This and That

I tend to like Tony Snow. Too bad he chose to axe his radio show.

OK, that’s out of the way. Now this:

“If you had a traffic ticket and you paid it, you’re not forever a speeder, are you?” White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said in response to questions from The Examiner.

Huh? You kiddin’ me?

Comparing that to an illegal immigrant is silly.

Let’s adjust Tony’s comparison to make it fit illegal immigration a little better.

I’m speeding. A police officer pulls up beside me and motions me to roll down my window. As we continue hurtling along at 86 mph, he fines me $50. Then he drops back. I continue on at 86 mph while my wife accesses the Web and pays my fine online. And the scenery continues to fly by at 86 mph.

Since he fined me and I paid my fine, am I no longer speeding despite exceeding the posted speed limit?

How Mexico Handles Its Own Illegal Immigration

Terror for Mexico’s illegal migrants

Mexico Harsh to Undocumented Migrants

Oh well.

The Essential President Bush

I don’t know. I suppose in sum, the American Presidency is a thankless job.

So . . . thank you, Mr. President.

How about a little humor, huh?

Stop illegal invasion: Put gators on border

Next thing you know, we’ll all be fussing about the price of bacon and the AntiSomethings will be fuming about Big Pig!

Zhang predicts the process could get 3.6 gallons of crude oil a day out of each pig.

And what, pray tell, is that all about?

They say you can’t turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse, but University of Illinois researchers are working some interesting magic at the other end of the animal.

“We are the first to actually do this,” professor Yuanhui Zhang says proudly of his team’s ability to turn swine manure into crude oil. He’s a bio-environmental engineer at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who has led the 10-year research project that recently announced a breakthrough in porcine petroleum.

That neat trick may sound crude.

But it also sounds good to a pork industry swamped with oceans of swine manure, and it sounds like the national anthem to those looking to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil.

A typical pig produces about 6 gallons of waste a day.

Now, go do the right thing.

(I know, I know — that’s someone else’s line.)

If your best ally didn’t allow you to take a short cut across your front yard every once in a great while, would he still be your ally?

Yeah, I suppose so.

But would you wonder if he would really and truly defend you against the big bully next door, in the bully’s backyard, when he was so afraid of the big bully that he wouldn’t let you cross his front yard once in a while?

Yeah, I suppose so.

With things like this going on, I think this US ally ought to have anti-bully contigency plans that exclude its faraway and fearful ally:

Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian has decided to avoid the United States on his journey home from a Latin American visit, as officials played down the fall-out of the diplomatic spat between the island and its closest ally.

Taiwan has been upset that the United States would only permit Chen transit via Alaska, instead of a preferred stopover in New York en route to the region.

[Red] Chinese officials…chafe whenever leaders from the island get U.S. approval to transit or visit.

From down under Down Under, this wonderful news:

Two Australian miners trapped a kilometer underground for 14 days walked out of the mine on Tuesday defiantly thrusting their arms into the air after rescuers reached them shortly before dawn.

Miners Brant Webb, 37, and Todd Russell, 34, wearing mining helmets with their lamps shining brightly and yellow jackets walked confidently to a large board and removed their name cards — declaring they had ended their shift underground.

Their wives quickly rushed to hug them before scores of rescuers descended on them hugging and shaking hands.

“This is the great escape. This is the biggest escape from the biggest prison we have, the planet,” said Australian Workers Union national secretary Bill Shorten.

Hurrah for the rescuers!

Hurrah for the resilience of the rescued ones!

And praise God!