In a speech at the American Irish Historical Society in Manhattan, Prime Minister Brian Cowen of Ireland, in a move to woo Irish-Americans, proposed measures to make it easier for Americans to claim Irish citizenship, reversing a restrictive course the Irish government took in 2005.

“The connections between Ireland and America remain strong,” Mr. Cowen said, “but we cannot take them for granted.”

Mr. Cowen was cheered Sunday, at least in some quarters, for his proposal to ease naturalization by allowing Americans whose nearest Irish ancestor is a great-grandparent to qualify for citizenship, provided that they have spent considerable time studying or working in Ireland. Under current law, the most distant forebear an American could claim and still qualify for Irish citizenship is a grandparent.

“There’s an awful lot of Irish-Americans who feel very cut off by the ‘grandfather rule,’ ” said Niall O’Dowd, the former chairman of the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform and a founder of the Irish Voice newspaper in New York as well as of the new web site, Irishcentral.com. “This would open up Irish citizenship to a whole new generation of Irish-Americans.”

The number of Americans with Irish ancestry has been estimated to be as high as 40 million, and millions of those people have no closer blood tie to Ireland than a great-grandparent.

The immigration proposal grew out of a “strategic review” of Irish-American relations Mr. Cowen ordered up last year, the first such review performed by the government since the 1930s, he said.

Of the loosened requirements for Irish citizenship, a Mr. Neely, who had a maternal great-grandfather born in Ireland, said, “I think I actually could take advantage of that. It’s not something I’ve ever thought about, but now that the opportunity could be available, I’ll think about it.”

AJH

“It is very sad because I put myself in the skin of these animals who are treated like objects and they are not objects, they are individuals who have the right to be born and live in freedom,” one of the participants in the protest, Jose Antonio Polo, told public television TVE.

AJH

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7944830.stm

Steve Martin has stepped in to support a school production of his play that was banned after parents objected to its adult themes.

Students at La Grande High School in Oregon were stopped from staging Picasso at the Lapin Agile.

Martin has offered to help pay for the play to be performed off-campus.

He said he was supporting the production because he did not want his play "acquiring a reputation it does not deserve".

“Cheney dismisses idea that Limbaugh is bad for GOP”

Rush Limbaugh is not “kryptonite” for Republicans, the former vice president said.

Cheney calls Limbaugh "a good friend" who does great work and serves an important purpose.

Limbaugh has challenged President Barack Obama to a debate on issues facing the country. In an appearance Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," Cheney smiled at the thought of a debate and declared, "I'd pay to see that."

AJH

I am writing about this because I happened across video of the punks on the streets causing havoc, all because some Israelis were playing tennis nearby, in a closed-off stadium due to the threats of violence.

“Jews cannot walk the streets” and the number of rapes has tripled in 20 years. And, yet, the multiculturalists refuse to heed the warnings.

Malmö has been so accommodating toward immigrant Muslims that a local Muslim politician, Adly Abu Hajar, has declared that "The best Islamic state is Sweden!"

A few years ago, the left-leaning Guardian of London declared Sweden the most successful society the world has ever known.

Don't ask Malmö's Jews to give the city the same glowing assessment. Jews who dare walk the streets wearing their yarmulkes risk being beaten up.

“It's true. Jews cannot walk the streets of Malmö and show that they're Jews,” Danish journalist Lars Hedegaard admitted.

Hedegaard lives in Copenhagen, where he was a columnist for one of Denmark's largest newspapers. He says pro-Israel demonstrations in Malmö, have been met with rocks, bottles and pipe bombs from Arabs and Leftists.

On Saturday when Israel played Sweden in a Davis cup tennis match in Malmö, an estimated 6,000 Leftists, Arabs, Muslims and anarchists protested the Israeli presence in the city, and hundreds attacked police. Almost no fans were allowed inside to watch the tennis series, because authorities feared disruptions or possible violence against the Israeli team.

Massive immigration has made Malmö today one quarter Muslim, and stands to transform it into a Muslim majority city within just a few decades. One of the most popular baby names is not Sven, but Mohammed.

 

But despite Malmö's usually placid appearance, this experiment in multiculturalism has not gone well. In the Rosengaard section of Malmö, a housing project made up primarily of immigrants, fire and emergency workers will no longer enter without police protection.

 

Unemployment in Rosengaard is reported to be 70 percent. An immigrant-fueled crime wave affects one of every three Malmö families each year.

"I was there for demonstration; a pro-Israeli demonstration with about 400 or 500 people," Hedegaard told CBN News. "Jews and non-Jews, and I came over to cover it. The police allowed, I'd say a hundred Palestinians or Arabs to shout and threaten and throw bombs and rockets at us. A homemade bomb landed about ten yards from me, and went off with a big bang. And now of course, I thought the police were going to jump these guys, get them out of the way. They didn't. They just let them stand there."

Swede Ted Ekeroth helped film the Arab-Left counter-demonstrations. He saw Arabs throwing rocks at a 90-year-old holocaust survivor.

"I filmed the police chief and asked him why are they not reacting to this," Ekeroth said. "Why are they not doing anything? And he simply answered, 'It's their right according to the Swedish constitution.' We apparently did not have the same right, because we were forced out of there. Our manifestation for Israel is always peaceful, and theirs is always the quite opposite -- Death, hate and killing of Jews. They come and they shout different slogans," he continued. "It can be everything from Arabic slogans inciting killing of Jews to in Swedish and Danish, 'Kill the Jews.'”

The Christian Science Monitor reports on more Dem propaganda about Rush.

Setting a world record today for beating a dead horse, the Democratic National Committee will announce they’ve selected an anti-Rush Limbaugh slogan to be placed on a billboard in the radio host’s hometown.

CNN is reporting that the billboard will say, “Americans didn’t vote for a Rush to failure.”

Apparently, more than 80,000 slogans were emailed in and astonishingly all were somehow deemed worse than that one.

AJH

The Home Depot is not pleased. Blaming the job seekers for causing accidents and driving away customers, the world's largest home improvement retailer has been working to discourage them from rushing vehicles in the driveways and trespassing in the parking lot.

Gonzalo Garcia of Guatemala seems like a nice man, but he's here without permission.

Garcia, an undocumented Guatemalan national who had a regular job in construction until being laid off late last year, said he and the others only want to work and have no other way to find steady pay.

"We're not here because we want to be here," he said in Spanish. "We need to be."

AJH