Exactly Why We Need To Strengthen The Border

Via Insta, here’s a great argument for stronger borders:

Members and supporters of the Mexica Movement building the posters that would help educate our people as to the background behind all of this racism.

I Can Not Hide From The Truth

I am 68% Video Game Addict.

Video games are a big portion of my life, maybe too big of a portion. They are not a means of social interaction, despite what I might think. I should just go outside.

Take the
Video Game Addict Test
@ FualiDotCom

(updated because Crusader in Comments made me realize I’d answered a question incorrectly. And my score went from 60% to 68%. Ouch)
We are an Internet addicted family in my house…
Update: (Crusader)

I am 39% Video Game Addict.

I may play video games but they don’t rule my life. Good for me. But I should be careful not to fall in the grasp of the loving glow of the TV or monitor.

Take the
Video Game Addict Test
@ FualiDotCom

Ha! I can tell the CAG that I have no problem, and have proof!
: You are all pitiful, sorry escapists, waaka, waaka.

I am 12% Video Game Addict.

Why did I even take this test? I don’t even know who Mario is! I should do the world a favor and buy a console and a dozen games so people don’t think I am lame.

Take the
Video Game Addict Test
@ FualiDotCom

Well, This Is A Relief

Liza Minnelli says “I’m sick of sex!

She explains, “Look at my track record – I have good taste in friends and lousy taste in husbands.”

Which just once again shows the genius of Parker and Stone:

Read more »

Yeah. Exactly.

The first time Rep. Tom Tancredo got really angry about immigration, the year was 1975, and he was a junior high school social studies teacher in Denver. The state had recently passed the nation’s first bilingual education law, and Hispanic kids were taken from his class to study in Spanish.
That idea made zero sense to Tancredo, the grandson of Italian immigrants. He believed that newcomers should be assimilated into the country, as they had for generations. The image of America as a beacon for people from all over the world uniting under one flag and one language was threatened, he contended, if the country started adapting to immigrants, instead of the other way around.

This is THE spot on the face of the earth people head for, people dream about. It needs to stay that way. Join us and go forth from here as Americans.

We are not assimilating our immigrants patriotically now. We are assimilating them culturally. Within a generation their children speak Valley Girl on cell phones. “So I’m like ‘no,” and he’s all ‘yeah,’ and I’m like, ‘In your dreams.’ ” Whether their parents are from Trinidad, Bosnia, Lebanon or Chile, their children, once Americans, know the same music, the same references, watch the same shows. And to a degree and in a way it will hold them together. But not forever and not in a crunch.
So far we are assimilating our immigrants economically, too. They come here and work. Good.
But we are not communicating love of country. We are not giving them the great legend of our country. We are losing that great legend.
What is the legend, the myth? That God made this a special place. That they’re joining something special.

Oh yeah. He did.
More facts ‘n figures reading via our good friend, the Gateway Pundit.

Who The Hell Does She Think She Is?

I am so sick and tired of these ‘Representatives’ placing themselves above the law:

According to sources on Capitol Hill, U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) punched a Capitol police officer on Wednesday afternoon after he mistakenly pursued her for failing to pass through a metal detector.
…An unconfirmed statement attributed to McKinney has been released on the Internet, where she allegedly claims to have been harassed by Capitol Hill Police.
The statement’s writer says that she has been harassed by white police officers she says do not recognize her due to her recently changed hairstyle.
“Do I have to contact the police every time I change my hairstyle? How do we account for the fact that when I wore my braids every day for 11 years, I still faced this problem, primarily from certain white police officers,” the statement says.
The writer details the incident, saying, “I was rushing to my meeting when a white police officer yelled to me. He approached me, bodyblocked me, physically touching me. I used my arm to get him off of me. I told him not to touch me several times. He asked for my ID and I showed it to him. He then let me go and I proceeded to my meeting and I assume that the Police Officer resumed his duties. I have counseled with the Sergeant-at-Arms and Acting Assistant Chief Thompson several times before and counseled with them again on today’s incident. I offered also to counsel with the offending police officer.”

Supposedly it’s all on tape. I hope so.
I don’t think that the officer, you know, the guy who risks his life to save your sorry ass, is the one who needs ‘counseling.’

Hooters Goes Bust

I couldn’t resist saying that.

Upsetting the Apple Cart

The long-running legal tussle between The Beatles’ company, Apple Corp, and technology giant Apple Computer returned to London’s High Court on Wednesday – this time, focused on the latter’s move into music services through its iPod player and iTunes download system.

Apple Corp is accusing the US company of breaching a trademark agreement, by effectively “selling music” through its online music store and using the Apple name and logo in connection with this.

In Penny Lane, the barber shaves another customer and the little children laugh at him behind his back.

Five Years and Change in Prison?

…Before the hearing, more than 260 people — including rabbis, military officers and even a professional hockey referee — wrote letters on the men’s behalf asking the federal judge for leniency.
…”… is a good person, who in his quest to be successful, lost sight of the rules,”…

Pffft. They’re talking about Abramoff.

Color Me Shocked! A Parasite?

Ga. Stores Ordered to Stop Selling Puppies

Talk about your “cruelty to animals”…

I Think Gasoline’s Fixin’ to Go Through the Roof

The Energy Department has released last week’s inventory data. Crude oil supply rose a more than expected 2.03 million barrels; analysts had anticipated a 950,000 barrel build. Meanwhile, gasoline inventory fell 5.34 million barrels — a drawdown that was much greater than the expected 1.45 million barrel decline. That portion of the data is shifting into focus as the summer driving season approaches, and is bullish for energy markets.

Great. And things haven’t even begun swirling off the African Coast or in the Caribbean.

Today’s Required Reading

…I commend to all those presumptuous senators and congressmen the sardonic and wise words of Edmund Burke in his 1792 letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe: “No man will assert seriously, that when people are of a turbulent spirit, the best way to keep them in order is to furnish them with something substantial to complain of.” The senators should remember that they are American senators, not Roman proconsuls. Nor is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee some latter-day Praetor Maximus.

Tony Blankley cuts to the meat of the matter.
UPDATE: There were student protests in LA, Dallas and Phoenix yesterday.

“I’m here for my parents,” Juliana Rojo, 14, told the Associated Press. She said her parents are illegal immigrants. “They work hard. I just want them to be treated fairly.”

Senator Kyl from AZ has my vote.

The Senate bill would allow the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants now in the USA to become citizens eventually. They would have to prove they have jobs, pass a criminal background check, learn English, and pay fines and back taxes.
Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said he cannot support the bill approved Monday by the Senate Judiciary Committee because it offers a chance at citizenship to workers who are needed only temporarily.

Pay back taxes?! Who are they kidding? Of course, that idiot Senator of ours is all for letting them stay. Every time he opens his goofus mouth, he makes me look like a genius for not voting for him. And dear Cardinal Mahoney ~ I think you’ve missed the point.

Like a number of the Judiciary Committee bill’s supporters, Mahony argued that it offers a more workable approach to a difficult problem. “How are you going to pick up and arrest 8 (million) to 11 million people?” he asked. “It’s not realistic.”

If they wore turbans and had private pilot licenses, he’d be wondering why we weren’t tougher on defending the borders.
Kathleen Parker has a question:

When Illegal Is Right, What Is Wrong?

Who’d a thunk it ~ Lou DOBBS quoting Teddy Roosevelt??

This Would Be Counter Productive

Afghanistan’s parliament demanded Wednesday that the government prevent a man who faced the death penalty for abandoning Islam for Christianity from being able to flee the country. Italy granted asylum to Abdul Rahman, 41, and the Foreign Ministry said he would arrive there “soon,” maybe within the day.

Wonderful bunch there. They’ll let the street finish off what they were prevented from doing.
UPDATE: He’s made it safely to Italy. My concern is for the next guy or gal. And the next one after that…

How Did Clarence Darrow (or Atticus Finch, et al) Ever

…muddle through?

Law Professor Bans Laptops in Class
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — A University of Memphis law professor has banned laptop computers from her classroom and her students are passing a petition against it.
Professor June Entman says her main concern is that students are so busy keyboarding they can’t think and analyze what she’s telling them.
…Student Cory Winsett says if he must continue without his laptop, he’ll transfer to another school. Winsett says he won’t be able to keep up if he has to rely on hand-written notes, which he says are incomplete and less organized.

This Photo of Injured Student Protestors Isn’t From Paris

It’s from Dallas.

Like We Need Another Eff’n Poll

…to tell us Bingley’s a rude one.

HOW MUCH PROFANITY: About three-fourths of people, 74 percent, said they frequently or occasionally encounter people using profanity or swear words in public. Just over four in 10 of those polled, 42 percent, said they frequently run into such people.
Almost nine in 10 people from age 18-29, 86 percent, said they encounter people who use profanity at least occasionally, compared with 56 percent of those 65 and older. The amount of profanity people encounter tends to drop steadily as age increases. People who make more than $50,000 a year were more likely than those in lower income groups to say they encounter profanity at least occasionally, 81 percent, than those who make less than $25,000 a year, 66 percent.

I got yer #*&%*@ poll results right here.

Caspar Weinberger has died.

Godspeed, Cap!

In Xenu No One Should Hear You Scream

These people are just too damned weird:

TOM Cruise’s pregnant fiancée Katie Holmes will be reminded to keep her vow of silence during birth — by signs plastered around their home.
The couple — following the Scientology tradition of a silent birth — had the posters delivered to their Beverly Hills mansion.
The 6ft placards will be placed so Katie can see them in labour.
One reads: “Be silent and make all physical movements slow and understandable.”

Wtf? During labor you have to play friggin’ charades? If that doesn’t sum up this cult nothing does. Wackoswackoswackos.

Followers believe it is traumatic for babies to hear their mother scream or groan when giving birth. They think it can cause “psychic” damage, which takes years of therapy to overcome.

I think that applies more to Scientology than childbirth, frankly. What a bunch of misogynistic bullshit.

The doctrine stresses newborns cannot be poked or prodded for medical tests or spoken to for seven days.

Sounds like child abuse to me. Somebody call DYFS.
Update: I couldn’t resist imagining delivery room charades in the comments at Sheila’s.

My Sympathy Meter is Pegged

…as well.

…House Insurance Committee Chairman Dennis Ross, R-Lakeland, said he is drafting legislation that would require Citizens to phase out its 6,024 million-dollar policies in the next two years. Also, a top lawmaker from Tampa said Monday he might call for an investigation into Citizens’ rates.
These developments come after The Tampa Tribune reported Sunday that Citizens’ premiums for million-dollar homes are often lower than those charged by private companies.
Ross wants to make it much harder for millionaire homeowners to get coverage from consumer-backed Citizens until the policies are phased out. Under his plan, homeowners seeking coverage from Citizens for more than $1 million must prove they can’t get a policy in the private market, even the unregulated surplus lines market. Surplus lines carriers generally offer custom policies for expensive homes at a premium price.
To millionaires worried about paying more for insurance, Ross said: “You’re not going to generate a lot of sympathy.”
…Citizens’ low rates are partly to blame for the company’s $2.2 billion deficit after eight hurricanes pounded the state in the past two storm seasons.
Now all Florida property owners with insurance are bailing out the insurer.

“Death to Bush!” “Death to Christians!”

If this is what we can look forward to in the ‘Stan, why did we go in there again?

I Woulda Bought It

Happy 20th Birthday, Shoebox.

And the drawing of a couple cuddling on a living room couch with a friendly bearded man, wearing a robe, sandals and a turban. The woman blurts: “Honey, this Afghan your mom gave us is really warm!”

Oh, I’ll Bet

…it was in ‘protest’. Amazing how many converts to a cause you can find if they get to walk out of class to do it.

At least 14,000 mostly Hispanic students stormed out of school classes across Los Angeles in a snowballing protest against Washington’s plans for a draconian crackdown on illegal immigration.
Local news reports said that “tens of thousands of students” were taking part in the protest that was spreading through schools across the country’s second largest city ahead of a US Senate debate on a divisive immigration reform bill.

A Big Win For Bloggers

This is good news:

The Federal Election Commission decided Monday that the nation’s new campaign finance law will not apply to most political activity on the Internet.
In a 6-0 vote, the commission decided to regulate only paid political ads placed on another person’s Web site.
The decision means that bloggers and online publications will not be covered by provisions of the new election law. Internet bloggers and individuals will therefore be able to use the Internet to attack or support federal candidates without running afoul of campaign spending and contribution limits.
…Bloggers would be entitled to the same exemption from the campaign finance law that newspapers and other traditional forms of media receive.
“There will be no second class citizens among members of the media,” Toner said.

I’m glad it was unanimous.

An Email Arrived Forwarding This

…column by Ralph Peters to friends and family. Shortly afterward a “reply all” came back with the following:

“Yeah, its amazing how 2 or 3 thousand journalists have all gotten together in a conspiracy in Iraq to report only the bad stuff and none of the good. Man, those lousy journalists, can seem to get the story straight in Iraq but are really, really good at getting together and pulling the wool over the entire world’s eyes.
And its also amazing that the people in charge of this war, the ones that have access to the US airwaves whenever they want (think Presidential speeches, news releases carried by every major news outlet, news conferences etc) don’t have ANY opportunity to release their side of the story, poor souls. And finally, isn’t it amazing how EASY it is to blame the news media instead of accepting ANY blame for misguided policies and mistakes (think Nixon and Watergate, I won’t go into this administration – except maybe Katrina).
Sorry, but when people tell me that the MEDIA is to blame, then I’m almost CERTAIN that its not. There many be LOTS of good things happening in Iraq, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a LOT of bad things happening there either. Weak minds and weak hearts seek to blame others – looks like it’s happening again!”

So They’re Only “Cold Blooded Murderers”

…if they hit a member of your family?

Bomber comparison gets Arab nixed from county ballot
….The Lebanese-born Merhi made the comments at a September 2002 Democratic fundraiser for U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, where he condemned the September 11 terrorists “as cold-blooded murders” and “crazy fanatics.”
When asked whether he would apply the same label to Palestinian suicide bombers who target Israelis, Merhi said, “I can’t see the comparison.”

He lost his godson in the WTC attack.

Where’s the Balance?

Developer Mitch Kass, of Fort-Lauderdale-based Glenn Wright Homes, defends the construction. He is building a dozen houses, some nearly 4,000 square feet, in a neighborhood next to one of Delray Beach’s historic neighborhoods.
“We’re doing a regentrification of the housing stock. We’re not destroying the Everglades here,” Kass said. “We’re regentrifying what’s outdated.”

‘Outdated’. Frank Lloyd Wright is ‘outdated’. Victorian is ‘outdated’. Arts and Crafts is ‘outdated’, as well as Georgian, Federal and Queen Anne. History is outdated by it’s very nature. What would you rather have?

Historic homes make way for McMansions. The ones I passed outside of Dallas were creepy enough ~ huge houses built to within 3 feet of the property line, hundreds walled into little Stepford Wives communities piled one on top of the other that belch out their commuter residents onto one four lane road through the middle, all wreathed in that damn brown air. And they were built on open prairie.