Via Instapundit, I learn that Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times finds it “depressing ” that

Many, many ordinary black Zimbabweans wish that they could get back the white racist government that oppressed them in the 1970’s.

“If we had the chance to go back to white rule, we’d do it,” said Solomon Dube, a peasant whose child was crying with hunger when I arrived in his village. “Life was easier then, and at least you could get food and a job.” . . .

Wouldn’t this be good time for Kristof to say that he was sorry for what the United States, and the New York Times, did to destroy Rhodesia, and cause the exodus of most of the white population, and the murder of many remaining white farmers?

Joan Baez admitted she was wrong over Vietnam in 1977, Eugene Genovese apologized for his support of Stalinism. Why can’t liberals apologize for what they did to Africa?

Because immigration reformers are routinely denounced as “nativists,” as I’ve always had a soft spot for the much-maligned Know-Nothings—they actually knew quite a lot. But this Journal of Social History article by University of Illinois’ Richard Jensen demonstrating that those “No Irish Need Apply” signs are an urban/ ethnic myth is really eye-opening from a number of points of view.

The U.S. Supreme Court dispensed a smidgen of common sense in 2002 with a ruling that illegal aliens could not recover lost wages because, well, they could not have legally earned them in the first place.

However, in direct defiance of that ruling, an appellate court in New York has ruled that illegal aliens can collect back wages at their home country’s rate. [Sanango v 200 E. 16th St. Hous. Corp.]

A jury handed Arcenio Sanango, an Ecuadoran illegal who fell from a ladder at a Manhattan worksite, $96,000 in lost earnings, both past and future. The award in U.S. dollars couldn’t be upheld, the appellate judges acknowledged, so they remanded for a recalculation based on the Ecuadoran pay scale.

“We are unaware… of any federal policy that would be offended by awarding an undocumented alien damages for lost earnings based on the prevailing wage in the alien’s country of origin,” wrote Justice David Friedman.

Uh, how about that big one that says illegal aliens aren’t supposed to be here to begin with?

But here’s an idea: By the same token, are illegal aliens who commit crimes in America entitled to “home country” criminal procedure?

If so, we could get confessions with a bullwhip.