Doing the jobs no one else will do

Mexico set to join space race:

Flying Burrito Brothers

Mexican lawmakers are in the process of setting up a national space agency, according to Reuters. The lower house in Mexico City has given the green light to a proposal that could see rocketry in development within the year.

Must be some spare change south of the border.

The initial outlay would be just $2m, about enough for an inflatable globe and a bottle rocket, but it's a start. The early days of the agency will concentrate on developing technology and working with universities and industry on satellite launches.

Not everyone's keen on the idea. Ruling group the National Action Party voted against the move, saying the cash would be better spent on trying to tackle widespread poverty.

Explain to 'em how they could use rockets to deliver illegal aliens over the border and they'll come around.

Send for some professional educators - we're having a lineup down at the jail

Interested-Participant lately has been chronicling the news of what passes for education in today's American schools and that, of course, wouldn't be complete without reports on teachers, er, "getting it on" with their students. A couple recent faves:

Teacher Accused of Sexually Abusing and Piercing Students

A 32-year-old special education teacher at McHenry West High School, Laura Sieradzki, has been accused of having sex with a 17-year-old male student and piercing two female students' bodies in an "inappropriate area." I'm guessing it wasn't the cafeteria.

Arkansas Teacher Accused of Sex with Boy

A spokesperson for the Malvern Police Department said Henderson and the boy met at the school and subsequently had sexual intercourse. At first, Henderson denied the accusations but changed her tune when police let her listen to some recorded telephone messages she left for the boy. Her response was a simple, "Damn!"

It's all Bush's fault, but no word on women and minorities

Huge dip in U.S. deaths startles experts:

In what appears to be an amazing success for American medicine, preliminary government figures released Wednesday showed that the annual number of deaths in the U.S. dropped by nearly 50,000 in 2004 -- the biggest decline in nearly 70 years.

The 2 percent decrease, reported by the National Center for Health Statistics, came as a shock to many, because the U.S. is aging, growing in population and getting fatter.

And there's more pollution, more junk food, more global warming, more tainted water, more dead fish, more SUVs. and more general willfullness on the part of the American citizenry in not listing to their betters who really know what's good for them. Gotta love it.

Today's Hoot!

The Iowahawk Guest Commentary by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi is chockful of rich creamy goodness, but I especially liked this part:

I’m serious, why does Zawahiri insist on making nice with these infidel college dickslaps? Okay, so a few dhimmis throw us a few bucks every month. But Holy f**king Prophet, otherwise they’re as useless as tits on an Imam. “Sorry, Zarkman, can’t help you with the wiring diagrams, my Ph.D. is in deconstructivist semiotics,” whatever the f**k that means. I mean, holy dung, how do these motards chew gum and protest march at the same time? And the ones that actually do get over here never want to volunteer for anything other than being a stupid hostage, and then they start whining for vegan meals and high-speed internet, and then they get all pissy and crying when you actually cut off one of the other’s heads. Helloooooo, Moby McMoonbeam: that’s what you f**king hostages are for. S**t, I swear the only victory we’ve had lately is when Team Satan came and took those Unitarian peace creeps off our hands. Your problem now, dawg.

Nothing that couldn't be solved by airdropping them without a parachute.

Yet another gadget I didn't know I needed

Miller beer to be first to use (Cold Can) Technology:

The beer can is in for a technology makeover that will shake-up the beverage industry, and it’s being brought to you by a company called Tempra Technology, which has ambitious plans for their cold can technology.

The specially modified cans use proprietary engineering to create a temperature drop that will reduce the I.C. Can contents by a minimum of 30° Fahrenheit in just three minutes.

I guess you don't keep 'em in the fridge or you'll have a brick when you pop the top. Follow the link for technology details, but as for who's going to buy them:

The average American drinks 22 Gallons of beer annually, and even though this product would demand a large price premium over a traditional can, the convenience factor and bragging rights would make this a must have item. Camping and fishing will drive the initial sales, and as volumes increase more and more uses will be found.

Expect the first cans to show up on store shelves in mid-2007.

I've been fishing for a passle of years and somehow I have managed to survive without a self-cooling beer can. On the other hand, showing your beer buddies the trick ought to be amusing. Once. After that, the fact that half the can is taken up with the mechanism will undoubtedly make it grow old fast.

Time for a checkup from the neck up

Apparently she can't find any tin foil

The Washington Post has a feature on the Bush Derangement Syndrome blogging crowd that's amazing in many ways, but the most amazing part is the profile of the poster child for the article, Maryscott O'Connor, of something called "My Left Wing:"

In the angry life of Maryscott O'Connor, the rage begins as soon as she opens her eyes and realizes that her president is still George W. Bush. The sun has yet to rise and her family is asleep, but no matter; as soon as the realization kicks in, O'Connor, 37, is out of bed and heading toward her computer.

Out there, awaiting her building fury: the Angry Left, where O'Connor's reputation is as one of the angriest of all. "One long, sustained scream" is how she describes the writing she does for various Web logs, as she wonders what she should scream about this day.

No meds for ole Maryscott.

She smokes a cigarette. Should it be about Bush, whom she considers "malevolent," a "sociopath" and "the Antichrist"? She smokes another cigarette.

No prescription meds, that is. Skipping more of her bouncing off the walls we come to:

"WAKE THE [expletive] UP," she writes next, and this time, instead of pausing, she keeps going, typing harder and harder on a keyboard that is surrounded by a pack of cigarettes, a dirty ashtray, a can of nonalcoholic beer, an album with photos of her dead father and a taped-up note -- staring at her -- on which she has scrawled "Why am I/you here?"

Ruh Oh! This sounds like a classic case. How did poor Maryscott get this way?

"I was not like this before," she says. "I was riddled with empathy for everyone suffering in the world. Classic bleeding-heart liberal."

Before:

She signed petitions. She boycotted veal. She canvassed for Greenpeace. She donated to Planned Parenthood. She read the Nation, the New Yorker, the Utne Reader and Mother Jones. She agonized over low wages for overseas workers every time she bought a $40 leather purse.

Doesn't sound much different to me!

And now, "I have become one of those people with all the bumper stickers on their car," she says. "I am this close to being one of those muttering people pushing a cart.

"I'm insane with rage and grief.

"But I also feel more connected than I ever have."

A tin foil beanie will cut down on those pesky connection messages, Maryscott!

If you delve down further in the article past some other amazing specimens, you'll find a Freudian explanation:

The cigarettes are because of a personality that she describes as compulsive.

The nonalcoholic beer is because for several years she drank to excess.

The note that says "Why am I/you here?" is because she is in constant search of an answer.

And the photo album is because of a 25-year-old Marine who died fighting in Vietnam three months before she was born, which she thinks helps explain the note, the alcohol, the cigarettes and the very first piece of writing she ever published online, a rant against the war in Iraq that began, "Every single millisecond of my life was directly affected by the nightmare that was Vietnam."

Too bad she's a disgrace to his memory.

Today's Hoot!

If you like dark humor, Ann Coulter provides:

This is the only country on Earth that thinks it's not sporting to consider our own interests in choosing immigrants. Try showing up in any other country on the planet, illiterate and penniless, and announcing: "I've seen pictures of your country and it looks great. I think I'd like to live here! Oh, and by the way, would you mind changing all your government and business phone messages, street signs and ballots into my native language? Thanks!" They would laugh you out of the country.

Actually you'd be lucky to get off that easy.

On CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" on Monday, Dobbs was interviewing Nativo Lopez, president of the Mexican-American Political Association about his demand for "full immediate, unconditional legalization for all persons currently in the United States."

Dobbs posed this innocuous question about Lopez's planned boycott, "You're talking about a boycott of all illegal aliens in this country?"

Lopez exploded: "Well, first off, I refute your terminology. You don't say 'kike,' 'patty,' 'WOP,' OK. You don't say "nigger"! ... You're using language that's offensive to me and offensive to my people! ... You pollute the air every day, Dobbs. ... That language is offensive, it's derogatory, it's denigrating, and don't use that terminology to me again, referring to my people!"

I'm so confused! He's talking about wetbacks, right?

An hour later on MSNBC's "Hardball," Dave Rodriguez, of the League of United Latin American Citizens, leapt in to denounce Rep. Tom Tancredo for using the word "amnesty." He said: "There isn't any such thing as amnesty in this law. I don't understand what this debate is. That's your own terminology on it ..."

Bank robbers and drug dealers ought to start claiming that the words "bank robber" and "drug dealer" are akin to the N-word. They could accuse lawmakers of "criminalizing felonies" and claim they don't understand what the word "jailbreak" means.

Give Teddy Kennedy another drink and you'll get that too.

As hardworking as illegal immigrants are when they come here, they are immediately demagogued by liberals into adopting the victimhood pose so popular on college campuses. Everybody wants to act like his ancestors were brought here on slave ships.

Consider this e-mail from Michele Waslin, La Raza's director of Immigration Policy Research, to her members denouncing Sen. Lamar Alexander's proposal to provide government grants to immigrants who want to learn English and American history and to organizations offering those courses. (I'd be happy with a law that simply trained new immigrants not to be "offended" all the time.)

Even though this potentially meant free money for La Raza, Waslin — of the Guadalajara Waslins — ominously warned that while the amendment "doesn't overtly mention assimilation, it is very strong on the patriotism and traditional American values language in a way which is potentially dangerous to our communities."

So much for the ole melting pot!

Today's Kumbaya Komedy

Since the mainstream media and some of our elected officials are feeling so chummy about illegal aliens, it's instructive to read this report from the Center for Security Policy on how Mexico handles the pesky problem:

In brief, the Mexican Constitution states that:

- Immigrants and foreign visitors are banned from public political discourse.

- Immigrants and foreigners are denied certain basic property rights.

- Immigrants are denied equal employment rights.

- Immigrants and naturalized citizens will never be treated as real Mexican citizens.

- Immigrants and naturalized citizens are not to be trusted in public service.

- Immigrants and naturalized citizens may never become members of the clergy.

- Private citizens may make citizens arrests of lawbreakers (i.e., illegal immigrants) and hand them to the authorities.

- Immigrants may be expelled from Mexico for any reason and without due process.

Gosh, that doesn't seem too hospitable of our neighbors to the south. To help them spiff up Mexico's Kumbaya Kredentials, David M. Bresnahan has some suggestions that would make him feel right at home there:

1. Free medical care for my entire family.
2. English-speaking government bureaucrats for all services I might need, whether I use them or not.
3. All government forms need to be printed in English.
4. I want my kids to be taught by English-speaking teachers.
5. Schools need to include classes on American culture and history.
6. I want my kids to see the American flag flying on the top of the flag pole at their school with the Mexican flag flying lower down.
7. Please plan to feed my kids at school for both breakfast and lunch.
8. I will need a local Mexican driver's license so I can get easy access to government services.
9. I do not plan to have any car insurance, and I won't make any effort to learn local traffic laws.
10. In case one of the Mexican police officers does not get the memo from Pres. Fox to leave me alone, please be sure that all police officers speak English.
11. I plan to fly the U.S. flag from my house top, put flag decals on my car, and have a gigantic celebration on July 4th. I do not want any complaints or negative comments from the locals.
12. I would also like to have a nice job without paying any taxes, and don’t enforce any labor laws or tax laws.
13. Please tell all the people in the country to be extremely nice and never say a critical word about me, or about the strain I might place on the economy.

He's sure that the Mexican government will be right lively in providing the above since the good ole USA is already doing the same for all our "visiting" Mexicans.

(HT to Digger's Realm for the latter link)

Tell your Senators not to bother coming home if they vote for the immigration "compromise"

Kris Kobach at the NY Post - Hidden Bombs:

IMMIGRATION-BILL SURPRISES

How do you slip legislative poison past a U.S. senator? Bury it on page 302 of a bill.

The Senate's Democratic and Republican leaders yesterday announced a compromise on an immigration bill - with some details still to be worked out. But details that may continue from the bill passed out of the Judiciary Committee should definitely be deal-breakers.

Like that surprise hidden on page 302 - which would replace the country's entire bench of experienced immigration judges with pro-immigration advocates.

With a few exceptions, today's immigration judges (who serve for life) are dedicated to enforcing the law, and they do a difficult job well. This bill forces all immigration judges to step down after serving seven years - and restricts replacements to attorneys with at least five years' experience practicing immigration law.

Virtually the only lawyers who'll meet that requirement are attorneys who represent aliens in the immigration courts - who tend to be some of the nation's most liberal lawyers, and who are certainly unlikely as a class to be fond of enforcing immigration laws.

It gets worse. Immigration judges are now appointed by the attorney general - whose job it is to see to it that laws are enforced. The Senate bill gives that power to a separate bureaucrat, albeit one directly appointed by the president, making immigration courts more susceptible to leftward polarization.

The Senate Republicans must have declared "Happy Hour" early because none of them with legal blood alchohol levels should have approved of this.

But wait, there's more:

The second nasty surprise? Just before the committee approved the bill on the evening of March 27, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) offered the "DREAM Act" as an amendment. It passed on a voice vote.

The DREAM Act is a nightmare. It repeals a 1996 law that prohibits state universities from offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens. The principle, of course, is that no illegal alien should be entitled to receive a taxpayer-subsidized benefit that out-of-state U.S. citizens can't get. But the committee's bill allows illegals to be treated better than those U.S. citizens on tuition.

I guess the citizens of the Republic don't count for much to the solons.

The third nasty surprise lies in what the bill fails to do. The measure envisions a massive amnesty for illegal aliens now in the country - but doesn't give the Citizenship and Immigration Service (CIS) the personnel or infrastructure to implement the amnesty.

In March, the General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a scathing report on the CIS's inability to effectively detect immigration fraud.

The last time we enacted a major amnesty, in 1986, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (the CIS's predecessor agency) processed some 3 million amnesty applications from illegal aliens. It found 398,000 cases of fraud - and missed thousands more. Now CIS may have to implement an amnesty four times larger.

The "amnesty" part of the bill means that the door is wide open, there's no one checking, and the free bar is waiting. Forget the booze, the Republicans must have been eating magic mushrooms.

This monstrosity is stalled for now, but it never hurts to let your Senators know that they aren't bringing this one home.

The face of the Democrat party

And what a face it is:

Earlier today, I heard Ted Kennedy (the senile senior senator from the state of inebriation Massachusetts) addressed one of the illegal alien rallies. Ted had a translator on hand, who repeated his statements in Spanish. (Personally, I found both versions incomprehensible. He needs an English translator.)

My first thought was a bit of a cheap shot. Was it really a good idea to remind those of us who've followed the modern Falstaff for some time about how he was kicked out of Harvard for cheating, more specifically for paying someone to take a Spanish exam? That was why Ted spent a hitch in the Army back in the 50's, and unlike his brothers didn't serve as an officer.

Follow the link for the reasons why Ted Kennedy is like an illegal alien.