Chinese president Hu Jintao gets a warm welcome in Nigeria:

Analysts said Hu’s offer of an alternative to the United States’ prescriptive foreign policy and “War on Terror” would be welcomed by African leaders.

“China is saying it wants to build a new world order based on consensus and tolerance, not the clash of civilizations,” said former foreign minister Bola Akinyemi.

Would that be the same consensus China seeks when it stands with North Korea and Iran, against most of the rest of the world? And the same tolerance they’ve shown Tibetans, or their native Christians and Muslims? China doesn’t clash with other civilizations, oh no, it brutally represses them. How long will the “consensus and tolerance” canard fly as their thirst for oil grows and they are forced to interact more and more with the rest of the world? Will they ever fly to the aid of disaster victims, or is that just something bullies like the US do?

“It is bound to resonate in Africa, where we have 900 years of coexistence between Christianity, Islam and traditional religions.”

Oh yes, everything is just peachy in Africa and has been since the dawn of Man. If by peachy you mean violence bordering on barbarism. Odd that Akinyemi draws the line at 900 years. Christianity in Africa goes back as much as 2000 years, and “traditional” African religions must go back further. Is he unaware of the role Islam has played in Africa?

Black Africans were transported to the Islamic empire across the Sahara to Morocco and Tunisia from West Africa, from Chad to Libya, along the Nile from East Africa, and up the coast of East Africa to the Persian Gulf. This trade had been well entrenched for over 600 years before Europeans arrived, and had driven the rapid expansion of Islam across North Africa.

Oh, I see. He said “coexistence”, not “peaceful coexistence”.

Pro-immigrant forces plan to flex their muscles with a gringo boycott on May 1st, “A Day Without Immigrants”.

Wonderful. The poorest, most under-employed, least educated portion of the population is going to demonstrate just how insignificant their contribution is. We’ll see whether our industries crumble if nobody empties our trash, sweeps our floors, or buses our tables. Yes please illegals, stay home from school too. Let’s see how uncrowded our schools could be. Could you do us a favor and stay out of our hospitals and jails while you’re at it? And if you’d stay off the roads and free up some housing that would be great. Thanks!

I think I liked it better when the illegals were “invisible”. The mass demonstrations opened everyone’s eyes to just how many there are. It showed the illegals there are many who support them, and that the US government has no intention of enforcing its current immigration laws much less passing new more strict laws. Now they know it’s safe to operate freely and openly in our society and so they’re everywhere, all the time.

On the other hand some good has come of this. Obviously if they’re carrying signs and shouting slogans in the streets they’re not getting much work or shopping done. So the demonstrations demonstrated to gringos that the illegals could disappear tomorrow and the impact on our businesses would be next to nil.

Our schools have suffered only from self-inflicted backward rules that withhold funding when students who haven’t paid a dime for their education decide to go truant. Yeah, that makes sense. The other problems that flared were racial and gang violence, which would of course evaporate if the next time the illegal immigrant students walk out of school they just kept walking. Preferably south.

Make sure you wear anything but white on May 1st:

On May 1, we are calling No Work, No School, No Sales, and No Buying, and also to have rallies around symbols of economic trade in your areas (stock exchanges, anti-immigrant corporations, etc.) to protest the anti-immigrant movements across the country.

On May 1, we will wear “white” a T-Shirt and/or white arm bands, we can paint and write our political demands (and creative arts) at the T-shirt go to rally, protest, strike, vigil, work or school–we will have a ocean of white T-shirts with our political demands from east coast to west coast, at the street, work place, school, bus station & store… and our voice will be LOUD AND CLEAR AND CANNOT BE SILENT FOR EVER!

We will settle for nothing less than full amnesty and dignity for the millions of undocumented workers presently in the U.S. We believe that increased enforcement is a step in the wrong direction and will only serve to facilitate more tragedies along the Mexican-U.S. border in terms of deaths and family separation.

Of course without illegal immigration there wouldn’t be any tragedies on the border to facilitate. Amnesty incentivizes more people to break the law, which is why law-abiding citizens oppose it. You want to keep your dignity? Respect your adoptive country’s laws and customs. Don’t cut the line. Get the proper documents, pay your taxes, learn English, and wave the American flag. You’ll be greeted with open arms.

So what’s a gringo against illegal immigration to do? Contact your Senate, House, and local elected representatives to express your opinion.

California State Senator Gloria Romero, a Los Angeles Democrat, supports the boycott and the holiday idea, saying:

“As a senator, I represent citizens and non-citizens alike.”

Some will obviously need to be reminded what their job is and who it is they are supposed to represent.

Time again for another compare and contrast exercise. The CIA fired Mary McCarthy on Friday and since then right-wing bloggers have been busily digging up and sharing many interesting bits of information about the leaker. See for example Flopping Aces.

Meanwhile from the mainstream media we hear only whitewash and crickets. Do these MSM guys work weekends, or are they just too pooped from reporting leaks all week? The “amateurs” are once again providing more thorough information and analysis while the “professionals” seem to be saving their energy for the next vice presidential hunting accident.

Covering his newspaper’s role in publishing McCarthy’s leaks Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. said:

…people who provide citizens the information they need to hold their government accountable should not “come to harm for that.”

“The reporting that Dana did was very important accountability reporting about how the CIA and the rest of the U.S. government have been conducting the war on terror,” Downie said. “Whether or not the actions of the CIA or other agencies have interfered with anyone’s civil liberties is important information for Americans to know and is an important part of our jobs.”

This of course makes perfect sense if you see yourself as a political activist rather than as an observer and journaler of events. Thanks for your honesty Leonard.

Leftist bloggers are still stewing on the proper spin for this story, but it will surely center on just how awful it is that the poor misunderstood patriots who are only blowing the whistle in an effort to protect the country they love so dearly are persecuted mercilessly while the Execrable Executive (AKA The World’s Biggest Terrorist) goes unpunished for outing Valerie Plame for purely selfish political reasons. In fact it’s already started:

I am struck by the irony that Mary McCarthy may have been fired for blowing the whistle and ensuring that the truth about an abuse was told to the American people. There is something potentially honorable in that action; particularly when you consider that George Bush authorized Scooter Libby to leak misleading information for the purpose of deceiving the American people about the grounds for going to war in Iraq.

That leftist fever swamp dead-enders get worked into a lather about the damage caused by the compromise of a single CIA desk jockey even while they yawn at the damage caused by the compromise of whole CIA projects reveals something of their political bias and intellectual dishonesty. Likewise the mainstream media.

Mark Steyn and Victor Davis Hanson consider Iran and offer the same observation: We face a choice between bad and worse.

On this point I disagree. Dean Barnett has it right. The West doesn’t face a choice between going to war with Iran or not. Iran has been waging a not-so-covert war against us since 1979. Once they build nukes they will use them. We could afford to bide our time and hope moderates would come to power before. We no longer have that luxury.

That some continue to assume there is a choice is testimony to the corrosive effect the forces of self-doubt and self-loathing have had on the West. We are the most powerful most righteous force on this planet and yet we stand by impotently as the most nefarious most untrustworthy state alternatively skulks and blusters its way toward nuclear weapons. If we can’t gather the strength or clarity of purpose to stop such an obvious travesty then what hope is there left? The umma and ulema are already trying to impose their irrational demands and killing infidels around the world with impunity. Does anyone seriously think once these spoiled psychopaths have nukes they’re going to turn happy and peaceful?

On 9/11 the passengers of flight 93 were faced with a similar non-choice. They could sit and hope against all reason that their deranged hijackers would not fly them into some building. Or they could rise up and take charge of their destiny. We may hide behind the excuse that our situation is more murky, our doom less certain, but we have had a wealth of time to contemplate history and plan actions far more thoroughly than the passengers of flight 93. It is worse than useless to negotiate the unnegotiable with prevaricators. We waste precious time. We gain nothing.

UPDATE: Two related links via LGF.

Robert Tracinski says:

There is no need to invoke the doctrine of pre-emption against Iran. Iran is already fighting a war against the United States. We just haven’t been fighting back. We have held our fire as if Iran were protected by a shield of nuclear weapons. How much more aggressive will the Iranians become when they are actually protected by such a nuclear shield?

Thomas McInerney says:

Iran’s leaders have threatened to unleash a firestorm of terrorism in the event military action is taken against them. Any country involved in the attack would be subject to retaliation by Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and al Qaeda, the Iranians have claimed. If nothing else, this threat demonstrates how closely tied Iran is to terrorist groups.

It is also a hollow threat. These groups already attack us from the shadows. Let them “retaliate” and bring themselves out in the open.