BROOKLYN - After decades in obscurity, bedbugs have returned to the United States to take up residence in a place where they can live long-term, rent-free and have all the food they need — in mattresses all over the country.

Bed bugs can live in your new mattress, by Victoria Corderi, NBC News, April 22, 2008.

What word is missing in this report?

(Thanks, LB).

Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. told the big NAACP dinner in Detroit last night:

“So let me give you the outline of the rest of this message. You can either fill in the blanks for yourselves or you could wait for my book that will be out later this year.”

I blogged on April 2:

If you were a literary agent, say, wouldn’t you want to sign Wright up for a quickie bestseller, with a release date targeted at, say, 10/1/08? Hustle your best ghostwriter out to Tinley Park and get Wright’s memoirs and views on current issues slapped together by the Fourth of July. Make that deadline and you could have it on the bookshelves five weeks before Election Day!No, I don’t think we’ve heard the last from Rev. Wright.

Do you think Obama’s campaign manager David Axelrod is wondering what Wright is going to fill into the blanks?

As I’ve been saying for a long time, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. is an attentionaholic far leftist whose career interests do not necessarily coincide with Barack Obama’s. Indeed, Wright may well wish to go down in history as the Willie Horton of 2008 who proved what Wright’s been saying his whole life, that a black man can’t a fair break in America. And I’ve said for a long, long time that Obama would have to do a Sister Souljah on Wright and do it as early as possible.

Today, the whole world finally noticed. Dana Milbank writes in the Washington Post:

Wright’s Voice Could Spell Doom for Obama

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, explaining this morning why he had waited so long before breaking his silence about his incendiary sermons, offered a paraphrase from Proverbs: “It is better to be quiet and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

Barack Obama’s pastor would have been wise to continue to heed that wisdom.

Should it become necessary in the months from now to identify the moment that doomed Obama’s presidential aspirations, attention is likely to focus on the hour between nine and ten this morning at the National Press Club. It was then that Wright, Obama’s longtime pastor, reignited a controversy about race from which Obama had only recently recovered - and added lighter fuel.

(more…)

Via Instapundit, I see that this part of Reverend Wright’s latest speech to the NAACP, in which he attempts to explain the test gap, IQ gap, and black English, is causing some negative comment from the people who usually negatively comment about us.

Here are some blogospheric comments:

Instapundit: “OKAY, I THINK THAT JEREMIAH WRIGHT MUST BE TRYING TO SABOTAGE OBAMA’S CANDIDACY: How else to explain yammering on about black brains vs. white brains. Echoing The Bell Curve?“

American Thinker: ““Different is not deficient,” is the theme of this speech by Obama mentor Wright. That and a crash course in black eugenics and phrenology that would make a fascist blush.”

Just One Minute: ” Hmm - I would have guessed that clapping on the downbeat was a social construct, but I am not as well educated as Jeremiah Wright. That said, I am trying to imagine the reaction if a white figure announced that black brains were different.”

Hey, I don’t have to imagine the reaction–I’ve seen it. There are several professors who could give you details on the reaction from first-hand experience.

One thing he does here is mimic, badly, both British accents and John F. Kennedy’s Bostonian accent to explain how there are different kinds of English, or American. Then he claims that it’s only black people whose language is objected to, which is nonsense. In the course of this speech, he refers to the ancient Hebrews learning to “repeat incredulously long passages like Psalm 119.“[Transcript of Full Speech] He means “incredibly.”

This is such a basic error of diction that it reminds me of this Ann Coulter quote

B. Hussein Obama said he was for slavery reparations in many forms, but the only one that got applause was for more “investment” in schools. In Obama’s defense, the precise question was: “But is African-Americans ever going to get reparations for slavery?” So a switch to the subject of education was only natural.[WorldNetDaily: Did I miss the 'hip' part?August 1, 2007]

But the bloggers above seem shocked at the idea that Reverend Wright believes that there’s a difference between races. In fact, I think they may be more shocked by the thought of someone saying that Charles Murray was right, than they are by the Reverend’s previous pronouncements in favor of al Qaeda and Hirohito.

Of course, what he’s saying something different. What he’s saying is that if blacks fail standardized tests at a higher rate than whites, it’s the test’s fault. And he’s wrong.

Jerk - noun: Slang A foolish, rude, or contemptible person.

During a recent lobbying trip to Springfield Rosanna Pulido, the Illinois spokeswoman for “You Don’t Speak for Me,” a group of patriotic Hispanic Americans, and Rick Jones, deputy director of the Chicago Minuteman Project, saw for themselves the level at which Rep. Luis Arroyo’s (D-3rd) mind actually works.

Pulido and Jones had gone to the state capitol to testify against something called the Religious Ministry Act of 2008 (pdf). No doubt you’re asking, “Huh? What the heck does this have to do with immigration.” Well, you see, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights says it’s “needed” to address the “spiritual needs” of a growing number of illegals who (sniff!) are ending up in the slammer because of all those inhumane ICE raids around the country.

But, according to Jones, Arroyo, who is cosponsoring the legislation, “didn’t want to discuss the bill. He only wanted to hurl insults at Rosanna and myself. One question directed at me was, ‘Aren’t the Minutemen the group that kills people on the border?’ ” (I say to Arroyo, as I’ve said to others who make this stupid statement, show me the news stories that support your claim.)

Pulido, who is an American of Mexican descent, said Arroyo twice asked her about her nationality and after she had answered the same way twice, he wanted to know if she opposed providing spiritual comfort to her “fellow Mexicans.”

Memo to Arroyo the Arrogant: Where would you be today if intelligence and common sense were prerequisites for getting elected to public office?

Videos of Peter Brimelow , Ed Rubenstein, and Wayne Lutton at the National Press Club, introducing Ed’s report for the Social Contract Press on the cost of mass immigration are now on YouTube.com.

Videos courtesy of Social Contract Press.

Download The Fiscal Impact Of Immigration [PDF]

Wayne Lutton, Editor of The Social Contract, introduces the report

Peter Brimelow, Editor of VDARE.com, introduces Ed Rubenstein

Ed Rubenstein presents the report - part 1

Ed Rubenstein presents the report - part 2

In the news:

Supreme Court upholds photo ID law for voters in Indiana

By MARK SHERMAN – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has ruled that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights. The decision validates Republican-inspired voter ID laws.

The court vote 6-3 to uphold Indiana’s strict photo ID requirement. Democrats and civil rights groups say the law would deter poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots.

For more background, see VDARE.com’s  Abolishing America (contd.): Supremes Hear Indiana Anti-Illegal Voter Case, By Peter Gemma, January 8, 2008.

Barack Obama sponsored a resolution in the Senate against photo ID requirements.

Dr. Norm Matloff has authored a report for the Center For Immigration Studies titled H-1Bs: Still Not the Best and the Brightest May 2008 , [PDF] He analyzes the quality of imported tech workers and concludes

The lobbyists know that crying educational doom-and-gloom sells. Even though it was mainly “Johnnie,” rather than Arvind or Qing-Ling, who originally developed the computer industry, and even though all major East Asian governments have lamented their educational systems’ stifling of creativity, the lobbyists have convinced Congress that the industry needs foreign workers from Asia in order to innovate.

The facts show otherwise. Most foreign tech workers, particularly those from Asia, are in fact not “the best and the brightest.” This is true both overall and in the key tech occupations, and most importantly, in the firms most stridently demanding that Congress admit more foreign workers. Expansion of the guest worker programs — both H-1B visas and green cards — is unwarranted.

The companies that import foreign tech workers don’t want them because they’re the best and brightest–they want them because they’re the cheapest.

Judging from this poll of 60,000 Americans conducted by Travel & Leisure of visitors’ and residents’ attitudes toward 25 American cities to find “America’s Favorite City,” Los Angeles has to be America’s Least Favorite City.

Consider the subsets of the “People” category. Seattle came in first in “Most Intelligent People,” while Los Angeles came in dead last, worse than Las Vegas, Miami, or San Antonio (perhaps 100-year-old Jacques Barzun raises San Antonio single-handedly?)

Charleston was first in “Most Friendly,” while LA was last again.

LA — surly and stupid, like the cast of “Idiocracy.”

LA scored near the top only in “Luxury boutiques,” “Shoe-shopping,” and “Jewelry-shopping.” LA is so hated it only came in sixth in “Weather,” behind (besides San Diego and Honolulu) Miami and Charleston (ever hear of this thing called “Summer”?) and 7,000 foot Santa Fe (ever hear of this thing called “not Summer”?).

The only consolation Angelenos can take is that year by year, the rest of the country becomes more like LA (but with lousier weather):

We’re the future, your future.

It’s not his (her?) main point, but VDARE.com letter-writer Long Live Liberty mentions (A California Asian-American Reader Says Jared Taylor Needs A Broader View) a “Chinese for Ron Paul website (Mandarin only) that attempts to educate limited-English speaking voters so that they can make informed decisions when casting their ballot.”

But why should people who can’t understand English well enough to follow American political debates be voting in the first place? And, thus, why should they be citizens?

My objection isn’t easily dismissible. As Jim Boulet, head of English First, has written

Translation requires a remarkable amount of trust in the translator, unless everyone involved is fluent in both languages. A translator with an agenda can be a dangerous person if no one else notices what he is actually doing. [The Peril of Perfidious Translators, October 8, 2003]:

(Of course, if everyone were fluent in two languages–English and Spanish, say–then no translators would be needed! And, in fact, one of the languages would be superfluous, a point that doesn’t seem to have occurred to those who argue that native-English-speaking Americans should all become comfortable in Spanish.)

While outright perfidy may not have been involved, VDARE.com’s Mexican correspondent Allan Wall has written that 2002 Texas gubernatorial candidate Tony Sanchez (who ultimately lost to Rick Perry) campaigned on very different themes before English-speaking audiences and Spanish-speaking audiences. And given what Allan tells us (trusting this translator!), those who were limited to English might have been highly unenthusiastic about what Sanchez was saying to audiences who understood Spanish.

Reader Long Live Liberty’s remark was only about electioneering materials, and we don’t know his (her?) views on multi-lingual ballots, but perhaps the distinction isn’t so important. Consider a bit of 1995 Congressional testimony by then-president of Boston University John Silber. Silber remarked that such ballots “impose an unacceptable cost by degrading the very concept of the citizen to that of someone lost in a country whose public discourse is incomprehensible to him.”

The Silber quote comes from a 1996 article (English Is Broken Here) by John J. Miller in the Hoover Institution’s Policy Review. Miller added his relevant two cents:

Not everyone need speak English all of the time, but it must be the lingua franca of civic life. Since the voting booth is one of the vital places in which citizens directly participate in democracy, it must be the official language of the election process.

While it would, indeed, be un-American to forbid electioneering in languages other than English, the points made by Boulet, Silber, and Miller all suggest that we should discourage it.

And we should encourage ordering cheesesteaks in English.