMMUNITY ACTION (MN)

FARMWORKER JUSTICE FUND (FJF)
ASSOCIATION OF FARMWORKER OPPORTUNITY PROGRAMS (AFOP)
ESSENTIAL WORKER IMMIGRATION COALITION
A. DUDA & SONS
AL FRENCH, FORMER USDA DIRECTOR OF AG LABOR RELATIONS
NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM
CAMPAIGN FOR LABOR RIGHTS
NATIONAL MIGRANT AND SEASONAL HEAD START ASSOCIATION
FOR OUR GRANDCHILDREN
GULF HARVESTING, INC.
LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE ON CIVIL RIGHTS (LCCR)
MOARK LLC
MAFO
NORTHEAST FARM CREDIT REGIONAL COUNCIL
PAN AMERICAN RECRUITING
NORTHWOODS AGRI WOMEN
TELAMON CORPORATION
Housing Assistance Council
AMANECER (AZ)
CENTRAL AMERICAN RESOURCE CENTER (CA)
COALITION FOR HUMANE IMMIGRANT RIGHTS OF LOS ANGELES (CHIRLA)
LOS ANGELES COALITION TO END HUNGER & HOMELESSNESS
ESTES VALLEY MULTICULTURAL CONNECTIONS (CO)
BIG CYPRESS HOUSING CORPORATION (FL)
CARIBBEAN IMMIGRANT SERVICES INC. (FL)
EVERGLADES COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION, INC.
EVERGLADES HAMMOCK, INCORPORATED
FAIR FOOD AMERICA (FL)
FARMWORKER ASSOCIATION OF FLORIDA, INC
FARMWORKERS SELF-HELP (FL)
THE FELLSMERE COMMUNITY ENRICHMENT PROGRAM (FL)
FLORIDA IMMIGRANT ADVOCACY CENTER
FLORIDA IMPACT
LITTLE MANATEE HOUSING CORPORATION (FL)
PINELLAS SUPPORT COMMITTEE (FL)
REDLANDS CHRISTIAN MIGRANT ASSOCIATION (FL)
RETAIL SYSTEMS CONSULTING (FL)
SARASOTA/MANATEE FARMWORKER SUPPORTERS
UNITE FOR DIGNITY, INC. (FL)
GEORGIA RURAL URBAN SUMMIT
IDAHO COMMUNITY ACTION NETWORK
IDAHO MIGRANT COUNCIL
CHICAGO JOBS WITH JUSTICE
DISCIPLES JUSTICE ACTION NETWORK (DISCIPLES OF CHRIST) (IL)
HEARTLAND ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN NEEDS & HUMAN RIGHTS (IL)
IMMIGRATION PROJECT (IL)
THE MIDWEST IMMIGRANT & HUMAN RIGHTS CENTER (IL)
PROJECT IRENE (IL)
THE RESURRECTION PROJECT IN CHICAGO
CENTRAL INDIANA JOBS WITH JUSTICE
IMMIGRANT RIGHTS NETWORK OF IOWA AND NEBRASKA
IOWA PROJECT
MASSACHUSETTS IMMIGRANT AND REFUGEE ADVOCACY COALITION
MISSISSIPPI IMMIGRANT RIGHTS ALLIANCE (MIRA!)
HUMAN RIGHTS ACTION SERVICE. ST.LOUIS (MO)
NEW JERSEY IMMIGRATION POLICY NETWORK, INC.
RURAL HOUSING INCORPORTED (NM)
CABRINI IMMIGRANT SERVICES (NY)
CAYUGA MARKETING, LLC (NY)
NEW YORK ASSOCIATION FOR NEW AMERICANS
WORKPLACE PROJECT (NY)
NORTH CAROLINA JUSTICE AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CENTER
STUDENT ACTION WITH FARMWORKERS (NC)
TRIANGLE FRIENDS OF THE UNITED FARMWORKERS (NC)
VITALINK (NC)
IMMIGRANT WORKER PROJECT (OH)
FARMWORKER HOUSING DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION (OR)
NORTHWEST WORKERS' JUSTICE PROJECT (OR)
Friends of Farmworkers (PA)
PENNSYLVANIA IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP COALITION
TENNESSEE IMMIGRANT AND REFUGEE RIGHTS COALITION
EQUAL JUSTICE CENTER (TX)
HOUSTON COMMUNITY SERVICES
MIGRANT CLINICIANS NETWORK, INC (TX)
HAMPTON ROADS COALITION FOR WORKERS' JUSTICE
MARSING AGRICULTURAL LABOR SPONSOR COMMITTEE (WA)

Posted to Immigration2003 at 01:53 AM | Comments (0)

Link between Iraq and al Queda partially confirmed

Remember the recent 60 Minutes interview with Ahmed "0.2%" Chalabi? Remember how he showed Leslie Stahl a document purporting to prove a link between Iraq and al Queda?

Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough have a report on the document here (permalink not yet available):

We have obtained a document discovered in Iraq from the files of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS). The report provides new evidence of links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

The 1993 document, in Arabic, bears the logo of the Iraqi intelligence agency and is labeled "top secret" on each of its 20 pages.

The report is a list of IIS agents who are described as "collaborators."

On page 14, the report states that among the collaborators is "the Saudi Osama bin Laden."

The document states that bin Laden is a "Saudi businessman and is in charge of the Saudi opposition in Afghanistan."

"And he is in good relationship with our section in Syria," the document states, under the signature "Jabar..."

A U.S. official said the document appears authentic.

Posted to Iraq at 01:39 AM | Comments (0)

Spain Declassifies Intelligence Reports on Bombing Probe, Part 2

Earlier I posted about the declassified documents from the Spanish government. They are large PDFs, and only in Espanol.

However, here is a translation of some of them. I haven't verified the translation. See this page (in Spanish, but HTML) referenced in the comments at that post.

Posted to Terrorism at 01:14 AM | Comments (0)

Lonewacko wades into America's Debate About Outsourcing

IANAE, IFASOTAEMCMETGO*. Nevertheless, herewith are presented a few outsourcing links:

The WSJ reports that "Foreigners outsourced far more office work to the United States than American companies send abroad in 2003" (see the graphic). However, what do you expect the WSJ to say?

Paul Craig Roberts says in 'The Harsh Truth About Outsourcing' that the model on which outsourcing is based is outmoded due to the ease of transporting goods over borders (Internet, jet planes, etc.)

From 'Outsourcing critics cite labor laws in other nations':

Labor groups upset about job losses say U.S. companies are hiring workers in foreign countries in part because employment laws are often looser abroad... Employees working in foreign countries for U.S. companies are generally not covered by U.S. employment laws, which cover such issues as sexual harassment, age discrimination and worker safety. Instead, the workers are covered by employment laws in their own countries that U.S. labor officials say are often not as strict.

(Lonewacko notes: But, that's a good thing! China's problem with political dissent results in massive benefits to the U.S economy. Talk about win-win!)

From the NYT comes the article 'Experts See Vulnerability as Outsiders Code Software'

There are several good links about outsourcing here.

Yale Global is a blog about... globalization, and it's from Yale.

A blogging cheerleader of outsourcing is Daniel Drezner. He points to this attempt to a) smear Paul Craig Roberts via a neato ad hominem, and b) incidentally attack his thesis about Ricardo.

I posted the following comment to the Drezner post:

The example given in the &c article about the T-shirts and the software illustrates the fantasy world that those who only look at the bottom line inhabit. This is especially true among libertarians.

What if, for instance, the Chinese or the Indians think developing software is in their long term interests, and even if they can make more money selling T-shirts they decide to concentrate on software? What if they're thinking long-term and trying to make the U.S. lose its edge in software development? What if they want access to as much U.S. information as possible for, let's say, future reference? What if some of them want to insert trojan horses into things? Putting trojan horses into software is a lot easier than doing it with T-shirts.

As a software developer, I realize it's possible to insert difficult-to-detect bugs and trapdoors into software. Look up, for instance, MS's attempts to make it difficult to trace using a debugger portions of MS-DOS (or an early version of Windows, I forget). That was featured in one of those "Undocumented MS-DOS (or Windows)" books. Look up some of the other wacky tricks MS's crack engineers have used, like jumping into the middle of an instruction (turing data into an opcode). Imagine how difficult it would be to detect such trapdoors in a large system like an OS.

Seriously, some of these outsourcing/globalization proponents inhabit a fantasy world similar to that enjoyed by those who go to StarTrek conventions dressed as Ferengi. The ones who aren't delusional make Scrooge look like a short-sighted Catholic Worker.

Posted to Politics at 01:05 AM | Comments (0)

John Lear reveals: Elk deaths caused by "soul catcher" glitch

LONEWACKO HEADQUARTERS OUTSIDE PAHRUMP, NEVADA -- As this blog previously broadcast using our giant antenna, elk have been mysteriously dying near Yellowstone National Park. Almost all possibilities were discarded: "calcium deficiency, chronic wasting disease, bacterial and common viral infections, tick paralysis, meningeal and carotid artery worm as causes..."

This blog is now prepared to announce the real reason for these mysterious deaths. After an exclusive interview with John Lear - son of Lear Jet founder Art Lear - we have determined the cause to be a software glitch - related to Moon Year 3000 - in the software that runs the "soul catcher" apparatus on the Moon. This information had previously only been available to Jimmy Doolittle and other members of the super-ultra top secret level MJ12 - or higher -.

Now, we are able to report this information here.

The cover story provided to the public in order to calm their fears is lichen.

Stay tuned to my giant antenna to hear updates as they are available. If you are using the RonCo wind-up compass, orient yourself facing Orion 3 and tune into Channel 382.

Posted to OutdoorSports at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)

Book: "How to get stupid black women out of office"

Oops! A wee bit of a typographical error there. The book's title is actually "How to get stupid white men out of office":

How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office documents 20 success stories from the past five years of young people who have swung or won elections — from city councils to the Senate — in 16 states, South Korea, and on the Internet.

• Alisha Thomas, a 24-year-old black woman won a state legislative seat in suburban Cobb County, Georgia, the heart of Newt Gingrich country.
• University of Michigan students leveraged a student government election to catapult themselves into and shift the national debate about affirmative action.
• A 21-year-old city council member in Providence, Rhode Island, and a 25-year-old mayor in New Paltz, NY — both Greens.
• Young Native Americans in South Dakota who swung a Senate seat by 528 votes in 2002.
• Ras Baraka, Newark's hip-hop deputy mayor.
• The young Latina campaign manager who beat the Daley machine in Chicago.

How to Get Stupid White Men Out Of Office puts its finger on the pulse of an unprecedented historical moment when the blossoming youth — led political movement — from Seattle to peace to sweatshops to immigrant rights to hip-hop — has awakened and begun to flex its cultural influence and organizing muscle in the nasty new battlefield of electoral politics.

...Editor William Upski Wimsatt created the League of Youth Voters, a political action committee designed to raise awareness amongst younger demographics...

Just keep repeating to yourself: It's not racist, it's true! It's not racist, it's true! It's not racist, it's true!

Posted to MultiCultiCult at 11:38 PM | Comments (0)

Man tries to board plane with seal's head

From this:

The head was apparently checked in by a Colorado man in his 40s, officials said. His identity was not released.

The man, who bound for Denver [sic, I no write like that], told investigators that he is a biology professor and that he had found a dead seal on Revere Beach, officials said. He checked in the head because they didn't think it was appropriate as carrion...

Phwoar!

Posted to WackyHumor at 09:32 PM | Comments (0)

[Belgian] Police search home and office of journalist who exposed fraud

Belgian police search the office of Stern Magazine
correspondent Hans-Martin Tillack

From this:

The Brussels editor of German magazine Stern was released from police custody on Friday.

His release came after ten hours of questioning, said Stern's editor Norbert Höfler.

Mr Tillack was taken into police custody on Friday morning (19 March) after the police raided his office.

The investigation was to do with an allegation of bribery in connection with a case the German journalist wrote about in 2002.

His articles covered alleged irregularities that had been raised by an EU official, Paul van Buitenen, and the related inquiries carried out by the Commission’s anti-fraud office OLAF – and were based on confidential documents...

Mr Tillack’s home was searched by the police, who confiscated material on paper, computers and cell-phones...

Mr Tillack is well-known in Brussels media circles. He was the first journalist to report the investigations into the irregularities of the EU statistical arm, Eurostat, which led to the removal of the responsible officials.

He has lately run stories on MEPs allegedly falsifying signatures qualifying for daily allowances and MEPs employing their wives and family members...

There's another article here, and the Stern response (auf Deutsch) ist hier.

Reporters sans frontieres has a report here.

(Via DailyPundit)

Posted to Politics at 04:07 PM | Comments (0)

Poll: Texans believe illegal immigration is a serious problem

From the AP, discussing the Scripps Howard Texas Poll:

A vast majority of Texans believe illegal immigration from Mexico is a serious problem, but they are split over President Bush's plan to provide undocumented workers with temporary work visas...

Eighty-six percent of those surveyed... said illegal immigration is a very serious or somewhat serious problem. Ni
e percent said it is not very serious and four percent said it is not serious at all.

Meanwhile, 48 percent of the respondents said they favored Bush's plan to allow undocumented workers to stay in the United States for several years working at jobs Americans don't want as long as the immigrants return to their native countries. Forty-five percent opposed the plan.

Bush's plan has the most support among Hispanics, with 55 percent favoring the proposal and 40 percent opposing it. Forty-nine percent of Anglos support Bush's plan and 45 percent are opposed. Fifty-six percent of blacks oppose the plan while 37 percent support it... Sixty-nine percent of Texans said the U.S. government is not doing enough to stop unauthorized immigration.

"Anglos?" But, I digress.

This poll's results would be even more opposed to Bush's plan if more facts about the plan and our laws had been provided.

For instance, consider this: "48 percent of the respondents said they favored Bush's plan to allow undocumented workers to stay in the United States for several years working at jobs Americans don't want as long as the immigrants return to their native countries."

There's no such thing as a "job Americans don't want." There are only wages and conditions Americans won't accept. Most Americans wouldn't sign up for slavery, indentured servitude, or dangerous jobs that should be done by machines.

And, the poll's respondents should have been reminded about birthright citizenship. Those guestworkers will have children, those children will be U.S. citizens, and that means they're not going home.

If those facts had been figured into the poll, there probably would have been 70% opposed to Bush/Fox Amnesty.
There's a more detailed article, complete with quotes from Daniel Griswold and others and a nifty graphic, here. It includes this Griswold chestnut:

"In some ways, it’s a common sense answer," Griswold said. "We have more people here illegally than ever before. What the government is doing to stem illegal immigration has failed."

Bravo Sierra, good buddy. The fact is the government has abandoned workplace enforcement. In FY2002, just 13 (thirteen) companies were fined for violating our immigration laws.

I have a feeling that if Daniel Griswold had lived 150 years ago one of his arguments would be "But, the South's economy will collapse."

Posted to Immigration2003 at 02:04 PM | Comments (1)

More fun with Kerri Dunn

In my earlier post 'Hey Kids! Make your own Hate Industry Rationalization!' I had a bit of fun with the Kerri Dunn untruehatecrime incident at Claremont McKenna Collega.

For a mainly more serious take on this matter, consult these posts at academic blogs: this, this, this, and this.

That last link includes the words of Ms. Dunn herself (MP3 here):

Many people responded with, well you know Professor Dunn, we’ve always been taught that we should be racially blind, and that by not paying attention to it and not calling attention to differences we would minimize them. You know, that’s a beautiful, beautiful, explanation... or should I say, um… all right, piece of shit...

(Applause)

It has absolutely no substance and no utility in society wherein we are founded on diversity. The Statue of Liberty stands every day of all of our lives theoretically welcoming people to this land to become part of us. So to say that we should act like we’re color blind I really believe is an excuse. I believe it’s an excuse to remain lazy, it’s an excuse to turn your head. And it’s an excuse to allow these idiots to continue with their agenda.

(Applause)

< snip >

And I just, you know, I want to end this by saying as a group, we stand here, and we say we’re pro-diversity and anti-hate (applause) and that the people who espouse these hateful ideologies, really, I said earlier today should go underground. What I meant is that they should go to hell.

God help us if she ever becomes a dictator or something.

This post has a bit of fun with it too.

Posted to MultiCultiCult at 11:53 PM | Comments (0)

John Kerry, backwoodsman

Memo to self: marry a rich broad.

At least I know the meaning of irony.

UPDATE: Senator Poochie, to THE EXTREME! He's edgy, he's "in your face." You've heard the expression "let's get busy"? Well, this is a presidential candidate who gets "biz-zay!" Consistently and thoroughly.

UPDATE 2: Updated comments on DaisyGate are here.

Posted to Politics at 11:17 PM | Comments (0)

Evidence, London link found in the Spanish bombings

According to the NYT's 'Spanish Judge Holds 3 Moroccans on Murder Charges':

A Spanish judge ordered Friday that three Moroccans be held on multiple provisional charges of terrorism and murder in the Madrid train bombings, as investigators uncovered new details suggesting that Europe's deadliest terrorist attack in 25 years was carried out on a slim budget by men who used a stolen van and explosives they got free...

...Mr. Zougam is believed to be an important link between a cell of Al Qaeda in Spain and a group of militants aligned with the Moroccan Islamic Combat Group, or GICM, a radical Islamist group blamed for suicide attacks last year in the Moroccan city of Casablanca.

A Spanish investigator said it was still unclear whether Mr. Zougam had placed any of the 13 bombs that were left on four trains or simply coordinated the provision of telephones and other supplies.

But another official said Mr. Zougam had been connected solidly to the plot: in a small cellphone shop that he operated with his brother in Madrid, investigators found a tiny piece of plastic that had broken off from a cellphone that was to have triggered an unexploded bomb recovered by the police.

On Thursday, the police arrested another five suspects, including at least three more Moroccans and a Spaniard. The role of the Spaniard, who has not been identified, may be one of the most striking yet uncovered. Spanish officials said the man was believed to have supplied the Moroccans with the blasting explosives they used in their bombs. According to Spanish news reports, the man was arrested in the northern coastal city of Oviedo and worked at a mine nearby.

But an investigator said the suspect had apparently given the terrorists the explosives free: he had been spent time in jail with one of the Moroccan suspects, to whom he gave more than 200 pounds of Goma 2, a nitroglycerin-based explosive, as a favor.

The bombers also economized on transportation, driving to pick up the explosives in a step van they stole in Madrid on Feb. 28 without apparently bothering to change the license plates, the investigator said...

A senior foreign intelligence official said a Saudi businessman had provided $70,000 to an accused Jordanian terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who Moroccan officials believe had a role in the Madrid bombings. But the Spanish investigator said the initial calculus suggested that the expenses for material in the train bombings could have been less than $1,000, and that the suspects identified thus far appear to have lived very modestly...

There's background information on the attacks at Winds of Change.

From 'Scotland Yard chief reveals London link to Madrid bombings':

Sir John Stevens, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has revealed there is a "definite link" between the terrorists who carried out the Madrid bombings and al-Qa'ida supporters based in Britain...

While he declined to give details of British links with the bombings in Spain, a senior anti-terrorist source revealed that one of the chief suspects in the bombings, a Moroccan man, had visited Britain. Jamal Zougam, 30, is thought to have travelled to London in search of funding and logistical help, including assistance in planning and supplying equipment and false identification papers for the bombers. He is known to have contacted a number of north Africans living in the UK...

One line of inquiry is his connection with the London-based Palestinian cleric Abu Qatada - described by a Spanish judge as Bin Laden's "European ambassador" - and his supporters. The 43-year-old Islamic preacher is being held at the top-security Belmarsh prison in London under anti-terrorism laws. He was granted asylum in Britain 10 years ago.

Another potential British link being investigated is Mr Zougam's involvement with the Syrian cleric Abu Dahdah, who has repeatedly visited this country and has met Mr Qatada. He is in custody in Spain where he is accused of being head of the country's al-Qa'ida network...

'Indians held linked to terrorists' says that the two Indians who were arrested with the three Moroccans mentioned above have been charged. As previously indicated, I believe they're Hindus.

Front Page Mag also has an interview with Victor Davis Hansen: 'Spain's Surrender'

Posted to Terrorism at 09:41 PM | Comments (0)

Mexico asks to help oversee U.S. border protection plan

I put this in the 'Immigration' category, although I think 'WackyHumor' would also work. Story here.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 09:22 PM | Comments (0)

Is it really al-Zawahiri who's surrounded?

According to the about-as-credible-as-Pravda source DebkaFile:

DEBKAfile Reports Exclusively: Pakistan red-faced on discovering “high value” terrorist target its troops surrounded in Waziristan was not bin Laden’s No. 2 Zuwahiri but chief of Pushtun Ahmadi tribal federation. DEBKA sources estimate that any harm to Pushtun chief would spark wholesale tribal war offensive against Pakistan.

Posted to Terrorism at 02:41 PM | Comments (0)

Is Mexico Thwarting U.S. Immigration Enforcement?

From Matt Hayes, an immigration lawyer:

Most people know that Usama bin Laden's terror group, Al Qaeda (Arabic for "the base"), derives its name from the Mujahideen database that bin Laden developed through the 1980s and 1990s. Using "the base," bin Laden could call on a corps of operatives to carry out missions.

There is growing evidence that the Mexican government, in similar fashion, is working with a group called the Instituto de los Mexicanos en el Exterior ("Institute of Mexicans Abroad") to use its matricula consular database to deploy illegals to state legislatures and city councils across America. There, the illegal aliens - Mexican nationals who have been provided a matricula consular card - pack the gallery and seek to apply pressure against legislators who sponsor or intend to vote for bills that enhance immigration law enforcement...

California Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy recalls the floor debate on a California measure, SB 60, which would have allowed illegal aliens in California to qualify for a state driver's license. Referring to the former name of the territory ceded to the United States by Mexico as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, Mountjoy took the floor and said, "This bill paves the road to Aztlan."

"Then everyone in the gallery stood up and applauded," Mountjoy said.

For another example, consider this post where Napa's City Council voted in favor of accepting Matricula Consular cards:

The City Council vote was met with cheers by the audience of about three dozen people, including San Franciso's consul general of Mexico... "I always say the hardest part is getting the first one to do it," said Consul General Georgina Lagos Donde, adding that she hopes the Napa vote influences other cities in Wine Country... "I've already been in touch with the mayors of Sonoma and Petaluma," she said.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 02:31 PM | Comments (0)

High-tech firms warn of devastating job shortage

'Strapped Employers Hope to Expand Visa Program' inform us that high-tech employers are looking for loopholes in the H1-B program. Apparently they're unable to find enough high-tech workers.

Meanwhile:

One out of every four high-technology jobs in developed countries today may be outsourced to emerging markets like India by 2010, according to a report by the research firm Gartner.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 09:39 PM | Comments (0)

Trains explode in Spain; minorities, immigrants hardest hit

From the NYT comes this weepy, Sally Struthersian article about Muslim immigrants in Spain: 'Deep Unease Over the Future Gnaws at Moroccans in Spain'.

They fear they're going to get blamed, etc. etc. All it's missing is a loop of violins.

Consider this excerpt:

For nearly 800 years, the Moors ruled Spain from its southern stronghold, El Andalus, ushering in a period of enlightenment and relative tolerance while the rest of Europe thrashed about in the Dark Ages.

The NYT might want to check out 'The Corrosive Hagiography of Muslim Spain'. "Relative" is definitely the operative word here:

Celebratory announcements July 10, 2003 of a "return of Islam to Spain" marked the completion of the new Granada Mosque. Unfortunately, at a conference entitled, "Islam in Europe" that accompanied the opening of the mosque, some alarming statements were made by European Muslim leaders. For example, the keynote speaker at this conference, Umar Ibrahim Vadillo, a Spanish Muslim leader, implored Muslims to cause an economic collapse of Western economies (by switching to gold dinars, and ceasing to use Western currencies), while the German Muslim leader Abu Bakr Rieger told attendees not to adapt their Islamic religious practices to accommodate European (i.e., Western Enlightenment) values...

The NYT might want to check out this quote from a very well-known Muslim scholar, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi:

Nowadays, the conquest of the other city Romia [Rome] remains unfulfilled. Namely, Islam will return once more to Europe as a conqueror and as a victorious power after it was expelled twice from the continent....I assume that next time the conquest [of Europe] will not be achieved by the sword [i.e., war] but by preaching (_daawa_) and spreading the ideology [of Islam]....The conquest of Romia [Rome] and the expansion of Islam will reach all the areas where the sun shines and the moon appears [i.e., the entire world]....That will be the result of a planted seed and the beginning of the righteous Caliphate's return....[The Islamic Caliphate] deserves to lead the nation to the plains of victory.

According to the NYT, Stalin was relatively tolerant as well.

Posted to Immigration_terror at 09:21 PM | Comments (0)

Spain Declassifies Intelligence Reports on Bombing Probe

From the Reuters:

Spain declassified intelligence reports on Thursday in a bid to show it told the truth about deadly train bombings it initially attributed to Basque guerrillas but which are now suspected to be al Qaeda-linked.

Street demonstrations accusing the government of hiding the truth on election eve were cited as a factor leading to the surprise victory of [the socialists]...

``Since the terrorist massacre, the government has communicated absolutely all the truth to public opinion, without hiding, manipulating or delaying any information,'' government spokesman and Labour Minister Eduardo Zaplana said.

The documents cover the period 3/11 to 3/14. They're online here, however, they're large PDFs and they're in Spanish.

There's also a chronology of events related to the bombing here. That too is in Spanish.

UPDATE: A partial translation is available. See this.

Posted to Terrorism at 08:37 PM | Comments (0)

Mexico joins hands with LAUSD, inserts tentacles

From the L.A. Daily News article 'Mexico joins hands with LAUSD':

Hoping to boost academic performance and lower dropout rates among Latino students, the Mexican government and Los Angeles Unified School District officials announced a joint outreach program Wednesday targeting Spanish-speaking families.

Much of the mostly volunteer program, which could ultimately include a credentialing of LAUSD teachers in Mexico, already exists, but officials hope to expand its reach over the next few years.

Ruben Beltran, Mexico's consul general in Los Angeles, said the partnership will highlight the importance of education among Latinos, who comprise 72 percent of the 750,000 students in the Los Angeles district.

"We want to lower the dropout rate in three or four years," he said. "We want to produce a better environment (for) the Mexican children here..."

The consulate also vowed to increase the number of Spanish-language books it donates to the district and develop more campus-based community plazas, made up of computer banks and homework stations sponsored by Mexican companies.

Currently, North Hollywood High is the district's only school with such a plaza...

The district also hopes to work with the consulate on building a pool of potential teachers in Mexico over the next few years when 140 schools will be built and the demand for credentialed, Spanish-speaking teachers is expected to surge.

It sounds great! And, that's the way it's presented in the Daily News report by Rachel Uranga.

Gosh, could anyone think this might be a bad thing? Could it be possible that allowing a foreign government to spread its propaganda either in the form of books or accredited teachers might cause problems? And, good golly gosh, do you think Mexico might be able to educate their own people? I mean, these are "Mexican children," aren't they? Perhaps Mexico should educate them itself.

Contact the LAUSD Superintendent and politely let him know what you think:

Roy Romer
Superintendent of Schools
Office of the Superintendent
333 S. Beaudry Ave., 24th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90017
Tel: 213-241-7000
Fax: 213-241-8442
superintendent@lausd.net

Posted to Immigration_consul at 02:29 PM | Comments (0)

Management errors devastate LAUSD's food services budget

From the Daily News:

A series of management blunders has turned the once-lucrative Los Angeles Unified School District's food services division into an operation that's lost $72 million in three years and may need a bailout from the cash-strapped general fund, which pays for teachers and other classroom costs...

Mistakes included excessive hiring, administrative errors that led to huge shortfalls in federal aid and adding too many menu items.

The hidden story here is not the probable graft and patronage. It's that past profits seem to have come about partly because they were federally subsidized; current shortfall is partly because they failed to take full advantage of federal subsidies.

Posted to Los_Angeles at 02:06 PM | Comments (0)

Report: Saddam's government stole $10.1B

From the AP:

Saddam Hussein's government smuggled oil, added surcharges and collected kickbacks to rake in $10.1 billion in violation of the United Nations' oil-for-food program, congressional investigators said Thursday.

The estimate, much larger than previous calculations, comes as the United Nations considers expanding its probe into the humanitarian program, which allowed Iraq to sell oil for food and medicine. Other oil sales were prohibited under a U.N. embargo imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990...

So much for the "Sanctions caused Iraqi kids to starve" meme:

Nearly one million children in Iraq are suffering from chronic malnutrition, according to a report by the United Nations Children's Fund.

The Unicef report said children are bearing the brunt of economic hardship in Iraq. The number of malnourished children represents an increase of 72% since international sanctions were imposed on Baghdad...

Just as a rough calculation, 10B divided by a decade divided by 1 million equals $1000 per year per starving child. That's not just eating, that's eating well.

Posted to Iraq at 01:59 PM | Comments (0)

More key endorsements for John Kerry

The NewsMax article 'Malaysia's Jew-Hating Ex-leader Endorses Kerry' has the current run-down:

It turns out that Spain's new soft-on-terror socialist leader, North Korea's communist terrorist dictator, the Arab propagandists of Al Jazeera and the cowardly French aren't the only dubious foreign supporters of John Kerry's presidential campaign.

Mahathir Mohamad, who as Malaysia's soft-on-terrorism prime minister last year urged fellow Muslim leaders to achieve a "final victory" over the Jews who "rule the world by proxy," today endorsed Kerry's effort to defeat President Bush.

See the article for links to each endorsor.

To their list I'd add:

• Gov. Dr. Howard "I'm just repeating what they said" Dean M.D.
• The Right Reverend Al "It could have happened, and that's all that matters" Sharpton
• Antonio Villaraigosa, the former president of the UCLA chapter of the racial separatist organization MEChA

UPDATE: According to Drudge:

KERRY: NO FOREIGN ENDORSEMENTS, PLEASE... Kerry Foreign Policy Advisor Rand Beers issued the following statement today: '...It is simply not appropriate for any foreign leader to endorse a candidate in America's presidential election. John Kerry does not seek, and will not accept, any such endorsements'...

Posted to Politics at 01:51 PM | Comments (0)

Hey Kids! Make your own Hate Industry Rationalization!

The Claremont McKenna College professor who appears to have been the victim of a hate crime is now suspected of perpetrating a hoax.

A hoax? Imagine that, a fake hate crime.

After giving an anti-hate speech, she went out to her car to find the windows smashed and it covered with hate graffitti. Thence followed marches, speeches, sit-ins, sit-downs, stand-ins, repudiations, the airbrushing of photos, posthumous rehabilitations, etc. etc. Now she's suspected of causing all the damage herself.

Let's turn this lemon into lemonade and a fun project!

Let's see who can come up with a Press Release closest to the upcoming Official Rationalization. Using the Language of the Oppressor is OK, just keep it to four paragraphs or less.

Here's a start: the article linked to above is titled 'Professor Suspected of Staging Hate Crime'. The very same AP report is entitled 'Calif. Professor Suspected of Vandalism' in al-Guardian and many other papers.

Posted to MultiCultiCult at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)

Schwarzenegger, Cedillo "working hard together" to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens

Here's a radio interview with CA state Senator Gil Cedillo. He's the author of a bill that would give driver's licenses to illegal aliens. The interview took place on a Spanish-language radio station and was translated by KFI:

Radio host: Respect the Sombrero, the huaraches (leather sandals). But, they don't want to respect us, senator, they don't want to give us licenses. How is this bill coming along, the driver's license bill?

Senator Cedillo: As far as the governor is concerned, everything is all right. We are working hard together. We have an agreement with the governor. There are three important points [that make up this] agreement. One, the governor and I want to give a driver's license to all the immigrants that live in California [and] work here, undocumented people, those who are in the process of legalizing their status. Everyone.

Radio host: Everyone?

Senator Cedillo: Undocumented people, those who are in the process [of legalizing their status]-everyone. That is the first point. Second, we want to give the same license that everyone has.

Radio host: So, no marks? It won't be marked?

Senator Cedillo: That's right. It won't have a different color, no different numbers or letters...

Radio host: So, the governor's office is in agreement with not marking the licenses?

Senator Cedillo: Yes, because he says, "Gil, I am an immigrant."

Radio host: Oh, that's great. He should not forget that.

Senator Cedillo: And the third point is we want to give it as quickly as possible. Why? Because outside of the Capitol, there are politicians, radio hosts on the AM dial...

Radio host: John and Ken.

Senator Cedillo: Yes, exactly. Juan y Ken, Juanito y Ken, who attack our community daily.

Radio host: They say they are ready to pressure Arnold Schwarzenegger so he won't approve your plans and thereby spoil both of your [efforts] to give licenses. Do you think they will be able to do that, senator?

Senator Cedillo: There are more than 70% of voters who today don't want to give any rights, privileges, or responsibilities...

Radio host: How are we going to convince them? How are we going to convince the voters that they need to do it?

Senator Cedillo: I think that, I believe that with this new proposal, [which includes] verification, insurance, Schwarzenegger's strong support [and], possibly, the White House's support, we will be able to present a new law that will be acceptable for all Californians.

Maybe this is all Cedillo's imagination, or some kind of a ploy on his part.

But, if Schwarzenegger is indeed working to give driver's license to illegal aliens, he needs to either stop it or be recalled.

Please contact Schwarzenegger and politely let him know what you think:

Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-445-4633
governor@governor.ca.gov

I called Schwarzenegger's office recently, and I was given information that I don't entirely trust. I tend to think Cedillo's comments are more in line with what's actually happening.

Posted to at 08:26 PM | Comments (1)

"Iraq on the Record"

Rep. Henry Waxman has a new site listing quotations about Iraq: "Iraq on the Record: The Bush Administration's Public Statements on Iraq"

It makes fun reading, as you peruse comments from Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, and Rumsfeld.

Unfortunately, you can't search for statements from Rep. Waxman himself, such as this one:

I agree with [Bush's] conclusion that we cannot leave Saddam to continue on his present course. No one doubts that he is trying to build a nuclear device, and when he does, his potential for blackmail to dominate the Persian Gulf and Middle East will be enormous, and our efforts to deal with him be even more difficult and perilous. The risks of inaction clearly outweigh the risks of action.

(Via DailyPundit)

Posted to Iraq at 02:51 PM | Comments (0)

Is Germany shading the truth about its knowledge of the Spain bombings?

From Deutsche Welle:

In the days following the March 11 terror attacks that killed 201 people in Madrid, Spain's intelligence authorities kept a tight seal on evidence related to the investigation and misled allied intelligence services by providing false information pointing to involvement by the ETA, German public television reported Tuesday...

Three specific complaints are provided:

• the Spaniards said Titadyn was used, then they said it was Goma 2 Eco dynamite: "It wasn't until Monday, a day after Spain's conservative government suffered a surprising loss in the general election, that officials in Madrid admitted Goma 2 explosives were not a type previously used by the Basque separatists."

• "German officials were also not informed until after the election that the detonator found with the explosives was not a type used by ETA."

• "Moreover, after the arrest of three Moroccans and two Indians on Saturday, Spanish authorities continued to tell the German source in Madrid that a connection to Islamic circles could not be confirmed."

As for the third point, has a connection been confirmed? What is the definition of confirmed? Can't an Islamic connection be inferred simply by, let's be honest, their nationalities? Surely the Germans aren't that naive.

As for the second point, see this report from Friday:

"Rucksack bombs used in deadly Madrid train bombings were set off by mobile phone and contained copper detonators, which are not generally used by armed Basque separatist group ETA, a radio station has reported... The Interior Ministry could not immediately confirm the report."

I don't know exactly what time on Friday this was released, but I blogged it at 2pm PST.

So, the Germans might be telling a half-truth about that point. They might not have been informed, but it would appear that information was out there, and Reuters is a well-known news source.

UPDATE: I changed the title from 'Spain Allegedly Misled Germany Over Bombings'.

Posted to Terrorism at 02:02 PM | Comments (0)

Purported Al Qaeda Letter Calls Truce in Spain

This just in from the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades:

A group claiming to have links with al Qaeda said Wednesday it was calling a truce in its Spanish operations to see if the new government would withdraw its troops from Iraq , a pan-Arab newspaper said.

In a statement sent Wednesday to the Arabic language daily al-Hayat, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, which claimed responsibility for the Madrid bombings that killed 201 people, also urged its European units to stop all operations.

"Because of this decision, the leadership has decided to stop all operations within the Spanish territories... until we know the intentions of the new government that has promised to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq," the statement said.

"And we repeat this to all the brigades present in European lands: Stop all operations."

As described here, this same brigade claimed credit for both the Madrid bombings and the recent Northeast blackout. Their credibility is in question.

Posted to Terrorism at 01:45 PM | Comments (0)

Dean: Bush responsible for deaths in Spain

If you thought Howard Dean was just nuts, revise that upwards a few notches to really, really, really nuts:

Former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean said Tuesday that President Bush's decision to send troops to Iraq appears to have contributed to the bombing deaths of 201 in Spain...

Dean referred to the videotape when asked whether he was linking U.S. troops in Iraq to the deaths in Spain.

"That was what they said in the tape," Dean said. "They made that connection, I'm simply repeating it."

Posted to Politics at 01:22 AM | Comments (0)

Al Qaeda Opens First Embassy in Madrid

Developing...

Posted to Terrorism at 01:14 AM | Comments (0)

re: derbyshire

You know how spammers use junk subject lines? Well, I gotta say that "re: derbyshire" is one of the strangest I've yet seen.

Posted to WackyHumor at 12:30 AM | Comments (0)

AP Enterprise: Evidence shows authorities knew since 2001 that key Madrid bombing suspect had contact with accused terrorists

From this:

Spanish authorities knew as early as 2001 that Jamal Zougam, a central suspect in the Madrid bombings, had contacts with accused terrorists linked to al-Qaida, an investigator told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Despite his suspicious ties, Zougam maneuvered with ease in Spain while making extensive contacts with key militants, from the alleged leader of the Spanish al-Qaida cell to a Kurdish guerrilla group in Iraq, according to court documents and wiretapped conversations.

Zougam also traveled back and forth to his hometown of Tangiers, Morocco, which he left on April 20, 2003 -- just weeks before a deadly bombing in Casablanca, Morocco killed 45 people, including 12 attackers.

Zougam was placed under surveillance after the Casablanca bombings, Moroccan officials told AP. He was one of three Moroccans arrested over the weekend after Thursday's bombings in Madrid, which killed 201 people...

Posted to Terrorism at 12:19 AM | Comments (0)

Spain's response to terror

UPI has a "nuanced" analysis of the Spanish elections here:

In fact, Islamist fundamentalists may well think they have won, and that Thursday's slaughter moved the Spanish electorate to vote the way they intended them to. However, believing that would be wrong.

Thanks for your thoughts. However, don't tell us that believing it would be wrong. Tell it to them. See if they believe it.

Posted to Terrorism at 12:17 AM | Comments (0)

Sully fisks al-Guardian

Sully fisks an al-Guardian editorial here. The fisked article is here.

Posted to Terrorism at 12:14 AM | Comments (0)

The French War for Oil

From the NY Post:

In documents I obtained during an investigation of the French relationship to Saddam Hussein, the French interest in maintaining Saddam Hussein in power was spelled out in excruciating detail. The price tag: close to $100 billion. That was what French oil companies stood to profit in the first seven years of their exclusive oil arrangements - had Saddam remained in power.

The French claimed their opposition to the U.S.-led war to oust Saddam Hussein was all about policy. The editor of the Paris daily Le Monde, Jean-Marie Colombani, just resuscitated those arguments in an editorial that singled out George W. Bush as "a threat to the very foundation of the historical alliance between the U.S. and Europe," and called fervently for the election of John F. Kerry. (I guess that F now stands for France.)

But Colombani, whose paper's coverage of the war in Iraq was noteworthy for its wanton disregard for the truth, had not a word to say about his country's war for oil. Indeed, the secret deals the French state-owned oil companies negotiated in the 1990s with Saddam Hussein went widely unreported in France...

Posted to Iraq at 12:12 AM | Comments (0)

Homeland Security official dead in Tucson

This is definitely strange:

FOX 11 News has learned that one of the highest ranking Homeland Security officials in Arizona is dead.

Thomas DeRouchey, interim director of the ICE office in Phoenix, was found dead. But mystery surrounds his death and both local and federal agencies are saying little.

Thomas DeRouchey, interim special agent in charge of the Phoenix Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was on the way to an announcement of a new federal border initiative by Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Asa Hutchinson at Davis Monthan Air Force Base.

DeRouchey was found dead in his car on Interstate 10...

"The firefighters did find him in a car in the median and he was deceased," said Katie Heiden, a spokesperson for Northwest Fire in Tucson.

Heiden confirmed that DeRouchey was alone in the car and a weapon was found in the car...

ICE spokesperson Russell Ahr told the Associated Press that DeRouchey's death occurred in a "one vehicle accident", but local paramedics say they responded to a call of "gun shots" and not an accident. Ahr claimed there was damage to DeRouchey's vehicle.

DeRouchey had been a federal agent since 1988. He was named interim head of the Phoenix office of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office last summer...

He had conducted several recent raids of illegal alien "drophouses" as part of Operation ICE Storm, which was designed to combat illegal alien smuggling.

According to the Arizona Republic:

Virginia Kice, an ICE spokeswoman, said the circumstances surrounding DeRouchey's death are under investigation. The Marana Police Department, however, ruled his death a suicide.

Witnesses saw DeRouchey's government-issued Chrysler Concord swerve out of control about 8:35 a.m. and slam into a median guardrail on I-10 near Tangerine Road in Marana, northwest of Tucson, said Sgt. Tim Brunenkant, a Marana police spokesman.

Marana investigators say DeRouchey apparently died from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head, Brunenkant said. Police did not recover a suicide note from the vehicle, he said.

Now stop that! Laughing at the Marana Police Department is not allowed here.

How about a more realistic explanation? He was engaged in a car-to-car gun battle. If he shot his gun it was at the other car; if he has a self-inflicted wound it was an accidental side-effect of the gun battle. Another possibility is that he was run off the road, shot, and the gun was planted.

Or, someone was in the car with him, either someone he trusted or a kidnapper of some kind.

Or, it could have been an accident, but wouldn't the wound be somewhere other than his head in that case?

I rather doubt that many people have committed suicide while driving down the freeway.

There's more on the Marana PD here:

"A most unusual investigation of a most unusual police department. Cavanaugh began his investigation after a patron of the New West Nightclub, where nearly every member of the Marana Police Department — including the chief — had moonlighted at one time or another, was killed by bouncers. Although authorities ruled the death occurred accidentally as the man was being restrained, witness accounts, as well as 52 injuries on the victim’s body, raise the possibility that it was murder. Using this case as a window into the workings of the local police, Cavanaugh dug for 18 months, examining thousands of pages of documents and developing dozens of sources inside the department and out. The result: an intermittent series that paints a shocking picture of unsavory associations, conflicts of interest, plummeting morale, incompetence, favoritism, witnesses intimidation, and an atmosphere of distrust so severe that officers sometimes felt it necessary to conceal investigative files from their chief. Although most of Cavanaugh’s sources inside the department unfortunately but understandably insisted on remaining anonymous, their accounts are nevertheless convincing both because of their consistency and the way in which they are supported by documents and named sources. Cavanaugh tells his story in a vivid narrative that is fascinating even to this reader living 3,000 miles away. It is a rare investigative story that is both a compelling read and a valuable public service..."

That article appears to be from 2002, because on February 4, 2004 the following article appeared:

A year ago, the Marana Police Department was in far different shape than it's in today.

The department’s chief, David R. Smith, had resigned amid questions over the handling of a homicide investigation.

Shortly after that, a state audit showed staff members had low morale and worried about inadequate training and a lack of communication within the department.

Turning around the employees' outlook and the department's public reputation were big priorities for Richard Vidaurri when he took over as chief of police last February, he said. Today, he feels he's well on his way to meeting that goal.

Oh my.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 11:18 PM | Comments (1)

ANIMAULED! Kangaroo pummels woman in kick frenzy

A kangaroo yesterday.

"He had so much hate in his eyes."

FLAYED
That's what 48-year-old Sylvia Aldren said after being pummeled and flayed by a kangaroo in the Australian state of Queensland.

BEADY EYES
"I can still see his big, beady eyes, like you see in a Martian video," she told the Brisbane Courier-Mail...

CULLING
"I always thought they were cute animals, [but] now I want them culled," Aldren said, according to the report.

PI ATTORNEYS
Ironically, she works for attorneys who specialize in personal-injury cases.

NEEDS AMERICAN LAWYER
"But what am I going to do?" Aldren asks. "Sue a kangaroo?"

Posted to WackyHumor at 10:21 PM | Comments (0)

Score one for John and Ken

KFI's John and Ken Show has apparently been able to stop the use of a house in the small desert community of Phelan as a group home for sex offenders. They broadcast live from Phelan today. Out of date stories on this matter here and here.

Posted to Los_Angeles at 10:14 PM | Comments (0)

"Statement from John Kerry on Reverend Al Sharpton's Endorsement of His Campaign for the Presidency"

The title "Statement from John Kerry on Reverend Al Sharpton's Endorsement of His Campaign for the Presidency" sounds so, well, Soviet.

Don't worry, you can almost hear the snickering in the background:

"Over the course of the past year, I have come to appreciate the warmth and candor Reverend Al Sharpton exhibited in so many primary debates and forums across America. No one can argue with his ability to cut through the double-talk we see coming from this Administration...

"As Al Sharpton has pointed out so many times, in so many places, this Administration's policy toward America's cities has been one of neglect. The unemployment rate for African-American males in New York City is near fifty percent. Three million more Americans have slipped into poverty while George Bush has been in the White House and serious crimes are back on the upswing. Al Sharpton and I agree on the need for a real urban agenda that brings change and progress to America's cities.

Steven Pagones could not be reached for comment.

Posted to Politics at 02:09 PM | Comments (0)

Dean Wheeler on the Spanish elections

Here's a description from a guy who heard a radio interview with Dean Wheeler:

...I never had listened to him before, but he had on a guy named Dean Wheeler (sp?) from the Northern California Peace Symposium (couldn't find it on google). The two of them were talking about the terrorist attacks, and Wheeler had what I hope is a peculiar point of view - He is urging Al Queda to attack the United States sometime before the election so that the American Public can wake up (as the Spanish Public did) and see the disastrous policies of George Bush. This one time strike that he is calling for would hopefully not lead to a great loss of life, could be mostly symbolic, and he believes would lead to Kerry becoming the 44th President of the United States. Once Kerry is in office, Wheeler knows that the new president will take the first real step to making our country safer by sitting across from representatives from Al Queda at the bargaining table and try to reach a consensual agreement that would remove the danger from our country...

Did I mention Dean Wheeler is a character from the Phil Hendrie show? And here you thought that really was a leftie saying that.

(Via Xrlq.com)

Posted to Terrorism at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

"Headscarf ban may cause attack on France"

From this February 25 article:

PARIS: French anti-terrorism experts are taking seriously a new warning from Osama Bin Laden’s right-hand man who accused France of “crusader enmity” for its ban on Muslim headscarves in schools.

Although the Al Qaeda number two, Ayman Zawahri, did not threaten “jihad,” or holy struggle or war, he said the headscarf ban was in the same league as “the burning of villages in Afghanistan, the destruction of houses over the heads of their inhabitants in Palestine, the massacre of children and the theft of oil in Iraq.” Zawahri made the attack in an audiotape that was broadcast Tuesday by Al-Arabiyah satellite television in Dubai.

He called the ban “a new sign of the enmity of the Western crusaders against Muslims even while boasting of freedom, democracy and human rights..."

“It’s an incitement to terrorist action,” said Antoine Sfeir, editor-in-chief of the magazine Les Cahiers de l’Orient, which deals with Middle East issues. He added that Zawahri, “the veritable brain of Al-Qaeda,” sees the headscarf issue as one around which Muslim communities can rally, in France and elsewhere in Europe...

One anti-terrorist expert said the notion of jihad includes the idea that Islam is under attack and needs to be defended. He said the headscarf ban “could be interpreted by radical Islamic militants as a new attack. One can ask whether the statement by Zawahri is not therefore an a priori justification for subsequent actions.”

Today, comes 'France threats linked to scarf ban':

Threats made by a Muslim group against France are linked to a controversial law that bans the wearing of headscarves in state schools, the newspaper that received the threatening letter said.

The two-page letter to Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin "threatens France with reprisal attacks following the February 10 adoption of the law banning the headscarf," Le Parisien news director Christian de Villeneuve said.

Posted to Terrorism at 01:34 PM | Comments (0)

I think we need to spin the results of the Spanish election

From the WaPo editorial 'The Spanish Response':

SPANISH VOTERS no doubt wished to rebuke the ruling Popular Party for its wrong-footed reaction to last week's terrorist bombing in Madrid, and its support for the United States in Iraq. Fair enough -- but it's hard not to be concerned about how the message was likely received outside the country, by the leaders of al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist organizations. Before the bombing, the Popular Party was favored to win comfortably; after the devastating attack, and an al Qaeda statement saying its intent was to punish Spain for its role in Iraq, the election was swept by the opposition -- and its leader immediately pledged to withdraw Spanish troops and cool relations with Washington. The rash response by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spain's prime minister-elect, will probably convince the extremists that their attempt to sway Spanish policy with mass murder succeeded brilliantly...

An editorial in The Scotsman says this among others:

For the first time in modern history, a democracy has put up its hands in front of terrorists and said: "We surrender." Can any thinking person - including the Spanish, when they come to their senses - imagine that having tasted such success, al-Qaeda will abandon its murderous tactics?

It's good to be able to further discredit the left in general or at least the anti-war left. However, it would be better to prevent giving AQ a victory.

One way to prevent that would be for Zapatero to come out strongly against terrorism. Another would be to spin the election as a result of the electorate being supposedly lied to and not as a reaction to the attacks themselves.

The first probably won't happen, and the second is probably false and too nuanced.

UPDATE: In their editorial 'A Vote for Terror,' the NY Post says, among others, "The plain fact is that the Spanish electorate displayed craven cowardice by electing the Socialists..."

UPDATE 2: From the AP report 'After Spain, questions about Nov. election':

...analysts believe the ballot box rebuke of one of President Bush's closest allies in the war in Iraq could embolden terrorists to try the same tactics in the United States to create fear and chaos.

"That's an amazing impact of a terrorist event, to change the party in power," said Jerrold Post, a former CIA profiler who directs the political psychology program at George Washington University.

"The implications of this are fairly staggering," agreed political psychologist Stanley Renshon of City University of New York. "This is the first time that a terrorist act has influenced a democratic election. This is a gigantic, loud wakeup call. There's no one they'd like to have out of office more than George W. Bush."

And, from "Poland, Italy next 'terror' targets?":

"[Germany is] not the number one target at the moment, but because of the German armed forces deployment in Afghanistan and in the Horn of Africa, we are certainly in the Islamists' sights...

I expect that the terrorists will work their way through the U.S. allies. Poland and Italy, which are in Iraq as U.S. allies, are among those in danger."

UPDATE 3: From 'The Fall of Spain?' in Front Page Magazine:

And then the bombings took place – and many Spaniards decided that capitulation is the best part of valor, that mindless fear and manipulation are more powerful than common sense, civic values and pride. Despite public disclaimers by the PSOE leader and next Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a national period of mourning and a declared suspension of the electoral campaign, PSOE operatives in Estremadura and elsewhere were inciting masses of party militants and clueless students to demonstrate against the government. The slogans used tell it all, in full stupidity and mendacity: “We want the truth before voting,” “Our dead, your war,” and “The people does not believe the lies of the PP.” It all sounded as Dennis Kucinich was suddenly cloned.

Posted to Terrorism at 11:47 PM | Comments (0)

"Possible ties to Casablanca bombings invesigated"

This AP report details several links between members of various AQ-related groups, including one of the suspects in the Madrid bombing. There are other links listed here.

Posted to Terrorism at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)

BBC shocked by results of their Iraq poll

An opinion poll carried out in Iraq will make good reading for US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The poll suggests that Iraqis are happier than they were before the invasion, optimistic about the future and opposed to violence...

Seventy percent said that things were going well or quite well in their lives, while only 29% felt things were bad.

And 56% said that things were better now than they were before the war.

Almost half (49%) believed the invasion of Iraq by the US-led coalition was right, although 41% felt that the invasion "humiliated Iraq".

More than three quarters (79%) want Iraq to remain united, and only 20% want it to become an Islamic state.

Other results: when asked which leader they trusted the most, just 0.2% said Ahmed Chalabi; he's not trusted at all by 10.3%. That latter amount is the highest of about 35 others. Saddam's scores were 3.3% and 3.1% in those categories.

72.2% strongly agree that Iraq needs a democracy. While many favor a strongman leader, when asked various combinations, 41.7% favor a democracy with (small-d) democrats combination.

35.6% say they would never speak with other people about politics; 75.3% said they would never join a political party or action group. That might indicate that memories of Saddam's secret police remain.

17.3% think it's acceptable for others to attack coalition forces. 13.2% strongly support the presence of coalition forces and 26.3% somewhat support them. 31.3% strongly oppose them. But, only 15.1% think they should leave now. Only 20% say they've had a personal encounter with coalition forces.

Posted to Iraq at 11:15 PM | Comments (1)

"Political fallout likely to embolden al-Qaida"

From al-Guardian:

For the first time since the 1976 Montreal games, [Olympic] athletes from "high-risk" countries, including Britain, will be accompanied by armed guards.

The Olympics join a long list of potential targets for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida or one of its satellite groups: the Nato summit in Istanbul, the US presidential elections, Britain at any time.

Al-Qaida and its sympathisers will be emboldened by the impact of what is now assumed to be its first attack in western Europe...

If it was al-Qaida, Spain will have become the first country "to have a prime minister owing his position to Bin Laden," said Jonathan Eyal, the director of studies at the London-based Royal United Services Institute...

Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside al-Qaida, one of the most detailed accounts of the organisation to be published, predicted that al-Qaida would be intent on launching an attack in the US during the presidential election campaign. "They realise it will be difficult but they will try to do it. A group like al-Qaida has the ability to infiltrate," he said...

Mr Gunaratna said: "The al-Qaida strategy is to isolate the US because the US has, by building a coalition, weakened al-Qaida. One way to isolate the US is to target the countries helping the US. You can see they have attacked the British in Turkey, the French in Karachi, the Australians in Bali and the Italians in Iraq."

Posted to Terrorism at 09:37 PM | Comments (0)

PETA member prepares for her swirly

Lisa Franzetta, clad in a fur coat, drinks from a toilet in New York's Times Square during a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) protest, March 12, 2004. PETA has made a series of TV ads that show people in fur coats engaging in behaviors that animals may naturally do and the protest was a reenactment of the ads.

(Via PoliBlog)

UPDATE: I like this picture too:

Lisa Franzetta, campaign coordinator for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), wears the Tiger Lady costume to protest the wearing of furs.

(Via this)

Posted to WackyHumor at 08:20 PM | Comments (0)

"Experts fear Spain election will encourage attacks"

From this:

LONDON (Reuters) - Islamic militants will see the defeat of Spain's Popular Party and the country's planned withdrawal from Iraq as a victory for their cause, encouraging more attacks aimed at political ends, security experts say...

"Clearly, they thought very hard about the way in which they might achieve a massive political impact in Spain," said Paul Wilkinson, chairman of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at Scotland's St Andrew's University.

"I think what it shows is that the very sophisticated and ruthless terrorists of the 'new terrorism' variety -- al Qaeda -- do think carefully about having a maximum strategic impact."

[David Claridge, managing director of Janusian Security Risk Management] said: "Amongst the Islamist community there clearly was discussion and thought around Spain as a potential target and Spain being vulnerable to terrorism as a means of causing political change."

Posted to Terrorism at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)

"The persistence of memory"

Tacitus has a good post concerning al Andalus here. See the previous post for some raw material relating to the same topic.

Posted to Terrorism at 02:18 PM | Comments (0)

The "Andalus syndrome"

From 'ANALYSIS-Al Qaeda Hijacks Spanish Election'

If al Qaeda did mastermind Spain's bloodiest bomb attacks, its militants could claim to have caused a spectacular election upset in Madrid, but some analysts said the defeated government only had itself to blame...

"If the al Qaeda network is behind these attacks, then you can certainly say that al Qaeda is responsible for removing the Popular Party from government," said Charles Powell, assistant professor at San Pablo-CEU University...

"If (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair ends up looking lonely (over Iraq) then that's his problem," said Carlos Berzosa, the rector of Madrid's Complutense University. "The Spanish people voted to live in peace."

Christopher Caldwell discussing 'Islam Today' by Cambridge professor Akbar S. Ahmed:

...for Ahmed the ideal model of an Islamic society is Muslim Spain. Which, incidentally, he seems to want back. It was Ahmed who coined the term "Andalus syndrome" to describe the "sense of injustice, of loss, of the cruelty of the world" that results from the realization that Islam does not now control every single scrap of territory it once seized. Needless to say, what Ahmed is expressing is not the human condition but a kind of irredentism peculiar to Islam. (And perhaps universal to it, if we're to judge from the disproportionate anguish that the very existence of Israel seems to occasion.) For all Osama Bin Laden's moaning about the Crusader impulse, it has probably been eight centuries since a Christian last wept over Islam's subjugation of the historically Christian lands of Syria, Anatolia, and North Africa...

(Click 'MORE' directly below to read much more raw material about the "Andalus syndrome")

From 'The Final Saladin':

Saladin's victories marked the turning point in Muslim fortunes because, according to later Islamic historiography, he could be represented as having converted what had merely been a series of fairly small skirmishes between Europeans and Arabs into a grander epic of jihad to repulse "Crusader Imperialism" and extend Islam's borders into the Christians' own backyard. Thus, bin Laden megalomaniacally fantasizes himself a new Saladin, a great captain who will not just repel but will actually crush the Christian West.

Bin Laden is not, as American equivocators would have it, merely annoyed about the America's "colonialist" occupation of Saudi Arabia or Washington's apparent support for Israel. No, his goal is both irrational and unrealistic, which makes it doubly dangerous. Irrational because it cannot be assuaged by "domestic reforms" or US political compromises; unrealistic because it fantasies creating a global Islamist empire. In his historically derived ideological utopianism, if little else, bin Laden is indeed a worthy heir to Hitler and Stalin.

From this:

Avenging the defeats of the past centuries and rebuilding the "umma" are bin Laden's central goals. Striking any country aiding the Anglo-American campaign in Iraq is al-Qa'eda's current priority... All these objectives would be served by attacking Spain.

From this:

Christopher Jones says: "I remember a televised interview with Osama (very possibly one of the first) where he even had a world map à la Hitler, in which the Islamic world and its future lebensraum was colored, you guessed it, in green. Al Andalus was very clearly seen in that color. Of course, there has always been some problems with the translation". RH: I am sure that Osama speaks for a lot of people in the Arab world.

From this:

What's it have to do with Spain? Virginia Postrel proposes a "Bin Laden Doctrine": "that no Muslim territory should ever become non-Muslim." Bin Laden opened his videotaped statement with this sentence: "Let the whole world know that we shall never accept that the tragedy of Andalusia would be repeated in Palestine. We cannot accept that Palestine will become Jewish." The "tragedy of Andalusia" refers to the conquering in 1492 of the Muslim Kingdom of Granada by the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella. It was a central moment in the Islamic empire's quest for political and military power: Muslim expansion was not just checked; it was reversed. If Bin Laden truly wants to restore the original geographic dimensions of the caliphate, he may eventually look toward Spain. Of course, it's possible that Bin Laden's goals are more modest (modest being a relative word).

Here's an excerpt from Akbar S. Ahmed's 'Living Islam':

Muslims have yet to discover how to use the media to project ideas and images of their own culture and civilization. A perfect example comes from Muslim Spain. Although the King of Spain has dutifully apologized to Jews for what his ancestors did to them in the fifteenth century with the fall of Granada, he has not apologized to Muslims. It is known that he is keen to build bridges but still awaits a Muslim initiative on the matter. From this it appears that Muslims who are so acutely aware of the loss of Andalusia in their popular literary culture find it difficult to translate this into realpolitik and international diplomacy. The failure to do so has cost them heavy. They are always lagging behind in the world, and the injustices inflicted on them are barely mentioned.

From this:

The real issue, as Bernard Lewis has argued, is that Islamist terrorists and their sympathizers are in permanent and furious denial of the state of the contemporary Muslim world. We are getting close to Al Qaeda's real motivation, I believe, when bin Laden's chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, swears that "the tragedy of al-Andalus"--that is the reconquest of Spain by Christians, completed in 1492--must not be repeated. The Islamic world, once a united empire boasting the world's most advanced culture, is today a patchwork of mostly poor, despotic states that lag behind the rest of the world in political, economic, and cultural development. Modern Islamists are drastically out of step with the modern world; they know it and they hate it. They cannot be placated by any change in American policy, whether reasonable or far-fetched. They can only be satisfied by the reestablishment of an Islamic caliphate, governed by sharia, from Morocco to Indonesia. As such, American strategy in the "war on terrorism" (better described as a war on members of Al Qaeda and affiliated groups) is justifiably one-pronged, with that prong being the killing or capturing of Islamist militants.

From this:

...on Thursday, a muezzin is calling Spanish Muslims to prayer at the first mosque to be opened in Granada since the reconquista, the culmination of a 22-year-old project that has been plagued by controversy.

For those who built the Great Mosque of Granada, which looks out onto the once highly symbolic Alhambra Palace, its inauguration - attended by a string of Muslim and non-Muslim dignitaries - heralds a new dawn for the faith in Europe.

"The mosque is a symbol of a return to Islam among the Spanish people and among indigenous Europeans that will break with the malicious concept of Islam as a foreign and immigrant religion in Europe," says Abdel Haqq Salaberria, a spokesman for the mosque and convert to Islam.

"It will act as a focal point for the Islamic revival in Europe."

...At a time when the Islamic faith is viewed with some suspicion within Europe, Spanish Muslims are hoping to remind the continent of the vast cultural and intellectual contribution made by the Moors, to art and architecture, astronomy, music, medicine, science, and learning.

Their rule is also seen by some historians as an example of religious tolerance in medieval Europe.

The Moorish period in southern Spain saw Muslims and Jews living side-by-side. The city of Cordoba became a cultural centre for both faiths, while universities sprang up in cities across Andalucia. Trade and industry also flourished.

From 'The Corrosive Hagiography of Muslim Spain':

Celebratory announcements July 10, 2003 of a “…return of Islam to Spain” marked the completion of the new Granada Mosque1. Unfortunately, at a conference entitled, “Islam in Europe” that accompanied the opening of the mosque, some alarming statements were made by European Muslim leaders. For example, the keynote speaker at this conference, Umar Ibrahim Vadillo, a Spanish Muslim leader, implored Muslims to cause an economic collapse of Western economies (by switching to gold dinars, and ceasing to use Western currencies), while the German Muslim leader Abu Bakr Rieger told attendees not to adapt their Islamic religious practices to accommodate European (i.e., Western Enlightenment) values.

From Senator Joe Biden's Address to the People’s Congress of Libya:

Consider this: the combined gross domestic product of all Arab countries in 1999 was less than that of a single European country – Spain. Think about that for a moment. And then think back a thousand years. Spain was part of a great Arab empire which encompassed most of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Why did you thrive then? It was not your armies alone. It was your ideas, your civilization, your culture, your openness. Why has this one small territory – then called Al Andalus, now called Spain – outpaced the rest of the Arab world combined today.

From this transcript of OBL's 'Letter to America':

What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?

...The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.

...You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire...

Not related to Spain, but informative nonetheless, is 'Bin Ladin: The Man Who Would Be Mahdi':

The first step in dealing with any self-proclaimed Mahdi would be for the United States and its Muslim allies to rely on Muslim scholars, preferably practicing Muslims themselves, to denigrate Mahdist claims, by portraying Mahdism as a kind of superstition, and by pointing out incompatibilities between the Mahdist claimant and the hadiths.

From 'History points finger at revenge for lost Moor kingdom':

Is Osama bin Laden dreaming of exacting revenge for the loss of Al-Andalus, the ancient Moorish kingdom in Iberia?

...While the authentiticy of the message [from the Abu Hafs brigade taking credit for 3/11] is open to doubt, there is no question that it reflects the thinking of Islamists, who hold that any land which has once been part of the Muslim community should forever remain under Muslim rule...

From Mark Steyn:

If Islamic terrorism were as rational as Irish or Basque terrorism, it would be easier. But Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah, summed it up very pithily: "We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you." You can be pro-America (Spain, Australia) or anti-America (France, Canada), but if you broke into the head cave in the Hindu Kush and checked out the hit list you'd be on it either way.

So the choice for pluralist democracies is simple: You can join Bush in taking the war to the terrorists, to their redoubts and sponsoring regimes. Despite the sneers that terrorism is a phenomenon and you can't wage war against a phenomenon, in fact you can – as the Royal Navy did very successfully against the malign phenomena of an earlier age, piracy and slavery.

Or you can stick your head in the sand and paint a burqa on your butt. But they'll blow it up anyway.

From Andrew Sullivan:

But there's another obvious reason for the targeting of Spain. It was once in part a Muslim-controlled country. The agenda of bin Laden and other Islamo-fascists is to reconquer those regions in Europe and the former Soviet Empire for a new Islamic Reich.

From 'What Does Osama Bin Laden Want?':

Is there anything we can do to persuade Bin Laden to stop? The terror groups Americans are familiar with—Palestinian bombers and hijackers, IRA hard men—have desires we understand. They perform acts of terror in order to gain sympathy or sow fear. That sympathy or fear is a means to their end: political recognition, a state, compensation. They seek to participate in our world.

But Bin Laden and his followers are alarming because they don't want anything from us. They don't want our sympathy. They want no material thing we can offer them. They don't want to participate in the community of nations. (They don't really believe in the nation-state.) They are motivated by religion, not politics. They answer to no one but their god, so they certainly won't answer to us.

From 'After 500 years, Granada's Muslims get their mosque':

And history is alive in the memories of Muslims. The yearning for a return to Islam's cherished province of Al-Andalus is often the subject of Islamic poetry.

Osama bin Laden has frequently mentioned the Muslim claim on the territory that for many symbolises the apex of Islamic learning and culture.

Although widespread Spanish opposition to the project has subsided recently, nonetheless it took 22 years for the Granada city authorities to grant permission for the building, the first mosque built for native Spanish Muslims rather than immigrants since the reconquista.

Looking out across the Sierra Nevada mountains and the Alhambra, Abdul Haqq, 42, a Basque who converted to Islam 12 years ago, said: "Granada has historically been the capital of European Islam. Some people convert because of their search for their roots - others like me joined as a matter of faith."

At first, locals fiercely opposed the project. Proposals for an elegant building at the heart of Granada's oldest district, the old Muslim quarter, resulted in graffiti such as "Moros fuera" ("Moors out!").

From OBL's 10/03 speech:

"We reserve the right to retaliate at the appropriate time and place against all countries involved, especially the UK, Spain, Australia, Poland, Japan and Italy, not to exclude those Muslim states that took part, especially the Gulf states, and in particular Kuwait, which has become a beachhead for the crusading forces."

Posted to Terrorism at 01:50 AM | Comments (0)

Madrid Suspect Linked to 9/11 Figure

From the AP:

MADRID, Spain (AP)--One of the three Moroccans arrested in the Madrid train bombings is linked to a suspected al-Qaida member jailed in Spain for allegedly helping plan the Sept. 11 attack in the United States, according to court documents reviewed by The Associated Press. It was the latest suggestion that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist group may have been involved in the bombings.

A Sept. 17, 2003 indictment mentions Jamal Zougam, 30, as a ``follower'' of Imad Yarkas, the alleged leader of Spain's al-Qaida cell who was jailed for allegedly helping plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. Zougam has been arrested in the Madrid bombings. Yarkas, who has used the alias Abu Dahdah, remains in Spanish custody...

Spain's El Pais newspaper, citing the interior ministry, reported all three Moroccans have links to Yarkas...

The interior ministry identified the two Indian suspects as Vinay Kohly and Suresh Kumar.

The five were arrested after a cell phone and prepaid card were found in an explosives-filled gym bag on one of the bombed trains.

Friends of the Moroccans said the Madrid store where they worked sold cell phones but they insisted that the men would not have been involved in planning or carrying out the attacks.

I might be wrong, but based on their names I don't think the two Indians would be Muslims.

Posted to Terrorism at 02:56 PM | Comments (0)

Spanish socialists declare victory

Apparently, the socialists in Spain have declared victory. Analysts from the The Neville Chamberlain Institute for World Peace (calpundit.com/archives/003489.html) could not be reached for comment.

From this:

Many voters blamed outgoing Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's staunch support of the U.S.-led war in Iraq for [the terror attacks]. The government's initial response to the attacks further fueled popular anger, generating accusations that it had withheld information and attempted to manipulate public opinion about the terror attacks before the elections...

The ruling party's loss brings to power a party that was deeply opposed to the U.S.-led war against Iraq and that has promised to withdraw Spain's 1.300 troops there, unless there is a new United Nations mandate. The Socialist Party leader, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, has also promised to re-orient Spain's foreign policy, away from Aznar's strong embrace of the Bush administration and instead seek new friends from among Spain's anti-war European neighbors.

Before Thursday's attacks, the Popular Party had been comfortably ahead in the polls...

"I was going to vote for one side, and now I ended up voting for the other because of the attacks," said one voter, Manuel Yunta. "The thought that it could be al Qaeda behind the attacks changed my vote, because I blame the government for the massacre..."

And, from this:

Up to 7,000 demonstrators took to the streets on Saturday and accused the Popular Party (PP) of lying about who was responsible... The Spanish electoral commission said it had filed a lawsuit on behalf of the party claiming that the protests constituted a bid to influence voters on the eve of the election.

It's OK, the "liberals" have won, and there will be peace in our time.

Posted to Terrorism at 02:36 PM | Comments (0)

Magers "angered" over 'Hot Property' item, sources say

Our sources indicate that new KCBS anchor Paul Magers was "angered" by the January 'Hot Property' item in which sources reported that "Magers had purchased a 6,700-square-foot, Mediterranean-style villa in Beverly Hills for $6.5 million."

"Some parts [of the item] were wrong," sources reported Magers as saying.

Posted to Los_Angeles at 12:44 PM | Comments (0)

Spain to announce Muslim arrests over bombs

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's Interior Minister Angel Acebes is set to announce the arrest of at least four Muslims in connection with a series of deadly bombings in Madrid, the web site of newspaper El Mundo says.

According to El Mundo, they've arrested three Moroccans and two East Indians, and they're questioning two Spaniards of East Indian ancestry. They had some sort of tie to the prepaid cellular phone found with the unexploded backpack bomb.

'Morocco struggles to tamp down radical Islam' has some background. It mentions the Salafia Jihadia group, which was responsible for the May 2003 bombings in Casablanca. The supposed masterminds of that group were arrested a few months before the bombings. 'Cyanide plot suspects linked with terror groups' mentions Moroccans arrested in Italy; they're suspected members of two other AQ linked groups. They apparently had cyanide and were trying to dig a tunnel into the U.S Embassy. This editorial mentions the Algerians arrested in London with ricin.

'Suspected Moroccan terrorists 'had map of London' says: "They were detained after officers found a kilogram of explosives and several maps in a building where the men were staying in the Rovigo, near Venice... Reports said the maps included plans of Padua's Basilica del Santo, the Nato base in Verona and London... A religious leader of Rovigo's Muslim community was among those arrested..."

This page has a chronology of arrests of Muslim terrorists in Spain.

The AP report 'Al-Qaida's tentacles sweep through nearly every major attack since Sept. 11' says:

— MOROCCO: Of the more than 900 people arrested after five nearly simultaneous suicide attacks on Jewish and Spanish targets in Casablanca on May 16, the government said 100 told interrogators they received training in Afghanistan. At trial, 20 confessed openly to passing through the Afghan camps, including Nouredine Nfia, alias Abu Mouad, who admitted in court to going to Afghanistan ''for combat training against the enemies of Islam and apostates.''

The prosecution claimed that Nfia met personally with al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and trained at the al-Farouq camp near the eastern Afghan city of Khost. The Moroccan government says it is certain of a link between the homegrown Salafiya Jihadia group accused in the bombings and al-Qaida. Moroccan officials say some 300 so-called ''Moroccan Afghans'' are believed to have returned home from the camps...

Posted to Terrorism at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)

Files raise possible al-Qaeda link to blasts

From the SMH via AFP:

Norwegian defence researchers had come across documents that could link al-Qaeda to the Madrid train bombings that killed 199 people, Norwegian television reported today.

Researchers with the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment who have specialised in digging up original al-Qaeda releases and interviews, told the NRK television channel they had discovered a document on an Arabic website last year outlining al-Qaeda strategies on how to force the United States and its allies to leave Iraq, and pointing to Spain as the "weakest link".

"It wasn't until yesterday when we were going through old material to find links to Spain that we understood what we were holding in our hands," project leader Brynjar Lia told NRK.

"We mainly had the impression that [the documents] referred to the situation in Iraq, but on closer examination we saw that they specifically refer to Spanish domestic politics and elections," due this Sunday, he added.

According to the TV report, page 42 of the Arabic document reads: "We have to make use of the election to the maximum. The government at the most can cope with three attacks."

The document also reportedly predicts that the other partners in the US-led coalition would follow like "pieces of domino" if Spain were to withdraw from Iraq...

It seems a bit tenuous; there's no real direct link between their old statements and the current attack.

Posted to Terrorism at 10:36 PM | Comments (0)

The Center for Science in its Own Interest?

Calpundit links to the L.A. Times report about a food product called "Quorn." It's a meat substitute brewed in vats out of some space bacteria or caterpillars or something messy and yucky like that:

The product is Quorn, a fungus-based meat substitute that millions of Europeans have eaten for years. It entered the U.S. market in 2002 to rave reviews by consumers, but was quickly met with a dogged anti-Quorn campaign by an influential consumer group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Michael Jacobson, the CSPI's executive director, claims that Quorn, which he derisively terms an "odious" "mold"-based product, makes people ill � and he wants every last nugget expunged from American soil.

He has started a "Quorn complaints" website, published anti-Quorn letters in medical journals and petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to yank the product...

The CSPI's first action against Quorn was to file a deceptive labeling complaint with the FDA. The American Mushroom Institute and Gardenburger, a maker of meatless soy and mushroom patties, enthusiastically joined the protest...

There appears to be some kind of a link between CSPI and Gardenburger, as this article and this point out:

CSPI appears to have an unsavory relationship with Quorn competitor, Gardenburger -- a company that rails against Quorn on its Web site and pesters the FDA.

CSPI regularly promotes Gardenburger products on its Web site and publications.

In the April 1998 issue of its newsletter, for example, CSPI stated: "Remember the saturated fat and the E.coli bacteria that could be hiding inside [a hamburger]? You can keep the taste but forget the worries with Gardenburger."

CSPI recently spotlighted Flame Grilled Hamburger Style Gardenburgers as a "favorite" that "taste like they're hot off the coals."

Posted to Miscellania at 09:14 PM | Comments (1)

More on the "Koran van"

Here's more information on the white van found outside Madrid:

SPANISH police last night established a direct link between the white “Koran van” and an unexploded train bomb in Madrid...

Investigators found a mobile phone in the van — and have proved a link to another phone found in a sports bag packed with explosives on the train that was ripped apart at El Pozo station...

But sources close to Spanish authorities said they were still keeping an open mind as the Koran tape could have been planted as a smokescreen...

Last night a witness came forward to say he had seen three indivduals emerging from the van with their hair and mouths masked.

In Madrid, theories were gathering pace that ETA could have been working in league with Islamic terrorists...

But the holdall that did not explode contained explosives often used by Basque terrrorists...

A caller said [ETA] “has no responsibility whatsover for the Madrid attacks”. In the past it has been ready to admit its involvement...

Perhaps it wasn't meant to be this deadly, or perhaps their attempts to warn about the bombs beforehand hit a snag. They probably wouldn't take credit in those cases.

See earlier posts here and here.

There's also more on recent ETA activity in 'Recent incidents steer suspicion toward ETA'.

There's a Wiki on the attack here.

UPDATE: The NYT report 'Officials Still Divided on Whom to Blame for Madrid Bombings' has no new information except for this: "The ["Koran van"] also contained some documents in Arabic and an audiotape of readings from the Koran that one official said referred to the education of children."

The van appears to have been definitely linked to the bombing. While Arabic tapes are probably quite easy to obtain in Spain, the documents might be more difficult to get. If they're something that's easy to obtain that's one thing. But, if they're handwritten or custom-printed documents it might favor involvement by someone who speaks Arabic. Note, however, that the van was stolen, so they might have belonged to the van's owner.

Posted to Terrorism at 08:36 PM | Comments (0)

Feudalism: It's back, it's hot, and it's hip!

As previously posted, The Lonewacko Blog got a 20 score on its annual Libertarian Purity Test taking. That puts me in just absolutely wonderful company alongside some truly wonderful "liberals."

The Lonewacko Blog would like to make it perfectly clear that we are neither "liberal" nor statist, we are just realists.

You can find out where various blogger score here.

(Link via Xrlq.com)

Posted to Politics at 08:27 PM | Comments (0)

"Iraq Spy's Dem Ties Obscured in Press Reports"

There's more on media coverage of Susan Lindauer here:

Of the 120 main press reports so far on Lindauer's arrest yesterday, only 12 expressly identified her former employers as Democrats...

Posted to ThePeaceMovement at 04:27 PM | Comments (0)

The Heinz Foundation is centrist, dontchaknow

The N.Y. Post's editorial "(Mrs.) Kerry's Cash Connection" discussed how Heinz money was donated to the Tides Foundation, which then supports groups like "September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows:"

Indeed, the group's leaders traveled to Afghanistan, drawing a detestable moral equivalence between the 9/11 attacks and U.S. bombing of the Taliban and opposing "violent responses to terrorism."

Then, before the onset of Operation Iraqi Freedom, a Peaceful Tomorrows delegation went to Baghdad to "demonstrate solidarity" with Iraqis - a move that Saddam's deputy, Tariq Aziz, termed at the time "a very important international development."

They also demanded that Congress set up a $20 million fund to compensate Afghan "victims" of the U.S. military.

And back in January 2003, the group said had it had gotten a "verbal commitment" to the fund proposal from the junior senator from Massachusetts - John F. Kerry.

Little surprise there - because Peaceful Tomorrows' parent group, the San Francisco-based Tides Foundation, has received millions from foundations controlled by Kerry's heiress wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry.

A spokesman for Kerry insists that her donations to Tides were earmarked specifically for environmental charities based in Pennsylvania. But money is fungible - and the Tides Foundation has a lot more than greening the earth on its plate...

The President of The Heinz Endowments disputes the Post's allegation, specifically the part about the fungibility of money: "Heinz Endowments: Hardly Extremist."

The Post defines fungibility for him in "Mrs. Kerry's Proxy Protests:" "...dedicated grants from Heinz Endowment money have the effect of relieving the Tides Foundation of the need to raise money for other expenses and commitments. That's the standard meaning of the widely used assertion that "money is fungible."

Posted to Politics at 04:25 PM | Comments (0)

ETA, AQ, or ?

'Who's responsible - Eta or al-Qa'eda?' has some ideas, as does 'Was it ETA or Al Qaeda?'. 'Al Qaeda has had a long presence in Spain' has some background.

'Madrid detonators not commonly used by ETA - report' might be significant if true:

Rucksack bombs used in deadly Madrid train bombings were set off by mobile phone and contained copper detonators... Cadena Ser radio station quoted security sources as saying the bombs, which blew up on four trains killing 198 people, were activated by mobile telephones which had had their alarms set for 7:39 a.m. (6:39 British time) on Thursday.

The detonator in an unexploded bomb recovered by police contained a copper detonator whereas the detonators commonly used by ETA are made of aluminium...

The Interior Ministry could not immediately confirm the report.

Note also: 'In Spain: ETA and Al-Qaeda Forge New Anti-EU Alliance'. It's from October 1, 2001, and it says: "The Basque terrorist organization ETA and bin Laden's al-Qaeda cells have joined forces. Their shared goal: to organize and carry out an attack on the EU meeting scheduled for March 2002 in Barcelona..." However, no links to the original Spanish reports on which that report is based are provided.

This page has more AQ links to Spain, including the following:

Spanish authorities now fear that the Islamist and Basque radicals have formed an alliance of sorts. Some ETA terrorists visited the same Middle Eastern training camps as a number of Islamic extremists. Representatives from ETA and Osama Bin Laden reportedly met in Brussels, but there were frictions after the Islamic fundamentalists refused to continue the meeting in the presence of a Basque woman who preferred to stay. Spanish sources claim that Mohammed Atta, the suicide pilot from Hamburg who was the first to fly into the World Trade Center in New York, also tried to forge links between al-Qaeda and ETA terrorists. Just before Christmas 1999, ETA planned an attack on the Picasso Tower in Madrid. The American architect of the Picasso Tower was Minoru Yamasaki, who also designed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan; but it is not clear whether ETA got the idea from Muslim extremists...

This Pravda report discusses a new Basque separatist group:

The new Basque militant group Euskal Borroka promises to expel Spaniards from territories that "are not theirs." The motto is The Basque country is for the Basques.

Euskal Borroka means "Basque fight" and this new group appears to be one of the most militant, if not the most, to have appeared in recent years. The new group speaks in terms of "ethnic cleansing", sending the non-Basques out of the Basque country to Spain.

In a letter addressed to councillors of the Partido Popular (PP, government), Euskal Borroka invited the "colony inhabitants of the municipalities" to voluntarily leave the Basque country because they are "occupying territory which is not theirs and which they hold be force of arms". The letter adds that all efforts will be made to expel the non-Basques from the territory.

'Spain Links Suspect in 9/11 Plot to Baghdad' discusses Muslim convert and AQ suspect Yusuf Galan; he was "also said to have monitored an election for Spain's radical pro-Basque independence party Herri Batasuna in 1989". This page seems to have more links.

UPDATE: See 'The explosive and the detonators of the pumps are not habitually used by ETA'. It says the bombs ("pumps" in the translation) aren't Titadine... (via this).

Posted to Terrorism at 02:15 PM | Comments (2)

"Why stop with 14-year-olds?"

Here's an OC Register editorial on John Vasconcellos' attempt to get the vote to 14-year-olds:

First of all, a significant number of California's high school graduates are already functionally illiterate, so extending rights to other cognitively challenged citizens seems only fair. Furthermore, voters in Depends constitute one of the fastest-growing classes of enfranchised citizens in the Golden State. Allowing Pampers people equal access thus can be seen as a logical extension of the basic democratic principle that government has no business peering into people's underwear...

Previous coverage of this matter starts here.

Unfortunately, my statement about most people just playing this for laughs still holds. There must be some reason why he wants to change "entitled" to "authorized" and hopefully we'll find out before it's too late to do anything about it.

Posted to California at 12:57 PM | Comments (0)

"Accused spy is cousin of Bush staffer"

This is just laugh-out-loud funny. The headline of an AP report on this matter is "Accused spy is cousin of Bush staffer." Now, of course, the way this works is many people will just see the headline, or their view of this matter will be greatly influenced by it. They won't bother to note that all of her public employers have been Democrats and she's been active in the "peace" movement.

And, note that this headline is direct from the AP. Only the website for the TV station KGW changed the headline (to 'Woman accused in spy case worked as journalist, congressional aide').

The papers that ran this story with the AP headline are the following. I've tried to determine the correct contact person for each paper.

AJC (insideajc@ajc.com)

phillyburbs.com (ksmith@phillyburbs.com)

al Guardian (editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk)

Newsday (foreign@newsday.com)

Mlive.com (form)

The Ledger (lenore.devore@theledger.com)

Wilmington Morning Star (tim.griggs@starnewsonline.com)

AL Times Daily (mike.goens@timesdaily.com)

Worcester [MA] Telegram (llamson@telegram.com)

Tuscaloosa News (danny.dejarnette@tuscaloosanews.com)

Contact them by clicking on or copying this link. Bear in mind that the article's author, Matthew Daly, may or may not have written the headline. And, bear in mind that the papers that ran it as-is may have some kind of an automated system or something.

(Via Slings and Arrows)

Posted to ThePeaceMovement at 09:26 PM | Comments (0)

The tale of the delusional peacenik

Coverage of Susan Lindauer is in 'U.S. woman charged with spying for Iraq', 'How Susan Lindauer Was Caught', this, this, and this. The indictment is here. An email that appears to be from her is here.

From this article:

"I'm an anti-war activist and I'm innocent," Lindauer told WBAL-TV as she was led to a car outside the Baltimore FBI office. "I did more to stop terrorism in this country than anybody else. I have done good things for this country. I worked to get weapons inspectors back to Iraq when everyone else said it was impossible. I'm very proud and I'll stand by my achievements."

Apparently the person she tried to tell about her Iraq connections was Andrew Card.

The preliminary position of The Lonewacko Blog is that she is a delusional peacenik who thought she was going to broker a peace deal. If all she got was $10,000 it can't have been for the money, especially because that appears to have been for expenses. The fact that she approached someone about her links to Iraq indicates that she thought what she was doing was OK or would be seen as OK. If it's true that she turned over the names of Iraqi dissidents to the Iraqis that would tend to work strongly against the delusional dupe thesis.

UPDATE: For a laugh-out-loud report on this case, see the next post.

UPDATE 2: The NYT's report is entitled 'An Antiwar Activist Known for Being Committed Yet Erratic':

Susan P. Lindauer wore her liberal politics on her sleeve, as well as on her aging Mazda, where bumper stickers proclaimed her unabashed opposition to the Iraq conflict...

Joe Copeland, who supervised Ms. Lindauer in 1989 when she wrote editorials for The Everett Herald in Everett, Wash., said she was "the most liberal member of the editorial board at the time." Although he found Ms. Lindauer bright and pleasant, Mr. Copeland said, she also could be erratic, disappearing for long unexplained periods of the day.

"I certainly saw some signs of flakiness," he said...

UPDATE 3: There's much more than you ever wanted to know about Ms. Lindauer in this "she was the quiet type" type of article from one of the papers where she used to work.

Posted to ThePeaceMovement at 04:39 PM | Comments (0)

Detonators and Arabic Tape of Verses From Koran Found Near Madrid

From the wires:

Police probing the Madrid terrorist attacks found a van with detonators and an Arabic-language tape with Koranic verses, and officials said they were not ruling out any line of investigation.
The van was found in the town of Alcala de Henares outside Madrid after a tip from neighbors. On the front seat police found seven detonators and the tape...

Three of the trains bombed Thursday originated in Alcala de Henares, and one passed through it...

UPDATE: Then there's this:

DUBAI (Reuters) - A letter purporting to come from Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network claimed responsibility for the train bombings in Spain on Thursday, calling them strikes against "crusaders," a London-based Arabic newspaper said. "We have succeeded in infiltrating the heart of crusader Europe and struck one of the bases of the crusader alliance," said the letter which called the attacks "Operation Death Trains." There was no way of authenticating the letter, a copy of which was faxed to Reuters' office in Dubai by the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper.

The letter bore the signature "Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades." The newspaper received similar letters from the same brigade claiming responsibility on behalf of al Qaeda for a November bombing of two synagogues in Turkey and the August bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad.

However, the same brigade has apparently made false or unsubstantiated claims in the past. They were one of three groups claiming credit for a Turkish bombing. They falsely claimed responsibility for the recent Northeast blackout.

On the other hand, the bombs were probably made with titadine, a form of compressed dynamite. This is referred to as an "ETA trademark." The ETA stole some titadine along with a Breton group in 1999. See also this and this.

More on this incident here. This article has quotes from a Janes analyst supporting the ETA theory, but other information not ruling out it being AQ or even a combination of the two groups.

Posted to Terrorism at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)

Is a space alien battle taking place near Yellowstone National Park?

LONEWACKO HEADQUARTERS OUTSIDE PAHRUMP, NEVADA -- Are one group of space aliens - code named 'Zerbians' by ultra-top-secret besuited government scientists - fighting another group of space aliens - code named 'Realians' by that same group of top-secret spooks-?

Have the Zerbians - disguised as elk and located near Rawlins Wyoming in the northwest part of the United States - been affected by chemical agents specifically targeting their DNA? Why have no other space aliens disguised as animals been affected? Why have the crop circles in the area suddenly changed their submodulation characteristics?

Steve Quayle and Earthfiles are demanding answers.

Here is the Intergalactic cover story:

The number of elk dying from a mysterious affliction continues to climb. With nine more reported dead in the past week brings the total to 289, according to Tom Reed of the Wyoming Game and Fish department...

"They were given all kinds of supplements and still died so we've pretty much eliminated some type of deficiency," Reed said.

"We're still keying in on some sort of toxin. Many things have been eliminated like insecticides. It's a slow process but eventually something will just pop up," Reed said. [yet again -- LW]

Personnel have now ruled out calcium deficiency, chronic wasting disease, bacterial and common viral infections, tick paralysis, meningeal and carotid artery worm as causes. Mercury poisoning, selenium toxicity, many of the common plant toxins, a variety of metals and salt, nitrate and sulfate poisoning have also been eliminated.

Another thing officials have dismissed is that someone ran the animals to death. Reed said [yet again one more time --LW] that theory is pretty much off the table.

I will broadcast updates to this story using my giant antenna. Orient yourself at compass heading 89 degrees (heading 76 degrees if you're using the new windup compass) and tune to channel 492.

If you're west of the Rockies, please leave a comment. East of the Rockies, use this website's trackback feature. First time commentators send a fast blast. Wildcard users please leave an off-topic comment referencing this post at someone else's weblog.

Posted to OutdoorSports at 01:37 AM | Comments (0)

Ireland moves to eliminate birth citizenship

From 'Govt to hold referendum on citizenship rights':

The Government has announced plans to hold a referendum to change the citizenship rights of people born in Ireland.

At present, anybody born in Ireland is entitled to citizenship under constitutional changes contained in the Good Friday Agreement.

However, the Government wants to limit this right to the children of people who have been living in Ireland for a number of years.

Justice Minister Michael McDowell said the move was an attempt to ease pressure on maternity wards that is allegedly being caused by the existing citizenship rights...

See also these similar earlier stories:

- Britain rethinks open-door policy for newcomers

- Dutch race policy 'a 30-year failure'

- Blair calls crisis meeting over EU migrants

- 'I heard that Britain is the best place for us to go now. It doesn't treat refugees like animals'

- Bad day for multi-culturalism / "The Dutch have had enough."

- Republic in illegal immigrant crackdown

- Genteel xenophobia is as bad as any other kind (from al Guardian)

- Europe and Japan have to rethink immigration

Posted to Immigration2003 at 12:49 AM | Comments (0)

Wacky Senator Vasconcellos' wacky legislation now available

The bill that would lower California's voting age to 14 is now available online. It seems pretty straightforward, except perhaps the use of the word "authorize" in the following section:

Existing provisions of the California Constitution authorize a
United States citizen 18 years of age and a resident of this state to
vote.

See the prior coverage of this proposal here.

This is much more than just wacky legislation from a wacky legislator. See that post for the details. Lots of bloggers have covered this story, and all of them have covered it like they would a Reuters Oddly Enough story. Even the AP - yes, the AP - was more clued into what this is really about.

Link to the new legislation via SoCal Law Blog.

Posted to California at 12:23 AM | Comments (0)

White European Christians victims too, scholar says

From the article 'A million Europeans enslaved':

An American historian says that more than a million Europeans were enslaved by North African slave traders between 1530 and 1780, a time of vigorous Mediterranean and Atlantic coastal piracy.

The number of white European slaves is only a fraction of the trade that brought 10 million to 12 million black African slaves to the Americas over a 400-year period, historian Robert Davis says, but his research shows the slave trade was more widespread than commonly assumed. The impact on Europe's white population was significant.

"One of the things that both the public and many scholars have tended to take as given is that slavery was always racial in nature — that only blacks have been slaves. But that is not true," said Mr. Davis, an Ohio State University professor...

In a new book, "Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800," Mr. Davis calculates that between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by pirates called "corsairs" and forced to work in North Africa during that period.

And, from this longer blurb:

...Davis said the vast scope of slavery in North Africa has been ignored and minimized, in large part because it is on no one’s agenda to discuss what happened.

The enslavement of Europeans doesn’t fit the general theme of European world conquest and colonialism that is central to scholarship on the early modern era, he said. Many of the countries that were victims of slavery, such as France and Spain, would later conquer and colonize the areas of North Africa where their citizens were once held as slaves. Maybe because of this history, Western scholars have thought of the Europeans primarily as “evil colonialists” and not as the victims they sometimes were, Davis said.

Who knew? Here I thought I was just an Evil Oppressor, and now it turns out there lies victimhood in my past. Of course, I'm not as much of a victim as an Oppressor, but at least I'm not 100% Oppressor.

But, seriously, it wasn't just those "corsairs" enslaving Europeans. Other Euros enslaved other Euros. For instance, the word "Slav" is the same as the word "slave." The Slavs were enslaved by the Germans, and their name became the name for slaves. And, people around the world have occasionally enslaved people outside their group. Even sometimes those inside their group. There are still slaves in some countries today.

There's another report on the book here.

Posted to MultiCultiCult at 12:02 AM | Comments (0)

Bush refuses to pay for the trouble he causes

[As you read the following, recall that in FY2002, just 13 (thirteen) companies were fined for immigration violations. That's drastically down from prior years.]

From Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)'s site:

A bipartisan group of senators is calling on the Bush Administration to add $850 million in funding to the federal budget to assist states with the cost of incarcerating undocumented criminal offenders.

In a letter initiated by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and signed by eleven other Senators last week, the group urged President Bush to reconsider his proposed elimination of funding for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP)...

The letter stated: “We write out of deep concern over your Fiscal Year 2005 Budget proposal to cut funding for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) by 100 percent. In addition, we are concerned that you propose eliminating this program altogether based on the Office of Management and Budget's assessment of the program.”

...In California , where around 15 percent of state prison inmates are undocumented, the funding is vital to the state's correctional system.

According to this:

...the budget Bush sent Congress last month included no funding for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. Bush has zeroed out funding for the program in past budgets too, but Congress has always restored some money...

Paying for jailing criminal aliens is projected to cost California more than $700 million in the state fiscal year beginning in July.

A White House spokesman referred calls to the Department of Homeland Security, which referred calls to the Department of Justice, where a spokeswoman did not immediately return a call for comment.

Once again, in FY2002, just 13 (thirteen) companies were fined for immigration violations. I think it's time for Bush to go back to Crawford.

The other signers of the letter are: Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Barbara Boxer (D-CA) [yes, that Barbara Boxer --LW], Maria Cantwell (D-WA), John Cornyn (D-TX), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Pete Domenici (R-NM), Bob Graham (D-FL), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), John McCain (R-AZ), Charles Schumer (D-NY).

Posted to Immigration2003 at 10:01 PM | Comments (1)

I'm LOST. (Insert other puns here)

The Law of the Sea Treaty. The very name brings up visions of bracing sea spray in one's face. Unfortunately, after slightly reading up on this U.N. treaty, it sounds more like being LOST in the Sargasso Sea:

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Sen. Richard Lugar (R.-Ind.) on February 25, quietly and unanimously approved the extremely anti-American Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), long a goal of the United Nations. The treaty, flatly rejected by President Reagan, now goes to the full Senate, where it needs a two-thirds vote to be ratified. LOST would create a new international body and court that could totally wipe out U.S. deep-sea mining and oil drilling and tightly restrict U.S. ocean research and exploration. President Clinton tried to move the treaty forward, but with no success. Now a Republican-controlled Senate committee is taking up the cause.

I have to admit I'm no expert on these matters, but it does sound like it's not just another U.N. boondoggle but a step towards - dare I say it - world government and the New World Order. That impression is helped by the fact that Reagan was against it and both Bushes are for it.

Read an introduction to LOST here.

This says: "[LOST] a huge giveaway of American sovereignty, and which sets up a system to transfer wealth from the United States to places that don't deserve it. In addition, this treaty is a real step toward global government, giving decisions on matters of concern to America - to The Hague..."

There are detailed reasons why you should be opposed to LOST in the National Review and the Weekly Standard.

Posted to Politics at 09:27 PM | Comments (0)

McDonald's Salad Has More Fat Than Cheeseburger!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, duh. If you get a salad and load it down with Bacon Bits and croutons and extra-high-fat salad dressing and batter-dipped lard then of course it might have more calories than things like cheeseburgers. Plus, there's serving sizes and weight to take into account. A watermelon has more calories than a cheeseburger, but few people eat a whole watermelon in one sitting.

I've said it before and before: if you get a salad without the aforementioned high-calorie items, and you use a low-calorie dressing such as those currently available from most fast food restaurants, the resulting salad will most likely be fairly low-calorie.

Posted to Miscellania at 02:02 PM | Comments (0)

Are Schwarzenegger and Cedillo trying to pull a fast one?

Heard on the John and Ken Show (KFI Los Angeles):

According to Ron Prince of Save187.com, the new CA driver's licenses for illegal aliens bill is designed to be "referendum-proof" and if it passes, an initiative would need to be created to overturn it. The next time an initiative could be voted on would be two years from now. No web page with this information is available yet.

The bill (SB1160) was sponsored by Gil Cedillo and marked with an "urgency clause." That urgency clause means that after it's passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, it immediately becomes law.

The legislature must vote 2/3 for the bill, however that 2/3 vote only requires two Republicans in the senate, and six Republicans in the Assembly.

Prince quotes a legislative aide to Schwarzenegger as saying that the "Governor is working with Gil Cedillo to come up with a referendum-proof bill."

Please contact Arnold and politely let him know what you think:

Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-445-4633
governor@governor.ca.gov

UPDATE: I called and was told that Schwarzenegger isn't "working with" Cedillo, he's just watching what proposals he's coming up with and providing comments. I was told that Schwarzenegger can't comment on something until it's a real bill. The spokesman confirmed the essence of Ron Prince's statements regarding the effect of the urgency clause vis-a-vis when it goes into law and how we'd have to get rid of it. He also stated that mine was among many other calls they've received on this.

Posted to Immigration_dls at 08:30 PM | Comments (0)

Building a new generation of "liberal" voters

CA State Senator John Vasconcellos, D-Santa Clara, wants to give partial votes to those 14 years old and up:

Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-Santa Clara, proposed the idea alongside three other lawmakers, saying the Internet, cellular phones, multichannel television and a diverse society makes today's teens better informed than generations of their predecessors.

Coming on the heels of an expected record low turnout among adults in the March 2 election, Vasconcellos would give 16-year-olds a half vote and 14-year-old a quarter vote in state elections beginning in 2006.

The idea, formally called "Training Wheels for Citizenship," first requires two-thirds approval by the Legislature to appear on this November's ballot...

A Republican colleague called it "the nuttiest idea I've ever heard."

Said Assemblyman Ray Haynes, R-Murrieta, "There's a reason why 14-year-olds and 16-year-olds don't vote. They are not adults. They are not mature enough. They are easily deceived by political charlatans."

Student supporters said the idea could give them a say in issues such as education funding and bring new voices to a California electorate now largely dominated by older Caucasians.

In other words, it's a partisan and racial power grab. I can already see the stories about teachers telling their students how to vote being swept under the rug.

Lest you think Vasconcellos is just a nut, consider this exchange:

"... [Mexico and/or Mexican-American politicians] said publicly that they are going to use immigration to control the Southwest, retake the Southwest, and eventually, take over the entire U.S...."

Interruption by State Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-San Jose: "Since we stole it from them, why do you say it’s unfair to steal it back from us?"

Yeh Ling-Ling: "I’m sorry?"

Vasconcellos: "We stole it from them in the first place."

Yeh Ling-Ling: "Exactly what do you want to have happen?"

Vasconcellos: "I found your testimony (shaking his head, putting his glasses down) … I don’t want to debate you."

Yeh Ling-Ling: (with a questioning look) "Exactly?"

Vasconcellos: "I don’t want to debate you. I’ve listened to what you’ve had to say, period."

UPDATE: I looked at Vasconcellos' recent legislation, and I found two items dealing with "Voting Age." The first would change

"A person entitled to register to vote shall be a United States citizen"

into

"A person authorized to register to vote shall be a United States citizen"

The second would change

"Every person who qualifies under Section 2 of Article
II of the California Constitution... may vote at any election held
within the territory within which he or she resides..."

into

"Every person who qualifies under Section 2 of Article
II of the California Constitution... may vote at any election held
within the territory within which that person resides..."

These appear to be minor changes, but they might be stepping stones on the way to the Vasconcellos dream of a Kid's Army. Maybe the "authorized" change has to do with his bill authorizing child votes rather than them being entitled via federal law.

UPDATE 2: File this under "What AP isn't telling you." It turns out one of the teenagers mentioned in the article, Robert Reynolds, is the local chapter leader of National Youth Rights Association. From this:

A group of about six Berkeley teenagers were awake at 7 a.m. yesterday—and happy about it.
Carrying signs that read, “No taxation without representation, Where’s my ballot?!?!” and “Got ballots? I need them,” the teens protested outside a North Berkeley polling booth yesterday, to lower the minimum voting age to 16, while passing drivers honked and waved.

“We never had voting rights before and we’ve never been taken seriously. I feel like a kid,” said 17-year-old Berkeley High student Robert Reynolds, the local chapter leader of National Youth Rights Association.

Reynolds said many teenagers are just as informed as 18-year-olds, and allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to vote would also increase the diminishing voter turnout.

Their efforts are part of an international movement to lower the voting age, Reynolds said—Germany, the United Kingdom and five other countries are also considering allowing 16-year-olds to vote...

A UC Berkeley student even joined the protest.

“Anyone who is denied a right to vote based on their age is age discrimination,” said junior Kalin McKenna.

From Robert Reynolds' talking points to John Vasconcellos' pen.

UPDATE 3: The wacky legislation is now available. Details here.

Posted to California at 08:22 PM | Comments (0)

Mention of my giant donut was axed by L.A. Times editors

From the L.A. Times report on yesterday's L.A. Marathon:

Of course, no event representing the true diversity of L.A. could be 100% family-friendly. Hence the lap dancer at West 6th Street and Fairfax Avenue, near mile 18.

Her name, she said, was Venus De Mid*l. Her sign read, "Free Lap Dances — Runners Only." Her goal: "Tempting runners with things they should be doing instead of running."

What they forgot to mention is that I and about a dozen others were there alongside Venus tempting runners with various treats, such as beer, candy, and donuts. Last year I held up the giant donut pictured here. This year I made an even larger donut out of an innertube and felt. I had this vision of holding candies aloft on an air hose or something like that, but I didn't start on my prop until the night before. Thus the large felt donut.

Posted to Los_Angeles at 02:10 PM | Comments (0)

What color is the sky in your perfect world?

I scored a 20 on the Libertarian Purity Test. This is much lower than others: here and here.

The 20 score puts me in the "you just might have some libertarian thoughts, but you need to memorize Atlas Shrugged" category.

Here are the other categories:

80 - 100: Your libertarian ideals are quite remarkable. You are more Kirk than Picard.

100 - 120: Can you pinpoint the exact moment when you became estranged from the reality the rest of us share?

120 - 140: Would you be interested in receiving brochures on the Flat Earth Society?

140 - 160: G'pah Tkingo bah libertarianisma! (Klingon for 'You dishonor the Klingon Empire with your low score')

160 - 180: Would you be interested in receiving materials regarding the Raelian Society?

Posted to Politics at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)

What Bill Moyers isn't telling you, Part 4,328,339

Last night's PBS broadcast of 'NOW with Bill Moyers' featured a segment on "peace" protesters' meetings being infiltrated by members of local law enforcement as well as the FBI. The transcript of the show is here.

It included coverage of one Mara Verheyden-Hilliard. She had this to say among other things: "This is an effort to criminalize dissent. It's an effort from the Ashcroft Justice department specifically since September 11th, really, to intimidate people in the United States and to try and stifle dissent."

Here's how NOW with Bill Moyers identifies Ms. Verheyden-Hilliard:

"...Civil Rights attorney and activist"

and

"Verheyden-Hilliard and her husband Carl Messineo run the Partnership for Civil Justice, a public interest law firm in Washington, D.C."

As it turns out, she's also a member of the ANSWER Coalition steering committee (see the pic two below that of Ramsey Clark. If it seems there's something vaguely Soviet about those pictures, that's because there is).

Don't they think it might be slightly of interest to know that she's a member of the well-known A.N.S.W.E.R. organization?

I don't support the police or the FBI infiltrating or monitoring non-violent "peace" groups. What they really stand for can be determined and publicized by, oh, I dunno, bloggers like me.

However, I think NOW reveals its biases by attempting to hide her ties behind yet another innocent-sounding acronym.

Posted to at 02:36 PM | Comments (1)

"Kerry's wife funds critics of Bush ads"

From Joseph Farah at WND:

The non-profit, tax-exempt organization representing the families of September 11 victims who are critical of campaign ads by President Bush is a project of the Tides Center, which has received millions of dollars in charitable contributions from foundations chaired by Teresa Heinz Kerry, WorldNetDaily has learned.

"September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows" is a pacifist organization that has opposed not only the war in Iraq but the war in Afghanistan as well. It is a project of the Tides Center, one of the pet causes of the Howard Heinz Endowment and the Vira Heinz Endowment, both directed by Mrs. Kerry, the wife of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry.

The group delivered up to the New York Daily News Thursday seasoned spokesmen Monica Gabrielle, Mindy Kleinberg and others to attack President Bush's re-election campaign ads. None of the critics of the ads in that original story were identified as members of Peaceful Tomorrows.

The Peaceful Tomorrows activists charged the campaign ads exploited the September 11 terrorist attacks for political advantage...

See also 'Teresa Heinz Kerry: Bag Lady for the Radical Left'.

Posted to Politics at 02:23 PM | Comments (0)

Bush has forgotten the Alamo

The Alamo was stormed 168 years ago today.

That's a long long time, and George Bush has obviously forgotten all about it:

A text of President Bush's joint news conference with Mexican President Vicente Fox on Saturday...

BUSH: Hola, que tal? Bienvenidos.

Mr. President, Laura and I are pleased to welcome you and Marta to Crawford...

I will work to ensure a system of safe and orderly migration. Earlier this year, I proposed a temporary worker program, not an amnesty program, that will offer legal status as temporary workers to undocumented men and women who were employed in the United States when I announced this proposal.

OK, it's not an amnesty. And, illegal aliens are "undocumented." No lie like a Big Lie.

Under this program, America will also welcome workers from foreign countries who have been offered jobs by American employers that no American has filled.

Here's what administration representative Margaret Spellings had to say:

"We do envision that [the Bush amnesty/guestworker plan] would be open to any type of employee and any type of employer, such as nurses, teachers, high-tech workers, low-skilled workers. This is a concept that can apply broadly"

Americans aren't going to be willing to be nurses for $10 an hour, but hundreds of thousands of nurses around the world would consider that a fortune. If an employer advertises a nursing job at $10 an hour, they won't get any Americans to fill that job, and Bush's statement above will be true.

I oppose amnesty, placing undocumented workers on the automatic path to citizenship. This program will match willing workers with willing employers, without disadvantaging those who have followed the law and waited in line to achieve American citizenship.

This new temporary worker program will strengthen both the American and Mexican economies. The United States will benefit from the labor of hardworking immigrants.

The average Mexican immigrant costs $50,000 over his lifetime (taxes paid - services used). That's a transfer from other Americans to his employer. A better statement would be: "Some big corporations in the United States will benefit from the labor of hardworking immigrants."

Mexico will benefit as productive citizens are able to return home with money to invest and spend in their nation's economy.

They've got three years in which to have kids here. If they have kids here, they aren't going home and we aren't going to be able to force them to go home. Sell it to someone else, George.

This system will be more humane to workers who will be protected by labor laws and able to establish their identities. It will live up to the highest ideals of free nations.

Serf labor is not a very elevated ideal.

Mr. President, thank you for the excellent dialogue we had today. Thank you for the leadership you provide for our neighbor and friend. And thank you for being a friend to Laura and me. Bienvenidos...

If this were a movie, it would be a horror movie whose protagonist is a retarded kindergartner and millions of people would be yelling "Georgie, he's not your friend!" at the screen.

Q (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): The question is on the immigration policy. The government of Mexico wanted to know what the date certain would be for this new program, or what proposals you have for temporary immigrants. How do you believe it will affect the upcoming election process?

BUSH: Yes. Well, we just -- the president just discussed the border crossing cards, the issue of the border crossing cards. And he discussed the professional visas. And so we're making progress.

"Is there anything else I can do for you, el Presidente Fox, sir?"

I put forth what I think is a very reasonable proposal and a humane proposal, one that is not amnesty, but, in fact, recognizes that there are good, honorable, hard-working people here doing jobs Americans won't do.

And I certainly hope that Congress takes this issue up, but there's no telling what's going to happen in an election year. So it's very difficult to give a date. The date that matters to me is the date in which I laid out what I think is a reasonable plan, which was in January.

At least if it was President Kerry saying these things he'd have a "D" next to his name.

UPDATE: Sometimes Reuters is useful. Their report is entitled "Bush Gives Mexico's Fox Concession on Borders."

Posted to Immigration2003 at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)

The "L.A. Opens Office of Immigrant Affairs" story just gets worse and worse

The recent post "Los Angeles is the Ellis Island of the West Coast" discusses the new L.A. City Office of Immigrant Affairs. I took a look at the press release from the city regarding this office, and the situation is even worse than I thought. The press release is here [warning: PDF file].

Bearing in mind that Mayor Hahn said "This is not an office that is designed to encourage people to break the law by moving here illegally," let's read these excerpts:

"On behalf of the ACLU of Southern California and our 40,000 members, I applaud Mayor Hahn, Councilmember Garcetti, and the Los Angeles City Council for today's historic announcement," said Rini Chakraborty, senior policy associate of the ACLU of Southern California. "With immigrants comprising nearly 40% of the County's population, Los Angeles embodies the idealism of our diverse nation and shines as a beacon into America's future. The creation of the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs is particularly timely given the drastic curtailment of immigrant's rights in the aftermath of September 11. We welcome this opportunity to work in partnership with the Mayor's newly created office and reclaim fundamental rights for all immigrants, regardless of status."

"This office represents a new and vital opportunity for the City of Los Angeles to enter the new century by acknowledging the contributions and responding to the needs of all immigrant communities," said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of LA (CHIRLA).

So, Hahn says it won't encourage illegal immigration. But, the ACLU says it will apply to everyone regardless of "status." In other words, it will make it easier to be an illegal immigrant. Current illegal immigrants will tell their friends that the City of L.A. is making it easy to be an illegal immigrant. Univision and La Opinion will report about the City of L.A. making it easy to be an illegal immigrant. In other words, this office will incentivize illegal immigration, which will lead to further illegal immigration.

Regarding the ACLU's hysteria about post-9/11 immigrant's rights, see 'CAIR's Jihad Hotline', 'Leftists Attack Borders', and 'The Elite War on Our 'Bigotry'.

I also linked to an allegation about CHIRLA in the previous post. Originally I thought they were just a quote source for the L.A. Times.

Then, I found out they were at the announcement.

Now I find out they're being quoted in the L.A. City press release.

It was bad when I first heard about it, it's gotten worse after I read the press release, and I predict it will just keep getting worse and worse.

Posted to Los_Angeles at 12:03 AM | Comments (0)

"Mexico lobbies for alien amnesty"

Drudge has had a link to the Washington Times piece 'Mexico lobbies for alien amnesty' for a bit now.

It goes into how the Mexican government is using so-called American so-called human rights groups and other traitors/dupes to gain influence for Mexico in the U.S.

Nothing in there is news to me; I've been pointing to various stories along these lines for some months now in my Immigration category.

However, it's a good intro and it's also good that it's getting a lot of attention on Drudge.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 11:40 PM | Comments (0)

U.S. Probe Spots 9 Terror Suspects in Merchant Marine

Story here:

A 14-month investigation by the U.S. Coast Guard and FBI has uncovered nine merchant mariners with possible terrorist links, raising renewed concerns that U.S. ships and ports are vulnerable to attack...

Posted to Terrorism at 10:58 PM | Comments (0)

The WSJ is getting desperate

Their latest editorial 'Lou Dobbs Takes On the World' has more than a whiff of desperation about it. All they have is ad hominem attacks and attempts to impugn his motives. Along the way, they act as apologists for the liberal media. The WSJ seriously doubts what Lou Dobbs says because the rest of CNN and the rest of the media doesn't cover it. I guess they're able to completely forget about media bias when it's biased in their direction.

Reason Magazine is another Dobbs basher and, like the WSJ, it's frequently not on the topics he covers so much as cavils about quotes on his homepage and the like.

Here's past WSJ coverage:

A "Conservative" Statement of Principles on Immigration

"Earth to WSJ"

My comments on "Our Border Brigades: The nativist right is wrong."

"Let Their People Come"

See the quote from the WSJ here about immigrants depressing wages.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 10:55 PM | Comments (0)

"Bush ads outrage 9/11 families"

Whoopsydoodley. I discussed Bush's new ads here. Now comes this:

Many families of the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack expressed anger Thursday at President Bush's use of ground zero images in his new campaign ads, accusing him of using the attack for political gain.

Until Bush cooperates with the federal commission that is investigating the nation's preparedness before the attacks and its response "by testifying in public under oath ... he should not be using 9-11 as political propaganda," said Kristen Breitweiser, of Middletown Township, N.J., whose husband, Ronald Breitweiser, 39, died in the World Trade Center...

"I oppose anyone using it to promote their personal agenda," said Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son, Christian Regenhard, 28, died on Sept. 11, 2001. "While I certainly oppose the commercialization of ground zero, I have to say he's not the only one to further his political goals or to make money off it."

..."September 11th was not just a distant tragedy. It's a defining event for the future of our country," Karen Hughes, a Bush campaign adviser, told "The Early Show" on CBS. "Obviously, all of us mourn and grieve for the victims of that terrible day, but September 11 fundamentally changed our public policy in many important ways, and I think it's vital that the next president recognize that."

Patricia Riley, of New Dorp, Staten Island, who lost her sister, Lorraine Riley, 37, in the terrorist attack, agreed with that view, saying Bush's use of Sept. 11 imagery in campaign spots was "appropriate."

To be frank, I don't really care how they found these naysayers so quickly.

Posted to Politics at 02:04 PM | Comments (0)

"Have your thumb ready to ride the bus"

Via Drudge comes this report:

The Pinellas school system is ready to approve a new technology that uses student fingerprints to keep track of who is riding school buses.

Beginning in the fall, the fingerprint system would identify students as they board and leave. The goal is to ensure they are getting on the right bus and getting off at the right stop.

School officials say the $2-million project will save money and dramatically improve safety for students, whose fingerprints will serve as authorization to board and disembark...

"This is Management 101 in transportation. Now we will have good, factual information that we can use in a very timely manner to make our services as good as humanly possible," said Terry Palmer, the district's transportation director...

"If my child was in elementary school, I would welcome this with open arms and say, "please, please, tell me my kid got on the bus and got off the bus,"' said School Board chairwoman Jane Gallucci...

Superintendent Howard Hinesely said the district also plans to apply for a federal Homeland Security grant that could reimburse some of the cost. [LW: Holy shit!]...

"I wouldn't be concerned about a privacy issue, because I know the School Board is very concerned about not letting anyone get hold of that information," [concerned parent Michelle Bianco of St. Petersburg] said...

But school officials say the safety benefits of the project far outweigh concerns about civil liberties.

"I think that's just another safety factor so we know the child was on the bus and got off the bus," said School Board member Lee Benjamin, who supports the project but said he wants to consider it further.

Who the hell are these beings saying these things, pod people? Have they been paid by our alien masters to lull us into thinking that constant surveillance is acceptable? Are they shills? Is this a complicated and expensive Swiftian satire? A performance of a hitherto undiscovered George Orwell play?

Or, are they "normal" Americans who just have no idea how bad they sound?

And, why the hell would our venerable Department of Homeland Security give a grant for this program? Is one of their mandates to get people used to Big Brother? Nothing like starting them young.

The company whose system is featured in the graphic is Geospatial Technologies.

They worked with the school bus operator Laidlaw to develop the system.

Laidlaw and Pinellas are mentioned here and here.

If someone can find, say, a link between Laidlaw and one of the school officials that would be just peachy.

Also, based on the many other articles about privacy encroachments from my Privacy category, the pod people who speak out in favor of systems like this just don't know how bad they sound:

• "From a security standpoint, this provides a great advantage to assure that there is a safe environment at all times." (multiple cameras on planes; tapes would be stored for a decade.)

• "It's just mind-boggling what the possibilities are," said Sam Bonasso, who runs the Department of Transportation's Research and Special Programs Administration. It is overseeing the Ohio drone research. (drones to fight traffic jams)

• "We are research and development people. We think about what's possible, not what the government will do with it. That's somebody else's job. And this isn't a weapons system." (analyzing peoples' gait)

• "We're fortunate to live in a small, safe town. But in this day and age, you can't take safety for granted," (from 'N.J. Schools Testing Eye Recognition')

• "We think we are the first (school) in the country to use this," [the schoolmaster said of iris scanning his students so they can get their lunches]. "But this is not a James Bond school for spies. ... This is not science fiction. This is technology that exists."

Posted to Privacy at 12:41 AM | Comments (0)

I had a pannido, and I can somewhat recommend it

I see that Jack-in-the-Box is now offering their pannido in Los Angeles, and perhaps in other cities as well.

I had a pannido at the Jack-in-the-Box in Lebanon, TN as part of the Blogging Across America tour ("a panoply of fast food restaurants...") Even though I generally dislike pickles, it wasn't that bad. It was a little over-priced for the quantity of bread and meat however. Since this might have been a test version of the pannido, the pannido you eat today might not be the same as the pannido I had.

Let other bloggers stake out the slightly-upscale and higher restaurant review segment. I'll concentrate on the low-end.

Posted to Los_Angeles at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)

Our second black President

John Kerry wants to be our second black President:

Speaking to the American Urban Radio Network, Kerry said Monday that he hoped to emulate former President Clinton in the eyes of blacks, the party's most loyal constituency and a solid source of support during his stretch of primary wins.

"President Clinton was often known as the first black president," Kerry said. "I wouldn't be upset if I could earn the right to be the second."

My prediction: he'll do a flip-flop when he reads Toni Morrison's New Yorker article in which she called Clinton our "first black President." The quote:

...white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas. And when virtually all the African-American Clinton appointees began, one by one, to disappear, when the President's body, his privacy, his unpoliced sexuality became the focus of the persecution, when he was metaphorically seized and bodysearched, who could gainsay these black men who knew whereof they spoke? The message was clear "No matter how smart you are, how hard you work, how much coin you earn for us, we will put you in your place or put you out of the place you have somehow, albeit with our permission, achieved. You will be fired from your job, sent away in disgrace, and--who knows?--maybe sentenced and jailed to boot. In short, unless you do as we say (i.e., assimilate at once), your expletives belong to us."

Yes, the foregoing describes John Kerry to a "T."

In 1998, David Horowitz eviscerated Toni Morrison's comments here. I visited Hot Springs AR a few months ago; see the post 'Summarizing Bill Clinton'.

Posted to Politics at 01:33 PM | Comments (1)

Freedom, Faith, Families!

Bush's new TV ads are available. They make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

"Lead": As violins play, Bush knows exactly where he wants to lead this country, and he knows what we need to do to make the world more free and peaceful. He sounds like he's drunk, but perhaps that's just because I watched the lo-fi version of the ad. Bush knows how to improve the economy, etc. etc. Meanwhile, Laura stands left and behind Bush, chiming in with her own thoughts about what makes America great, etc. etc.

"Tested": yet another montage with violins. This time with a VO that sounds a bit like we're about to hear about a new chick flick. It includes the memorable line "Freedom, Faith, and Families," eerily similar to "Food, Folks, and Fun!" President Bush is, we're informed, steady leadership in times of change.

"Safer, Stronger": Montage with piano, no VO. Brings up the recession, down stock market, dot com bomb. Then, includes a few shots of 9/11.

"Safer, Stronger" (en Espanol): If you've never heard Bush say "I approved this message" in Spanish, this is your chance. That's all he says; like the version in that other language, there's no VO.

Apparently they didn't spend that much money on the creative or production end of things. The commercials are lame, but they might resonate with weak-minded people who don't care about things like rampaging government spending or selling out America to Tyson Foods and Mexico.

Posted to Politics at 12:38 PM | Comments (0)

Let's Prop56 Barbara Boxer

California Insider says the following:

It looks as if you can add Proposition 56 to the long list of ballot measures on which the state’s Democratic establishment and its voters haven’t seen eye to eye. It really is amazing when you think about the record over the past 10 to 15 years, during which Democrats have repeatedly won majorities in the Legislature even as their views on major policy matters clash with a majority of those who vote in statewide elections. Going back to term limits in 1990, immigration and crime in 1994, affirmative action in 1996, bilingual education in 1998 and gay marriage in 2000, plus taxing the rich, regulating health care and several other issues along the way. Prop. 56 was a creation of the public employee labor unions and their Democratic allies, designed to make it easier to pass a budget and raise taxes, which now require a two-thirds majority vote in the Assembly and Senate. The measure was dressed up with a populist-sounding provision to withhold the pay of legislators and the governor when a budget was late, and that part of the initiative at first polled well with voters. But once opponents dubbed it the “blank check” initiative and put out the word that it would make it easier for the Legislature to raise taxes, it dropped like a stone.

Sure, Bill Jones isn't exactly electrifiying. But, perhaps he could win in the same way that Prop. 56 won. It shouldn't be that difficult to point out that Boxer is an extremist. She's got a 96 ADA rating, she consorts with former members of racial separatist organizations (see 'Boxer Gets Backing From Latino Group in Primary'), etc. etc. She'll try to portray Bill Jones as an extremist white male; her racism and sexism should be pointed out as well as her extremism. Maybe she'll go to the same place as Prop. 56.

Posted to California at 11:35 AM | Comments (0)

Senator Boxer On Computer Privacy

Received via email:

TO: The Lonewacko Blog
FROM: Sen. Barbara Boxer
SUBJECT: Senator Boxer On Computer Privacy

Dear Friend:

I recently joined my colleagues, U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) in introducing legislation to better protect the privacy of American computer users. Our bill would prohibit spyware, adware, and other invasive software from being secretly installed on Americans' computers.

Our SPYBLOCK (Software Principles Yielding Better Levels of Consumer Knowledge) Act would prohibit installing software on somebody else's computer without notice and consent, and requires reasonable "uninstall" procedures for all downloadable software. Spyware, adware and other hidden programs often secretly piggyback on downloaded Internet software without the user's knowledge, transmitting information about computer usage and generating pop-up advertisements. Frequently such software is designed to be virtually impossible to uninstall.

This legislation will give consumers control over the programs that are downloaded onto their computers. As more and more people use the Internet, privacy violations become a greater threat, and we want to give computer users the power to protect themselves from spyware and other hazardous software.

The bill also prohibits programs designed to trick users about who is responsible for content a user sees, such as causing a counterfeit replica of a company's Web site to appear whenever the consumer attempts to navigate toward a legitimate company's Web site. These types of programs have been used to fraudulently obtain personal financial information from users confused by dummy Web sites.

I'm sure most software developers want Barbara Boxer telling them how to do things. How do I make sure my uninstaller complies? Will installer software companies have to produce Boxer-approved versions?

What about ActiveX, which, unless the user (like me) turns notification on, is installed behind the user's back? Does javascript or other executable content that runs in the browser and stays in the cache count as "installed?" How do we tell a "legitimate" website from one that's not? What of the many programs that remove spyware? Hasn't Barbara ever heard of them?

This is one of those things that might sound good to some people, but is impracticable. The solution is not more bureacracy and laws, the solution is education. EBay and other companies already spend money advertising the fact that there are scams out there. The DOJ and various attorneys general investigate complaints and prosecute criminals, and they don't need this legislation to help them do their jobs. Let things continue as they are, and keep Barbara Boxer as far away from software development as possible.

Posted to Privacy at 11:55 PM | Comments (0)

Diving for conspiracies

I've heard a couple things lately about the strange deaths of scuba divers or incidents involving scuba divers, but no details were provided and I didn't find anything with google. This is interesting due to al Queda's reported interest in diving: see 'Fears Persist of Al Qaeda Link to PADI Dive Center' and 'Al Qaeda Plans Underwater Attack'.

Thank gosh for Art Bell, who featured this organization on his show recently.

They point to these three cases:

'Diver Sighting Near Coast Guard Station Raises Concern' (Hawaii)

'Police seek public's help to ID diver' (Florida)

'Diver dead in Hudson' (New York)

None of them appear to be al Qaeda, except for perhaps the Hawaii one. And, I don't know if two deaths and one strange sighting are all that uncommon in the wacky undersea world of diving...

Posted to Terrorism at 11:25 PM | Comments (0)

Ah, New Paltz

Via Drudge comes news that the mayor of New Paltz, NY has been busted:

Four days after presiding over a slew of same sex marriages in his quaint Hudson Valley village, the mayor of New Paltz today was charged with 19 violations of New York's domestic relations law, injecting the debate over gay marriages in the state with increasing drama and urgency.

Jason West, 26-year-old Green Party mayor, was ordered to appear in court Wednesday to answer charges that he broke state law by solomizing about two dozen weddings without a marriage license, according to New Paltz police and West's lawyer.

Chief Raymond Zappone said he and a lieutenant from the town police served a 19-count summons to West Tuesday afternoon and that the mayor faces up a $500 fine and a year in jail for his actions which have attracted international attention and brought the fight over gay marriages squarely into New York.

I visited New Paltz as part of my Blogging Across America tour.

Also, lest you think "solomizing" is a word, see the neat graphic. Yes, I think it was intentional.

UPDATE: It's been corrected to read "solemnizing." The Lonewacko Blog gets results.

Posted to Politics at 04:13 PM | Comments (0)

If I still lived in Silver Lake, I'd be upset

Received via email, and not verified:

Wow, you thought the Bush and the Republicans were bad. [LW: Actually, I didn't particularly think that way, but pray, continue...] Look what the Scient*l*gists on the Silver Lake Nieighborhood Council are up to. Robin Dak|n, Barbara Dak|n and Robert Bro*ks are three of several Scient*l*gists on the Nieghborhood Council. This is the 10 commandments agenda item Robin Dak|n has put on the agenda for this Wenesday March 4.

MOTION (R. Dak|n): The SLNC as a council should not support activities in violation or potential violation of the Ten Commandments and other common sense codes.

One of the sponsors is mentioned here and here.

In case it's been a while, here are the Ten Commandments:

I. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
II. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
III. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.
IV. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
V. Honour thy father and thy mother.
VI. Thou shalt not kill.
VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
VIII. Thou shalt not steal.
IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
X. Thou shalt not covet any thing that is thy neighbour's.
XI. Thou shalt take every opportunity to bash $hrub and his Neocon handlers, and in like form one shalt never vote Republican.
XII. Dressing up as a nun in drag and having simulated sex with a dozen goats at the Sunset Junction Street Festival is normal.
XIII. Thou shalt eat but healthy whole grain foods.

Unrelated to the council, those in the area might consider joining the Friends of Silver Lake. I've always felt more Atwaterian myself.

Posted to Los_Angeles at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

Canada admits: We're terror haven

From WND:

The world's "most notorious" terrorist groups continue to operate in Canada, says a classified intelligence report written two years after Parliament gave police new powers and money to dismantle the country's deadly terror networks, reports the National Post.

In a 22-page assessment of the security threats facing the nation, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said international terrorists are still using the country as a base for waging worldwide political and religious violence...

The CSIS report confirms a recent U.S. Library of Congress study that said Canada's welfare system, immigration laws, infrequent prosecutions and light sentences had turned the country into "a favored destination for terrorists."

Dozens of those who trained at Osama bin Laden's camps were citizens or residents of Canada. Unlike the United States, which has prosecuted American al-Qaida trainees, Canada has not brought criminal charges against those who attended bin Laden's terrorism schools.

The CSIS report confirms fundraising for terrorism has not stopped in Canada, even though halting the flow of money to such groups as al-Qaida, Hezbollah and Hamas was one of the chief aims of Canada's anti-terrorism bill...

Posted to Terrorism at 01:13 PM | Comments (0)

Ex-Davis aide faces Oracle charges

Attorney General Bill Lockyer today will file multiple felony charges of falsifying documents against a key aide to former Gov. Gray Davis, stemming from her involvement in the state's troubled bid to buy Oracle Corp. database software, sources said.

Posted to California at 01:08 PM | Comments (0)

Do you have Windows?

If you've got Windows, can you imagine yourself doing this?

• Click the icon ‘My Network Places’

• Click the icon ‘Network Connections’

• See a folder containing folders belonging to Judiciary staff of both Republicans and Democrats.

• If a folder is not password protected (because some people forget to do things like that), open it up and look inside...

I think MemoGate is just about over.

Posted to Politics at 12:24 AM | Comments (0)

A Bob Graham flashback

This page from almost four years ago has statements about the AgJobs amnesty proposal. It includes this bit from Sen. Bob Graham:

Senator Graham said Congress should pass S. 1814 because nearly half the agriculture workers in the U.S. are here illegally, a situation that causes problems for farmers and farmworkers. He said these workers must receive legal status because "they live in the darkest shadows of our society." Graham also said the current H2A program is too "administratively burdensome" for growers to use when they need to.

Now, flash forward almost four years to this Feb. 1, 2004 post: "Florida Farmworkers Sue Dairy Owned by Family of Sen. Graham Over Wages":

A dairy farm owned by the family of U.S. Sen. Bob Graham [D - FL] is being sued by farmworkers who claim they are not being paid minimum wage. Attorney Greg Schell, who represents the workers, said the alleged violations of federal law occurred over the past four years and involved as many as 200 workers employed by Graham Farms in Glades County. Graham Farms is a division of The Graham Cos., and the senator is a director of that firm...

Posted to Immigration2003 at 12:08 AM | Comments (0)

Gil Cedillo: using a horrible crime for political purposes

You might recall the story of the Fremont mother and daughter who were murdered in Fremont a month ago. They were illegal aliens, and one of their family members tried to blame their murders on the fact that they didn't have driver's licenses. They were murdered while walking to work; if they'd had driver's licenses they could have taken a car. One of the articles mentioned that they couldn't afford a car, but, I digress don't I.

The AP, the Arizona Republic, and other newspapers tried to politicize this and turn it into not only a it-could-be-a-hate-crime because the perp was supposedly white, but they also tried to turn it into a poster crime for allowing illegal aliens to get driver's licenses.

Now, state Senator (and former member of the racial separatist organization MEChA) Gil Cedillo has joined the fray. See 'Fremont slayings inflame driver's license debate':

The unsolved slayings of two women violently attacked while walking to work earlier this month has become a rallying cry for supporters of a movement to allow illegal immigrants the right to obtain driver's licenses.

But license opponents accuse them of memorializing the victims, who were living in the country illegally, for the wrong reasons.

Immigrant-rights groups have staged three vigils to promote their political cause since Feb. 1, the morning a man wielding a tree branch beat to death Maria Esperanza Hernandez, 39, and her daughter, Maria del Carmen Castillo Hernandez, 19.

The most recent vigil, which was held Thursday, was attended by state Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, the author of a controversial license law that was repealed last year.

Many of the nearly 100 participants who marched along Fremont Boulevard with Cedillo -- chanting phrases in Spanish, such as "What do we want?" "Licenses." "When do we want them?" "Now!" -- say they are certain that the victims would still be alive had they had a license and been able to drive to work...

"What happened to these two women wasn't right," said Ramon Correa, 55, an auto mechanic who marched with the crowd. "We need the laws to change, for the good of all of us."

But connecting the deaths to the license law is rankling those who oppose the granting of licenses to undocumented immigrants.

"They're exploiting somebody's death," said Al Figone, 53, a San Jose salesman who is critical of any legislation to allow illegal immigrants to legally drive. "It's a political thing, it needs to be resolved on a political level..."

...Cedillo, in an interview at the vigil, said anybody who accuses him of political grandstanding is taking a "cynical perspective" of the deaths. "Do we know for sure that but for this law, that this situation wouldn't have happened? We don't. But we do know for sure it did happen, and it happened under these circumstances."

Some participants at the vigil, organized by immigrant rights group Voluntarios de la Comunidad, a San Jose-based organization, acknowledged that politics plays a role in promoting their cause.

"Maybe we've drifted a little, and I have a conscience to say that," said Blanca Estela Villegas, a 34-year-old hotel banquet supervisor who wore a bandanna of a U.S. flag on her head. "But," she added, "What are we supposed to do?"

[Also appears in the San Jose Mercury News under title 'License ban tied to two slayings'.]

Posted to Immigration_dls at 11:53 PM | Comments (3)

Good bills and bad bills

Here's a handy listing of good and bad immigration bills: 'Proposed Immigration Bills in the 108th Congress'. You can also quickly send free FAXes to your congresscritters from the page. There's another list here. You can look up a bill's status here.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)

Boxer foes court Bush, but oppose immigration plan

From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

The four candidates seeking the GOP nomination to run for the U.S. Senate [generally agree with Bush except] on one issue – President Bush's plan to allow millions of illegal immigrants to have temporary legal status – the candidates have been willing to openly criticize the president.

...As a group, they've taken a tougher stance on immigrants than the president, reflecting a split in the Republican Party between hard-liners and those wishing to accommodate illegal immigrants and their employers.

...[Proposition 187] - passed but later overturned in court – soured relations between Republicans and Latino voters for years.

By contrast, Bush, while governor of Texas, courted Latinos, enjoying good relations with voters and Mexican government officials. [NOTE: Lonewacko suggests googling "Bandar Bush" for an example from another country.]

Bush said his plan, announced last month, would make U.S. laws "more rational and humane" by allowing immigrants with a job to have a three-year renewable work permit.

Under the plan, the immigrant gets a temporary worker card allowing him to travel back and forth to his home country.

...Kaloogian called the president's immigration plan unworkable because it will encourage more immigration... [Kaloogian opposes Bush's plan, but wants to support Bush on other matters...]

...[Toni Casey] opposes the president's plan because she believes it amounts to amnesty for illegal immigrants, and prefers a guest-worker program instead.

..."I compliment the president for bringing the issue up, but I don't think the measure fits California," [Bill Jones] said.

...[Rosario] Marin said she opposes amnesty for illegal immigrants...

...Republican analyst Allan Hoffenblum said the division between the Senate candidates and Bush reflects some anger against immigrants in California.

"I think you saw candidates playing to their audience," he said after a debate at the state Republican convention earlier this month in Burlingame.

He also said that hard-liners might be on the rise within a Republican Party that has tried for years to win back Latino voters turned off by Proposition 187 in 1994.

"Some of us said we thought we learned our lesson in 1994," he said. "But now some hard-core immigrant-bashers are creeping back."

First of all, Rosario Marin is indeed opposed to amnesty. However, she supports the Bush/Fox Amnesty, because she doesn't think it's amnesty. In other words, while she might have problems with Bush's plan, she generally supports it. I've included several quotes in the extended entry supporting my contention; click 'MORE' directly below to read them.

As for the article itself, I've highlighted in blue places where the word "immigrant" or "immigration" should have either been preceded by that other word "illegal" or should not have been personalized (i.e., "illegal immigration" should have been used instead of "immigrant.") Some of those instances might not be the reporter's or editor's fault.

I also find the section headings a bit "interesting:" "Bashing immigration Various ideas" and "Rise of hard-liners Former Mexican." Huh?

Also, contrary to what Allan Hoffenblum or the CW states, Proposition 187 was initially supported by Latinos, believe it or not. The problem was a) lies told by the opposition, and b) anti-immigrant messages from its proponents. The problem would appear not to have been 187 itself so much as the selling efforts of both sides. See this:

In 1994, the campaign for Proposition 187, the anti- illegal-immigrant ballot initiative in California, degenerated into a racially charged referendum on the state's demographic evolution. While early polls indicated the heavily American-born Latino electorate didn't feel much solidarity with illegal immigrants, a growing belief that the initiative's supporters were not distinguishing between illegal and legal immigrants — or foreign- and American-born Latinos — led Latino voters to soundly reject the measure. But it still passed.

Allan Hoffenblum and others have learned the wrong message from 187.

Click 'MORE' directly below to see the Marin coverage where she supports the Bush/Fox Amnesty:

A look at how Marin stands on some key issues

IMMIGRATION REFORM -- Supports Bush efforts to reform immigration but said, "Before I would support legislation involving any of the ideas he has proposed, I would require that we dedicate the resources and personnel necessary to securing our borders." Calls on Mexico to do its part in securing the border. "Mexico must help us to secure our common border on its side to stop illegal immigration."

Boxer Gets Backing From Latino Group in Primary

she received glowing introductions from state Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) and Los Angeles City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa [NOTE: both are former members of the racial separatist organization MEChA -LW]

Race for Boxer's U.S. Senate seat subdued

Marin, who came to the United States from Mexico as a teen-ager, strongly supports President Bush's plan to create a guest worker program for immigrants now in the country illegally. Kaloogian has repeatedly attacked the president's proposal. Jones and Casey also oppose it, but less vociferously.

Senate candidate Marin blames Mexico for illegal immigration

Former U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin, one of four Republican candidates challenging Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, said Thursday that economic and legal problems in Mexico were primarily to blame for this country's "failed immigration policy."
Marin, a Mexican immigrant, called on leaders of that country to stimulate the economy of Mexico by restructuring its tax system, encouraging private investment and funding $50 billion in repairs to its national power grid...
Valerie Walston, spokeswoman for Republican senatorial candidate and former California Secretary of State Bill Jones, criticized Marin for failing to address key issues closer to home such as the granting of driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants.

A fighting chance against Boxer

On immigration, Messrs. Jones and Kaloogian oppose President Bush's recent proposal for a kind of guest-worker program, but the program is supported by Ms. Marin. Mr. Jones said the Bush administration "has not protected the border." Mr. Kaloogian wants to stop illegal immigrants sending money back to their home countries by requiring banks to check for "the proper identification" - a matter we believe is separate from the immigration issue.

Ms. Marin supports President Bush's guest-worker program and insists that critics are wrong in calling it an amnesty program. "Some of the candidates want to trash our president," she said. "I want to help our president." She also favors prodding Mexico to reform its anti-business policies to encourage job growth there so immigrants feel less compelled to go north.

Marin Draws a Contrast to Past GOP Candidates

Marin is the only one of the candidates to support Bush's immigrant guest-worker plan, which has been criticized by some Republicans as a faulty "amnesty" policy. Latinos, on the other hand, criticize Marin for being blindly loyal to the president.

"She makes a good house Mexican for the Republicans," read a mass e-mail by Steven J. Ybarra, a Democratic National Committee official...

Marin, occasionally looking up from her printed remarks, called Bush's guest-worker plan a good first step, but she spent most of her time criticizing Mexico for not doing enough to stem the flow of illegal immigration.

Afterward, Marin was repeatedly questioned about whether she backs legislation that would withhold federal aid to states that approve driver's licenses for illegal immigrants...

The reporter persisted. Marin called the legislation a "Band-Aid" approach but did not give her stance.

Posted to Immigration2003 at 02:20 PM | Comments (4)

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