Another difference between the UK and the USA

I've always liked that joke about the US and the UK being two countries separated by a common language. One of those "you laugh because it's funny, and you laugh because it's true" kind of thing.

Obviously, there's another differences as well.

Take the sanctity of the home. Apparently in the UK kids can throw rocks at your home for two hours before the police show up, and if you try to chase them off the cops will arrest you.

"My wife called the police at 6 o'clock.

"They just kept on throwing stones through my back gate.

"I left the back door open to stop them smashing it. I have two kids and if one of those stones hit them it could have caused some really nasty damage.

"Suddenly a really big rock came crashing into the kitchen.

"I just grabbed the stick, which was the nearest thing I could find, and chased them off.

"The police turned up just as I was chasing them."

Retired Mr Davis said Pinehurst West was under constant attack from gangs of unruly teenagers and he feared for the safety of his sons Peter John and Jimmy Lloyd.

"One of my neighbours had a seven-month-old baby in their kitchen, when a brick came through the window," he said.

"It showered glass across the baby's face.

"Something needs to be done to stop these kids. They are out there almost every night."

Check the comments in that article as well. Interesting reading from this side of the pond.

You've probably heard of the case of Joe Horn down in Texas. He's the guy that saw two men breaking into his neighbors house. He confronted them in his yard and killed both of them with a shotgun.

As you may also of heard, under Texas law the shooting was legal. Horn's lawyer sums it up:

"I think the evidence showed that Joe was, in fact, within his legal rights to do what he did. He didn't want to do it, but he didn't have any other alternative," said Lambright.

So in two cases the police weren't present to deal with crimes in progress. In the UK, attempting to chase off a gang of kids throwing rocks gets you arrested. Here in the states, you can kill thieves on your front lawn.

In both countries, it's unrealistic to expect the police to be everywhere at all times and to prevent all crime. That's just silly... no system is perfect.

At least here in the states it's not legally required to be a victim.

Children: Joy or Burden?

An interesting story on NPR which casts doubt on the joys of parenthood:

The cliché refers to newborn children as "bundles of joy," but recent research indicates that bundles of anxiety, or even bundles of depression, might be more accurate.

Sociologists are discovering that children may not make parents happier and that childless adults, contrary to popular stereotypes, may often be more contented than people with kids.

Parents "definitely experienced more depression," says Robin Simon, a sociologist at Florida State University who has studied data on parenting.

"Part of our cultural beliefs is that we derive all this joy from kids," says Simon. "It's really hard for people who don't feel this to admit it." Social pressures to view only the positive aspects of child rearing only make the problem worse, she says. "They're afraid to admit it because it runs so counter to our cultural beliefs that children make you happy."

I can't say I'm surprised. As a childless person, I do not find my life lacking. I've no need for children, and frankly it took quite some time to realize other people really want children.

UK Minister calls for Children to be locked in schools, forced to eat only approved food

From the UK Daily Mail:

Children should be locked inside school grounds to stop them buying unhealthy food from shops and takeaways, a minister said yesterday.

The proposal comes amid new evidence that the Jamie Oliver-inspired drive to make school kitchens offer more nutritious meals is being shunned by pupils in favour of junk food.

And, later on in the story, there's this:

Virtually all the children who were allowed out bought food from local shops, mainly fizzy drinks, chocolate, sweets, crisps, cakes, biscuits and chips.

Some things, you just can't make up.

Obviously in some people's minds the freedom of individual choice only extends to approved choices. If those in power don't approve of individuals choices then those individuals must be forced behave. So much for freedom.

Interestingly, the real problem may not be "health food":

The researchers found it was not the healthy menus in school canteens that were deterring the pupils so much as long queues, poor facilities and high prices.

They said schools considering keeping children on the premises ought to address these issues first, a finding backed by Oliver last night. 'If you look at what's going on in schools where the catering staff have got the right support and where a "dining culture" is developing, that's where it's working,' he said.

'But there's a big divide between these schools and the many where there are still problems.'

Ah, but why improve services when you can restrict individual choice?

After all, real improvements cost money. Much better to just force people to behave the way you want, rather than actually attempting to entice them to your way of thinking.

Or, perhaps, there's another option. Restrict the ability of those in government to interfere in our lives. Then improving services becomes a more attractive option, rather than forced lock ins.

Of course, that would require the governed to take some interest in their government.

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Independence Day!

May you all celebrate your own freedom to live your life the way you see fit, free from the interference from Government or neighbors who need to find a life for themselves beyond bitching about what others do.

Gods... I can just hear the "good luck with that" in the background.

Congress and CFs

A little something from youtube...



It's Rep Ted Poe from the 2nd district of Texas speaking on an energy bill in congress, specifically the requirement to use compact fluorescent light bulbs.

He makes some good points, such as there's nothing in the Constitution which gives congress the authority to regulate which light bulbs must be used in US homes and the environmental regulations around disposing of compact fluorescent light bulbs. Since they contain mercury, those regulations are apparently not minimal.

Ohio gets the Castle Doctrine

Governor Strickland has signed Senate Bill 184, aka the Ohio Castle Doctrine into law:

Over the objections of law-enforcement groups, Gov. Ted Strickland yesterday signed into law a bill that relaxes certain gun restrictions and establishes a "castle doctrine" for shooting an intruder in self-defense.

The legislation, Senate Bill 184, takes effect in 90 days.

It was backed by the National Rifle Association to establish a presumption that a person acts in self defense when shooting someone who unlawfully enters his or her home or occupied vehicle. Supporters say it will protect the innocent from facing charges.

Amendments added to the bill will allow people to carry unloaded firearms in the cab of a vehicle with ammunition nearby and prohibit landlords from telling tenants they cannot own guns.

What press coverage there is seems critical, but the announcement on the Governors site has this to say:

State Senator Steve Buehrer sponsored SB 184, which presumes that a person has acted in self-defense when using force that may cause death or injury against an individual who has unlawfully entered the person’s home or occupied vehicle. Under current Ohio law, the burden lies on the resident who has used force to prove his or her reasoning for such action.

Get that? Under current law, if someone breaks into your home and you use lethal force to protect yourself you're presumed guilty and must prove you acted in self defense.

However, if someone breaks in and kills you, they're presumed innocent. Really.

This bill corrects that. The folks at OhioCCW have an analysis up, but neither they nor I are providing legal advice or a professional interpretation. You want that, pay a lawyer.

Good news for the people of Ohio.

UK Anti-gun campaigner stabbed to death

From the BBC:

The grandson of prominent anti-gun campaigner Pat Regan has been arrested on suspicion of stabbing her to death.

Mrs Regan, 53, was discovered at the property on Marlborough Grange in the Hyde Park area of Leeds on Sunday.

The mother-of-six started campaigning against gun crime when her son Danny was shot dead in 2002.

The 20-year-old man was being held on suspicion of murder, police said. It is thought he had been arrested earlier in the day over another stabbing.

I've some sympathy for her, given the circumstances:

Mrs Regan set up a Leeds branch of Mothers Against Guns after her son Danny, 25, was shot at his home in Haydock, near St Helens, Merseyside in December 2002. His killer has not been found.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Regan's death proves in a rather stark way that controlling the tools used in crime is not a valid method of controlling crime. Criminals just find other tools.

Like knives.

Flip o' the tentacle to The Ready Line for passing on the story.

How to commit mass murder without firearms

Every now and then, some anti-gun type points to countries like Japan, which heavily regulates firearms to the point of an almost total ban. They say the lack of firearms prevents mass murder by removing the tools of offender.

Bullshit.

TOKYO - A Japanese man rammed a truck into a crowd of shoppers, jumped out and went on a stabbing spree in Tokyo's top electronics district Sunday, killing at least seven people and wounding 10 others.

The deadly lunchtime assault paralyzed the Akihabara neighborhood, which is wildly popular among the country's cyber-wise youth. The killings were the latest in a series of grisly knifings that have stoked fears of rising crime in Japan.

A 25-year-old man, Tomohiro Kato, was apprehended in the attack.

Note that besides such spectacular attacks, there seems to be a rise in attacks overall in Japan:

Once rare, stabbing attacks have become more frequent in Japan in recent years as violent crime has increased.

In March, one person was stabbed to death and at least seven others were hurt by a man who went on a slashing spree with two knives outside a shopping mall in eastern Japan. In one of the worst attacks, a man with a history of mental illness burst into an elementary school in Japan in 2001 and killed eight children. The killer was executed in 2004.

Stories like this are infuriating, but also serve to illustrate that those determined to do hard to others will find a way.

Disarming the populace, who in large majority do not commit violent crimes, serves only to ensure a pool of available victims.

Police officers, for the most part, do an admirable job of dealing with violent crime but even the best police simply can't be everywhere at all times.

Obviously it's best if incidents like this never happen in the first place, but removing firearms from the population does not facilitate that goal, as incidents like this illustrate.

Parents face charges for raising their daughter vegan

No, it's not some anti-hippie crusade. The girl has rickets and the bone density of an 80 year old.

From the UK Times Online:

A 12-YEAR-OLD girl in Scotland brought up by her parents on a strict vegan diet has been admitted to hospital with a degenerative bone condition said to have left her with the spine of an 80-year-old woman.

Doctors are under pressure to report the couple to police and social workers amid concerns that her health and welfare may have been neglected in pursuit of their dietary beliefs.

The girl, who has been fed on a strict meat and dairy-free diet from birth, is said to have a severe form of rickets and to have suffered a number of fractured bones.

The condition is caused by a lack of vitamin D, which is needed to absorb calcium and is found in liver, oily fish and dairy produce. Decalcification leads to the bones becoming brittle and can cause curvature of the spine.

If some idiotic nitwits want to put themselves in danger by following a philosophy which denies human nature, great. Especially if they don't have health insurance and are forced to bear the cost of their own idiocy.

However, forcing your children to follow such lunacy is child abuse. These parents have wrecked their child's body in pursuit of their inane devotion.

There seems to be some support on both sides of the pond for a reasonable course of action:

Jonathan Sher, head of policy at Children in Scotland, an umbrella group representing 400 organisations, said social workers should intervene where a vegan diet was putting children’s health at risk.

Last year, an American vegan couple were given a life sentence for starving their six-week-old baby to death. In 2001 two vegans from west London were sentenced to three years’ community rehabilitation after they admitted starving their baby to death.

DC to seal off bad neighborhoods

No, really.

D.C. police will seal off entire neighborhoods, set up checkpoints and kick out strangers under a new program that D.C. officials hope will help them rescue the city from its out-of-control violence.

Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate “Neighborhood Safety Zones.” At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.

Lanier has been struggling to reverse D.C.’s spiraling crime rate but has been forced by public outcry to scale back several initiatives including her “All Hands on Deck” weekends and plans for warrantless, door-to-door searches for drugs and guns.

So warrantless searches are too illegal, so set up check points? Arrest people because they're driving down the wrong street?

Peter Nickles, the city’s interim attorney general, said the quarantine would have “a narrow focus.”

“This is a very targeted program that has been used in other cities,” Nickles told The Examiner. “I’m not worried about the constitutionality of it.”

Which other cities? Perhaps some in the former Soviet Union?

For once, I agree with the ACLU:

Shelley Broderick, president of the D.C.-area American Civil Liberties Union and the dean of the University of the District of Columbia’s law school, said the plan was “cockamamie.”

“I think they tried this in Russia and it failed,” she said. “It’s just our experience in this city that we always end up targeting poor people and people of color, and we treat the kids coming home from choir practice the same as we treat those kids who are selling drugs.”

Treating everyone like a criminal only seems to create more criminals. If the population is trained, by police actions, to not trust the police then the job of enforcement becomes harder, if not impossible.

It's the same mentality that says people don't have the right to defend themselves, and deserves the same response.

Chávez decree tightens hold on intelligence

From the International Herald Tribune:

Under the new intelligence law, which took effect last week, Venezuela's two main intelligence services, the DISIP secret police and the DIM military intelligence agency, will be replaced with new agencies, the General Intelligence Office and General Counterintelligence Office, under the control of Chávez.

The new law requires people in the country to comply with requests to assist the agencies, secret police or community activist groups loyal to Chávez. Refusal can result in prison terms of two to four years for most people and four to six years for government employees.

Wow. Kinda makes the Patriot Act seem amateurish. I'm sure there are some elements who'd like to have mandatory "cooperation" with either the Democratic or Republican political parties, not just the government.

What's this new measure for?

The sweeping intelligence changes reflect an effort by Chávez to assert greater control over public institutions in the face of political challenges following a stinging defeat in December of a constitutional reform package that would have expanded his powers.

Chávez, who has insisted the defeat would not dampen his ambitions to transform Venezuela into a Socialist state, said the new law was intended to guarantee "national security" and shield against "imperialist attacks."

Oh, of course.

Sitting ruler tries to increase their power through elections and fails, so call out the secret police. Never mind responding to the will of the people... they're just idiots who need to be lead by the nose or, if they resist, eliminated.

The Nazis were Marxists... ?

At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, with the attendant risks, I stumbled across an article on the American Thinker site which claims that Nazi ideology is actually closer to Marxism rather than right-wing ideology as is commonly expressed.

From the article:

The Nazis were Marxists, no matter what our tainted academia and corrupt media wishes us to believe. Nazis, Bolsheviks, the Ku Klux Klan, Maoists, radical Islam and Facists -- all are on the Left, something that should be increasingly apparent to decent, honorable people in our times. The Big Lie which places Nazis on some mythical Far Right was created specifically so that there would be a bogeyman manacled on the wrists of those who wish us to move "too far" in the direction of Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater.

Obviously some incendiary commentary, but further on there is this:

The first and only platform of the National Socialist German Workers Party called for very Leftist economic policies. Among other things, this platform called for the death penalty for war profiteering, the confiscation of all income unearned by work, the acquisition of a controlling interest by the people in all big business organizations and so on. Otto Strasser, the brother and fellow Nazi of Gregor Strasser, who was the second leading Nazi for much of the Nazi Party's existence, in his 1940 book, Hitler and I revealed his ideology before he found a home in the Nazi Party. In his own words Otto Strasser wrote: "I was a young student of law and economics, a Left Wing student leader."

Consider the following text from that platform adopted in Munich on February 20, 1920 and ask yourself whether it sounds like the notional Right or the very real Left:

"We ask that the government undertake the obligation above all of providing citizens with adequate opportunity for employment and earning a living. The activities of the individual must not be allowed to clash with the interests of the community, but must take place within its confines and be for the good of all. Therefore, we demand an end to the power of the financial interests. We demand profit sharing in big business. We demand a broad extension of care for the aged. The government must undertake the improvement of public health."

I have to admit, "broad extension of care for the aged" sounds like "socialized medicine" to me. The anti-business / capitalist "end to the power of financial interests" also hardly sounds like the invective of current right-wing types.

Further on, there's these two quotes:

Consider these remarks of Nazi leaders. Hitler on May 1, 1927:

"We are socialists. We are enemies of today's capitalistic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions."

Goebbels, who was the only major Nazi leader who stayed with Hitler to the very end, wrote in Der Angriff in 1928:

"The worker in a capitalist state - that is his greatest misfortune - no longer a human being, no longer a creator, no longer a shaper of things. He has become a machine."

Neither of those strike me as particularly right-wing, at least as is understood today.

I'm not sure how much credence to give the American Thinker article, but it does seem an interesting idea.

Both Nazism and Marxism led to totalitarian states which practiced wide scale democide; even if one could say one is right-wing and the other left-wing, it's not like either ideology is somehow exonerated by that distinction.

French families adopt American graves

As seen on NPR:

Eight years ago, a French couple founded an organization that adopts graves of American servicemen who died during the Normandy invasion of World War II. The volunteer group encourages French families to lay flowers on the graves when the Americans' own families can't do it.

Damn, that's cool.

While the governments of our respective nations may quarrel, it's good to see the people of France and the US remember the sacrifices one made for the other.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day is this coming Monday.

While it's usually a time for picnics, barbecues, family gatherings, and the Indy 500, it's original purpose is a bit more solemn; to commemorate those who have died in military service.

Without getting into politics, I suggest a return to Memorial Day's original purpose is more timely than ever.

If you can spare a moment, swing by the gratitude campaign. Doesn't cost anything to say "thanks" and those of us who served appreciate it.

Just remember those who aren't here.

Deadly mob beating unnerves Cleveland neighborhood

This story on the AP gives me pause.

CLEVELAND (AP) — Even by tough, urban-crime standards it was a grisly attack: Up to 15 people chased a man, then kicked and beat him to death on the street. Before police arrived, one attacker urinated on the victim's head.

When the crime-hardened neighborhood awoke later that morning, two people reported a man lying on the pavement, his clothes being dragged off by his assailants.

"You got a male being assaulted by 15 other guys. He's laying on the street," one 911 caller said.

The April 27 attack on Charles Gooden Jr. happened in the most murder-ridden neighborhood in one of the nation's poorest cities. But it was also within a 10-minute drive of the city's skyscrapers, sports venues and tourist attractions.

The motivation for the attack seems so childish as to be laughable. The sort of thing that if a writer put it in their story most people wouldn't find it credible.

Conwell said the motive was based on an argument involving a woman and a threat by her cousin against Gooden, 41.

"He went to defend his malehood honor. He hit the cousin in the mouth. When that happened, the other gang members jumped on him," said Conwell, relying on information from police and neighbors.

Charged in the slaying were Latangia Anderson, 23, Johnny Brown, 20, and Paris Moore, 19, all of Cleveland. They were each jailed on $1 million bond.

So that's it. One guy feels offended, so he hits a guy. Then the crowd beats him to death and pisses on his corpse.

I'll note, in an attempt to salvage something from this sad story, is that apparently none of the parties involved were armed.

Sad proof, if some was needed, that people's actions aren't defined by their tools. The absence of firearms does not equate to the absence of violence.

In fact, that the witnesses were unarmed and no police were around seems a likely contributing factor to the man's death. There was no one there to stop the mob. Just people left to call 911:

"They're stomping somebody and ripping their clothes off. You need to come," another caller said. "Like 15 of them beating the hell out of him."

The emergency dispatcher asked if an ambulance should be sent. "You better bring a stretcher, too," the caller replied. "Please hurry."

CCTV cameras in UK fail to stop crime

For some, this isn't much of a surprise.

In the UK the government decided to place a large number of closed circuit television cameras in public places to deter crime and terrorism, particularly IRA bombings.

The so called ring of steel was widened in 2003 as a response to rising crime rates.

Now some are calling the effectiveness of the camera system into question:

Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.

The warning comes from the head of the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office (Viido) at New Scotland Yard

One has to wonder if that 3% was worth the investment, or if the funds could have been better spent to achieve the same, or better, effect on the rate of street robberies.

For a completely different take on the ring of steel, Charles Stross's work The Concrete Jungle is a very good read if you're into Lovecraftian horror.

Armed Revolutionary Nationalist Faction

I heard about this group on Marketplace and was intrigued.

The idea of catching criminals on camera is more popular than ever. The Brits have spent billions to keep a remote eye on citizens. But today a senior detective is making headlines there, claiming surveillance cameras have barely made a dent in crime.

In France, you might say they've actually caused it. Since speed cameras were introduced there in 2003, vandals have smashed them, blinded them with paint or taken aim with rifles. Lately, a group calling itself the Armed Revolutionary Nationalist Faction -- or F'NAR -- has turned to blowing them up. John Laurenson reports from Paris.

Which is fascinating. Anecdotally, red light and speed cameras are presumed to be less about safety and more about increasing government revenue through increased traffic citations. That lack of public support would seem to mean when the cameras are attacked, if there are any witnesses they wouldn't come forward.

The economics are interesting as well.

Like the cafe customers, Mister Iosca believes money is behind the cameras. Speed cameras cost $150,000 each but generate, on average, twice that in revenue in a year. According to the French government, speed cameras brought in $700 million in 2007.

So, one wonders how many $150,000 cameras have to be destroyed to make replacing them cost prohibitive, given expected revenue.

The means of destroying the cameras seems very cheap. Sledgehammers, gasoline... things commonly available and effectively untraceable.

Perhaps people, if they don't support a political action, aren't always content with the ballot box as the only means to implement their dissatisfaction.

65 percent of American women are disordered eaters... really?

When I first heard of this story, I thought it was another story about bulemia, anorexia, or something of the sort.

However, this quote drew me up short:

No, she doesn’t starve herself to an unnatural weight (like anorexics) or throw up daily (like some bulimics), but she doesn’t seem to have a healthy relationship with food or her body, either.

So... "disordered eating"? Wha?

Well, since it's got a scary sounding name, there must be categories right?

The online SELF survey garnered responses from 4,000 women ages 25 to 45 to a detailed questionnaire about their eating habits and found that most disordered eaters fall into one or more of six categories. "Calorie prisoners" are terrified of gaining weight, tend to see food as good or bad and feel extremely guilty if they indulge in something that’s off-limits. Secret eaters binge on junk food at home, in the car — wherever they won’t be found out. Career dieters may not know what to eat without a plan to follow; despite their efforts, they’re more likely than other types to be overweight or obese. Purgers are obsessed with ridding their body of unwanted calories and bloat by using laxatives, diuretics or occasional vomiting. Food addicts eat to soothe stress, deal with anger, even celebrate a happy event; they think about food nearly all the time. Extreme exercisers work out despite illness, injury or exhaustion and solely for weight loss; they are devastated if they miss a session. Like Marsh, who Bulik describes as a calorie prisoner and an exercise addict, many disordered eaters piece together a painful mix of destructive habits. Others may shift between categories over the years, ricocheting from restricting to bingeing to purging, for instance.

Ah. There they are.

Now, does this scary sounding story cover a large group of people? Does this new category indicate previously known eating disorders?

Yes and no, apparently.

Even more frightening, the SELF survey reveals that an additional 10 percent of women suffer from outright eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, meaning that a total of 75 percent of all American women — three out of four — eat, think and behave abnormally around food.

So let me get this straight. 10 percent of women have previously identified eating disorders, but 75 percent of women get whacky about food.

Perhaps it's the cynic in me, but I read that as: "Self help gurus seek to expand the customers for their services by redefining what counts as a disorder".

For instance, without definitions of the terms their list of "disordered behavior" could look like this:

• Secret Eater: Someone who has a candy bar in their car on the way home from work.


• Career Dieters: Someone who's trying something other than "eat less and exercise more".


• Purgers: Someone who eats too much fiber.


• Food Addicts: Someone who eats comfort food (i.e. something the writers don't approve of).


• Extreme exercisers: someone who works out regularly

Maybe this is an indication of some deeper problem. However, without a look at the raw data and some definitions of terms this strikes me as nothing more than someone trying to drum up business.

Obama Girl finally votes

As a follow up to this earlier post, it seems Obama girl finally got around to voting:

Amber Lee Ettinger, better known as Obama Girl, ditched her New Jersey digs to vote in her hometown —Hazleton.
It proved to be an exciting day for her that gained Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., one more Pennsylvania vote in its primary election Tuesday.

It was Ettinger’s first time casting a vote in any election, she said.

Doesn't seemed to have helped though.

Illegal immigration in the news

So a 13 year old girl was assaulted after she brought a sign to school which said "If you love our nation, stop illegal immigration".

Melanie Bowers, 13, brought the sign to Athens Middle School on Friday as part of a class project on political activism. Each child was assigned to pick an issue and prepare a poster supporting a position.

Hayes said she was showing the sign in the hallway when a group of students tried wresting it away.

J.R. Bowers, the girl's father, said Melanie suffered scratch marks along her neck, face and arms. He said she also had a swollen jaw.

Bowers said as many as 20 students surrounded his daughter in the hallway, and Hayes said others may have hurled verbal insults. The poster was ultimately destroyed by other students.

Which just goes to show how touchy a subject this is.

People who are against illegal immigration are sometimes lumped in with racists who want to prevent cultural changes they see as detrimental ( and thereby confuse the ideas of race and culture yet again ) while some who rail against illegals are, apparently, more concerned with keeping only people who look like them in the US. That's not even accounting for non-white racists.

The Wall Street Journal notes the number of illegal immigrants has dropped recently:

The number of illegal immigrants apprehended along the U.S.-Mexico border is falling steeply, an indication that the economic downturn and beefed-up security could be deterring unauthorized crossings.

The U.S. Border Patrol said Tuesday that the number of apprehensions dropped 17% to 347,372 between Oct. 1, 2007, and March 31, 2008, from the same period in late 2006 and early 2007.

They seem to think the declining US job market has something to do with that, but I can't count out enforcement efforts.

NPR has a story on illegal immigrants from El Salvador being deported back to their home country.

In 2004, there were 3,500 illegal immigrants in the US returned to El Salvador. In 2007, there were 20,000. Quite a step up. Per the same NPR story, 287,000 illegal immigrants were returned to their home country from all nationalities.