Aussies under fire in Dili - we don't get all the world's thankless assignments

In Dili, it's 'total madness' - National - theage.com.au:
"Australian soldiers came under fire for the first time yesterday as they rescued terrrified families from rival gangs, some armed with automatic weapons. 'It's east against west, soldiers against soldiers, police against soldiers, everyone against everyone,' said Father Lalo, a Catholic priest on the streets, urging people to put down their weapons. 'It's total madness.'"

Once again, my hat is off to the Australians. These same wonderful folks who have fought beside Americans in every significant fighting for the last century (including Vietnam) are doing their own share of policing the world's messy parts. In this case, the object of their attention is the one-time Portuguese colony of East Timor which split from Indonesia a few years ago.

I called this a thankless task, it is worse than that, "... East Timor's Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta blamed the 'slow pace' of the Australian response for the violence and panic." The report in The Age goes on to note "Just two weeks ago Mr Ramos Horta rejected the need for foreign troops as the Dili Government struggled to cope with a crisis sparked by mass desertions from its armed forces by disaffected soldiers."

This Ramos Horta character seems ill-suited for a high government post, at least if logic is useful in government. Look at these two paragraphs from The Age coverage and see if you can make any sense of what he says:

"Mr Ramos Horta said rebel soldiers and police who sparked the crisis were not involved in yesterday's violence. 'The situation in Dili is done by renegade police, militia type groups and gangs,' he said.

"Although some residents blamed the army for the violence, Mr Ramos Horta said militias wearing uniforms — and with guns provided by army elements — were responsible."

Let me see, its not rebel police who are involved but renegade police; and don't blame the army, they only supplied the uniforms and weapons. Duh!

As Bugs Bunny used to say, "What's the hubbub, Bub?"

BREITBART.COM - Bush Orders FBI-Congress Documents Sealed:
"In a statement, Bush said he recognized that Republican and Democratic leaders in the House had 'deeply held views' that the search on Rep. William Jefferson's Capitol Hill office violated the Constitution's separation of powers principles. But he stopped short of saying he agreed with them."

The constitutional crisis aspect of this affair has, in my view, been vastly over-rated. Article I, Section 6, Sub-section 1, second sentence states the limited immunity granted to members of the House and Senate. They cannot be arrested while attending a session, or while travelling to or from a session unless the crime charged involves a breach of the peace, felony, or treason. And, they can't be held to account in any court, either civil or criminal for what they may say in session.

Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) is being investigated for bribery which is a felony. To say that he could be arrested on the floor of the House (as allowed for felonies), but that a judge cannot issue a search warrant for evidence related to that felony in his congressional office would be a strange situation.

In the early days of the Republic, individual members were not even provided with offices in public buildings and they transacted their before and after hours business in rooming houses and taverns where they lodged during the sessions. To create a no search warrant zone in their government-supplied offices would be an invitation to keep incriminating evidence in those places. This would unduly burden law enforcement.

The problem is not that the executive branch is too eager to prosecute members of congress, but that it is too timid. Corruption is rife in Washington and there ought to be several prosecutions like this one in every session. There should be a permanent office of congressional prosecution in the Justice Department.

The halls of Congress should be thronged with government agents and confidential informants carrying suicases bulging with cash. Every member should have the opportunity to turn down a million in cash at least once a month. During congressional recesses, they should be hounded by men and women offering tainted money at every turn.

Just maybe, if the odds were better than even that an offer of cash for favors was an invitation to a jail cell, even the crooks would learn to say no.

McCain makes pitch for NYC money

NYO - News Story 1:
"He cautioned against ghettoizing immigrants, which he noted has brought about disastrous results in France, and criticized elements in his own party as “nativist” before lambasting the punditry of Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs and Michael Savage for helping to “fuel the problem,” according to two of the sources."

Perhaps Sen. McCain named others whom Mr. Horowitz's sources neglected to mention for inclusion in this report from the New York Observer, but it does seem odd that the list above omits O'Reilly - the number one rated personality in cable TV - as well as Hannity. The two of them, with cable TV shows on Fox News Channel and high-rated syndicated talk radio programs, are certainly reaching more people on the immigration issue than Dobbs and Savage.

More importantly, what is the content of McCain's remarks on immigration? How are France's immigrants "ghettoized"? Historically, the ghettos of Europe were sections of the cities marked off as reserved for Jews and outside which Jews were not permitted to reside. Clearly, this is not what is going on in France and not really what McCain has in mind. The only use of the word "ghetto" here seems to be to make a none too subtle effort to link France's treatment of her immigrant population with her treatment of her Jewish population in World War Two. And, by extension, to paint those in the US who would treat immigrants as France does as Nazis, racists, anti-semites, etc.

I bow to no one in my distaste for the French, and I recognize their long history of anti-semitism and rather too easy collaboration with Nazi Germany in WW2, but this rhetorical flourish by McCain is a perfect illustration of the kind of thing he does that would never permit me to trust him or to support him for president.

France has never been a particularly racist country. The elites have fawned over all sorts of colored people whether from the US, the Caribbean or her former colonies in West Africa and elsewhere. Those Muslim protesters who indulge in orgies of car burning are not herded into ghettos. Rather, in France as in most advanced countries, public housing tends to be concentrated in blue collar areas where it is felt the residents will have best access to suitable employment opportunities. The immigrants flock to public housing. The situation is aggravated with respect to Muslim immigrants because there is a high degree of political polarization, especially among the young men, which makes them rather poor neighbors so that as they move in, ethnic Frenchmen and non-Muslim immigrants tend to flee.

Without a system of racial and religious quotas for public housing and scattered site 8(A) subsidized housing, it is hard to see how the sort of "ghettoizing" McCain objects to can be avoided here. And such a system would never pass Constitutional scrutiny here just as it would run afoul of EU human rights standards in France.

The "nativist" tag is another code word designed to shut down debate. The roots of that term in American politics go back to the American Party (aka the "Know Nothings") of the first half of the 19th century. Later used to describe the late 19th century second incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan, the term is a subtle way of McCain calling his opponents on the immigration debate racists.

A careful look at generations of polling data on the immigration question shows that the great divide in opinion is not between races, although there are race-related differences in attitudes, and not between native born and foreign born, so much as between those who arrived legally and those who arrive illegally.

Native-born Hispanics, for instance, have traditionally favored limits on immigration and enforcement of immigration law as have African Americans. But so have immigrants of all races who came here according to legal procedures. The latter can hardly be accused of being nativist.

The ones "fueling the problem" of illegal immigration are McCain and his fellow senators who are blocking the broadly-supported House-passed immigration bill.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips and Farewell, Sen. Chip

In the end, it came down to the raise alone:
"Only 18 percent of the state's voters went to the polls, but they ousted 17 lawmakers, including the two most powerful members of the state Senate -- Majority Leader David J. 'Chip' Brightbill, R-Lebanon, and President Pro Tempore Robert Jubelirer, R-Blair County."

To this day, I can't watch Goodbye, Mr. Chips (at least the 1939 version with Robert Donat and Greer Garson) without it bringing a tear to my eye.

The same cannot be said for the passing from the political scene of Sen. Chip Brightbill. Looking back 24 years to Chip's first run for the state Senate, it is hard for me to believe that I would look on his removal from office in a GOP primary with approbation.

In that earlier era, Chip seemed to be one of the good guys. He employed Pete Zug in his office, Pete was one of the good guys in the Young Republicans. In 1992, Pete was elected to the state House of Representatives.

And, in 2006, both Chip and Pete lost their primary re-nomination fights. The overwhelming issue, as it was for eleven other Republican state legislators and four of their Democrat colleagues was the 2:00 AM vote, one fateful night in 2005, to raise the already exorbitant pay and perks of senators and representatives.

Reapportionment removed my township from Brightbill's senate district several years ago, so I was spared the painful necessity of voting against him myself. I'll shed no tears for Chip. He wasn't run out of town on a rail covered with tar and feathers, he just gets to retire from state service with a nice pension - and he will have more time to devote to the practice of law.

Mexicans concerned about security and stability as presidential vote nears

News from The Associated Press:
"In April, suspected drug lords posted the heads of two police officers on a wall outside a government building where four drug traffickers died in a Jan. 27 shootout with officers in the Pacific resort of Acapulco.
"A sign nearby read: 'So that you learn to respect.'"

This story also mentions that Sub-commandante Marcos of the currently quiescent insurgency in Chiapas has been making public statements again. Noted elsewhere is the inability of Nuevo Laredo to find a police chief after having three in a little more than a year.

As has been pointed out repeatedly in this space, Mexico is an incredibly badly run country. If AK-47s were as common in Mexico as they are in Iraq, Vicente Fox would be asking his buddy Jorge Arbusto for asylum in the US.

Guest worker program draws fire from union leaders

KFDM-TV Channel Six News:
"THE COMPANY[BUNA BASED SOUTHEAST TEXAS INDUSTRIES]'S ATTORNEY PETITIONED THE VIDOR CITY COUNCIL TONIGHT TO ALLOW THEM TO HOUSE UP TO 100 DOCUMENTED MEXICAN WORKERS ON SITE ... TO FILL ITS NEED."

There are two key points to notice from this story.

First, as noted above, these Mexican workers to be housed at the plant in Vidor, Texas, will be workers with documents allowing them to work here legally. A company spokesman notes that they can stay for ten months and then the company can bring in another group of Mexican workers for the next ten months. Other press accounts I have read note that this program - a true guest worker program similar to the old Bracero program which operated from 1942-64 - is undersubscribed because Mexicans wishing to work in the US usually prefer to enter illegally.

Second, the article says the company has not been able to find enough American workers to fill available jobs at $18 per hour (although one union leader is quoted saying the average is probably nearer $14). One has to wonder how hard they looked. Did they go to Houston and other cities in Texas where refugees from Katrina are still unable to return to New Orleans? I'd wager some of those folks wouldn't turn down a chance to work for that kind of money.

Mexican official: US talk of amnesty will spur further illegal entries

Mexico Threatens Suits Over Guard Patrols - Yahoo! News:
"In Ciudad Juarez, Julieta Nunez Gonzalez, local representative of the Mexican government's National Immigration Institute, said Tuesday she will ask the government to send its migrant protection force, known as Grupo Beta, to more remote sections of the border.
"Sending the National Guard 'will not stop the flow of migrants, to the contrary, it will probably go up,' as people try to get into the U.S. in the hope that they could benefit from a possible amnesty program, Nunez said."

There you have it from a Mexican government official charged with encouraging illegal migration to the US. I couldn't have made it any plainer myself. Is the US Senate listening?

AMLO understands a nation that does not serve the interests of its citizens is in trouble, Bush doesn't get it

Immigration is Mexico's disgrace: leftist candidate�|�Reuters.com:
"Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who trails conservative Felipe Calderon in polls ahead of July 2 elections, accused President Vicente Fox's administration of causing the flight of millions of Mexicans to the north ..."

Why am I praising the left's candidate for president of Mexico? Well, for starters, when a man is right, he's right. Also, it is not clear to me that the so-called conservatives in Mexico like Vicente Fox and his designated successor Felipe Calderon are conservative in any way that resembles what I mean when I call myself conservative. It seems to me they are conservative in the sense that hard-line, unrepentant Stalinists were called conservatives in the infighting in the Soviet Politburo in the latter stages of the Cold War.

Useful insights on the Iranian nuclear problem

OpinionJournal - From WSJ.com:
"Mr. [Mehdi] Khalaji [an Iranian journalist based at a Washington think tank] also urges the U.S. government to recast the content of its Farsi-language radio station, known as Radio Farda. The station's programmers, he says, 'misunderstand the young generation of Iran, which is very political. The quality is not appropriate for a serious audience. The news isn't professional the way the BBC is.' Offering a serious journalistic alternative to the Beeb ought to be an administration priority."

This is, in some ways the most striking of the suggestions in Bret Stephens' commentary. Note particularly that our opposition in the war for the hearts and minds of young Iranians is not the domestic Iranian media, but the venerable Beeb - the British Broadcasting Corporation.

The trouble with Stephens' suggestions for new approaches to the crisis, what he calls Plan B, is that it consists of generally good ideas that won't have the slightest impact on Iranian policy. The mullahs have no choice but to push this confrontation with the West because they must divert attention of their own people from issues like the fascist organization of the economy which allows politically favored persons and cartels to scam billions from the populace while the government itself teeters on the brink of bankruptcy.

Republican factions in the immigration debate

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Republicans on Immigration: The War Within:
"If the Democratic whispers -- that Republicans are racists who oppose non-white immigration -- are demagoguery, neither does the claim of some Republican apologists that the party is 'against illegal immigration, but for legal immigration' accurately represent the whole party. There are at least four identifiable factions within the GOP."

A very insightful look, by James J. Na of the Discovery Institute, at how the immigration debate opens deep fissures among Republicans. I could comfortably place myself in either the law and order or culture warrior camps.

I understand the Dick Morris "triangulation" faction, but I have two problems with them. First, as Dwight Eisenhower was reputed to have said, a political party without principles is nothing but a conspiracy to seize power over other people. Second, I think that in this case they are simply wrong about where the political advantage in this debate lies.

As for the Limousine crowd. These are the people I started fighting when I joined the GOP in 1964. Why haven't they gone away yet?

I take issue with Na's characterization of culture warriors as "Anglo-Saxon," however. It may not be broadly inclusivist, but it is not so narrow as that. It is Western, Christian, and not a little Calvinist. It includes Scots, Scandinavians, Welsh, German and other strains as well as the major Germanic strains in Britain.

What the President should say about immigration but won't - Part 4 - Deportation

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Immigration Compromise Likely to Strip Out Citizenship:
"But the House Republican leadership has already acknowledged that making illegal immigration a felony, and deporting all those violators, is both politically unacceptable and logistically impossible."

Says who?

The argument that we can't deport 12 million illegals (or 9 million or 30 million, depending on who is doing the estimating) so we shouldn't try, is an amazingly weak one if anyone would bother to look at it. Would anyone argue that because we can't save all the victims of car wrecks we shouldn't bother sending ambulances and EMTs to accident scenes? There is a name for that kind of thinking - letting the perfect become the enemy of the good.

I find it truly bizarre that people take this argument seriously and at the same time believe that we can set up a bureaucracy to process the amnesty claims of eight or ten million (or maybe two or three times that number) illegal entrants.

The various plans being floated by the administration and on the Hill and from the foundations and think tanks and other refuges of the policy wonks all contain some combination of elements like proof of residence before some date, proof of employment, payment of a nominal fine, some tax payments, lack of criminal record, etc.

How are they going to shuffle all those papers? Are they really going to check with landlords to verify length of residence? Are they going to take fingerprints of all these people and run them through AFIS? Are they going to check personally with all their employers to figure what taxes they owe?

I'll tell you what the government will end up doing. They will give contracts to various groups who are now lobbying for an amnesty program to run the application processing. The excuse will be that these are community and social welfare organizations with a presence in the immigrant neighborhoods and a knowledge of their language and culture and that these persons who entered illegally would be intimidated if they had to go to the police or immigration enforcement agency to be fingerprinted, photographed and fill out all the forms.

The result will be what we saw during the Clinton administration when they hired immigration lobbies to process citizenship applications in a rush to enroll new voters - massive errors, including citizenship for thousands of criminals who did not meet the criteria.

You don't have to deport all the illegals, nor do you have to do it quickly, in order to have a salutary effect on the American economy which is suffering tremendously from the burden of caring for these persons who came here uninvited.

What the President should say about immigration but won't - Part 3 - Amnesty

Immigrant Supporters To Counter Bush Speech:
"The We Are America Alliance of 41 immigrant resource groups, unions, churches, day laborers and Spanish-language disc jockeys opposes House legislation that would criminalize illegal immigrants, but it will lobby Congress and compromise to realize its goal of obtaining legal residency for many of the 11 million people who live in the shadows.
"But like the president, whose proposal for a guest-worker program is opposed by many in his own party, the alliance does not speak for all. It is being criticized by a small but influential faction of Latino activists in Los Angeles who say the alliance's compromise strategy could slow the momentum created by the protests."

This Washington Post story deals with what it portrays as a fissure among the pro-amnesty forces. My take on it is that they all want the same thing - total amnesty for all those here illegally - but they need a perception that there is a "moderate" wing to the movement to improve their ability to get amnesty for most, if not all, the current illegals now and the rest later.

Despite the unpopularity of amnesty with the American people, the President continues to make it the centerpiece of his "reform" plan. He adds another, somewhat less unpopular, idea which he refers to (disingenuously, I believe) as "guest workers" and then offers a pledge to tighten border security over several years.

News Flash for President Bush - We conservatives went down this road with Ronald Reagan whom we loved, respected and trusted. Several million illegal immigrants got amnesty, but the promised improvements in border security never materialized. Mr. Bush, we learned a bitter lesson 20 years ago and we won't be fooled again. We don't love you or trust you the way we did Reagan and we don't have any confidence that you would be able to deliver on any promise to secure the border. Maybe if you had made that a priority after 9/11 and we now had the planned fence complete and a Border Patrol about 20 to 50 percent bigger than it is today, we might be more receptive to your pleas. But you only have less than three years left and your popularity is so low the next guy in the White House is likely to be a Democrat, so we aren't inclined to give up something now for a promise of something in the future.

What the President should say about immigration but won't - Part 2 - Quality

Reform bill to double immigration�-�Nation/Politics�-�The Washington Times, America's Newspaper:
"The immigration reform bill that the Senate takes up today would more than double the flow of legal immigration into the United States each year and dramatically lower the skill level of those immigrants.
"The number of extended family members that U.S. citizens or legal residents can bring into this country would double. More dramatically, the number of workers and their immediate families could increase sevenfold if there are enough U.S. employers looking for cheap foreign labor. Another provision would grant humanitarian visas to any woman or orphaned child anywhere in the world 'at risk of harm' because of age or sex."

Here is a great example of the legislative process in action. The way you put together a winning coalition is to take a bad idea from one senator and combine it with another bad idea from another senator and so on. When you have enough bad ideas in the package that at least 51 senators each like at least one of them - VOILA! - you have an abomination like the Hagel-Martinez bill that meets the needs of senators by ignoring the wishes of the public.

Anybody who doesn't believe that we need to raise the levels of job skills and educational attainment of immigrants rather than lowering them is no friend of the United States.

Likewise, anyone who hasn't noticed the abuses of the family reunification rules in our present system - principally the finessing of the requirement that family members already here be responsible for the economic support of those they sponsor and not let them become a charge on the public purse - has not been paying attention and has no business crafting public policy.

Finally, the idea that the US ought to be responsible for every woman or orphan in the world is just plain crazy.

Of course, the President will not say anything against Hagel-Martinez because his goal is to add his own bad ideas - amnesty in particular - to whatever bill comes through the Senate and he will need their votes.

What the President should say about immigration but won't - Part 1 - Troops

My Way News:
"The president is expected to outline immigration reform proposals, including deployment of several thousand National Guard troops in a support role along the 2,000-mile border, but less than the 10,000 that had been talked about at the Pentagon, a U.S. official said on Sunday."

We tried putting troops on the border a few years ago - just a few, as I recall, as an experiment. Naturally, the military way to do things is to stress OpSec, so they didn't bother to tell people what they were doing or where. The result was that a teenage boy guarding his family's sheep from four-legged coyotes and other predators was shot and killed by one of his country's own troops. That tragedy ended the program.

Sending soldiers out on patrol on their own is a recipe for disaster. However, there is one thing that needs doing on the border which only the military can do and a few things where they might be useful. Sending troops to take over manning the dispatch system and the cellblocks so that trained Border Patrol agents can work directly on interdiction might help, as would using them to help with transporting detainees to jails or back to the border. Allowing troops to go on patrol under the command of career Border Patrol agents might also be useful.

Now, the one thing where the assistance of the military is essential is in dealing with border incursions by the Mexican Army and police agencies. Officially, these are dismissed as honest mistakes in navigation unless the drug runners they escort are actually caught and then they are dismissed as aberrations. Our government finds it impolite to acknowledge that rampant corruption pervades every level of government in Mexico. As I noted recently on this blog, such incurions have been averaging once every seventeen days over the last several years. These typically include a squad or two troops with Humvees and automatic weapons, but at least one recent case in Arizona involved a helicopter.

A combination of helicopter gunships and close support fixed-wing aircraft maintained on alert at locations along the border with forward observers assigned to the Border Patrol would go a long way toward seeing that some of these incursions end with the offenders in custody. At present, the Department of Homeland Security's official guidance in the event of an armed invasion of US territory is to withdraw from the area and not confront the invaders.

If these smugglers of drugs and who knows what else were met by forces with superior firepower capable of wrecking their vehicles, and even killing them if they resist detention, they might decide the money offered by the smugglers wasn't worth the risk.

Over 8,000 MPG - but there's a catch

University of Bath - Public Relations - Press releases:

Before you get too excited about how much this car - which will be representing Britain at the Shell Eco-Marathon - might save you at the gas pump, there are a few things you ought to know. The car is a three-wheeled oddity only 10 feet long and two feet wide with a fuel-injected 35 cc engine. The British team complain that some other entries save weight by using children as young as ten years old as drivers.

But, the real trick to this competition is that the race is conducted at speeds ranging from four to 30 MPH for a total of 10 miles. Racers use the engine just once for a few seconds on each lap and aim to complete each circuit without touching the breaks. This ain't Le Mans, friends.

Smoke and mirrors

Up in smoke - Haaretz - Israel News :
"[Dr. Yaakov] Nehamkin: 'Most of them don't have a clue about the charas in India or about what they are smoking here in Israel. In India a great deal of the charas also includes LSD, added to produce a more powerful effect. When they come here and say, 'We only smoked the green stuff,' it's not exactly so. Because it also contained something else. In Israel almost all the material comes from Egypt, from Sinai, from the Bedouin. It's been tested in labs and found to have small additions of rat poison or of methadone and all kinds of other horrors.'"

This is an amazing admission to come near the end of a lengthy article that starts out by blaming marijuana use alone for "between 800 and 1,000 Israeli youngsters who suffer mental breakdowns every year in the wake of using cannabis."

Now, excessive use of marijuana, like anything else, would have to be unhealthy. The first rule of pharmacology is "the dose makes the poison" and the concentration of THC in marijuana has risen significantly since the Flower Power days of the Sixties.

But to make sweeping claims about marijuana as the sole source of so many treatment program admissions, outpatient visits, and suicides without making allowance for the contribution of little extras like LSD, rat poison and methadone is unscientific and irresponsible.

Austrian rabbi pledges cooperation with Hamas-led Palestinian Authority

PA minister, anti-Zionist Austrian rabbi herald 'joint coalition' - Haaretz - Israel News :
"[Moishe Arye] Friedman is chief rabbi for hundreds of anti-Zionist orthodox Jews in Vienna but is shunned by Austria's 7,000-member Israelite Religious Community because of views that are repudiated by most Jews and also, in some cases, embraced by far-rightists."
...
"Friedman said his congregation would "do everything in practical terms to help the Palestinian people," including sending money and food to the West Bank.
"'We will support them in ways that others have failed to do,' Friedman said, but declined to give details."

Fairly strange, but not much more strange than another story the same day that Norway was also pledging aid to the new Hamas-run PA government. Or that the EU would give a travel visa to Atef Adwan, the new head of the PA's refugee ministry, when his political party is officially designated by the EU as a terrorist organization.

New aspects of the avian influenza story

Al-Ahram Weekly | Egypt | Wrong vaccine spread virus:
"Governor of Giza Fathi Saad, the Ministry of Agriculture's representative in the committee, stressed in the report that H5N1 is indigenous in Egypt, appearing every year in winter and autumn. Normally, though, it would disappear from the country in the summer due to the high temperatures."

I've been trying to follow this bird flu business for months and have blogged on it previously, but this is the first I have heard of the H5N1 strain being long-established outside of east Asia. And, that's not the only bombshell in this report from Al Ahram.

It seems that a vigorous vaccination program has resulted in the culling of 34 million infected birds. Mohamed El-Shafei of the Poultry Union reports, "Egypt has lost 75 per cent of its egg- laying flocks and 50 per cent of all fowl. Since there is almost no poultry in the country, infection rates of bird flu are decreasing."

For reasons which the article does not attempt to explain, Egyptian authorities imported H5N1 avian vaccine from the Peoples Republic of China even though it was more expensive than the vaccines being used in Europe and Israel. H5N2 and H5N9 vaccine produced in Europe wipes out the H5N1 virus in birds in a matter of days.

They say the PRC vaccine has a latency period of 3-4 weeks during which vaccinated birds have compromised immune systems. "The SNCCBF [Supreme National Committee to Combat Bird Flu] noticed that immunised birds have contracted the disease during this period. Therefore it was normal for the birds to be dead," he [Gov. Saad] added.

Let's hope our own government learns from Egypt's sad experience.

It's a mind field - Mind Matters - Health And Fitness - theage.com.au

It's a mind field - Mind Matters - Health And Fitness - theage.com.au:
"'Work by psychologists such as Elizabeth Loftus has shown how easy it is to construct memories,' [says Dr. Richard Kemp, psychologist at the University of New South Wales]."

Dr. Kemp goes on to describe how university psychologists' favorite guinea pigs - college students - were shown faked photos of themselves as children in a hot air balloon with a parent and soon produced details of when and where this fictitious event ocurred. Scary!

Nepal releases two top Maoist leaders- The Times of India

Nepal releases two top Maoist leaders- The Times of India:
"[Politburo member Matrika Prasad] Yadav said he was not glad to be released.
"'Nearly 1,400 Maoists are in various prisons in Nepal,' he said. 'We want the government to release all political prisoners, disclose the whereabouts of people made to disappear by the previous governments, and repeal the draconian anti-terrorism law (that allows suspects to be held incommunicado for a year).
"'We also demand punishment for war criminals - people responsible for the extra-judicial killings of our cadres and civilians during our 10-year People's War.'"

In case you needed any evidence that releasing Communist thugs to "create an atmosphere of trust for fresh parleys" is a very bad idea, you just have to read Commisar Yadav's statement. He still demands the total capitulation of the government and offers no defense for his own role in the "extra-judicial killings" of Krishna Mohan Shrestha, IG of the Armed Police, his wife and bodyguard.

The ten year long war of Communists seeking to conquer the small kingdom of Nepal may seem like small beer compared to the great questions of war and peace revolving around the nuclear weapons ambitions of Iran and North Korea, or the sectarian violence tearing apart the Sudan and Nigeria, but it does help to remind us that, despite the re-arrangement of the Soviet Union into the present Russian Republic, Communism hasn't entirely slunk off the stage of history in well-earned disgrace.

My hero - Sheriff Joe - strikes another blow

Arizona County Uses New Law to Look for Illegal Immigrants - New York Times:
"On Wednesday, the posse, a civilian force of 300 volunteers, many of them retired deputies, are to fan out over desert backcountry, watching for smugglers and the people they guide into these parts."

As tenacious as McGruff the crime-fighting dog, Sheriff Joe Arpaio (R-Maricopa Co., AZ), has taken another bite out of crime. His office is actively enforcing a new Arizona state law forbidding the human smuggling trade. Both "coyotes" and those who employ them to enter the US illegally, as well as other illegals encountered in the normal course of law enforcement, are being charged with violating state laws and/or transferred to the custody of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel.

Not mentioned here, but published recently elsewhere, is the fact that Arizona state and local law enforcement officers encounter illegal aliens in the normal course of their work over one-half million times each year - that's about once every minute.

Now, if we can get Congress to fund completing the fence and hiring enough Border Patrol personnel and providing enough bed space to end the "catch and release" policy that freed Beltway Sniper John Malvo to go on his killing spree, we can send back large numbers of illegal border crossers with some confidence they won't be back the next day or the next week.

But, what about the Wall?

5 million more Latam migrants in US by 2015: study�|�Reuters.com:
"The U.S. recruitment company Manpower, which carried out the study, said toughening penalties for illegal immigration would not deter young adults in Mexico and Central and South America from pursuing a better life in the United States."

The "study" also says the result will be the same whether, in the words of the Reuters story, "Congress decides to criminalize or legalize illegal immigrants."

First, notice that the alternatives are said to be to "criminalize or legalize" but unauthorized entry is already a crime, that's why the Neanderthals like me call those who enter the US without permission "illegal" aliens. Obtaining employment in the US without a "green card" is also a crime. Another reason we call immigants who do this "illegal." Using false papers (forged birth certificates, fake Social Security cards, fraudulently obtained drivers licenses, etc.) to obtain employment or government benefits is also criminal conduct.

Presumably, the article is attempting to contrast the House immigration bill which would reclassify illegal entry from a misdemeanor to a felony with President Bush's amnesty plan. Of course, these are not the only alternatives, it might be that both features would be included in a compromise reform bill or that no bill will be agreeable to both the House and the Senate.

Second, as an economist, I have a bit of trouble with the idea that a change in the risk-reward structure will not alter patterns of behavior. It is not too unreasonable that merely raising illegal entry to a felony might have no measurable impact, but passage of an amnesty program is certain to encourage an increase in illegal entry, at least in the short run. The reason for this is that any program that offers amnesty to persons who can prove they have been here for two years or so will draw new entrants up to the application cut-off date who will plan on acquiring fake documentation of their residence for the required period.

The "study" - at least as reported here - ignores the possibility of completing the fence along the Mexican border. That, and committing sufficient resources to end "catch and release," ought to slow the influx to a trickle and allow us to begin the long, slow process of sending illegal entrants back to their homes.

Lou Dobbs gets it right

CNN.com - Dobbs: Radical groups taking control of immigrant movement - May 1, 2006:
" Many meat-packing companies like Cargill and Tyson are also closing many of their plants.
"'The meat packers are confirming what we know,' says University of Maryland economics professor Peter Morici, 'and that is that this large group of illegal aliens in the United States is lowering the wage rate of semiskilled workers, people who are high school dropouts or high school graduates with minimal training.'
"In fact, a meat-packing job paid $19 an hour in 1980, but today that same job pays closer to $9 an hour, according to the Labor Department. That's entirely consistent with what we've been reporting -- that illegal aliens depress wages for U.S. workers by as much as $200 billion a year in addition to placing a tremendous burden on hospitals, schools and other social services."

Dobbs makes an important point here. Also note that $9 per hour is not a minimum wage job.

He also makes the point that the radical left has taken over a significant role in the leadership of this protest movement. This goes a long way to answering the question I raised in my last post - why don't the demonstrators praise Bush since he is the one leading the charge for amnesty and for the Free Trade Area of the Americas.

The dark side of May Day 2006

Article: News - Rock throwing reported in Santa Ana:
"SANTA ANA — Police asked other law enforcement agencies for help this afternoon after a group of 1,500 protesters jammed traffic on Bristol Street near 1st Street and Edinger Avenue and some started to hurls rocks, plastic bottles and marbles at officers."

This is small beer compared to the May Day rioting in Berlin, but it does show that not everything was roses everywhere in the anti-America demonstrations Monday.

I chose the term "anti-America" carefully. At best, the organizers are asking American public officials to do what is in the best interests of a segment of the Mexican population, not what is best for America. At worst, a sizable element of the demonstrators appear to deny that there even is an America entitled to defend its interests against them.

To illustrate a part of this, I want to take a close look at one minor "leader" of the movement.

A woman (whose name I didn't catch) was interviewed by Bill O'Reilly on Fox News last night and he tried to get her to give a forthright answer to what was meant by the slogan "We did not cross the border, the border crossed us." She gave a long and more than a little misleading talk about land trade routes linking native peoples from Canada to southern South America as evidence that borders were somehow an innovation of British (and then American) colonial expropriation and exploitation of North America. Asked whether she meant by this that there should be no borders at all from Argentina to Canada, she refused a direct answer and launched into a disquisition on free speech and civil rights, but also saying that as money and goods can move across borders, workers should be able to also.

O'Reilly, somehow missed the opportunity to pin down whether, in fact, pre-Columbian peoples - whatever their interests in trade - marked and defended territories for their various nations/tribes. He might also have asked if they did not also make war on one another, take slaves, offer human sacrifices, etc. In short, he missed a real opportunity to define the question in terms of realpolitik and not some Rousseauian idea of the noble savage so superior to the corruption of Christendom.

O'Reilly also failed to ask her what it might mean to her argument that the earliest known inhabitants of South America were Negroes and the the earliest known inhabitants of North America were Caucasians.

Turning to the end of the interview, one is struck by how her argument mirrors the Free Trade Area of the Americas proposal which would extend geographically and expand in scope the North American Free Trade Area into a copy of the European Union. This is a project near and dear to President George W. Bush.

When you consider that President Bush is also the most prominent proponent of amnesty for those aliens who have broken our laws to come here and work (or even just to live off the fat of the land on various forms of public assistance including free health care which is threatening the financial solvency of many US hospitals) you might think that the demonstrators would be chanting "We support President Bush" instead of hanging him in effigy.

O'Reilly got one thing right. He did make the point that the key to this problem is the government of Mexico. The European-descended cabal that rules that country has used emigration to the US and remittances from Mexicans working in the US as a safety valve to deflect attention from the rampant corruption of the regime which contributes greatly to the poverty there.

Another downside to the Iraq venture

Gangs claim their turf in Iraq :
"'I have identified 320 soldiers as gang members from April 2002 to present,' said Scott Barfield, a Defense Department gang detective at Fort Lewis in Washington state. 'I think that's the tip of the iceberg.'"

It seems America's criminal gangs - Aryan Nation, Black Gangster Disciples, Latin Kings, etc. - have turned up in significant numbers in our all volunteer force and that means they are in Iraq as well.

Army higher-ups seem to have little concern about the phenomenon so long as gang members do not bring their turf wars on post. Civilian observers worry that a tactical truce while serving may give way to more sophisticated and bloody urban warfare when they return to civilian life.

The article quotes at least one source saying that Army recruiters are being encouraged to get criminal history waivers for gangbangers offering to enlist - anything to meet the quota. Another source says gangs are ordering members to enlist to learn valuable urban warfare skills they can teach to other members when they return.

Now, let me connect the dots a bit.

American police agencies, especially in major cities, have been learning urban warfare skills in joint training with the armed forces. Now, police have to worry that the gangbangers' drug dealing and other organized criminal activities - which were driving interest in this sort of training long before 9/11 - will be carried on in future by the same people who once trained, or trained with, their officers.

Here we go again!

BREITBART.COM - Young Americans geographically illiterate: survey:
"'Geographic illiteracy impacts our economic well-being, our relationships with other nations and the environment, and isolates us from our world,' said John Fahey, National Geographic Society president. 'Without geography, our young people are not ready to face the challenges of the increasingly interconnected and competitive world of the 21st century.'"

If memory serves, we went through this about thirty years ago. There was a survey that said students didn't know geography. Geography professors got a bit more respect, a few states required geography to be taught and a generation later we are still clueless.

For some reason I have always been attracted to maps. I got my folks to get me a subscription to the National Geographic when I was in grade school. I still collect maps and atlases in a sort of haphazard way. So I never understood why people wouldn't want to study geography. Of course, if all the course amounts to is unconnected lists of rivers, lakes, countries, mountains, etc. then maybe it would seem pointless.

The great virtue of geographical study is the way it helps to organize insights about history - war, exploration, migration and trade. To see, for example, how the great navigable rivers of northwestern Europe and of the Atlantic coast of the Americas helped to shape an economy that favored trade in agricultural commodoties in a way that the very limited access to the interior provided by the rivers of Africa's Atlantic coast did not. The ability to export grain and other agricultural products (tobacco and cotton in the case of the early American settlement of the southeastern quarter of the country) of course invited the reciprocal importation of manufactured goods and the trade between them enriched both the agriculturalists and the manufacturers.

I've got a BA in economics with 23 semester hours in geography and geology courses, but only one two-hour education course. If you know of an opening teaching geography, let me know.