SOUTH AFRICA’S IMMIGRATION PROBLEM:

As Zimbabwe’s disintegration gathers potentially unstoppable momentum, a swelling tide of migrants is moving into neighboring South Africa, driven into exile by oppression, unemployment and inflation so relentless that many goods now double in price weekly.

South Africa is deporting an average of 3,900 illegal Zimbabwean migrants every week, the International Organization for Migration says. That is up more than 40 percent from the second half of 2006, and six times the number South African officials said they were expelling in late 2003.

And that reflects only those who are captured. Many more Zimbabweans slip into the country undetected, although estimates vary wildly. In a nation of 46 million, most experts say, undocumented Zimbabweans could number several hundred thousand to two million.

Social tensions are ratcheting up in both nations, as Zimbabwe’s adult population dwindles and South Africans, already burdened by high unemployment, face new competition for jobs and housing.

Anyone who opposes this immigration must be a racist. Why else would anyone object to immigrants?

More seriously, the Mbeki government deserves these problems for its shameful complicity in Mugabe’s disastrous dictatorship. South Africa could have done good here, but chose a see-no-evil approach. Now the problems are crossing its border.

ALAN BOYLE:

It’s not often that a scientific experiment gets written up as a front-page news story, as well as a science-fiction twist in a best-selling thriller and a can’t-miss movie script – but that’s what’s been happening to CERN’s Antiproton Decelerator facility, the only place in the world where whole atoms of antimatter are built.

This summer, physicists at the facility are engaged in their own real-life thriller: Two teams of researchers are racing each other to be the first to trap atoms of antihydrogen in a magnetic cage. The researchers who do it first will grab the headlines once again. And the other team? “Being second is last in this game,” said Jeffrey Hangst, a physicist at the University of Aarhus who is the spokesman for the ALPHA antimatter collaboration.

I just hope someone pulls it off.

RANDY NEAL REVIEWS the Garmin Nuvi 650 GPS navigator. I’ve often thought of buying one of these things, but I’m afraid it would cause my direction-finding abilities to atrophy.

POLAND ASKS THE E.U. to make up for mass murder.

But they’re talked out of it.

TODAY IS NATIONAL COLUMNISTS DAY, set up in memory of Ernie Pyle. Not many are living up to his legacy.

TEXTING AND CELLPHONES: The new smoking?

IN THE MAIL: Col. Buzz Patterson’s War Crimes: The Left’s Campaign to Destroy Our Military and Lose the War on Terror.

I don’t think that the left wants to lose the war on terror, exactly — they just want Bush to lose the war on terror. I suspect, however, that Patterson’s theme is one that we’ll hear more in the future, especially if things go badly in Iraq.

UPDATE: Rand Simberg emails: “How can they want to lose a war that they don’t even believe
exists? The only war that they’re aware of is the one against Bush.” It does seem that way sometimes.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Yeah, they’re worried about this, and hence ridiculously defensive, for good reason.

MICKEY KAUS: Did Dick Morris lead Trent Lott astray?

NORM GERAS: “Imagine no possessions. It hasn’t quite come to that yet. But the regime of Robert Mugabe is a good way along the road to getting rid of money. Because of hyperinflation, it’s not worth holding on to.” No money? I don’t know if John would approve, but I’m pretty sure that Yoko wouldn’t.

BODY-SLAMMED FOR LEGALLY CARRYING A GUN: If this report is accurate, it suggests a serious training deficit with the Knoxville Police, as well as an attitude problem on the part of the officer in question. I hope that the folks responsible will look into it, and fix things if the report is correct. (Via Michael Silence).

AUSTIN BAY ON IRAN: “The real sanction the mullahs fear is a revolt by Iranians. Fostering that should be our sanctions policy.”

COLBY COSH:

What fascinates me about the case of Kieran King, the Saskatchewan high school student who was threatened, punished and slandered by various officials over the past three weeks for talking with some pals about the health effects of marijuana, is that it explodes almost every single utopian cliche about public schools that has been ever propounded by their employees and admirers. It’s almost glorious, in a way. Ever heard an educator say “We’re not here to teach students what to think — we’re here to teach them how to think”? BLAMMO! “We encourage children to make learning a lifelong process.” KAPOW! Poor Kieran didn’t even make it to age 16 before someone called the cops.

“Diversity is one of our most cherished values.” But express a factually true opinion that diverges from what you’ve been taught and — WHOOMP! “Public schools aren’t crude instruments of social control, they’re places where we lay the foundation for an informed citizenry.” BOOM!

I could go on, but I’m running out of sound effects and I really don’t have time to fire up an old Batman episode on You-Tube to gather more.

Read the whole thing.

MAN OWNS PART OF GEORGIA HIGHWAY: After state bungles eminent domain. If it were me, I’d set up toll booths . . . .

GOING TO IRAQ: Here’s a story on Milblogger Andrew Olmsted, from The Rocky Mountain News.

UPDATE: What’s going on in Iraq, from Bill Roggio.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More thoughts here.

JOBS AMERICANS WON’T DO — unless they’re robots:

As if the debate over immigration and guest worker programs wasn’t complicated enough, now a couple of robots are rolling into the middle of it.

Vision Robotics, a San Diego company, is working on a pair of robots that would trundle through orchards plucking oranges, apples or other fruit from the trees. In a few years, troops of these machines could perform the tedious and labor-intensive task of fruit picking that currently employs thousands of migrant workers each season.

The robotic work has been funded entirely by agricultural associations, and pushed forward by the uncertainty surrounding the migrant labor force. Farmers are “very, very nervous about the availability and cost of labor in the near future,” says Vision Robotics CEO Derek Morikawa.

Eventually, of course, the robots will be made in China, and American-built robots will complain if they’re imported illegally.

THOUGHTS ON VIDEO GAME ADDICTION: “If everyone who was addicted to games spent six hours in front of the TV every night, what would we call them? Right: normal.”

A LOOK AT THE WEEK THAT WAS, from Don Surber. I like Thursday’s entry best.

(Via Slashdot).

PENNSYLVANIA VIDEO ARREST UPDATE:

A case that attracted nationwide attention has ended with the dropping of a felony wiretapping charge against a Carlisle man who recorded a police officer during a traffic stop.

Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed said his decision will affect not only Brian Kelly, 18, but also will establish a policy for police departments countywide.

“When police are audio- and video-recording traffic stops with notice to the subjects, similar actions by citizens, even if done in secret, will not result in criminal charges,” Freed said yesterday. “I intend to communicate this decision to all police agencies within the county so that officers on the street are better-prepared to handle a similar situation should it arise again.”

Freed’s decision came a week after a story in The Patriot-News caused a storm of criticism over Kelly’s May 24 arrest by a Carlisle police officer on the wiretapping charge, which carries a penalty of up to seven years in prison upon conviction.

Kelly’s father, Chris, called the withdrawal of the charge “fantastic.” “That’s what should have happened to begin with,” he said.

Yes, it is. But I still think we need a federal civil rights statute protecting this kind of audio/video recording, backed up with damages, abrogation of sovereign immunity, and attorney fees.