The Doggy Diaries... gone to the dogs!

Dogs Make Great Friends

Just another photo I received in an email that I really like because it's cute. Hope y'all like it, too!

Dogs Love Firefighters!

Just a cute photo to hopefully brighten your day. There's an urban legend floating around the internet that the Doberman was kissing the firefighter because he saved her from a burning house. Although a heartwarming story, it's not entirely true, as you can see by checking out the firefighter's account of the event at Snopes.com.

California DMV Workers Charged with Selling False IDs and Drivers Licenses to Illegals

OAKLAND (KRON) -- A group of four California DMV employees has been charged in an alleged scheme to sell hundreds of official California driver licenses and identification cards to non-U.S. citizens, the U.S. attorney's office announced Thursday.

Prosecutors allege that the DMV employees and four others accepted bribes of up to $4,500 in exchange for providing valid licenses and ID cards to undocumented immigrants.

By the way, the "undocumented immigrants" and "non-citizens" referred to in this story are actually illegal aliens. Non-citizen legal immigrants and citizens would have no need to be involved in such a scheme. It seems our press just can't get enough of political correctness and euphemisms designed to lessen the public's distaste for illegal immigration by making giving illegal aliens different names.

Other complaints issued against DMV employees are outlined as follows.

In a separate indictment, Brachelle Fifer, 43, of Oakland, input false information into the DMV computer system to circumvent legal requirements, including proof of citizenship, to issue driver licenses to clients who paid cash bribes.

...

A third complaint alleges that DMV employee Stephanie Denise Davis, 37, of Oakland, and Shahid Hamid, 45, of Oakland, sold vehicle registration stickers to individuals whose vehicles never passed a required smog test. They are also accused of selling driver licenses to people who never took written or driving tests.

In a fourth complaint, DMV employee Leneka Pendergrass, 27, of Oakland, and non-DMV employees Keith Williams, 40, of Oakland, and Adrian Gomez Zepeda, 31, are charged with conspiring to provide California driver licenses and identification cards to individuals by illegally using the identities of other people.

We all knew the California DVM and some of it's employees were corrupt, didn't we?

You can read the full story at the KRON4 News website.

News Stories About Illegal Aliens

I know I sound like a broken record, but the illegal alien situation is completely out of control. Within the last two days, there have been [at least] two "feel-good" stories (that I'm aware of) in a couple of California newspapers designed to elicit sympathy towards illegal aliens.

Community of day laborers grows as local construction projects rise
This article by the Vallejo · Benicia· American Canyon Times-Herald opens with a sentence specifically composed to present illegal aliens as hard workers just trying to make ends meet.

Seven days a week, Cesar Rodriguez wakes up at the crack of dawn and hops a bus to the Vallejo Home Depot parking lot with hopes of making enough money to pay his rent and to help his family in Mexico.

The author then attempts to elicit sympathy for these "hard working" illegals by discussing how Home Depot stores in Vallejo, Fairfield and San Rafael are cracking down on active solicitation by illegals.

Lately, however, Home Depot has begun cracking down on what it calls active solicitation by these workers. In June, corporate officials ordered "no soliciting" and "no loitering" signs in both English and Spanish to be posted in the parking lot.
...
The Spanish message reads: "No se Permiten Vagabundos" and "Intervendr la polici ." The first part translates to: "No vagrancy permitted."

The author claims that many of the illegals find the sign offensive because they are merely looking for work and are not destitute. Imagine that! Home Depot finally responds to complaints from it's PAYING customers about the illegals loitering in the parking lots, which is a good thing considering all the aide and support the company and it's individual stores have been giving to illegal aliens, and the simple act of posting signage stating that vagrancy is not allowed and that the police will be contacted is seen as being "offensive" to these poor, poor illegals. Oh, the humanity of it all!

But the big attempt at tear-jerking doesn't come out until the very end of the article.

So, who are these young men who stand hours, waiting for work?

Many are like Heriberto Lopez, 25, an illegal immigrant from Mexico.

Lopez came to the United States four months ago after his 5-month-old son became seriously ill.

"My son was sick and we didn't have enough money for his medical bills, so I came here," Lopez said, as he awaited work on a Friday morning at Home Depot.

Leaving behind his wife and three kids, Lopez crossed the Rio Grande River in Texas. It took him 15 days, all by himself, to cross the border. All he had were water and stale bread.

What I take from this article is that we're supposed to feel so sorry for these people that we completely ignore the fact that they are in this country illegally, have broken our immigration laws, and are criminals by the very fact of their illegal presence in this country. I have three words in response. Bull! Bunk! Nonsense!

Drive to stamp out hunger
Again, another article showing just how well the U.S. taxpayer is taking care of illegal aliens by providing them with taxpayer-funded social services -- in this case the social service is the federal food stamp program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

This article centers around a woman named Erica Avila and how she just signed up for federal assistance in the form of food stamps for her family.

The article does not mention illegal aliens explicitly, nor does it specify as to Avila's immigration status, but enough details are discussed to support my position that illegal aliens are making use of this tax-payer funded program to support their families. In particular:

"Old wives' tales" often keep people from applying for the program, said Rose Ortega, community relations representative with Family HealthCare Network, which helps people apply for a variety of programs including Healthy Families and Medi-Cal insurances.

People are afraid they'll have to eventually pay for the program or that signing up will hurt their immigration status.

"It's so hard because they're so afraid," Ortega said. "They're so afraid of their immigration status."

She had to reassure Avila the program would not affect her residency status ...

Notice that the social service worker had to "reassure Avila the program would not affect her residency status ..." and that people are afraid that using the program will hurt their immigration status. Well how-dee-do! As if it takes a rocket scientist to figure out that the only people who should be concerned about their immigration status are those who are in this country illegally whether they've entered illegally or overstayed their visa. Immigrants in this country legally would have no need be concerned about their immigration status because they would have the proper paperwork to prove their legal right to be in this country.

Doesn't it just make you feel good to know that the tax dollars you work so hard to earn and that are taken from you whether you like it or not are being used to provide free food to illegal aliens and their families? (Let's not even get into a discussion right now as to the incredibly high rates of fraud that occur in the food stamp program and the junk food people are allowed to purchase with food stamps.) Don't you know that you're supposed to have warm and fuzzy feelings because you're helping others in need? Uh huh, yeah, right. Because I just love knowing that my money is being used to fund programs that I oppose on an ethical basis (such as providing free social services to illegal aliens and all their children) instead of being used to fund programs like the border patrol, our military and better pay for our troops, police and fire departments, road maintenance and construction, and the multitude of other departments and programs that are either being ignored or have had their budgets slashed even while our government can still *magically* find money to feed illegal aliens.

Welcome to America. Land of the free. Home of the illegal alien.

Exodus from California

VDARE has an article that pretty much sums up why I am none too ready to high-tail it out of California in search of greener pastures.

The author, Joe Guzzardi, gives a veritable laundry list of reasons why more and more native-born Californians and/or long-time residents of California are ready to relocate their families and hang their hats in another state. I can identify with many of the items he discusses, most notably overcrowding, traffic, high cost of living, exorbitant taxes, some of the highest gas prices in the nation, sprawl, air pollution, the precipitous decline of our public school system and illegal immigration.

I also learned something from the article that I didn't know before -- California gains 60 new residents every hour. That's one new resident every minute. Damn, no wonder we're crowded like sardines here.

It would be interesting to find exact statistics on the number of people who have left California and compare those numbers to those who are moving to California. The only thing I know at this point is that census figures clearly demonstrate that 100% of California's population growth is now coming in the form of immigration, both legal and illegal, and children born to immigrants (source: E Magazine Article Focuses on California's Population Problems and California's Population Growth 1990-1992 Virtually All from Immigration).