In the meantime, another project–one which would serve a vastly greater number of (ostensibly less well-connected) city commuters seems to be languishing: the Second Avenue subway. It too costs many billions of dollars, but at least it serves a real purpose–to relieve the severely overcrowded Lexington Avenue line–and extends from 125th Street all the way down to the Wall Street area. Oh, and it’s been on the drawing board for eighty years. Which means that the next time you’re packed like a sardine on the 4/5 and it’s bumper-to-bumper traffic, you can console yourself with the fact that it was never meant to be this way.

Well, the good news is that this stupid line is about to run out of money due to the MTA’s perennial money shortage. At seven billion dollars to tunnel one mile, it’s easy to see why there’s no money. One can hope that in the meantime somebody else will come into power–someone not beholden to suburban commuter demands–and put a stop to this nonsense before it sucks in any more of our tax dollars.

Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement entered the Agriprocessors Inc. complex in northeast Iowa Monday morning to execute a criminal search warrant for evidence relating to aggravated identity theft, fraudulent use of Social Security numbers and other crimes, said Tim Counts, a Midwest ICE spokesman.

Agents are also executing a civil search warrant for people illegally in the United States, he said.

Anyone who’s been following the immigration issue in America during the last few years knows that one of the two paragraphs above is true, and the other is horseshit. The answer is below the fold.

A moment’s thought should give the answer. The ridiculously-named “ICE” is in the business of rounding up illegal aliens, not going after identity theft and “other crimes” against which all levels of government already have a bountiful supply of law-enforcement agencies and alphabet soup from which to choose.

No, what happened is the county sheriff got fed up with all the townsfolk complaining about the Hispanics in town (they’ve got enough trouble already dealing with all the Jews…), called up one of his buddies in whatever the capital of Iowa is, who called one of his buddies in Washington, who pulled some strings and got the migra to make take a little trip to northeast Iowa. There is no evidence of identity theft, no evidence of fraudulent use of Social Security numbers. Unless by “evidence”, they are referring to the presence of large numbers of Spanish-speaking people, among which one can reasonably guess there might be some illegals. However, a guess is not evidence. But in today’s climate of rounding up the foreigners who do our shit jobs for us at low wages, and sending ‘em back where they came from, so that you and I can pay higher food prices and enjoy a Spanish-free environment, a “guess” is good enough.

Mr. Murdoch said Wednesday that the company was taking separate steps to stem losses at The Post. He said the paper would raise its cover price within the next two weeks to 50 cents, from a quarter.

Some of us haven’t forgotten that the Post dropped its price to a quarter several years ago in an attempt to… turn a profit. I guess that hasn’t worked out. No mention of Mr. Murdoch having any interest in, I don’t know, improving the paper’s dreadful content, which combines the lowest of low-brow trash journalism unworthy of the weekly gossip and alien-abduction rags with the hard-right pro-war conservative editorial content Mr. Murdoch is known for. My guess is Mr. Murdoch isn’t actually concerned about turning a profit at his vanity press – otherwise it would have folded years ago.

Around March each year, North Korea typically asks the South to provide it with about 300,000 tons of fertilizer for its spring planting and 500,000 tons of rice to help overcome its chronic “choongoong,” or spring hunger.

“Spring hunger” must be Commie-speak for “our thoroughly discredited ideology seems to be causing another famine, please feed us”.

North Korea’s “leadership” is in fact so evil, that even China comes out smelling like a rose when it offers aid to the chronically undernourished population. China’s aid typically goes to regimes as evil as its own, such as the one currently practicing genocide in Sudan, presumably on the enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend theory, in which the enemy in question is of course the United States. North Korea and China are naturally ideological pals too, but even the odious “Dear Leader” or whatever the fuck he’s calling himself these days knows there’s a limit to how many of his “subjects” he can allow to die in order to prop up his personal supply of hookers and cigars. Based on what we saw in the 1990’s, that limit appears to be at least 10%. It’s possible even the revered Mao himself didn’t reach such a dizzying percentage of deaths on his hands*.

Now it seems the Dear Leader wants to gamble the lives of his people on yet another pissing match with the South (and by extension, the United States). How many millions will die this time?

*In sheer numbers, Mao is generally regarded as the all-time leader in deaths caused by famines, purges, etc. The figures I’ve seen range from 20 to 60 million. With a population of roughly half a billion in the mid-twentieth century, we’re looking at around 10% for that bastard too. Could be more or less, as the numbers are very rough. Still vying with Stalin for evilest human ever, I think. The Kim klan never seems to make such lists, I think, only because the raw number of corpses is smaller.

China’s long-term strategy, which the violence may have only reinforced, has been to wait for the Dalai Lama to die on the theory that it can control his successor as Tibet’s spiritual leader. A new Dalai Lama would likely have little of the same prestige, inside China or abroad.

In 1995, China arrested the Panchen Lama, the No. 2 in Tibetan Buddhism, a 6-year-old at the time. He has not been seen since. China then anointed another Tibetan youth as a replacement, and it has tightly controlled his education and public duties since. Under Tibetan Buddhism, traditionally the Panchen Lama names a new Dalai Lama, theoretically giving the Chinese government control over the present Dalai Lama’s succession.

Countries around the world have been grabbing adjacent territory throughout history, eliminating or “assimilating” the existing populations in the process–my own included. However, in the early 21st century, no country that expects to be taken seriously on the world stage ought to believe that it can get away with such barbarity. A government that “disappears” a six-year-old child in hopes of controlling its conquered territory has no legitimacy whatsoever.

China’s “leaders” are stuck between a rock and a hard place: they must refrain from using their typical brutality meant to maintain “stability” at all costs for fear it will get out to the rest of the world and cast a shadow over their precious Games, which they are hyping for all it’s worth as China’s entry onto the “world stage”. On the other hand, China’s unfortunate citizens might see the unusual “restraint” as an excuse to not shut up and keep protesting. And indeed, the unrest seems to be spreading beyond Tibet itself.

Meanwhile, it’s down to Nancy Pelosi of all people to give America’s strongest public response to the thuggery on display in China. Good for her. One almost gets the impression that she’s one of America’s few leading politicians who seems to understand that the notion that anything that comes out of the Chinese government’s mouth can be trusted is laughable. America’s current president and the presidential hopefuls are too busy falling over themselves kowtowing to China and its vast market to give any meaningful response.

The White House said Thursday the crackdown is not cause for President Bush to cancel his attendance at the Olympics. But it requested access to the region to see how Chinese police were dealing with detained protesters.

Yes, I’m sure the president’s crack investigative skills will get to the bottom of the matter with cheerful assistance from the Chinese government authorities who are sure to allow him every opportunity to witness for himself China’s benevolence toward its citizens. Or something. There will be smiles and handshakes all around, the Olympics will go on as scheduled, and that order for 10,000 crates of salad shooters at $3.99 apiece will help put more money in American housekeepers’ pockets by saving them from having to buy from unproductive, lazy American manufacturers.

America’s most common-sense writer on China today remains John Derbyshire, an old-style paleoconservative with whom I disagree on many topics but whose writings on China are spot-on. Here for example, there is some perspective on recent Tibetan history that China’s government would just as soon brush under the rug. In short, China invaded Tibet, a land with a language and culture of its own, and its leader (the Dalai Lama) has been in exile ever since. The Communists would have us believe that Tibet is just another happy piece of China’s great tapestry, which means that the opposite is probably true. Tibetans and other minorities, some conquered, some living in the Motherland for centuries, are granted special protections in the Chinese constitution, which again has little bearing on reality. Numerous arguments are trotted out in support of China’s sovereignty over them.

The response of an actual Tibetan to all this bluster is simple and straightforward. He will just say, with some passion: “But we are not Chinese!”

Unfortunately, Derbyshire uses Tibet’s very real cultural difference with the Han Chinese majority to go off on another one of his patented tribalist tangents, carrying on his long-time argument that American whites and blacks just don’t mix. This time it has the ugly sheen of “white man’s burden” written all over it. Nevertheless, there’s some interesting stuff in the argument, which shows that even if he’s wrong at least he’s thinking, which most Americans can’t be bothered with. His China writings remain some of the best I’ve read.

State legislators passed a law Saturday that would require adults who French kiss a child younger than 13 to register as a sex offender.

This is what happens when “tough on crime” meets “think of the children”. Yet there was one lone dissenter–he must hate children…. Oh, he thinks the law isn’t tough enough. Well, expect an explosion in the number of false French-kissing accusations–and in the number of adults who cross the street at the sight of a child.

The government was concerned that the images, which included views of the entrances to military bases, were a threat. Gen. Gene Renuart, head of the military command responsible for homeland defense, said, “It actually shows where all the guards are. It shows how the barriers go up and down. It shows how to get in and out of buildings. I think that poses a real security risk for our military installations.”

What’s the big scare? Russian spy satellites? Al Qaeda operatives? Nope. It’s snaps that can be taken by any bloke walking down the street, but only when Google does it. As was shown when NYC recently tried to ban photography in the subways, the lowly camera has proven to be one of the government’s most feared “weapons”.

“… we have accommodated their requests.”

Yeah, no shit. That’s the proper response to one of the few entities that the Google juggernaut can’t stare down. But how laughable is it when the world’s mightiest army is afraid of some guy driving down the street snapping pics?