Begin With Remembrance

With apologies for the lateness of the post, I offer a moment of silent remberance and honor to the soldiers, and their families, who died in the Beirut Embassy bombing on October 23, 1983. You can find the roster at Castle Argghhh. Along with the Castle denizons, we Dance In Memoriam.

In other news, there were really only two things that caught my attention. The first involves a major election issue: illegal immigration. The Dallas Morning News had this to report about Mexican Drug Cartel Tactics and the Zetas. The SF Chronicle says it's a turf war for control of smuggling routes into the US, among other things. These and several articles I found either say outright, or at the very least strongly imply, that the cartels are picking up Islamist insurgent/terrorist tactics. Given that Hugo Chavez is letting Hezbollah set up shop in Venezuela, I guess that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Given the scope of illegal immigration, and the probable ramifications of it, why do so many people think it isn't a serious problem? I do not understand them. For voters in California, it's been illegal to require voter ID for years. But, in 2000, Clinton and the Democratic Party were even reported to have sent out an unofficial voter id card--especially by Latinos! Recently, the state tried to put some voter registration requirements in place, and the Federal Courts knocked it down. (...admittedly, there were issues and problems...but they could have been worked out, I'm sure...) I even understand some of this type of no-ID voter legislation is begin touted for other states by the Democrats. All that begs a question: what stops illegal immigrants and non-citizens from voting and possibly "throwing" the elections? I've wondered about the stability of some folks that say the Dems are trying to fix it so they always win--by not being able to verify anything about the vote except the ballot. (...I love the the story lines of conspiracy theories. I don't believe most of them. But, they make a great story!...) But, laws like this...well...

And then there was this unsettling report on airport security in Europe. Check out this report from The Copenhagen Post. And the worst part?

Police acknowledged that the woman should have been checked more thoroughly, but said the incident will not lead to any procedural changes for airport security.

(...Well, I certainly feel safer. Don’t you? Maybe I’m just being over pessimistic, but can anyone say…Lockerbie?...)