Oh the smelly humanity

AP headline: “Goodyear Blimp Crashes into Fertilizer Pile, Injures One.”

Good article on border control. In the last decade, at least 2,500 Mexicans died trying to cross through deserts or mountains, the obvious but presumably unintended consequence of making it harder to cross at safer places. In the Berlin Wall’s entire history, only 287 people died trying to cross it. Enforcement that would actually impact businesses has declined, even from 2000 when a total of 178 American employers were fined for employing illegal aliens. Well, to be fair, how do we know that more than 178 American employers even hired illegal aliens, right? The article mentions a border patrol unit comprised entirely of Native Americans, called the Irony Brigade, sorry, the Shadow Wolves.

Bush has indeed lifted steel tariffs, as of 10 minutes from now, as I write. Um, since when is the power to set tariffs held by the executive branch, anyway? The White House statement on this decision is hilarious. I said on Monday that they’d be declaring victory, that the tariffs had done their job, but they’ve actually gone so far beyond that, actually pretending that the decision had absolutely nothing to do with the WTO decision or the imminent imposition of retaliatory tariffs by the EU, that the timing is just a big coincidence. They’re not even attempting to make their lies plausible anymore. And they’re so committed to doing everything unilaterally that they wouldn’t even spin it as respecting the concerns of our allies in the war on terror. Read it if you don’t believe me.

Another reason the US doesn’t care that much about increased poppy production in Afghanistan: that heroine goes to Europe, not to the US.

B-1 Bob is back: Bob Dornan is talking about running for Congress against Dana Rohrabacher. Boy, that could be fun.