Raj Peter Bhakta has pulled off a brilliant stunt that highlighted exactly how porous our borders are by swimming an elephant and a band back and forth between America and Mexico. Apparently the elephant didn't make it all the way -- no thanks to border security -- but the band had no problems. (I'm sure this story has been covered extensively, but I've got family visiting so I haven't been online much.)
Reports of an elephant crossing the river or people trying to smuggle an elephant across were rampant Tuesday while an elaborate political stunt was taking shape near the mouth of the Rio Grande.It was a while later that the stunt, which was a photo shoot, was abruptly met by federal agents.
“The elephant never made landfall into Mexico, but I tell you something, he could have made 15 laps back and forth, but no one showed up,” said Raj Peter Bhakta, a former star on the NBC show “The Apprentice,” who also is a Republican candidate for the 13th District U.S. House of Representatives seat in Eastern Pennsylvania.
Fortunately, I really do think that if the technology portion of the Secure Border Initiative is fully implemented it will become much harder to smuggle elephants over the border.
Bhakta was getting on a plane Tuesday afternoon shortly after the USDA released the elephants and they began their journey back to Maybank.He said he was “staggered” by what happened on Tuesday and was planning on sharing the story with his potential constituents.
“If I can get an elephant led by a mariachi band into this country, I think Osama bin Laden could get across with all the weapons of mass destruction he could get into this country,” Bhakta said.
Pretty much, yes, but I'd recommend that the border issue not be completely focused on terrorism, but also on reducing illegal immigration -- and I'm sure Mr. Bhakta agrees based on the article.
(HT: Raj Blog.)
This was a hilarious stunt. Do you know anything about this guys background besides his being an actor? His name is obviously Indian.
I was very pleased that you had sited one of my columns I will be reading and posting on your site.
I have to say though, my experiment with blog ads was a failure.
I advertised my site on yours and several others trying to get some increased traffic. After one week with six ads, some of them in high traffic blogs, I got twelve new hits, thats it, just twelve.
BTW I added you to my Blogroll
kyle8: Thanks for adding me, I'll check out your site too.
As for advertising for blog hits, yeah, I don't think that ads are really cost effective for that purpose. Commenting on other sites and linking stories is probably the best form of advertising for a blog, and it's free!