Blood pressure alert: the New York Times cheerfully reports an increase in Muslim immigration over the last couple years, after a decrease following the jihadist attacks on 9/11.

But five years later, as the United States wrestles with questions of terrorism, civil liberties and immigration control, Muslims appear to be moving here again in surprising numbers, according to statistics compiled by the Department of Homeland Security and the Census Bureau. [...]

In 2005, more people from Muslim countries became legal permanent United States residents — nearly 96,000 — than in any year in the previous two decades. More than 40,000 of them were admitted last year, the highest annual number since the terrorist attacks, according to data on 22 countries provided by the Department of Homeland Security.
[More Muslims Arrive in U.S., After 9/11 Dip, New York Times, 9/9/06]

Note that Muslims are “moving” here, with no apparent extra scrutiny by immigration authorities who should be investigating these people up and down. One side of Washington’s mouth says we are at war with Islamofascism, and the other continues to hand out diversity and other immigration visas to persons from unfriendly nations.

The problem is Bush trying to have a war without having enemies. If we are really at war with Islamofascists, then we wouldn’t be welcoming immigrants from anti-western Islamic states.

Islamofascists make fine enemies, incidentally, since they propose a Stalinism in turbans, aka the worldwide caliphate, which would make previous totalitarian regimes seem like a day at the beach.

VDARE.com readers interested in Canada (where the transition from highly functional northern European society to third world slum is progressing even faster than in Minneapolis) will be pleased to learn that Dispatches from the Hogtown Front has re activated (with a nice remark on us). The proprietor has been sick – a relief in a sense, since an appalling number of excellent blogs have ceased activity in recent months, perhaps from exhaustion - or despair.

Canada has been well covered on VDARE.com in the past by Michael Monastyrskyj (I have always valued this succinct statement) and Kevin Michael Grace. This, outrageously, is a brave act. Free speech has no Constitutional protection in Canada and courageous men are now in prison there for their political opinions.

One day, when resources allow, we hope to address this.

So, by this time, almost everyone not living under a rock has heard about the Facebook.com debacle that has been raging for the past three days. To summarize:

Facebook is a social networking site, much like myspace.com only less gaudy, which is available to anyone with a school related email address. The vast majority of its users are college students, and few people over the age of 23 have even heard of it – unless they are the users’ parents. Most users spend a large amount of time monitoring their friends’ profiles, updating their own profile and many complain that the Facebook is addictive.

Two days ago, Facebook decided to go stalker on us and provide an front-and-center “News Feed” that tracked almost every move any of our friends made (it’s uncommon for a user to have fewer than 100 friends, so this makes for a loooong feed). On the feed were included pedantic things like “Johnny has changed his relationship status from ‘single’ to ‘it’s complicated’” next to a clipart broken heart, and “Julia has removed ‘The Killers’ from her favorite music list”.

Facebook users rose up in protest, many forming groups (which users can easily join) with titles like “We Hate The New Facebook” and “News Feed Is Creepy.” Others simply refused to update their profile, leave any messages for friends or even log on until the feed was gone. They wanted more privacy.

Today, three days into the fray, the creator of the Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, published an open letter to all users apologizing for the “goof” and providing opt-out privileges in users’ privacy settings. All is supposedly now right with the Facebook world.

On the other hand, News Feed had its benefits. For one thing, I discovered early on that with a little manipulation one could turn it into a great publicity machine. For example, on the first day of the feed, I joined a user group called “Stop Illegal Immigration!” Now, pre-feed, a little link would have shown up under my “Groups” list featuring the name of the group, in a row alongside the other ten or so group that have my membership. In all probability, nobody would have noticed its appearance.

But with News Feed, my joining this group (a group which has, interestingly enough, over 2,100 student members) was broadcast to all of my hundred or so friends. When they logged on, it said right there “Athena has joined the “Stop Illegal Immigration!’ group” on their front page. It was better even that leaving up an IM away message! It was GREAT! I joined a group supporting Tancredo, I joined a group about Michelle Malkin…I was on a roll. And everyone was forced to pay attention, or log off.

They even introduced a new feature that allows users to list their favorite political candidates. If I were to support Kinky Friedman in his gubernatorial run, I could elect to have a banner on my profile saying, in effect, “Athena supports Kinky.” This too, would have been broadcast on the News Feed. My friends could then click on Kinky’s name while viewing my profile, and be taken to a Facebook page profiling Kinky’s platform.

That’s mostly changed now. They aren’t forced to see my affiliations anymore; they can opt out. And in the end, I suppose it is better not to have everyone’s business cluttering up my profile space. Also, I admit, profile-stalking to the News Feed degree is a little tacky. But today I adjusted my privacy settings to allow broadcasts of all my political activities.

Maybe next we’ll even start a VDARE.COM group!