A Need To Vent

Out of this whole Michael Vick sick situation, the real losers are the dogs, who will never be claimed.

During my life - which has been longer than I had any right to expect - I have known people who have owned Pit Bulls, Dobermans, Rottweilers and Ridgebacks. These dogs were gentle, loving pets because of the way they were raised - around people and given lots and lots of love and attention.

Any breed of dog can be trained to attack, bite and possibly kill. It's the way they're raised and trained, not the breed.

Now there are something like 55 - 60 dogs that will be put to sleep because they can't be adopted as pets.

Of everything Vick and his co-conspirators are charged with, this is the most heinous crime of all.

Why Vick's Pleading Guilty

Jury selection could have entered into his decision to cop a plea.


Thanks to Cityslicker!

Back to "Operation Wetback"

Everyone who mentions one keeps saying we need a fence of concrete or whatever across our Southern border. I think I have a better idea.

Put up a fence that goes about four feet below ground level and 12 feet above. Have the fence made of razor wire and run it from Texas to California.

Then run about 800 volts and 50 amps through it. PETA might bitch about animals that hit it, but it can't be considered "profilling" because it would stop anyone of any ethnic background from coming in. Besides, there are more than enough LEGAL entry points to the U.S.

At least it would stop them from a second attempt.

A Good Idea? I Think So

After Columbine, Virginia Tech and a myriad of other schools, a couple of guys have come up with what I think is an excellent idea. They have developed a bullet-proof backpack. The insert weighs about 20 oz - about the same as a water bottle, and there's nothing marking it as being any different from any other pack. You wouldn't necessarily have to tell your child about it, but that would seem to defeat the purpose. The child would just hold the pack in front of themselves.

The panel is slightly better than a Police vest, and they have tested it against knives but it has not been lab tested against them.

I didn't catch the name of the company making them, but the cost is $175.00. They may be worth doing a search on.

What is the life of your child worth? And as we've seen, any school in any area is vulnerable - from pre-school to university.

Scumbags Abound

A Michigan man scrubbed a monument to U.S. troops with a toothbrush Tuesday while wearing a T-shirt that read "I Stole From Veterans" as part of a punishment for a scam to solicit scrap yards for metal, the Saginaw News reports.



A judge ordered Philip Kolinski, 73, of Carrollton Township, Mich., to wash the veterans monument outside the Saginaw County Governmental Center after he was found guilty of soliciting metal donations for a sculpture dedicated to Iraq War veterans that was never built, the Saginaw News said.

Instead of using the metal for a monument, he sold it and kept the money, the paper reports.

Saginaw County District Judge A.T. Frank also ordered Kolinski to to pay $9,000 in restitution and $2,095 in fees and fines.

A second man, James M. Arnst, 45, is awaiting trial for his alleged role in the scam.

A tip of the starched utility cover to Rob for this one!

I Can Dream, Can't I?

What follows is fairly long and contains just enough half-truths and wishful thinking to make it interesting. I got it in an email, and it claimed to have been checked on Snopes Urban Legends.

I searched Snopes for any possible link to this but came up empty - so it may be true, it may not. I'll continue to check over the next week or so to see if it shows up.

But it would be lovely if there was any truth to it?

August 7th - I've been directed to search engines and it appears that this article is genuine. Judging by what we have now and what we look like getting in 2008, it's a shame there will be no one anywhere in the Government with the balls to enforce something like this.


"Eisenhower solved illegal border crossings from Mexico
By John Dillin

WASHINGTON - George W. Bush isn't the first Republican president to face a full-blown immigration crisis on the US-Mexican border. Fifty-three years ago, when newly elected Dwight Eisenhower moved into the White House, America's southern frontier was as porous as a spaghetti sieve. As many as 3 million illegal migrants had walked and waded northward over a period of several years for jobs in California, Arizona, Texas, and points beyond.

President Eisenhower cut off this illegal traffic. He did it quickly and decisively with only 1,075 United States Border Patrol agents - less than one-tenth of today's force. The operation is still highly praised among veterans of the Border Patrol.

Although there is little to no record of this operation in Ike's official papers, one piece of historic evidence indicates how he felt. In 1951, Ike wrote a letter to Sen. William Fulbright (D) of Arkansas. The senator had just proposed that a special commission be created by Congress to examine unethical conduct by government officials who accepted gifts and favors in exchange for special treatment of private individuals.

General Eisenhower, who was gearing up for his run for the presidency, said "Amen" to Senator Fulbright's proposal. He then quoted a report in The New York Times, highlighting one paragraph that said: "The rise in illegal border-crossing by Mexican 'wetbacks' to a current rate of more than 1,000,000 cases a year has been accompanied by a curious relaxation in ethical standards extending all the way from the farmer-exploiters of this contraband labor to the highest levels of the Federal Government."

Years later, the late Herbert Brownell Jr., Eisenhower's first attorney general, said in an interview with this writer that the president had a sense of urgency about illegal immigration when he took office.

America "was faced with a breakdown in law enforcement on a very large scale," Mr. Brownell said. "When I say large scale, I mean hundreds of thousands were coming in from Mexico [every year] without restraint."

Although an on-and-off guest-worker program for Mexicans was operating at the time, farmers and ranchers in the Southwest had become dependent on an additional low-cost, docile, illegal labor force of up to 3 million, mostly Mexican, laborers.

According to the Handbook of Texas Online, published by the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas State Historical Association, this illegal workforce had a severe impact on the wages of ordinary working Americans. The Handbook Online reports that a study by the President's Commission on Migratory Labor in Texas in 1950 found that cotton growers in the Rio Grande Valley, where most illegal aliens in Texas worked, paid wages that were "approximately half" the farm wages paid elsewhere in the state.

Profits from illegal labor led to the kind of corruption that apparently worried Eisenhower. Joseph White, a retired 21-year veteran of the Border Patrol, says that in the early 1950s, some senior US officials overseeing immigration enforcement "had friends among the ranchers," and agents "did not dare" arrest their illegal workers.

Walt Edwards, who joined the Border Patrol in 1951, tells a similar story. He says: "When we caught illegal aliens on farms and ranches, the farmer or rancher would often call and complain [to officials in El Paso]. And depending on how politically connected they were, there would be political intervention. That is how we got into this mess we are in now."

Bill Chambers, who worked for a combined 33 years for the Border Patrol and the then-called US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), says politically powerful people are still fueling the flow of illegals.

During the 1950s, however, this "Good Old Boy" system changed under Eisenhower - if only for about 10 years.

In 1954, Ike appointed retired Gen. Joseph "Jumpin' Joe" Swing, a former West Point classmate and veteran of the 101st Airborne, as the new INS commissioner.

Influential politicians, including Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (D) of Texas and Sen. Pat McCarran (D) of Nevada, favored open borders, and were dead set against strong border enforcement, Brownell said. But General Swing's close connections to the president shielded him - and the Border Patrol - from meddling by powerful political and corporate interests.

One of Swing's first decisive acts was to transfer certain entrenched immigration officials out of the border area to other regions of the country where their political connections with people such as Senator Johnson would have no effect.

Then on June 17, 1954, what was called "Operation Wetback" began. Because political resistance was lower in California and Arizona, the roundup of aliens began there. Some 750 agents swept northward through agricultural areas with a goal of 1,000 apprehensions a day. By the end of July, over 50,000 aliens were caught in the two states. Another 488,000, fearing arrest, had fled the country. By mid-July, the crackdown extended northward into Utah, Nevada, and Idaho, and eastward to Texas.

By September, 80,000 had been taken into custody in Texas, and an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 illegals had left the Lone Star State voluntarily.

Unlike today, Mexicans caught in the roundup were not simply released at the border, where they could easily reenter the US. To discourage their return, Swing arranged for buses and trains to take many aliens deep within Mexico before being set free.

Tens of thousands more were put aboard two hired ships, the Emancipation and the Mercurio. The ships ferried the aliens from Port Isabel, Texas, to Vera Cruz, Mexico, more than 500 miles south.

The sea voyage was "a rough trip, and they did not like it," says Don Coppock, who worked his way up from Border Patrolman in 1941 to eventually head the Border Patrol from 1960 to 1973.
Mr. Coppock says he "cannot understand why [President] Bush let [today's] problem get away from him as it has. I guess it was his compassionate conservatism, and trying to please [Mexican President] Vincente Fox."

There are now said to be 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens in the US. Of the Mexicans who live here, an estimated 85 percent are here illegally.

Border Patrol vets offer tips on curbing illegal immigration One day in 1954, Border Patrol agent Walt Edwards picked up a newspaper in Big Spring, Texas, and saw some startling news. The government was launching an all-out drive to oust illegal aliens from the United States.

The orders came straight from the top, where the new president, Dwight Eisenhower, had put a former West Point classmate, Gen. Joseph Swing, in charge of immigration enforcement.

General Swing's fast-moving campaign soon secured America's borders - an accomplishment no other president has since equaled. Illegal migration had dropped 95 percent by the late 1950s.
Several retired Border Patrol agents who took part in the 1950s effort, including Mr. Edwards, say much of what Swing did could be repeated today.

"Some say we cannot send 12 million illegals now in the United States back where they came from. Of course we can!" Edwards says.

Donald Coppock, who headed the Patrol from 1960 to 1973, says that if Swing and Ike were still running immigration enforcement, "they'd be on top of this in a minute."

William Chambers, another '50s veteran, agrees. "They could do a pretty good job" sealing the border.

Edwards says: "When we start enforcing the law, these various businesses are, on their own, going to replace their [illegal] workforce with a legal workforce."

While Congress debates building a fence on the border, these veterans say other actions should have higher priority.

1. End the current practice of taking captured Mexican aliens to the border and releasing them. Instead, deport them deep into Mexico, where return to the US would be more costly.

2. Crack down hard on employers who hire illegals. Without jobs, the aliens won't come.

3. End "catch and release" for non-Mexican aliens. It is common for illegal migrants not from Mexico to be set free after their arrest if they promise to appear later before a judge. Few show up.

The Patrol veterans say enforcement could also be aided by a legalized guest- worker program that permits Mexicans to register in their country for temporary jobs in the US. Eisenhower's team ran such a program. It permitted up to 400,000 Mexicans a year to enter the US for various agriculture jobs that lasted for 12 to 52 weeks."

Another Day of Rest

She Who Must Be Obeyed hasn't had to tie me down - I don't have the energy.

For the first time in a while, I have to touch on politics. All those members of the House and Senate who put "earmarks" into legislation didn't put in a single one to check and repair our existing roads and bridges - there's more excitement in having new bridges built.

So when the bridge collapsed in Minnesota, who did they automatically blame? Why, George W., of course.

Is there any way we can get them to take responsibility for their actions (or lack thereof)?

I didn't think so either.

The Three Strike Law

After two days of Terminal Stupidity, yesterday I figured I'd top it off.

Of all the things I did, one of the absolute worst is running the vacuum. So guess what I did yesterday? You got it.

I just shovelled the Devil Dog's Landmines and plucked a zucchini from the garden for She Who Must Be Obeyed. She is off today, so she is going to enforce my rest today before she has to measure me for a pine box.

At least that's the theory.

Terminal Stupidity, Part Two

After Monday's little foray, yesterday was supposed to be a "kick back" day. So - I decided to mow the front yard, as well as topped off the pool, shocked it and added more chlorine.

I then plucked another dozen tomatoes from the garden. I've already picked several yellow squash, zucchini, stacks of cucumbers and I have several green peppers I'm waiting on. The snow peas usually finish producing around the first of July.

Of course, I also shovelled up the Devil Dog's landmines. I have a neighbor who occasionally makes using the yard in summer tough because they leasve the yard full of dog shit, and I figure if I can pick it up, no one else should have any excuse for not doing it.

Unless I get a rush of blood to the head, today is a day of rest(like yesterday was - yeah, right). As will tomorrow. And Friday.