Mover Mike

I'm Back! Bev and I spent the Memorial Day weekend with her Mom and Dad, sister and two brothers and some of their families in a four bedroom house perched above the Pacific in Manzanita. We ate, laughed, ate, walked on the beach, ate, hot-tubbed, ate and drank. We walked into Manzanita to make reservations at the seafood restaurant and paused at a Friends of the Library book sale. Ever since I read The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, I have wanted to see pictures of Barcelona. I found a little book, Spain, published by Panorama-Books, 6 3/4 square by 1/4 inch, that contains 30 color plates. Just exactly what I was looking for.

I also found a book written and autographed by William Langewiesche: Cutting for Sign, One man's journey along the US-Mexican border, published in 1993. In some places the wall that separates the two coutries is a man made wall that funnels people and trade, and is relatively easy to control; but mostly it is a sieve, and the border patrol can be overwhelmed. I read about Tecate, Mexicali, Nogales, Ciudad Juarez and Ojinaga that swell with disease up against the border. I read about the desparate struggle for existence on the wages paid in the maquiladoras. And, I read about smuggling, of people and drugs. This book was written in 1993. I kept thinking has anything changed? Is the US any better 12 years later at stemming the flow? Has the poverty and pollution on the Mexican side gotten better or worse? After reading this book, I am not optomistic.

Langewiesche

From Reuter's, Non-Mexican immigrants swamp Texas border cityThe number of illegal immigrants from Central America and Brazil caught crossing into this Texas border city (Eagle Pass) jumped threefold in the past year as they rush to exploit a legal loophole, U.S. authorities said.

The U.S. Border Patrol has nabbed 15,195 non-Mexican migrants crossing over the Rio Bravo around Eagle Pass in the past eight months, a rise of almost 240 percent on the same period last year, officials said on Monday.

From the Washinton Times, Arizona border checks blocked

U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints near the Mexican border are essential in stopping the flow of illegal aliens and drugs into America, say law-enforcement authorities, but permanent checkpoints in southern Arizona are not allowed.

Rep. Jim Kolbe, Arizona Republican, senior member of the House Appropriations Committee,

has vigorously argued that permanent checkpoints are not the best use of available Border Patrol resources, saying: "If it's permanent, then everyone knows where the checkpoint is and they just go around it."

Isn't Arizona lucky. Not only does it have have Sen. John McCain, but Rep. Kolbe, as well, both Republicans.

From The Spectator, Mexican wave by Peter Brimelow

...the decade of 2050 is the point when American whites, 90 per cent of the population in 1960, will become a minority.

This is a demographic transformation without precedent in the history of the world. And it’s all being brought about by public policy.

Peter Brimelow is the editor of VDARE.COM and the author of Alien Nation: Common Sense about America’s Immigration Disaster.