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.