Needless to say, I agree with Eric Utne: 

I was in high school when the deeper horrors of slavery became apparent: dislocated families, deplorable living conditions, sexual servitude, torture.

I was just out of college and working for a bilingual newspaper in northern New Mexico by the time I recognized the irony: My fourth-grade classmates' parents were keeping local farms and businesses afloat by doing work no "legal" laborer would do. Living in cinderblock hovels hidden away behind the sand hills of southern New Mexio, they made less than minimum wage, suffered inhumane working conditions, and could not protest for fear of deportation.

Economically speaking, they served the same purpose as the Africans who slaved for American masters through the first half of our nation's history. They provided the cheap labor that allowed us to establish dominance in the international marketplace. And they were invisible.

A U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service report estimated that there were 7 million undocumented immigrants in the country in 2000. A more recent estimate of 11 million has been discussed in news accounts. Robert Justich, managing director of Bear Stearns Asset Management, says that 20 million could be a more accurate number.

Hiring undocumented workers is illegal. Yet we don't require that employers verify an applicant's documents, and there is no simple system for doing so.

We are systematically tolerating, even encouraging, undocumented workers to come to the United States. Then, in order to placate a vocal and ill-informed minority, enforcement agencies stage various law enforcement dramas at locations across the country. We erect costly and ineffectual fences on the Mexican border.

 What's most appalling is that we have the audacity to label entrepreneurial immigrants "criminals" when the vast majority of undocumented workers are sincere, skilled, industrious men and women doing what they must to support their families. Just ask the people who hire them. A Texas rancher recently told me he gets 50 percent more work from an "illegal" Mexican day worker than from his legal U.S. counterpart. The Mexican "is generally a family guy, working for his wife and kids," he said. "The American is some kid who doesn't really care, or he's got other problems -- alcohol or whatever -- keeping him out of the permanent workforce."

Somehow many of these laborers manage to save a share of their pitiful wages to send home. Justich reports that in 2003, Mexican workers in the United States sent home $13 billion in remittances. That's to Mexico alone, and that's triple the amount recorded in 1995. Talk about family values.

 If we required good documents starting tomorrow, the nation would plunge into an instantaneous economic crisis. Millions of workers would suddenly be missing.
The only practical and ethical solution is to provide legal status to honest, hardworking immigrants. Then we would have to acknowledge how we treat them. We would have to admit that jobs that offer a fair wage and humane working conditions cost money -- and that cost would be passed on to consumers, who, for starters, might see an additional 10 percent added to their rent or mortgage payment and pay 15 percent more for groceries.

If we shut down illegal immigration, a program to legalize our "guest workers" would be a matter of necessity to save American agriculture. At that point, the citizenry would have had to acknowledge how we were treating people like Max. But because nothing was done then -- and because it doesn't look like anything meaningful is going to happen in the foreseeable future -- illegal immigration endures as a testament to our hypocrisy.

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[Joe: I'd like to add, when oil is under $70/barrel, the #1 source of foreign capital flowing into Mexico is money sent home by undocumented workers.]

Uygur imam and CPPCC member, Abdulatip Abdurahim:

"It's very good news that our government is stressing harmony in society, but actually harmony was what Islam called for more than 1,400 years ago," Abudlatip, a CPPCC member of the religion circle, said.

"The only difference between Muslims and non-Muslims is only the customs," Abdulatip said.

"We all seek the same happy lives."

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What you always fear, when riding the bicycle to work, is coming out after a long day and finding a flat tire. Thankfully, it only takes an hour and fort-five minutes to walk home from where I work.

But the walking home got me even closer to life on the sidewalk than bike riding does. And prompts me to ask, being a cat person myself, "What is there about dogs that you like so much?" The reason I ask, is the dozen or so owners I passed on my way, as they stand there looking casual and very patient, while Fido leaves a load on someone else's grass. I just can't believe I'd enjoy spending time two or three trips a day taking the little one to the outdoor toilet. I know I'd not enjoy contributing to the neighborhood blight, nor would I want to carry a baggie (which I didn't see among the dozen tonight) to clean up after my pooch. Sad commentary, when you let your dog do something you'd not do yourself. At least, I hope you'd not drop drawers and lay down a nice firm turd on your neighbor's yard!

Scientists studying pictures from Nasa's Odyssey spacecraft have spotted what they think may be seven caves on the surface of Mars.

Temperature data from Mars Odyssey's Themis instrument support the idea.

The authors say that the possible discovery of caves on the Red Planet is significant.

The caves may be the only natural structures capable of protecting primitive life forms from micrometeoroids, UV radiation, solar flares and high energy particles that bombard the planet's surface.

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Listen, for a moment, to the Chinese Premier:

"Citing the hoped-for benefits of his administration's policies, Wen quoted a modern Chinese poet: "If you ask me what happiness means, I tell you to ask … a river that's no longer frozen."

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I was all set to rant about the lack of lawyers. Then it hit me. Why should I expect some government bureaucrat to save me? There is a way to stop cold calls on my cell phone at 6:50 am, and that is to change numbers. It’s not worth the aggravation.

But to expect that there be a government agency existing to save me from annoying phone calls is ludicrous. A cell number is as disposable an email address. Why use the same one for years? Don’t you have several too? One or two special, private ones. A few that happened at 2 am.  And ones you never ever check, that get used on site logins when you only figure to be there once. And I don’t “know” anyone’s number anymore, I know their ‘speed dial” number. So reprogram mine and who will notice the difference.

I will. And that’s why I’ve done it and will move on in quiet for, hopefully, years.

18 months later. I still have flashbacks….

The ‘dorothy houses’, homes that floated into the road, and the unreality that sets in when you drive around one.

The flat concrete slab, and alongside the road, the pole that used to hold the Waffle House sign. No sign, just pole. Shock and awe.

Talking with the man who required medication to stay out of the manic spiral that would lead him to kill himself one day. The pharmacy with his prescription floated away. The other pharmacies too, are gone. He can’t find a doctor to write new scrip. It’s only a matter of time now.

Looking into eyes filled with despair. Seeing reflections of family lost and gone forever. Hope is fading just as quickly, now that the bureaucrats have come to take charge. Will the red tape ever stop? Will I live to see an end to my suffering?

Returning to a hotel room, climbing several flights of stairs because the elevators are still out. Thankful there’s air conditioning, even if it smells of mold. Tub still fills with brown water, drawing a bath will have to wait until another day. Lay down on the bed still in my dirty clothes, too tired to care. Anderson Cooper cries on tv, just miles from where I lay. Because he cries, I don’t have to. One less thing to tax my dwindling energy, one less thing to do.

John Lee Hooker, “Don’t Look Back” fits my mood. Mournful. Pleading: “So many people tryin’ to live on in the past, no good….”. I can’t hear it now without returning to driving along streets still barely passable two months later, through neighborhoods reduced to piles of shattered wood and stucco. Pop-up canopies to shade and little else, but those same canopies are all that create order in this chaos that used to be real people with real lives and loves, cares and plans and laughter. And family. In the end, that’s what you miss, what you regret, what you only, truly, lose. Family.

I wasn’t there for Katrina, just the aftermath and only for a few months at that. Biloxi, you will always be in my heart. Someday, I’ll come back and help some more. But for now, I still feel you every day.

So the contract to design the “next generation” nuclear warhead has been awarded. Since the locals won, the local newspaper seems rather proud.

I disagree.

Don’t you feel, as I do, that it is hypocritical of the US to continue to develop a weapon of mass destruction, while denying basic food and other aid to countries that have the same objective? And this is the same country that is the only country to have proven itself capable of using this weapon of mass destruction. If you feel the US has the “right” to develop this abomination, because “it’s only for defense”, I ask you: since when is mass destruction a morally acceptable defense? What possible ends could justify the use of a nuclear warhead? Under what scenario does obliterating any city/county/country/planet make any sense at all? And please don’t tell me that you think the US has the moral right to possess this weapon because Americans have more sense about its use. There is no sense in which its use can be condoned. Americans have not recently (Afghanistan, Iraq) proven we have much sense to begin with, and certainly we continue to demonstrate a lack of morals.

Studies have concluded that the existing stockpile of weapons will be functional for decades. What more do you need, those of you who insist there is a place for insanity in your military plans? How can this possibly be a good use of resources? What message are you truly sending to the rest of the world? Listen to that message for a moment, and then join me in demanding a return to sanity.

So, Paris got busted the other day for driving without a license and other good stuff. Next up for her? "The Simple Life: Behind Bars".

And would you watch her get reamed by a prison guard on international television? I bet you would!