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Pastimes : Prophecy -- HYPE or HOPE? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: alan w who wrote (3911)	5/25/2007 5:11:40 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 5569

Importing a slave class By Ann Coulter jewishworldreview.com \| Apparently, my position on immigration is that we must deport all 12 million illegal aliens immediately, inasmuch as this is billed as the only alternative to immediate amnesty. The jejune fact that we "can't deport them all" is supposed to lead ineluctably to the conclusion that we must grant amnesty to illegal aliens — and fast! I'm astounded that debate has sunk so low that I need to type the following words, but: No law is ever enforced 100 percent. We can't catch all rapists, so why not grant amnesty to rapists? Surely no one wants thousands of rapists living in the shadows! How about discrimination laws? Insider trading laws? Do you expect Bush to round up everyone who goes over the speed limit? Of course we can't do that. We can't even catch all murderers. What we need is "comprehensive murder reform." It's not "amnesty" — we'll ask them to pay a small fine. If it's "impossible" to deport illegal aliens, how did we come to have so much specific information about them? I keep hearing they are Catholic, pro-life, hardworking, just dying to become American citizens, and will take jobs other Americans won't. Someone must have talked to them to gather all this information. Let's find that guy — he must know where they are! How do we even know there are 12 million of them? Why not 3 million, or 40 million? Maybe we should put the guy who counted them in charge of deporting them. If the 12-million figure is an extrapolation based on the number of illegal immigrants in public schools or emergency rooms and well-manicured lawns in Brentwood, then shouldn't we be looking for them at schools and hospitals and well-manicured lawns in Brentwood? I believe that the shortage of unskilled, non-English-speaking Mexicans we experienced in the '60s has been remedied by now. Since Teddy Kennedy's 1965 Immigration Act, more than half of all legal immigrants have been unskilled, non-English-speaking Mexicans. America takes in roughly 1 million legal immigrants each year. Only about 30,000 of them have Ph.D.s. Why on earth would any rational immigration policy discriminate against immigrants with Ph.D.s in favor of unskilled, non-English-speaking immigrants? Say, don't Ph.D.s and other skilled workers have more influence on government policy than unskilled workers? Aren't they more likely to bend a president's ear? Yes, I believe they are! Noticeably, the biggest proponents of the government's policy of importing a huge underclass of unskilled workers are not themselves unskilled workers. The great bounty of cheap labor by unskilled immigrants isn't going to hardworking Americans who hang drywall or clean hotel rooms — and who are having trouble getting jobs, now that they're forced to compete with the vast influx of unskilled workers who don't pay taxes. The people who make arguments about "jobs Americans won't do" are never in a line of work where unskilled immigrants can compete with them. Liberals love to strike generous, humanitarian poses with other people's lives. Something tells me the immigration debate would be different if we were importing millions of politicians or Hollywood agents. You lose your job, while I keep my job at the Endeavor agency, my Senate seat, my professorship, my editorial position or my presidency. (And I get a maid!) The only beneficiaries of these famed hardworking immigrants — unlike you lazy Americans — are the wealthy, who want the cheap labor while making the rest of us chip in for the immigrants' schooling, food and health care. These great lovers of the downtrodden — the downtrodden trimming their hedges — pretend to believe that their gardeners' children will be graduating from Harvard and curing cancer someday, but (1) they don't believe that; and (2) if it happened, they'd lose their gardeners. Not to worry, Marie Antoinettes! According to "Alien Nation" author Peter Brimelow, "There is recent evidence that, even after four generations, fewer than 10 percent of Mexicans have post-high school degrees, as opposed to nearly half of non-Mexican-Americans." So you'll always have the maid. As New York mayor Michael Bloomberg said, our golf fairways would suffer without illegal immigrants: "You and I both play golf; who takes care of the greens and the fairways on your golf course?" We fought a civil war to force Democrats to give up on slavery 150 years ago. They've become so desperate for servants that now they're importing an underclass to wash their clothes and pick their vegetables. This vast class of unskilled immigrants is the left's new form of slavery. What do they care if their servants are made citizens eligible to vote and collect government benefits? Aren't the fabulously rich happy in Venezuela? Oops, wrong example. Brazil? No, no, let me try again. Mexico! ... Well, no matter. What could go wrong? jewishworldreview.com

To: alan w who wrote (3911)	5/25/2007 5:12:46 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5569

Israel's next war By Cal Thomas jewishworldreview.com \| There are consequences to losing a war, or being perceived not to have won. Israel's ability to win wars has been based on its capacity to pound its many enemies into submission whenever they have dared attack. Depending on how you count them, Israel has been the target of at least four wars started by one or more of her neighbors, as well as numerous terrorist attacks. It had won all of them until 2006. Last summer, in response to repeated guerrilla assaults by Hezbollah — or Party of G-d — a militant Lebanese Shia political party, Israel invaded Lebanon, but failed to drive out the terrorist organization, or free two captured Israel soldiers. A committee, appointed to study why Israeli forces were not victorious, blamed Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Hezbollah quickly regrouped and has restocked its armaments. Israel's new ambassador to the United States, Sallai Meridor, tells me there could be another war by this summer, probably launched from terrorist positions in Gaza, Lebanon and possibly Syria, which has not directly attacked Israel since it was bloodied in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Meridor says that while Hezbollah is bad, Hamas, the largest and most influential Palestinian militant group, which is entrenched in Gaza, is even worse. That's because Hamas, he says, has more armed terrorists and is stockpiling missiles and explosives. It is also supported by Iran. Hezbollah, which Israel estimates had thousands of short-range missiles when its positions in Lebanon were attacked last summer, is supported by Iran, as well. All share the same objective: the eradication of Israel. FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO INFLUENTIAL NEWSLETTER Every weekday NewsAndOpinion.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". HUNDREDS of columnists and cartoonists regularly appear. Sign up for the daily update. It's free. Just click here. The Winograd Committee report on last summer's war is an indictment of Israel's top leadership, including the prime minister, the minister of defense, Amir Peretz, who has announced he's leaving by the end of the month, and the chief of staff, who also submitted his resignation. "All three made a decisive personal contribution to these decisions and the way in which they were made, (but) there are many others who share responsibility for the mistakes we found in these decisions…" the report says. After specifying the many reasons the government failed to achieve victory, the committee concluded, "All of these add up to a serious failure in exercising judgment, responsibility and prudence." Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called upon Olmert to resign. He has refused and in a mark of his weakness, Olmert declined to fire Livni, saying they could continue to work together. One is left to wonder how. Polls in Israel show Olmert's approval numbers are worse than those of President Bush. More than 60 percent of Israelis want Olmert to resign. He survived three "no confidence" votes in the Knesset last week. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is three times as popular as any potential rival. Last week, Netanyahu delivered a powerful speech to Israel's Parliament in which he said, "The state of Israel needs better leadership. … Peace can never be achieved by unilateral steps. … The time for a reassessment of our policy has come. We should look at the situation without any illusion and restore to the state of Israel its might, deterrent power and above all our self-respect." When Israelis feel threatened they have always looked to the right and this time they appear eager to again turn rightward. The London Sunday Times quoted a Tel Aviv lawyer: "We're fed up with the Arabs and the chances of reaching peace with them. We gave them too many chances. They don't want us here, period. That's why I think Netanyahu and his political approach is the right one." If there is to be another war and so soon, Israelis are asking themselves who they would rather have leading their nation: a wishful thinker like Ehud Olmert, who, according to the government report on the Lebanon war, "made up his mind hastily, despite the fact that no detailed military plan was submitted to him and without asking for one," or Benjamin Netanyahu, who understands better than most that Israel won't get a second chance in an all-out war. It's a good bet that Olmert's days are numbered and Netanyahu's return as prime minister is drawing near. It had better come quickly, because if Ambassador Meridor's worst-case scenario comes true, not only summer is just around the corner; the next war may be as well. jewishworldreview.com