Since we're talking polar bears today...

I just found this funny video of Binky, the late star polar bear at the Anchorage, AK zoo, munching an Australian tourist a few years ago. Moron extraordinaire Kathryn Warburton (you just know if she was American she'd be a Democrat)was dumb enough to climb over the barriers and go right up to him, no doubt thinking that the massive marine predator was as soft and cuddly as he looked. While this video may shock some, I have to think that it's a funny example of Darwin in action. Pity Binky couldn't get her all the way into the cage...

Binky dines on tourist

She's lucky to be alive, and because of her and other dummies the Anchorage Zoo bears now live behind glass.


And here's a newspaper photo of Binky with his new Australian-flavored shoe, which he kept as a trophy. She got away but Binky kept the Nike:

Damn--those polar bears will eat anything! (Maybe it was a communist polar bear...)

Bear Attacks Sub

During the ICEX 2003 naval exercises near the North Pole, the American submarine Connecticut (SSN 22) poked its sail and rudder through the ice. The sub surfaced in an area of polar ice between Alaska and the North Pole Subs in the arctic have long ago learned to look out for polar bears, especially if some of the crew are allowed out on the ice. In this case, a large (700-800) pound polar bear was seen approaching the sub. For about 40 minutes, the bear loitered around the subs rear rudder. It took a bite out of the rudder and, finding it inedible, stayed around the area of broken ice around the rudder for a while, apparently thinking a seal (the bears favorite food) might use it as an air hole. The bear finally left when he heard the noise of an approaching helicopter. When an officer first looked around outside via the periscope, he noted that his sub was being stalked by a hostile polar bear. The periscope cam was turned on, and these photos of a polar bear chewing on the subs rear rudder resulted. The damage was said to be minor. The SSN 22 is a Seawolf class boat, one of the navy's newest submarines. It wasn't designed as a polar bear snack, but that's how life is sometimes.




There are over 20,000 polar bears living in Arctic waters (although some live in Hudson's bay and down the Pacific coast of Alaska.) The bears normally live on pack ice or ice flows and prey on seals. Some come ashore during July and August, when offshore ice melts. There they live off their fat, or dead sea life that washes ashore. Some have been seen as far north as the North Pole, but there's little food for them up there.

source

Another sellout Senator says we need to ask Mexico's permission before building a wall.

According to Michelle Malkin's site, it appears that Senator Arlen Specter, Liberal Republican from PA, and Senator Chris Dodd, Liberal Democrat from Connecticut, actually inserted amendments into the Senate's "Amnesty for Illegals" bill that says we can't even build a border wall on US territory unless we consult with Mexico first.

AAarrrgghhhh!!!


Source

S.Amdt.4089 - Dodd contains the following language:

(b) CONSULTATION REQUIREMENT.--Consultations between United States and Mexican authorities at the federal, state, and local levels concerning the construction of additional fencing and related border security structures along the United States-Mexico border shall be undertaken prior to commencing any new construction, in order to solicit the views of affected communities, lessen tensions and foster greater understanding and stronger cooperation on this and other important issues of mutual concern.


S.Amdt.4188 - Specter: Managers' amendment, a collection of amendments, including Dodd's S.Amdt.4089 that requires local, state and federal governments to consult with Mexican counterpart authorities before commencing new construction, was PASSED on a 56 - 41 vote.

Republicans who voted for the Mexican consultation requirement:

Bennett, Bond, Brownback, Chafee, Coleman, Collins, Craig, Graham, Hagel, Lugar, Collins, McCain, Specter, Stevens, Warner, Martinez, Murkowski, Snowe and Voinovich

Only one Democrat voted against it:

Lincoln

A Senator gives us ten top reasons to oppose the senate's asinine immigration bill

From Senator Jim Demint


Top Ten Reasons to Vote NO on Immigration Compromise

1. Rewards Illegal Behavior with Clear Path to Citizenship and Voting Rights – Amnesty

· As noted by former Attorney General Ed Meese in the New York Times on May 24, 2006: “Like the amnesty bill of 1986, the current Senate proposal would place those who have resided illegally in the United States on a path to citizenship, provided they meet a similar set of conditions and pay a fine and back taxes. The illegal immigrant does not go to the back of the line but gets immediate legalized status, while law-abiding applicants wait in their home countries for years to even get here. And that's the line that counts. In the end, slight differences in process do not change the overriding fact that the 1986 law and today's bill are both amnesties.”

2. Creates Temporary Worker Program That is Neither Temporary Nor Work-Based

· The bill’s guest worker program would allow millions of illegal immigrants to qualify for permanent green cards within four years. Additionally, the Senate approved Senator Kennedy’s amendment that each year would allow up to 200,000 immigrants who cross the border illegally and work just 6 days a year (including self employment) to qualify for a permanent green card.

3. Unprecedented Wave of Immigrants - 66 Million Over 20 Years

· This bill is estimated to skyrocket the number of immigrants, from its current level of 19 million over the next 20 years, to an unprecedented number. Heritage Foundation: “...[O]ur estimate of the number of legal immigrants who would enter the country or would gain legal status under S. 2611 … [would be] 66 million over the next 20 years.”

4. Insufficient Border Security

· The Senate rejected an amendment by Senator Isakson that would have prohibited the implementation of any guest worker program that grants legal status to those who have entered the country illegally until the Secretary of Homeland Security has certified to the President and to the Congress that the border security provisions in the immigration legislation are fully funded and operational.

· While the Senate adopted Senator Sessions’ amendment to increase “real fencing” by 370 miles and add 500 miles of vehicle barriers, the House passed a bill requiring at least 700 miles of “real fencing”, a more likely needed amount to secure the 2,000 mile long border.

5. Terrorist Loophole Disarms Law Enforcement

· Heritage Foundation reported May 24, 2006: “The Senate’s immigration reform proposal … would restrict local police to arresting aliens for criminal violations of immigration law only, not civil violations. The results would be disastrous. All of the hijackers on (9-11) who committed immigration violations committed civil violations. Under the bill, police officers would have no power to arrest such terrorists.”

6. Social Security Benefits, Tax Credits for Illegal Work

· The Senate rejected Senator Ensign’s amendment that would have prevented Social Security benefits from being awarded to immigrants for time that they worked illegally in the United States. If the immigration compromise bill before the Senate were enacted into law, an estimated 12 million illegal workers would be able to use their past illegal work to qualify for Social Security benefits.

· Provisions in S. 2611 would require newly legalized immigrants to file tax returns for work they performed while in the U.S. illegally. And while some would be required to pay back taxes, many others could qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit, which has a maximum payout of $4,400 per year.

7. Costs Over $50 Billion A Year to Federal Government; States Foot The Bill for Immigrant Health Care

· Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation described the bill as a “fiscal catastrophe,” and has said the measure would prove to be the largest expansion of government welfare in 35 years. According to Rector, the bill would increase long-term federal spending by at least $50 billion a year.

· The Senate bill does not reimburse state and local governments for health care and education costs related to the millions of undocumented immigrants. While the underlying bill creates a state impact assistance account for future temporary workers, it is an unfunded account.

8. Hurts Small Business

· The Senate approved an amendment by Senator Obama extending Davis-Bacon “prevailing wage” provisions for guest workers, but not American citizens, in all occupations covered by Davis-Bacon (currently limited to federally paid work). Small businesses would be forced to pay inflated wages to guest workers above the pay American citizens receive for performing the same work.

9. Gives Some Immigrant Workers Greater Job Protection Than American Workers

· As reported by Robert Novak of Chicago Sun Times on May 24, 2006: “The bill supposedly would protect American workers by ensuring that new immigrants would not take away jobs. However, the bill's definition of ‘United States worker’ includes temporary foreign guest workers, so the protection is meaningless… Foreign guest farm workers, admitted under the bill, cannot be ‘terminated from employment by any employer ... except for just cause.’ In contrast, American ag workers can be fired for any reason.”

10. Weak Assimilation/English Requirements

· The Senate approved Senator Inhofe’s amendment to make English the national language and require those seeking citizenship to demonstrate English proficiency and understanding of U.S. History. However, a far weaker amendment by Senator Salazar gutted the Inhofe amendment, leaving it in doubt, and also giving immigrants the right to demand the federal government communicate with them in any language they choose.


This bill HAS to be fixed by the House since it's clear that the Senate is totally unresponsive to the demands of the American population. Obviously the Senators put so little value on US citizenship that they now race to hand it out willy-nilly in order to create a large, hopefully favorable voting bloc next election. This travesty has to be stopped and the senators who voted in favor of it need to be fired.

Pondering the illegal immigration problem and remembering when I was about to be King of the World.

So today I was pondering ways to keep illegal aliens and other invaders out of this great country of ours. Of course my first thought was that we rely on proven, relatively inexpensive technology like this little cutie:



Even after all these years, nothing says "Stay out of my territory!" like the classic M18A1 Claymore antipersonnel mine.

Of course then I got to be feeling somewhat blue, because land mines have become the endangered species of the defensive munitions world after years of misuse and abuse by irresponsible people, and that's wrong because they do have their place and when used properly they do their job well and save many lives by denying real estate to the bad guys.

And it came to me that one of the biggest opponents of land mines was the late Princess Diana of England. She used to really hate them and she traveled the world to complain about them until that fateful day that the French paparazzi herded her car into that post and ended what had previously been an excellent chance for me to become King of the World.

Ludicrous you say? Not at all. It was simple. It worked like this:

1. I meet Princess Diana, possibly in response to one of the nice letters of introduction that I sent her. (Hey, her solicitors couldn't possibly intercept them all, and it's not like those "cease and desist" orders that they kept mailing me have any force in this country...)

2. She falls madly in love with me and we marry. When she becomes my wife, that means that I get to be a Prince of England. (OK, there may be some legal questions to be hammered out there, but work with me. This gets better.)

3. Shortly after the wedding, one tragic accident strikes down the entire rest of the Royal Family. (Hey, it worked in the movie "King Ralph" so get mad at Hollywood if you're British and easily offended.)

4. With the rest of the Royals gone, that would make Diana the new Queen, and as the man of the family I would become the King of England.

5. As the new head of the Britain, I would take control of the nation's military forces, including the nuclear arsenal. I would use these glorious instruments of foreign policy to revive the British Empire.

The Lion's roar would be heard once more across Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia. I would unite all of these less-evolved countries under the banner of the New Commonwealth and by virtue of good government I would raise the standard of living in most of the third-world regions under my control by giving them access to education, decent medical care, clean water, and industrial jobs. I would also accept many of their young men into my new military because they would be needed for the next step: Europe.

Sweeping across the English Channel, we'd invade France. The next day we'd move on to some other countries that might be a little harder to capture--like Belgium or Lichtenstien. From there we'd sweep Europe and stage for a campaign into Russia starting the very next Spring. (none of this "let's invade Russia in the winter" crap. Apparently I'm much smarter than Hitler and Napoleon were.)

America would be kept out of the war because...

Hmm... Hang on here. Why would America be kept out again? Oh yeah! That's right. Because I would use all the money in the British treasury to finance my campaign for the US Presidency! I would be President of America as well as King of England. (I told you that it got better.) And I would be incredibly popular because, as head of the spy agencies of both countries, I would have many minions whose job it was to find dirt on any potential opponent or critic, and if that didn't work, I would have other minions ensure that those critics had unfortunate accidents. I know it sounds harsh, but spies and assassins need jobs too and why have these guys around if you're not going to use them, you know?

Anyway... I would have used my powers for good of course. I would have united everyone in the world under one banner with one common currency and a universal language--American English. (None of that wussy British "English" for you... It's "elevator", not "lift", dammit. And we'd have started calling soccer by that name. Football is what the NFL pays and Europe needs to get that straight.)

I would even have found a place in my military for Mexico's Vicente Fox. Heck--anyone who can get 10% of his country's population into another country without a shot being fired is just the sort of military genius that I'd be needing.

But alas... all of that was lost when Princess Diana died. And ow I know how The Brain felt when another one of his otherwise flawless plans was knocked into the gutter by that moron, Pinky.




Sigh....





But tomorrow I shall again attempt to take over the world.


Hmmm.. I wonder if Vicente Fox needs a General Manager of his United States Invasion Forces, Day Laborer Division?

Willie Wonka re-elected in New Orleans. Voter fraud or just a stupid majority?

I guess anything can happen when you let people from all over the country vote as if they are still residents of New Orleans even though they don't live there any more. As a former resident who still considers New Orleans to be "home", I was appalled but not suprised when I read that Ray "Willie Wonka" Nagin--the man who said that God wants New Orleans to be a chocolate city (and lots of other dumb stuff)--has been re-elected by a 52-58 majority to continue as mayor.

I hear that he's already working on his excuses for why he failed to get everyone out during the next big hurricane.

Granted, his opponent Mitch Landrieu was a Democrat too, therefore ensuring that New Orleans would remain a third-world city no matter who won, but damn--when someone screws up as badly as Ray did, it's generally a good idea to get them out of the picture and give the next guy a chance to screw things up.

With a quarter of the votes coming from people no longer living in New Orleans, it appears as if Nagin had a majority of those as well as a significant number of white voters in the city. One thing that the news media isn't commenting on however is the fact that this race was really a battle between the local Democratic political machine that backed Nagin and the national Democratic party base that supported Landrieu and gave him a ton of money and helped wring endorsements out of some key groups and people. I suspect that in the end, it was the "my incompetent crook is better than your incompetent crook" line of thinking that caused New Orleans voters to return Nagin to office despite his making racist remarks such as his comment during a meeting with black evacuees in Houston that "very few" of his opponents "look like us." He also stated flatly that many of the challengers wouldn't have run if the city's black electorate remained at its pre-Katrina levels. This, coupled with his "chocolate city" remark, made many wonder if Ray wanted to represent everyone or just black people. And his remark about why he couldn't get the city busses and use them to save the stranded people during the hurricane made a lot of people wonder about his management ability. Remember how he said: "How could I even get drivers for those busses? It's hard enough to get city workers to come in even on a nice day."

From where I sit, this is like the surviving voters of the city of Pompeii just elected re-electing the same mayor that they had before Mt. Vesuvius wiped out the city. That mayor--whoever he was--ignored the danger signs and proved that he wasn't up to the job either. But the New Orleans voter base seems determined to keep electing Democrats to govern their affairs, and this, I suspect, is why New Orleans will remain an impoverished and dangerous place except for the parts run by the business commmunity or the Vieux Carre Commission. The parts of the city that don't take their marching orders from City Hall or the DNC have always thrived and carried the rest of the city economically. And it looks like they'll have to continue to do so because the rank-and-file voters just don't seem to know any better or care enough to vote for people who do more than pander to the race-card-players and welfare recipients.

In the end, we all get the government that we deserve. And as much as the voters of New Orleans will now get what they have coming, I cannot help but shed a silent tear for the city that I love when I think of what might have been.


Four more years of this! Way to go, NOLA voters!


A perfect example of the results of Nagin's "leadership".

An old flying story

A good friend of mine suggested that I post this tale of my earlier flying days. It could be entitled "What not to do with a plane" and it shows the truth of the saying that "there are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots."


Several years back, when the ink was still damp on my first pilot's license, some friends of mine were having a big Labor Day week-end party and camp-over. As it was a few hundred miles from where I was at, I took a couple of other friends and rented a plane from my local FBO and we flew up to the gathering. There was a small airport just a few miles from the party so we were all set.

We got up there and discovered that I didn't have the host's phone number with me to call and ask for a pick-up at the airport. So as we overflew the hosts' house and yard and saw everyone else already gathering around the barbecue pit, I got one of my patented "sounds like a good idea at the time" brainstorms. I decided to buzz the picnic a few times to get everyone's attention. Surely once I had their attention someone would think to come pick us up at the airport.

Now this friend lived way out in the country, so it wasn't like I was going to annoy anyone else. My first low pass over his spread just above the trees got everyone looking up all right, and my second even lower pass had people clapping and waving. That's when I decided to take it just a bit too far.

My friend's place was atop a hill, and just across the road from his house, the terrain dropped off into a large valley. I decided that I could climb up a bit as I came around and then dive right over his house at shingle-stripping level and use the valley to pull out. I figured it would look sharp and give the people in the yard something to talk about.

So I climbed as I came around, and my front seat passenger was rolling video as I nosed over and slammed the throttle home for full power. Flying low and slow is dangerous, so it figures that low and fast is ok. I had that plane lined up and set to cross his roof as low as I dared and the airspeed indicator was getting close to the "Never Exceed" speed, when suddenly at the last second realized that I was a bit lower than I had meant to be. And that's also when I saw the tall, thin TV antenna on my friend's roof that I hadn't noticed before.

"SWEET JESUS--GRAB SOMETHING!!" I yelled to my passengers as I pulled back on the yoke to raise the nose and rolled the plane to the right in a desperate attempt to avoid taking the antenna in the prop.

"BANG!" The impact jarred the aircraft. I knew I'd hit but didn't know where or how bad. I leveled the wings and climbed out, grabbing some altitude to give me time to assess any damage to the plane. My passengers were white as ghosts, and they weren't any happier when I told the front seat pasenger to open the door and look out at the right side wheel. "WHAT?!" he asked, incredulous.
"We're going to have to land this thing in a few minutes and I need to know if we still have a tire over there," I explained. "It's going to get real interesting if we don't."

He checked, and reported a good tire. I had one on my side too, so with a prayer for the nose wheel that we couldn't see, I put us in the pattern for the local uncontrolled field. "Cross your fingers," I told them as I lined up on final. But the plane settled in perfectly and rolled down the centerline without any issues. Apparently the landing gear was fine. I taxiied to a stop in the transient parking area and got out to check the plane over. After careful inspection, I found a noticable fresh dent on the right side wheel strut and a couple of slight scrapes farther back towards the tail on the bottom. As I finished checking, a caravan of cars from the picnic appeared as everyone there had piled into cars to come see the daredevil and his craft up close.

Everyone was laughing and hooting, and the host was laughing hardest of all. I had thought that he at least would be a tad upset, but as it turned out, the antenna was to an old subscription-only broadcast network that was long out of business and his wife had been nagging him for two years to get it off the roof. Well he'd put her off time and time again, but I'd removed it completely in about two seconds. According to witnesses in the yard, the antenna was broken off the roof at it's base and launched about 70 feet, landing right out near the road just a short distance from where the trash service would be picking it up. Even my passengers finally loosened up and decided that it had all been good fun after all. I think the only one that realized how close we'd come to eating dirt was me and I didn't have the heart to tell them.

Of course when we got back to my friend's house, we found out that his wife was not amused. In fact she was downright pissed. But then she never did have a very good sense of humor.

And if the rental people ever saw the dent in the plane, they never asked me about it.

But that stunt still marked the end of my low-flight days for a long, long time to come.

Door handles optional on F-22?

Last week, Lockheed Martin announced that its profits were up a hefty 60 percent in the first quarter. The company earned $591 million in profit on revenues of $9.2 billion. Now, if the company could just figure out how to put a door handle on its new $361 million F-22 fighter, its prospects would really soar.

On April 10, at Langley Air Force Base, an F-22 pilot, Capt. Brad Spears, was locked inside the cockpit of his aircraft for five hours. No one in the U.S. Air Force or from Lockheed Martin could figure out how to open the aircraft's canopy. At about 1:15 pm, chainsaw-wielding firefighters from the 1st Fighter Wing finally extracted Spears after they cut through the F-22's three-quarter inch-thick polycarbonate canopy.

Total damage to the airplane, according to sources inside the Pentagon: $1.28 million. Not only did the firefighters ruin the canopy, which cost $286,000, they also scuffed the coating on the airplane's skin which will cost about $1 million to replace.

The Pentagon currently plans to buy 181 copies of the F-22 from Lockheed Martin, the world's biggest weapons vendor. The total price tag: $65.4 billion.

The incident at Langley has many Pentagon watchers shaking their heads. Tom Christie, the former director of testing and evaluation for the DOD, calls the F-22 incident at Langley "incredible." "God knows what'll happen next," said Christie, who points out that the F-22 has about two million lines of code in its software system. "This thing is so software intensive. You can't check out every line of code."

Now, just for the sake of comparison, Windows XP, one of the most common computer operating systems, contains about 45 million lines of code. But if any of that code fails, then the computer that's running it simply stops working. It won't cause that computer to fall out of the sky. If any of the F-22's two million lines of computer code go bad, then the pilot can die, or, perhaps, just get trapped in the cockpit.

One analyst inside the Pentagon who has followed the F-22 for years said that "Everyone's incredulous. They're asking can this really have happened?" As for Lockheed Martin, the source said, "Whatever the problem was, the people who built it should know how to open the canopy."

Given that the U.S. military is Lockheed Martin's biggest client, perhaps the company could provide the Air Force with a supply of slim jims or coat hangars, just in case another F-22 pilot gets stuck at the controls.

As if the latest canopy shenanigans weren't bad enough, on May 1, Defense News reported that there are serious structural problems with the F-22. Seems the titanium hull of the aircraft isn't meshing as well as it should. Naturally, taxpayers have to foot the bill for the mistake (improper heat-treating of the titanium) which is found on 90 aircraft. The cost of repairing those wrinkles? Another $1 billion or so.

Lockheed Martin's F-22 spokesman, Joe Quimby, did not return telephone calls.

Source

America-hating professor "Wierd Ward" Churchill may get his due

Anyone remember the kooky professor from University of Colorado who said that the innocent Americans killed on 9/11 were "little Eichmann's" and who claimed to be of Indian descent until denounced by the tribe that he claimed to represent? Well it looks like his chickens are coming home to roost. A panel of scholars at that school studied his writings for four months and determined that he "plagiarized, fabricated and falsified material and seriously deviated from accepted research practices in his writings."

Further, the panel said that the misconduct was "deliberate and not a matter of an occasional error."

They are now debating a range of punishments from a two-year unpaid suspension to outright termination. They won't make up their mind until he responds to their report, but apparently he's already planning to respond like a true Leftist Liberal and file a barrage of lawsuits if they take any action against him at all.

Several Colorado legislators have called upon the university to fire him and even the state's Governor has called upon him to resign in the wake of his comments suggesting that America deserved to get hit on 9/11 and all the dead had it coming in some way.

He apparently could not be fired for those comments without violating his free speech rights but the university's Board of Regents voted to review his scholorly work and found it to be incredibly lacking.

"Either the man is immensely sloppy or, as they indicate in the findings, dishonest," Faculty council chair Rod Muth said. "For this many things to be substantiated, it says the individual is not paying attention to standards of scholarly practice."

The university has the legal right to suspend Churchill without pay for two or five years, said J. Eric Elliff, counsel to CU's Standing Committee on Research Misconduct.

Here'shoping they stay the course and remove that disgrace to Colorado's higher education system.


Full Denver Post Story

Darwin strikes aboard cruise ship

So what happens when a bunch of kids smuggle booze onto a cruise ship and drink themselves blotto?

MIAMI -- A passenger reported missing on a cruise to the Bahamas fell overboard after a night of heavy drinking with friends, authorities said Wednesday as Coast Guard crews suspended their search for the man.

Friends of Daniel DiPiero, 21, of Canfield, Ohio, last saw him on the Mariner of the Seas around midnight Sunday, Petty Officer Dana Warr said.

About two hours later, shipboard security cameras show DiPiero falling overboard from a rail near the front of the ship, investigators said...

They found that DiPiero and his friends concealed liquor in mouthwash bottles and brought a bottle of rum in their luggage. The friends videotaped themselves drinking the alcohol Sunday afternoon, and DiPiero continued drinking until midnight, investigators said.

Read all about it.


Darwin strikes! If you're going to be stupid, you'd better at least know how to tread water. Not to sound heartless or anything, but Bwahahahahaha!!

I'm sorry. I should try to sound more sympathetic.

Bwahahahaha!!

Wait a minute... How much did it cost us taxpayers to mount that search and rescue effort?

Grrrrr....

Is this possible poetic justice, or what?

Wednesday, May 17, 2006 · Last updated 12:38 p.m. PT


Teen accused of sign theft may be deported

Story


THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. -- A Honduran teenager faces deportation after being charged with stealing an anti-immigration protest sign.

Joel Martines, 19, was arrested May 11 on charges he stole the sign outside a convenience store where day laborers seek work. The store has been the scene of protests supporting stricter enforcement of immigration laws.

While Martines was in custody, immigration authorities determined he entered the country illegally last year through Texas.


Naw, he's not a criminal... He just entered our nation illegally then stole a sign from an actual American who didn't care for the idea. He needs to wake up in Honduras tomorrow morning.

And now for something completely different...

Sometimes I just have to take a break from posting about whacky German Shepherds, flying, guns illegal aliens or liberal political ideologies that have the potential to destroy America. This is one of those days.

This post goes out to everyone who has ever gotten bugged by squirrels getting into your bird feeder. You think you've got problems?














As the National Park Service Law Enforcement Ranger who sent me these asked:

"What in the world is that line made of?"

President's speech on Immigration

OK, mark me down as not impressed or happy.

Yes, National Guard troops on the border is good. I really don't care to hear whiny-baby Vicente Fox crying about us militarizing our border. First of all, it is OUR border, and second, it's already militarized. The MEXICAN military has been assisting drug smugglers and shooting at our police officers for a while now. But like everything else dealing with our border, Fox thinks it should be a one-way street. HE can militarize it to help illegals cross, but WE cannot. Screw Vicente Fox. One more word out of him and I vote that we just send the whole military down there and take Mexico completely over. And we might as well consider it. The way things are going now, it won't be long before all the Mexicans in that country are here anyway. And if President Bush and the Liberals in the Senate have their way, we'll be giving amnesty to every illegal border-hopping criminal already here or planning to come in the next twenty years. And when I rail against the Liberal senators I specifically mean senators like Specter, Hagel, Graham and McCain--politicians who begged the Republican voters to elect them and then turned into Democrats once they got in office.

I don't like this new proposal one bit. It's short on enforcement, long on expeditures, and it doesn't secure the border or address the illegals who are already here.

All I ask from my government is that they protect us and secure the borders. That's not asking a lot and the country can't survive if we just let anyone and everyone slide in and jump on the welfare rolls, use our hospitals at taxpayer expense, and take jobs from Americans.

I also want the criminals caught and deported. President Bush and his fan club all say that we cannot deport 12 million people who are already here. well ok, so how about we try and deport the ones we already have--namely the tens of thousands of illegals currently in our federal, state and local prisons and jails? every one of them is there for committing a crime in this country--from drunk driving to drug dealing and up to rape, child molesting and murder. Instead of releasing them back into our own society when their sentences are up, how about we just take them to the nearest border and flip them over it and tell them that if they come back here they'll spend the rest of their lives in prison? And before we let them go, let's use them as construction labor on our border wall for a while. we might as well get some benefit back in exchange for all the money they've cost us.

I admit, I really don't expect to see 12 million illegals booted out of the country. But I'd settle for a simple policy of deporting any illegal who gets arrested for a crime or who becomes a ward of the government because he can't or won't work and support himself. Make the rest of them speak and use English and stop this nonsense of giving them everything from drivers' license exams to election ballots in other languages. English is the language of success in this country and no one can get very far here if they can't communicate in English. Likewise, let's cut out broadcasts on our commercial radio waves of shows in other languages. As I recall, there was a time once when it was illegal to broadcast in languages other than English. I'm not sure when that changed but we need to get back to a common-sense policy like that again.

Next we need to set up a system where every employer has to check every new hire's social security number and other info via a government database, just as we do now when anyone in this country wants to buy a gun. This can prevent many employers from unwittingly hiring illegals, and if we crack down hard on the ones who do it on purpose--with business forfietures and jail time for major offenders--we can shut off a major incentive for illegal aliens.

Finally, secure the border. No unauthorized traffic in or out. And that includes no transfers of US currency out of the country by wire or other services unless it's sent by a US citizen from a US government office to a US embassy abroad. If we stop illegals from sending money out and if we prevent them from getting jobs here in the first place, we'll see our torrent of illegal aliens reduced to a managable trickle without need of military or police efforts.

If the President had talked about doing these things, I'd be raving and shouting his praise from the rooftops right now. But he didn't talk about doing any of these things. He's too busy working on ways to get all the illegals who are already here or on their way here turned into US citizens.

So rather than praise him, I think I'll just sit the next election out. either that or I'll go to the polls specifically to vote for democrats to run the US Senate. I cannot stomach the thought of them running the House or letting one be President again but if the current Senate leadership wants to act like the Democrats still run things and let so-called maverick senators vote like Democrats every time an important issue comes up, I figure we might as well give the senate back to the Dems. The result will be the same and I'd much rather be screwed time and time again by a known enemy than by the party that I elected and trusted to do the things that I want them to do.

Sick dog--but not too sick for ice cream

This morning I took Lagniappe to Harpers Ferry to run on the C&O Canal towpath for a bit. Before the run, I noticed that he was eating grass but I was talking to a couple of people so I told him to "be a dog, not a sheep" and paid it no mind. I knew that dogs eat grass when they aren't feeling well but I just wasn't thinking along those lines.

We hit the path and ran a couple of miles. Actually I ran a slower, steady pace and he just sort of loped alongside. When we reached the point where I'd decided to stop, a woman and her kids walked up and the woman asked if he was friendly. I replied that he was, and she stepped forward to pet him.

"KAAAAK!" Lagniappe puked up about half a pound of used dog food right onto her open-toed sandals.

The woman wasn't exactly happy and for decency's sake I'm not posting a picture of this.


So after I let him rest for a bit, we walked back at a relaxed pace for his tummy's sake. And he was fine, especially as we neared the Swiss Miss ice cream shop in Harpers Ferry. He loves Swiss Miss and all the people who work there because they spoil him with little ice cream cones.
















He may have been too sick to run, but as you can see, he sure wasn't too sick to beg for ice cream.

11 myths about Illegal Aliens debunked.

This piece on illegal immigrants and the myths that their supporters use to defend them was written by David J. Stoddard, a retired U.S.Border Patrol (RET) from Hereford, Arizona. It's dead right so I'm doing my best to help spread these truths to my fellow citizens.



There is a huge amount of propaganda and myths circulating about illegal aliens, particularly illegal Mexican, Salvadorian, Guatemalan and Honduran aliens.

#1. They just want to be Americans like us.
Illegal aliens generally do NOT want U.S. citizenship. Americans are very vain thinking that everybody in the world wants to be a U.S. citizen. Mexicans, and other nationalities want to remain citizens of their home countries while obtaining the benefits offered by the United States such as employment, medical care, in-state tuition, government subsidized housing and free education for their offspring. Their main attraction is employment and their loyalty usually remains at home. They want benefits earned and subsidized by middle class Americans. What illegal aliens want are benefits of American residence without paying the price.

#2. They do jobs that we Americans won't do.
There are no jobs that Americans won't do. Illegal aliens are doing jobs that Americans can't take and still support their families. Illegal aliens take low wage jobs, live dozens in a single residence home, share expenses and send money to their home country. There are no jobs that Americans won't do for a decent wage.

#3. They are homeless and we must be compassionate.
Every person who illegally entered this nation left a home. They are NOT homeless and they are NOT Americans. Some left jobs in their home countries. They come to send money to their real home as evidenced by the more than 20 billion dollars sent out of the country each year by illegal aliens. These illegal aliens knowingly and willfully entered this nation in violation of the law and therefore assumed the risk of detection and deportation. Those who brought their alien children assumed the responsibility and risk on behalf of their children.

#4. Illegal aliens are critical to our economy.
Illegal aliens are NOT critical to the economy. Illegal aliens constitute less than 5% of the workforce. However, they reduce wages and benefits for lawful U.S. residents.

#5. We are ALL immigrants so we can't exclude them.
This is NOT an immigrant nation. There are 280 million native born Americans. While it is true that this nation was settled and founded by immigrants (legal immigrants), it is also true that there is not a nation on this planet that was not settled by immigrants at one time or another.

#6. There's no other way for them to get here legally so they have to sneak in.
The United States is welcoming to legal immigrants. Illegal aliens are not immigrants by definition. The U.S. accepts more lawful immigrants every year than the rest of the world combined.


#7. Politicians have to fear the Hispanic vote.
There is no such thing as the "Hispanic vote". Hispanics are white, brown, black and every shade in between. Hispanics are Republicans, Democrats, Anarchists, Communists, Marxists and Independents. The so-called "Hispanic vote" is a myth. Pandering to illegal aliens to get the Hispanic vote is a dead end.


#8. Mexico is our friend and ally so we should not offend them.
Mexico is NOT a friend of the United States. Since 1848 Mexicans have resented the United States. During World War I Mexico allowed German Spies to operate freely in Mexico to spy on the U.S. During World War II Mexico allowed the Axis powers to spy on the U.S.from Mexico During the Cold War Mexico allowed spies hostile to the U.S.to operate freely. The attack on the Twin Towers in 2001 was cheered and applauded all across Mexico. Today Mexican school children are taught that the U.S. stole California, Arizona, new Mexico and Texas. If you don't believe it, check out some Mexican textbooks written for their schoolchildren.

#9. They only come here for a better life.
Although some illegal aliens enter this country for a better life, there are 6 billion people on this planet. At least 1 billion of those live on less than one dollar a day. If wanting a better life is a valid excuse to break the law and sneak into America, then let's allow those one billion to come to America and we'll turn the USA into a Third World nation overnight. Besides, there are 280 million native born Americans who want a better life. I'll bet Bill Gates and Donald Trump want a better life. When will the USA lifeboat be full? Since when is wanting a better life a good reason to trash another nation?

10. America has a labor shortage and we need these illegals.
There is a labor shortage in this country. This is a lie. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of American housewives, senior citizens, students, unemployed and underemployed who would gladly take jobs at a decent wage.

#11. It is racist to want secure borders. What is racist about wanting secure borders and a secure America? What is racist about not wanting people to sneak into America and steal benefits we have set aside for legal aliens, senior citizens, children and other legal residents? What is it about race that entitles people to violate our laws, steal identities, and take the American Dream without paying the price? For about four decades American politicians have refused to secure our borders and look after the welfare of middle class Americans. These politicians have been of both parties. A huge debt to American society has resulted. This debt will be satisfied and the interest will be high. There has already been riots in the streets by illegal aliens and their supporters. There will be more. You, as a politician, have a choice to offend the illegal aliens who have stolen into this country and demanded the rights afforded to U.S. citizens or to offend those of us who are stakeholders in this country. The interest will be steep either way. There will be civil unrest. There will be a reckoning. Do you have the courage to do what is right for America? Or, will you bow to the wants and needs of those who don't even have the right to remain here? There will be a reckoning. It will come in November of this year, again in 2008 and yet again in 2010. We will not allow America to be stolen by third world agitators and thieves.

David J. Stoddard
U.S.Border Patrol (RET)
Hereford, Arizona

What's Patrick Kennedy's exuse this time?

Come on now. Is he really the best person that Rhode Island can send to Congress? And frankly, does America need or deserve to have important decisions made by someone who is addicted to drugs, has mental problems that affect his decision-making ability, and drives drunk to boot?

These questions and others stem from an incident at 0245 hours on Thursday, May 4th, where Kennedy was spotted driving in an erratic fashion by US Capitol Police. As they tried to stop him, he slammed into a security barrier. By police accounts, Kennedy exited the car smelling of alcoholic beverages, with red, watery eyes and slurred speech. He was also reportedly staggering and disoriented but he still claimed to be going into Congress to vote. Officers on the scene wanted to treat Kennedy as they would any other citizen and administer field sobriety tests but they were stopped by supervisors who responded to the scene and sent them away. Those supervisors then drove Kennedy to his home without arresting him or administering any sort of sobriety tests.

Now this angers me because there's no way that I or any of you readers would ever get that sort of treatment if we crashed our car and exhibited all the signs and symptoms of drunk driving. It also angered the officers on scene enough to make them file a complaint with their union regarding the supervisor interference and that's how this affair made the news the next day.

When it bacame public knowledge, Kennedy immediately issued a statement claiming that he had not been drinking that night. However this was contradicted a few hours later by a waitress at the Hawk and Dove, a local bar on Capitol Hill. She said that Kennedy had been in the bar that night and that he had been drinking.

Kennedy's next excuse was that he'd taken Ambien--a sleep aid--and Phenergan, and that the two drugs had made him disoriented. However that doesn't explain away the watery red eyes or the odor of alcoholic beverages that the Capitol Police documents. Those things come from one source only--alcohol.

All I can see here frankly is more proof that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Daddy Ted Kennedy drives off a bridge at Chappaquiddick and a girl dies while he runs home to hide. By the time he turns himself in to police, it's too late for any alcohol testing. And now Patrick crashes his car and goes home, coming out a day later and only then promising to cooperate with any investigations.However it's also too late for alcohol testing. How convenient.

My thought is that if I had been in his shoes--and if I honestly had not been drinking--I'd have demanded a breathalyzer test immediately just to dispel all doubt and prove to the world that there was no alcohol in my system. But now we'll never know for sure either way and all we can do is guess and use his past record to gauge his veracity.

So let's look at that past record.

He's had problems in the past with both alcohol and drug abuse and he's been to rehab for these problems. He's also admitting to bipolar disorder and he's undergone treatment for that as well. But he still acts badly and he has a history that includes striking an airline security guard in March of 2000 in Los Angeles and an accusation of domestic abuse by a girlfriend who summoned the Coast Guard to rescue her from Kennedy's yacht.

Look, I'm not unsympathetic to the guy's problems. I doubt that there are many people in America who are laughing about his problems and I think it's safe to say that most people can find at least some pity for the guy. But the fact remains that his problems make him a liability in government and America can't afford to have someone that erratic and irresponsible making decisions that affect all of us. I think it's time for him to step down and just go live in the familiy's millions and leave running the country to someone more stable and better equipped to handle the pressure that goes with the job.

And if he won't step down, the voters of Rhode Island need to step up and replace him for the good of that state and the nation.

Drinks at the Hawk & Dove: $40
Phenergan & Ambien: $75
Crashing your Mustang convertible while intoxicated: $4,000
Being driven home by Capitol Police instead of arrested: PRICELESS

And courtesy of the Smoking Gun, here's the actual POLICE REPORT