Another shoot-up of a vehicle, this time just 20 miles south of Tucson ...

UPDATE 4/1/07 -- Here's an article with more info about the gun attack on a vehicle full of people driving from the border north towards Tucson:

Drug hijackers mistakenly open fire on 23 migrants, killing 2 by DAVID L. TEIBEL and CLAUDINE LoMONACO, Tucson Citizen

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Again, a vehicle carrying people crossing the border illegally has been shot at and people have been killed.

Members of the group described bullets cutting into the rear of the pickup as the driver tried to flee, Kastigar said. After a brief chase, the driver stopped and the people inside ran into the desert.

When deputies arrived they found the two dead and at least one wounded person.

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Arizona Republic: Gunmen ambush migrants, killing 2

What is feminism?

Sympathy and empathy are wonderful qualities but they will work as well in the harem as in the workplace if comiseration is all that women want.

Why Feminism Is Still Necessary

The above link describes the situation where a woman was attacked on the web with threats of death, rape and mutilation. Under this stress she backed out of a speaking engagement.

The gains in women's rights that started in the 60's and continued through the 80's are definitely under attack. Not that resistance to those rights ever really stopped, but attempts to turn back the clock on women's rights are on the rise.

The women of the new century are not going to keep these rights 'for free.' They will have to insist. And that can be dangerous. Almost as dangerous as being chattel.

In all societies, poverty, discrimination, ignorance and social unrest are common predictors of violence against women. Yet the most enduring enemies of a woman’s dignity and security are cultural forces aimed at preserving male dominance and female subjugation—often defended in the name of venerable tradition.

In industrialized societies like the US, where institutions formally frown on gender violence, behaviour belies official pronouncements: rap music insulting women as ‘whores’; a popular men's magazine that celebrates gang rape and depicts female bodies being fed into meat grinders; sexual harassment of women trying to integrate into the armed forces; and societal pressures that induce young women to starve themselves or use technology to create ‘ideal’ bodies, often destroying their health in the process.

In developing countries, violent practices against women are often recognized and defended as strands of the cultural weave. Wife-beating, for example, is considered part of the natural order in many countries—a masculine prerogative celebrated in songs, proverbs and wedding ceremonies.

Are today's women under the impression that women who fought for women's rights in the 1800's and 1900's were not in physical danger, did not receive threats and that death and rape were not part of those threats?

Big money in smuggling, drugs or people ...

First came the war on drugs and the militarization of our police forces. Now we have the war on undocumented immigrants. Step by step we are heading for a police state.

Authorities broke up what they call a 'human smuggling' ring involving travel agencies. Six Phoenix-area travel agencies were involved.

The agencies arranged for one-way travel to destination cities across the nation, in many cases through McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. Goddard said the year-long investigation uncovered ticket sales worth about $2 million.

I am glad they caught these people but I would prefer that we would approach our border problems in a more rational manner. One that didn't make smuggling drugs and immigrants such profitable enterprises that they corrupt our society at all levels.
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Arizona Republic: Major Ariz. human smuggling operation broken up by Jacques Billeaud, Associated Press

Is Bush's special friend getting tired of him ...

BBC News reports that Saudi King Abdullah refers to the "US presence in Iraq as an illegitimate occupation."

And what fiction is the US giving out today?

"The United States is in Iraq at the request of the Iraqis and under a United Nations mandate. Any suggestion to the contrary is wrong," said National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

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Saudi: US Iraq presence illegal

Riding while brown ...

The Tucson Citizen has an article titled: Lawyers' advice to migrants: Stay out of cars by Claudine LoMonaco

How does this work? Do they question all the brown colored people in the car?

So the police stop me for a non-working turn signal (which used to happen frequently years ago in my Datsun, 'scuse me, Nissan) and any and all passengers who look like they might have had ancestors from down south get interrogated? But us sorta German/English looking sorts only just get a ticket instructing us to get our car fixed (again).

A ticket for operating an unsafe vehicle is the price of a well regulated society. But interrogation for those riding in a car that got a ticket because you might possibly have entered the country illegally is called a police state. If our society is going to question all passengers in order to identify possible illegal aliens then why not collect ID's on all the passengers and run them through to see if there are any other crimes these people might be involved in. Why don't we set up road blocks every 25 miles and check everyone. Why not have them searched and require that they take their shoes off to check for bombs.

Just think how 'safe' we could be ...

Scarpinato, Schwarminato ...

So Daniel Scarpinato of the Arizona Daily Star is denigrating southern Arizona Democratic legislators because the Republican majority ignores them.

Where have we heard this before. Perhaps Arizona will turn even bluer and then the Democrats can ignore the Republican legislators. But even though there is some payback when such swings take place Democrats never quite excel at revenge like the Republicans do.

Revenge, like injustice, lying and warmongering must be incorporated into those Conservative genes ... ya think?
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Area lawmakers getting little done --Dems' bills almost routinely snubbed; GOP fares better by Daniel Scarpinato

Another nail in the coffin of this old and dear earth of ours?

Environmental bad news in Arizona:

The American Southwest has been warming for nearly 30 years, according to records that date to the late 19th century. And the region is in the midst of an eight-year drought. Both developments could be within the range of natural events.

But what has convinced many scientists that the current spate of higher temperatures is not just another swing in the weather has been the near collapse of the sky islands and other high, formerly green havens that poke above the desert.

Fire has always been a part of Western ecology, particularly when the land is parched. But since the late 1980s, the size and reach of the fires have far exceeded times of earlier droughts. And the culprit, according to several recent studies, is higher temperatures tearing at a fabric of life that dates to the last ice age.

A lot of people think climate change and the ecological repercussions are 50 years away," said Thomas W. Swetnam, director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "But it's happening now in the West. The data is telling us that we are in the middle of one of the first big indicators of climate change impacts in the continental United States."

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TruthOut.org: Heat Invades Cool Heights Over Arizona Desert by Timothy Egan, The New York Times

"We are using nano quantities of the nanoparticles."

It's known that nanoparticles under certain --quite ordinary-- circumstances can move from the skin surface to layers underneath and into to the bloodstream. These particles may be 'cleared' from the body or they may lodge in various areas (lungs? brain?) and it is NOT known what the results of these particles hanging around the body will be.

Some studies have found that smaller particles are cleared faster than larger ones and so are safer, but others suggest that once inside the body, nanoparticles travel through the blood, lodge in the lungs and brain, and accumulate over time, with effects that are still poorly understood.

The entire country is an experiment for bioengineered food stuff. Evidently women will be main the subjects of the nanotech industry.
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Technology Review: Nanocosmetics: Buyer Beware -Is that expensive jar of skin cream on my dresser safe to use? by Apoorva Mandavilli

Will Justice or the Republicans prevail?

Republicans (GOP, Conservatives -take your pick) want the authorities to have a free hand to do whatever they want, including murder, as long as the individual being harmed is someone that they can label as evil or illegal.

Francisco Javier Domínguez-Rivera is dead. Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Corbett isn't talking. Shouldn't that be cause in itself to suspend him from his job until this issue is resolved?

So what are the attorneys that are supposed to uphold law and constitution going to do now?

A U.S. Border Patrol agent's account of what led him to shoot and kill an unarmed illegal entrant in January doesn't match witness testimony or forensic evidence, records released Monday by the Cochise County Attorney's Office show.

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Arizona Daily Star: Records contradict agent's story on entrant's slaying by Brady McCombs

They hate him because he followed the law ...

Oh, those law and order Republicans (or is GOP, or is it Conservatives)... ?

They are so upset that one of their own, Texas U.S. attorney Johnny Sutton has the temerity to follow the law where ever it leads:

Johnny Sutton said, he was bound by an unwavering ethic: Do the right thing and follow the facts, even when they lead to "unhappy places" such as errant public servants.

Sutton's adherence to that credo has transformed him from a relatively low-profile federal prosecutor to a punching bag on conservative talk shows and Web sites, where he's been vilified for weeks for prosecuting two Border Patrol agents who now are imprisoned for shooting a Mexican drug courier.

Another prosecution, involving a Texas sheriff's deputy who fired at a vehicle loaded with illegal immigrants, has heightened the outcry. T.J. Bonner, the head of the national Border Patrol agents' union, calls Sutton "public enemy No. 1." Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, a former Harris County judge who remembers Sutton as an able young prosecutor, now accuses him of choosing "the wrong side" in the border war.

Democrats have been increasingly aware for sometime that Conservative (i.e. Republican, GOP) justice is aimed at attacking whomever they consider 'enemies' for made up (and real) scandals and crimes while giving their friends get-out-of-jail-free cards for anything and every thing, including murder.
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Respected U.S. prosecutor faces a conservative backlash by Dave Montgomery, McClatchy Newspapers

Short term planning at the Post Office?

Is this a bad sign or a good idea?

USPS is creating a stamp that, once purchased, will still be usable as the cost of first class postage increases. If this were a private company I might assume they were seeking a large increase in stamp purchases and then they would go out of business or remake themselves after some undetermined period of time making the horded stamps worthless.

Off course the Republican run government works a lot like a corrupt Republican-run businesses. So who nows?
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Arizona Republic: USPS unveils new forever first-class stamp, Associated Press

Heel, Bush, heel ...

Has a nice ring to it, no?

Dems Pull Bush' Chain

The Congressional Dems reached a deal.
No, it isn’t ideal, yet I feel
It’s all right—a first step.
Stop this war? Dems said, “Yep!”
As for reining in Bush, they said, “Heel!”

More like this at Mad Kane's Political Madness.

Creepy Katie

Katie Couric, another media hack.

Except for Keith Olbermann are there any news 'hosts' that do not interview Democrats using Republican attack points? Attack points aren't issues. They are intended to obscure the issues and the facts.

The Edwards basically answered that same question over and over again in this video clip on Crooks and Liars. They did very well. I don't know where they get the patience with these creeps.

Creepy Katie kept asking the same Republican attack points over and over while implying that they weren't 'her' questions but some unnamed 'they.' She can't even quote who's spouting this stuff.

The reason Bush doesn't want Gonzales under oath?

Because he's an outright liar, just like the President of these United States.

WASHINGTON Mar 24, 2007 (AP)— Last week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said he was not involved in any discussions about the impending dismissals of U.S. attorneys.

On Friday night, however, the Justice Department revealed Gonzales' participation in a Nov. 27 meeting where such plans were discussed.

If he wasnt involved it would have meant he wasn't really running his department. Now we know he was running him department and that he's a liar. Of course, we already knew he was a liar. This is one more lie and a very important one for the integrity of US justice. It's clear that the concept of 'justice' finds no room in Gonzales' soul.
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Link: Documents Show Gonzales Approved Firings by LARA JAKES JORDAN