Archive for: June 2007

Even as the London terror siege appears to be ramping up — and even though new prime minister Gordon Brown and his cohort acknowledge that what Britain is witnessing is, in fact, the work of terrorists with …

The latest beg-athon emails from camp Edwards:

As I’ve argued since the very beginning of the push for amnesty for illegal immigrants, this is a test of sovreignty.  Having lived and worked in Mexico for a considerable time, I certainly compassionate the people.  But the fact is that emigration to the United States has permitted the Mexican government for decades to continue abusing its own people.  Where there is no trust, there can be no real commerce, because everybody will seize a short-term gain at the expense of a longer-term one that might possibly produce a much greater yield.  Many of the Mexicans I knew in the DF (Mexico City and environs), while realizing that crime was rampant (an hour an evening was spent on one channel slowly scrolling through information regarding stolen vehicles), were actually more afraid of the overlapping police services than they were criminal elements.

Establishing a business in Mexico is not an easy task.  The bureaucracy is formidable.  Even to establish a bank account requires something close to an act of God, if one is a foreigner.  For my business, state regulations insisted that a majority of shares be owned by a Mexican national.  At the fringes of the ever-growing lunacy that is Mexico City, cinderblock shanty towns rise up.  Once there’s a certain density of population, they are free to petition the government for services.  Indios flood in from the countryside, many of them unable to speak Spanish.  Their children go begging or selling chicle, and learn the language, and navigate the city for their parents.

Windshield washers rush to your car at every stoplight in some parts of the city, particularly if you look like a foreigner.  There’s really but one traffic regulation in Mexico City: don’t have an accident.  At the lights, you will be offered ducks, chickens, perhaps even snakes in a plastic bag.

Out in the countryside, the vast natural wealth of Mexico is visible in Veracruz state, where in the highlands you can stop at a resting place and the natives will approach you with 5 kilo burlap bags of some of the best coffee on earth.  Further south, in Tabasco, the state oil company, PEMEX, rips access roads into the forest to drill, evicting those in the way.  The people band together to block the trucks, but the military arrives with riot gear and drubs them aside.  The country has lost control of Chiapas and much of Oaxaca, though they stage the occasional show of force.

John Leo, on the “troubling” diversity research being withheld by Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, whose “five-year study shows that immigration and ethnic diversity have a devastating short- and medium-term influence on the social capital, fabric of associations, …

to him???

From CBS:
 A CBS News poll shows Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with the Iraq war, President Bush and the Congress, as well as the overall direction of the country.

More Americans than ever before, 77 percent, say the war is going …

Sure, I can go out in the heat and check the mail. But then, with about as much effort, I can whip up a pitcher of frozen margaritas and a BLT — an added benefit being that neither …

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it difficult — after watching the video and reading Allah’s take on “The Beltway Boys’” absurd defense of Lindsay Graham and the (thankfully) dead Immigration Reform bill — not to …

I’ve had an interesting exchange with Karl and (yes) Shine in the comment thread to yesterday’s post on the 5-4 SCOTUS ruling that would, on the surface at least, restrict the use of “race” (as a substantive deliminator) …

Via Darleen and Mushiloon, looks like the insurgent jihadi freedom fighters are serving notice to Britain’s new Labour Party Prime Minister that, like Spain before them, Britain should take the opportunity of political change to rationalize their …