A reader responds

In response to my post Mexican Prisoners Rioting:

deissy sanchez said...

Please help
i've got two uncles in there
='[
We recieved a Devastating
call from My uncle himself
who's trapped.
Many have died due to the raging fired

*****

I do not know what I can do personally from here except to let the world know what is going on as far as we can tell - there is always more to the story.

What the cause(s) of the prisoners rioting I am not even hazarding a guess but with some saying a few are injured and some saying others have been killed something has gone terribly wrong.

I have friends in Mexico - a few with some pull. I will give them a call and suggest they or someone they know look into what is going on in Tiajuana. What good if any it will do, I cannot say.

So, Deissy, know that we in the blogosphere and the real world are paying attention and that we will do what we can to help.

And I Quote

We need men who can dream of things that never were.

~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Two from the Bubblegum files

The Royal Guardsmen with Snoopy vs the Red Baron



Johnny Horton with The Battle of New Orleans

The Ramones: I wanna be sedated

With the extreme negativity and nastiness the repugicans are spewing I Wanna Be Sedated:

Nice segue, huh?!

Back on the chain gang

A mellow version of a 1983 classic.

Mexican Prisoners Rioting

Prisoners are rioting at a state penitentiary in the Mexican border city of Tijuana.

Red Cross official Fernando Esquer says at least four prisoners are injured with bullet wounds and have been evacuated for treatment.

The riot began Sunday afternoon and quickly escalated.

A fire raged on the patio and prisoners have hung messages from the prison's roof and windows.

Several messages claim guards have killed at least two prisoners in the past week or so.

Soldiers and police surrounded the building, and a helicopter clattered overhead.

Family members trying to find out information on those inside have clashed at least twice with police.

Dubious Qualifications

She actually makes a better qualified candidate than does Palin. NakedJen makes more sense as a veep candidate ... she has the experiences needed. Here's how she puts it:

I am very obviously not running for Vice President of the United States of America.

We all know, quite well, that even though there are certain members of my family that would stand up and applaud and cheer more loudly than they perhaps ever had for anything I’ve done previously in my life, there is no possible way I would ever run on the Republican ticket.

All that aside, the more I keep learning about Sarah Palin, the more I can’t help but think I would actually make a better candidate than she. I know it sounds completely implausible since I’m the naked woman on the Internet (well, yes, it is completely implausible), but I am going to share just a few of the reasons why I feel this is so.

I have experience working in Washington, D.C. for a lobbyist on Capitol Hill. A lobbyist that was often invited to lunch at the Reagan White House. Where I lunched as well. A lobbyist who represented Miller Brewing Company. Which means that I know all about the Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol and Firearms. And how insider Washington really works. How to get things done on Capitol Hill. What you do to assure that your initiatives are included in bills and actually do get passed into law.

I also have experience working for the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. I know how both of those organizations actually work and why they are important. I know how they decide to fund projects or not. I have helped to organize and have attended their global conferences. In other words, I know how to work in a truly global organization.

I have managed and have been entrusted with budgets as large as $50 million for just one simple global campaign. I have never had a project go over budget or over time. I have also been quite successful at creating global mindshare for my projects when none previously existed. I’m quite good at bringing divergent views to the table and getting everyone not only on the same page but to actually agree.

I was accepted into the Peace Corps.

I have traveled to all continents except Antarctica. I spent 20 years traveling with the Grateful Dead and while I know that creates a lot more suspicion about my background, it does mean I've been to every state in America at least once, if not more, with the exception of Alaska. Funny that Alaska is the only state I've never visited.

I am a holistic healer and master herbalist who truly understands that food is a political issue, that energy is also a political issue and that real changes must be made now if our planet and the people on it are going to survive.

I’m not a soccer mom, I do not eat moose or caribou, I can’t shoot a gun.

Sarah Palin and I are the same age. We’ve had such divergent paths in our lives that it is very hard for me to even begin to imagine my life in her shoes. I do try. Because my heart is one that tries, very hard, to embrace all people. To find the common thread that binds us all. I’m still searching for my common thread with Sarah. Other than being a woman, I’m having a hard time finding one. But I am going to continue to search. I am just really, really scared, at the moment, of the possibility that she might one day be the POTUS.

I feel like the citizen’s of the United States are being cast as extras in a very bad Disney movie. We can stop it, of course. By choosing real hope and real change and voting the Obama/Biden ticket in November. At this point it feels like the only responsible and sane thing to do. If we don’t, we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves and we’ll have a woman with rather dubious qualifications a heartbeat away from the presidency.

*****

Photo from NakedJen.

The difference in IQ

The difference in IQ between those that vote Democrat and those who do not is pretty obvious and it has been studied and tested several times by different independent groups and each time the results were the same ... Voters who vote Democrat have higher than normal IQs. Those not voting Democrat have less than average IQs, a point Michael Seitzman makes clear in his piece below in response to "the Interview" with Palin on Thursday night.

Sarah Palin Naked

By Michael Seitzman

September 11, 2008
*****

She said "nucular." Twice.

I realized three things tonight. For one, if you are a McCain/Palin/Bush voter, you and I do not have a difference of opinion. We have a difference in brain power. Two, she really is as ignorant as I feared. And, three, she really is kinda hot. Basically, I want to have sex with her on my Barack Obama sheets while my wife reads aloud from the Constitution. (My wife is cool with this if I promise to "first wipe off Palin's tranny makeup." I married well.)

Now, I want to be clear and speak directly to those of you who LOVED that Palin interview. You're an idiot. I mean that. This is not one of those cases where we're going to agree to disagree. This isn't one of those situations where we debate it passionately and then walk away thinking that the other guy is wrong but argued well. I'm not going to think of you as a thoughtful but misguided person with different ideas who still really cares about the country and the world. No, sorry, not this time. This time, if you watched those interview excerpts and weren't scared out of your freakin' mind, then you're mentally ill, mentally disabled, or mentally disturbed. What you are NOT is responsible, informed, curious, thoughtful, mature, educated, empathetic, or remotely serious. I mean it.

But I like to think that anyone can change.

Stop voting for people you want to have a beer with. Stop voting for folksy. Stop voting for people who remind you of your neighbor. Stop voting for the ideologically intransigent, the staggeringly ignorant, and the blazingly incompetent.

Vote for someone smarter than you. Vote for someone who inspires you. Vote for someone who has not only traveled the world but who has also shown a deep understanding and compassion for it. The stakes are real and they're terrifyingly high. This election matters. It matters. It really matters. Let me say that one more time. This. Really. Matters.

Tragedy in Frostbite Falls

Bullwinkle J. Moose Was Assassinated By A Stark-Raving Mad Lunatic

Obama raises record $66 million in August

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama raised a record $66 million in August, a campaign spokesman said on Sunday.

Read the Reuters article here.

And yet the polls claim McPain is ahead?

Something isn't quite kosher here!

You don't suppose the pollsters are telling lies, do you?

Palin Aide Tells Blogger To Stop Blogging

In the world of Gov. Sarah Palin, criticism by the press and especially by the blogosphere is unwelcomed and countered by silence or direct commands.

According to an expose today in the New York Times, Republican vice-presidential candidate had her assistant call a blogger who closely followed the Palin administration and had been critical of it actions.

Four months ago, a Wasilla blogger, Sherry Whitstine, who chronicles the governor’s career with an astringent eye, answered her phone to hear an aide to the governor on the line, she said. “You should be ashamed!” Ivy Frye, the assistant, told her. “Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!”

One wonders what a Vice President, or President Palin might suggest to the FCC in suppressing or regulating the Internet and the freedom of speech — especially those who disagree with her!

Few safeguards for Mexican produce heading north

At the end of a dirt road in northern Mexico, the conveyer belts processing hundreds of tons of vegetables a year for U.S. and Mexican markets are open to the elements, protected only by a corrugated metal roof.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration suspects this packing plant, its warehouse in McAllen, Texas, and a farm in Mexico are among the sources of the United States' largest outbreak of food-borne illness in a decade, which infected at least 1,440 people with a rare form of salmonella.

A plant manager confirmed that workers handling chili peppers aren't required to separate them according to the sanitary conditions in which they were grown, offering a possible explanation for how such a rare strain of salmonella could have caused such a large outbreak.

Read the rest of the article here.

World's oceans could become "soupy swill"

Our seas are suffocating under a layer of slime.

That slime - algae feasting on pollutants and fertilizers and starving the ocean of oxygen - is growing rapaciously and killing off sea life at an alarming rate.

Read the entire article from Canada.com here.

Sarah Palin is a spammer and digital secrecy scofflaw.

Above, snapshot of a rally organized by "Alaska Women Against Palin" this weekend. Some 1500 people are said to have participated, making it possibly the largest political rally in the state's history. Photo from Mudflaps

Buried on page 4 of a 5-page New York Times article on Sarah Palin's political history in Alaska we find this:

[L]awmakers in April accused her of improperly culling thousands of e-mail addresses from a state database for a mass mailing to rally support for a policy initiative.

While Ms. Palin took office promising a more open government, her administration has battled to keep information secret. Her inner circle discussed the benefit of using private e-mail addresses. An assistant told her it appeared that such e-mail messages sent to a private address on a “personal device” like a BlackBerry “would be confidential and not subject to subpoena.”

Ms. Palin and aides use their private e-mail addresses for state business. A campaign spokesman said the governor copied e-mail messages to her state account “when there was significant state business.”

On Feb. 7, Frank Bailey, a high-level aide, wrote to Ms. Palin’s state e-mail address to discuss appointments. Another aide fired back: “Frank, this is not the governor’s personal account.” Mr. Bailey responded: “Whoops~!”

Mr. Bailey, a former midlevel manager at Alaska Airlines who worked on Ms. Palin’s campaign, has been placed on paid leave; he has emerged as a central figure in the trooper investigation.

Another confidante of Ms. Palin’s is Ms. Frye, 27. She worked as a receptionist for State Senator Lyda Green before she joined Ms. Palin’s campaign for governor. Now Ms. Frye earns $68,664 as a special assistant to the governor. Her frequent interactions with Ms. Palin’s children have prompted some lawmakers to refer to her as “the babysitter,” a title that Ms. Frye disavows. Like Mr. Bailey, she is an effusive cheerleader for her boss.

“YOU ARE SO AWESOME!” Ms. Frye typed in an e-mail message to Ms. Palin in March.

Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes

Photo from Mudflats.

The Sorrow and the Pity

When it comes to foreign policy, Sarah Palin doesn't know what she's talking about.

Sarah Palin and Charles Gibson

Judging from the excerpts shown Thursday on ABC's World News and Nightline, there are several appropriate responses to watching Sarah Palin answer Charlie Gibson's questions on foreign policy and national security—sorrow, pity, incredulity, fear.

Read the rest of the story here.

Photo from Slate.

So-Called Energy Expert Sarah Palin Doesn’t Know How Much Energy Her State Produces

Challenged by Gibson on her “national security credentials,” Palin cited her experience as the governor of a “state that produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy” as a credential that she “brings to the table“.

But, as the non-partisan FactCheck.org points out, Palin’s claim about Alaska producing 20 percent of America’s domestic energy supply is “not true. Not even close.” In fact, “Alaska’s share of domestic energy production was 3.5 percent.”

Mom accused of stealing daughter's identity to attend highschool and become a cheerleader

Can you say 'Made for TV Movie'?!

A 33 year old woman has been arrested for allegedly stealing her 15-year-old daughter's identity and going back to high school to become a cheerleader and get a diploma. Her daughter lived in another state with her father, from whom the woman was estranged. She faces six years in prison for identity theft. That would be a pretty interesting ending to a wild summer teen comedy about a mom who yearns to be a cheerleader.

According to the complaint, Brown wanted to get her high school degree and become a cheerleader because she didn't have a childhood and wanted to regain a part of her life that she'd missed.

Brown allegedly attended cheerleading practices before school started, received a cheerleader's locker and went to a pool party at the cheerleading coach's house.

The $134.50 check Brown gave to the cheerleading coach for her uniform bounced, the complaint said.

Mom allegedly uses daughter's ID to be cheerleader