She was to have walked down the center aisle of a church on her father’s arm this night in shimmering light, wearing a delicate bridal veil, her large eyes fixed on the steady bridegroom standing by her minister.

Instead, she walked the aisle of an airport terminal, flanked by uniformed authorities, her head shrouded in a crocheted afghan of red, pink, gold, and blue, her eyes downcast, as if the camera glare of a questioning world penetrated her unseemly cover.

What was devoutly contemplated but a week ago is now a distant memory this night, wrapped inside the disturbing truth of a selfish scheme to dupe.

MSNBC video link.

Frank Laughter of “Common Sense Junction” and “Laughter Genealogy” published this post today, in which he makes some very kind remarks about this writer and “ACSOL’s” focus on illegal immigration and our nation’s porous borders. I’m most appreciative, as I hold Mr. Laughter in high regard and remain an avid reader of his blog, which I highly recommend and have in my site’s blogroll. Get to know Frank and his thinking. You’ll be as impressed, as I am.

We need more bloggers to join the fray and lobby our president and Congressmen for tighter enforcement of our borders and much-needed immigration reform. A starting point is to sign an online petition, as I have. You’ll find it here.

Something is terribly out of kilter when neither President Bush comments on nor the Washington D.C. press corps asks about the illegal immigration issue — an issue about which a majority of Americans is becoming increasingly concerned. We’re being stonewalled, Folks!

Maybe a bunch of us need to become the equivalent of “Online Minutemen.”

It just gets crazier and crazier, and as it does I just get more fed up and more fed up with the irrationaility of it all. “The Immigration Blog” in this post reports that among others (the usual suspects, such as the ACLU, included) the “Texas Council On Family Violence” is lobbying the Texas state legislature in support of HB 1561 — a bill that “would allow a foreign national to obtain a Texas’ driver’s license with an official document from a foreign government.” Of course, you can lump “foreign national” right in there with “undocumented worker” and “undocumented immigrant” and all the other clever euphemisms for illegals who enter our country other than through proper legal immigration channels.

Read the stated mission of the “Texas Council On Family Violence” and tell me what connection there is between putting illegal aliens behind the wheels of automobiles legally and working “to end violence against women through partnerships, advocacy, and direct services for women, children, and men.” Answer: just plunge a little further into its Web site.

When Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996, immigrants’ access to public benefits was slashed, but there is a provision that allows some immigrant survivors of abuse who have filed VAWA self petitions to access these important benefits. The intersection of immigration and welfare law is extraordinarily complex and further complicated by frequent changes. TCFV can serve as a resource on the subject of immigrants’ access to public benefits. It is important to note that all immigrants, regardless of their status or when they entered the county, are eligible for emergency benefits including:

• Emergency medical care, emergency Medicaid, immunizations, diagnosis and treatment of communicable diseases, emergency mental health and substance abuse services,
• WIC;
• Summer food programs and school lunch programs;
• Public education; and
• Any program necessary to protect life and safety that is not income conditional (shelters, food banks).

Workers at these programs are not authorized to ask for verification of immigration status.

Get the picture? Hang onto your wallets! While the illegal immigrants are sending $10+ billion in remittances back to Mexico annually, you’re defraying the costs of their public education, heathcare services, and, for many, their jail time.

Meanwhile, and in the context of an organization with the stated mission of ending violence, I suggest the “TCFV” take a hard look at the notorious MS-13 gang, composed of illegal aliens, that murder hapless youngsters, brutally stab police officers, rape young women and attack people with machetes. And, yes, they drive around in cars, as they did the night they gunned down 18-month old Aiden Naquin.

And I don’t want these mindless do-gooders telling me that documentation from a foreign government will keep driver’s licenses out of the hands of MS-13 members or any of the other criminal element among the millions of illegals who are in this country. Fradulent documentation is rife among illegals. Take the time to read up on the corrupt Mexican government and its issuance of “Mexican Matricula Consular Identification Cards” as a way of encouraging emigration to the United States.

Think this is just the rant of a center-right poliblogger? If you’ve stayed with me this far, may I ask you to take the time to read these excerpts from a “Time” magazine article on illegal immigration? This is a major MSM publication and its editors get it.

Jennifer Wilbanks really put her family, her friends, and most of all her fiance, John Mason, through hell this week, fearful as they were that she may have been abducted during an evening jog last Tuesday night and, God knows, possibly slain. The 32-year old Georgia woman and bride-to-be disappeared during that solitary, nocturnal run, became the object of vast media coverage and an ensuing large-scale, nationwide search, and then suddenly popped up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and with an apocryphal tale no less that she had indeed been abducted by a man and a woman in a van. Fact is, she didn’t go for a jog; she went for a long bus ride — first to Las Vegas, and then on to Albuquerque.

The MSM is calling it a case of “cold feet” — a would-be-bride who turned tail and ran under the pressure of an impending wedding that was to have been held today. Well, that’s all quite convenient for Miss Wilbanks, but not for the nation, not for police authorities, and certainly not for the throng of volunteers who helped in the search and participated in the collective national angst driven by what appeared to be the case of yet another young woman abducted and murdered, and possibly by her lover. After all, the bridegroom-to-be had felt obliged to take a private lie detector test and authorities were negotiating with him to take yet another through government auspices in order to clear his name!

The pending marriage is no longer a private family matter, not after the would-be bride diverted vast police resources from legitimate crime investigations owing to her patent selfishness and immaturity.

A word to the wise: you had better think long and hard on marrying Jennifer, John. She’s a cut-and-run type and a cover-her-ass liar. There are better women in this world. Cold feet up against you would be the least of your problems!

“Incredible Blogs” links to this bizarre, yet altogether sad story of a compulsive Internet junkie in a post entitled, “I Link, Therefore I Am.”

Seems a 54-year old New York man, Childress Wanamaker, couldn’t let go of his computer keyboard, remaining at his PC station literally around the clock, compulsively linking and commenting and trying desperately to keep up with 48 different forums and 375 blogs. His fixation on the Internet eventually cost him his life, because, according to family members, he literally stopped eating, preferring to jab away at his keyboard, rather than taking sustenance.

“MediaDailyNews” (registration required) reports this incredible story:

A WEST NYACK, N.Y. MAN was found dead at his computer apparently the victim of trying to keep up with too many professional forums. Childress H. Wanamaker, 54, an account executive at a New York-based new media company, died of starvation according to the West Nyack coroner’s office. Wanamaker’s emaciated body was found by Loraine, his wife of 26 years, who told MediaPost she had been bringing her husband meals on plastic trays for weeks, but that he never took the time to eat them.

“He was glued to his computer 24/7,” she said tearfully. “He was so afraid he was going to miss an opportunity to contribute a comment or start a discussion, that he just stopped eating.” She added that Wanamaker’s last words were “OK Picard, stick that in your pipe and smoke it…”

Computer forensic specialists from SUNY at Cortland discovered that Wanamaker was subscribed to 48 different forums and networking communities including one apparently having to do with the elderly called “oldtimers” and another apparently limited to just 100 people. They also found that he posted a comment into one forum or another on an average of two per minute every hour of the day for the past seven weeks.

“He felt under terrible pressure to be part of the online community,” said his son, Lucian, who says he tried several times to get his father’s attention and lure him away from the computer. “The only time he even looked up was when I told him I had seen Dane Madsen trying to steal his car out of the driveway.”

Police found what appeared to be an organization chart taped to the wall of Wanamaker’s den with lines linking small photos of people unknown to the police including a Tom Hespos and an Adam Boettiger. Neither is considered a suspect in Wanamaker’s death.

“Once, I thought I had him,” said Lucian Wanamaker, “when I said that mom had made cookies, but half out of his chair, he just sat back down mumbling something about two Roman gods; I believe it was Jupiter and Atlas having some sort of titanic battle. ‘Let them eat PIE,’ he bellowed banging on his keyboard.”

Computer forensic specialists reported that there was no order or continuity to Wanamaker’s forum postings. “It looks like he just sort of randomly commented on whatever was in the discussion string at the time,” said Stephen Hall, CUNY-Cortland adjunct professor of intemperate and impulsive behavior. “He let nothing go by unchallenged by his own point of view, nor failed to respond to any other community member asking for advice or a new job. This consumed not only 24 hours a day, but also, apparently, his physical health.”

In what must be a record, Wanamaker was linked into to over 15,250 other community members, many of whom he exchanged notes with daily. He also contributed to 375 blogs and was expected to start an online column about the impact of interactive communications on health, when he died.

A virtual memorial service will be held online at a date to be determined.

Is this the equivalent of a blogger’s version of the Viking funeral?

UPDATE: This is likely a hoax. I’ve tried Google and Yahoo searches, and a variety of online people-finder searches. I even employed Technorati. That I can neither find a listing for Childress H. Wanamaker in West Nyack, New York, nor any comments on the Internet linked to him is kind of the tale of the tape. Besides, what family would allow a man to die of starvation at his computer?! Anyway, it was quirky enough, I felt compelled to post it this morning!

The president spoke glowingly of the bi-partisan “No Child Left Behind” educational reform program last night and, proudly, of its emphasis on measurement. Well, I saw some measurement in the “Houston Chronicle” (registration required) this week and I wasn’t any more impressed with the state of public education than I have been for many years now. Here was the story’s lead:

A third of Houston’s fifth-graders failed the state’s math exam, the school district announced Monday, meaning 4,500 students face the threat of summer school, and perhaps another year in elementary school, if they don’t manage to pass by August.

“The threat of summer school?” Couldn’t that just as easily read “the threat of getting an education?” Houston is the fourth largest city in the United States and one-third of its 5th graders cannot pass a math test! The president shouldn’t be smiling at the cameras.

Sorry, Mr. President, but this is your home state and where you served as governor. I’m unimpressed. If this is your idea of progress than, dammit, let’s get school vouchers passed throughout this country! The good news is there was a test; and failure to pass the test no longer leads to automatic matriculation to the 6th grade. But the bad news is — and it is significant, is it not? — that the public school system is not getting the job done (nor are the parents of many of these failing or borderline students).

I suspect part of the issue is that poorly educated parents, themselves products of a public education system gone bad, are indifferent to the education of their own children and neither support the school administrators, nor the teachers. I also suspect two other factors are driving these results: 1) illegal immigration (and the language barrier that confounds students and teachers alike); and, 2) the disintegration of the traditional two parents’ household.

Now just how tough can a 5th grade math test be? We’re talking addition, subtraction, long division, some rudimentary math formulas, and, I presume, the kind of word problems that make one apply what one has learned to real situations in life.

Bill Gates is “appalled” over the state of America’s high schools and correctly thinks they’re ill-equipped to produce the kind of educated workforce (with an emphasis on math and science) this country requires to be competitive in the worldwide economy. I agree with Mr. Gates that there needs to be a paradigm shift, but Bill Gates needs to understand that elementary and middle schools are not equipping children to be successful in high school and, in turn, high school graduates (the paltry percentage that even go on to college) are oftentimes ill-equipped to deal with college and university-level academics. The whole system is in need of a huge overhaul.

Just look at one of our nation’s largest cities (bigger than Houston), Los Angeles, if you need further convincing.

Fifty-three percent of working-age Los Angeles County residents have trouble reading street signs or bus schedules, filling out job applications in English or understanding a utility bill. The national average is 48%, according to the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey.

Am I the only one who noticed the president avoided any mention of the porous borders’ issue or immigration reform in his prime time press conference last night? The MSM obliged him by not posing any questions on these subjects, but that’s probably because the Liberal mindset welcomes open borders.

While social security reform, domestic energy production and conservation, and judicial appointments are all justifiably important subjects, I cannot imagine anything being more compelling than the fact that our borders are virtually wide open and a high tide of humanity is pouring across them illegally, inundating the land, devouring tax dollars, and straining social services.

The president spoke to his priorities. The mainstream press asked questions about theirs (you bet they have an agenda). Lost in the shuffle was the Number #1 issue in the minds of many, many Americans: how can this nation abide so many illegals, and the unimpeded arrival of so many more to follow, in a post-”9/11,” “Homeland Security” world? Something doesn’t square here, but we get stonewalled nonetheless!

If you feel as I do, I urge you to sign the petition, as I did. Otherwise, Folks, we just keep getting stonewalled by our “public servants.”

Do you provide too much personal information? This MSNBC News article suggests you may be among many teens and pre-teens who are not discreet enough on the Internet. I encourage you to read this!

Danbury, Connecticut, to the geographically literate, would be among the least likely places in America where one would expect to find a city or town overrun with illegal immigrants; but, think again. Would you believe 15,000 illegals dwell there or 19% of Danbury’s population? And as its mayor is quick to point out, while our Federal government and our president do hardly anything to secure this country’s borders, particularly its southern border with Mexico, encouraging a veritable human invasion, they nonetheless refuse to provide funds to cities whose services cannot keep up with the demands of the illegals. Indeed, the mayor of Danbury describes his city as “incredibly stressed by failed Federal policy.”

But, fact is, the entire country is “stressed” by the failed policies of Washington.

Let me give you but two examples:

1) San Francisco now has over one-third of its enrolled students in “limited English” classes owing to being inundated by illegal aliens and the demands they place on public education;

2) More than 25% of all prisoners in our Federal prison system are illegal aliens and they comprise the fastest growing prison population segment.

There are, of course, countless other examples.

You’d think more governors would be raising hell with the president and the Congress given the following:

As local and state governments fight to find ways to trim services because of, in part, extra immigrant-driven costs, American citizens will continue to suffer because few of the same people seeking the budget cuts want to do much to trim immigration (in a case of bitter irony, states bear most of the costs of illegal immigration while most of the taxes paid by illegals go into the federal treasury).

Oh, and let me add something else to the mix. Want to really get your back up? Read this and tell me if any of you parents out there had a son or daughter who was unable to secure admissions to a major college or university in this country. Mirla Lopez received the proverbial “fat envelope” from the Admissions Department of the University of Texas, while many a U.S. citizen received a “thin envelope” — an Admissions’ rejection slip. Fair? Of course not! But as Mirla has the audacity to say: “Get used to it.” After all, our government has emboldened them.

Read on:

No federal law prohibits undocumented aliens from attending public colleges or universities. Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982), held that it was illegal for a state to deny school-aged undocumented aliens the right to a free education. The Supreme Court relied on the equal protection doctrine, which prohibits a state or the federal government from denying equal protection of the laws to any “person” (not just U.S. citizens).

As yet, no federal law has overruled Plyler. The closest provision is IIRIRA § 505, which prohibits states from providing a post-secondary education benefit to an alien not lawfully present in the United States on the basis of the alien’s residence in their state unless the state would also provide the same benefit to a citizen or national residing in another state. Translated into plain English, this provision appears to bar public colleges from charging undocumented aliens an in-state tuition rate, since they would be treated more favorably than out-of-state residents who are U.S. citizens. We discuss section 505 in more detail below.

No state law prohibits undocumented aliens from attending public colleges or universities. California is the only state to have attempted this so far, in Proposition 187. Among other things, section 8 of that proposition would have denied post-secondary education to undocumented aliens. But a federal court struck down Proposition 187, holding that the state law contradicted federal law and thus was “preempted” by federal law. League of United Latin American Citizens v. Wilson, 908 F. Supp. 755 (C.D. Cal. 1995); 1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3418 (C.D. Cal. Mar. 13, 1998). The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution states that federal law is the supreme law of the land. If Congress has effectively regulated in an area, states cannot enact laws that deviate from the federal one.

Questions and Answers has published this uplifting post — an inspirational message from an unknown author, and I found it to be just the right antidote to some worries I’ve been experiencing of late. See if it’s just what the doctor ordered for whatever is bearing down on you! (Hope so!)

Here’s an online petition I urge you to sign (as I have) if you’re fed up with our porous borders and this country being inundated by and overrun with illegal aliens. Bill O’Reilly has been giving it a lot of play at his Web site and on his weekday television show, “The O’Reilly Factor.”

I’m not always in Bill O’Reilly’s corner, but I am on this issue and to his credit he has been calling for comprehensive border security for a long, long time. And he has hailed the “Minuteman Project,” as have I.

Similarly, and in case you haven’t noticed, if you’ll kindly scroll down the right sidebar of my blog you will find a number of excellent sites that speak to the illegal immigration problem under the heading, “Vincent Omnia Veritas.” I heartily recommend them to you. Another rock-solid crusader on the subject of porous borders and the need for comprehensive immigration reform is Frank Laughter of “Common Sense Junction.” His is a site you should have bookmarked or in your blogroll. It’s listed in my blogroll under the heading, “Quid Pro Quo.”

Again, please consider signing the petition. After all, it’s about “Homeland Security.”

This is getting old — the incessant bad news out of Florida in terms of that state’s chronic inability to protect its children. Yet another “Amber Alert” has been issued, this time for a 12-year old girl, Margarita Aguilar-Lopez, a 4 feet, 10 inches tall girl weighing approximately 65 pounds, who may have been abducted by Antonio Paulino-Perez, a diminuitive 25-year old man — an illegal alien, who may be trying to get back to Mexico. The whole matter sounds sordid. Do read the entire “FoxNews” story for the particulars. It sounds as though adults behaved badly in giving the alleged abductor an opportunity to run off with the young girl, if that is what has happened here.

Regardless, there’s just too much of this coming out of one state, albeit a populous state.

This post on the rant-monger, Howard Dean, from “The Happy Capitalist” calls to mind this post of mine aways back, in which I wrote about the Democrats:

How do I know they’re in trouble apart from their current fix vis-a-vis the White House, Congress and the state houses? Because their hard-bitten left-wing has done it yet again, chasing off another good man — Tim Roemer this time around. Roemer gets it and they don’t want to hear cool logic or fall in line behind a pragmatic, realistic approach to regaining the ground they’ve lost.

No, they want the reckless ranter, Howard Dean, in the DNC Chairmanship — he of the anti-Bush animus and unrestrained vitriol. He’s Terry McAuliffe with a stethoscope and a propensity for losing to match. The daunting Dr. Dean — yet another dyed-in-the-wool liberal Democrat who doesn’t give many Americans a warm feeling of security in an age of rabid Islamic terrorism. Roemer has ideas and remedies, and he sees reasons for the pounding Kerry took. Shame on him. Who wants clear thinking and objectivity, right? Meanwhile, Kerry contents himself these days with telling folks he’s not a flip-flopper, while his wife drops the Kerry name. Even she’s turned-off by the man. And when you say, “DEMOCRAT,” the Pavlovian response remains: “Kennedy, Kerry, Boxer, Pelosi, Moore and Dean.”

What I still don’t get is why the Clintons didn’t put up more of a fight to forestall Dean’s ascendancy to the DNC Chairmanship. Maybe because they were so irrevocably tied to Terry McAuliffe, and, apart from his robust fundraising, he proved to be such a big-time loser in directing two consecutive failed White House bids for Gore and Kerry, respectively.

Then go to this post of Greg Wallace’s!

Then click on this delightful post of Rodger Morrow’s! Just don’t let Rodger (or any Harvard wise-guy) bullshit you!

Frank Laughter of “Common Sense Junction” provides a heads-up in this post of his to an excellent post published yesterday by Bonnie Eggle at “The Immigration Blog.”

In it, Bonnie links to and quotes from a compelling speech made by Richard D. Lamm, the former governor of Colorado, to an audience gathered in Washington D.C. for a conference on immigration and over-population, in which Dick Lamm presciently enumerated eight key ways to destroy America:

1) Turn America into a bilingual or multi-lingual and bicultural country;

2) Invent ‘multiculturalism’ and encourage immigrants to maintain their culture;

3) Celebrate diversity rather than unity;

4) Make our fastest growing demographic group the least educated, as well as unassimilated and antagonistic to our culture;

5) Get big foundations and business to give these efforts lots of money — i.e., invest in ethnic identity and establish the cult of ‘Victimology’;

6) Include dual citizenship and promote divided loyalties;

7) Place all subjects off limits — make it a taboo to talk about anything against the cult of ‘diversity’;
Censor Victor Davis Hanson’s book, ‘Mexiforma’ — his book is dangerous (as) it exposes the plan to destroy America.

These are all possible, of course, and highly probable outcomes, because our elected officials — our so-called “public servants” — permit open borders and do not have the political courage or the patriotic will to deal head-on with runaway, unchecked immigration. And they content themselves in bandying about euphemisms, rather than calling a problem for what it is. That’s why people who are in this country illegally — people who have knowingly broken the laws of our land — are called “undocumented workers,” rather than “illegal aliens” and in some instances “thugs.”

I agree with Bill O’Reilly: if a calamitous terrorist attack occurs whose genesis is tied to terrorists and terrorists’ weapons being smuggled across our porous borders, then the President of the United States, the chief executive constitutionally charged with enforcing the laws of the land and ensuring the safety of Americans, should be subject to impeachment. In addition, the incumbent Congressmen who failed to act on border security should be chased from office by America’s voters.

Our interests are not being served. Vicente Fox was not who I voted for; but Vicente Fox is who I got in return for my votes in 2000 and 2004 cast for George W. Bush. There is no “Homeland Security” as long as we are being overrun by millions of illegals.