Q & A about the Cananea violence ...

MAY 29, 2007 - THE BORDER REPORT: QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Q: I’ve never thought of Cananea as a cartel-infested city. What can ordinary people on both sides of the border do to promote a free press and protect the messengers?
...

Tucson Citizen says I-10 motorist had pipe bomb ...

Tucson Citizen

Motorist stopped on I-10 admits having pipe bomb
A traffic stop turned into a bomb scare Tuesday after a male driver of a vehicle traveling eastbound on Interstate 10 between Cortarto and Ina roads admitted to having a pipe bomb stowed in the vehicle, authorities said.

One lane of eastbound traffic has been closed and bomb squads from both Green Valley and Casa Grande have been called onto the scene.

Pending further investigation of this incident, both west and eastbound lanes of traffic on I-10 could be closed.

The driver was arrested and a female passenger has become an investigative lead into the incident.

Get your health care at Walgreens?

The AARP Bulletin has an article touting mini-clinics moving into "pharmacies, discount stores and supermarkets, including CVS, Walgreens, Target, Wal-Mart and Kroger, as well as locally owned drug and grocery stores."

I wish I saw this trend as an attempt to better the healthcare of citizens and residents of this country instead of another commercial enterprise based on greed.

Bullshit ...

US Congress approves Iraq war budget

BO: "With my vote today, I am saying to the president that enough is enough," Obama said later in a written statement.

I gave you, Barack Obama, the benefit of the doubt. But I don't believe a word you say now. You just played political games with this vote. You didn't try to influence the vote. You've avoided the issue. You are just trying to play both sides of the game. That is not the leadership we need in a president.

HC: Clinton said in her own statement: "I believe that the President should begin a phased redeployment of our troops out of Iraq and abandon this escalation."

I've just made up my mind about you also, Hilary Cllinton. I will not support you. You are not really against this war or you are just so mealy mouthed that you can't say what you think. That is not the leadership we need in our next president. My opinion is that you would keep us in this war if you were elected.

And it's not just BO and HC. It's 99% of them. It's just too much to ask politicians to actually do the jobs they were elected to do, isn't it. No, they're either running for office or being paid off by corporations.

I do wish to state here that Raul Grijalva appears to be one of the 1% who actually work at being the people's representative. We need more, many more like Grijalva.

86 cowardly Democrats, two of them from Arizona, are now co-owners of Bush's war ...

Seems Harry Mitchell and Gabrielle Giffords voted for unlimited war on Bush's terms ...

Raul Grijalva and Ed Pastor did the right thing and voted against a blank check for the child-king and monster-moron living in the White House.

I didn't know there were this many stupid Democrats after the lessons of the last election. The two Arizona Democrats who voted for the war are newly elected. What are they thinking?

Does the DCCC think we're fantasy craving Republicans?

"Breaking News: Because of your help, the House just passed legislation that will go to the White House that includes critical issues Democrats have been fighting for including: canceling the President's blank check in Iraq ..."

Read the rest: The Insulting Email of the Day by Bill in Portland Maine

Union Pacific 'crews' work to their own drummer ...

Do you believe this? Union Pacific would have us believe that their 'crews' just went ahead an laid track in Bowie, Arizona with no direction from the company to do so?

Mark Davis, spokesman for Union Pacific in Omaha, Neb., said the company found out Friday from the corporation commission that “our crews had gone ahead and built the double track through the road crossing in Bowie. We were disappointed that our crews had done that, but it was inadvertent.”

Union Pacific illegally lays track and when brought to task they claim they know nothing about it. Sound familiar?

Asked how the error might have occurred, he replied, “We don’t know, but with the modern, mechanized machinery they use, they can just keep going.”

That 'modern, mechanized machinery' will get you every time ...

More inanities at the Arizona Daily Star ...

"$3 gas? Who cares!" Thus Shelley Shelton begins another uninformed article at the Arizona Daily Star:

Gas prices soar, U.S. drivers still going and going ...

Democrats in House and Senate 'capitulate to the Bush's Party of Surrender'

Well said:

Capitulating to the Party of Surrender: The Dems Help Bush Pull Domestic Political Victory From the Jaws of Defeat Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 05/24/2007 - 8:15am.

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

There is no question that the GOP is the party of surrender. Terrorists don’t need a timeline to know that Bush and Cheney began putting America in a position of weakness and vulnerability – both militarily and economically – when the mad king and his Rasputin – along with Svengali Rove -- ginned up a propaganda campaign to scare Congress into permitting them to make the strategically devastating error of invading Iraq.

But the Democratic leadership on the Hill reacts by doing the opposite of Teddy Roosevelt’s dictum: "Speak softly and carry a big stick." Since the 2006 elections, the Dem honchos have been speaking loudly and carrying a little stick.

They claim that they don’t have the votes to override a veto. But they do have the votes to keep passing a bill that Bush will veto, effectively bringing the war in Iraq to a close because funding will run out.

They can end the war in Iraq, but they are scared of being labeled with "losing the war." And this is a scarlet letter that they fear cannot be worn in a superpower nation that sees itself as the entitled righteous victor in any war that it starts, no matter how faulty the premise or counterproductive to our real national security that war may be.

...

Is there anything my country won't do ...

I never thought the U.S. was perfect but, nonetheless, I was proud of a country that appeared, to me, to take two steps forward for each step it took backward.

BushCo, however, opened up a whole new world. He must be the most successful person ever at galvanizing all that is bad with the U.S. and in human kind in general. He has mixed up a horrible concoction of spite, intolerance, meanness, crudeness, cruelty and violence. And he's proud of it.

And there's not much pretence left when

One-Third of Troops in Iraq Support Torture, Majority Condone Mistreating Innocent Civilians by Winslow Wheeler

Some of the press accounts of the surgeon general's study, "Mental Health Advisory Team (MHAT) IV; Operation Iraqi Freedom 05-07," also reported the more detailed findings from its chapter on "Battlefield Ethics." The information became more disconcerting; the problems were clearly more serious and pervasive than the executive summary indicated:

• "Only 47 percent of soldiers and only 38 percent of Marines agreed that noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect."
• "Well over a third of soldiers and Marines reported torture should be allowed, whether to save the life of a fellow soldier or Marine … or to obtain important information about insurgents…."
• 28 percent of soldiers and 30 percent of Marines reported they had cursed and/or insulted Iraqi noncombatants in their presence.
• 9 percent and 12 percent, respectively, reported damaging or destroying Iraqi property "when it was not necessary."
• 4 percent and 7 percent, respectively, reported hitting or kicking a noncombatant "when it was not necessary.
• The study also reports that only 55 percent of soldiers and just 40 percent of Marines would report a unit member injuring or killing "an innocent noncombatant," and just 43 percent and 30 percent, respectively, would report a unit member destroying or damaging private property.

It is notable that these are the responses the survey team received; there are probably more soldiers and Marines who may have been reluctant to respond completely and accurately to an Army questionnaire on such sensitive topics. Therefore, the data recorded should be regarded as a floor, not a ceiling.

What GOP operative wrote this Gannett News Service piece that the Tucson Citizen saw fit to pass on to the rest of us?

Gas prices' impact 'fairly limited' --Gannett News Service

WASHINGTON - Drivers may be griping about record high gasoline costs, but the recent surge in the price at the pump will have little impact on most consumers and will be hardly noticed in the broad economy, say several economists, including those at Standard & Poor's, LaSalle Bank and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Rising incomes will help offset higher gas prices for most Americans, they say. And although gas prices are at unprecedented levels, not adjusted for inflation, the price gains have come over a number of years, giving consumers time to adjust their budgets.

"It's going to slow things down . . . but luckily, consumers' pocketbooks are doing reasonably well," Standard & Poor's chief economist David Wyss says. "Some people are going to get hurt by this. But the overall impact on the economy is going to be fairly limited."

Low-income households that are already stretched thin are likely struggling to pay their higher gasoline bills, Wyss says.

The nationwide average price of a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.209 on Tuesday, up more than a penny from Monday and 32 cents higher than a year ago, according to motor club AAA.

The average price at the pump is approaching the all-time high even when adjusting for inflation. The inflation-adjusted record was set in March 1981 at $3.223 in today's dollars, according to the Energy Department.

Prices are now above $3 a gallon on average in every state except New Jersey, where the statewide average was $2.95 on Tuesday. The highest price was in Illinois, where it was $3.48 a gallon Tuesday, AAA said.

Retail gasoline prices will likely continue to increase, based on prices in wholesale markets, says Guy Caruso, administrator of the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Energy Department.

"Our models indicate that there is still some pass-through that has not reached the retail level," Caruso said Tuesday during a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing.

Although gasoline prices have been increasing, incomes have also been rising at a steady pace, as a low unemployment rate has helped push up pay.

Wages and salaries for workers in private industry were up 3.6 percent in March from a year earlier, after a 2.4 percent gain in March 2006, according to the Labor Department.

Offsetting pain at pump

Lehman Bros. chief U.S. economist Ethan Harris expects the job market to remain strong and for wage gains to continue.

"It offsets some of the pain at the pump," he says. Harris expects higher gasoline prices will act as a small drag on consumer spending growth in 2007.

But consumer spending will still grow, he says.

Although higher gasoline prices are adding up, "it's still not enough to take down the consumer," Mesirow Financial chief economist Diane Swonk says.

But some economists are concerned gasoline could spell trouble for the economy.

"We may have been here before . . . but in those instances, increased home prices provided "an offsetting wealth boost," he said. With the housing market in a slump, consumers will not see such an offset in 2007.

Plus, Rosenberg notes the higher gasoline costs have come at a time when prices for food, another staple, are also rising.

Consumers' spending on gasoline accounted for 3.2 percent of disposable income in March, the latest data available, according to Moody's Economy.com.

That was an increase from February, but still lower than the percentage seen when gas prices shot up after hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Rate of price rise key

When analyzing the impact on the economy, it's important to look at the pace of change in price, not the level of the price, Stephen Brown, director of energy economics at the Dallas Fed, says.

That's because over time, consumers and businesses adjust to higher prices. It's the sudden jumps that cause problems.

Brown notes that average retail gasoline prices in 2006 were up 30 cents from 2005. This year, the average price is expected to be up between 10 and 15 cents, he says.

"It may not seem gradual, but if we look at the oil price spikes of the '70s and '80s, it was almost overnight," he says.

"People are more accepting now of $3 gas than they were before," A.C. Moore Arts & Crafts President Larry Fine said in a conference call with investors earlier this month, according to Thomson Financial. "I don't think it has the shock value it did to people."

Says Linda Rowell, 47, of Falls Church, Va., when paying $3.11 a gallon to fill up her minivan Tuesday afternoon: "That's just something you have to live with."

Brown estimates higher prices for all forms of energy, not just gasoline, shaved about half a percentage point from economic growth each year in the past few years. This year, the impact will be even smaller, and in 2008, energy prices will have no noticeable impact on the economy, he predicts.

"We're toward the tail-end of the adjustment," Brown says.

There's no doubt that higher gasoline prices are having a significant impact on lower-income consumers and the businesses they frequent.

Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott last week told investors that gasoline prices were one of the top three concerns for discount store shoppers after income and other costs, according to Thomson Financial. Officials at Steak 'n Shake and Burger King franchisee Carrols Restaurant Group also expressed concern about rising gasoline prices in investor calls this month.

David Le, 20, a full-time student from Fairfax, Va., who works three part-time jobs, says the current gas price is stretching his already tight budget.

"It's ridiculously high," he says while pumping gas in Falls Church. "I don't get paid enough."

......

So gas prices are going up; food prices are going up. But not to worry, those people who matter are getting raises beyond their needs and those people who are not doing well are already in trouble so they do not matter in our 'money=success' culture.

Corporations are making sure they cash in which ever way the economy goes so by definition the economy is right on track. End of thesis.

Now go shopping with all that extra money you've been hording after you pay for your car and your mortgage and save money for your kids education and pay for you 'health' insurance and ...

Corporate America is depending on you.

Just think, a few days ago Jon Kyl was a GOoPer 'fair-haired' boy ...

Now Jon Kyl is the target of the ire of some of the GOP's most rabid (according to Scarpy Scarpinato). Go figure ...

GOP says backlash in party due to Kyl by Daniel Scarpinato

"We have people coming in every day, tearing up their registration cards and throwing them on the floor, or coming in and changing their registration from Republican to independent," said party Chairman Randy Pullen during a press conference at the state headquarters in Phoenix.

I'll believe it when I don't smell it ...

County moves to put lid on foul NW sewage odors by Erica Meltzer

After all it only been, what? 20 years? 30 years?

Tacky Tucson?

This visitor is unimpressed with much of Tucson.

Why do I find more news in the Sierra Vista Herald than in Tucson's Arizona Daily Star?

US Government wanted two non-violent priests protesting US torture jailed before trial ...

Here's the priests web page: U.S. District Court Magistrate Hector Estrada Tuesday refused to grant a military prosecutor's repeated plea to jail two Roman Catholic priests, each with a long record of nonviolent protest and subsequent imprisonment, pending their trial for trespass last fall at Fort Huachuca, in Sierra Vista, Arizona. Estrada set trials to begin in Tucson on June 4 for Jesuit Fr. Steve Kelly and June 6 for Franciscan Fr. Louis Vitale. It is expected that the cases will be consolidated, and the men will be tried together that week.

Here's a Sierra Vista Herald article that counterpoints the diverging stories: Priests claim torture; fort says no by Bill Hess.

Proposed immigration legislation and Jon Kyl ...

The proposed legislation is hardly liberal. It barely qualifies as human. But Kyl's kreepy kampers are really, really upset with him. Go figure ...

Morlock : Did Kyl forget 2006 stance on amnesty?

Other links on this subject are here: Jon Kyl ...

ADDED: It's an irony, is it not, that at a time when the Congress seems poised to institute more repressive immigration practices BushCo's agent, DynCorp, is setting out to hire away a good number of the Border Patrol agents we currently have guarding our porous border. (Company recruiting border agents for Iraq by Matthew Benson, The Arizona Republic)

A headline the GOP will love ...

UPDATE: Here's how the Sierra Vista Herald starts the story:

'Joke' report leads to alarm on border by Jonathan Clark, Herald/Review

NACO, Sonora, Mexico — A false report Friday that a heavily armed team of gunmen were advancing on Cananea, Sonora, led to widespread alarm in the local border area, with schools and businesses closing in Mexico and U.S. citizens reporting rumors of massive carnage in Sonora and Border Patrol pullbacks in Arizona.

Apparently Jonathan Clark is actually a reporter. Not like the fiction writers at the Daily Star.

---------------------------------------------
Want an image of scared little people so the GOP can promise (promises being all their good for) to protect everyone while they rip them off. Well here's one:

Report of armed convoy alarms Naco

By Brady McCombs and Lourdes Medrano

Arizona Daily Star

NACO, Sonora — A report of an armed convoy of drug cartel gunmen heading toward Cananea and Naco sent local residents scrambling for cover Friday as police and government officials in Sonora and Arizona braced themselves for another round of violence.

Was that scary enough. The Arizona Daily Star has been writting GOP headlines for sometime now. Does the story get worse from there? Well no and then yes:

It turned out to be a false alarm, but the mobilization of law enforcement and the school and store closures in both Nacos illustrated the tension, fear and uncertainty that have overtaken the border region.

My all those scared little people, like we have here in the US, must be hidding behind the nearest Bush (as in vegetation not the one in the WH).

Blogger.com screwed up ...

BLOGGER IS SCREWED UP. THEY EVIDENTLY ADDED AUTOMATED SAVING OF DRAFTS AND MESSED UP EVERYTHING ELSE. NOW I HAVE SPELL CHECKING WITH THE ERROR MESSAGES EMBEDDED IN THE CODE. SOME OF MY CHANGES DON'T TAKE EFFECT, BLOGGER DECIDES WHICH OF IT'S SAVE DRAFTS TO POST. MY LATEST CHANGES JUST DISSAPPEAR INTO THE BLOGGER VOID. UNTIL TODAY I'VE BEEN VERY IMPRESSED WITH HOW THIS SYSTEM WORKS. WOULD A LITTLE TESTING BEFORE UNILATERALLY INSTALLING NEW 'FEATURES' BE TOO MUCH TO ASK?

Does America still have a soul?

Watching the Republican 'debates' was eye opening. Seeing so many little Bushy-Reaganites lined up in a row with audiences enthusiastically applauding torture and Guantanamo was a sad experience.

OpEdNews.com has an article about the only real (in the historical before Reagan sense) Conservative Republican in the bunch. Of course he, Ron Paul, is the one attacked by both the media and his fellow Republicans as not being 'with it.' The fringe Republican candidate represents the Republican-party-that-was.

PAUL vs. GIULIANI: BATTLING FOR AMERICA'S SOUL by Alex Wallenwein

The Real Political Divide:

This relatively minor spat between Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani during the second GOP debate has laid bare for all to see the essence of the true ideological divide in American politics. It is decidedly not the phony divide between “left” and “right”, Democrat and Republican, conservative versus libertarian, patriot versus un-American miscreant, rich versus poor, black versus white, pro-abortion versus anti-abortion, or whatever other concocted issue there may be.

It is the divide between those who want to transform this nation into what it was never intended to be, into what its population would never knowingly and willingly endorse and submit to - and those who simply want to stay free and who actually know what’s at stake.

UPDATE: Another article about Ron Paul: Ron Paul on Blowback by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Jon Kyl ...

It's interesting to see Arizona Senator Jon Kyl get attacked by some of his more weirdo supporters for doing his job (...for a change). The more rational ones are coming to his defense:

When lawmakers attack: Pearce bashes Kyl

Sen. Jon Kyl: Hero or traitor

Immigration compromise sound, but politics probably won't change

At least he's trying. That's new for him. Reasonable immigration legislation is critical. But it's questionable whether such legislation is attainable as there are few rational Republicans left (and no, I don't include Kyl in the rational category, but neither do I think he's a moron like the creature living in the White House).

Keeeriiiiist, I think he just said that soldiers will be soldiers ...

There's continued violence in Sonora, Mexico. Yesterday I linked to this article: 20 dead following shootout in Sonora; gang had earlier killed four police in Cananea in the Sierra Vista Herald.

Today the Tucson Citizen passes on an Associated Press story about the continued violence. It appears that the military may be as bad as the 'criminals.'

Cops, copters pursue Sonora killers --City officers vanish after 5 executions, federal police

The official National Human Rights Commission said Tuesday that there was credible evidence that some of the newly deployed troops committed rapes, illegal search and other rights abuses.

"Soldiers are not trained to carry out police work," said Jose Luis Soberanes, president of the rights commission. "If you make them do it, they go overboard, and we see these type of cases."

But political analyst Oscar Aguilar said withdrawing the army from the countryside is not an option.

"It's one thing to say they've committed abuses, and entirely another to say 'send them back to their barracks,'" Aguilar said. "They are our last line of defense, our last bastion, and we know that."

Boys will be boys and soldiers will be soldiers? But we need them (in the way Iraq needs the US?) so let everyone else beware.

Closer to the border the Sierra Vista Herald writes: Sonoran violence concerns area mayors by Gentry Braswell

Borane traveled immediately to Agua Prieta for a briefing from Cuadras, then the Agua Prieta mayor traveled to Douglas for a meeting at Borane’s office.

The city government facilities in Agua Prieta are on very high alert, surrounded by police soldiers, Borane said. The same cautious attitude is taken by Douglas officials, he said.

Mayor of the border town of Douglas for 11 years, Borane maintains a close relationship with people in Mexico. Cuadros reported authorities in Cananea are still pursuing the people in the hills near Cananea, Borane said. He was escorted by armed guards, from the border to Cuadros’ offices for their meeting, Borane said.

Schools in Cananea, Sierra Vista, and Radebeul, Germany, interact with one another through a sister-cities program, and Sierra Vista Mayor Bob Strain said he sent a letter of concern and best wishes to the Cananea mayor Thursday. “Beyond that, I don’t know what it is, that we might have suggested to us,” Strain said.

Regarding any further assistance, Strain said, “I’ll admit the thought had crossed my mind, but I don’t know what it would be.”

So, when is our Democratic Congress going to do its job?

Never?

Turley on NSA Spying: “I don’t know of a more potential charge of impeachment”

Do they think we're not watching?

Just keep that yellow ribbon on your car's rear, ignore the rest and be happy ...

For those who wish some understanding: Trained to Harm: How the Military Abuses Its Own by JoAnn Wypijewski

The truth is, a system dedicated to transforming psychologically healthy people into people capable of performing what in any other setting is considered a pathological act can't help behaving badly -- not all the time or in all of its realms, not monolithically so that everyone associated with it is scathed. But inevitably the ends deform the means, and inevitably someone pays. No one is talking about it, but what happened at Walter Reed to soldiers injured in war is not shocking at all if one ponders what happens at Army posts to soldiers injured in basic training.

It's unanimous. The Arizona legislature is made up of anti-Constitution jerks...

Arizona Daily Star: Shirts with dead troops' names would be banned by Howard Fischer owned and operated by Capitol Media Services

Arizona Daily Star: Free speech takes a hit in Legislature --Our view: Misguided, feel-good bill tramples First Amendment, merits veto

ADDED: RADAMISTO has images of the 'offending' T-shirt that caused Arizona's legislative to throw a hissy fit: WINGNUTTERY IN ARIZONA

Robbing Peter to pay Paul ...

BushCo's at it again. Now they are soliciting members of the Border Patrol with a $134,114 for a one-year contract, plus a $25,000 signing bonus (via DynCorp) to go to Iraq to train Iraqi's in how to 'guard their border.' Is this a joke?

First Bush takes the US into an unnecessary and illegal war. Then he destroys our armed services. He removes most of the National Guard from their intended role of providing security here at home and moves them and their equipment to Iraq leaving the US without needed resources. Now it's the Border Patrol's turn. Are you sure George W. Bush isn't working for the enemy?

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. The US is going to keep comedians and terrorists in business for years to come.

_____________________
Arizona Daily Star: Bidding war is on for border agents --Private company offers six figures for year in Iraq by Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

Violence in Sonora ...

The Sierra Vista Herald reports: 20 dead following shootout in Sonora; gang had earlier killed four police in Cananea by Jonathan Clark

Many of the victims have been police officers, including several with connections to Cananea.

On Feb. 26, the head of public safety in Agua Prieta, Ramon Tacho Verdugo, was shot and killed by a group of unknown assailants as he left his office. He had served in a similar post in Cananea prior to taking office in Agua Prieta in September 2006.

On March 6, Federal Preventive Police officer Aldo Guzmán Palafox was fatally shot while driving through Cananea, and on March 22, another PFP officer, Gustavo Vega Rendón was gunned down in the city.

Then, on April 17, Cananea municipal police officers Blanca Noriega and Miguel Angel Caballero were shot and killed while on duty.

Following Wednesday’s violence, Sonora Attorney General Abel Murrieta said that 100 state police officers had been dispatched to Cananea to help reinforce security there.

Cananea, a copper mining city of approximately 35,000 inhabitants located 40 miles by highway from the Naco Port of Entry into the U.S., has a sister city relationship with Sierra Vista.

Rahm Emanuel needs to go ...

Read this: Emanuel Blocks Dem Debate on Trade Deal As White House Signals Real Agenda

Who's paying Rahm Emanuel off and why in Hell does he have any 'leadership role' in the Democratic Party at all. Isn't he also one of those Congresscritters who is resisting tightening up the ethics rules so they can personally cash in at the taxpayers expense as they sell legislation to the highest bidder?

Links in comment ... IMPEACH CHENEY

A comment made today to a post from April has two important links:

• The People's E-Mail Network submission form, and
• Listing of messages from the last 25 submissions

Some photos taken in the Stoneman Lake area ...

Stoneman Lake Area

Stoneman Lake Area

Stoneman Lake Area

That's a crow center left. There were quite a few crows holding a talk-fest in some trees off the trail. I tried to get close enough to take a picture but when I raised my camera they took off --this is a hunting area, after all. Some of them did return to the area but refused to pose.
Stoneman Lake Area

Stoneman Lake Area

Stoneman Lake Area

Northern Arizona ...

I've been camping in Northern Arizona and I would still be there if I could take my computer with me.

Politically I'm a void except:

• I finished reading The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal by Jared M. Diamond.
• I saw, first hand, the magnitude of the damage being done to the area by off road vehicles (logging, ORV's and the various impacts of global warming are not doing these areas any good, to put it mildly).
• I also read 1634: The Baltic War by David Weber and Eric Flint having previously read 1632 (Eric Flint) and 1633 (Eric Flint and David Weber). As alternate histories the first two books of the Ring of Fires Series (1632 and 1633) are pretty good, in my opinion. The author(s) set their extremely human heroes on a course to correct some of history's tragedies (slavery, the Holocaust). On the other hand unless these same heroes have more insight and skill than we have in this day and age, they are going to move the global warming fiasco much earlier in earth's history.
  
• While filling up my truck at a gas station in Florence, a former (self proclaimed) rodeo guy commented on my camper, the price of gas, the price of campers and that we might as well go ahead and invade Iran. I don't know how much of his sentiment was for real and how much was a general feeling of depression or hopelessness with the way things 'are.' The impression I got was one of vicarious aggression masking hopelessness (my 2-minute psychoanalyses). When I suggested that such actions could lead us into WW III he said well, yeah, it might be disastrous but there are too many people (or those people) in the world anyway. When I said they may feel the same about us that was the end of the interaction.

The weather was really nice. I first camped in the Stoneman Lake area. When it started getting warm I drove on into Flagstaff and stayed a couple nights at a KOA camp so I could get rid of unwanted stuff and fill up on needed stuff. Then I camped a couple nights north of Flagstaff. Then I drove home.

Here are two pictures that I hope you enjoy (click on the images to see a larger version):

Stoneman Lake Area North of Flagstaff

Shadow Wolves or Romancing the Border ...

A western tale: Elite American Indian tracking unit targets drug smugglers, narcotics by Brady McCombs

In this tight-knit, 14-member unit of American Indian drug trackers, the success of one is the success of all. The Shadow Wolves moniker refers to the way, like a wolf pack, when one finds its prey — a load of marijuana or better yet, the drug runners themselves — he or she calls in the rest.

What's the difference in handling the welfare of children and delivering packages?

Apparently nothing: CPS staff to see pay cuts if goal is unmet --Target is boost in numbers of kids kept in own homes by Josh Brodesky and Daniel Scarpinato

A frequent critic of CPS, state Sen. Karen Johnson, a Mesa Republican, called the policy "perverse. … We've absolutely seen that CPS workers are not being paid enough," she said, adding the base salary needs to be increased.

CPS workers are underpaid and understaffed. And perhaps under-trained. So are school teachers. Many, and increasing numbers, of children get no health care and many are poorly fed. It's not like we 'care' a lot about children in this country. But we do get so upset when a child is abused to death. The media has an orgy of fantasy/horror shows for a day or two. And then it's over or if it's election time the state legislative body may keep the show going by proposing legislation that will most likely make things worse.

If the CPS goal is not the child, but some statistical objective to keep children in the home, then why bother having a CPS at all?

Obama campaign steals myspace site ...

The Battle to Control Obama's Myspace by Micah L. Sifry

Updated: Obama campaign usurps Myspace website, not a hit diary by Chaoslillith

Obama blows into MySpace by Jerome Armstrong

Renzi says he's a victim ...

From video clip on same page as this article: Renzi's taxes telling by Mike Madden, Arizona Republic.

Via Joe Dana on the video --believe it or not-- Rick Renzi says he is the victim of a smear campaign by the US DOJ.

Renzi has stepped down from his three committees (an extremely rare move, so says Joe Dana). Now he has time to focus on 'other issues' like fire season here in Arizona --and we all know how much help Republicans are on important matters like fire and floods and hurricanes and security and drugs and health care, etc, etc, etc.

Renzi says he's not resigning and thinking of running for a fourth term.

The article covers problems with Renzi's tax filings to the IRS and his corrupt land deals here in Arizona.

Certainly there are corrupt Democrats, but don't the voters who classify themselves as Republicans care that the list of the corrupt weighs so heavily on the Republican side of the aisle --and that at a time when the DOJ was deliberately delaying and hidding these cases? Or do voters who classify themselves as Republican think this is what their elected officials are supposed to do: steal taxpayer money, land and resources while lining their own pockets with graft?

Having a Democratic Governor helps ...

Arizona's Governor, Janet Napolitano, vetoed another idiotic piece of legislation concocted by our moronic GOoPer legislators.

The US President may not plan, but the Mexican 'drug lords' do ...

According to an Associated Press article (as published on the Arizona Daily Star Website)

Mexican drug lords are taking over the business of smuggling migrants into the United States, using them as human decoys to divert authorities from billions of dollars in cocaine shipments across the same border.

U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that drug traffickers, in response to a U.S. border crackdown, have seized control of the routes they once shared with human smugglers and in the process are transforming themselves into more diversified crime syndicates.

The drug gangs get protection money from the migrants and then, in effect, use them to clear the trail for the flow of drugs.

Undocumented aliens are used "to maneuver where they want us or don't want us to be," said Alonzo Pena, chief of investigations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Arizona.

Gustavo Soto, a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol in Tucson, said smugglers are carrying drugs along paths once used primarily by migrants. ...

One man's crime syndicate is another man's army.

Depend on it. What ever steps the U.S. takes the objective will be to make the rich richer and the world more dangerous for the rest of us.

Poor Sean Hannity ...

Sean Hannity is just so fearful of bloggers who lean to the left of the entities which provide his paycheck that one is concerned his brain may explode from his self generated fear as his brain struggles to connect imaginary and randomly selected dots.

View the video: We control the horizontal...we control the vertical...we control the democratic party

Now I must say there are a couple facts in that video. MoveOn.org is an organization supporting Democratic views. FireDogLake is a real web site. Senator Clinton did post there. George Soros is a real person. But it's just wonderful to see how the left side of the blogosphere rules the roost as far as the Democrats are concerned.