L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa needs a job fast

Kobe Bryant and Antonio Villaraigosa

The term-limited outgoing mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, is said to be searching desperately for a job to pay the bills when he leaves his $232,000 annual salary office in a few weeks. An L.A. Weekly analysis of his tax and financial statements says that the 60-year-old mayor, a regular in the front row at Lakers games, doesn't have any financial assets other than a small rental property in the exurban Moreno Valley. He doesn't own a house in Los Angeles or a car. In an interview with the local CBS station, Villaraigosa didn't exactly deny that he needs money pronto.

Barack Obama's financial situation was similarly fallow up until 2004 (doing a cash-out refi on the condo kept him afloat a couple of times). But, then, Obama's WASPy tastes run toward browsing at bookstores and playing mediocre golf courses, while Villaraigosa is more of a party in Cabo with Charlie Sheen kind of guy. 

As you may recall, as part of the Democrats' Hispandering, Villaraigosa was chosen to preside as chairman of the 2012 Democratic convention, while a younger Mexican-American "mayor," Julian Castro, was chosen to give the keynote address. Castro isn't a real mayor -- he gets paid only about $3,000 per year for his ceremonial position because San Antonio has a city manager form of government, with a city manager who gets paid $355,000. But it's easier for Democratic power brokers to launder money to support Castro because he is a real lawyer. (A big Democratic contributor / trial lawyer gave the politically promising Castro identical twins a huge sum of money as a fee for referring an accident victim to him.)

In contrast, mayor of Los Angeles is a real job. It's not as powerful of a position as mayor of Chicago or New York, and Villaraigosa has mostly treated it as one long photo op, but L.A. doesn't have a city manager. 

Villaraigosa, however, is not a real lawyer -- he gave up trying to become a lawyer after failing the difficult California bar exam four times -- so he can't go to work for a Democratic-connected downtown law firm like a typical ex-mayor might. (For example, Jim Hahn, the respectable Democratic dynast mayor whom Villaraigosa defeated in 2005, went to work for a big real estate developer to provide "legal advice and business development." Now, the ex-mayor is a judge. But, then, Hahn passed the bar exam back in the 1970s, so he can be a judge.)

Besides, Villaraigosa gives off sleazeball fumes -- local reporters in L.A. seem to despise Villaraigosa -- that have repeatedly undermined the national media's attempts to portray him as the smiling face of the inevitability of the Hispanic Electoral Tidal Wave.

But that doesn't mean Villaraigosa won't someday get elected governor of California:

On Sept. 20, 2012, the mayor dined with Democratic strategist Garry South at Celestino Drago's downtown Drago Centro, across from the landmark Central Library, where South suggested Villaraigosa would be an excellent candidate for governor. "We're going to have a Latino governor sooner rather than later," South tells the Weekly. "It's inevitable. It's just a matter of who it's going to be."

Amusingly (but unamusingly for Villaraigosa), it now appears that Gov. Jerry Brown wants a fourth term, which would make him an 80 year old governor after he had been a 36 year old governor. But why not? He's Jerry Brown and career weirdness is just normal for him. So, Villaraigosa would be blocked until he's 65 in 2018. 

The problem for the Democrats is that the Latino Talent Deficit leaves the California Democratic party seemingly stuck with Villaraigosa because it's clearly going to be the Latinos' Turn by 2018, but who else is there?

So, until 2018, Villaraigosa needs a job. I can't imagine that the Democrats won't eventually conjure one up for him. But, the fact that they've left him publicly hanging this late in the game, with nobody yet stepping forward to take on the inevitable duty of subsidizing Slick Villy's lifestyle for the next half decade, is evidence of how little respect Democratic insiders have for him.

Villaraigosa's career is further evidence of the Latino Talent Deficit. Here's this state with a colossal Hispanic population, yet Villaraigosa is the best they've come up with? But that's the kind of dog-that-didn't-bark-data that is hard to notice even when you aren't in danger of getting Richwined for noticing it.

The Swedish Way

BUSINESS AS USUAL. A meter maid issues a parking ticket for a burnt-out car following a night of riots in the Stockholm suburb of Alby. (Photo by Fria Tider)

From Fria Tider:

Parking Tickets Issued on Wrecks while Stockholm Burns 

Publicerat den 24 maj 2013 kl 11:19 

STOCKHOLM (FRIA TIDER). Owners of cars destroyed in the riots fined for parking illegally while police adopt non-intervention policy. 

Since last Sunday, May 19, rioters have taken to the streets of Stockholm’s suburbs every night, torching cars, schools, stores, office buildings and residential complexes. Yesterday, a police station in Rågsved, a suburb four kilometers south of Stockholm, was attacked and set on fire. 

But while the Stockholm riots keep spreading and intensifying, Swedish police have adopted a tactic of non-interference. ”Our ambition is really to do as little as possible,” Stockholm Chief of Police Mats Löfving explained to the Swedish newspaper Expressen on Tuesday. 

”We go to the crime scenes, but when we get there we stand and wait,” elaborated Lars Byström, the media relations officer of the Stockholm Police Department. ”If we see a burning car, we let it burn if there is no risk of the fire spreading to other cars or buildings nearby. By doing so we minimize the risk of having rocks thrown at us.” 

Swedish parking laws, however, continue to be rigidly enforced despite the increasingly chaotic situation. Early Wednesday, while documenting the destruction after a night of rioting in the Stockholm suburb of Alby, a reporter from Fria Tider observed a parking enforcement officer writing a ticket for a burnt-out Ford.

Mike Judge interviewed by Alex Jones about "Idiocracy"

Mike Judge, the creator of Beavis & Butt-head, Office Space, King of the Hill, and Idiocracy, has been interviewed a fair amount over the years, but mostly by media hive workers who haven't noticed that he's not a nice liberal like they and everybody they know are. He's a moderately famous creative artist and social critic, so he has to hold the same views as us, right? For example, here's a substantial profile in the New York Times from 2011 that's completely clueless about his politics.

The most obviously interesting question about Judge's career is: what the heck happened to the "release" of Idiocracy in 2006? Since we all know that conspiracies, by definition, don't exist, the decision by a shadowy group of Fox insiders to deepsix Idiocracy for unexplained reasons is just one of those things that happen. Why do you want to know more? What are you, some kind of conspiracy theorist?

So, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones turns out to be the first interviewer I've seen who exhibits much sustained curiosity about Idiocracy.

Judge treads carefully, but he's a little more forthcoming than normal.

(This is not to get expectations up too high if you haven't seen Idiocracy. It's kind of choppy and a little short, but comedies don't have to be exquisitely made to be memorable [Caddyshack, anyone?]. Idiocracy compares quite well to the other interesting comedy that came out that fall of 2006, Sacha Baron-Cohen's Borat. In complete contrast to Idiocracy, Borat was marketed brilliantly and appealed to various deep-rooted prejudices of taste-makers, so it made a bundle at the box-office. In the long run, Idiocracy seems like the more profound portrait of the Bush Era, although Ramzan Kadyrov and the vibrant Chechen-American refugee immigrants are doing their best to revive the relevance of Borat -- although Kadyrov is more inspired by Baron-Cohen's underrated The Dictator. The Chechen proxy dictator is currently pranking his Instagram followers with the central plot element of Baron-Cohen's 2012 film about a dictator and his double.)

I don't like watching interview videos because they are a slow way to ingest information relative to reading. So, to save you the time, here are highlights from the video "Mike Judge: The Movie They Couldn't Kill," Alex Jones' 36 minute interview with Mike Judge.

At about 7:00 in, Judge says that King of the Hill conspiracy theorist Dale Gribble is based in part on Alex Jones.

15:45 Other than The Simpsons, the animated comedies that have really taken off -- South Park, Family Guy, Ren & Stimpy -- are ones where voices are done by the writer-artists rather than by actors.

17:45 Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" persuaded him to get into the guns -- especially Moore's argument about how there is a lower crime rate in Canada with "the same people." Judge leaves unstated why he found Moore's argument about Canada having the "same people" so unconvincing, implying that you ought to be able to figure out Moore's fallacy yourself, but he returns to emphasizing that he's thought a lot about the statistics of crime. "I took graduate probability and statistics courses."

18:40: He got blamed for Beavis & Butt-head causing crime in youth, but, he half-jokes, homicide has been declining since Beavis & Butthead came on the air in 1993.  He then presents his hand-drawn (but non-joking) table of crime rates in 1992 v. 2011 at 20:05.

21:15 Judge imitates Jones' appearance on Piers Morgan's show.

22:15 IRS targeting of conservatives "is going to make me listen to some more Alex Jones."

The last eight minutes from 27:40 onward are devoted to Idiocracy -- Judge started thinking about evolution and the disappearance of predators during the making of the Beavis & Butt-head Movie in the 1990s. Then, in 2001, was in line with his daughters at Disney's Teacups ride, when two women with strollers in the line behind him got into an altercation. Is this what Walt Disney wanted or expected? Then, he got thinking about the movie "2001" and how 2001 hadn't turned out to be everything pristine and advanced, but was instead the Jerry Springer Show and Wal-marts. So just take that chart from then to now and see where it would go in the future.

He owed Fox a second movie after Office Space. He didn't think anyone would make it. Gave the first draft script to Fox. Not much response. Then Luke Wilson wanted to do it, so Judge rewrote it for Wilson. 

Idiocracy's first corporate joke came after Judge drove past a tanning salon whose sign said "Exotic Tan for Men." But that's just low-rent, so it would be funnier if in the future handjob prostitution had spread upscale to Starbucks. He didn't expect Fox's legal department to approve it, but they came up with the suggestion that it would be less legally problematic if instead of just picking on Starbucks, the movie picked on a bunch of powerful corporations. 

(Sounds like my kind of legal department!)

The President of America addresses
the House of Representin'

"At some point I'm sure somebody flipped out, but I was shielded from all that."

This is pretty interesting because one common theory is that Idiocracy's satire of corporations is what sank it with Fox. Yet, Judge's comment that Fox's legal department came up with the idea of skewering numerous famous companies seem to lessen the likelihood of that idea. 

"They didn't really give it a release. There was a contractual obligation that they had to put it in 12 theaters and that's all they did." Judge talks about how Fox did so little to market the release that they didn't bother communicating the title to MovieFone, so if you called up trying to find when and where it was showing, the recording referred to "Untitled Mike Judge Project."

The Governor of California addresses
the State Senate

"What they told me was that it didn't test very well, which a lot of movies don't. Office Space didn't. ... We got 70% very good or excellent, which is a horrible score." He says that weird movies often get a polite "That was ... good" reaction.

He suggests that maybe Fox's horrible release turned out to be a brilliant strategy to get attention for the movie.

At 35:20, the screen then shows Reihan Salam's September 29, 2006 Slate article "The Movie Hollywood Doesn't Want You to See." I would estimate about 97% likelihood that Reihan read my September 3, 2006 iSteve posting "Mike Judge's "Idiocracy:" The movie the Fox studio doesn't want you to see." Also, my review in the October 6, 2006 issue of The American Conservative came out around maybe September 22. And back on March 26, 2006, I had written a profile of Judge's politics, including a preview of the upcoming Idiocracy for VDARE.

I go into this tedious detail because I like to imagine that my one accomplishment as a movie critic is getting the ball rolling on saving Idiocracy from oblivion by getting the younger Washington pundits talking about it.

35:30 Judge expresses pride that the word "Idiocracy" has become part of the language. Commenting on the movie's rise in fame and prestige, Judge says, "Maybe since it came out in 2006 everybody's gotten stupider?"

Tsarnaev-Todashev story has immigration fraud written all over it

From the Boston Globe:

In 2008, the US government granted Todashev asylum, a protection granted to foreigners with a credible fear for their safety in their homelands ­because of religious, political, or other specific forms of persecution. 

But Reuters reports that Todashev's father is a government official in Grozny whose father is in tight with the All-Time Champ Chechen Ramzan Kadryov.

Todashev then obtained a green card in February 2013, making him a legal permanent resident and clearing the way for him to apply for US citizenship in a few years if he ­remained in good standing, said law enforcement officials with direct knowledge of the ­information. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested ­Todashev’s girlfriend, Tatiana Gruzdeva, May 16 on immigration violations, said a law enforce­ment official. An ICE spokesman confirmed that she is in custody.

Self-Portrait by Tatiana Gruzdeva

Facebook lists one Tatiana Gruzdeva in Orlando, complete with lots of pictures. My apologies if this is the wrong Tatiana Gruzdeva. I don't want to post a picture of Ms. Gruzdeva's face if she's the wrong Tatiana Gruzdeva, so I'll just share with you a self-portrait she posted on Facebook. I don't spend a lot of time on Facebook, but my impression is that this picture probably isn't all that unique and thus won't give away her identity.

Continuing with the Chicks Dig Chechens theme, there's also the Widow Todahsev.

Here's the late Ibragim Todashev and his 24-year-old widow from the Wall Street Journal:

Ms. Manukyan, an Armenian who converted to Islam before marrying Mr. Todashev, says she met her late husband in 2010 through a mutual friend in Boston. She says she separated from Mr. Todashev in November but was still in regular contact with him and was partly supporting him through their joint bank account.

We hear a lot these days about immigrants' "American Dream," but the Chechen Dream appears to be to have some babe support you. Do you think these guys were big hip-hop fans back in the old country?

If you were a nice-looking young Armenian girl in the United States, would you convert to Islam to marry some lay-about Chechen cage fighter? I guess we know in the case of Mrs. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, whose doctor father is a Yale and Phillips Exeter man (same as his father), who converted to Islam to marry Bomb Brother #1.

From the Boston Herald:

At the time of yesterday’s shooting, Todashev was free on a $3,500 bond, according to Florida court 
records, after being arrested May 4 by sheriff’s deputies at gunpoint at the Premium Outlet Mall in Orlando on a charge of felony aggravated battery after a mall 
security guard reported a fight in a parking lot that left a man battered and bleeding. 

In 2010, a Boston police report stated Todashev was involved in a violent road rage incident in Downtown Crossing 

The BPD report states officers “witnessed several people struggling to restrain a white male, later determined to be the subject, Ibragim Todashev. Officers heard Todashev yell, ‘You say something about my mother, I will kill you!’ Officers struggled to physically 
restrain and handcuff Todashev. ...” His case was continued without a finding.

The Los Angeles Times interviews the bereaved father:

According to the father, Ibragim Todashev was studying English at Grozny University when he got a chance to go to the United States in an exchange program in 2008. 

"He loved it there from Day One," the father said. "He would call me and tell me how everybody was into sports, what great sports gyms they had and what wonderful possibilities he had for the mixed fighting and boxing he loved so much. 

"Then when he told me that he loved it in America and wanted to stay," the father said, "I didn't mind." 

I mind. Why is it okay for various violent Chechens to just up and move to my country because they think it's a better place to practice hurting people?

He said his son hit it off with Tsarnaev because of their common Chechen heritage. Although Tsarnaev never lived in the restive Russian republic, his family's roots were there and there are indications that Tsarnaev felt a kinship with the Muslim separatists who want the region to break free from Russia. 

"We are a small people who endured so many hardships to survive in our difficult history that it is only natural for us to stick together, especially abroad," said Todashev, 53, who is head of the municipal services department in Grozny.

So that job puts the elder Todashev, who is polygamously married to two women and has twelve children, what, about two steps down the org chart from Ramzan the Great and thus three steps down from Vladimir Putin? How exactly does that qualify you for refugee status?

Ramzan Kadryov and Gerard Depardieu discuss motoring

Americans have this image of the refugee program existing for the likes of Einstein, Toscanini, and Solzhenitsyn. But, in reality, these days it tends to be a vehicle for immigration fraud by well-connected individuals who can plausibly purport that their relatives back home have made a lot of their neighbors extremely mad at them.

Like, for example, the late Brendan Mess's girlfriend Hibatalla Eltilib of the Sudan, who seems to have encouraged Tamerlan Tsarnaev's Muslim extremism.

Chechens dig chicks -- viciously anti-American ones

From the Boston Globe:

Stark overtones in ’11 Waltham killings

By Michael Rezendes and Bob Hohler |  GLOBE STAFF     MAY 24, 2013

... Initially, neighbors of the victims said they were told by police that the killings were probably drug related. But some family members disagreed, as did Zalkind. 

“With a drug killing, people come over and – bang, bang – it’s over,” Zalkind said. “They want to get out of there as fast as they can.” 

... But there is no question about Tsarnaev’s ties to Mess, who had recently moved to Waltham from Cambridge at the urging of Mess’s girlfriend, Hibatalla Eltilib, according to friends and relatives of the victims who spoke with the Globe. Mess and Tsaernaev had grown close as neighbors near Inman Square, sharing a love of fighting, as well as hip-hop music. 

Newly named Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan on Thursday said she would have no comment on any aspect of the investigation. But friends and relatives of the victims, in hindsight, said police should have examined the relationship between Eltilib, a native of ­Sudan, and Tsarnaev. 

Although friends knew ­Tsarnaev to be Muslim, they did not consider him to be an ­extremist. 

Eltilib, by contrast, was outspoken about her Islamic beliefs and disdain for many American values, friends said. 

“She and Tam got really close and became friends,’’ said a friend of Mess, Tsarnaev, and Eltilib. “This was closer to ­Brendan’s death. They would share stories of their distaste for American culture. She was extremely aggressive and violent and had this radical way of thinking.’’ 

All the friends and relatives of the victims who spoke with the Globe asked for anonymity due to fear of retribution from a killer who might still be at large. 

Eltilib has since returned to Sudan.

Why was she here in the first place?

Chechnya: Awesomest Republic in Russia!

Chechnya strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, Elizabeth Hurley, and fluffy kitten

From Hollywood Reporter:

Depardieu Defends Chechnya, Says Boston Bombers Were 'Raised American' 

8:37 AM PDT 5/22/2013 by Nick Holdsworth 

MOSCOW -- Gallic actor Gerard Depardieu’s PR-heavy return to Russia – where he is due to shoot a revenge thriller Turquoise set in Chechnya -- has continued on a controversial tone when he spoke out about the Boston bombers.

Depardieu, who arrived in Chechen capital Grozny with co-star British actress Elizabeth Hurley, said the ethnic-Chechen Tsarnaev brothers ... had been raised American and the outrage could not be blamed on Chechnya. 

The actor, who earlier this year took Russian citizenship to avoid planned wealth taxes of 75 percent in France – and is now reported to have signed up for a special 6 percent flat tax rate designed for entrepreneurs, said: “... You Chechens don't carry any responsibility at all.” 

His comments came just hours before the FBI shot and killed a Chechen man who was being questioned in connection with the Boston bombings. ...

Depardieu's remarks Tuesday, at a press conference where he was seen socializing with Kadyrov, came just days after his arrival in Russia when he had compared Russian president Vladimir Putin to staunch anti-Communist Pope Jean Paul II, seemed designed to draw more attention to his movie projects in Russia. 

Turqoise is a French production directed by Philippe Martinez and produced by Arnaud Frilley, which started shooting in Grozny Saturday. 

Depardieu plays an ex-gangster whose son is killed and comes to Russia to avenge him, where he meets up with an old girlfriend, played by Hurley and a Chechen friend. ...

The French actors friendship with Kadyrov – who has been accused of widespread human rights abuses and murder, made for an uncomfortable exchange with members of the international press who flew to Grozny to meet Depardieu. 

Martinez flew into a rage when asked to comment on parallels between the film's revenge theme and alleged revenge killings of Kadyrov's enemies. 

"I am ashamed you are asking that question,” Martinez said according the British newspaper The Independent – which is owned by former Russian KGB officer Alexander Lebedev. “Gerard Depardieu and Elizabeth Hurley are making a movie in Chechnya! And you're asking questions of a political nature! I don't event want to answer.”

When the Bomb Brothers were revealed to be Chechens, I pointed out that Chechens fascinated the great Russian writers Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, and Solzhenitsyn. But, I was widely informed, that's stereotyping.

Here's the thing, though: Chechens love acting stereotypically Checheny.

America is getting Chechenier

So, Chechen immigrant Ibragim Todashev was just about to sign his confession when he suddenly attacked three FBI agents with some kind of object and was shot dead? But doesn't this sound like a story you'd hear from the Russian government about what happened to somebody they didn't like in Chechnya? You know, one of those stories that they don't even try very hard to make persuasive because they kind of want you to know they did it and they can get away with it?

(Realistically, it's not uncommon for cops to shoot people for reasons that don't sound very plausible afterwards, like in the killing a few years ago of an 18-year-old violist by plainclothes cops "debriefing" in a parking lot in my neighborhood. Usually, I surmise, the conspiracies come not before the shooting, but afterwards as the cops try to put together a story that will semi-cohere.)

From Reuters:

(Reuters) - The father of a Chechen immigrant killed during questioning over his links with one of the Boston Marathon bombings suspects said on Thursday he plans to travel to the United States where he thinks his son was tortured and killed. ...

"I suspect that they tortured my son and that he suffered a painful death," said Abdulbaki Todashev, wiping away tears at the home he shares with one of his wives in the mostly Muslim region of Chechnya in Russia's North Caucasus.

Did I ever mention that chicks dig Chechens?

"I will try to go to (the United States) and get to the truth," he said as he received neighbours and acquaintances paying their respects to the dead man, the oldest of 12 children between his father's two wives. 

Todashev had met the Tsarnaevs when he travelled to the United States to improve his English, said his father, who works in the mayor's office in Chechnya's main city of Grozny and is said to be on close terms with regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

Clearly, anybody who's tight with Ramzan Kadyrov is completely trustworthy. (For more on the inimitable Ramzan Kadyrov, see my next post.)

Ramzan Kadyrov

He said he gave his permission when his son asked to stay in the United States because he said it was safer than Chechnya,

Did anybody in the U.S. government give permission? Does anybody care? I've often said before that just as the government has the independent National Transportation Safety Board to not whitewash airliner crashes, we need an independent National Immigration Safety Board to review cases of "Why was this guy in our country?"

where separatists waged two wars with Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union and militants still fight for an Islamic state.

To the extent that we can trust anything Mr. Todashev says, he is implying that the Todashev family was threatened by Islamic rebels who objected to his being pals with the Putin-appointed Kadyrov.

Todashev travelled to the United States in 2008 on a Russian passport, a federal law enforcement source said, and lived in Boston before moving to Florida, where he was killed. His father said he had a plane ticket to return to Russia on Friday. 

"He shouldn't have left. He lived comfortably and his mother was very worried about him because he was the oldest in the family and she was used to him being a model for the others," said a neighbour, Malika, who refused to give her last name.

So, he lived comfortably in Chechnya and his mother was more worried about him being in America? I thought he was some kind of refugee? What was young Todashev doing in our country, again?

The FBI agent who shot Todashev, who practised mixed martial arts, has not been publicly identified but is from the agency's Boston division, the Orlando Sentinel reported. ...

Surely, one of the three FBI agents was recording the conversation on his smartphone, so the FBI will be releasing the audio tape momentarily, right?

"Chechens have a power in their unity and interest in what happens in their homeland. It unites them. That's the reason my son became an acquaintance of the Tsarnaevs," said Todashev, speaking in the courtyard of his older wife's house.

Indeed.

But ... hey, what about the Magic of Assimilation?

Todashev buddy Ramzan Kadyrov is the Checheniest Chechen of them all

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and his two best friends:
his gold pistol and V. Putin

Reuters is reporting that the father of Chechen refugee Ibragim Todashev, slain by an FBI agent yesterday, is a high ranking government official in Chechnya and "is said to be on close terms with regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov."

So, to get a better sense of just how much huddled massesness it takes to be a refugee these days, I thought I'd read up on the Todashev family's friend, Ramzan Kadyrov.

Ray Sawhill of Uncouth Reflections has coined the phrase "Russia: Awesomest Country on Earth" (for things like this ultraviolent micro-action movie, NSFW). If so, then judging by the Wikipedia page and Instagram account of Chechnya's current leader, we can only conclude: "Chechnya: Awesomest Republic in Russia."

Here are excerpts from Kadyrov's Wikipedia page illustrated with additional photographs, many of them from Kadyrov's Instagram website and from the excellent blog F*** Yeah Ramzan Kadyrov.

Ramzan Kadyrov

RK and Mike Tyson

Ramzan is a son of former Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, who was assassinated in May 2004. In February 2007, Kadyrov replaced Alu Alkhanov as President, shortly after he had turned 30, which is the minimum age for the post. He has the support of current Russian President Vladimir Putin and was awarded the Hero of Russia medal, the highest honorary title of Russia. 

Kadyrov was engaged in violent power struggles; with Chechen government warlords Sulim Yamadayev and Said-Magomed Kakiev for overall military authority, and with Alu Alkhanov for political authority.

RK and Diego Maradona

As Head of Chechnya, Kadyrov has been credited for bringing peace and stability to the region.[citation needed] On the other hand, he has come under heavy criticism from the international press and Russia, due to alleged corruption and human rights violations.

Kadyrov was born in Tsentoroi, RSFSR, USSR. A reckless and impetuous person at school, Ramzan Kadyrov strove to gain the respect of his father Akhmad Kadyrov, a Muslim imam. He claims that he always emulated his father. Ramzan enjoys boxing and once met with former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson.[3] In the early 1990s, as the Soviet Union splintered into fragments, the Chechens launched a bid for independence. The Kadyrovs joined the struggle against the federal forces, with Ramzan driving a car for his father Akhmad, who became the separatist mufti of Chechnya.[citation needed]

The Kadyrov clan defected to the Moscow side at the beginning of the Second Chechen War in 1999. Since then, Ramzan has led his militia with support from Russia's FSB state security service (including service ID cards) becoming the head of the Chechen Presidential Security Service. The militia later became known as the Kadyrovites. 

RK,  J.C. van Damme and Hilary Swank 

He was falsely rumoured to have died of a gunshot wound inflicted by his bodyguard on 28 April 2004.[4]

After his father, then President, was assassinated on 9 May 2004, Ramzan was appointed Deputy Prime Minister of the Chechen Republic.

When his sister was detained by the Dagestan police in January 2005, Ramzan and some 150 armed men drove to the Khasavyurt City Police (GOVD) building. According to the city mayor, Kadyrov's men surrounded the GOVD, forcing its duty officers against the wall and assaulted them, after which they left the building with Zulai Kadyrova, "victoriously shooting in the air."[5] 

RK and pet

In August 2005, Ramzan declared that "Europe's largest mosque" would be built in place of the demolished ruins of Grozny's shattered downtown.[6] He also claimed that Chechnya is the "most peaceful place in Russia" and in a few years it would also be "the wealthiest and the most peaceful" place in the world. He said that the war was already over with only 150 "bandits" remaining (as opposed to the official figures of 700 to 2,000 rebel fighters), and that thanks to his father, 7,000 separatists had already defected to the Russian side since 1999. 

When responding to a question on how he is going to "avenge the murder of his father", Ramzan said: 

Kadyrov escorting the Prophet's
Golden Bowl to Grozny mosque

I've already killed him, whom I ought to kill. And those, who stay behind him, I will be killing them, to the very last of them, until I am myself killed or jailed. I will be killing [them] for as long as I live... Putin is gorgeous. He thinks more about Chechnya than about any other republic [of the Russian Federation]. When my father was murdered, he [Putin] came and went to the cemetery in person. Putin has stopped the war. Putin should be made president for life. Strong rule is needed. Democracy is all but an American fabrication... Russians never obey their laws. Everyone was stealing, and only Khodorkovsky is in jail.[7][8][9] 

Following a car accident in December 2005, in which Chechnya's prime minister Sergey Abramov was injured, Ramzan functioned as the caretaker prime minister. He immediately proceeded to implement elements of Sharia law, such as declaring a ban on gambling and alcohol production.[10]

RK and Gerard Depardieu

In February 2006, responding to the publication of the Mohammed cartoons, he accused the Danes of "spying" and being "pro-terrorist". He also banned Danish citizens from entering Chechnya, effectively banning activity of the Danish Refugee Council, the largest NGO working in the region. Kadyrov is quoted as saying, "That cartoonist needs to be buried alive." He was eventually pressed to overturn this decision by Moscow, a rare example of federal intervention in Kadyrov's rule in the republic.[11] 

RK and Gerard Depardieu inspect monster truck on Tuesday

On 1 March 2006, Sergey Abramov resigned from the position of prime minister and told Itar-Tass news agency that he did so "on the condition that Ramzan Kadyrov lead the Chechen government." This was followed by a decree of Kadyrov forcing women to wear headscarves; he also rejected a federal appropriation of the republic's budget, demanding more money, and called for all federal forces but the border guards to be withdrawn.

Shortly after taking office, Kadyrov approved a project to erect a presidential palace on a 30-acre (120,000 m2) plot by the Sunzha River in ruined downtown Grozny. The project, which will also include a five-star hotel and recreational facilities, is estimated to cost around 1.5 billion rubles ($54 million USD) to build. ... Reuters quoted him as saying that "liquidating the refugee camps will allow us to uncover spies who are working for foreign intelligence services".[12] 

... In 2006, leaked cables from an American diplomat recounted a lavish wedding attended by Kadyrov in Russia's Caucasus region in which guests threw $100 bills at child dancers, and which had nighttime "water-scooter jaunts on the Caspian Sea", and a report that Ramzan Kadyrov gave the newly married couple a "five-kilo lump of gold".[16] 

RK upbraiding cabinet member

... On 15 February 2007, Putin signed a decree removing Alkhanov and installing Kadyrov as Chechen's acting president.[17] ... Critics allege that Ramzan Kadyrov is actively building his own "vertical of power" in the republic, and encouraging nepotism by placing men of the Beno clan in all the leading and important positions.

After the car-bomb attack on Yunus-bek Yevkurov, president of the neighboring Republic of Ingushetia on 22 June 2009, Kadyrov claimed that the Kremlin had ordered him to fight insurgents there, and during his subsequent visit to the republic on 24 June pledged ruthless vengeance.[21]

In late December 2009, Kadyrov claimed that remaining rebels were getting financed by "The West"; "I officially declare this: those who destroyed the Soviet Union, those who want to destroy the Russian Federation, they stand behind them". He also suggested he did not seek another term as President and that Russia should attack Georgia and Ukraine "It's Russia's private affliction; why should we always suffer if we can eradicate this for good?".[22] 

As reported by the Caucasian Knot, an independent human rights resource, on 5 February 2009, "in the course of his meeting in Grozny with Ramzan Ampukaev, representative of the Chechen Diaspora in Europe, Ramzan Kadyrov invited former militants, now living in Europe, to come back home":

Mr. Kadyrov and I are in complete agreement on the desirability of Chechens returning to Chechnya.

... An assassination attempt on Kadyrov and a parliament member Adam Delimkhanov was averted on 23 October 2009, by the police. Chechen Deputy interior minister Roman Edilov said the police shot dead the driver of a speeding car filled with a 200-litre tanker after firing warning shots shortly before Kadyrov was to arrive at a construction site. The driver of the car was later identified as a militant leader (so-called Urus-Martan emir Beslan Bashtayev).[27][28] Said-Emi Khizriev, who played a role in organizing the attack, was killed by Russian police who tried to arrest him in the Michurin village in Grozny.[29]

Sounds a little like the FBI shooting of young Todashev in Florida?

RK's Instagram caption: "Dear friends, I will reveal a secret to you, but please don't tell anybody. I have sent my double to work instead of me today. Let's see how he manages!"

Kadyrov has been personally implicated in several instances of torture and murder. A number of Chechens opposed to Kadyrov have been assassinated abroad, and several witnesses (including Artur Kurmakaev and Ruslan Khalidov) report the existence of a 300-name "Murder List".[30] 

... A mutinied commander, Movladi Baisarov, said that Kadyrov "acts like a medieval tyrant. If someone tells the truth about what is going on, it's like signing one's own death warrant. Ramzan is a law unto himself. He can do anything he likes. He can take any woman and do whatever he pleases with her. (...) Ramzan acts with total impunity. I know of many people executed on his express orders and I know exactly where they were buried".[31] On 18 November 2006, Baisarov was killed in an ambush by members of Kadyrov's police on Moscow's Leninsky Prospekt, only a few hundred meters from the Kremlin. 

... On 23 October 2006, a criminal case was registered on the basis of the video tape frames published by the Novaya Gazeta newspaper in Anna Politkovskaya's article. Sergey Sokolov, deputy editor-in-chief of the paper, told the Echo Moskvy Radio that it can be clearly seen in the video as to how "Kadyrov's military forces are beating federal soldiers" with participation of "a man looking like Ramzan Kadyrov".[35] On 7 October 2006, Politkovskaya was found shot dead in an elevator in her apartment in Moscow. 

... The Memorial group investigator stated in its report: "Considering the evidence we have gathered, we have no doubt that most of the crimes which are being committed now in Chechnya are the work of Kadyrov’s men. There is also no doubt in our minds that Kadyrov has personally taken part in beating and torturing people. What they are doing is pure lawlessness. To make matters worse, they also go after people who are innocent, whose names were given by someone being tortured to death. He and his henchmen spread fear and terror in Chechnya. (...) They travel by night as death squads, kidnapping civilians, who are then locked in a torture chamber, raped and murdered".[37]

I don't know what this is

... Ramzan is rumoured to own a private prison in his stronghold of Tsentoroi, his home village south-east of Grozny. Fields around Tsentoroi are allegedly mined and all access routes are blocked by checkpoints. ...

A video leaked out in which armed men, loyal to Kadyrov, displayed the severed head of a Chechen guerrilla (who was killed in July 2006) for public display in the village of Kurchaloi, marking the brutality of his forces. They mounted the head on a pipe, together with blood-stained trousers and put a cigarette on him.  

On 15 July 2009, Natalia Estemirova, a member of Memorial society, who investigated the alleged abuses by government-backed militias in Chechnya, was abducted and shot to death.[48] Memorial's chairman Oleg Orlov accused Kadyrov of being behind the murder,[49] and claimed that Kadyrov had openly threatened her by saying: "Yes, my arms are up to the elbows in blood. And I am not ashamed of that. I have killed and will kill bad people".[50] Kadyrov denied any involvement in the killing and promised to investigate the killing personally. He condemned the killers, and in response to Orlov's accusations, said: "You are not a prosecutor or a judge therefore your claims about my guilt are not ethical, to put it mildly, and are insulting to me. I am sure that you have to think about my rights before declaring for everyone to hear that I am guilty of Estemirova's death."[51] It was later reported that Kadyrov would be suing Memorial for defamation and slander, targeting Orlov personally with his complaint.[51][52]

On 12 March 2006, a Chechen separatist website posted a short video shot on a mobile phone of a party in a sauna involving two alleged prostitutes and several men, including one who looks and sounds exactly like Ramzan Kadyrov, seen dancing with a young, half-naked woman and trying to rip her bra off. ... Andrew Osborn, Moscow reporter for the Independent, reports that "Mr Kadyrov's aides have laughed off the grainy video ... as a 'provocation'.".[53][54] However, one of people close to Kadyrov confirmed that such orgies are conducted on a regular basis[55]

... In 2009, Kadyrov stated his approval of honor killings, based on the belief that women are the property of their husbands.[57]

Since 1996 Kadyrov is married to Medni Musaevna Kadyrova (born 7 September 1978) and they have eight children: ...

Kadyrov is a noted collector of sports cars. He owns a Lamborghini Reventón, one of only 20 made.[59][60] He is also known for his extensive collection of Chechen daggers.[61][62] On 5 October 2011, he celebrated his 35th birthday in a lavish fashion in the presence of several Hollywood stars, including the actor Jean-Claude Van Damme and the actress Hilary Swank as well as British violinist Vanessa-Mae, singer Seal and many others.[63] When asked where the money for the live-televised celebration were coming from, he reportedly laughed and said "Allah gives it to us", before adding: "I don't know, it comes from somewhere".[64]

Sorry if most of the text is kind of a bummer, what with all the death squads and what not, but I needed something to space out the pictures. I'll leave you with this one:

Mormons in Hollywood

The Mormon sensibility in show biz is a long-term interest of mine. From my 2004 review in The American Conservative of Jared Hess's "Napoleon Dynamite:"

At the screening I attended, Hollywood's Bright Young Mormons were out in force as the theatre resounded with the lovely laughter of wholesome-looking starlets from the Great Basin. The twenty-something crowd found the small town misadventures and eventual triumph of an ornery high school geek (voted "Most Likely to Find Sasquatch") a cartoonish but redolent delight. This mild, PG-rated film is winning bellylaughs from gentiles under-25 too, so the studio is now rolling it out to 1,200 theatres. 

Personally, I didn't find the movie terribly funny, which made me feel downright wizened to realize that I'm too over-the-hill to get the jokes that are slaying all the Mormon hipsters. 

... One of the less remarked demographic trends is that the makers of "Napoleon Dynamite" represent the future. As coastal sophisticates fail to reproduce themselves, an ever-increasing percentage of young white people come from conservative, religious backgrounds. Mormon Utah has by far the highest birthrate, of course, but in the 2000 election, the 19 states with the highest white fertility all voted for Bush, while nine of the ten states at the bottom of the white birthrate list voted for Gore.

From this week's NYT Magazine:

When Hollywood Wants Good, Clean Fun, It Goes to Mormon Country 

Out of nowhere, B.Y.U. — a Mormon university owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — has become a farm team for the country’s top animation studios and effects companies. Unlikely as it sounds, young Mormons are being sucked out of the middle of Utah and into the very centers of American pop-culture manufacturing. 

Praising the program in a speech on campus in 2008, the president of Pixar, Edwin Catmull, noted: “It’s the perception not just of Pixar, but also at the other studios, that something pretty remarkable is happening here.” ... 

One thing to keep in mind about BYU is that it's less stratified by SAT scores than almost all private colleges these days. The range from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile of incoming freshmen's test scores is very wide. It draws both very smart Mormons and not so smart Mormons. Also, it has quite low tuition for a private college (no real secret -- it just has big average class sizes). In various ways, BYU is kind of like how American colleges are described in Heinlein novels.

The typical B.Y.U. student doesn’t seem like a natural fit for Hollywood. Mormon culture tends to see the entertainment industry as both a reflection of and contributor to our “morally bereft society,” as one alumnus put it. ... 

The B.Y.U. program is designed to be a similar kind of ethical counterweight: it’s trying to unleash values-oriented filmmakers into the industry who can inflect its sensibility.  

At first, I struggled to understand the specifics of that mission. Everyone talked about wanting to make “clean movies” or “movies I wouldn’t be afraid to take my mother to,” but these phrases were shibboleths, loaded and tough to pin down. It wasn’t simply a matter of avoiding sex and violence. (A few times, I heard even “Shrek” described disapprovingly: too many fart jokes, too much cynicism.)

In retrospect, Shrek 2 was one of the most loathsome movies I've ever seen. Not surprisingly, it made the most money of the four Shrek films. In contrast, the studios treated Shrek 4 as a throwaway and let the animators do what they wanted on a tight budget. The result was a sweet little film that the people who worked on it wouldn't be ashamed to show their grandchildren someday. Of course, it didn't make as much money as its predecessors.

In general, animated feature films have been the most gentile of genres. The two major names, artistically, have been Disney and Pixar. You can read endless debates on the Internet over whether Walt Disney was anti-Semitic or not. Like most Hollywood moguls of his time, Disney hired his relatives and in-laws as studio executives. Theoretically, the Internet could also be filled with debates over whether the other moguls, who had the same nepotistic hiring practices as Disney, were anti-gentilic, but that word doesn't exist, so the thought never occurs to anybody. I would hardly be surprised if, someday after Pixar's John Lassetter (creator of Toy Story) is out of power, the sub-quarkian post-Internet isn't roiled by endless debates over whether Lassetter was anti-Semitic.

History is written less by the victors (there weren't many bigger victors in American culture than Walt Disney) than by the writers of history.

The blessings of diversity

From the New York Times, a run of the mill case of arranged marriage, visa fraud, and honor killings:

Court Documents Detail a Deadly Family Feud From Brooklyn to Pakistan 

By MOSI SECRET 

She fled her husband and her family, sneaking out of her home in Pakistan to take sanctuary in the American Embassy, which then whisked her to a secret hide-out in the United States. 

The thrilling escape seemed to end the harrowing ordeal of Amina Ajmal, an American citizen who said she had been held captive for years by her own relatives in Pakistan and forced to marry a man there who only wanted an American visa. But then, after law enforcement encouraged her to call her father from her hide-out, the episode took an even darker turn. 

“I will not end this until I find you,” Mohammad Ajmal Choudhry, a Brooklyn taxi driver, told his daughter on the phone in February, according to a transcript of the recorded call. “I will kill their entire family.” 

Four days later, two people in Pakistan were dead. Relatives of the man who had helped her escape, they were gunned down while riding a motorcycle through the streets of Gujrat. 

And now the tale of the Choudhry family, detailed in hundreds of pages of court documents, is a feud of Shakespearean proportions, sprawling across the two continents and the shifting cultures that these immigrants and their American children inhabit. 

Nearly two dozen people, including his other children, came to support Mr. Choudhry at his most recent bail hearing, in April. Despite his prison clothes, he looked every bit the jovial grandfather, plump, balding and waving warmly to the crowd before affirming his innocence. For now, the charges in Federal District Court in Brooklyn are for making threats and visa fraud for filing a visa application for Ms. Ajmal’s new husband without her permission. There is a warrant for Mr. Choudhry’s arrest in Pakistan, accusing him of murder. 

Ms. Ajmal’s ordeal began three years ago, when, at age 19 and having spent her whole life in Brooklyn, she moved to Gujrat, her ancestral city in northeast Pakistan. Her new home was much like the one she left, filled with relatives from several generations who regularly traveled back and forth between the two countries. Some had helped to raise her after her mother died. 

But Ms. Ajmal recently told federal investigators that for three years she was held as a prisoner in her own home. Her confinement was only made worse when her father forced her to marry a local man, Abrar Ahmed Babar, under the threat of death, she said. 

Then, with the help of a distant relative, Shujat Abbas, she fled. 

When she arrived in the United States in January, she called Immigration and Customs Enforcement seeking help. She told officials that her marriage had been arranged so that her husband could obtain legal permanent residency in the United States. Investigators said they later found a visa application for Mr. Babar that had been mailed from Brooklyn, bearing Ms. Ajmal’s signature, even though she was out of the country when it was mailed. 

When Ms. Ajmal called her father in February, he lashed out with pleas and threats, most of them directed toward the family of Mr. Abbas, according to a transcript of the secretly recorded calls that was filed in court. “I will catch each and every person of their family, and will kill them, until I find you,” Mr. Choudhry said. 

That same day Mr. Choudhry e-mailed the American Embassy in Islamabad, saying Mr. Abbas was a drug smuggler who was wanted by the government of Dubai. He wrote that Mr. Abbas was using his relationship with his daughter to try to gain citizenship. 

“He is trying his level best to come to U.S.A. by hook and by crook,” Mr. Choudhry wrote, according to court documents. Mr. Choudhry’s lawyer, Joshua L. Dratel, provided the e-mails to the court in an attempt to show that Mr. Abbas “is not some good Samaritan interested in Amina’s welfare.” 

Mr. Abbas’s father and sister were killed four days later. Mr. Abbas’s mother filed a complaint in Pakistan alleging that the assailants were Ms. Ajmal’s aggrieved husband and her father’s brother, who she said were also responsible for “desecrating the bodies.” She named several other relatives of Mr. Choudhry who she said were involved. 

In a recorded phone call after the murders, Mr. Choudhry repeatedly denied that he ordered the killings, saying that other enemies of Mr. Abbas’s family must be to blame. But he did not back down from his threats.
“Even if I did kill him, isn’t a person supposed to kill that being, when he finds out that his daughter ran away because of him?” he said, according to court papers. “My name is tainted everywhere in newspapers, on TV channels, that I am a man with no honor, my daughters are whores.”
A legal resident since 1990, Mr. Choudhry, 60, was arrested on Feb. 26 outside his home in Brooklyn. Prosecutors charged him with visa fraud and communicating threats and they continue to investigate his involvement in the murders. He faces up to 20 years in prison on the two pending charges.
His lawyer, Mr. Dratel, filed more than a dozen sworn affidavits from people in Pakistan attesting to Mr. Choudhry’s character, providing alibis for the two accused of being the gunmen and presenting alternative theories for how the killings could have happened. He argued that Mr. Choudhry should be released on bail because he was not charged with murder.
As evidence that Ms. Ajmal was never held against her will, he included a photograph of her at her wedding, a lavish affair with more than 1,000 guests, showing her smiling in an ornate gown, with her arms outstretched, admiring her jewelry.

Eric Garcetti is first Mannequin-American L.A. mayor

Mr. and Mrs. Garcetti
kick back casual-style

The MayorTron 3000
is now operational

As we all know, the Hispanic Electoral Tidal Wave is sweeping into office new, diverse faces, like Eric Garcetti, who was elected mayor of Los Angeles yesterday. The Oxford-educated and always exquisitely-groomed Garcetti, who looks like Don Draper's less rugged cousin and is an heir to the Louis Roth Clothes fortune, claimed to be the Mexican candidate in the race for reasons that I could never quite keep straight in my head (something like Mexico being one of the countries his ancestors have had to flee one step ahead of angry peasants brandishing scythes).

As the city councilman from Silver Lake, where all the screenwriters live, Garcetti has a proven track record as a gentrifier. Hopefully, after Garcetti, all of Los Angeles will look like Silver Lake north of Sunset, not Silver Lake south of Sunset.

Beep! Tie askew. Beep! Tie askew.

Is George Zimmerman's lawyer taking notes?

From the New York Times:

The man, Ibragim Todashev, had been speaking for two hours in his apartment to officials from the Massachusetts State Police and the F.B.I. about Mr. Tsarnaev and the Sept. 11, 2011, murders in Waltham, Mass., when he suddenly grabbed an object and tried to attack the agent, one official said. 

“He exploded and leapt at him,” said the official, who said the F.B.I. agent sustained minor injuries that required stitches. 

A second law enforcement official said the shooting occurred after Mr. Todashev had admitted his role in the killings and had also implicated Mr. Tsarnaev. The official said he had begun writing out a statement when he asked to take a break. 

“They got him to confess to the homicides, and they say, ‘Let’s write it down,’ and he starts writing it down. He goes to get a cigarette or something and then he goes off the deep end,” the second official said. “I don’t know what triggered him, and he goes after the agent.” 

The official said Mr. Todashev had something in his hand, “a knife or a pipe or something.” 

It was not certain who, or how many officers, had fired on Mr. Todashev. Nor was it clear why, with at least three law enforcement officials in the room, deadly force was used on someone without a firearm in his hands. Asked, one law enforcement official said: “If somebody jumps on you and you have a gun, and you don’t do something, the gun will quickly come into play.”

Immigration news is all good for NAABP

Joe Green, a Harvard roommate of Mark Zuckerberg and head of Zuck's cheap labor lobby, National Association for the Advancement of Billionaire People FWD.us, emails:

Steve --
Yesterday was a great day for comprehensive immigration reform.
In a major step forward, Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13-5 in support of reform.This bill contains all of the key principles that we’re fighting for, and we need to show our support for it.
Share this graphic on Facebook to thank the Senators who voted for reform:
There are several more steps before the full Senate votes on immigration reform. But this is the most encouraging sign yet.
Share our thank you card online.We’ll be in touch soon with updates on the next steps. Let’s keep up the good work.
Joe Green
Founder and President, FWD.us 

To commemorate this historic accomplishment by The Gang of Eight, iSteve brings you an exclusive photo of a key moment in the deliberations of the inner circle of The Eight Banditos:

Bipartisan Senate committee negotiates immigration reform.
From right to left:
a perhaps puzzled but still game John McCain;
Lindsey Graham, looking, as always, languidly stunning in leather;
the Gang of Eight's idea man, the persuasive Charles "1600 SAT" Schumer,
and Marco Rubio, who is more of a Big Picture than a details kind of thinker.

Youths acting youthy in Stockholm

Vibrancy, Stockholm-style

In more immigration and multiculturalism news, from MSN:

Sweden stunned by third night of rioting

STOCKHOLM - Hundreds of youths set fire to cars and attacked police and rescue services in suburbs of Stockholm Tuesday night in Sweden's worst disorder in years. 

A police station in the Jakobsberg area in the northwest of the city was attacked, two schools were damaged and an arts and crafts center was set ablaze, despite a call for calm from Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. 

It was the third night of unrest. 

The riots, in one of Europe's richest capitals, have shocked a country that prides itself on a reputation for social justice, and fuelled a debate about how Sweden is coping with both youth unemployment and an influx of immigrants. 

"We've had around 30 cars set on fire last night, fires that we connect to youth gangs and criminals," Kjell Lindgren, spokesman for Stockholm police, said on Wednesday. 

... The riots appear to have been sparked by the police killing of a 69-year-old man wielding a machete in the suburb of Husby this month, which prompted accusations of police brutality. ... 

After decades of practicing the "Swedish model" of generous welfare benefits, Sweden has been reducing the role of the state since the 1990s, spurring the fastest growth in inequality of any advanced OECD economy. 

While average living standards are still among the highest in Europe, governments have failed to substantially reduce long-term youth unemployment and poverty, which have affected immigrant communities worst. 

The left-leaning tabloid Aftonbladet said the riots represented a "gigantic failure" of government policies, which had underpinned the rise of ghettos in the suburbs. 

"We have failed to give many of the people in the suburbs a hope for the future," Anna-Margrethe Livh of the opposition Left Party wrote in the daily Svenska Dagbladet. ... 

Clearly, Swedes just don't pay high enough taxes to provide enough social services to troubled youths.

Some 15 percent of the population is foreign-born, the highest proportion in the Nordic region. Unemployment among those born outside Sweden stands at 16 percent, compared with 6 percent for native Swedes, according to OECD data. 

Presumably, that 15% tends to be the parents and grandparents of the youths, while the youths tend to be Swedish-born. But I could be wrong about this.

Immigrationism in Zombie-mode

Vibrancy, London-style

Headline in the Daily Mail:

'We swear by Allah we will never stop fighting you': Terrifying threat of Islamic fanatic after he 'hacked British soldier to death with machete in horrific terror attack on London street'

Man tells camera: 'I apologise that women had to witness this today' 

Soldier attacked with meat cleavers and knives in Woolwich, SE London 

Eyewitness says: 'They were hacking at him, chopping him, cutting him' 

Two suspects waited until police arrived before trying to attack them 

Prime Minister David Cameron described the killing as 'truly shocking' 

Cobra meeting hears there are strong indications it was terrorist incident 

Suspects used 'a number of weapons' in attack, Metropolitan Police say 

Muslim Council: Act will no doubt heighten tensions on British streets

Nativism bad, Nahantism good

Nahant, Massachusetts provides all the scenic advantages of living on a rocky island blessed by spectacular beaches, with the convenience of being able to commute 14 miles by road to downtown Boston.

Not surprisingly, this one square mile municipality (pop. 3400) is a desirable place to live.

This 383-year-old settlement is a model of an orderly, deeply rooted New England community. It's a very middle class place, with one of the lowest poverty rates I've ever seen, but not a particularly high median income. Despite being part of the vast Boston megalopolis, Nahant is 97.11% white, which may explain why it voted for Obama only 60-40 over Romney. 

Uncrowded beach 13 miles from Boston's Logan airport

The big problem in Nahant is keeping non-Nahantians off the island and away from the publicly-owned pocket beaches.

One solution is to provide a public beach for outsiders along the dreary causeway that connects Nahant to the mainland town of Lynn, MA.

Typical Nahant signage

But, the nice white liberals of Nahants' main weapon for keeping the outside world out appears to be the world's densest collection of No Parking signs.

Without a Residency Sticker ($5 per year to residents, unavailable to nonresidents), you can park legally in front of the one convenience store on the island for 30 minutes, which gives you enough time to walk down the cliff to 40 Steps Beach, skip some stones in the Atlantic for five minutes, and then hustle back.

Non-Vibrancy, Nahant-style

You can park in front of the town hall for 15 minutes, enough time to admire the 1819 public library next door, but not to actually read anything.

And you can park in the beautifully sited cemetery for as long as you want to putter about there, admiring the chapel by Ralph Cram Adams (Collegiate Gothic-style architect of Rice U. and much else).

Ellingwood Chapel, Ralph Cram Adams, 1919

I should not overstate just how xenophobic the citizens of Nahant are. The good people of Nahant are not ineradicably opposed to all outsiders visiting.

For example, the MIT European Club holds an annual bike ride from Cambridge to Nahant:

On Nahant, we will sit together for a nice picnic on the premises of the Northeastern University Marine Science Center, a place that offers spectacular views over the shoreline of Cape Ann. After the picnic we will ride our bikes to Nahant's legendary 40-steps beach. This beach is a pebble beach, accessible only through wooden stairs. The 40 steps lead to an enclosed bay where warm seawater gets trapped during the summer to offer an exceptional ocean swim experience to its visitors. There are no changing rooms at 40-steps beach. Please be advised to bring a large towel for changing clothes the American way. 

After the swim we will go to "Tides Restaurant and Pub" for refreshments and bathroom break, Nahant's only restaurant. ...  

Due to practical considerations this trip is limited to 10 participants.

So, up to 10 members of the MIT European Club are more than welcome to bicycle to Nahant annually.

The underlying ideology of Nahantism is respectable and rarely controversial: the legal residents of Nahant have joint responsibilities and privileges, such as the right to enjoy scenic beaches without them being overrun by hordes of vibrant non-Nahantians. They are thus legally empowered to keep out other residents of Massachusetts by making it as inconvenient as possible for uninvited visitors to get out of their cars.

I like to draw analogies between various kinds of public policies (although I'm fascinated by how rare that urge has become). Why is it perfectly respectable for Nahantians to rig the laws to keep other Americans from lolling on their public beaches for an afternoon, but it's viciously nativist for Americans to similarly call for effective laws to keep foreigners from moving permanently to America? It seems to me that the citizens of Nahant are just being sensible, so why can't the citizens of America be allowed to be sensible, too?

Occasionally, a philosophy major pundit like Matthew Yglesias will grasp the logic of this argument and therefore demand that, just as America should take in 165,000,000 more immigrants, Nahant should be covered in Blade Runner-sized apartment buildings. But most pundits would think that it's okay for the citizens of Nahant to mind their own business, but that it would be hateful for the citizens of America to do the same.