Monday, April 13, 2009
The Spirit of United Flight 93 Lives in a Ship's Crew
As details of the Maersk Alabama episode emerge, one clear lesson surfaces: The Spirit of United Flight 93 lives on.
The day Christians celebrate a resurrection became one of rescue for Captain Phillips. Credit and honor will justly accrue to all involved representing the U.S. Navy, the F.B.I., and any other government entity that reacted to the situation.
But we should note that the initiative, taken by the crew of the Maersk Alabama and its Captain, was the pivotal reaction to the emergency.
The unarmed crew took back its ship, and the Captain took responsibility for the safety of his crew. And then he took the initiative to attempt escape. The ship’s company didn’t wait for a bailout; they acted to bail out themselves, with superb help at the end.
In so doing, the Maersk Alabama’s crew reminded us of the valor of those who fought to take back United Flight 93, somewhere in the skies over Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001 -- and thus saved thousands of American lives. Proving, once again, that such citizens, acting so courageously in impossible conditions, remain essential components of the American spirit.
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Krauthammer Tells Us What the Establishment Media Ignored or Avoided About Obama's European Adventure
As is usually the case we will often have to consult the output of center-right commentators, and of course the Media Research Center and its affiliates, to cut through the establishment media's puffery to pick up even the most basic pieces of news.
Charles Krauthammer's column in the Washington Post on the results of Obama's just-completed European Adventure is one such raw news source... [snip]
The obligatory emergency Security Council session produced nothing. No sanctions. No resolution. Not even a statement. China and Russia professed to find no violation whatsoever. They would not even permit a U.N. statement that dared express "concern," let alone condemnation.
Having thus bravely rallied the international community and summoned the U.N. -- a fiction and a farce, respectively -- what was Obama's further response? The very next day, his defense secretary announced drastic cuts in missile defense, including halting further deployment of Alaska-based interceptors designed precisely to shoot down North Korean ICBMs. Such is the "realism" Obama promised to restore to U.S. foreign policy.
..... He wanted more NATO combat troops in Afghanistan to match the surge of 17,000 Americans. He was rudely rebuffed.
He wanted more stimulus spending from Europe. He got nothing.
From Russia, he got no help on Iran. From China, he got the blocking of any action on North Korea.
And what did he get for Guantanamo? France, pop. 64 million, will take one prisoner. One!
The bolded items have generally been reported in at best vague terms, if at all, while the media horde has almost unanimously declared Obama's European Adventure an unqualified success.
The reality is quite the opposite -- The specifics Krauthammer notes make it clear that President 'Prompter is courting danger (Obama may not think so, but history says he is) and failing to defend our interests, up to and including survival as a nation.
[Highly Recommended > ]
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U.S. March Budget Deficit Swelled to $192.3 Billion
Washington - The U.S. budget deficit surged in March as tax payments by companies and individuals dropped and the government spent more to rescue banks and revive the economy.
The excess of spending over revenue climbed to $192.3 billion, compared with a gap of $48.2 billion in the same month a year earlier. Spending increased to $321.2 billion, and revenue fell 28 percent to $129 billion.
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Congress needs Google to find out where stimulus money went
On February 14, with the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Congress shoveled $787 billion of stimulus money out the door. Now they're using Google to find out where it went. During the stimulus debate, the bill's supporters stressed that it included strong oversight safeguards.
But audits and reports are months, if not years, away, and the best tools Cantor and Thune have are Google and the Lexis-Nexis newspaper database...
[Transparency. Accountability. Duped again.]
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Bankers balking at Geithner plan
Many banks are fearing "The Geithner Treatment" where executivese are fired, pay structures are government mandated, business plans are changed by the government, and they are prevented from paying taxpayer money back because the government wants to maintain a stranglehold on their operations: [snip]
I would say that some banks would rather go under than submit to the kind of government interference that Geithner has in mind. This smaller bank chief has had it:
"What they did is wrong and fundamentally un-American," he said. "Even though the government told us to take this money to increase our lending, the extra charge meant we had less money to lend. It was the equivalent of a penalty for early withdrawal."
Once again, it appears the Obama Administration is using the financial crisis not to solve it but to put a huge crimp in the free market. By God, they are going to control the banks or the banks will be out of business...
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Fed Said to Order Banks to Stay Mum on ‘Stress Test’ Results
The U.S. Federal Reserve has told Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and other banks to keep mum on the results of “stress tests” that will gauge their ability to weather the recession, people familiar with the matter said.
The Fed wants to ensure that the report cards don’t leak during earnings conference calls scheduled for this month. Such a scenario might push stock prices lower for banks perceived as weak...
['Transparency'.]
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Iran Says It Controls Entire Nuclear Fuel Cycle
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran now controls the entire nuclear fuel cycle -- from extracting uranium ore to producing nuclear fuel pellets.
Speaking on state television Saturday, Ahmadinejad said the next step for Iran is to achieve proficiency in building nuclear power plants without help from foreign countries.
Iran inaugurated a new facility producing uranium fuel for a planned heavy-water nuclear reactor Thursday. Production of nuclear fuel pellets is the final step in the long chain of nuclear fuel cycle.
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France concerned over Iranian nuclear boast
France expressed concern Friday after Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted that his country had developed new nuclear fuel enrichment technology despite international pressure not to do so."These are worrying declarations," ... "We need to check the accuracy of the figures ... and for that we'll wait for the International Atomic Energy Agency."
French foreign ministry spokesman Eric Chevallier told reporters.
[With 'action' like that, how do the Iranians resist the 'international pressure'.]
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Dead Wrong
How many terrorist attacks took place on American soil during Bush’s watch after September 11, 2001?
None. That is irrefutable fact. These facts are also indisputable;
1. In February, Iran launched a “communications satellite” which raised concerns about their nuclear capabilities.
2. Almost exactly a month later, the North Koreans did the same despite calls from President Obama to not do so.
3. It has just been reported that China has been aiding Iran by smuggling money through U.S. banks for the purchase of nuclear materials.
It is clear that these nations do not respect us and Obama’s election has not done anything to change that.
Are these regimes going to stop the advancement of their national interests because we are being nicer to them?
Did Obama’s massaging of European egos persuade them to flood their economies with more money or provide any additional significant military support for the war in Afghanistan?
The answer to both of those questions is no.
At some point the American public is going to have to concede that the "blame and demonize" game of the Democrat Party is getting old. The Obama Administration will have to be held accountable for not producing results, and if they continue to point the finger of blame at anyone but themselves...
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The darkest brand of 'honour'
When an Ethiopian man in Alexandria, Va., killed his wife, the report in last week's Alexandria Gazette Packet tiptoed nervously around his motive. It said that cultural issues were involved and that he had ordered her not to interact with co-workers.
In case the point still wasn't clear, the reporter attempted to explain:"In Ethiopia, women have more defined roles."
The deliberate ambiguity would be comic if it were not attached to a tragedy.
This is how many people twist themselves into knots while confronting the form of homicide that carries the inappropriate and grotesque label, "honour killing" -- the murder of women to satisfy the "honour" of -- and appease the rage of -- men.
We make the mistake of comparing it with wife-murder in the West, but it differs fundamentally:It's often culturally sanctioned, it claims religious vindication and it may be committed by brothers, uncles and cousins, not just husbands.
While some Muslims claim it's a vestige of pre-Islamic societies, it's now become ingrained in many corners of Islamic culture. A report from the Palestinian Human Rights Monitor notes (without explanation) that female sexuality dominates Arab morality:
"The honour of a man is not related in any way to his own behaviour, it is related primarily to the behaviour of his wife, his daughter or his sister.
A man who commits all the wrongdoings in the world is considered 'honourable' if his wife doesn't deceive him by having an affair with another man.
A man who is known as a wrongdoer is considered 'honourable' if his daughter safeguards her virginity."
Change will require an organized, strongly motivated and persistent campaign, which is nowhere in sight...
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Saudi judge refuses to annul 8-year-old's marriage
A Saudi judge has refused for a second time to annul a marriage between an 8-year-old girl and a 47-year-old man, a relative of the girl told CNN. The most recent ruling, in which the judge upheld his original verdict, was handed down Saturday in the Saudi city of Onaiza, where late last year the same judge rejected a petition from the girl's mother, who was seeking a divorce for her daughter.
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Cartoon Strip for Children Depicts Christian Boy as Islamophobic Bully
It's bad enough when a cartoon strip for children depicts an Islamophobic thug as a Christian. What makes it even worse is that this cartoon strip is published by a government-funded charity in Britain. Jonathan Petre of the Mail Online wrote an article about this latest attempt at understanding "diversity":
A Government-funded charity was at the centre of a row last night after a magazine it publishes for children appeared to depict Christians as Islamaphobes who regard Muslims as terrorists.
In a cartoon strip, a boy wearing a large cross around his neck is shown telling a friend that a smiling Muslim girl in a veil looks like a terrorist.
He later confronts her and shouts: ‘Hey, whatever your name is, what are you hiding under your turban?’
Mike Judge, of the Christian Institute, said: ‘What about Christian children in care who received this magazine? How will they feel to see themselves mocked as narrow-minded Islamaphobes?
‘It is a clumsy caricature, symptomatic of a culture which says it is OK to bully Christians in the name of diversity.’
It is highly doubtful that Klick! magazine would present real, not fictional, examples of bullying such as seen in this report:
Today, extremist groups, with sympathy and support from religious schools in Pakistan, go around the country taking the law into their own hands under the banner of equalizing justice. To them, justice often means revenge killings done in the name of law and order.
Targeted are Christians and other religious groups, forcing many religious minorities underground. Christians are fighting for their lives and being put on trial for their beliefs. Reports from Pakistan reveal that many Christians are beginning to dress and grow beards like Muslims just to blend in.
[Where are the government efforts to promote the rejection of extremists Islamic beliefs? Especially those explicitly contrary to their nations laws?]
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79% Believe Jesus Christ Rose from the Dead
[From Friday]
As Christians gather to celebrate Easter this Sunday, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 88% of adults nationwide think the person known to history as Jesus Christ actually walked the earth 2,000 years ago. That’s up five points from a year ago. Today, 5% disagree and 7% are not sure.
Eighty-two percent (82%) also believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God who came to Earth and died for our sins. Another 10% think otherwise and 8% aren’t sure.
Nearly as many, 79% believe the central claim of the Christian faith--that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Only 10% say they do not believe the first Easter resurrection really happened, while 11% are not sure.
[My point {in posting}? While I myself am not of the faithful, I have become convinced that this nation, past and hopefully future, owes its success in large part to the influence of the Judaeo-Christian values on which it was based. Secondly I believe the liberal elite, although a small minority {as these numbers suggest} are using their control of the media to wage a ceaseless assault on anything-and-everything religious, part of which is the portrayal of the faithful as some fringe minority.
As Reagan famously said of the left, their problem is that 'so much of what they 'know', just isn't so'.
Contrary to Newsweek's recent The End of Christian America cover piece, this remains a overwhelmingly religious nation which is, overall, to our collective benefit.]
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Christian charity worker suspended for saying he did not believe in same-sex marriage
A charity worker was suspended after telling a colleague about his Christian beliefs against homosexuality, it has emerged today.
David Booker, 44, was chatting about his faith with co-worker Fiona Vardy during a late shift at the hostel in Southampton, Hants on March 26. He told her he was opposed to same-sex marriages and to homosexual clergy but denied being homophobic and said that he had homosexual friends.
The next evening, Mr Booker was suspended from his £19,000-a-year post as a hostel support worker with Society of St James where he has worked for the last four years.
'"The action has been taken to safeguard both residents and staff" at the Southampton Street hostel.'
[Safeguarded from violence? No. 'Safeguarded' from contrary thought. Liberal 'tolerance'.]
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Scrap the Geithner-Summers Plan
Leading economist Laurence J. Kotlikoff is deriding the Obama administration's plan to dispose of "toxic assets," claiming that the "scheme" will do nothing to help the U.S. economy but will help banks profit at taxpayer expense."It's one thing for the U.S. Treasury Department to overpay banks for their toxic assets on the prayer that bank shareholders will do something besides pocket it — something that will help the economy,"
Kotlikoff, a professor of economics at Boston University and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, writes in The Boston Globe.
"It's another thing to set up a complex leveraged auction scheme to surreptitiously make the transfer.
And it's yet a third thing to set up a scheme that will lead the banks to overbid for their own toxics to garner even larger windfalls and end up with the toxics still in their hands."
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House Economic Advisor Lawrence Summers are telling the market that they* will match, dollar-for-dollar, bids to buy a toxic asset...
[Any confusion re: who's money will be used when 'they' match the over-priced bids? Recommended > ]
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Yet more mind-boggling figures on global warming
Last October the House of Commons passed, by 463 votes to three, the most expensive piece of legislation ever put through Parliament. The only MP to question the cost of the Climate Change Act, requiring Britain to cut its CO2 emissions by 80 per cent within 40 years, was Peter Lilley. It was also Mr Lilley who, just before the MPs voted to stop runaway global warming, drew the House’s attention to the fact that, outside, London was experiencing its first October snow for 74 years. [snip]
The cost of the Act has nearly doubled, to £404 billion, or £18.3 billion for every year between now and 2050. However, the supposed benefits are given, astonishingly, as £1 Trillion, an increase of 1,000 per cent. How on earth were such unbelievable figures calculated?
Peter Lilley has written a trenchant letter to Mr Miliband, asking this and a series of other highly pertinent questions. But pending any reply, last week I posed this question to DECC myself. I was assured that the new figures had been worked out by “a method used by the independent Committee on Climate Change, and peer-reviewed by Simon Deitz, an expert in carbon pricing from the London School of Economics”.
Dr Deitz’s website shows that last year he carried out “research for the UK Committee on Climate Change”.
So this "independent" expert was asked to peer review the method used by an “independent” committee - which he was a part of - to produce figures that seem rather to have been plucked from the thin air (of which only 0.04 per cent – one 2,500th – consists of the self-same carbon dioxide) which we are now expected to believe we will benefit by £1 trillion from not emitting.
Truly we are governed these days by stark, raving lunacy – and no one is meant to notice...
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About those Windmills
The Obama administration needs to rethink its idea to build tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of windmills across the United States to provide “green” energy for America.
Obama might want to talk (though not bow) to the Queen of England about how those windmill farms across the pond are working out. So far, not so good.
The British is government is, you guessed it, bailing out the private companies that have invested heavily in non-proven and inefficient wind power technology.
Here is how the UK Times describes the situation: [long, detailed, recommended > snip]
As you can see in that last paragraph, the big money and the big energy businesses in Britain have already seen the writing on the wall and have pulled their money out of what is little more than an environmental Ponzi scheme.
Is anyone in America paying attention to the silliness and the utter futility of tilting at windmills in an effort to solve our future energy needs?
[Recommended > ]
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THE MISGUIDED QUEST FOR UNIVERSAL COVERAGE
America's dysfunctional health care financing system needs to be reformed. But the goal should not be universal coverage. Reform should simply aim to make health insurance more affordable and portable. We should make it easier for people to buy insurance that isn't tied to their employment:
- The existing tax break for employer-provided insurance could be replaced with a tax credit that applies to insurance purchased either inside or outside the workplace.
- At the same time, state mandates that require insurers to cover certain conditions, which make it expensive to offer individual policies, shouldbe removed.
- Insurance would be more affordable, especially for people who cannot get it through an employer.
- This would enable 20 million more Americans to get insurance, according to a model created by Steve Parente, a University of Minnesota health economist.
- More important, people would own their insurance policies and be able to take them from job to job; they would no longer need to worry about losing their job and their insurance at the same time, or feel they need to stay with a job they dislike because they need the benefits.
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The curious case of 200 nearly identical MSM headlines
The following headlines have appeared in newspapers within the last 24 hours. This is not an inclusive list.
• Third of Illinoisans went without health insurance in last 2 years: Sun-Times
• Report: 2.5M in Michigan lacked health insurance: Chicago Tribune
• Study: 29% of Ohioans have gone without health insurance: BizJournals
• Report: More NJ residents lacking health insurance: Forbes
• Study: Many Kansans are uninsured: BizJournals
• Report tallies uninsured in Hawaii: KPUA AM 670
• Study: 1 in 3 Alabamians have no insurance: BizJournals
• 1 out of 4 NH residents lacked health insurance within last two years: WBZ
• 1 out of 3 Coloradans lacked insurance in past two years: Denver Post
• Nearly 1 in 3 Idahoans lack health insurance, study says: Idaho Statesman
• One in four nonelderly Minnesotans has been without health insurance, study shows: Twin Cities
• 1 in 3 are uninsured in Georgia, study says: Augusta Chronicle
• 1.3 million Louisiana residents uninsured: Independent
• Millions in N.C. lack health plan: Winston-Salem Journal
• Uninsured are mostly working: Sun-Herald
• Nearly one-third of Wyoming residents went without health insurance in past two years: Wyoming Tribune
• Report finds health insurance lacking in W.Va.: Charleston Gazette
• Nearly 1/3 Of Kentuckians Uninsured Says Report: WFPL Radio
• REPORT: 254K Rhode Islanders Uninsured at Some Point from 2007-2008: ABC 6 [all linked at source article]
There are more. I just stopped listing them because I grew weary -- so weary -- of the physical labor associated with cutting and pasting.
All of the stories were marketed by a liberal "advocacy group" called Families USA .
According to Discover the Networks, Families USA is a member of the "Progressive States Network", which works closely with (you guessed it) ACORN and the SEIU. These ultra-partisan groups have truly one agenda: big government.
During his presidential campaign, then-Senator Obama spoke to a conference of Family USA activists and promised, "I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country."
Data from the Census Bureau debunks the lie continually promoted by the mainstream media of the legendary 47 million uninsured Americans:
• 9.5 million people are illegal aliens
• 8.3 million uninsured people are those who make between $50,000 and $74,999 per year and choose not to purchase insurance
• 8.7 million uninsured people are those who make over $75,000 a year and choose not to purchase insurance
This leaves approximately 20 million uninsured; less than 7% of the population. Why do some people choose not to purchase insurance? 60 percent reported being in "excellent health or very good health" and purposefully decided not to buy insurance...
Further, 45% of the uninsured will have insurance within the next four months according to the Congressional Budget Office. Many are transitioning between jobs and purchase health insurance through their employers.
So what is the true extent of the "health care crisis" continually marketed by the big government leftists? The Kaiser Family Foundation, a liberal non-profit frequently quoted by the media, puts the number of uninsured Americans who do not qualify for current government programs and make less than $50,000 a year between 13.9 million and 8.2 million. That is a much smaller figure than the media report and is also subject to "the 45% rule", wherein that percentage will transition to new jobs within a four-month time-frame.
The mainstream media's willingness to act as an unthinking public relations arm for a tiny minority of left-wing radicals is truly despicable. But it's not unexpected for an industry destined, in large part, for the black hole of bankruptcy.
* * * * * * * * *
Update:
...I was struck by the promotion of this material by Families USA. When I was involved with [group] a few years ago, we checked out Families USA and found that they had almost no individual contributors to their non-profit organization. We obtained their 990 from IRS and found that we were totally funded by Big Labor and served as a "front group" in every sense of the term...
...Unlike the Heritage Foundation [for example], that proudly talks about grass roots financial support from 300,000 Americans, Families has no such support. All they get is a fat check from Big Labor.
ACORN, the SEIU and Chicago politics. What a wonderful web they weave, America.
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Steele: Obama Using ACORN For Census
.“President Obama's old friends from ACORN, the leftist, urban ‘community’ organization with a long history of promoting vote fraud, has been chosen by the Administration as a ‘partner’ with the Census Bureau to determine population counts in cities around the country.”
In an ACORN voter registration drive during the 2008 election, 400,000, or about 30 percent, of the registrations proved to be faulty, and some were fraudulent. The activity triggered investigations in 13 states.“With this group's track record of coming up with countless fraudulent voter registrations in heavily Democrat areas to sway elections to ultra-liberals, you can be sure they'll be manipulating population numbers as well.”
The census determines how Congressional district lines are drawn and how many House seats each state has. So the results will affect the makeup of Congress and how many electoral votes each state receives in the next presidential election.“It has become plain that when candidate Obama talked about change, he was talking about using the system to create permanent liberal control of the federal government,”
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ACORN, HuffPo Organizing Efforts to Infiltrate Tax Day Tea Parties to Shape Media Coverage
On Fox News Channel's April 7 "Your World," host Neil Cavuto reported that the Tax Day tea party protests on April 15 will be "infiltrated" by their political opponents and led by left-wing activist organizations. He specifically named Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)."Only eight days before a nationwide tea party, some over-caffeinated crashers aiming to lay waste to it," Cavuto said. "Reports of very well-organized infiltrators trying to mix in and rain on this parade. Talk about taxing."
In fact, The Huffington Post has even set up a Web site for so-called citizen journalists to infiltrate the protests."The Huffington Post wants to have citizen journalists at as many of these events as possible," Arthur Delaney wrote for The Huffington Post on April 7. "If you think you'd be interested in attending one of the Tea Parties and reporting back to us with dispatches, photos, or video, click here to sign up. We'll contact you shortly with further instructions."
If you sign-up, you receive an automated message from Matthew Palevsky, the Huffington Post's associate editor of citizen journalism.*
John O'Hara, organizer of the Chicago Tea Party said he wasn't worried either about these sorts of efforts and specifically named ACORN, calling them out of touch with mainstream America.
Cavuto explained the early reports of the "so-called infiltration plan" were an attempt to make it look like fringe-group efforts and in some case appears as a "racist undertaking."
[* "editor of citizen journalism" ?? ]
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Birth-Control Pill Lands Fairfax Girl 2-Week Suspension
When a Fairfax County mother got an urgent call from school last month reporting that her teenage daughter was caught popping a pill at lunchtime, she did not panic. "It was probably her birth-control pill," she thought. She was right.
Her heart dropped that afternoon in the assistant principal's office at Oakton High School when she and her daughter heard the mandatory punishment: A two-week suspension and recommendation for expulsion."I realize my daughter broke a rule," the mother said. But in an appeal to the school system, she reasoned, "the punishment does not fit the crime."
For two decades, many schools have set zero-tolerance policies on drugs. That means no over-the-counter drugs, no prescription drugs, nothing for any reason...
[Government. We need privatize our education system - it's the only road back to sanity.]
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LATINOS COMRPISED ALMOST HALF OF ALL NEW AMERICANS IN 2008
Hispanics made up nearly half of the more than 1 million people who became U.S. citizens last year, according to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO). In fact, the number of Latinos who became Americans in fiscal year 2008 more than doubled over the previous year, to 461,317. That's nearly half of the record 1,046,539 new citizens overall in 2008, a 58 percent increase from 2007.
NALEO based its findings on Homeland Security Department data on the number of new citizens last year who immigrated from predominantly Spanish-speaking countries. In a report released in March, the agency attributed the record number of new citizens to the nearly 1.4 million citizenship applications it received in 2007. Most were from people who wanted to beat a $265 increase in the citizenship application fee, from $330 to $595.
But the department also credited "special efforts" by Hispanic media, community groups and a union with high immigrant membership, all of which urged eligible permanent residents to pursue citizenship:
- In fiscal year 2008, 231,815 people originally from Mexico became citizens, up almost 90 percent from 2007.
- Increases in citizenship among Latino immigrants from other countries were: 39,871 from Cuba, up 160 percent from the previous year; 35,796 from El Salvador, up 109 percent; 17,954 from Nicaragua, up 120 percent; and 17,087 from Guatemala, a 109 percent rise.
- Most of last year's new Hispanic citizens lived in California, followed by Florida.
[And no one begrudges these folks' aspirations - welcome all.]
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Village mob thwartsGoogle Street View car
Angry villagers formed a human chain to thwart the progress of a Google Street View car that was in the process of taking photographs of their homes. Police were called to Broughton in Buckinghamshire yesterday, after furious villagers blocked one of the cars, complaining it was an invasion of their privacy and that the photographs would attract burglaries...
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