I went to my favorite cornerstore to get some water and bumped into my favorite sandwich-shop operator, a friendly but serious man from North Africa. He recently returned from a visit to his old country and naturally our conversation quickly headed in that direction.

“Food is cheap in America,” he exclaimed. In [that old country], it’s expensive. Two liters of Coke costs $2, and people only only make $300 or $400 a month. The economy there is in crisis. It is like…you know, 1929, really bad!”

“Like the Depression?”

“Yes, like that, food is really expensive and people don’t have much money. The economy is sick. It’s sick!”

He continued: “I had planned, work three years from now, three years from here, then go back and start something, but being there, I am depressed, I can’t go back. There is nothing there.”

I asked why he thinks the economy is so bad there. One by one his explanations came out: Lack of education, too many children. The government.

“Is there a lot of corruption there?”

He frowned. “Everything. Everywhere.”

I suppose many immigrants come here hoping to build up a small fortune - by old country standards - and then go back. I imagine it must be really tough to actually do it, to go back to the place you come from and immediately run smack into all those things that made leave to begin with: The backwardness. The corruption. The bureaucrats and connected people who lord it over the less fortunate. Taken altogether: The hopelessness.

Personally, I have no interest in going back, and my Old Country isn’t even that bad. This Republic is a wonderful creation, a miracle almost.

I can’t give enough thanks to all those who have served America to keep it free, and who have brought freedom to so much of the rest of world while doing it.

God bless you.

Thank you.

Cue the violin, Eric Cartman, because the real estate developers in Massachuetts are hurting.

The Boston’ Globe’s solid biz columnist Charles Stein writes about how Peter Francese, some industry mouthpiece, bemoans the lack of what he calls “affordable housing” - although he doesn’t seem to be talking about the tax-subsidized absurities pushed by socialist lobbies like Vida Urbana - and how it hurts the Commonwealth:

Writes Stein:

Specifically, [Francese] doesn’t see enough young people in our future — especially young adults with children. We drive them away, said Francese, with our high housing prices, which are high, in part, because we refuse to build affordable housing suitable for young families. ”Our wounds are self-inflicted,” he said.

A few relevant facts. With a median age of 38 — the US average is 36 — New England is the nation’s oldest region. Maine, median age 40.6, is the oldest state in the country. Over the next 10 years, according to Census Bureau projections, the number of people between the ages of 35 and 44 in the three southern New England states will fall 18 percent, compared to a 6 percent decline in the nation as a whole.

Young families leave New England for a variety of reasons. The weather isn’t great and the past two recessions have been brutal. But housing prices are a factor. A.D. Makepeace, a developer based in Wareham, recently conducted a poll that asked people in Massachusetts how difficult they thought it was for young families to buy a house. More than 40 percent answered ”very difficult;” another 27 percent said ”nearly impossible.”

Get this simple fact, people: The median age for whites is higher than the median age for any non-white group. Since New England is whiter than the rest of the Republic, it is quite logical that our median age is higher than the U.S. at large. Whites are older because they have fewer children than non-whites, and also because they have children later in life.

Stein continues:

Francese blames lack of new housing construction on towns that don’t want a lot of new families and the increased density and burdens on public services they bring with them.

Francese saw the story play out recently in his own backyard. A developer in Newfields, N.H., (population 1,650) proposed putting up 89 homes on a 340-acre parcel of land. Alarmed, the town raised $7.5 million, a blend of town money and government funds, to buy the land from the developer and preserve it as open space. The town was delighted with the outcome. Francese had a different reaction. ”It’s nuts,” he said. ”Outside of New England this never would happen.”

Let me tell you why young families leave Massachusetts: Yes, it does have something to do with housing prices, but not in the way Francese thinks or cares about. No, white families look at the cost of buying a decent house in a town with “good” schools and they realize they can get a bigger house for less money in a town with “good” schools in another state.

If you look at the Census numbers for 1990 - 2000, you’ll see that Massachusetts’ dominant population group increased in size in the very towns Francese derides, while it decreased in the cities and what we might call certain other areas.

The desire of small towns to preserve a small-town atmosphere is hardly the problem here.

Stein is appropriately skeptic to Francese’s claim:

Are these folks painting too bleak a picture? My hunch is they are. New England has long been expensive, slow-growing, and not terribly welcoming to newcomers. But it is also rich. Connecticut has the highest per capita income in the nation. Massachusetts last year passed New Jersey to move into second place. The region has a critical mass of knowledge industries — technology, healthcare, education — that pay above-average salaries. It is a formula that has allowed New England to prosper, despite its many handicaps.

They know the sweet smell of victory in France tonight, after French voters with overwhelming majority (55%-45%) rejected the proposed supernational constitution for Europe. As Yoda might put it: The nation state is dead not yet.

And all you Eurocrat scum, I’ve got to words for you:

Eat it!

Your jobs are next. Your reign of miserable failure and spectacular corruption will be brought to an end, through the ballot boxes you always try to hide from, you tyrannical, useless, soul killing, life-draining garbage.

UPDATE: This is what the Eurocrats have to say for themselves: A ridiculous spoof of an old Monty Python skit. I fart in you general direction, morons.

It seems as if the French are going to do something really smart and reject the grotesque proposed so-called European so-called consitution, which in fact is flagrant attempt to destroy the nation-states that made Europe the most powerful continent in the world.

There is absolutely nothing right about the European Union even in its present state, and the proposed constitution would make things even worse. The Union is, by design, a repulsive scheme that enriches a bureaucratic elite by sucking the member states dry.

I hope the French nix the constitution, and I also hope Europeans in general follow through by dismantling the Union and replacing it with a far less ambitious but way more productive customs union.

I’ve only skimmed through parts of the report on how Emerson student Victoria Snelgrove was killed the night Boston Red Sox won the ALCS against New York Yankees, but it does seem to confirm that the police officer I photographed loading a pepper ball gun was also the one who later, accidentally, killed Ms. Snelgrove.

Pictures and account here.

From what my quick read of the report can tell, a significant part of the problem was that police thought Lansdowne Street would be the easiest one to control, while it actually is pretty much a nightmare for everybody involved when it’s crowded. That’s not 20/20 hindsight, but an insight that led me to stand right next to the officers as they readied their guns.

UPDATE: There are some oddities in the report. First off, it’s just a huge scan of the report that’s been turned into a pdf file. Nice work, clowns. Second, a journalist with a few minutes to spare should ask about which police officers blocked off entrance from Kenmore Square to Brookline Avenue and when. The officers certainly weren’t doing immediately after the game. Third, I’m yet to find the report elaborate on the statement I alluded to above, that the police had decided to “give” Lansdowne Street to the crowd.

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. A record store on fire off the Beacon Street/Commonwealth Avenue.

Ok, two Blade Runner references in less than a week is just lazy (especially since they both allude to the same darn quote). Slapstickish pop-cultural references aside, Kenmore Square just can’t get out of its rut of unfulfilled promise. Like now, with the hotel finally complete and cool lonuges and bistros moving in, the Square has been turned into a bottleneck because of the otherwise much welcomed razing of the Kenmore Square bus-stop shack. Eastbound Mass. Ave. is now down to two lanes, which not only means constant backups, but also that Hotel Commonwealth’s valet and door staff has practically no lane at all to work with.

The temporary bus stop on the north side of the Square creates a similar traffic snarl as buses, trucks, and cars more or less inevitably block each otheras they try to squeeze into the reduced number of lanes. Or has the number of lanes been reduced? The confusing lane paint job isn’t particularly helpful: Are there two lanes for Beacon Street and one for Brookline Avenue, or is there just one lane for Beacon Street, or one plus one shared with the Brookline Avenue traffic? I’m not sure.

But this, too, shall come to an end, and out of the mess will rise a Kenmore Square better than it ever has been. Silber’s vision will soon become reality and we’ll all be better for it.

A police officer shot and killed by an illegal alien in Denver, Colorado. A woman raped and killed by an illegal alien in Rockland, New York. A girl raped and almost killed by an illegal alien in Lake Worth, Florida.

If you’re looking to hire cheap labor to do menial work, you should look into the Rockland case in particular. The alleged killer there was hired by the victim - through a contractor - to paint her house. You see, when you glorify, organize and finance lawlessness by hiring illegal aliens, you don’t become immune to that lawlessness. So pay the extra dollars and hire legal workers, be they natives or immigrants.

The reviews for the movie Crash are all over the place, though most of them are at the high end. I think it was a good, entertaining movie with really good acting, pacing, and soundtrack, but the story relied on a long series of monumental twists of fate, a story-telling device I find quite silly. For whatever reason, the movie basically gave Mexicans a free pass, which is bizarre considering that Los Angeles - the city where Crash takes place - is rapidly becoming a Mexican city. Perhaps the director, Paul Haggis, didn’t want to piss off his maid?

Perhaps Crash should be seen as a “Los Angeles According to Wealthy White Liberals” statement, with the city teeming with thuggish blacks, racist whites, hard working Mexicans, and put upon Other Than Mexican immigrants? Or perhaps one should see it as a prequel to Blade Runner? That works.

Det råder knappast någon tvekan om att boken “En av grabbarna” av “Johan Höglund”/Seven Sisters (som författaren tydligen kallar sig i vissa sammanhang) kommer att gå som smör i solsken. En massa folk finner, föga förvånande, fotbollsligisternas sammanstötningar underhållande. För någon vecka sedan länkade jag till en videofilm som visar ett gammalt slagsmål mellan två av Stockholms ligor för yngre hårdföra fotbollsanhängare och den blänkaren har blixtsnabb blivit den i särklass populäraste på den här siten.

I’m always impressed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s ability to make a big deal out of finding handfuls of illegal aliens. This time around ICE has rounded up 60 illegal aliens employed at “several critical infrastructure locations.” Big round of applause for ICE! Dudes, you could round up 60 illegals by stopping a bus or two in Eastie or Framingham.

It’s interesting how ICE’s position on who should be rounded up shifts back and forth. When the police in New Ipswich in New Hampshire arrested an illegal alien from Mexico for trespassing the Icemen couldn’t have cared less. Writes Yvonnes Abraham in the Boston Globe:

A spokesman, Manny Van Pelt, said that immigration officers would normally detain an undocumented noncitizen who had committed a crime or had been previously deported, but only after they had determined that he was in the country illegally. A local police chief in New Hampshire, he said, was not authorized to make that decision.

So are the 60 illegal aliens mentioned above going to be deported or not? If not, why the heck is the agency beating its chest? If they are going to be deported, why not the illegal alien in New Ipswich in the deal?