...previously brought to you by the hopeless doofus Bush II, now brought to you by the God-King Obama:
PBUH.
U.S. begins beefing up Canadian border security:
"High above the rugged border, an unmanned Predator B drone equipped with night-vision cameras and cloud-piercing radar scanned the landscape for signs of smugglers, illegal immigrants or terrorists.
"Armed agents checked the identification of border crossers while radiation sensors and other devices monitored vehicles entering by road. Soon, a new network of telescopic and infrared video cameras mounted atop 80-foot-tall metal towers will rise above critical locations.
"The beefed-up border security is not taking place along America's chaotic southern border - riven by drug smuggling, gun running and illegal immigration - but, rather, its traditionally boring northern boundary with Canada...
"Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano made the get-tough policy clear in recent comments...
"'One of the things that we need to be sensitive to is the very real feeling among southern border states and in Mexico that if things are being done on the Mexican border, they should also be done on the Canadian border...Since they share 'one continent,' as well as the North American Free Trade Agreement to promote trade and investment, the secretary said, 'there should be some parity there.'"
* * * * *
Well. As my smarter older brother, who designs video games for Sony, might put it:
Jeezus H. Christ. How stupid can these people be?
Comments (29)
hat-tip to AP for the photo, by the way.
Posted by steve burton | May 9, 2009 8:46 PM
Steve,
If I were to create a parody of what a liberal politician might say to you were you to suggest that we need to treat the Mexican border differently than the Canadian border, I might, repeat might, have come up with that priceless quote from Napolitano. But sometimes reality is really better than fiction.
Posted by Jeff Singer | May 9, 2009 8:52 PM
I wish I could think of something really funny to say. What is she "getting tough" on? Moose? This is beyond parody, as Jeff says.
Oh, remember: This is the woman who brought you "man-caused disasters" as a replacement for "terrorist attacks."
Posted by Lydia | May 9, 2009 8:54 PM
In fairness, it has to be admitted that this sort of nonsense is nothing new.
My elderly mother is fond of travelling, and I have accompanied her on recent trips to Turkey and Russia. More than once, now, I have seen her conducted into private booths to be patted-down & body-searched - while I, a thoroughly disreputable looking character if ever there was one, got off scot free.
And that was under the Bush administration!
It's crazy. It's just crazy.
Posted by steve burton | May 9, 2009 9:18 PM
Jeff - it would be one thing if Ms. Napolitano were heading up the Dept. of Education, or something equally trivial.
But she's heading up the freaking dept. of Homeland Security!
Eh.
Posted by steve burton | May 9, 2009 9:36 PM
That was, though, relatively inexpensive craziness compared to the price of heavily beefed-up security along the Canadian border sheerly in the name of "security affirmative action," aka "parity."
Posted by Lydia | May 9, 2009 9:36 PM
(What a co-inky-dink, Steve. *I* design video games for Sony! I don't work directly for Sony, but for a studio called Idol Minds. What studio does your brother work at?)
Posted by Chris Floyd | May 9, 2009 10:43 PM
Chris - *blush* - I don't know how to answer that question! But the big bro' is visiting next week, so I'll ask him.
All I know is, he's based in San Diego & he's been working on Sony's Playstation (?) Baseball game since what seems like forever - one version after another.
Posted by steve burton | May 9, 2009 11:45 PM
Moose?
That's Antlered Americans, Lydia.
Posted by Todd | May 9, 2009 11:53 PM
And this from the adminstration that pledged to cut $100 million dollars of federal expenditure (drop in the ocean), perhaps Steve,Lydia or prof 'fayzer' could give the ombama administration a gentle course in reality before the mad mullahs of Iran decide to make the lesson a painfull one.
Posted by John | May 10, 2009 12:03 AM
This is how antidiscrimination leads to tyranny. Since we must discriminate against some, and discriminating against some without discriminating against everyone is offensive, we have to apply every restrictive rule, every invasion of privacy, every pat down, to every person everywhere. This is just the beginning.
Posted by Zippy | May 10, 2009 12:19 AM
Absolutely right, Zippy.
But Todd, what if the moose come from Canada? Are they Inuit Antlered North Americans, then?
Posted by Lydia | May 10, 2009 8:42 AM
Migrant Inuit Antlered North American Workers.
Posted by Todd | May 10, 2009 9:56 AM
Tell your older brother what the second Commandment is.
Posted by g | May 10, 2009 12:18 PM
Ah! "Ice-backs" *snicker*
Posted by Ilíon | May 10, 2009 2:30 PM
It's likely there are more Muslim radicals in Canada than in Mexico.
But to acknowledge that would violate the hyper-principle of non-discrimination.
Posted by Kevin J Jones | May 10, 2009 5:10 PM
Speaking of crazy days, I just thought of a couple of antinomies for liberalism:
(1.a) The liberal says "dissent is patriotic". By that he means that it is patriotic to criticize American war-making.
(1.b) The liberal says that the USA has a tradition of open borders. Therefore, he who wants to restrict immigration is, in a certain sense, "un-American."
(2.a) Many liberal professors swooned with disbelief when Ari Fleischer said that Americans should watch what they say in times of war.
(2.b) Many liberal professors are extremely concerned with everyone's language--you have to make sure you don't offend anyone with racist/sexist/homophobic language, even if that is only implicitly racist/sexist/homophobic.
I'm sure these can be turned around on the conservative, too. Are they real antinomies?
Posted by Bobcat | May 10, 2009 7:54 PM
g - I fear that my smarter older brother's language only gets worse from there.
I take it, btw, that the phrase "Jeezus H. Christ" represents some sort of bow in the direction of rectitude...the pretense being that one is swearing by a certain Mr. Christ whose middle initial is H., and thus not offending against the commandments. That's a dodge, of course - but perhaps one can see it as a case of "the tribute that vice pays to virtue."
Kevin J Jones - yeah, there might actually be a case to be made that there's greater danger of infiltration by would-be terrorists on our Northern border than on our Southern. But, as you say, the powers that be can't make that case without saying things they can't bring themselves to say.
Posted by steve burton | May 10, 2009 8:11 PM
Also, if the powers-that-be tell us expressly (as old Janet does) that that _isn't_ the reason the helicopter is up in the air over the Canadian border, that the real reason is to be fair to the poor, over-monitored Mexicans (!!!), then presumably a Muslim terrorist infiltrator could wave "hi" to the guys in the 'copter with a crescent embroidered on his T-shirt and waltz across the Canadian border riding on an Inuit Antlered Migrant Trans-American worker and not be stopped.
Posted by Lydia | May 10, 2009 8:16 PM
Shouldn't there be an "undocumented" in the phrase?
Posted by Ilíon | May 10, 2009 9:00 PM
If one looks casually at the AP picture, it looks like Obama is lit up with something like the iconic aura's of old religious artwork. Pretty fitting for the latter day messiah. After hearing his accounting of the first hundred days, I couldn't help but mock back to the radio...oh thank you great and merciful one, we need you more than life, every good and perfect gift comes from you, we cry out to you for salvation from our enemies--economic uncertainty, health care costs, security, swine flu etc...
Posted by Brad | May 10, 2009 9:26 PM
Inuit Cranially Enhanced Migrant Undocumented Terrestrial?
(ICE-MUT?)
Posted by steve burton | May 10, 2009 11:03 PM
It helps if you regard liberalism as insanity and it's leaders as a professional criminal class, Albert Jay Nock's apt description.
Napolitano is no more or less nuts than the rest, though she does remind me of that overweight buffoon who was governor of Louisiana when Katrina struck, the hurricane caused by a President.
The stupidity is staggering, not only in it's depth but in it's consistency, going back to the Carter days.
Meanwhile O has graduated from gift wrapping Chrysler to taking over California, it's economic future be dammed.
Fascism indeed!
Posted by johnt | May 11, 2009 11:46 AM
just another senseless example of the Obama administration's attempt to extend dominion over all things. Parity?
In these tough economic times, has Napolitano even thought to ask, what about the economic impact? While I can't speak for the rest of the border states I can tell you that honest, hard-working middle-class Canucks migrate south in flocks like geese in the fall to cities like Duluth, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Grand Forks and Fargo for shopping, lodging and entertainment. A relatively strong Looney (the Canadian dollar) has helped insulate the Red River Valley of North Dakota from being hit harder than it has. Drive the parking lots of West Acres, Columbia or Miller Hill Malls on any given weekend and you'll see a good amount of license plates that read Manitoba or Ontario (in some places like Grand Forks, you'll see almost as many Manitoba plates as North Dakota or Minnesota). Make it harder for Canadians to to get or out and you keep millions of dollars out of the upper Midwest. So much for Free Trade.
Posted by RyGuy | May 11, 2009 7:33 PM
No doubt, the equal treatment of the two borders is somewhat wacky. Nevertheless: Don't you think, Steve, that in order to get a more balanced picture of the issue you should have added the following part of the Los Angeles Times article?
Posted by Grobi | May 12, 2009 3:44 PM
Bryan Adams, Mike Myers, Martin Short, Pamela Anderson, and Labatt's beer.
All reasons I support a more strenuously protected Northern border.
Posted by Jay Watts | May 12, 2009 4:30 PM
More reason to fortify the northern border.
Posted by Zippy | May 12, 2009 4:40 PM
Martin Short of SCTV fame? Come on!
I'm suprised you failed to include Young Republican Alex P. Keaton (Michael J. Fox) in the mix!
Posted by aristocles | May 12, 2009 6:11 PM
Grobi: so why didn't Napolitano try to justify it that way?
Posted by steve burton | May 12, 2009 8:59 PM