Bwak bwak?

And if the "illegal immigrants" are stealing jobs from US citizens, why did only 25 to 30 people show up for the Koch owned chicken processing plant job fair which had 680 job openings?

Exactly.

From turbines to sniper rifles... what's not to love?

Wind turbine trees.

The 9 teachers who just received awards from the White House were all in the U.S. illegally.

Earthquake preparedness.

Earth from space.

That useless liberal arts degree is needed in the tech business.

Jimmy Carter says we're not a democracy anymore.  We're an oligarchy. (h/t to Steve Bates.)

Hacking a self-aiming sniper rifle.

Fukushima'd Monday

The horror of Fukushima keeps on giving.

Immigrant children who were sent back are being killed.

How lizards regenerate their tails: researchers discover genetic 'recipe':

By understanding the secret of how lizards regenerate their tails, researchers may be able to develop ways to stimulate the regeneration of limbs in humans. Now, a team of researchers from Arizona State University is one step closer to solving that mystery. The scientists have discovered the genetic “recipe” for lizard tail regeneration, which may come down to using genetic ingredients in just the right mixture and amounts 

Lizards?... might want to be careful...

George Bush.

Bank of America gets to pay back 17bn over questionable mortgages.  Do they get to go back and help those people they drove out of their houses and into poverty, too?

Bigger spiders a good thing?  I don't think so....

A cop discusses Ferguson and the behavior of the police.

Oh please, let this be true! The Twilight of Antonin Scalia

One half-hour to change a governor's mind about climate change.  And they don't think it worked.

How much you can save when you stop buying shit.

How amazingly transparent the CIA is....

How do you pronounce pecan?

California drought, before and after comparisons.

Horsey

Life goes on...

Veterans Day.

Remnants of the Big Bang.

Under attack from Rove, Elizabeth Warren doubles down. More of her kind, please.

I hadn't thought of it, but the Personhood Amendment would have changed everybody's birthdays and horoscopes! This explains why they never get it right!

Nightsticks are useful when there are no cameras.

James Murdoch's serfs forgot to pretend to not inform the boss what they were doing that he told them to do... or something.

Pictures of the Great War, as the landscape is today.

A discovered Leonardo.

Tracking Japan's Fukishima radiation:

It's the story of how a group of hackers and internet folks are working with Japanese volunteers to harness DIY technology to record and share data about radiation hotspots.

Women come forward with their on the job sexual harassment stories.

Wells Fargo involved with our 'illegal immigration' concentration camps.

Landmines.

Man paraglides with his hawk: Edit: his YouTube has been removed. Anyway. Man paragliding around with treats in his gloved hand and hawk flies in and lands on his arm.

Returning to their roots....

Alabama brings back slavery for Latinos: Here's how: pass a draconian immigration law, lock up 'illegals' in private prisons, then get the new inmates to work in the fields

Flotsam and jetsam

Dumb Alabama Immigration Law Working So Well Its Crops Are Rotting And this link explains why...

11 Facts You Need To Know About The Nation’s Biggest Banks

Facebook shows the student who will fail chemistry....

No loopholes for millionaires. Ronald Reagan wouldn't even get nominated let alone elected in this day and age....

The breathtaking quotes from Ron Paul.

Krugman about Occupy Wall Street protesters:

What can we say about the protests? First things first: The protesters’ indictment of Wall Street as a destructive force, economically and politically, is completely right.

From here to there, from near to far...

From Digby: Xe (Blackwater) turning into mercenaries for the rich Arab countries.... after all the taxpayers' billions we gave Erik Prince, too!

And a quote from this article about making money off jailing illegal immigrants:

...this is the right's idea of a jobs program --- building prisons for illegal immigrants and charging the taxpayers for it. And the Feds are ruining it by shipping their "product" back to Mexico.

Boehner has gone nuts:

After having been sensible for quite a while, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has adopted a remarkably dangerous position on the debt ceiling. His approach remains a hostage strategy — he’ll hold a gun to the American economy, until Democrats give him a series of spending cuts.

The Speaker’s position has been criticized by the White House, Wall Street, American business leaders, the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and independent economists, all of whom want the debt limit issue resolved quickly and efficiently. For his part, Boehner told “Face the Nation” this morning that he doesn’t necessarily want to wait until early August.

Japan widens evacuation zone around Fukushima nuclear plant

Wisconsin Governor Moves To Block Hospital Visitation Rights For Same-Sex Couples

An amazing speech appropriate even now, made in the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting:

I thought they loved the Constitution so much

That it could not be touched...

Rep. Steve King (R-IA), the staunch opponent of illegal immigration who is set to become the chairman of a key subcommittee on immigration, is setting his sights on the right-wing cause of ending birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants -- which many experts say would be unconstitutional.

And, as King told the local paper Cityview, his plan is to pass a statute anyway, and if it gets overruled in the courts, to then step up the effort to a constitutional amendment...

"Segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever"

The words of the famous Alabama governor George Wallace. Kinda fits Arizona at the moment though...

The Onion has the best take: Arizona High Schools To Now Teach Spanish Entirely In English

More scary brown people, armed and dangerous!

OMG OMG!!1!

From an email making the rounds:

Subject: Invasion Character of Illegal Alien Flood Becomes Clearer

The real nature of the illegal immigrant flood across our southern border becomes clearer as armed insurgents take over Texas ranches. When is America going to wake up that this isn't an immigration issue. It is an invasion issue and we are at war with the insurgents. Take action and cast these rats back off the ship.

BREAKING: MULTIPLE RANCHES IN LAREDO, TX TAKEN OVER BY LOS ZETAS
Published 07/24/2010 - 2:30 p.m. CST
The bloodbath continues along our southern border and now word is coming in that Los Zetas, the highly trained killers formerly with the Gulf Cartel, have crossed into the United States and taken over at least two ranches in the Laredo, Texas area. I am receiving word that the owners of the ranches have evacuated without being harmed.
Founder of the San Diego Minutemen Jeff Schwilk tipped me off to this story and passes along the following information on the location. The ranches are said to be "near Mines Rd. and Minerales Annex Rd about 10 miles NW of I-35".

OMG .. a really really major international incident.... except .. oddly... it's being denied by everybody.

Right-wing blogs have been promoting a rumor that "highly trained killers" from a Mexican drug gang have "invade[d]" the United States, taking over two ranches near the Mexico-U.S. border in Laredo, Texas, but law enforcement agencies in the area have flatly denied the rumor.

The Laredo Morning Times reported that law enforcement officials had been "bombarded" with calls about the rumor but that "officials with the Laredo Police Department, Webb County Sheriff's Department and Border Patrol said they knew nothing about such an incident, while Erik Vasys, an FBI spokesman in San Antonio, said the agency does not comment on rumors."

Some conservative blogs have acknowledged that the story appears to be bogus, but others are standing by it.

Personally, I don't think invading Laredo Texas would be high on the list of things to do by the drug cartels, especially since the US military would be brought in very quickly. The drug cartels have enough Americans who want their products and will help them move it into the US. The ONLY reason the cartels are doing so well is that Americans are keeping them in business.

You want to put the Mexican drug cartels out of business?

Legalize drugs.

Arizona

Purging anyone brown from the state:

Maybe lawyers can restore the integrity of the Constitution, a document that forbids states like Arizona and towns like Freemont from fueling diasporas with their own immigration policies.

But what can lawyers do about jackals always tracking the immigrant's dusty footprint?

What do we do about the pregnant 31-year-old woman who was the target of another U-turn stop because of a faulty license-plate light on the back of her car? She was slammed into the hood of her vehicle when she did not readily consent to a search for non-existent narcotics. A U.S. citizen of Latin descent, she clearly remembers being told: "I can be an asshole if you're going to be a bitch."

What would you tell the 17-year-old child, an American, who was followed into a gated community on her way home from school? When asked for identification, she produced a valid Arizona driver's license. The officer insisted upon further proof, claiming he was required by law to get more documentation.

Though she speaks perfect English and knew the law wasn't scheduled to go into effect until this week, she was frightened half to death. She allowed the officer to tail her another couple of blocks to her home, where she retrieved her passport for inspection.

Each of these crude assaults upon dignity happened without benefit of SB 1070. Each happened to an American.

While Jan Brewer, state Senator Russell Pearce (1070's author), Barry Wong, and Joe Arpaio sport conservative mufti, this is neither a right nor left issue. The feckless few, Goddard, Giffords, and Mitchell, are not without incriminating shadow.

Historically, America attacks immigrants, only embracing the foreigners long after the Yankee has pummeled them to within an inch of their ethnicity. Progressives and those who should know better have their place in this roll call of sulfurous shame.

And the result?:

Area businesses also say they're seeing the effects of people leaving the state.

Steve Salvato, manager at the family-owned World Class Car Wash, just around the corner from Belleview Street, said business is down 30 percent. Salvato said the car wash relies mostly on Hispanic customers and points to the new law for the recent decline in business.

"A lot of people have just packed up and moved," he said, adding that a strip mall across the street used to be bustling on weekends. "Now it's like a ghost town."

A nearby Food City grocery store reports a 20 percent to 30 percent drop in business.

While the Obama administration is deporting more illegals than Bush ever did:

In a bid to remake the enforcement of federal immigration laws, the Obama administration is deporting record numbers of illegal immigrants and auditing hundreds of businesses that blithely hire undocumented workers.

The Immigation and Customs Enforcement agency anticipates deporting about 400,000 people this fiscal year, nearly 10 percent above the Bush administration's 2008 total and 25 percent more than were deported in 2007. The pace of company audits has roughly quadrupled since former President Bush's final year in office.

The effort is part of President Obama's larger project "to make our national laws actually work," as he put it in a speech this month at American University. Partly designed to entice Republicans to support comprehensive immigration reform, the mission is proving difficult and politically perilous.

Obama is drawing flak from hawks who contend the administration is weak on border security and from doves who are disappointed that he has not done more to fulfill his campaign promise to help the country's estimated 11 million illegal residents. Trying to thread a needle, the president contends enforcement -- including the deployment of fresh troops to the Mexico border -- is a necessary but insufficient solution.

The next step is supposed to be a free-for-all killing spree, right?

Isn't that what all hate speech leads to in the end?

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – A U.S. Border Patrol agent fatally shot a 15-year-old Mexican boy after a group trying to illegally enter Texas threw rocks at officers near downtown El Paso, U.S. authorities said Tuesday.

The shooting, which happened Monday evening beneath a railroad bridge linking the two nations, drew sharp criticism from Mexico, where President Felipe Calderon said Tuesday that his goverment "will use all resources available to protect the rights of Mexican migrants."

The government "reiterates its rejection to the disproportionate use of force on the part on U.S. authorities on the border with Mexico," the president added in a statement.

It was the second death of a Mexican at the hands of Border Patrol officers in less than two weeks, and the case threatened to swell into a full-blown international incident when U.S. and Mexican officials traded suggestions of misconduct.

Land of the free

Bits and bytes

Rate your lawmaker.

California voting issues.

Andre Bauer: 'Flat-Out Lazy' People Are The Real Cause Of The Immigration Problem

Dick Cheney rises from the dead.

Tom Tomorrow takes on Glenn Beck.

Goldman Showers ... the title of our new era. (via trifecta in comments)

Boycott Arizona.

Don't give them any of your money.

Update: Murder is totally predictable:

Arizona militia recruiting veterans with ‘kill records’ to patrol border.

And they will probably be Americans:

Arizona congressman Grijalva's offices to close because of death threats

This hat gives you the right to shoot people!

Now you can stand on the front lines of America's battle with illegal immigrants by wearing the U.S. Border Patrol Cap.

America's U.S. Border Patrol is the thin green line of men and women who protect America's borders. They struggle to do their job with fewer resources than any similar service in the world. They guard the 6,000 miles of our border with one-tenth as many people as are in the New York City police department.

They stand alone. More than 1,000 have been killed or wounded protecting America.

Now you can stand with them by wearing the U.S. Border Patrol Cap . . . and send a message to your friends and neighbors that you too believe America should have safe and secure borders.

Wear the Cap everywhere . . . and drive those who want open borders crazy!

Buy one now!! Them there hippie liburls hates these here hats! And you can shoot them illeguls as they pour over the border!

Buy 12! One for each of your family members and your dog!

Another one from Dave

I posted this letter on August 24th and made a joke about Godwin's law:

________ A delight to hear from you. I'll give you a rundown in response to your "fact sheet" point by point shortly. Just finished a book which I highly recommend to you: "The Nazi Seizure of Power...The Experience of a single German town 1930-1935" by William Sheridan Allen. As one on the Right (or perhaps Center Right) I find a frightening similarity to the swift takeover of Germany to what has been transpiring here over the past few months. That is not to say in any way that I believe Obama to be a Nazi as his Marxist credentials are most obvious. You may find of interest my recent letter to the editor of the Denver Post in response to that paper's editorial which implied that those who bring up the similarity are way off base....same is attached. No, it is a rather liberal publication and my letter was not printed...even though I gave myself a PHD after my name hoping the editorial board would believe me to be one of the Left. P.S. "PHD" = Patriot-Humanitarian-Dedicated. Best for now, ________.

IT IS A VALID COMPARISON: U.S.A. 2009 and Germany early 1930’s

Regarding Post Editorial on health care debate 8/13/09 and comment “….went off the rails by likening Obama’s tactics to those of Adolf Hitler,” Read the history of Germany 1930-1935…I recommend “The Seizure of Nazi Power…The Experience of a Single German Town 1930-1935” by William Sheridan Allen. Then in Germany and recently here in the U.S. there was an economic crisis. A charismatic political figure emerged promising HOPE & CHANGE: Hitler and Obama. Both wrote best sellers of their plans for the country: “Mein Kampf “ (English “My Struggle”) by Hitler and “The Audacity of Hope”by Obama. Hitler established total governmental control…Obama seeks (and has partially established) total government control. Under Hitler and his party, The National SOCIALIST Workers Party (the Nazi Party), opposition was steadily intimidated, newspapers and organizations were taken over, a scapegoat for all their problems was created, the youth were organized and indoctrinated. Here the Left intimidates with “political correctness” smears, ridicule, and distortion. Here the institutions of learning teach the Leftist viewpoint and ridicule Conservatism. Hitler had his Storm Troopers, the “Brownshirts” of his Sturm Abteilung (the SA); Obama has his “Community Organizers…ACORN. Hitler had his Hitler Youth; Obama plans his own youth corps. The Nazis used informants as a means of control (as have all authoritarian regimes); Obama has his flag@whitehouse.gov website. Hitler had his Jews to blame for Germany’s ills…..Obama has President Bush. The Nazis moved with lightening speed to consolidate power. Obama and the Democrats are rushing legislation through Congress as fast as they can. And you don’t think the comparison between then and now is not valid? _________PHD, Denver CO

Well... here is my friend Dave's response:

NOT A PASS ON. I WRITE MY OWN STUFF. THIS IS FROM THE RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL, BUT I WAS THE AUTHOR. I HAVE HAD NO ASSASSINATION THREATS, BUT AS A HEAVILY ARMED LIBERAL, I AWAIT THEM WITH ANTICIPATION. (SEE, LIBERALS CAN BE CRAZY TOO.)

I DON'T DO THIS OFTEN, NEVER WITH POORLY WRITTEN PROPAGANDA CRAP FROM RIGHT OR LEFT, BUT IT SEEMS TO ME GETTING TO THE FACTS IS ESSENTIAL, AT LEAST THAT'S WHAT I TOLD MY STUDENTS IN CRITICAL REASONING. YOU HAVE BEEN SPARED A LONGER MISSIVE BECAUSE THE PAPER INTELLIGENTLY LIMITS LETTER TO TWO HUNDRED WORDS. THAT WOULDN'T ACCOMMODATE ONE OF SARAH PALIN'S SENTENCES. IF ONLY SHE WOULD SEND ME HER STUFF TO EDIT. DAVE

Heeeere's Davy:

FACT CHECK: (Please do. Please, please do.)

1. No version of healthcare reform presently in the House or Senate requires end of life counseling. Incidentally, Medicare provides for end of life counseling, but no one seems to mind, and no one has been advised to cash in his or her chips.

2. No health care proposal covers illegal aliens. Illegals have to go to emergency rooms, just like always. (If this seems extravagant, join up with No Hearts for a Better America, and you can be one of the volunteers who get to turn away sick children.)

3. No health care proposal covers abortions.

4. Medical insurance companies take 20% plus off the top (they are asking for more), about the same as the casinos [they seem to do all right]. Medicare operates with less than a 3% administrative overhead. No one wants to give Medicare up or swap it for private care, and the OMG it’s socialism crowd in Congress doesn’t want to repeal it (men and women of real conservative principles—oh yes).

5. Oh, and President Obama was born in Hawaii, part of the United States. (Drop a line to the folks in North Carolina who appear to be confused on the issue.)

David Sundstrand

IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO HEAR FROM ME, DROP ME A LINE AND WE CAN CHAT ABOUT IT.

More on our own concentration camps

Private prisons run for profit and taking all comers. Locking up innocents with no access to lawyers or hearings. What country does this sound like?:

America's detention system for immigrants has mushroomed in the last decade, a costly building boom that was supposed to sweep up criminals and ensure that undocumented immigrants were quickly shown the door.

Instead, an Associated Press computer analysis of every person being held on a recent Sunday night shows that most did not have a criminal record and many were not about to leave the country _ voluntarily or via deportation.

An official Immigration and Customs Enforcement database, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, showed a U.S. detainee population of exactly 32,000 on the evening of Jan. 25.

The data show that 18,690 immigrants had no criminal conviction, not even for illegal entry or low-level crimes like trespassing. More than 400 of those with no criminal record had been incarcerated for at least a year. A dozen had been held for three years or more; one man from China had been locked up for more than five years.

Nearly 10,000 had been in custody longer than 31 days _ the average detention stay that ICE cites as evidence of its effective detention management.

Especially tough bail conditions are exacerbated by disregard or bending of the rules regarding how long immigrants can be detained.

Based on a 2001 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, ICE has about six months to deport or release immigrants after their case is decided. But immigration lawyers say that deadline is routinely missed. In the system snapshot provided to the AP, 950 people were in that category.