Newspeak Rules

Lou Dobbs made the point that the media is playing games with language in reporting about illegal immigration into this country.

Too often, the language of the national media describes illegal immigration as "migration" and illegal aliens as "undocumented immigrants," even though many of them have lots of documents, most of which are fraudulent or stolen.

As if to drive home the point Dobbs made, you almost have to feel your jaw bounce off the floor three times when reading this story about a Federal bust of an enormous forged documents ring.

CHICAGO - Twenty-two people connected to a bustling, multimillion-dollar counterfeit ring that produces several thousand bogus identification documents a year have been arrested, officials said Wednesday.

The fake documents, which range from driver's licenses to Social Security cards, could help criminals and even terrorists blend into society, said Elissa Brown, an official with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of Investigations in Chicago.

Twelve people were arrested Tuesday in Chicago, and 10 others are fugitives, including four believed to be in Mexico, officials said.

The arrests "represent a significant setback to one of the largest and most sophisticated illegal document fraud rings in the United States," Brown said.

According to the complaint affidavit, the organization started in Mexico and is thought to be active in Los Angeles and Denver.

In Chicago, the operation was run mainly by Mexicans but served a range of nationalities from Polish to Nigerian to American, authorities said.

The ring used illegal immigrants working on street corners and in parking lots who would take orders for and deliver the false IDs, authorities said. Those IDs included green cards, authorities said.

The Chicago operation, which produced as many as 100 documents a day and charged customers as much as $300 for a set of two or three documents, generated as much as $3 million in illegal proceeds a year, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said.

It has to be a slip there, the reporter actually used the term "illegal immigrant", but only in the context of the actual criminals selling the documents. Who do you think was buying up to 100 forged documents a day? The clientèle of this little enterprise are the illegal immigrants flooding the country. Dobbs' point was spot on. The "undocumented workers" actually have lots and lots of documents.

But they are fraudulent.

Pious Frauds

The fraudulently pious in the Middle Ages bought indulgences from a corrupt church. The indulgences were "sin offsets" that forgave bad behavior up front, thereby supposedly avoiding going to hell - or purgatory - upon the sinner's death. The indulgences were, of course, complete frauds generated strictly to make money for the church.

Move the clock forward a few centuries. Now, the First Church of the Presumptuous Assumption of Global Warming® is proudly selling the wonders of "carbon offsets" as ways for energy-guzzling, strip-mining barons to reduce their "carbon footprint" and lead a "carbon neutral" lifestyle.

And the carbon offsets are about as real as the medieval church's indulgences. (Maybe they used the same printer.)

The burgeoning regulated market for carbon credits is expected to more than double in size to about $68.2bn by 2010, with the unregulated voluntary sector rising to $4bn in the same period.

The FT investigation found: 

â–  Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.

â–  Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.

â–  Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.

â–  A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.

â–  Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.

Francis Sullivan, environment adviser at HSBC, the UK’s biggest bank that went carbon-neutral in 2005, said he found “serious credibility concerns” in the offsetting market after evaluating it for several months.

“The police, the fraud squad and trading standards need to be looking into this. Otherwise people will lose faith in it,” he said.

These concerns led the bank to ignore the market and fund its own carbon reduction projects directly.

Funny how tolerant the left is about fraud when the right cause is involved, isn't it?

UPDATE: Other good reading: The Volokh Conspiracy, Secular Blasphemy, Hot Air, Samizdata.net, Althouse, Don Surber, Sister Toldjah,

Wrong

The other day, Hillary Clinton made a fool of herself while at the same time showing a complete contempt for her audience. She did so by altering her accent to sound more "Southern" while addressing black audiences. This is pandering. Today, Chris Muir, the author of the Day by Day Cartoon strip that appears on a lot of conservative web sites, responded. By making a fool of himself.

I was quite emphatic when a left-wing blogger put Wolf Blitzer in blackface. I am not intending to give Mr. Muir a pass. Was Clinton's behavior worthy of ridicule? You bet. But not in this manner. Blackface is a particularly insensitive, downright hostile, stereotype. It should not be used unless it is in a context of teaching the foolishness of the past. This is not acceptable - and it isn't a political correctness issue, I think. There are some things that needlessly give offense when a point can be made in another manner. Blackface is one of those things.

(This should be interesting, however. The left should spring to Muir's defense as they did with others who pulled this on the left, no? Unless the raging double standard comes to the fore again).

UPDATE: My good friends over at Just Barking Mad are taking a somewhat different stance on this. Let me put it this way, just to clarify. What Clinton did is demeaning to her audience. She was pandering - in the first degree. But a scathing point ridiculing her behavior could have been made without using symbology that a lot of people find deeply offensive. If the use of this symbology is acceptable, why is the regular use by Arab cartoonists of Nazi symbology to describe Jews beyond the pale? Personally, I would have done it differently. Regardless of the merit of slamming Clinton's demeaning pandering toward her audience, some things are best left out of the discussion. I have a problem with the use of blackface by anyone, left or right. I have the same problem with certain other symbols out of history. The use of those symbols, regardless of the intent, is simply not worth the collateral damage they cause.

Stand. Fight. Win.

In what will surely provoke the left into a complete, shrieking frenzy, the Washington Post, in addition to running David Broder's column calling Harry Reid inept (speaking truth to Bozo), is also running and op-ed written by Joe Lieberman. And it is a humdinger. So it's a one-two punch: the guy who earned the undying hatred of the left by pointing out that Ned Lamont was a very poor choice of candidates and the man who proved it by beating Lamont in the general election.

But if tomorrow Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds were to achieve the "political solution" we all hope for, the threat of al-Qaeda in Iraq would not vanish.

Al-Qaeda, after all, isn't carrying out mass murder against civilians in the streets of Baghdad because it wants a more equitable distribution of oil revenue. Its aim in Iraq isn't to get a seat at the political table; it wants to blow up the table — along with everyone seated at it.

Certainly al-Qaeda can be weakened by isolating it politically. But even after the overwhelming majority of Iraqis agree on a shared political vision, there will remain a hardened core of extremists who are dedicated to destroying that vision through horrific violence. These forces cannot be negotiated or reasoned out of existence. They must be defeated.

The challenge before us, then, is whether we respond to al-Qaeda's barbarism by running away, as it hopes we do — abandoning the future of Iraq, the Middle East and ultimately our own security to the very people responsible for last week's atrocities — or whether we stand and fight.

To me, there is only one choice that protects America's security — and that is to stand, and fight, and win.

Read the whole thing. It is merciless toward the cut and run wing of the Democratic party. This, of course, is why the nutroots hate Joe Lieberman so much. He's an old-style hawkish Democrat who believes first and foremost in the defense of the country in the mold of JFK. I suspect JFK would not be welcome in today's party, either.

You, Robot

This is interesting. A free, open source project to allow people to build and operate their very own internet-controlled robots with off the shelf components.

The Telepresence Robot Kit (TeRK) features one key piece of Linux-based hardware called a Qwerk controller, but otherwise calls on would-be robot builders to use off-the-shelf parts. Qwerk has USB interfaces and controls a robot's motors, cameras and other components. It also allows for wireless connectivity to the Internet, from which the robots can be controlled.

One example of a robot that could be built with the kit is a three-wheeled rover with a camera attached that could keep an eye on your house or pet. Other examples are a flower loaded with sensors and an Internet-controlled teddy bear.

The TeRK project is led by Associate Professor of Robotics Illah Nourbakhsh and members of his Community Robotics, Education and Technology Empowerment Lab. Charmed Labs of Austin also developed Qwerk.

"We want robots that don't just subscribe to geeky notions of what robots should be," Nourbakhsh said in a statement.

It has taken about 18 months to build TeRK, with support provided by Google, Intel and Microsoft.

The Charmed Labs site sells the Qwerk device for about $350. But all the software is available for free from the TeRK website, along with recipes for several different robots. You can build the next generation of robots right at home.

House Hunting

Yesterday, we reported on coyotes shopping for mattresses in Missouri. Today, it's  moose going house hunting in suburban Massachusetts. The Animal Uprising™ is getting pretty cocky.

 NORTHAMPTON - Environmental police tranquilized a young moose Wednesday morning that had wandered into a North Elm Street backyard the night before and couldn't find its way out.

Tony Silva, of 169 North Elm Street, said the moose managed to wander through a 3-foot opening in the wooden fence that surrounds his yard. The trapped animal was spotted late Tuesday night by a neighbor, said Silva. The residents began calling authorities at 7 a.m. the next morning, when they realized the moose had not wandered back out, he said.

Northampton city police were called to 169 North Elm at roughly 8:30 a.m., at which point a team of environmental police and wildlife management experts had already put a dart in the animal's back. The sedated moose, blindfolded and with soft foam in its ears to keep it calm, was then loaded into a truck.

"Environmental Police?" Oy. So, the animal overlords are obviously pretty confident that they will conquer humanity in the near future. But I sure wouldn't want a moose for a neighbor. They throw wild parties.

Mama Must Be So Proud

Yes, mama must be very, very proud of her little Bambi. After all, he's the first one in herd to attend college. And Villanova, no less. It must be the talk of the forest.

Two deer entered Moulden Hall on West Campus this Sunday, causing damage to the residence hall and wreaking havoc at a student barbeque. Students alerted Public Safety of the incident.

"[We responded] to a report of a live deer roaming inside the building," Public Safety Senior Investigator Jim Conway said.

At approximately 7:45 p.m., the animals entered the building through the door closest to Klekotka Hall. Resident Assistants held a barbeque for the residents of West Campus from 4 to 7 p.m., and students propped open the door as they moved in and out of the residence hall.

Five public safety officers, including a sergeant who served as shift supervisor, reported to the scene to find the deer on the ground floor in the hallway closest to Klekotka Hall. The officers proceeded to ensure that all of the doors to Moulden Hall were secured and that all students cleared out of the way.

The Public Safety officers then called Radnor Police, hoping that they would have animal tranquilizers, Conway said.

Radnor Police did not have any animal tranquilizers to offer Public Safety, but two Radnor police officers did report to the scene.

The officers worked together and "forced the deer out of the open lobby door," Conway said. The deer were not injured.

Students also reported that a fire extinguisher may have been used in an attempt to clear the deer from the building.

The deer managed to tear a sink off the wall, so they won't be welcome in the dorms anymore. No word on what classes they are registered for, either. But loyal readers will know what this all means: The Animal Uprising is seeking better educations for its stormtroopers. That does not bode well for the future.

‘You Bring The Pitchforks, I’ll Bring The Torches’

One of the lefty sites announced a "blogswarm alert" against David Broder's column yesterday in anticipation of its publication today. I first noticed it over on Memeorandum. Well, Broder's column is out and the mob is queuing up already. Broder has been an object of hate for the left for quite some time, but it really gelled when he dismissed Ned Lamont as a really bad choice of candidates foisted on the Democrats by "elitist insurgents" last year. Broder, of course, is actually not a fan of the Bush administration and had devoted a lot of column inches attacking Bush policies. But today, he unloads on Harry Reid. Hence the blogswarm call.

Here's a Washington political riddle where you fill in the blanks: As Alberto Gonzales is to the Republicans, Blank Blank is to the Democrats — a continuing embarrassment thanks to his amateurish performance.

If you answered " Harry Reid," give yourself an A. And join the long list of senators of both parties who are ready for these two springtime exhibitions of ineptitude to end.

President Bush's highly developed tolerance for egregious incompetence in his administration may have met its supreme test in Attorney General Gonzales, who at various times has taken complete responsibility for the firing of eight U.S. attorneys and professed complete ignorance of the reasons for their dismissal. This demonstration of serial obfuscation so impressed the president that he rushed out to declare that Gonzales had "increased my confidence in his ability to do the job."

As if that were not mind-boggling enough, consider the mental gyrations performed by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) as he rationalized the recent comment from his majority leader, Harry Reid, the leading light of Searchlight, Nev., that the war in Iraq "is lost."

On "Fox News Sunday," Schumer offered this clarification of Reid's off-the-cuff comment. "What Harry Reid is saying is that this war is lost — in other words, a war where we mainly spend our time policing a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis. We are not going to solve that problem. . . . The war is not lost. And Harry Reid believes this — we Democrats believe it. . . . So the bottom line is if the war continues on this path, if we continue to try to police and settle a civil war that's been going on for hundreds of years in Iraq, we can't win. But on the other hand, if we change the mission and have that mission focus on the more narrow goal of counterterrorism, we sure can win."

Everyone got that? This war is lost. But the war can be won. Not since Bill Clinton famously pondered the meaning of the word "is" has a Democratic leader confused things as much as Harry Reid did with his inept discussion of the alternatives in Iraq.

It gets better from there. As I have stated repeatedly, I firmly believe Reid and his House counterpart Pelosi will come to be reviled by the Democrats in the not too distant future. So I don't find Broder's conclusions here to be unusual. I think Harry Reid's comment about the war being lost was a political nightmare for the Democrats. Witness the abrupt backpedaling he did on the Senate floor. And the fancy footwork of the other Senators. But the left, oh my, are they angry at Broder for pointing that out.

The warning signs have been there for a while now that the media is not going to continue providing cover for Reid or Pelosi if they continue the mad rush to the left. Personally, I'd bet Broder's political beliefs rest somewhere on the centrist Democratic side of the political spectrum. As do many of the members of the mainstream media. And as the media cover fades away, the public is going to be less and less happy with the direction the Congressional leadership is heading in. Watch Memeorandum for updates as the day goes by. Broder's column is right at the top at the moment.

The Starbucks Option

Sometimes, political disagreements get rather heated. The rhetoric can escalate and names can be called. As a last resort, political opponents can reach into their bag of tricks and pull out the dreaded Starbucks option. That's where they beat the living heck out of an opponent with a coffee mug.

KEY CENTER, Wash. - A local fire commissioner was charged with assaulting a fellow commissioner with a coffee mug, the latest outbreak in a feud that a sheriff's spokesman says needs to end "before someone gets killed."

The commissioners, 71-year-old Allen Yanity and 64-year-old Jim Bosch, both of Lakebay, got into a heated exchange Tuesday during a break in a meeting as they were standing with their wives, sheriff's Detective Ed Troyer said.

Yanity bashed Bosch repeatedly on the head with a coffee mug, Troyer said. A cut on Bosch's head required staples to close, prosecutors said.

Yanity said he didn't know exactly what happened during the struggle but that he might have hit Bosch with a coffee mug, according to prosecutors.

Yanity, elected to the Fire Protection District 16 panel last year, has accused Bosch of trying to force him off the commission by extortion. Bosch, first elected in 1998, has accused Yanity of harassing and intimidating him.

"They need to figure out how to get their organization in order," Troyer told the News Tribune of Tacoma. "We want this stopped before someone gets killed."

Someone needs an anger management class. And a lot less caffeine. A Styrofoam cup is also a really good idea.

Very Slim Majority Votes To Surrender

A slim majority of the US House of Representatives, sniffing after $20-plus billion in fresh steaming chunks of raw pork, have voted to pass a bill that will be vetoed by the President. Two - exactly two - Republicans joined in the surrender-fest.

13 Democrats refused the poisoned bait.

The 218-208 vote came as the top U.S. commander in Iraq told lawmakers the country remained gripped by violence but was showing some signs of improvement.

Passage puts the bill on track to clear Congress by week's end and arrive on the president's desk in coming days as the first binding congressional challenge to Bush's handling of the conflict now in its fifth year.

"Our troops are mired in a civil war with no clear enemy and no clear strategy for success," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

Republicans promised to stand squarely behind the president in rejecting what they called a "surrender date" handed to the enemy.

"Al-Qaida will view this as the day the House of Representatives threw in the towel," said Rep. Jerry Lewis of California, ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee.

The $124.2 billion bill would fund the war, among other things, but demand troop withdrawals begin on Oct. 1 or sooner if the Iraqi government does not meet certain benchmarks. The bill sets a nonbinding goal of completing the troop pull out by April 1, 2008, allowing for forces conducting certain noncombat missions, such as attacking terrorist networks or training Iraqi forces, to remain.

Two Republicans — Reps. Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland and Walter Jones of North Carolina — joined 216 Democrats in passing the bill. Voting no were 195 Republicans and 13 Democrats.

So, the Congressional "leaders" of the majority party have their show victory. And the bill will be vetoed. And then they will quietly pass the real spending bill they really intended to pass all along. The pundits will fume, the left will screech and the bottom line will emerge: The Democrats do not have the guts to cut the funds for the troops in the field. Because it would be the end of them as a political party. But that will not stop the Reid-Pelosi regime from trying to lose the war for the nation. Not the other party. The nation. Political parties do not win or lose wars. Nations win or lose wars.

The Silence Of The Lambs Left

Odd, isn't it? Much screeching, wailing and gnashing of teeth (not to mention spittle-drenched computer monitors) from the left about the need for immediate and radical gun control whenever a psycho goes mad - as happened at Virginia Tech. But not one, single word - not one - if the psycho happens to threaten a Republican.

LAS VEGAS - A man accused of threatening a Nevada Republican Party official with a rifle was arrested Tuesday in a vehicle in which police found swords, knives, a shotgun, shells and a flare gun, authorities said.

Matthew Hunter Kramer, 31, did not resist officers who arrested him on a warrant issued after the April 3 confrontation at state Republican Party offices in Las Vegas. It wasn't clear why he was not arrested earlier.

Zachary Moyle, executive director of the state GOP, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Kramer invited him to look at something in the trunk of his Mercedes before pulling out a rifle, pointing it at his face and warning that he would be back if President Bush vetoed an emergency war spending bill being considered by Congress.

….

Kramer also removed photos of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney from the wall of the office and threatened to harm staff members, Moyle said. Kramer left his cell phone number with office staff before leaving, police said.

He is charged with criminal syndicalism, assault with a deadly weapon and aiming a firearm at a person, police Officer Martin Wright said.

Criminal syndicalism makes it a crime to advocate sabotage, violence or terrorism to accomplish industrial or political reform……

There are people who will react to extreme rhetoric in an extreme fashion. It is important to remember that.

People, People Who Need ……Fabric Upholstery

Britain is bracing for a concert tour by Barbara Streisand. But I really am not sure if they are ready for what is about to hit them. The Daily Mail is incredulous at the demands that Streisand has in her "tour rider ", but they only looked at a few things. It actually gets worse.

The legendary singer, who turned 65 this week, is lined up to play a series of gigs at the Millenium Dome now called The O2 Venue in July, with tickets expected to be priced at a staggering £200 a time.

Her return which is expected to become a sell-out within minutes of the tickets going on sale, is likely to be a memorable night - but spare a thought for the staff who will charged with attending to her exacting demands, which could set new standards for diva like on British shores.

When she appeared in Philadelphia to relaunch her live career in September, she insisted on a police dog unit sweeping the auditorium before her sound check, not to mention metal detectors at every door.

The so-called 'rider' which contains all her back-stage requirements from the US gig, which was posted on an American website, included astonishingly detailed information down to the detail of the upholstery on the sofas.

Streisand, who has recorded over 60 albums and her team required five living room sets - fabric covered - "no vinyl please", ten floor lamps "Torchierre style", 35 folding banquet tables and 150 folding chairs.

There was also detailed information about the number and type of locks on the doors, although organisers at the venue were warned that her production team would also need 120 bath sized towels "immediately upon arrival". (Ed Note: Apparently, she travels with 1/3 of  the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Who knew?)

But, as I said, it actually gets worse. Worse even than the hygienically challenged Sheryl Crow's big, old carbon generating tours. Because Streisand makes Crow look like a complete amateur. No Kidding . 

Thirteen - or fourteen - semis. Four vans. Fourteen buses. And a limo. Hello, carbon factory! I cannot wait for Babs to lecture about global warming! I wonder if she'll demand a latte as well. Or if it will be provided free of charge. 

Hiding The Truth

Well, Lou Dobbs should be getting scads of screeching hate mail just about now by my watch. Because, you see, he dares to call out the mainstream media for their all-out effort to push their agenda on illegal immigrants by playing with the language.

NEW YORK (CNN) — The Bush administration and the leadership of the Democratic Party are preparing to take another legislative leap at imposing a massive illegal alien amnesty on American citizens.

And the mainstream media are complicit in advancing this thinly veiled blanket amnesty. Instead of asking and answering important questions about why our immigration laws aren't being enforced and why we're permitting pervasive document fraud, the national media seem hell-bent on trying to obfuscate the issue, shamelessly playing with language, equating legal immigration with illegal immigration while obviously trying to preserve the illusion of objectivity.

Too often, the language of the national media describes illegal immigration as "migration" and illegal aliens as "undocumented immigrants," even though many of them have lots of documents, most of which are fraudulent or stolen. Some media outlets have taken to calling illegal aliens "entrants." Whether such language is meant to engender sympathy or to intentionally blur the distinction between legal and illegal, the mainstream media are taking sides in this debate.

The Arizona Republic, for example, used "undocumented immigrant" more than 80 times in 36 separate stories in the past month alone; the term appeared as many as 12 times in one article on "migration," according to our Lexis-Nexis search. At the same time, "illegal alien" appeared a total of only nine times during that span, with seven of the references coming from readers' opinions, one from a quotation and one from an editorial.

The mainstream media report as if America would no longer be a welcoming nation if we stopped illegal immigration. Nothing could be further from the truth. Why do the national media conveniently and routinely neglect to report that the United States brings in more lawful immigrants than the countries of the rest of the world combined? Each year, we accept 2 million immigrants legally. We give a million legal immigrants permanent residency every year. We bestow citizenship on 700,000 people a year and provide almost half a million work-related visas a year.

Dobbs point here is that if there is to be a debate about illegal immigrants, it has to be an honest one. Not one filled with newspeak euphemisms. Dobbs presents a lot of good reasons why this debate needs - desperately - to take place openly and honestly. Not with agenda-driven camouflage language. The facts are that a flood of unskilled labor into the country hurts the most vulnerable Americans. It hurts our own, fellow citizens more than anything else. And that needs to be addressed first, before any amnesty plan. 

Sure Signs That Your Dentist May Not Be Qualified

There are a couple of warning signs that should warn you that your dentist may not actually be a dentist. Filthy office, no diplomas on the walls, that sort of thing. However, a surefire giveaway would be seeing a tire iron among his instruments.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - A man was held Wednesday on charges that he performed dental work on customers without a license in his "filthy" garage, authorities said. Roger Bean, 60, was arrested Tuesday and held on $6,000 bond.

Bean performed denture fittings and made false teeth in his garage, charging just $200 for a full set of dentures, a procedure that typically costs more than $2,000, authorities said. But he was not licensed to practice in Florida.

Palm Beach County Sheriff's detective Don Zumpano said there were "health risks with operating this type of facility outside of your house," adding that Bean's workspace was "filthy."

I guess that means that the discount brain surgeon working out of the back of a Toyota is right out, no matter how big a discount he offers. 

Shopping For Home Furnishings

This is a very bad sign. The Animal Uprising™ appears to be getting so sure of its eventual victory over humanity that some of their minions are already shopping for home furnihsings that they will presumably need when they take over the houses from former human occupants. That's right, coyotes are shopping for mattresses.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Jim Haskell says the Select Comfort store he manages in northern Kansas City keeps its front doors open to encourage customers to come in. And that's not going to change just because a coyote wanders in.

The coyote, described as tall and skinny at 40 to 45 pounds, sauntered into the Select Comfort store at the Shops at Boardwalk open-air mall Sunday afternoon.

"We were just kind of shocked," said employee Melissa Bogatch, who was in the store with one other employee and two customers.

The shock quickly faded when she realized the coyote was nervous. It cowered in a corner, then hid under several mattresses, she said.

Police who were called to the store summoned the Missouri Department of Conservation. Two agents subdued and snared the coyote, then carted it away to be released in countryside near Kansas City International Airport.

First it was coyotes in a sub shop, now a mattress store. (What is a coyote's sleep number, anyway?)