I’m surprised Al Gore’s hot air doesn’t power his elite home.
Darn, can’t find a picture of Gore’s house online anywhere. How can you PhotoShop something when you don’t have a reference photo? Some Democrats are just no fun at all.
February, 2007
...now browsing by month
Gasbag, Meet Your Carbon Offsets
Tuesday, February 27th, 2007The Cynicism Behind Tortilla Prices in Mexico
Thursday, February 22nd, 2007Mexico tortilla price crisis? Think again, after reading this. It’s a money-making scam that reduces quality of tortillas and causes droves of Mexicans to cross the border (what, again?) to buy cheaper American tortillas.
Separated at Birth?
Thursday, February 22nd, 2007
An Off-Track Bet I’d Take: UBS to Buy the Texas Lottery
Monday, February 19th, 2007Despite the lame duck aspect built into the Texas governorship, there are perks. Rick Perry’s son just got hired by UBS, which is a potential buyer of the Texas Lottery. Perry, towing a long-standing and sometimes useful Repub line of privatization, is all about selling the Lottery for anywhere between 80 million and 14 billion dollars, depending on how optimistic the expert is who you ask.
For those unfamiliar with such large figures, which is most of us, it’s like saying you might have just bought a Shetland pony or you might have just bought the next Secretariat. No one will know until the critter lines up at the Kentucky Derby. In any event, it’s a dumb move that will become a scandal if UBS ends up buying.
Bonus points: Long-gone US Senator Phil Gramm appears on the UBS board as the fatherly figure Perry Jr may have never had. Let’s hope he explains “conflict of interest” to Junior, as well as “white collar prison” to the Perry family.
Party On, El Paso County Commish!
Monday, February 19th, 2007The El Paso Times follows the misguided steps of the El Paso City Council once again.
Backbrief: County commissioner Luis Sarinana never saw a canal he wouldn’t fish in. So when he got popped on a disorderly conduct charge for fishing without a license and drinking (shhhh) alcohol on private property without permission back on November 9th, 2006, the District Attorney was forced to act. Because, you know, he’d solved all other problems. And the property owner filed a complaint.
I thought Jerry Lewis was the only Disorderly Orderly.
The City Council has refused to provide a prosecutor to handle the case, according to DA Jaime Esparza, who now has to “decide what to do.”
That’s not what you call sandbagging a case. It might be nutbagging, however.
What to do, Jaime, is fuggedaboutit. Everyone knows the County and City are in cahoots, and some of their work may actually be legal. This case will go nowhere, and Luis will be bonging beer and casting lines in the Valley long after you’re fired. In fact, I’m talking with a landscaper about putting a pond on my property, in the hope of filming wayward local politicians for my new YouTube series, “Government Chollos Gone Wild.”
Aldrete Davila Case — Three Other USBP Agents Taking One in the Buttocks, Too
Monday, February 19th, 2007The El Paso Times reports that two Border Patrol agents in the 2005 shooting incident of suspected drug smuggler Aldrete Davila have been given notification of termination. A third resigned before being fired.
4 Borders Pundit will have more to say about this case later. We’re in a “discovery phase” of reviewing case transcripts, DHS positions, and possible political positioning by bureaucrat “playas.”
For now, it appears that the sentences of agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean were quite harsh, although some punishment was due for procedural violations and evidence tampering.
It’s the kind of case that will inspire the Government of Mexico to continue (through its US consulates) ridiculous, overblown assertions of legal and human rights for the dregs of Mexican society — drug and alien smugglers, in the main — who commit crimes on US soil. Everyone knows what GOM’s aim is — it needs to deflect attention from its failed-state potential in some parts of Mexico.
Organic Farming Worse than the “Agri-Factory?”
Monday, February 19th, 2007I never liked the broad food category “organic” since the standards employed are so hard to obtain, and vary by different echelons of government. This writer apparently doesn’t either, but with some interesting figures about farming and the environment.
This blog is organic, by the way.
Sanctuary, Signs and Spring in the Pacific Northwest
Sunday, February 18th, 2007The Seattle Times reported on Saturday that immigrant advocates and two local religious leaders would create a local sanctuary at the end of March if the government doesn’t stop worksite raids without fixing the immigration system. They spoke in response to last Wednesday’s raid of a UPS warehouse in Auburn, Washington, where 51 suspected illegals were detained.
This is a change from last year’s militant stance by clergy. Back in the day, as they say, Catholics were throwing open parish doors and hanging up signs saying, “Y’all come” in several Spanish dialects. There was a large one on the cupola of a Catholic Church in El Paso — too bad it faced the I-10, instead of Mexico a mile or so away. Had it done so, it might have given courage to wanna-be illegals, instead of being what it was: a marketing ploy aimed at Americans.
But over time, that attitude faded. That big sign in El Paso flapped in the wind until a couple of strings broke and it crumpled onto the roof.
Now there’s a new feel to proceedings, an elevation of conscience supporting a kind of amateurs revolutionary rhetoric. All that is lacking in Washington state are the T-shirts; liberals like T-shirts.
[Hat-tip: The always useful Bender's Immigration Bulletin.]
Not the Bordertown I Know
Saturday, February 17th, 2007In the movie Bordertown, Jennifer Lopez is cast as the intrepid reporter covering the infamous killings of women in Juarez.
“It wants to be a thriller, a piece of investigative journalism, a political soapbox and a vehicle for Jennifer Lopez,” intrepid reviewer Kirk Honeycutt writes for Hollywood Reporter.
Sounds like the newsroom at The El Paso Times.
Naturally, Amnesty International has pinned a Valentine rose on Lopez for her participation in this bomb. Seems you can do good, bad and ugly and AI will weigh in with its awesome, college-age denizens possessed of talent and dedication (until they graduate and spend their money on mortgages and diapers)
Artists for Amnesty, indeed. Amnesty from what — careers drooping faster than an aging singer’s famous curvy butt?
Don’t watch this film for any exploration of the Juarez killings.
Watch this one instead.
Bonus points: the apperance of Antonio Banderas, who never heard about a dumb movie about Mexico he wouldn’t cast for.