I found this this while I was searching for immigration-related humor:

President Bush celebrated Cinco de Mayo at the White House last night and said, “We consider ourselves fortunate that Mexico is a friend and a neighbor.” Then Bush said, “And by neighbor, I mean the kind who climbs over your fence and refuses to leave.”[Conan O'Brien, May 6, 2008, via Newsmax.com ]

The funny thing, which is not actually that funny, is that Bush actually did say the first part of that, the “We consider ourselves fortunate that Mexico is a friend and a neighbor” part. [Bush praises Mexican Americans at Cinco de Mayo dinner, The Associated Press , May 6th 2008 ]

Actually, Mexico’s presence on America’s southern border is a piece of bad luck. There are worse countries to share a border with in the world (France, Russia, China, Germany) but since the US only has two borders, and the other one is with Canada, may I point out by way of comparison that Canada hasn’t invaded the US since 1812, whereas Mexico had the the “Plan of San Diego” as recently as 1916, and is continuing a slow motion invasion today. Likewise, Canadian ghettos in the US tend to consist of Mike Myers and his buddies in Hollywood, while violent Canadian gangs, (known as “hockey teams”) are fairly harmless compared to the Mexican Mafia.

It never occurred to Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz, who said “Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States” that US might not enjoy the experience either.

As far as Bush’s Cinco De Mayo speech goes, I’ll let Jay Leno have the last word:

President Bush held a Cinco de Mayo dinner celebration at the White House last night. He praised the people of Mexico who come here to do the jobs Americans don’t want. As opposed to the people of India who are doing the jobs Americans did want.

Glenn Reynolds and his wife, Dr. Helen,  link to Ask Men’s feature on the “Top 10 Worst Male-Bashing Ads”

You’ve seen him plenty of times on sitcoms; he’s the dumb, bumbling, idiot dad, husband and boyfriend who appears useless at everything but bringing home a paycheck. The message: Guys are dumb and women have to lead them around. This, of course, cues the laugh track. Yet a survey from an organization called Children Now found that two-thirds of kid respondents described men on TV as angry, while respondents from another group’s survey said men were portrayed as corrupt on TV by a 17 to 1 margin. Clearly, this is no laughing matter.

I checked, and my guess was correct–all clueless males in the ads were white males. )The clip that featured one father as the south end of a northbound horse had him as a chestnut horse with white socks, but he was still clearly a white male.)

That’s because it’s safe to bash men, who don’t have a fit of the vapors when this kind of thing happens, but it wouldn’t be safe to make him a member of a minority, although minority or “ethnically ambiguous” models are sought after by advertisers in ads that don’t make their subjects look stupid.

Several weeks ago, I posted a message by a commenter named Rec1Man, who has been doing a lot of work to come up with a model of India’s potential average IQ. This is one of the most important questions for predicting the course of the 21st Century.

The first edition of Lynn and Vanhanen’s IQ and the Wealth of Nations reported four studies from India from 1959-1986, with averages varying only across a rather narrow range of 78-82.

On the other hand, as I’ve pointed out since 2002, India is the most complicated country in the world, so it’s hard to get a nationally representative sample.

Further, the higher IQs registered by Indians in their diaspora, like the higher IQs recorded by African Americans and West Indians compared to Africans, suggests that better nutrition, health, education, and so forth could raise the relative standing of Indians. After all, they’ve been plagued by extreme poverty, which is starting to abate. For example, India is particularly beset by lack of iodine in the diet, which is a relatively easy IQ-lowering problem to deal with.

Rec1Man’s goal has been to come up with a model that’s simple enough to comprehend. Lots of critics in the comments responded that his eight part categorization of Indian demographics was too simple. As Einstein said, Science should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.

Still, we need somewhere to start, so Rec1Man’s model, after being refined over the last few weeks, seems like a decent starting point.

First, here is fellow commenter Nsam’s verbal summary of Rec1Man’s approach, followed by Rec1Man’s latest quantitative summary:

Here is my attempt at a summary of rec1man’s analyses. Edit as required.

This eight-segment breakdown of the Indian population provides a more accurate picture of the human resource potential of the Indian population, compared to simplistic unimodal population model with mean IQ of 85 and SD =15.

The Indian population can be grouped in terms of the four traditional caste super-categories :

1. Brahmin
2. Merchant,
3. Peasant,
4.1 Dalit (”Untouchable”)
4.2 Scheduled Caste
4.3 Low caste converts to Islam

cross-cutting with a

A. North vs.
B. South

geographical distinction.

(more…)

Jessica Garrison writes in the LA times:

Unaffected by the economic woes besetting the masses, the super-rich
are going on creating palace-like complexes. One builder says he knows
of 20 houses of at least 20,000 square feet in the works.

What percentage of construction workers in Southern California are illegal immigrants? Recent Legal immigrants or beneficiaries of amnesties? Would such mansion be being built if we never had the immigration expansion of the 60’s? What might be being built instead?

These are questions that just aren’t being asked anywhere except a few places like VDARE.com

Sadly, in recent years virtually all construction has been focused on the needs of the wealthy. We’ve actually see shanty towns emerging in Southern California.  I would suggest that the children of to former middle class growing up in such conditions may not be terribly favorably disposed towards the spoiled uber-rich who ultimately depend on mercenaries to defend themselves.

I wrote in VDARE.com about Mexico’s culturally accepted animal cruelty in 2004 — They Kill Horses, Don’t They? (Mexicans, That Is.) — so it’s nice to see the New York Times get around to the topic, albeit in a watered-down fashion. Today’s focus in on the culture clash created by Mexican rodeos, charreada in Spanish: Rough Events at Mexican Rodeos in U.S. Criticized.

But now the charreada, which is strictly amateur, is facing its biggest challenge. After criticism from animal rights and anti-rodeo activists, eight states over the last decade have cracked down on several events, most notably horse tripping, a centuries-old tradition that involves roping and snaring the front legs of a running mare and that can cause serious injury. As a result, no charros in the federation practice horse tripping.

In a law that takes effect next month, Nebraska is also banning steer tailing, in which a charro grabs a steer’s tail, wraps it beneath his stirrup and flips the animal to the ground. The legislation grew out of abuses uncovered by the Omaha Humane Society at an unsanctioned arena, in which some horses had rope burns and torn tendons and were severely emaciated.

For those who spend their weekends on the dusty rails, these new laws seem to be singling out their culture unfairly. They argue that other sports involving potential injury to animals, like dressage, polo and thoroughbred racing, continue relatively uninterrupted, despite the recent high-profile deaths of the thoroughbreds Eight Belles and Barbaro.

“I sometimes feel like we’re the witches in Massachusetts,” said Mr. Franco, whose federation sets the rules and regulations for the charreadas.

If Mexicans residing in the United States knew anything about American culture, they would understand that we strongly disapprove of animal cruelty, period. But to many Mexicans, expressing even the sicko parts of their culture is paramount.

One thing I’ve noticed in New York Times stories which include diversity is that the good stuff is sometimes tucked away in the multimedia section. This article is no exception: the audio slideshow reveals more of the cruelty and desire to implant Mexican culture in America than is shown in the text. Marcos Franco, a booster and participant of charreada, noted, “When we were really in our heydays out there, they felt that they were in Mexico, even though they were in the States. They used to call it the reconcito Mexicano, the little corner of Mexico… That’s what’s beautiful about this country.”

Regarding horse tripping (shown below) which has long been opposed by Americans as tremendously cruel, Franco insisted that if the horse is roped by only the front two feet, no injury occurs. Ri-i-i-ight. But even he admitted there are unsanctioned charreada events that offend him: “They have these free-for-alls that, my god, I am 100% against. Because of their misconduct, we pay the price.”

According to the audio slideshow, Jose Duran is building a “state-of-the-art lienzo” (Mexican rodeo ring) with his family in Patterson, California. “What we hope is this place will be a place where we’ll teach our new generation our culture. This is my son Gabriel and Amelio, and hopefully they’ll take this thing over and learn what it means and help me make this work. When they dress with a charro suit, with a charro outfit, they can feel that their body is being covered by the Mexican flag.”

So the next time you see a Mexican dressed in traditional charro regalia, you’ll have an idea of its cultural meaning!

A commenter here once pointed out that to be a successful journalist, it helps to be very curious but not very smart. From the Wall Street Journal:

The Great Women of China

By MEI FONG and LORETTA CHAO

BEIJING — Here is China’s secret formula for topping the Olympic medal tally: two X chromosomes.

WSJ’s Mei Fong reports that Chinese women athletes consistently outperform their male counterparts. She explores the reasons why.

In China, it’s the women who have traditionally racked up the medals. At the 2000 Games in Sydney, the Chinese women won five more gold medals than the men. In Athens in 2004, the women won 19 gold medals, while the men won 12. By comparison, American women accounted for 12 of the nation’s 35 gold medals in 2004.

Although many Chinese athletes have yet to qualify for their 2008 Olympic berths, women are widely expected to outdo the men again this summer. Wrestling coach Zhang Zhetian says the country’s best odds for a wrestling medal lie with the women’s team. His reasoning? Women work harder. “Guys — you’ve got to push them more,” he says.

“Women know how to eat bitterness,” says tennis coach Sun Jinfang. (The saying “chi ku,” or “eat bitterness,” in China denotes a willingness to suffer and endure back-breaking work.) Ms. Sun has helped usher four doubles players into the Women’s Tennis Association’s top 30; no male Chinese tennis players are world-ranked.

The disparity is apparent at Beijing’s Xiannongtan Sports School, where boys and girls train separately under bright red banners with messages like, “Grow in Painful Struggle and Develop in Spurts.”

In the women’s ping pong hall, the tables are newer and slightly fancier than in the men’s section, splashed with logos of sponsors such as Japanese company Mizuno Corp. There are no visible logos on the men’s side. Xiannongtan’s director Hu Xiaobing said the female ping pong players attract more money and sponsors.

Academics say China has long held a historical reverence for strong women …

Yes, that’s why all the Chinese actresses in Wong Kar-Wai movies like “In the Mood for Love” wear such loose-fitting skirts: to provide room for their Michelangeloesque thigh muscles.

There’s a much simpler explanation: Communist countries, such as East Germany, the Soviet Union, and now China, usually do proportionally better in women’s events. (Cuba, under the macho Castro’s rule, might be an exception to this pattern.) Why? Because it’s easier to win women’s events, so governments that judge themselves by their Olympic medals totals put disproportionate emphasis on women’s events.

If you want to win a medal in a men’s event, you’ve got to beat a whole bunch of men from around the world who really like the idea of being the World’s Greatest Whatever at some stupid competition. If, on the other hand, you want to win a medal in some women’s event, other than sexy dance-like events such as figure skating or rhythmic gymnastics, you mostly only have to beat women from societies who push women into those events.

In particular, you can get more bang from your buck with doping female athletes with artificial male hormones, since men have so much of the natural kind.

If there is a more evil institution in America than the ACLU, I don’t know what it might be. The “American Civil Liberties Union” portrays itself as defending free speech, but mostly what it does is defend terrorists from justice and work for open borders. The far-left group hinders common-sense law enforcement and supports people like the jihadis jailed at Gitmo. The ACLU protects the national pedophile organization NAMBLA (whose stated interest it is to molest children, a crime).

NEW YORK (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union announced by far the largest fundraising campaign in its 88-year history Monday, eying a dramatic expansion of its work on social justice issues in relatively conservative states such as Texas and Florida.

The campaign’s goal is $335 million, with $258 million already raised through behind-the-scenes solicitations over the past year, ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said.

Major donors include billionaire financier George Soros, who gave $12 million through his Open Society Institute.

“The purpose is to build a civil liberties infrastructure in the middle of the country — where battleground states are often under-resourced and our efforts are most needed,” Romero said.

He cited issues such as immigrants’ rights, gay rights, police brutality and opposition to the death penalty as causes that would be pursued vigorously as the ACLU expanded in heartland states. At present, the ACLU’s biggest offices are in the Northeast, the Pacific states and Illinois; targets for expansion include Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico and Tennessee, with even the smallest ACLU affiliates in line to get extra funding to hire new attorneys and launch new advocacy programs. [ACLU unveils big expansion plans for US heartland 6/11/08]

Just how rotten is the ACLU? As usual, the IBD pulls no punches. ACLU: Cops = Terrorists.

Immigration has long been an issue used by the ACLU to keep the police from doing their job. When President Reagan during his first year in office proposed penalizing employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, the ACLU called it “an invitation to conduct dragnet searches of places frequented by foreigners or those who look foreign.”

Today, the ACLU’s Lin says that when local police duly follow the precepts of federal law by acting as immigration agents — even though they’re trained and supervised by the immigration division of the Department of Homeland Security — it is “not the appropriate constitutional use of state and local power.”

If local policy can’t help fight illegal immigration, it’s a lost cause. But perhaps that’s what the ACLU wants.