For a moment I thought this was about Cali, Colombia...

Hey, 10-15 more years, you might not be able to tell the difference...

The real problem is, as with the Fed Gov't, Cali spent money like a drunken sailor on leave during the bubble years when capital gains tax revenue flowed in to the coffers.

Now the revenues are gone but they still have these ...ahem...ENTITLEMENTS that are breaking the bank.

Morons.

Cali--1st world economy (hopefully not for long), 3rd world gov't.

duende, Hispanics in American are medically uninsured at about two and a half times the rate of whites.

For much more browse my Immigration and Border Control archive on ParaPundit.com for more on the economics of immigration.

welcome back spanish fly... btw we gnxpers often fantasize about you... how about a pic sometime?

Serious gender confusion here. Now I'm straight about the fact that duende is a girl but I thought so was marinara. Presumably not, unless we have a lesbian gene expressor

lesbian might be genetic....

As Randall Parker noted last week, you don't have to be a lesbian for pretty women to turn you on.
By the way, was the gypsy thing serious? Gypsies are filed in the same part of my brain as elves. I mean, I know that there are real gypsies, but they are so rare in reality here in the US and so relatively common in fiction. Maybe you can give us some info from your perspective some time. Sorry if I'm being crude, but that's what this blog is for.

Maybe she's an Irish gypsy.

Marinara: I'll talk to Razib about a pic, but I don't think it will give you fantasy fodder.

Michael Vassar:
duende, as I am using it, is a concept of flamenco, a musical style created by Spanish gypsies. It's a sort of ambiguous word, it can also mean "goblin". I am not a gypsy, but I am a huge flamenco fan and I try to apply the concept of "duende" to my own creative expression.

There are more gypsies in America than you think, but they like to remain invisible to the mainstream. In Spain gypsies are a despised minority, shunned by virtually all Spaniards unless they are talented entertainers like Rosario Flores or Joaquin Cortes. In America, they keep a low profile, therefore no one knows to look out for them. But I'm sure no one who frequents Gene Expression is dumb enough to visit a fortune teller.

There are quite a lot of gypsies around,in most big city areas. They go incognito--hard for such vividly attracting people. A group rented the dining hall of a restaurant where a friend of mine worked. The event was a wake, and I don't know how representative of gypsies they were, but they had excellent grief therapy which included eating the deserts first and throwing most of the rest of the food against the wall (the food wasn't great but certain impulses are best kept in the realm of fantasy) while eyeballing the silverware (yes, it's really true, but they never steal from other gypsies.) BTW, they had billed themselves as Greeks.

"duende, as I am using it, is a concept of flamenco, a musical style created by Spanish gypsies. It's a sort of ambiguous word, it can also mean "goblin" "

It is disputed whether gypsies actually "created" flamenco... They certainly contributed to the genre, but it is basically a form of Andalusian folklore. Remenber that gypsies have only been in Spain for 5 centuries.

"Duende" means indeed "goblin" or "house-spirit" ( it comes from the phrase:"(duen de) casa" (house-master), where "duen" or "dueñ" is the same word as modern: "dueño" ("Master", from lat: "dominus"> dom(i)ne(m)> duen).
It also came to mean: "misterious and ineffable charm"; as in " Tiene duende", "he has charm".

I agree with Godless's comment.

GC, The majority of whites in California vote for the Republicans. When white Republican Pete Wilson tried to crack down on the cost of the illegals it was Hispanics who flocked to the polls in record numbers to vote against him. I do not think that Wilson lost a majority of the white vote in the election that removed him from office.

Blaming the problem of illegal immigration on white elites is misleading. Plenty of middle class homeowners hire illegals to take care of their lawns, as nannies, as maids, and as repairmen.

On the demand side illegal immigration is being driven by all the users of it. That includes small restaurant owners, small repair businesses, and other small scale businesses. The big corps and big business interests use illegals far less because they can't get away with it as easily.

The basic problem is that on the demand side each purchaser pays a market price that does not include all the costs that result from the illegals being here.

As for your contention that the Spanish-surnamed do not have that much power: they have the main two political parties competing for their affections. They have more power on immigration policy that the white or black lower middle class (who most oppose the illegals). As Hispanics have risen in the number of elected offices they hold in California they have tilted state policy toward Hispanics in general and that tilting has included far greater accommodation of the presence of illegals and spending on them. While the federal Medicaid money is, by law, not supposed to go to illegals in California the state funding of Medical does explicitly include support for illegals. How'd that happen? Hispanic voters.

So Godless's main comment is that it's not the illegal alien's fault that he violated our laws, it's those people who allowed it to happen? Or hired him after he had already broken the law? Or gave him amnesty after the fact?

Bigdocmd:

In a nutshell, yeah. If those groups miraculously reversed position, they could put a halt to illegal immigration overnight.

Also, I think the right word is not "allowed", but "aided and abetted". Owners who turn a blind eye to the illegal status of their workers, laws that prohibit inquiries about immigration status during criminal investigations, etc. all make it possible and - more importantly - *expected* for illegal immigrants to violate our laws.