MINNESOTA: MORE OFFICAL INDULGENCE OF ILLEGALS

The debate over illegal immigrants is especially important to some local law enforcement agencies, who say they often have must release illegals who commit crimes because they do not have valid identification. Winsted Police Chief Mike Henrich says the U.S. Citizen and Immigration service (formerly the Immigration and Naturalization Service) will only apprehend and deport illegals when local police have a large number in custody. "We have taken a few of these immigrants and detained them, and we've found that unless you have a lot of illegal immigrants, they will not come and get them," Henrich says.

One illegal immigrant was arrested four times for driving while intoxicated and once for possession of a sawed-off shotgun, each incident involving a separate incident. "These people are getting away with things that somebody who had a genuine, legitimate ID would be held accountable for," says Sheriff Wayne Vinkemeier of McLeod County. "I think that's something the state needs to take a look at."

Gov. Tim Pawlenty says the problem illustrates that current laws are not working. "It just reinforces the fact that the current system is obviously broken," he says. "We have people making a mockery out of our laws." Pawlenty says the solution is to develop a national I.D. card with fingerprint or eye scan technology. The C.I.S. says it often tells police to release illegal immigrants after arrests, adding that that decision is made on a case-by-case basis, based on the crime and past criminal history.

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ELSEWHERE

Mexico sets the example: "If Arnold Schwarzenegger had migrated to Mexico instead of the United States, he couldn't be a governor. If Argentina native Sergio Villanueva, firefighter hero of the Sept. 11 attacks, had moved to Tecate instead of New York, he wouldn't have been allowed on the force. Even as Mexico presses the United States to grant unrestricted citizenship to millions of undocumented Mexican migrants, its officials at times calling U.S. policies "xenophobic," Mexico places daunting limitations on anyone born outside its territory. In the United States, only two posts - the presidency and vice presidency - are reserved for the native born. In Mexico, non-natives are banned from those and thousands of other jobs, even if they are legal, naturalized citizens... Recently the Mexican government has gone even further. Since at least 2003, it has encouraged cities to ban non-natives from such local jobs as firefighters, police and judges."

Immigration nonsense: "To assert as some have that illegal immigrants do not depress wages because they do the jobs Americans refuse is the kind of nonsense economists speak when they strain to be counterintuitive. It is similar to saying that cheap imports do not hold down prices. If employers paid higher than substandard wages, Americans (who famously do almost anything for money, including eating worms, shooting themselves from cannons and listening to Barbra Streisand sing) would take these jobs."

Europe is learning: "Across Europe, countries that for decades have provided a generous reception for immigrants and refugees are now pulling away the welcome mat. Anti-immigrant sentiment bordering on the xenophobic -- once the purlieu of a few right-wing parties -- has become mainstream politics in such countries as the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Britain. New laws are raising the hurdles for newcomers, especially Muslims, and winning cheers from many Europeans. Polls indicate that strong majorities in almost every European country favor not just tightening restrictions on ordinary immigrants but also casting a colder eye on the hard-luck tales of refugees seeking asylum".

IBM researcher slams UK ID card scheme: "IBM researcher Michael Osborne, whose job is research into secure ID cards, slated the UK government's ID cards scheme on the grounds of cost, over-centralisation, and being the wrong tool for the job. Based in Big Blue's Zurich research labs, where the scanning tunnelling microscope was invented and won its inventors a Nobel Prize, Osborne said that the problem is neither the cards nor the fact that the scheme is intended to use biometric technology. The big issue is that the UK government, plans to set up a central database containing volumes of data about its citizens. Unlike other European governments, most of whom already use some form of ID card, the central database will allow connections between different identity contexts - such as driver, taxpayer, or healthcare recipient - which compromises security. Centrally-stored biometric data would be attractive to hackers, he said, adding that such data could be made anonymous but that the UK Government's plans do not include such an implementation. Osborne added that biometric technology is still immature. "It's not an exact science", he said. In real world trials, some 10 per cent of people identified using iris recognition failed to enrol - which means the system didn't recognise them. Even fingerprinting is no panacea, as four per cent failed to enrol. Scale that up to a whole population - the UK contains nearly 60 million people - and the problem of biometric identification becomes huge, he said."

What a laugh! "Super-sizing was still a national pastime back in 2001, when Eric Schlosser's first book, Fast Food Nation, made the New York Times best-seller list. Since then, Wal-Mart has started selling organic foods, free-range chickens can be spotted at almost any supermarket and checking for a product's trans-fat content has become commonplace. But awareness isn't the only thing that's grown. Unfortunately, so has the incidence of childhood obesity.

The Anchoress hits back very powerfully at conservative critics of GWB. She says that people are criticizing him for not being a conservative purist even though he has always claimed to be a moderate ("compassionate") conservative.

Pathological Saudi textbooks: "Saudi Arabia's public schools have long been cited for demonizing the West as well as Christians, Jews and other "unbelievers." But after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis -- that was all supposed to change. A 2004 Saudi royal study group recognized the need for reform after finding that the kingdom's religious studies curriculum "encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the 'other.' " Since then, the Saudi government has claimed repeatedly that it has revised its educational texts.... The problem is: These claims are not true. A review of a sample of official Saudi textbooks for Islamic studies used during the current academic year reveals that, despite the Saudi government's statements to the contrary, an ideology of hatred toward Christians and Jews and Muslims who do not follow Wahhabi doctrine remains in this area of the public school system. The texts teach a dualistic vision, dividing the world into true believers of Islam (the "monotheists") and unbelievers (the "polytheists" and "infidels"). This indoctrination begins in a first-grade text"

See Education Watch for the latest 9th Circus (Whoops! Circuit) outrage. The court which does its best to suppress Christian expression has made participation in Islamic practices compulsory in Californian schools!

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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