Putting the weeds to work for Us

[Geo]

Tell that to those African refugees trying to cross the French-Italian border.

[Buster's Uncle]

Why?  Those poor people are pretty desperate, and I ain't gettin' in their way...

[Geo]

That border area is about where the Waldesians came from? Steep, cliffy territory? Difficult to cross for those not knowing the area?

[Buster's Uncle]

Northern border to the west, almost to Spain but-not-quite, yes.  It's where the last Italian line of kings came from - the Duchy of Savoy was the political boundary and Piedmont is the geographical area, or something like that.

John Milton's poem, On the Late Massacre in the Piedmont, that begins "Avenge, O' Lord, thy slaughtered saints/Whose bones lay scattered on the Alpine mountains cold" was about the last genocide attempt the Waldenses survived.  They were Protestant before Luther, and it sure wasn't their first.

[Geo]

Cottian Alps are not even close to Spain.

[Buster's Uncle]

There's all that French coast in the way, yes.

[Metaliturtle]

Seems legit

[Buster's Uncle]

I don't make mistakes.

[Rusty Edge]

Tell that to those African refugees trying to cross the French-Italian border.

Are they riding elephants?

[Geo]

No, rotten boats.

Now I think of it, I can't remember reading what happens with the refugee boats after they're intercepted and the crowd onboard unloaded.

[Buster's Uncle]

That's not something coming up in the ethnocentric US news.  How serious a problem?  What sort of numbers of people are we talking about?  What are they escaping?  Post-Quadaffi Libyan chaos, or what?

[Rusty Edge]

I saw something about it a month or so ago, don't remember whether they Christians or what.

My elephant question was a Hannibal reference.

[Buster's Uncle]

And a clever one.

[Geo]

That's not something coming up in the ethnocentric US news.  How serious a problem?  What sort of numbers of people are we talking about?  What are they escaping?  Post-Quadaffi Libyan chaos, or what?

Its a mixed bunch. Syrians, Iraqi's, Eritreans, West-Africans (Gambians and/or Guineans, with Nigerians mixed in), and Somali's are the largest groups. The usual conflict points or dictatorship countries thus.
On numbers, last (official) number I remember for THIS year sofar was closing in on 150,000 already.
Last year's official total was a quarter million.
And that's only the people that get picked up from the boats or otherwise register at some point. Boats usually leave from the Libyan coast and attempt to sail to the closest Italian island (Lampedusa), and Malta.
Other known cross points are the Turkish borders with Greece and Rumania (also boats with the former), and both Spanish enclaves on the North African coast with Morocco.
My guess is since this 'migration' really started rolling when Khadaffi was disposed and the Syrian civil war started over a million people must have entered Europe.

How decent is the news coverage about Mexican crossings with your networks?
I remember reading an article about Obama willing to grant citizenship/residence to illegals in the States who fulfill certain conditions. And that the number could go as high as five million.

[Buster's Uncle]

I had to give up being a news junkie in disgust 14 years ago, and am not a good source for what the US news says or does not, but I think almost all coverage at the national level about the Mexican immigrants is from the angle of what the bigots are saying/trying to do about it lately...