NEW LOTTERY ENRICHES ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

Are you an illegal immigrant? Are you charged with a crime? Do you expect to be deported? You are in luck. You may be in line for a six-figure gift from the United States.

Here's all you have to know to win: have your criminal case resolved one way or the other, line up for deportation. If ICE leaves you mouldering in some lock up more than two days before it deports you, you are a winner. 

Cecil Harvey, a career criminal from Barbados who was living in Brooklyn won $145,000 for being detained for 30 days. That's $4833 a day. Even if you are deported, you can still claim your winnings for excessive detention before deportation.

Cecil Harvey won, you can too. What a country, eh? This is truly the land of opportunity.

EXPLORING THE DEPTHS

I the ocean is full of critters that look like this, and it is, I'll just stay on dry land.

LESSONS FROM THE GULF BLOWOUT

Paul Driessen

Transocean’s semi-submersible drilling vessel Deepwater Horizon was finishing work on a wellbore that had found oil 18,000 feet beneath the seafloor, in mile-deep water fifty miles off the Louisiana coast. Supervisors in the control cabin overlooking the drilling operations area were directing routine procedures to cement, plug and seal the borehole, replace heavy drilling fluids with seawater and extract the drill stem and bit through the riser (outer containment pipe) that connected the vessel to the blowout preventer (BOP) on the seafloor.

Suddenly, a thump and hiss were followed by a towering eruption of seawater, drilling mud, cement, oil and natural gas. The BOP and backup systems had failed to work as designed, to control the massive amounts of unexpectedly high-pressure gas that were roaring up 23,000 feet of wellbore and riser.

Gas enveloped the area and ignited, engulfing the Horizon in a 500-foot high inferno that instantly killed eleven workers. Surviving crewmen abandoned ship in covered lifeboats or jumped 80 feet to the water. 

The supply boat Tidewater Damon Bankston rushed to the scene and helped crewmen get their burned and injured colleagues aboard. Shore-based Coast Guard helicopters tore through the night sky to brave the flames and take critically injured men to hospitals.

THINKING ABOUT MEXICANS

By Alan Caruba

For some time now friends have been asking me why I haven’t written anything about the Arizona law, amnesty, illegal immigration, and Mexicans.

The problem with trying to see all sides of the problem is that, sooner or later, you have to pick a side. That is what Americans are doing in light of the recent law passed in Arizona; a law that mirrors a federal law that, quite simply, is not being enforced.

What exactly were Arizonans expected to do in light of the fact that their border with Mexico is now a war zone?

A typical bachelor, I pretty much have the same thing for lunch every day, a soft tortilla in which two thin slices of smoked turkey are placed. Thirty seconds in the microwave and about five bites later lunch is over. And every day I look at that damned tortilla and I think about Mexicans.

Not Carlos Slim, one of the richest men in the world, but those poor souls trekking across deserts or sneaking in any way they can because, presumably, Mexico sucks so bad that their only hope is the land of the free and the home of the brave.

There are a number of factors that encourage Mexicans to come here, not the least of which is that per capita income is about one-third of that in the U.S. Mexico has always had an oligarchy of families that controlled the bulk of the money there and, on top of that, there are the drug lords whose income allows them to corrupt those in government positions and to kill those who oppose them.

FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE BANKERS, THEN THE HEALTH CARE WORKERS, THEN YOUR GUNS

Lambs to the slaughter Smoking-gun evidence of ruling elite’s looming plan to confiscate your firearms Right now, Washington is scheming and scamming to erode then erase the Second Amendment from our Constitution. And it will accomplish it through the signing of international treaties on gun control, bypassing the normal legislative process in Congress, tightening regulations upon firearm and ammunition manufacturers, using the antigun financing of tycoons and ultimately confiscating all firearms under the guise of terrorism patrol and enforcement. Without public debate and cloaked in secrecy, gun control will covertly come upon us like a thief in the night. One day, we will wake up to discover that the U.S. has signed a global treaty that will prohibit any transfer of firearm ownership, force reductions in the number of firearms privately owned and eventually eradicate the planet of guns for law-abiding citizens. Of course, the criminals will still illegally have their guns. And on that day, if you do not comply with that global treaty, you will be fined and face imprisonment. This is not a fictitious story or false warning. As sure as government health care has been shoved down our throats, so will the barrels of our guns. And left with little defense, we will go as lambs to the slaughter. I believe the political stars are aligning right now for just such a "perfect storm" of domestic disarmament: via the election and work of an antigun president, the disarmament passions of the Washington elites and the United Nations, the appointments of gun prohibitionists from the White House to the Supreme Court, and the funding of an anti–Second Amendment movement by billionaire progressives like George Soros.

SOCIALIST ECONOMICS DOESN'T WORK IN VENEZUELA, EITHER

Inflation in Venezuela has hit 30%. Venezuela's currency is melting in the sun. President Hugo Chavez has designated as scapegoats "importers who buy things abroad then sell them here for more than they cost."

Duh, Hugo, would you like them to sell the stuff for less than cost just to be nice? Why not pass a law that nobody can charge more for anything than they paid for it. That would teach those dirty capitalists a lesson, wouldn't it? Chavez says he is setting up another commission to deal with the problem. It is unknown  how any commission will deal with such a  problem in the formerly prosperous nation.

THIS APPARENT POLICE MISCONDUCT DID NOT HAPPEN IN ARIZONA

The racially charged videotape shows officers stomping on an innocent detainee after they responded to several 911 calls for a report of an armed robbery in the parking lot of a night club outside Seattle. The man was later released when police determined he was not involved in the crime.

LIFEFORMS SIMILAR TO SATURN'S MOON FOUND ON EARTH

The LaBrea Tar Pits are the closest thing on earth to conditions on Saturn's moon, Titan. Scientists have found the tar pits teaming with life that is unique to the pits. They speculate that life on Titan consist of life forms like those pictured. If that is the case, I suppose they won't be imparting any advanced technology to us any time soon. Take a look. Is it smiling?

IRONIC SUICIDE

The executive director of the Chicago area commuter rail trains apparently committed suicide by stepping in front of one of his trains. An investigation had just started as to the circumstances of a $56,000 bonus that was unauthorized.

THIS IS WHAT THEY SAID WOULD NEVER HAPPEN

Violence at  the airport X-ray machine. Security agents working the airport x-ray machine have become accustomed to commenting on the physical characteristics revealed by the x-ray. The typical comments were about size and configuration of  breasts and size of penis. One worker who was pictured was subsequently harassed over his small penis until he beat his harasser senseless.

But we know this could never  happen because they assured us...  It seems the worst fears of travelers are coming true.

A DAY LATE AND A TRILLION SHORT

The House of Representatives will hold a special hearing today on yesterday's stock market crash, like they could do anything about it.

Perhaps on Monday, they will hold a hearing on today's stock market crash, as if they could do anything about it.

Just a friendly suggestion: try holding hearings on something you can affect, like gravity.

FUN WITH MONEY

Can it be true? The word on the street is that the stock market went wild yesterday because some grade school dropout they employ to insert the proper numbers into the big board hit the "billion" button instead of the "million" button and bankrupted Turkmenistan and Switzerland, while turning Botswana into a lavish paradise? Maybe we can all take turns playing with that machine. It would be fun.

RODRIGUEZ FILM MIGHT STIR UNANTICIPATED CONSEQENCES

Robert Rodriguez has just released a film intended to lubricate racial harmony in Arizona. He has, of course, done this from the comfort of his home in California. I predict that the film will, like most things, have unintended consequences. First, gringos will hire Mexican body guards to protect them against the half dozen Mexicans who take Rodriguez seriously. This will solve the unemployment problem caused by the boycott of Arizona.  Next,  Bob Walkup will lead his band of intrepid warriors south to take over Sonora. In their zeal to conquer la frontera, they will make an illegal left turn and wipe out the Gulf Cartel with some Shock & Awe left over from the Iraqi campaign. That will break the stalemate in the cartel wars, thus bringing peace and justice to northern Mexico.

With peace restored in Mexico, Mexicans who had risked life and limb to make a new life in Arizona will return to the welcoming arms of Mexico where they will employ the skills they acquired in Arizona to build a new and better Mexico. The new prosperity there will attract Americans who will cross the border at night into Sonora, searching for a better life, a life without the IRS.

I am copyrighting this scenario in case Rodriguez likes it so much he wants to use it. Talk to my agent.

GREECE IS WHAT 'CHANGE' LOOKS LIKE. WHAT HAPPENED TO 'HOPE'?

Okay, we gave half a skillion dollars to Greece. Europe gave the other half,. Oh, these gifts are called loans. But there is no mechanism in place for Greece to pay them back. As we saw with the housing crisis, when you lend money to people who have no ability to repay it, you may as well write it off as a gift.

We have been spending Grecian style ourselves.The House and the White House just close their eyes and roll those presses. They aren't even keeping count of the results. Economists are warning that the Greek problem could go global within days. What then? Everyone into the streets? We have so many things to protest it will be hard to know which is whom.

And if everyone is in the streets, who is working? Who is making electricity/ Who is delivering food? This country has never seen so irresponsible an administration or Congress. Never. They will wreck the country before they are through. Do you think maybe that's what they want? If they destroy it, then they are at liberty to rebuild it as they want it. 

NATIONAL UNION OF ALL POLICE AND FIREFIGHTERS IN WORKS

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are up to their sneaky stuff again, pandering to big labor. This time it is our local police and firefighters they want to organize into a union at the federal level. The bill is S. 3194. It would force all such municipal employees into a national union. They would have to strike when they were told to strike and they would have their incomes set at the national level.

Look at what happened in California which went along with this madness. The City of Vallejo went bankrupt after it was forced to spend 75% of its budget on unionized police and firefighters. Other cities have suffered similar results. And those have been local actions. Imagine what will happen when his bill nationalizes all police and firefighters in the nation. And you know how Tucson City Council is. They will roll over for this and wait for union bosses to rub their tummies.

In essence, these local employees would have their salaries set in Washington and if our city could not pay that much, too bad. Their pay comes off the top. Volunteer police and firefighters would be unlawful. They would have to be paid the same as professional personnel.

Harry and Nancy are trying to slip this one through while people marching in the streets distracting America with immigration problems.