This is from the Orlando Sentinel’s Crime Blog. While the Fourth Of July is supposed to be celebrated with “pomp, shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations this from one end of the continent to the other,” as John Adams said, on the 5th of July, 1776, I expect most Americans are bright enough not to celebrate it by firing loaded guns into the air. The Ocoee Police Department thinks hat Mexicans may not be so careful about Cinco De Mayo.

In preparation for Cinco de Mayo, the Ocoee Police Department is reminding its residents to celebrate safely and responsibly:

• Don’t discharge firearms into the air. Shooting a gun into the air is a crime. You will spend up to one year in prison if you are caught.
• Weapons are subject to being forfeited to the police.
• If you’re arrested for discharging a firearm into the air, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
• If a stray bullet from your gun should kill someone, you will be arrested and charged with murder.
• People involved in celebrating the holidays by discharging their firearms do not realize the danger posed by their actions.
• A bullet fired into the air can climb up to two miles. When it falls back to earth, it can reach a speed of 300 to 700 feet per second.
• If you see someone discharging a firearm into the air, call the police.

No guns on Cinco de Mayo

posted by Walter Pacheco on May 2, 2007 9:08:56 AM

From EZtaR on Slashdot

“The winner of NASA’s $200k spacesuit glove contest has been found. He’s an unemployed aerospace engineer, named Peter Homer, and claims to have bought most of the materials in local shops and on eBay.”

What is the significance of this to immigration? Well, much of the justification of expansion of H-1b visas is that the US needs more technical talent. What we’ve seen is that whenever we have an honest competition, US citizens seem to come out of the woodwork. Maybe what US corporations need more than just more corporate welfare is more honest competition.

Lou Dobbs writes at CNN about the May Day immigration rallies

What about all of our fellow Americans who are being marginalized by the massive importation of illegal, low-cost and mostly uneducated labor into this country? Perhaps those citizens should take to the streets. And what about the more than 250 million Americans who make up our middle class and those who aspire to it whose wages have stagnated and who are paying for the social, medical and economic costs of illegal immigration? That’s a big march.

If yesterday’s demonstrators and their supporters in Congress and corporate America are serious about their deep desire for American citizenship, why don’t we hear any of them clearly say they’re willing to give up dual citizenship? Or that they’re willing to learn English and surrender demands of bilingual education? Or declare they embrace English as our official national language? Or demand that illegal employers of illegal aliens pay for the social, educational and medical costs now borne by the taxpayers?

I think the point Dobbs makes here about Dual Citizenship is especially key. Personally, I think these pro-immigration rallies are losing steam in part because the ability of poor people to improve their situation by migrating to America is declining.

Many Latin Americans are starting to realize that if they are to really achieve their dreams, it will be in their own countries–not at the junior partners of the corrupt American elites.