Maybe I’m not the only one surprised by this but did you know there are ten (declared) GOP candidates at this point?

Wow! I knew about Giuliani, Huckabee, Tancredo and McCain - well, McCain always runs…he lives to run…but there are a lot more candidates than I thought. The MSM tends to focus on the Dems–specifically, Clinton and Obama which is funny because before either of them I would probably vote for Jose Canseco even after his campaign pledge to “stay on the Juice.”

Crikey, Senator McCain references his time as a POW in Vietnam almost as often as Senator Kerry mentions his fifteen minutes over there on a boat which is saying something, people. I’m not kidding, the question posed was about stem-cell research and somehow McCain began his response with something like “thank you for welcoming me and my fellow POW’s home…”

Then again, just ask Senator Kerry something simple like whether he wants chicken or fish and his response would be “when I was in Vietnam we didn’t have choices like that…”

McCain said - if elected - he would put a Democrat in a cabinet post…then he mentioned Senator Lieberman - who is not a Democrat, Mr. POW.

Congressman Hunter was asked what the greatest failure of the federal government is (so far) and he said…BORDER ENFORCEMENT!! Good man Charlie Brown!

This is the strangest debate I have ever watched…MSNBC has covered everything from evolution to a Scooter Libby pardon and whether the candidate likes the Mainstream Media. One of these men are potentially the next President of the United States, right?

I don’t care if he believes Zeus created mortal men by breeding fairies with centaurs, I just want to know if he opposes amnesty or not…maybe I’m too provincial.

Giuliani says a tamper-proof identification card is “the most important element of immigration and national security.” Governor Romney agrees…oh where is Tancredo when we neeed him? This question was a great opportunity for Tancredo but…ugh, he didn’t take it!

In response to the national identification card, Brownback says “secure the border with a fence and protect our social security system.”

Yep, so far it is just as I suspected: These guys are avoiding the immigration question…cowards.

Ron Paul….I just love him. He just said “The purpose of government is to protect the privacy of its people, not the privacy of the government.”

Well at least all the candidates seem to agree on one thing! Hilary Clinton (and her husband) in the White House would be a bad, bad thing!

Final Question: How will you be different than President George W. Bush?

Responses:

Romney: “I would take the war on terror and expand it globally.” Wow…
Mc Cain: “I would not have mismanaged the war.” Sure he wouldn’t…
Huckabee: “Honor the 10th Amendment” I want to hear more…
Hunter: “Enforce trade laws” What does that mean???
Tancredo: “No Child Left Behind was over-reaching.” Close…but he blew his chance to hit on immigration.
Giuliani: “We as Republicans need to remind people that President made the right decision in September 2001.” You first, Rudy!
Paul: “Protect the privacy of American citizens.” Nice…

And that’s it. A preview of what’s to come!

Yawn…

P.S. To note: In the aftermath of the debate, Congressman Tancredo expressed his disappointment that immigration reform was not discussed in more detail during the hour and a half discussion.

Every report in the news about water supply and overpopulation in the Golden State is worse than the last.

When the snowpack surveyors recently traveled to their usual spot to stick a pole through the snow, there was no white stuff to measure. None.

State officials renewed calls for voluntary water conservation to head off rationing after the annual May 1 survey found the Sierra snowpack at just 29 percent of normal statewide, the lowest since 1988.

Frank Gehrke and Dave Hart of the state Department of Water Resources didn’t even bother to take their measuring devices out of their vehicle before they hiked out into a barren field near Highway 50 at Phillips Station, a roadside stop established in 1859 at the 6,800-foot level.
[May snow reading just 29% of normal, San Francisco Chronicle 5/2/07]

If that isn’t depressing enough, the population explosion barrels along as if there were no such thing as a limit to natural resources. It’s like when you spend all your money, you are broke until more cash comes in from somewhere. Water is similar.

California is now home to nearly 38 million residents, all of whom consume lots of water, even the ones that don’t shower daily.

The Department of Finance’s demographics unit said California had nearly 37.7 million residents as of on Jan. 1, up by about 470,000 since the start of 2006. One of every eight Americans now lives in the state. [...]

But California’s growth rate has been slowing since the start of the decade, when its population grew by nearly 2 percent. Last year, the state’s population grew by almost 1.3 percent, senior demographer Linda Gage said.
[California population nears 38 million, LA tops 4 million, San Francisco Chronicle 5/01/07]

It’s small relief that California has creeped back from the earlier precipice of an annual growth rate of over 2 percent, which works out to a total population doubling time of just 35 years.

Fewer people want to live here because the quality of life is dropping like a rock. Worse traffic, crummy schools, more crowding and noise. It is a petrie dish of the diversity, er balkanization against which Teddy Roosevelt warned. Even some Mexicans find Red State America more to their liking, because of less crime and better opportunities than in Mexifornia.

Back to water, check out my favorite Yosemite cam to see that snow is limited to the mountain peaks and how little there is of it.

To require visas for “Britons” of Pakistani origin. The Telegraph’s comment thread on the story is interesting, too. It is a mix (no surprise, there, I suppose) of limp Leftish comments bemoaning such unequal treatment of “Britons” and the evils of America generally, and more robust comments saying it’s a good thing the American government is awake to the threat – how I wish that were true – and the British government needs to wake up – which is certainly true. [US pushes for visa control on Pakistani Britons, By Alex Spillius in Washington and Philip Johnston, May 3, 2007]

The pithiest remark is in the very first comment, from one Tom Dixon:

Having a British passport does not make someone British any more than being born in a stable makes one a horse.

Hip, Hip…! As good a one-line summary of the National Question as I think I’ve ever seen.

But I thought this comment, from one Redwing, has an unfortunate ring of truth too:

As an expat, now an American, the USA has it all wrong. All terrorists have to do is hop on a plane to Mexico, then come in with the droves of illegal immigrants that regularly cross the border. There are reports of illegals being deported numerous times, only to get back in very quickly. It will be another waste of taxpayers’ money.

So is this a real border control initiative, as our dual-citizen homeland security capo, Judge Chertoff, assures us, or is it merely window-dressing to help us gringo suckers swallow the coming illegal alien amnesty/”guest”-worker programs? Last time I checked, George W. Bush was still President of the United States. I think I have my answer…

As Randall Burns has noted, Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry’s life has just become a great deal more difficult. This is because HB1804, which some claim is the most drastic local measure yet to interdict illegal immigration, has cleared the legislature. Democrat Henry, who apparently campaigned against illegal immigration, has until May 8th to sign or veto the bill. (Immigration bill heads to governor Sapulpa Daily Herald May 2 2007.)

Once again, this important development in the drive by local jurisdictions to repair Federal dereliction on immigration policy is being totally ignored by the national MSM. As I write, Google News carries 40 stories on the matter, almost all local Oklahoma outlets. None are major national news venues.

Congratulations to Representative Randy Terrill and his allies for acting to protect their country.