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2006-12-22 -Short Attention Span Theater-

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Posted by .com 2006-12-22 02:15|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Note from this article that 31,662 are immigrants. Now, we presumably know how many of those were legal, so we have an exact count of illegals. Pity they can't count and remove them at the border.

Posted by Jackal">Jackal 2006-12-22 09:25|| http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]">[http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2006-12-22 09:25|| Front Page Top

#2 Settlers from California and Mexico in pursuit of a better life.

Posted by RWV 2006-12-22 09:42|| 2006-12-22 09:42|| Front Page Top

#3 And soon to be from KY as well. Guess I need to learn Spanish.

Posted by 49 Pan">49 Pan 2006-12-22 09:52|| 2006-12-22 09:52|| Front Page Top

#4 So how long will it be before California and Arizona go to war over water?

Posted by mrp 2006-12-22 09:55|| 2006-12-22 09:55|| Front Page Top

#5 En el futuro: Mexico del norte?

Posted by borgboy 2006-12-22 11:40|| 2006-12-22 11:40|| Front Page Top

#6 The Denver Post has a great article on the drawbacks of rapid growth in Phoenix
--Having grown by nearly 500,000 people since 1990 to become America's fifth-largest city, Phoenix is strapped with a crime rate that, according to FBI statistics, now tops that of New York, Los Angeles or Baltimore.
Phoenix "has grown too much too fast with no proper planning," said [Mr. Pete] Biddle, a former commercial pilot, furious at the decline of [his] once-quiet neighborhood.
-- in a recent poll by ASU's Morrison Institute for Public Policy, 40 percent of residents said they would leave Phoenix tomorrow if they could.
-- anonymity has lured gangs into to some of the areas most expensive suburbs and turned mission-style McMansions into drug warehouses.

"We're like Costco of the drug world," said Chris Zamora, a narcotics detective in Gilbert, a tony Phoenix suburb and itself the fourth fastest-growing city in America.

"People come here to buy in bulk. They get a cheaper price and send it back East and double their profit,"
-- In 2003, Phoenix police blamed a 45 percent rise in homicides and a 41 percent rise in home invasions almost entirely on [illegal immigrant] smuggling.

The effects of the human trafficking have rippled throughout the city.
-- [back to poor Mr. Biddle] most longtime residents have fled. Crack seems to be everywhere, and graffiti covers signs and walls. Biddle said random gunshots are so common he rarely notices anymore.

He'd leave as well, Biddle said, but spiraling house prices in the rest of the valley and flat property values here make it impossible. He and his wife, who is disabled, feel besieged.

"When you're trapped in your own house, it's a frightening experience," Biddle said. "What's happened to this neighborhood, it's just a shame."

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2006-12-22 15:49|| 2006-12-22 15:49|| Front Page Top

#7 Meanwhile, the state of Michigan is being evacuated. Unemployment is the worst in the US, crime is rising in the larger communities, and it has re-elected its Democratic government to another term after a non-performance in the prior term. This population estimate was made July 1 before tens of thousands of workers in Michigan's auto and associated industries were bought out or otherwise terminated. The value of home ownership is going down also.

Eva Schrieber, a native of Austria, has found a good job in automotive sales in Vienna and is returning there soon. But she hopes to sell the two homes she owns in Oakland County [Michigan].
Three years ago, she had an offer $20,000 above what she wanted for her Bloomfield Township home. Thinking it was a good investment, she declined the offer. Now, she has no takers, and her house is worth well below what she owes on it. She blames it on the layoffs that have taken so many people out of the housing market.

"Today there is no demand," she lamented. "So the price could be zero."

One local newspaper columnist has this to say:

T he guv, in her inimitable "What, me decide?" way, says Michigan needs to choose between higher taxes and fewer services.

But didn't a whopping majority just re-elect her so she could lead the Big Mitten out of its self-imposed morass? Doesn't more than a delusional clique of the electorate want a CEO who proffers solutions and then delivers them instead of saying, in effect, tell me what to do so I won't be unpopular?

Too late for that...This would be humorous if it wasn't so sickening because of what it says about leadership in Lansing and what it says about us to outsiders and investors. Just as Detroit's automakers spent the last 30 years acting as if the laws of economics didn't apply to them, so, evidently, has [the state capitol] Lansing. And it still is.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2006-12-22 16:03|| 2006-12-22 16:03|| Front Page Top

#8 Just watch out for madmen with staple guns.

Posted by Eric Jablow">Eric Jablow 2006-12-22 16:21|| 2006-12-22 16:21|| Front Page Top

#9 Bah. Southern cities have always had higher crime rates (property, at least). After all, burglary is a "job" that can be done just as easily anywhere, so why not pick a place where you don't freeze?

AH9418: it sounds like the problem is more illegals and smuggling than growth per se. Though, as a city grows, it does seem to get more liberal, which of course causes many problems.

Posted by Jackal">Jackal 2006-12-22 20:42|| http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]">[http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2006-12-22 20:42|| Front Page Top

#10 There's just too damn many people there. I still find it ironic that my dad came there because of his asthma.....and I now know a lot of people who have experienced an improvement in their respiratory health once they moved away from there.

I still wish I was back, though.

Posted by Swamp Blondie 2006-12-22 21:14|| http://azjetsetchick.blogspot.com]">[ http://azjetsetchick.blogspot.com] 2006-12-22 21:14|| Front Page Top

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