Ok, Ok, I apologize. Perhaps my sarcastic first post to this thread was uncalled for, but like Booklady and Miche, certain issues are near and dear to my heart. And when I get irked, occasionally, I will have a knee jerk reaction.

One thing is for certain, to use a Spanish phrase, "en todas partes cuecen habas".... essentially, things are the same everywhere (or everywhere has it´s share of problems). Yes, crime has increased as the illegal immigration has increased here in Spain, but so has housing. Does that mean we should attribute the rise in the cost of housing here in Spain to illegal immigration? Afterall, people are rushing to get out of immigrant filled neighborhoods and where the land developers see a hungry market...

Anyway, what I am trying to say is that statistics can be a very dangerous tool that can be manipulated to suit anyone´s needs. Judging an entire race or group of people based on yesterday´s headlines is a very dangerous thing to do, as I tried to allude to in my tongue-in-cheek comment about spousal abuse here in Spain.

Miketheman states:
Mike, I hate to disagree with you here buddy but, the only facts that I saw were the ones stated in the interpol link that Booklady provided. ERT is stating his opinion based on newspaper headlines.

However, I do agree that in order to discuss this topic inteligently, we should just stick to the facts and try not to let our emotions get in the way (although I have to admit, that´s really hard for me! :p ).