Tuesday, August 29, 2006

It's all Che's fault!

I may have to "bug out" of SC over the next few days. I'm told that evacuation is a real possibility along the coast. If the opportunity arises, and with a holiday weekend coming up,
I'm outta here!

Monday, August 28, 2006

This is a Good Idea

At Dean's World, he is posing the Question - Who is the Anonymous Senator? - the one that is blocking Senate bill 2590, which makes the budget process transparent. The information about the AS(S), comes from Instapundit.

Dean suggests that you contact your Senators, and ask - are you he/she? If so, stop it. If not, let me know.

It will be interesting to see what the responses are.

Guard the Borders

By Heidi at Euphoric Reality

Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.

-Arnold Toynbee

Wide open and unguarded stand our gates, and through them passes a wild motley throng.

-Thomas Bailey Aldrich, “Unguarded Gates,” 1895

You cannot become thorough Americans if you think of yourselves in groups. America does not consist of groups. A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American.

-Woodrow Wilson, Address to New Citizens, 1915

Those who favor unrestricted immigration care nothing for the people.

-Sam Gompers, founding president, AFL, 1921

Why was the border guard so thin? Did the Romans not notice…that their way of life was changing forever?

-Thomas Cahill, 1995

No society has a boundless capacity to accept newcomers, especially when many are poor and unskilled.

-Robert Samuelson, economist and Newsweek columnist, 2005

We can’t protect our own borders.

-Donald Rumsfeld, November 29, 2005

*******


The following excerpts are all from a new book, State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America. Many people may not read it because of the political baggage of the author, but I’ve read the book, despite my disagreement with the author on other issues, and it is entirely right on the money when it comes to the invasion of our country by foreigners. It occurred to me that many people may miss out on the common sense found within its pages so I’m excerpting a little bit of it here for those who may never read the words otherwise.
On November 28, 2005, President Bush, speaking in Tucson, conceded that in five years 4.5 million aliens had been caught attempting to break into the United States. Among that 4.5 million, Bush admitted, were "more than 350,000 with criminal records." One in every twelve illegal aliens the U.S. Border Patrol had apprehended was a criminal.

That is 70,000 felons apprehended each year, 200 felons every single day for five years, trying to break into our country to rob, rape, and murder Americans. Of the millions who succeeded on Bush’s watch, how many came for just such purposes? How many Americans have been robbed, assaulted, or murdered because the President failed in his duty to defend the borders of the United States?

Nearly 8 million foreigners did enter during those five years, 3.7 million of them illegally. If one in twelve was a criminal, 300,000 felons slipped in during Bush’s tenure. This is an historic dereliction of presidential duty.

There are today 36 million foreign-born in the United States, almost three times as many people as the 13.5 million hear at the peak of the Great Wave in 1910. And it is among these tens of millions of foreign-born that illegal aliens find sanctuary. As James Edwards of the Hudson Institute writes, legal and illegal immigration are two sides of the same coin. If we fail to control the one, we cannot control the other. As a rule, he notes, when legal immigration rises, illegal immigration soars.

[…]

Our foreign-born population today is almost equal to the 42 million who came over three and a half centuries from 1607 to 19965. The Border Patrol catches as many illegal immigrants every month as all the legal immigrants who came to America in the 1820s. Today’s numbers are of a different order of magnitude.

No nation has ever attempted to assimilate 36 million foreigners in a generation. Yet, each year, 1.5 million more are added to the number, half of the illegals, 90 percent of them from Third World countries whose people have never before been assimilated into our population.

[…]

“The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities,” said Theodore Roosevelt. We are becoming was T.R. warned against: a multi-lingual, multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural Tower of Babel. To the delight of anti-Americans everywhere and the indifference of our elites, we are risking the Balkanization and breakup of the nation.

[…]

How many spies and saboteurs have been sent into our country as sleeper agents? How many Al Qaeda are here awaiting orders to bomb subways and malls or assassinate our leaders? We have no idea. Neither does the Department of Homeland Security. Border security is homeland security. But America has lost control of her borders and, as Ronald Reagan said, a country that can’t control its borders isn’t really a country anymore.

In his address in Tucson, President Bush made a startling admission. For decades, he said, the United States has had a separate policy in dealing with non-Mexicans breaking in through the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, a policy of “catch-and-release”: “about four of every five non-Mexican illegal immigrants we catch are released in society and asked to return for a court date. When the date arrives, about 75% of those released don’t show up at court.* As a result, last year [2004], only 30,000 of the 160,000 non-Mexicans caught coming across our southwest border were sent home.”

“This practice of catch and release has been the government’s policy for decades,” said Bush. “It is an unwise policy and we’re going to end it.”

Is this not an astonishing admission? …How can the president say our homeland is secure?

Further on in his Tucson speech, Bush conceded that our government and laws have been frozen in a pre-9/11 world:
Under current law, the federal government is required to release people caught crossing our border illegally if their home countries do not take them back in a set period of times…Those we were forced to release have included murderess, rapists, child molesters, and other violent criminals.

“This undermines our border security” and the work “these good folks” of the Borders are doing, added the president.

Again, is this not astounding? President Bush was talking about releasing “murders, rapists, child molesters, and other violent criminals” into our society, because “current law” commands it and the nations whence the criminals come refuse to take them back.

The question begs itself: With Bush and his party in power, why had they not changed “current law”? Why had President Bush not picked up a phone and told the leaders of these “home countries” that there will not be another visa issued to their country until they take back every one of their criminal felons who has broken into ours?

What is the matter with President Bush? What is the matter with us?

What explains the paralysis of the present White House?

George Bush has taken an oath to see to it that the laws of the United States are faithfully executed. The immigration laws are clear. Businesses that hire illegal aliens break U.S. law and are subject to sanctions. Yet, as the columnist John O’Sullivan writes, “in the Clinton years 1995, 1996, and 1997 there were between 10,000 and 18,000 work-site arrests of illegals annually. In the same years about 1,000 employers were served notices of fines for employing them. Under the Bush administration, work-site arrests fell to 159 in 2004 where there was also the princely total of three notices of intent to fine served on employers.”

“In this dramatic relaxation of internal enforcement” under George W. Bush, O’Sullivan concludes, “is the explanation of the rapidly rising estimate of immigrants living and working illegally in this country.”

Can anyone say that, with this record, President Bush has faithfully executed the immigration laws of the United States?

Twice, President Bush took an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Article IV, Section 4, reads: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union, a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion.”

Yet, with perhaps 4 million illegal aliens having broken in during Bush’s five and a half years in office, and our border states daily breached by thousands more, can anyone say President Bush has protected the states of this Union against that invasion? In an earlier America, this dereliction of constitutional duty would have called forth articles of impeachment.

[…]

America’s leaders claim she is the most powerful country on earth. But American has a government too morally flabby to act as decisively as Ike did** to remove from our national home those who have broken in and had no right to be here. How many America women must be assaulted, how many children molested, how many citizens must die at the hands of criminal aliens and foreign terrorists before our government does its duty?

[…]

If present projections of the U.S. Census Bureau prove accurate, the American our grandchildren will live in will be another country, a nation unrecognizable to our parents.

By 2050, it is now estimated that there will be almost 2.5 times as many people here as in 1960: 420 million. The share of the population of European descent will be a minority, as it is today in California, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. And that minority will be aging, shrinking, and dying. There will be as many Hispanics here – 102 million – as there are Mexicans today in Mexico. …By 2050, they will be 24 percent of a nation of 420 million. By nation of origin of our people, America will be a Third World Country.

Our great cities will all look like Los Angeles today. Los Angeles and the cities of the Southwest will look like Juarez and Tijuana. Though we were never consulted about this transformation, never voted for it, and have protested against it in every poll and referendum, this is the future the elites have prepared for our children.


I'll close the excerpt with this warning:
This is not immigration as America knew it, when men and women made a conscious choice to turn their backs on their native lands and cross the ocean to become Americans. This is an invasion, the greatest invasion in history. Nothing of this magnitude has ever happened in so short a time.

Against the will of a vast majority of Americans, America is becoming transformed. As our elites nervously avert their gaze or welcome the invasion, we are witness to one of the great tragedies in human history. From Gibbon to Spengler to Toynbee and the Durants, the symptoms of a dying civilization are well known: the death of faith, the degeneration of morals, contempt for the old values, collapse of the culture, paralysis of the will. But the two certain signs that a civilization has begun to die are a declining population and foreign invasions no longer resisted.

Here in America, the self-delusion about what is happening and the paralysis in the face of the crises have no precedent. What can be said for a man who would allow his home to be invaded by strangers who demanded they be fed, clothed, housed, and granted the rights of the firstborn? What can be said for a ruling elite that permits this to be done to the nation, and that celebrates it as a milestone of moral progress?

We are witnessing how nations perish. We are entered upon the final act of our civilization. The last scene is the destruction of the nations. The penultimate scene, now well underway, is the invasion unresisted.


_____________________________


*According to Congressional testimony on August 16th, the Border Patrol reported that actually only 90% of released illegals report back for their court date.

**In 1954, when Eisenhower discovered a million Mexicans here who did not belong, without apology he ordered them sent home in "Operation Wetback." They went.

__________________________________________


This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It is syndicated by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we're going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terror. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration in our country, join the Blogburst! Send an email with your blog name and url to euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com.

Quick Update

The DSL has been in-and-out this weekend, so I'll make use of it while I can. Some things that have caught my attention:
  • Heather McDonald has an interesting article on immigration in City Journal - Seeing Today's Immigrants Straight.

  • If you're in the mood for a good laugh, try Bring it On! In excruciating detail, someone who calls himself "Windspike" writes,
    It strikes me that W was and is an accidental president: selected, but not elected. And before Nine Eleven, he didn’t have a platform upon which to stand. Post nine-eleven, his platform is firmly grounded on and predicated upon fear. But that indeed, is a shaky proposition because it has made him and us co-dependent upon the terrorists that supply that drug. Like all good drug dealers, Osama gave us the first dose free, and we have been paying for it ever since.

    Here’s a good illustration of what I mean. If we are winning the “war on terror,” why don’t the color levels go down as more of the bad guys are rounded up and brought to justice? Instead, you will notice that as they catch more bad guys, the fear scale is elevated rather than taken down a notch or two. Why? Because fear sells more of the drug, greasing the skids for more war-mongering and the war-time-profiteering approach to policy setting and political decision making.

    Apparently, the GOP as a whole and the W, Rove and Co specifically has decided that it is better for their party to have the American people living in a constant state of fear rather than work toward peace by any means necessary.
    YES! Because, of course, if that EVIL Rove and Co. weren't around to whisper their EVIL lies into that gullible George's ear, why, everything would be peace and light! All the time! Because, as a DEMOCRATIC president once said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Because, of course, we shouldn't fear the lovable Muslim "freedom fighters" who treated the recently kidnapped newsmen so well. As they put it:
    We're in fairly good condition, we're alive and well and in fairly good health. We get lots of clean water, food every day, access to the bathroom, shower, clean clothes and our captors are treating us well.
    That's what I do for my guests I want to impress - lots of clean water, food every day, access to the bathroom, and - what else to I do to impress them? Hold a gun to their heads, and force them to convert. That's the main way we Catholics get new recruits.
My DSL is back, I survived another day, I exercised - I'm enjoying my evening rest.

I found a wicked piece on An Unsealed Room, which site asks the question:
How do you threaten to behead someone respectfully?
That's a really good question. I hope she doesn't put off all important activity until she gets an equally good answer. It might be a while.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

DSL

Fortunately, I'm a reasonable person. When the tech answered, I didn't bite his head off.

However, I ended up spending over 40 minutes waiting in on-hold hiatus. Somebody is going to pay for that. Somehow.

Oh, BTW, my DSL won't be repaired before Monday evening. Or, as I was told, Embarq was "committed" to repairing it by then. When I pressed the rep as to the likelihood of the repair guys coming in the next few hours, before the Sunday shut-down (VERY few businesses in the Bible Belt work on Sunday), he just repeated his "committment".

Be back on Monday evening.

I hope.

*&^%$#$%^&*^%$#$%^&

My DSL is out, so I'm writing this post from a local coffee shop with Internet acces. I've been on hold with the ISP for 13 minutes the first time, until they cut me off. This time, I'm informed the wait will be 19 minutes!!!!!

All of this on a cell phone. Yikes!

You know the worst thing? Listening to the overly loud and peppy "hold" music, interspersed with bragging about their "fantastic" service.

Oh, yeah. Is that poor slob who finally answers going to have to earn his/her paycheck?

This is one of the reasons I love blogging. I can let my frustrations out, without throwing things or swearing.

No guarantees, however. Don't know how long the mellow mood will last.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Aw, Fran, youse done did it again!

Francis W. Poretto - Eternity Road is either a VERY brave man - or terminally clueless. He wrote a post guaranteed to stir up the ire of many unsatisfied women.

But, he is also right.

Fran is posting about, among other things, Sex and the City (love that title, it should propel my hit count WAY up - anytime SEX, I mean, SEXXXX, is mentioned - or boobies - that's another great word for getting to the top of the search engines).

Where was I?

Oh, yeah, why women in America are so often unsatisfied and lonely. It's because they listen to the wrong people about men.

Now, there's a few people on TV that I might listen to about men. Meredith Veiera, for example. She is married (to journalist Richard Cohen) and limited the travel she would do for work, due to family concerns (she has 3 children). Although we may differ on political issues, I respect that, when it comes to juggling multiple roles, she, at least, walks the walk.

So, why the @#$%^&* is Oprah the Queen of all Advice-givers? She's rich, buffeted by a full staff (secretaries, personal assistants, personal trainer, personal chef). I mean, she's not exactly EveryWoman.

And, she has no kids. Not one.

And she's never been married. And her "boyfriend" of many years is widely rumored to be gay.

So why do women listen to her talk about relationships?

Beats me.

In the same vein, why are certain shows so popular with "da broads"?
  • Sex and the City - the incredibly boring lives of spendaholic single women, both desperate for a man, yet rejecting of any that actually express an interest. Despite the average weight of the American women being 140, these four anorexic hysterics have the only curves on their bodies being their fake boobs. Clearly, a show designed by gay men, who were the body models for the stars.
  • Desperate Housewives - ignoring the complexities of real housewives, this show focuses on clothing, men, and sex. Along with an occasional murder. Amazingly, the women seldom interact with their children, except to be abused by them. Only 1 character has a husband at home, and he is the "housewife" at present. The others have managed to get rid of their resident men, by death, divorce, and imprisonment. Somehow, they managed to hang onto the pricy houses, the leisurely lifestyle, and the freedom to "dish" with the girls.
    On a side note, despite the overwhelming majority of Americans who express a belief in God, only one of these women attends church. Naturally, it's the uptight, hypocritical, obsessive-compulsive housewife. The others attend the Church of ME.
  • Any show on Oxygen (I could use some to counter the vapors I'm experiencing right now), Lifetime - for WOMEN!, and WE - Entertainment for WOMEN!

Monday, August 21, 2006

Guard the Borders

***A podcast of this week's Blogburst is now available.***

By Heidi at Euphoric Reality

There are only a few hours left to have some impact on the case of two Border Patrol agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, who are being sentenced tomorrow for attempting to apprehend a drug smuggler who was fleeing across the border illegally. The charges against the Border Patrol agents were serious bodily injury; assault with a deadly weapon; discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence; and a civil rights violation. Compean and Ramos also were convicted of four counts and two counts, respectively, of obstruction of justice for not reporting that their weapons had been fired. The Texas jury acquitted both men of assault with intent to commit murder, but found them guilty on all other charges. The recommended sentencing is 20 years in prison.

You can read the entire account of the case in this Daily Bulletin article written by Sara Carter, but there are a few things you need to know up front:

  • Assistant U.S. Attorney Debra Kanof, who prosecuted this travesty of justice against the two BP agents, has successfully contended that BP agents are NOT SUPPOSED to apprehend or pursue illegals.
  • "It is a violation of Border Patrol regulations to go after someone who is fleeing," she said. "The Border Patrol pursuit policy prohibits the pursuit of someone."

  • Two weeks after the incident, a Homeland Security agent tracked down the drug smuggler in Mexico and offered him immunity to testify against the two Texas Border Patrol agents. They found the drug smuggler based upon a tip from another BP agent in Arizona! The connection between the Arizona BP agent and the drug smuggler is murky, though the prosecutor gets upset at any one who dares to question the unsavory connection.

  • The drug smuggler was treated to free tax-payer funded medical care in El Paso in addition to his full immunity to testify against the BP agents.

  • The drug smuggler changed his story, but the fact that he lied was never disclosed to the jury.
  • According to the memo, Aldrete-Davila told investigators the agents shot him in the buttocks when he was trying to enter the country illegally from Mexico. But according to Aldrete-Davila's later testimony and that of the agents, he was shot after trying to evade the agents upon his re-entry into Mexico.

    The memo never was disclosed to the jury.
  • The drug smuggler is now suing the Border Patrol for $5 million for violating his civil rights.

  • Also, Ramos' extensive training and accomplishments in drug interdiction, which would be directly relevant to the actions he took during the incident with the drug smuggler, was deemed not admissible during his trial.
  • As a Border Patrol agent, Ramos has been involved in the capture of nearly 100 drug smugglers and the seizure of untold thousands of pounds of narcotics. He also was nominated for Border Patrol Agent of the Year in March 2005, though the nomination was withdrawn after details of the Aldrete-Davila incident came out.

    Ramos also had drug interdiction training from the Drug Enforcement Agency and qualified as a Task Force Officer with the Border Patrol. But Ramos' training in narcotics -- as well as the numerous credentials he had received for taking Border Patrol field training classes -- was not admissible during the trial, he said.
    TJ Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, just addressed the Congressional hearings here in Houston on August 16th, where this case was of great concern among all the law enforcement officials.
    He said the Border Patrol's official pursuit policy handcuffs agents in the field. He also sees the prosecution of Ramos and Compean as part of a larger effort by the federal government.

    "The pursuit policy has negatively affected the Border Patrol's mission as well as public safety. Part of that mission is to stop terrorists and drug smugglers," Bonner said. "They could be smuggling Osama bin Laden, drugs, illegal aliens, or it could have been just some drunk teenager out on a joyride. You don't know until you stop them."

    "The administration is trying to intimidate front-line agents from doing their job," he added. "If they can't do it administratively, they'll do it with trumped-up criminal charges.

    "Moreover, the specter of improprieties in the prosecution of this case raises serious concerns that demand an immediate, thorough and impartial investigation."
  • Ramos and Compean and their young families have been living under threats of retaliation from criminals in the drug underworld.
  • The El Paso Sheriff's Department has met with the Ramos family to discuss continued threats against them from people they believe to be associated with Aldrete-Davila. The sheriff's department also has increased patrols around the family's home.

    The only other organization that has responded to the Ramoses thus far, Monica Ramos said, is the Chino-based nonprofit group Friends of the Border Patrol, chaired by Andy Ramirez.

    "This is the greatest miscarriage of justice I have ever seen," Ramirez said. "This drug smuggler has fully contributed to the destruction of two brave agents and their families and has sent a very loud message to the other Border Patrol agents: If you confront a smuggler, this is what will happen to you."
    This case has been virtually ignored by the press, which is why the American public only found out about it after the conviction of the two BP agents. But now that we know, we must take action. If, as TJ Bonner has said, this case is a dirty attempt by our government to intimidate law enforcement officers into leaving the borders wide open and unguarded, then the American people must speak out immediately.

    You can do so by signing a petition that will be delivered to the President - but you must do so TODAY, it's the last day. The men will be sentenced tomorrow.

    The goal is to collect 100,000 signatures asking President Bush to pardon these two men. So far, 97,589 people have signed the petition and there is no doubt in my mind that Guard the Borders readers can fill in the remaining numbers needed. The petition, to which you may add your own comment reads as follows:
    To: President George W. Bush,

    As a citizen of the United States I am outraged to learn that two U.S. Border Agents are facing twenty-year prison terms for doing their jobs-- pursuing illegal aliens who cross our border, and I’m calling on you to officially pardon them for their actions.

    I am even more outraged to learn that this illegal alien (who was attempting to smuggle about 800 pounds of marijuana into our country), was tracked down by a Department of Homeland Security Investigator and granted immunity for his testimony against these two agents!

    This is a terrible injustice, and I urge you to use your considerable authority and power to pardon these two agents and right this obvious wrong!
    In addition to rallying your friends and family to take action with you, I would also ask that you call the White House Comments line, and leave a message on behalf of these agents. White House Comments line: 202-456-6213

    Please do not hesitate to take this small action on behalf of men whose lives have been destroyed by a drug smuggler and corrupt government agents and prosecutors. It's the very least we can do for them - I wish there was more.

    What if this was you? What will happen to these two men? What will be the fallout from such a miscarriage of justice?
    "My husband is a good man, a loving father, and his devotion to his country and his job is undeniable," Monica Ramos said. "Prosecutors treated the drug smuggler like an innocent victim, refusing to allow testimony that would have helped my husband. The smuggler was given immunity. My husband is facing a life in prison.

    "It's so frightening, it doesn't seem real."

    COUNTING THE DAYS

    About a week ago, feeling little hope, Joe Loya, Monica Ramos' father, took the family on what will be Ignacio Ramos' last fishing trip with his sons before he is sentenced.

    "What kind of justice is this?" Loya asked. "What kind of nation do we live in when the word of a smuggler means more than the word of a just man?"

    Monica Ramos says her hardest day is yet to come -- the day the authorities take her husband away.

    "We just guard (our children's) hearts right now," Monica Ramos said. "I think about the last time he'll hug them as children, and maybe not get the chance to hug them again until they are grown men."

    The sons are between 6 and 13 years old.

    Ignacio Ramos was, if anything, even more emotional.

    "Less than a month left with my family," he said, his voice choking, as though the air had been pulled from his lungs. "My sons," he whispered. Then silence.

    It took several minutes for Ramos to summon more words. "All I think about at night is the day I have to leave my family. I can't sleep. I've always been with them."

    Then he talked about the memories he would never have, "their first dates, high school graduation, sports," and the tears falling from his eyes were mirrored only by those of his wife, who took his hand into hers.
    Families destroyed. A drug smuggler on the loose to threaten the lives of others and on the scam for $5 million dollars. And a government who won't do anything about either – unless we force it to.

    The only ones left who can help are the American people themselves. That means you.

    __________________________________________


    This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It is syndicated by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we're going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terror. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration in our country, join the Blogburst! Send an email with your blog name and url to euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com.

    Sanctuary?

    Sanctuary offered by churches is an ancient tradition in the Christian community. From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
    A fugitive convicted of felony and taking the benefit of sanctuary was afforded protection from thirty to forty days, after which, subject to certain severe conditions, he had to "abjure the realm", that is leave the kingdom within a specified time and take an oath not to return without the king's leave.
    In other words, sanctuary was a temporary way for a fugitive to marshall any financial or other resources he might possess, then leave forever. It was intended to counter the overwhelming power of the state, and provide a merciful exit from the country. Cheaper and simpler than keeping the felon in prison, and, for those smart enough to learn from their mistakes, a fresh start.

    That's clearly not the idea of Elvira Arellano, who is hiding out from the ICE in a Chicago United Methodist church. Elvira is a four-time illegal, one time doing her boomerang thing just days after a deportation. Elvira is, of course, playing the "I'm a MOTHER, how could you split up my family?

    Well, I'm a'gin that, so - here's a thought - take the kid with you, and stay in your own country.
    Via Freedom Folks, who comments on the situation.

    BTW, the pastor of the church in question is married to a long-time activist for Latino "rights". Not Latinos who are legals, of course, but non-citizens who are illegally in this country.

    Sunday, August 20, 2006

    Lost Counter

    After I changed to Blogger-beta, I noticed that I had lost my counter. I went to RightStats to get the code again, and discovered that I had forgotten my login. Rather than play back-and-forth games, I signed up with a new counter on another site - StatCounter. Works fine.

    UPDATE: I tried to post the above, and was alerted to a broken tag. The information provided by Blogger-beta was more helpful than Blogger ever was, pinpointing and highlighting the trouble. So, even though I've lost some stuff (my fault), the change appears to have been worthwhile.

    Change is Good - I Think

    I've been bored with the look of my blog for some time, now. When Blogger brought out the beta version - with Google - of their new software, I bit. It's pretty painless, but those of us who'd modified the standard template have to plan on recreating them. Still, it's not that tough.

    I was able to put back in the Memorial to the 9/11 victims. To me, that was VERY important.

    I dedcided to lose the Tags feature - I just didn't find it that useful.

    Long-Delayed Post - Guard the Borders

    The change by Blogger to - I don't quite know what to call it - Google-Blogger, Glogger, whatever - had limited my ability to post in the last week. So, today, I'm catching up on the Guard the Borders Blogburst.


    By Heidi at Euphoric Reality

    For a long time here at GTB, we have focused on the tsunami of humanity that flows over our southern border from Mexico. Mexicans, by far, are the largest group of illegals inside our borders, and their open agenda of Reconquista has place tax-funded groups like La Raza, MEChA, and LULAC under the microscope. We've also covered the alarming news of the number of Middle Easterners who take full advantage of our unguarded borders to infiltrate our country, paying coyotes tens of thousands of dollars to allow them to blend in with herds of illegals crossing the border. Once inside the country, they disperse and fade away into our society.

    Lately, focus has shifted from clandestine border crossings to blatant visa violations as the FBI hunted and captured 11 Egyptian men who entered the country under false pretenses. Such visa violations (including overstaying visa expirations) are not unusual for Middle Easterners, particularly from Pakistan, Yemen, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, etc., but we Americans are rarely aware of them. Chechens are also making concerted efforts to get into the country illegally, despite the generous visa allowances for their country.

    Today, I'd like to examine our broken immigration process in the light of the current war in the Middle East. To that end, I'd like you to reference this column by Investor's Business Daily.
    Why Borders Matter

    Aug 09 06

    The war in Lebanon is an object lesson in border protection. Hezbollah secretly beefed up its forces there as Israel lowered its northern guard. Then Hezbollah attacked. We should take note.

    Lest Americans think this is "Israel's war," it's worth repeating that it was Hezbollah that bombed the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon, killing some 250 Americans. Hezbollah also kidnapped Americans Terry Anderson and Beirut CIA Station Chief William Buckley. Buckley died in captivity with nine others. Some of the masterminds are still at large.

    Hezbollah (Party of Allah) is not just a faraway threat. Its leaders have infiltrated the U.S. by breaching our own porous borders.

    No matter where you stand on the war in the Middle East, it is not safe or prudent for Americans to be vulnerable - on their own soil - to the volatile agenda of sworn enemies of the United States. Our lax immigration system lets potential enemies slip through all the time, and the recent nationwide scramble to find 11 supposedly harmless Egyptians proves that.
    With Hezbollah trying to infiltrate America, and teams of suspicious young men entering the U.S. under false pretenses, it's time to put more teeth in the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System that requires young men from the Middle East who arrived after 9-11 to check in with immigration officials during their stays — not kill the program, as some in Washington have proposed.
    The IBD article ends with a clear call to action. There is no reason why our national security ought to be compromised on the altar of political correctness. With enemies at our gates, we shouldn’t be forced to swing them wide to prove how kind and inclusive we are. There are already more than enough "tourists", "students", and "temporary residents" from the Middle East inside our borders with nefarious purposes; it's time we clamped down on their access to our people. While the demand for more teeth in the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System is appropriate, perhaps we also need to consider reviewing and revoking the visas of others who we know support Hezbollah, Hamas, or al Qaeda. Those people shouldn't be too hard to find, even for an inept ICE and INS - they are marching in the streets proclaiming their loyalty to our enemies on a daily basis!

    _________________________________


    This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It was started by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we're going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terror. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration facing our country, join our Blogburst! Just send an email with your blog name and url to euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com.

    Tags = Immigration

    Sunday, August 13, 2006

    New Heading

    I've been thinking of a way to remember the most immediate reason for the War on Terror, the 9/11 victims.

    I've added a new header, just above mine. It's a script, designed to load in a random victim of 9/11, each time a page is reloaded. I found it on Danny Carlton - alias Jack Lewis. He's also been added to the blogroll - check him out.

    If you'd like to add the code to your blog or webpage, go to this post, and follow the instructions. It's dead-on easy (did I say DEAD-ON, apply to your blog, DEAD-ON, apply to your blog, DEAD-ON, apply to your blog).

    After 9/11, I'm going to work on a memorial to the OTHER victims - those Armed Services members who died, as well as the other victims worldwide. Be patient, it may take a little time to research and plan.

    Tags = Blogging

    Saturday, August 12, 2006

    Yet Another Stupid Test

    You Are Most Like George W. Bush

    So what if you're not exactly popular? You still rule the free world.
    And while you may be quite conservative now, you knew how to party back in the day!


    I can't help it - I find these things to be funny and surprisingly accurate. (Especially when the answer flatters me).

    Tags = Blogging

    Thursday, August 10, 2006

    Fast Post

    I'm 5 minutes away from a scheduled outage at Blogger, so I'll make this quick.

    I'm sorry about being late with the Guard the Borders blogburst. It's a great one, BTW (see below). School started this week, and I've been swamped. My husband is also in town, and we're enjoying a little time together.

    I hope to be back to normal in about another week. Without DH around, I'll have a lot of hours to fill.

    I'm currently catching up on the situation with airline flights. In one way, it's unbelievable. OTOH, I've been expecting this for some time. Naturally, I'm nervous about DH flying home. Pray for us (and the rest of the country).

    Tags = Blogging

    Guard the Borders

    Illegal Alien Stole 10 yr old girl’s identity

    By Toni at Bear Creek Ledger

    How would you like to find out your child's identity had been stolen? You of course probably wouldn't know until the child reached adulthood.
    Kern found out quite by accident when Hayley's application for the North Carolina Children's Health Insurance Program was initially rejected because her earned income was too high. Hayley is 10 years old. She doesn't have any earned income.

    Guess the Social Security Administration doesn't look at earned income for 10 year olds or 5 year olds for that matter.

    What she learned was that a man, an illegal immigrant in his 20s, had been working under Hayley's Social Security number for the past six years.

    [...]

    Rosario does not speak English. Through an interpreter, Knight learned that when Rosario came to the U.S. from Mexico at age 22, he was told he needed "work papers" to get a job. The working papers acquaintances provided was a Social Security card with Rosario's name and a fraudulent number. He believed the number was the "work papers" that allowed him to work in the U.S. Knight said Rosario was at a loss to understand what he had done wrong.
    As much as I'd like to empathize with this Mexican man, I can't. I find it difficult to believe this man has been in the US working for 6 years and is unaware of the political fight going on with illegal aliens in this country. The one consistency with this man though; he has been in this country for 6 years, he can't speak any English and yet has a drivers license and vehicle. I'm surprised he hasn't purchased a home yet!
    The mother, Shelly Kern now has the terrible task of trying to clear her child's identity.

    Clearing your child's name can be just as frustrating and infuriating as clearing an adult's name. Kern said maybe more so. First, she was referred to the regional Social Security Administration office where she was told there was nothing they could do. They sent her to the Employment Security Commission. Neither agency nor the DSS has enforcement powers, so Kern went to the Star Police Department.

    […]

    When Kern tried to order a credit report on her daughter, she hit obstacle after obstacle.

    0nline, the credit reporting agencies want credit information that her daughter, at age 10, does not have and she cannot get a credit report for Rosario, no matter that the Social Security number is fraudulent. She has appealed to the N.C. Attorney General's Office for assistance.
    Apparently this has been happening for years:
    The practice of stealing, selling and using Social Security numbers from juveniles began over 20 years ago in southern California and has spread throughout the country. Apparently, the SSNs are obtained through brokers, who are primarily Permanent Legal Residents. The "brokers" physically monitor court house records of newborns, and obtain their birth registry issued SSNs from open public records, or from other Permanent Legal Residents/Naturalized Citizens who are employees of city and county government that have access to tax records.

    The reason this illegal practice has been relatively successful is that the IRS/SSA doesn't note that one to five year old children shouldn't be working, despite the SSA records that show the age of number holders. Also, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is not known for pursuing this line of investigation.
    If you have children you should really read the rest of this story since there's more information covered that you should know.



    The Courier-Tribune :: News Page


    H/T: ALIPAC Forum

    And of course, I want to give a bit of promo to Dan Demay's song - Illegal.

    _________________________________


    This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It was started by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we're going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terror. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration facing our country, join our Blogburst! Just send an email with your blog name and url to euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com.
    Tags = Immigration

    Sunday, August 06, 2006

    I just saw this video, entitled "Pallywood". It shows how the media has been, at best, gulled by propagandists. At worst, the media have been active participants in creating and disseminating outright lies.

    Warning: it takes a while to load. The video is 18 minutes long. I can't urge everyone strongly enough to watch it, and tell your friends. Send the link in an email to everyone on your list.

    I was directed to the site by Pajamas Media

    Oher videos you'll want to watch:

    Senator Clinton's harangue to Rumsfeld.

    Rummy's response.

    I'm getting real fond of that YouTube. They've got a wide collection of video, ranging from the dumb to the funny to the disgusting. But, they've also got some clips that the MSM don't want you to see.

    Tags = Media

    Saturday, August 05, 2006

    Is It 1937 All Over Again?

    I'm finding it more than a little bewildering that the international community is so focused on the unintentional civilian loss in Lebanon, while totally ignoring the intentional targeting of Israeli civilians by Hezbollah. Then I remembered.

    Israelis are Jews. By definition, they are the essence of all that is despised and unholy. Without them, the world would be sunshiny and really, really peachy-keen.



    [cue song - "Everything is Beautiful"]

    Or, so the world would like us to think. Their reasoning:
    • All people over the world have a right to their ancestral homeland - except the Jews.
    • All people have the inherent right of self-defense - except the Jews.
    • It is a true tragedy when a child is killed in a war - except when the child is Jewish.
    There, now, you should be informed and ready to take up the fight against the only REAL enemy of the people - the Jews.

    That's the real trouble with John Bolton - he holds the heretical belief that Israel is not the problem child of the region.

    Tags = Israel

    Friday, August 04, 2006

    A New Phone Message

    Press 1 to Use English

    Press 2 to hang up until you can learn to speak English



    Tags = Blogging

    Thursday, August 03, 2006

    A New Low in Stupid

    As I sit in my office area, surviving the heat with the help of 1 lone air conditioner (the rest of the house is closed off), I read this article in AlterNet, that has to be the dumbest thing I've ever read. The article "reasons" that the growth of conservatives is related to - are you ready for this? - air conditioning. An example of the twisted reasoning:
    The political system is wilting partly because its roots have become shallow. People are becoming less and less inclined to gather spontaneously in noncommercial places, and air-conditioning reinforces that social chill. A shady suburban street on a pleasant 85-degree summer evening can be as free of human life as it might be during a Christmas Eve ice storm. Keeping people indoors and comfortable reinforces a tight focus on the individual or nuclear family rather than a larger community, and that is part of what's crippling grassroots political action.

    Air-conditioning helps numb us to the prospect of ecological breakdown on a planetary scale as well. It's more tempting to think of global warming as a problem that only people in sweltering Bangladesh will have to deal with when we view their flood-prone plight from a seat in a cool living room or movie theater.
    An 85-degree summer evening may seem pleasant to Stan Cox, but, I can assure him that such an evening, which followed a day in the high 90's, makes getting a decent night's sleep nearly impossible. Especially when it's accompanied by humidity of over 65%.

    I've lived both North & South, and I can testify to the fact that Southerners venture out into the blistering heat at least as often as Northerners poke their nose out into the icy winter. Which is to say, not very often. I'm talking about the super-high temps that have been lingering for the last few weeks.

    Furthermore, there's a better justification for A/C than heating - you can, after all, always turn down the thermostat, and add a sweater or lap robe.

    There's a limit to how much clothing you can reasonably (and legally) take off.

    BTW, most people use heat pumps rather than room A/C units. They're much more efficient. I would be, but I'm waiting for a replacement heat pump to be installed.

    Tags = Stupid People

    Lies of the Left

    This COULD be a lengthy post. But, I'll try to winnow it down to a reasonable length. The CA Parent Bribery 'Scandal' - the 1...