During his early years, Ronald Reagan was employed as a lifeguard in Illinois.  He saved 77 people from an early grave at the hands of Rock River.  It’s an amazing accomplishment for any man, but certainly not his greatest or most memorable.  But for 77 people, he was their real-life George Bailey. 

Now it’s 78.

Earlier this week, another young Illini was in danger of meeting an early end.  Fourteen year-old Laura Montero was out to sea on the cruiseship Dawn Princess when her appendix burst.   The Dawn Princess, without surgical facilities, was unable to help the young girl, and her captain issued a distress call.

Over 500 miles away, none other than the USS Ronald Reagan answered the call.  She dropped everything and steamed south to the rescue.  Her crew medevac’s Ms. Montero to Reagan’s own on-board hospital facility and then, after her surgery, returned her safely back to San Diego.  Like her namesake, the USS Ronald Reagan is more than meets the eye.

Here is the answer I would love to hear from a Republican candidate on immigration:

You’ve asked what would I do to fix the illegal immigration problem.  Here’s my answer: not a whole hell of a lot.  In the first instance, this is not a major issue.  It’s difficult.  It’s tricky.  It’s emotional, and if you’re really honest, at least a little bit of it is racist.  But none of that has anything to do with my lack of a plan.

If you focus on any issue, if you listen to the hype, it will overwhelm you.  Global Warming, population growth, education, healthcare, all of these issues have serious consequences and need to be considered in due course.  But none of these issues, taken separately or together compares to the major issues facing us.

Here it is folks, plain and simple.  The next president of the United States will not have the luxury of pondering the ticking time bomb scenario.  It will be real.  In the next four or five years, there will be someone, a nation, a crazy loner or an organized group of murderous zealots, who will have a bomb.  Maybe it will be a nuclear weapon.  Maybe it will be a biological or chemical weapon, but it will be deadly.  It’s coming, and worrying about schools and draining the infrastructure and 12 million illegal aliens is not gonna stop it. 

After the war on terror, we need to worry about our economy and rising cost of living, not just healthcare.  Whether your ancestor came here on the Mayflower, walked across the Bearing Strait or snuck across the border in the dark of night, you’re being taxed to death, and sometimes beyond.  Government, and life in general, is becoming too impersonal.  It is too easy for bureaucrats in Washington to lose sight of what matters to real Americans.  Government programs are nice, but so is keeping a living wage for yourself.  A government that takes from Peter to give to Paul will soon find more Pauls and fewer Peters.  When the war is won, we will need to settle our accounts properly.

My plan on immigration is to keep enforcing the laws as best we can.  I would love to have the luxury of designing a broad immigration plan that everyone can agree on.  That treats all immigrants with human descency and acknowledges the vital role they play in our daily lives.  I don’t have that luxury though.  I’m not Lou Dobbs pontificating from a cozy studio.  I’m running for president.

Good government is about making hard choices.  Right now, our choices are made for us.  We are at war.  The enemy is smart.  The enemy is well-supplied and he’s coming for us.  The next president will need to focus as much effort as humanly possible on erradicating terrorism before it does the same to us and our way of life.  I would only do what was necessary to prevent that crazy bastard with a bomb from sneaking in and killing thousands or millions of Americans.  The first duty of the sovereign is to protect the people.  Everything else will have to wait.

The Sudanese, calling in the name of the peaceful religion of Islam, for the death of a British school teacher who allowed her students to name the class teddy bear Mohammad, were further angered today by a pardon, issued by the President of Sudan.

“Islam is a peaceful religion,” noted one rioter, “but name a small, harmless bear after the Prophet and the only punishment is death.”  Religious scholar and militant anti-infidel  Vikra Zebuggers agrees.  “It is right there in the Koran after ‘Family Fun with Beheadings’,  just before the chapter on flogging rape victims.”

Other rioters were not so deferential.  “Anyone who names a teddy bear Mohammad , or allows school children to name their teddy bear Mohammad,” screamed one rioter, “in the name of the peaceful religion of Allah, should be beheaded.”  A nearby rioter agreed, “even the school children should be beheaded.  In fact,” she added, “I should be beheaded for even hearing about it.”

In pardoning the British schoolteacher, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir noted that “we cannot allow this controversy to distract us from our genocidal plans in Darfur.”