Mark in Mexico

Puebla, Mexico: Sources say 200 million cubic meters of toxic sludge lie at the bottom of Valsequillo reservoir

2007-07-02T20:58:00.000-05:00

Note: Beeeeg problems with Blogger.com. I wrote this post just a bit after 9:00 this morning and couldn't get it online until late this evening. I don't know what's wrong with Blogger but I'll continue to try to fight my way through it.

Sources inside the Puebla state government have told Mark in Mexico that more than 200 million cubic meters of toxic sludge lie at the bottom of the Valsequillo reservoir. Not even Merlin the Magician could clean up this mess.

Abracadabra . . .
Abracadabra . . .
. . . bloody hell!
These sources, who must remain anonymous due to concerns for life and limb, further explain that the Puebla state government began looking at cleaning up the lake as long as two years ago. This would indicate that the explosive reports in Reforma did not take state officials by surprise. Well, maybe Reforma's reports did, but the information contained therein did not. In fact, say my sources, the state government has been well aware of the poisonous nature of the lake for a long time.

The problems, say my sources, are that the government doesn't want to spend the money to clean up the problem. What's a few extra fingers and toes and a few more dwarfs running around? Especially when the governor himself is a dwarf.

What's worse, these sources tell me, is that the state government doesn't seem to understand that the root causes of the contamination, untreated municipal and industrial waste water as well as residual runoff water, must first be cleaned up before any lake cleanup can be attempted. Otherwise, it's all a huge waste of time and money. The lake cannot be cleaned up until its water sources are cleaned.

My sources say that waster water which is currently being dumped into the Valsequillo reservoir is receiving only rudimentary treatment, if any at all. I'm trying to get more details on "rudimentary" and will provide them when I have them. My translation of my sources' information is as follows:

Basically the problem is money, or lack of it. The state doesn't want to allocate the funds necessary to even start the project.

. . . there is a solution, although a long term one.

We must start treating our wastewater to an acceptable level . . . the wastewater plant we have now was built and is operated by a foreign company that is raping Puebla with the interest payments while performing the most rudimentary of treatment, if any at all.

The 2 rivers leading to Valsequillo must be cleaned. Then we can deal with the lake.

Foreign company? Interest payments? Hmmm. I wonder how many millions of pesos were/are pocketed in this transaction?

Please visit the Pale Horse Galleries online store
for art, gifts and collectibles -- all hand made
by Mexican indigenous artists.
Thanks!
Cross posted at Pale Horse Galleries

TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Puebla, Mexico, Valsequillo, lead poisoning, heavy metals contamination, Mario Marin, Grupo Reforma

Mexico City: AMLO blames the mafia for his defeat and subsequent disappearance.

2007-07-01T20:12:00.000-05:00

The Mafia Stole the Presidency From Us.
That is the title of Andrés Manuel López Obrador's (AMLO's) new book which he is now shilling wherever and whenever he can. He has morphed from legitimate presidential candidate to clown to cheap huckster, all in less than a year. And his rapidly dwindling support base shows it.

AMLO must-a sleep wid duh fishes-a.
Give-a this one to-a Phil Calderone.

The book's brief introduction starts out, unfortunately, like this:

"Sólo le han quitado una pluma a nuestro gallo",

which, when translated exactly as it is intended, means,

"Only one feather was yanked out of our cock."

Now, before you start spitting out your coffee, or whatever, the word "cock" must be taken to mean "fighting cock", as in rooster -- male chicken. However, the word "gallo", in the sense that AMLO meant it, is translated accurately to the King's English as, er, cock. Sorry.

Bodyguard with AMLO's huge cock, sans one feather.
Note to self: No more posting after sixth Cuba Libre.

The book's publisher is supposedly Random House Mondadori, although a search of their site does not reveal any such title nor any such author. At least I couldn't find it. Try it yourself and good luck with the Salon de Autores (authors list). It took me four hours to figure out how that particular search tool worked and then when I finally got there, AMLO wasn't. In fact, the only newly published offering by Random House Mondadori was a book about the PAN, the party of notorious mafia hit man, Felipe "Phil" Calderone.

In the article linked in the first paragraph above, Reforma is mentioned as having conducted a poll in which 31 percent of AMLO's former supporters say they would not vote for him again. Among the comments of those polled:

"He should have ended this whole circus long ago."

Here is the report in Reforma if you can get it open. I'll translate it for you. Explanatory notes and snarky comments are in parentheses:

In the year since the presidential election, one third of the voters who helped Andrés Manuel López Obrador say that today they would not vote for that candidate and almost one half who voted for Roberto Madrazo (PRI dinosaur and criminal-in-chief) share the same sentiments. In the case of Felipe Calderón (who won the election), about one in ten of his voters say they wouldn't vote for him again.

So indicates a national telephone poll conducted by Grupo Reforma in order to learn today's opinions of the citizenry almost one full year since the July 2, 2006 presidential election. The study was conducted on the 23rd of June and included 850 adults from across the country. The poll has a margin of error of 3.4%.

The poll reveals that 36% of those interviewed believe that the 2006 election was fraudulent, a percentage that has remained constant since a similar poll question was presented last July, shortly after the election. This belief is most common among older voters (who have faithfully voted PRI for 77 years and watched as their country was sold down the river) and is less shared by those of a younger age (who have now seen the PRI get its collective butt kicked in two consecutive presidential elections).

In contrast, a majority of 54% believe that no fraud occurred and 52% believe that no vote-by-vote recount was ever necessary, as the Coalition for the Common Good (AMLO's mafia) demanded.

The poll revealed that citizen participation in the IFE (Federal Election Board) is viewed favorably by 60% of the poll's respondents and 45% view Luis Carlos Ugalde, the president of the IFE executive board, favorably.

However, 67% of those polled consider it necessary to replace the entire IFE executive board before the 2009 elections (not a presidential election cycle). Only 25% of those polled think the same executive board should continue in office and oversee the next election cycle.

So AMLO claims that the mafia robbed him of the election. I might go along with that, but only in the sense that AMLO's mafia got out-mafia-ed by Phil Calderone's mafia. In truth, the real mafia, that of the PRI's Roberto Madrazo, got badly skunked and, according to Reforma's opinion poll, is continuing to fade.

Please visit the Pale Horse Galleries online store
for art, gifts and collectibles -- all hand made
by Mexican indigenous artists.
Thanks!
Cross posted at Pale Horse Galleries

TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, AMLO, mafia

Oaxaca, Mexico: China "guarantees" quality of exported poisons.

2007-06-29T01:35:00.000-05:00

Do NOT put anything "Made in China" in any bodily orifice.

That would include ear, eye, nose and throat as well as any of the unmentionable orifices. I would also caution against applying anything "Made in China (Hecho in China) to the skin, scalp or nails or your vehicle's rims as well as avoiding feeding any of it to your pets.

In the face of rising world suspicion of the poisonous substances that Chinese manufacturers are packing into various foods, medicines and cosmetics being exported, Chinese spokesman for the Commerce Ministry, Wang Xinpei (pronounced: Wang Xinpei), declared,

It can be said that the quality of China's exports all are guaranteed.

Guaranteed to what?

China shuts 180 food plants for tainted ingredients

Deaths of thousands of dogs and cats in North America blamed on Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine.

Lassie after 30 day diet of melamine and anti-freeze

U.S. authorities have turned away or recalled toxic fish, juice containing unsafe color additives and popular toy trains decorated with lead paint.

Chinese-made toothpaste also has been banned by numerous countries in North and South America and Asia for containing diethylene glycol (anti-freeze), the same chemical that killed people in Panama last year when it turned up in cough syrup.
and
900,000 tubes have turned up in the USA in places including correctional facilities and some hospitals, not just at discount stores.

You'll wonder where the yellow went when
you brush your teeth with Peking-o-Dent.

Beijing police raided a village where plastic pipes had been forced down pigs' throats and villagers had pumped each 220-pound pig with 44 pounds of wastewater (raw sewage).
and
Stamps on their ears indicated that they already had been through quarantine and inspection.

Dinnertime already? No thanks. I'll pass.

China's former top drug regulator has been sentenced to death.

Refused by the FDA in April because they were "filthy":
salted bean curd cubes in brine with chili and sesame oil
dried apple
dried peach
dried pear
dried round bean curd
dried mushroom
olives
frozen bay scallops
frozen Pacific cod
sardines
frozen seafood mix
fermented bean curd

and

foods rejected because they were contaminated with pesticides:
frozen eel
ginseng
frozen red raspberry crumble
mushrooms

Frozen catfish was stopped because it was laced with banned antibiotics.

Scallops and sardines were turned away because they were coated with putrefying bacteria.

China has also attempted to export hundreds of thousands of pounds of chickens and poultry products to the U.S., even though it is not yet certified to do so. Chinese exporters disguise the meat by labeling crates "dried lily flower" or "prune slices" or "vegetables."

China, the leading exporter of seafood to the U.S., is raising most of its fish products in water contaminated with raw sewage and compensating by using dangerous drugs and chemicals, many of which are banned by the Food and Drug Administration.

Deadly fake medicines, including tablets made with yellow road paint and unhygienic pregnancy testing kits.

Heart pills coated with furniture polish.

Cigarettes containing sand and cadmium, and with 75 per cent more tar and a quarter more nicotine than rules permit.

Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical.

Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.

Prunes tinted with chemical dyes not approved for human consumption.

Frozen breaded shrimp preserved with nitrofuran, an antibacterial that can cause cancer.

Swordfish rejected as "poisonous."

Portable baby swings that entrap youngsters, resulting in 60 reports of cuts, bruises and abrasions;

Swimming pool ladders that break, resulting in 127 reports of injuries, including leg lacerations requiring up to 21 stitches, five reports of bone fractures, two back injuries, two reports of torn ligaments and eight sprained ankles;

Faulty baby carriers that result in babies falling out and getting bruised, getting skulls cracked and hospitalizations;

Easy-Bake Ovens that trap children's fingers in openings, resulting in burns;

Oscillating tower fans whose faulty wiring results in fires, burns and smoke inhalation injuries;

Exploding air pumps that have resulted in 13 lacerations including six facial injuries and one to the eye;

Bargain-priced oil-filled electric heaters, selling for less than $50, that burn down homes;

Notebook computer batteries that burn up computers, cause other property damage and burn users;

Circular saws with faulty blade guards that result in cutting users, not wood.

1,500 table lamps recalled because of faulty light sockets that posed the risk of electrical shocks and fire hazards.

1500 emergency lights that look just like other emergency lights but whose circuit board malfunctions, preventing illumination during emergencies.

1700 heated massaging recliners recalled due to overheating and burn hazards.

2,700 $12 pine cone candles had to be recalled when it was determined the exterior coating, not just the wick, caught fire.

180,000 pieces of glassware were ordered recalled because the items broke for no apparent reason, sometimes cutting the hands of those holding them.

Kitchen stools collapsed even under the weight of small children.

40,000 cribs had to be recalled when it was discovered directions instructed consumers to assemble them in ways that would result in the baby falling out and becoming entrapped. Additionally, locking pins on the side of the crib could pop off and cause a choking hazard.

450,000 infant car seat carriers manufactured in China had to be recalled when it was determined infants were falling out because of a faulty design. The Evenflo Co., which imported the carriers from China, received 679 reports of the handle on the car seat releasing for no reason, resulting in 160 injuries to children, including a skull fracture, two concussions and cuts and bruises.

Books for young children have been found to contain plastic squeaker toys that have become lodged in babies' throats and metal clips that break off, potentially injuring kids.

137 reports of infants mouthing, chewing and sometimes choking on tiny pieces of its soft blocks tower toys imported from China. At least 32 infants were found gagging on the pieces and 49 choked on the plastic covering. In all, 40,000 had to be recalled.

Monkfish that turned out to be toxic pufferfish.

Samplings of Chinese imported fish between October and May repeatedly found traces of the antibiotics nitrofuran and fluoroquinolone, as well as the antifungals malachite green and gentian violet. Of particular concern are the fluoroquinolones, a family of widely used human antibiotics that the FDA forbids in seafood in part to prevent bacteria from developing resistance to these important drugs.

Tilapia fillets tainted by salmonella.

An unidentified fish mislabeled as catfish. (unidentified? Jeebus!)

1.2 million Lasko Products Inc. ceramic heaters that pose a fire hazard.

2,300 Schylling Associates Inc. toy barbecues, because of the danger of laceration from sharp edges.

450,000 light-truck radial tires manufactured by Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co. in Hangzhou, China, and sold under the names Westlake, Compass, Telluride and YKS, because the treads might separate due to missing gum strips -- two known dead so far.

China made all of the 24 types of toys recalled this year for safety problems. All of them. 100%.

Toxic waste from China and other countries is being imported and used as a raw ingredient by some Australian fertiliser manufacturers and distributors. The wastes - from steelworks, electric-arc furnaces and zinc smelters - are being made into products that have shown heavy-metal levels up to 110,000 times higher than those which prompt NSW consumer warnings. "The trouble is that the Chinese are giving testing certificates on the products. But they are just lies, that's the nicest thing I can say. If we made that material we would be able to survive too, but we would poison everybody. It is madness. They are turning farms into waste dumps. And for some of this stuff, if you contaminate your ground with it, you might render it impossible to ever farm clean vegetables again."

Well, if these are examples of popular Chinese dogs, (Chinese crested hairless), the Chinese probably don't see anything wrong with eating pork force fed with raw sewage or brushing their teeth with Prestone-laced Peking-o-Dent.

Please visit the Pale Horse Galleries online store
for art, gifts and collectibles -- all hand made
by Mexican indigenous artists.
Thanks!
Cross posted at Pale Horse Galleries

TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, China

Washington, D.C.: "Fairness Doctrine" sinks faster than the Titanic

2007-06-28T21:48:00.000-05:00

Man! That was fast.

There has been a lot of chatter on the net for the past couple of weeks about Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein et al mumbling about bringing back the "Fairness Doctrine" in a blatant attempt to silence conservative talk radio. Specifically, they want to muzzle Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage, the three biggest players in the game.

The attempt by Air America to take on the conservative talkers with a liberal talk radio network ended, ignominiously, as we all know, in bankruptcy court, accompanied by various and sundry financial scandals. So, the big government, nanny-staters represented by San Fransisco's Pelosi and Feinstein have begun to bitch and whine about legislating the highly popular conservative radio hosts out of business.

Not so fast, said Rep. Mike Pence (R - Ind.) as he co-sponsored a bill today in the House, along with Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.) and Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), which forbids the FCC from using public money to re-invoke the thoroughly discredited "Fairness Doctrine". The vote on the measure was a razor thin 309-115. That would be roughly the same margin of victory as the combined Sitting Bull/Crazy Horse and Red Cloud vs Custer and Fetterman ("I'll ride through the entire Sioux nation.") contests.

The event was not without humor, however. House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) said, hilariously,

We ought to let right-wing talk radio go on as they do now,” he said. “Rush and Sean are just about as important in the scheme of things as Paris Hilton, and I would hate to see them gain an ounce of credibility by being forced by a government agency or anybody else to moderate their views enough that they might become modestly influential or respected.

Rush Limbaugh has, weekly, as in every single week of the year, 22-24 million listeners. That's more people listening to the Rush Limbaugh radio show in one week than have listened to Rep. Obey in his entire life or might possibly hear a word or two from Obey if he were to live (and talk) for another thousand years. Hannity has a weekly audience of about 14 million and Savage is enjoyed by about 8 million people each week.

That's just shy of 50 million people per week who listen to the top three talk radio hosts in all the United States of America. Throw in Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and many, many others and the numbers give the liberals chronic, incurable and, hopefully, terminal heartburn. The fact that these guys are all conservatives is not the point at all, at least to other conservatives as well as free speech advocates as well as Democratic legislators who would like to see (or hear) them stifled but are scared sh*tless (shitless) to publicly vote that way.

This reminds me of a line from that great character actor Chill Wills in a movie whose title I have long ago forgotten. He was engaged in a poker game when the card count seemed a little, er, off:

I don't want to get all picky over the rules or anything, but six aces? Sheeesh! That's a lotta aces.

Chill Wills
50 million listeners a week?
Sheesh! That's a lotta voters.

The spineless, quivering Democrats in the House would have given their eyeteeth to see (or hear) conservative talk radio silenced forever, but, 50 million listeners a week? Sheesh! That's a lotta voters.

Fairness Doctrine Disclosure: I ran into Chill Wills about 30 years ago in the Atlanta Hartsfield airport at a cigarette machine. He had deposited his money and couldn't get a pack of fags out of it. Between the two of us, we began rocking the machine back and forth on its legs until the pack of coffin nails finally fell out. He smoked Winstons, as I recall, and died of cancer (type unspecified) at the age of 75 years in 1978.

Lots more comment:
The Captain live-blogged the sinking.
Boss Hog Cernig, via someone calling themselves Shamanic, whines in a backhanded sort of way. Typical of gutless lefties.
Betsy is far from gutless.
Radio Equalizer says, "It's a blowout.", all things being Equal, of course.
Robbie at Urban Grounds says that Senator Kerry's dream just went down the YouTube.
Michelle Malkin pooh-poohs Obey's and Kucinich's pooh-poohing.
Dan Reihl votes -- SHOCK!! - -American
Jammie Wearing Fool: Be vigilant, forever.
SeeDubya cuts through the bu**shit (bullshit)

Please visit the Pale Horse Galleries online store
for art, gifts and collectibles -- all hand made
by Mexican indigenous artists.
Thanks!
Cross posted at Pale Horse Galleries

TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Fairness Doctrine, Chill Wills, Francis the Talking Mule

Oaxaca, Mexico: Best telemarketer prank, ever.

2007-06-27T09:33:00.000-05:00

I realize that telemarketers are not a big annoyance in Mexico. For one thing, the ones that do exist haven't learned how to get a hook into a victim. The phone call is usually acompanied by some type of canned music which you hear as soon as you answer the phone. This affords you the opportunity to slam the handset back onto the receiver before the telemarketer can get on the line. Another habit of telemarketers here is to have a recorded voice tell you, "Un momento, por favor," which also gives you the crucial .005 milli-second necessary to hammer said reciver with said handset. In fact, I have never yet actually found myself talking to a telemarketer in Mexico.

It's different in the USA, however. Telemarketers there have evolved over time and have this telemarketing annoyance down to an infuriatingly fine science.

This is how one very clever fellow handles them. Listen and enjoy.

via FARK.

Please visit the Pale Horse Galleries online store
for art, gifts and collectibles -- all hand made
by Mexican indigenous artists.
Thanks!
Cross posted at Pale Horse Galleries

TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, telemarketing

Berlin, Germany: Now this is hard ball politics!

2007-06-26T22:55:00.000-05:00

So ya wanna play hardball? The Poles know how to play hardball. The conservative Polish news magazine Wprost took a vicious shot at Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, calling her the "Stepmother of Europe" and publishing a doctored photo that depicts her suckling Poland's twin leaders, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski and President Lech Kaczynski. As you can see from the photo, little is left to one's imagination.

Politics, Polish style.

I'm trying to imagine one or more US news magazines engaging in the same type of bare knuckled political commentary. Hillary Clinton . . . never mind. It's simply too awful to contemplate.

Please visit the Pale Horse Galleries online store
for art, gifts and collectibles -- all hand made
by Mexican indigenous artists.
Thanks!
Cross posted at Pale Horse Galleries

TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Angela Merkel, Wprost

Oaxaca, Mexico: State Sec'y of Tourism says, "Guelaguetza is ready!"

2007-06-26T10:31:00.000-05:00

Beatriz Rodríguez
Ready for what?
Oaxaca State Secretary of Tourism Beatriz Rodríguez says that "Everything is ready for the festivities to take place." Uh-huh.

In a press conference in Mexico City, Ms. Rodríguez admitted that the success of the festival depended on the ongoing negotiations between the state officials and Sección 22 representatives (the teachers that seldom attend classes, preferring instead to march in the streets and camp out in the zócalo) who are demanding the return to their control more than 100 schools where the kids' parents have thrown them out as well as with APPO representatives who are demanding that all their thugs and criminals be released from jail. The Secretary also said that she was much more concerned with word-of-mouth recommendations from tourists than she was with official US State Department travel warnings (which advise avoiding the state like the plague until at least next October 19).

Secretary Rodríguez also took a shot at the federal government for some 50 million pesos which was supposedly promised to the state for "promotions" and was not forthcoming. She said that the state had poured some 60 million pesos into the effort but the federal government must now fulfill its promises. The fact that the state of Oaxaca is a black hole of anti-matter into which untold billions of pesos have disappeared without a trace over the decades of PRI rule was not mentioned. At least not by the Secretary.

What you have to do here is read between the lines just a bit as I have done parenthetically. Secretary Rodríguez said,

These negotiations are important. I understand that they are making adcances and are going well. In the case of the teachers (Sección 22) they have already agreed to rezonification (massive pay raises totaling billions of pesos) which was an demand since a year ago. (This was agreed to by the federal government last October, so this issue has been moot for, uh, almost 8 months.)

Today in Oaxaca there is a symbolic encampment (in the zócalo) and pressure like that of last year does not exist. But everything is ready for the Guelaguetza festival start (as is APPO which will try to force its cancelation as they did last year). There is total security (except for the downtown where there is not a policeman in sight within 4 blocks all around the zócalo. I found 6 Preventive Police officers hiding in the Juarez market 2 blocks south of the zócalo yesterday. This is, however, an improvement over last year when there were no cops anywhere within 10 blocks of the zócalo). Hotel occupancy is growing. I don't want to say that Oaxaca is better than ever, but it is improving gradually.

Then she made this astonishing statement:

The word-of-mouth warnings by people who came here and experienced the conflict (last year) hit us harder than any official warning by the United States because 80 percent of the visitors come here without first consulting the internet (in other words, through rank ignorance of what's going on here). In any case, word-of-mouth and news reports forced our hotel occupancy rates down to 18% last December instead of the historical average of 80% (and if people had been following the ongoing disaster on the internet, occupancy would have been about 0%). Today we are at about 30-35% since February and a complete recovery is predicted to take two more years (depending, of course, on Sección 22, APPO and a river of federal funds being swallowed up by Oaxacan anti-matter).

Here is a description of the "symbolic encampment" downtown as of yesterday at high noon:
APPO and Sección 22 have control of the south side of the zócalo.
They are sleeping under the portico of the former government palace, now a museum which is, of course, closed to the public.
They had 2 cars with loudspeakers atop pulled up to the band shell in the zócalo itself where no vehicles are allowed, supposedly.
They have control of the north side of the zócalo as well, with tarps attached to the east side of the hotel, blocking the hotel entrance as well as the travel agency there.
They have taken over the entirety of the Alemeda which is the plaza in front of the cathedral.
Illegal street merchants have moved back into the zócalo and the Alemeda, with illegal pirated DVD's being the most popular items on display.
Along the row of restaurants on the west side, beginning at the northwest corner of the zócalo nearest the Alemeda, there were 2 tables of about 50 occupied -- 4%.
At both the soutwest and southeast corner restaurants, about 1 in three tables had customers -- 33%.
There was not another single table occupied in the several restaurants along the east side of the zócalo to the Italian Coffee on the northeast corner, where 2 gringo capitalist pigs occupied one table -- 2%.
The big hotel restaurant along the north side had 4 people sitting at one table -- 2%.

Quite symbolic if you ask me -- and even if you don't.

What Secretary Rodríguez is really saying is that her office has made its Guelaguetza preparations and if the festival fails and buses are burned and tourists chased off and unarmed traffic cops tarrred and feathered and banks robbed and business people assaulted and blood runs in the streets, as is all likely, it ain't her fault.

Which is quite true, by the way.

Please visit the Pale Horse Galleries online store
for art, gifts and collectibles -- all hand made
by Mexican indigenous artists.
Thanks!
Cross posted at Pale Horse Galleries

TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Guelaguetza

Oaxaca, Mexico: I've found the pants!

2007-06-25T21:09:00.000-05:00

Mark in Mexico proudly announces that he has found Judge Roy Pearson's missing ~~$67,000,000.00~~ $54,000,000.00 pants.

Judge Roy Pearson's missing pants

Why didn't he just check with me first?

And what is there to understand about,

"No tickee, no washee."
Francis "Frank" Costello, The Departed, 2006

I will happily return them to him for a mere $10.50, the original cost of the alteration he ordered back in the spring of 2005 (he needed the waist let out as he had developed quite a fat ass during several years of collecting unemployment compensation checks). Plus, of course, my expenses will have to be reimbursed.

To wit:
1. 2 hours of pondering over and then writing this post @ $500/hr. = $1000.00
2. 6 hrs. research following the course of this quest for tort justice over the past couple of months @ $500/hr = $3000.00
3. 8 hrs. of my life lost which I intended to devote to enriching myself on a scale equal to or surpassing that of one William Gates, reportedly now worth 50 billion dollars = $50,000,000,000.00

Total = $50,000,004,000.00

Plus freight, PPD from Oaxaca de Juarez, Oaxaca, Mexico, of course.

Professor Bainbridge says I should sue because there's not really a tiger in my tank. Just how the hell does he know that?
Amygdala's mystery, awe and anguish is settled.
Blue Crab Boulevard has mistaken these for clown pants.
Kevin Drum fails to see the parallels to John Edwards.
OnDeadline shows Judge Pearson as he now hauls all of his pants with him everywhere he goes.
Overlawyered says the defendants may not, in fact, be able to recover their legal fees -- that's disconcerting, for real.
Jacob Sollum thinks the trial judge's decision was Reasonable.

Please visit the Pale Horse Galleries online store
for art, gifts and collectibles -- all hand made
by Mexican indigenous artists.
Thanks!
Cross posted at Pale Horse Galleries

TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Roy Pearson, missing pants, no tickee, no washee

Puebla, Mexico: Governor Marin: Don't breathe the water at Valsequillo or marry your sister!

2007-06-21T09:17:00.000-05:00

Another six-fingered child in Valsequillo
This is the last (for awhile) in the series about the poisoning of the Valsequillo reservoir just outside Puebla, Mexico. Puebla is a city you don't hear much about because it is one of the quietest large cities in the country. It is however, the fifth largest city in the nation and is the home of the gigantic Volkswagen assembly plant.

Reforma reported on June 4 that the various and sundry state health authorities (and there are a bunch of them) had suddenly become quite mum on the subject of their poisoned water supply. A spokesman for the State Health Services said that no comments would be forthcoming until after the results were in on the water testing which had commenced the previous week.

This is a marked change from the previous months when one state health official after another has marched in front of reporters to either deny outright the presence of heavy metal contamination and the attendant birth defects and mutations, including extra appendages and dwarfism in children, or has attempted to minimize the problems.

Like so: Puebla Health Services sent out a press release quoting its director, Roberto Morales, as saying that surveys and mortality rate studies indicated that there was neither acute nor chronic lead poisoning of the Valsequillo inhabitants, and furthermore,

The cases of extra fingers and toes have no relation (to lead poisoning), in truth it is a hereditary disease principally caused by intermarriage.

However, not everyone has been able to keep a lip zipped. Manuel Beristain Gómez, the head of the Puebla office of the Comisión Nacional del Agua (Conagua), set out to prove, again, just how incompetent these political hacks in high places can be. Having already been warned by Puebla University Professor Antonio Valdez García, who has been faithfully reporting this public health disaster for 8 years, not to rely on water samples taken during the rainy season, the undaunted Conagua hack forged ahead:

. . . in testing of samples for heavy metals, it can be confirmed that there is no presence of arsenic, cadmium, copper, mercury, nickel, lead and zinc in the reservoir at Valsequillo.

Uh-huh. Professor Valdez warned the state's health officials that taking water samples during the rainy season would yield skewed results. But, IMHO, if the sample were taken from sediments or from deep water or from the poisoned water wells dug near the lake, the effect of heavy rains would be minimized on the heavy metal content.

So where did Conagua tecnicians take their samples (if any were taken at all)?

The results of the sampling, Beristain explained, taken from both the surface as well as one meter in depth (39.6 inches -- just over one yard deep) did not detect the presence of any metals.

They took their samples (again, if any were taken at all) during the season of almost daily torrential downpours, on the surface and up to 3 feet deep. Congrats!

On June 5, Pedro Rubén Rodríguez, local head of the Profepa office (Procuraduría Federal de Protección al Ambiente -- Federal Environmental Protection Agency) prevailed with a cooler head. He said that the university studies should receive "respect" and not be discounted. Instead, he suggested, in depth studies should be taken by "a certified entity with legal standing," I think that was a shot at Beristain and Conagua, which lacks certified laboratories to perform tests that would have any legal standing. I think.

Rodríguez said that there are some 200 industrial plants that have certified water treatment facilities out of some 1500 that Profepa monitors. However, he lamented, most municipalities just dump the sewage into the lake.

Rodríguez also made this somewhat startling admission about the municipal sewage treatment plants that do exist and are operable: Rodríguez said that the sewage treatment plants in Puebla don't treat heavy metals.

No, not yet, because their function is not to clean heavy metals because they are plants for treating sanitary sewage.

The treatment to clean heavy metals and chemical products is a physio-chemical (I think I just now made up that term) treatment and, yes, the businesses (the certified ones) have it.

I think that is probably true of almost all sewage treatment plants in the USA as well. Municipal, state and federal authorities must monitor the treatment of heavy metal contamination at its sources, the industrial plants that create it in the first place.

Then Enrique Doger, former rector of Puebla University and now mayor of Puebla, came out speaking from both sides of his mouth, all in the same sentence, like any capable politician. He said, first,

Yes, the lake is contaminated and, yes, there are serious, toxic contaminants, some very serious and some that can have genetic consequences . . .

then, barely pausing to take a breath of polluted Puebla air, he continued,

. . . but I don't believe, and this will also be the position of the Sectretary of Health, I don't believe that if a person is found with mutations that it would necessarily be a result of the contamination of the reservoir.

Well, Puebla Governor and pedophile-enabler Mario Marin doesn't think it's the water, either.

Governor Marin denies that poisoned water causes dwarfism.

Mario Marin with Paul Bunyon (l) and Wilt Chamberlain (r)
This is the Mario Marin">quote from Puebla Governor Mario Marin as published in Reforma:

Es cierto que hay contaminación de plomo en sangre por respirar (sic) las aguas negras, que ha producido casos de cáncer, de leucemia.

Translation: It is certain that there is lead contamination of blood from breathing the sewage water which causes cancer, causes leukemia. (emphasis mine)

Leukemia? From Wikipedia on chronic lead pioisoning:

The symptoms of chronic lead poisoning include neurological problems, such as reduced IQ, or nausea, abdominal pain, irritability, insomnia, metal taste in oral cavity, excess lethargy or hyperactivity, headache and, in extreme cases, seizure and coma. There are also associated gastrointestinal problems, such as constipation, diarrhea, vomiting, poor appetite, weight loss, which are common in acute poisoning. Other associated effects are anemia, kidney problems, and reproductive problems.

In humans, lead toxicity sometimes causes the formation of a bluish line along the gums, which is known as the "Burton's line", although this is very uncommon in young children. Blood film examination may reveal "basophilic stippling" of red blood cells, as well as the changes normally associated with iron deficiency anemia (microcytosis and hypochromia).

A direct link between early lead exposure and extreme learning disability has been confirmed by multiple researchers and child advocacy groups.

I don't see leukemia listed. To be fair, I don't see mutations listed either. However:

Mercury
Mercury is a mutagen (mutation-causing), teratogen, and carcinogen (cancer-causing), with toxicity and environmental effects varying with its form, dose, and route of ingestion, and with the exposed organism's species, sex, age, and general condition (Eisler, 1978a, Fimreite 1979).

So maybe everyone, including yours truly, is a bit too hung up on lead poisoning. But, according to Puebla University's Antonio Valdéz García, the heavy metals contamination in the lake includes lead, mercury, arsenic, chromium, cyanide, copper and cadmium, just to name a few. Check all those out here.

Note: SpellCheck not working, again, sew your on your're own.

Note II: Lots more to come on Puebla's Governor Mario Marín. This Lidia Cacho, pedophile thing just isn't going away. Now the Gober Precioso has the nation's supreme court on his back.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Puebla, Mexico, Mario Marin, Valsequillo

Oaxaca, Mexico: So, who needs sleep?

2007-06-14T22:05:00.000-05:00

The bomb and rocket explosions are almost constant as Sección 22 (the teachers who don't teach) and APPO celebrate the one year anniversary of the failed attempt to oust them from their month-long occupation of the zócalo. Today's mega-march was accompanied by the usual vandalism as the following photos will show.

There are currently 21 hijacked city buses blocking Cinco Señores which APPO and Sección 22 had pledged to leave open. All remaining city buses were pulled off the streets by 6:00, leaving commuters who rely on the buses to make it home or to work on foot. There is also a trailer load of new VW autos hijacked and sitting at Cinco Señores.

The 8 barricades that APPO and Sección 22 had announced they would install were supposed to have been erected at 5;00 PM and removed at 9:30. It ain't happening. I don't know how many barricades are actually in place but it is in the dozens.

APPO and Sección 22 had pledged not to cause any more hardships on the citizens of Oaxaca than necessary for their purposes and the barricades were supposed to have been symbolic in nature. Uh-huh.

The zócalo and the Alameda (the smaller plaza in front of the Cathedral) are full of APPO and Sección 22 boosters and I don't know if they are intending to leave or stay. I'll hoof it over there tomorrow morning and see what's up.

It just started to rain, at least up here on the north side where my office is located. I hope that cools their ardor a bit, but who knows?

I would ask that you carefully examine the following photographs to see how many of the masked thugs you think are teachers and how many are just that -- thugs.

Punks and street thugs

APPOites, not teachers

How many of the masked greaseballs are teachers?

She looks like a teacher. Do you think she set that fire?

Cinco Señores -- blocked again.

I don't think these are teachers. Their sign says "APPO".

The sign on the right in the photo says,
"Ulises and Calderón. The nation's rats."
How did Felipe Calderón get dragged into this?

I would respectfully submit that these morons don't want Felipe Calderón dragged into this. If he comes he will bring it on with several thousand federal riot police and the army if need be.

This is in Mexico City on Paseo de la Reforma. The governor's casket.

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Mexico City: Officials develop sure-fire plan to offset northward migration

2007-06-14T10:15:00.000-05:00

Mexico City officials have proposed a plan to offset the northward migration of the Mexican population by attracting hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of men from north of the border. This plan, if adopted, will, IMHO, do more to offset the illegal immigration problems in the United States than anything that Kennedy, McCain, Reid and Bush have yet to devise. The proposal is to legalize and control prostitution in the world's largest city. Texas, California, Arizona and New Mexico state officials are reportedly discussing the construction of at least six new 24-lane border crossings to handle the expected surge in traffic, all headed south.

As the photo below clearly shows, even the preliminary discussions of this plan have initiated a mad rush to the south and across the border. In the photo, some 300,000 American male citizens jostle in their rush towards the border crossing at Tijuana, Mexican tourist visas in hand. This is only one group that was photographed and includes about half the adult male population of San Diego.

Click to enlarge -- makes them easier to count
Hint: count their feet and divide by two

Now, the Mexico City government's proposal has not met with unanimous approval. The prostitutes themselves, referred to here in polite society as "sexoservidores", are less than enamored with the plan. A group from Apizaco, which is in the state of Tlaxcala, protested in Mexico City's zócalo yesterday. The mayor of Apizaco has proposed an "Adult Recreation Zone" where prostitution would be licensed and controlled. The women say,

We don't agree. Now we can charge 150 pesos (about $50 per hour) for "below the belt work", which includes a room, and in a zone (the adult recreation zone) we would not be able to do that.

The women accuse the politicians of trying to take control of them in order to "bring in younger girls". The currently happily employed (I would suppose) sexoservidores of Apizaco fear that the Adult Recreation Zone will attract "drug addicts, sick people and endanger the women's lives."

As opposed, I guess, to the clean cut doctors, lawyers and other well heeled professionals who now contract their services.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Mexico City, Apizaco, Tlaxcala, legal prostitution

Puebla, Mexico: State government successfully creates race of super human midgets. UPDATE III

2007-06-12T09:37:00.000-05:00

If you're a new visitor or haven't read the first 3 posts concerning the environmental and human disaster at Valsequillo reservoir, please read these posts first, and in order. You can bring yourselves up to date.

Puebla, Mexico: State government successfully creates race of super human midgets.
Update I
Update II

These posts detail the 6 decades-long poisoning of Mexico's largest reservoir by at least 22 municipalities which surround it, including two state capitols (Puebla and Tlaxcala) and the nation's fifth largest city (Puebla). The posts quote and link to a series of reports in the respected national daily Reforma which initially blew the lid off of this scandal last October and has been following it ever since.

Unfortunately, you can only see Reforma's front page unless you have a subscription. In any event, Reforma details and I relay to you the poisoning of the lake beginning with its formation in 1946, the abandonment of the lake as a source of income and recreation since 1980 and annual studies carried out since 1999 by a respected university researcher which detail the lead and other heavy metal poisoning of the people who live near the reservoir and the resulting mutations, birth defects, mental retardation and learning defects manifested in the citizens' children. The posts also point out that, once Reforma made a big public spectacle of Valsequillo, the state government's initial reaction seemed to be a reasoned one. But also how, once the bureaucrats became at least dimly aware of the scope and magnitude of the disaster and its attendant costs to fix same, the government of the pedophile-enabling governor Mario Marin, as well as the "Gober precioso" himself, have been furiously back-pedalling.

Now we'll take a look at the latest.

On May 23, the Servicios de Salud del Estado de Puebla (SSEP -- Puebla Health Services) organized what it called a "Sanitary Fence" around the lake. One might also translate "cerco sanitario" as a "quarantine". One would be wrong. The SSEP claimed that it sent in "120 brigade members" to begin testing the lake water for heavy metals and to perform a "public opinion poll". Quite a "sanitary fence", eh?

Howdy. Is it ya'll's opinion that ya got any lead in yer blood? Hows about lead in yer pencil? Ya'll got any of that?

I guess.

And Puebla State University (UAP) professor Antonio Valdez García was quick to point that out.

It will be useless (the SSEP "study") because they're not considering that it's the rainy season and this causes the materials' (heavy metals -- lead, mercury, cadmium, etc.) concentrations to be diluted. The fall of pure water causes the contaminants concentrations to be diluted and they will register their minimal concentrations.

To be reliable (the studies) they'll have to be done during the dry season, in April, January, , February or in November. Now they are biased, during this season they are going to be biased.

The professor didn't have too much confidence in the opinion poll approach and said the study would only be reliable if the SSEP set up a "serious protocol" prior to any study. Gee, ya think?

The professor said that an opinion poll was insufficient and blood tests were necessary.

In addition, the professor criticized the SSEP's even testing adults at all. To begin with, he explained, 90% of ingested lead is expelled by an adult's body. But a child's body retains and accumulates fully 30% of ingested lead.

He suggested that to arrive at a credible result, the state must test pre-school and primary school children.

He insisted that they will have to weigh and measure the children, interview them and conduct blood tests.

And then comes this not-too-surprising and endemic-to-the-entire-Mexican socialist health care system:

Another problem, said Valdez, was that the symptoms of those who had lead in their blood are similar to gastro-intestinal diseases and public health doctors confuse them.

. . .

"The medical personnel that attend to these symptoms are interns (just passing through) and are ill prepared to detect illnesses produced by intoxication from lead and mercury."

Another moron heard from
And now comes the Secretario del Medio Ambiente (state Secretary of the Environment), one Francisco Castillo, ever mindful of the source of his daily graft, to challenge Professor Valdez. Castillo said that the state had found "traces" of lead, but at levels far below those claimed by Prof. Valdez. He called upon the professor to tell him where the lead was found.

"I want that he tells me where it is and not just to pick a fight with him. If pollution exists then we'll take the necessary measures to protect the population."

"As before, if you tell me there is pollution, then, by golly, we must go to the point where it was found."

The secretary asked that there be no speculation about the problem so as to avoid generating alarm.

He maintained that the research that publicized the presence of contaminants in the reservoir lacked substance.

Apparently Secretary Castillo believes that lead concentrations school themselves up like sardines, or something. Here they is and here they ain't. Professor Valdez's 8 years of data indicate that the lead is on the lake water, in it, under it, in the well water surrounding the lake, in the bloodstreams, tissues and milk of cattle that graze around the lake and in the bloodstreams of the adults and children who live all around the lake. Is that good enough for you, Mr. Secretary? It should be easy to find since it never, ever goes away.

To add to the hilarity, these statements were made by Sec'y Castillo on May 31, while the "study" being conducted by the SSEP began on May 23, eight days prior. And the SSEP "study", such as it was, was being conducted at three critical locations: San Baltasar Tetela, Los Ángeles Tetela y San Pedro Zacachimalpa. Professor Valdez had reported the following results from blood tests on 5000 children living around the lake relative to lead concentrations:

Permissible limit per Mexican law: 5 micrograms per liter of blood.

San Baltasar Tetela - 21.4 (more than 4 times the limit)

Los Ángeles Tetela - 21.7 (more than 4 times the limit)

San Pedro Zacachimalpa - 12.7 (more than double the limit)

There you go, Sec'y Castillo. You can start at any one of those three locations, by golly.

More to come as I can get to it.

Note: Spellcheck is working again so this post should not be so fraught with errors.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Valsequillo, Puebla, Mexico, Mario Marin

Oaxaca, Mexico: The power of prayer

2007-06-10T19:23:00.000-05:00

I sat down at my computer for the first time today at 7;30 PM, Central Daylight Savings Time. I opened My Yahoo!. As the page opened, I closed my eyes and said this silent prayer to THORPE, the great God of All American Sport:

Yankees must win, Gordon must win, Boston must lose.

I peeked as the page opened and what to my wondering eyes should appear?

Yankees 13, Pittsburgh 6 F
Arizona 5 Boston 1, F
NASCAR Pocono 500: 1 Gordon; 2 Also Ran

THORPE
God of All American Sport

All other matters of earthly concern pale by comparison.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, New York Yankees, Jeff Gordon, Jim Thorpe

Mexico City: New record set -- 21 executed in 24 hours

2007-06-08T07:01:00.000-05:00

I think this is a new record. A combination of "explosive devices", 9mm pistols, AK-47's and AR-15's have left 21 dead and 10 wounded throughout Mexico in the past 24 hours.

8 in Guerrero
5 in Chihuahua
3 in México State
2 in Sinaloa
1 in Tlaxcala
2 in Tijuana
21 Total

In addition, 3 police stations were attacked with explosive devices, 2 in Guerrero and one in Tecpan de Galeana, leaving 2 police officers wounded.

Some notes of prurient interest:

In Apizaco, Tlaxcala, a fellow waited for his appointment in attorney Joaquín Suárez García's office, chatting with Suárez García's secretary. When the counselor arrived, they went into his office where seconds later his client left him slumped over his desk, dead.

Of the 21 executed, 4 were taxi drivers. One of them died in a hail of bullets from several masked men wearing body armor and weilding AK-47's. A protest over high taxi fares, perhaps? What's with this, anyway? They've been machine gunning taxi drivers all over the country since the first of the year. The authorities haven't said much, so I'll have to assume that the drug cartels use local taxis to ferry shipments and money from point A to point B. Then they come back to eliminate the drivers -- loose lips sink ships -- or as punishment for inventory losses.

2 died in a possible case of mistaken identity in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua because they had the misfortune to be driving a car, a Dodge Stratus, that looked like an unmarked state police car.

Elsewhere in the border city, gunmen got it right this time when they machine gunned two genuine state policemen.

An auxiliary policeman died at a gasoline station he was guarding when a carload of gunmen drove up, got out, gunned him down, which is what gunmen usually do, then drove away. A protest over the high price of gasoline, perhaps?

Also in Juárez, a guy was executed while standing in line to pay his light bill.

It makes one grateful that one lives in such a peaceful, sleepy little burg like Oaxaca where all we have to worry about are the randomly torched public transportation units, chaos in the streets and spray painted colonial buildings.

I think that's it for the day but the toll could still rise. Reforma was reporting throughout the day yesterday, first that 12 were dead and then later that the sum had increased to 19.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, drug violence

Puebla, Mexico: State government successfully creates race of super human midgets. UPDATE II

2007-06-07T13:13:00.000-05:00

Re: the statement by the hack from the Secreariat of Environment and Natural resources that Valsequillo reservoir could not be poisoned because "only" 20-30% of its water supply was raw sewage:

This brings to mind Schopenhauer's law of entropy. If you put a spoonful of wine in a barrel full of sewage, you get sewage. If you put a spoonful of sewage in a barrel full of wine, you get sewage.
Boot Hill, 6 June, 2007

To summerize our sad story so far:
1. The dam in Valsequillo, Puebla was completed in 1946
2. 22 nearby cities, town and villages immediately began dumping their raw sewage into the resulting reservoir.
3. By 1980, the people who lived around the reservoir and made their living from it, began digging water wells because the reservoir's water was no longer fit for human use.
4. By 1990 their water wells had been poisoned from the lakewater by heavy metal contamination as well as fecal coliform and muchos amoebae diferentes.
5. In 1999, Puebla University professor Antonio Valdez García began testing the well water, the reservoir water, local inhabitants' blood as well as cataloging birth defects, human mutations and moderate to severe learning disabilities.
6. Prof. Valdez García continued his annual reporting every year for eight years.
7. In October, 2006, the nationwide daily and most respected newspaper in the country published a detailed report of the human catastrophe occurring at Valsequillo.
8. The Puebla State government initially admitted the scope of the problems and went to work to try to begin to put in place a plan to clean up the reservoir and stop its further contamination.

So, after ignoring a mountain of evidence from a quiet university professor, a newspaper finally got the Puebla State government off the dime and moving in the right direction, right? No, left, er . . . wrong. The State Secretary of Urban development and Public Works, Javier García Ramírez, on November 16, 2006, said,

It can be seen in the children of the region that they suffer from low height (dwarfism) and they don't grow much because of the high lead contamination of the water. This must be treated as a public health problem.

Secretary García Ramírez still has his job, I suppose, but he hasn't been heard from since.

On 22 May of this year, Roberto Morales, head of Los Servicios de Salud del Estado de Puebla (Puebla State Health Services), said,

When the researcher asks us and tells us with concrete evidence that he is certain that there is a contaminated area, with all due respect we'll look into it.

But not just because someone says there is an endemic illness in Chalchicomula are we going to go there.

In other words, by ignoring 8 years of faithfully filed reports as well as newspaper reports which blew the lid off this, Boss Morales says there is no problem. He has to have concrete evidence presented to him before the state's public health service will even visit the issue.

What is also interesting here is the choice of words used by Boss Morales. What he is quoted as saying is this: "Pero no porque alguien diga hay una endemia en Chalchicomula, nos vamos a ir allá", manifestó el Secretario." Notice the word he used which I translated as "endemic illness", endemia.

Definición de endemia
...
Se entiende por endemia la existencia en un área o región de una enfermedad dentro de una proporción no significativa sobre el número de casos habituales en ella.
...

Translation: It is understood by "endemia" the existence in an area or region a disease of an insignificant number of habitual cases within that area of region.

Professor García Valdez says that 10% of the total population exhibits birth defects, mutations and brain damage from the poisoned water supply. The professor examined 200 children and 50 of them exhibited the same problems. That's, lessee here, 25%. One has to wonder what Boss Morales would consider a "significant proportion". Probably 99% of the campesino population or .0001% of the high ranking, overpaid and incompetent bureaucrat population.

Reforma concludes this sad report:

Also, the Secretary of Urban Development, Javier García, admitted that there do exist cases of children with lead in their bloodstreams, but Morales, responsible for public health in Puebla, played down the importance of the issue.

We move right along.

Here in the June 4 Reforma, their article begins:

Children with 6 fingers and toes, cleft lip, cleft palate and mental retardation are some of the effects of the water contamination in the reservoir at Valsequillo, Puebla.

The newspaper goes on to quote Professor García Valdez´s study results in San José Tejaluca, located 500 meters from the lake.

Population: 500
Children examined: 200
High lead content in bloodstream: 200
Exhibiting one or more malformations or mutations: 50
Percent of children with malformations or mutations: 25%
Percent of total population with malformations or mutations: 10%

Reforma talked to a couple of other health experts.

Libia Vega Loyo, chief of the Laboratorio de Genética Toxicológica e Inmunología del Centro de Investigación y Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional (Genetic Toxicololy and Immunology Laboratory of the National Politechnic Institute), confirmed that the registered level (of lead) is extremely elevated.

"Levels (of lead) above normal alter development, especially among the youngest children, reduce learning capacity, cause mental retardation and neuroligical deficiencies."

And from Carlos Vargas, of the Centro de Estudios del Nacimiento (Center for Birth Studies) says that damage from high lead levels is irreversible and,

What is most critical is that it affects the central and peripheral nervous system. For this reason something must be done.

The Professor Feels The Pressure
Keeping in mind that he does work for a state sponsored institution, I nevertheless am a bit disappointed in Professor García Valdez's latest statement to Reforma. In spite of the support from a very powerful and highly respected national publication, he now says,

The malformations not only originate from the environment. That is a factor. But in this population another influential cause is the poverty as well as the lack of folic acid in mothers and the high rate of "blood mixing" . . . that is to say, intermarriage.

Intermarriage, also known as incest. Hmmm. While the good researcher has without doubt been coming under an increasing amount of pressure from the university, surely he doesn't expect us to buy that. The conditions he described are endemic to most of the population of Mexico, not just to the Valsequillo area. In fact, these conditions are far worse in many other areas of the country, specifically Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas. But high levels of lead, up to 5 times the safe high limit, as well as 25% of the children suffering birth defects to one degree or another, do not exist in those or any other locales, at least to my knowledge.

There is no doubt that birth defects, mental retardation and mutancy also occur in higher proportions in Mexico than most anywhere else in the Americas, but nothing like this degree of severity and frequency exist anywhere else as they do in Valsequillo.

And the Kids?

Seven year-old Gonzalo, the boy pictured with 24 digits instead of the normal 20?

I don't know why I'm like this. I was born like this.

I do my homework. I wash my hands.

And there are others, like nine year-old Eric, who gets exited when his favorite soccer team, Chivas, is mentioned and brags that on the soccer pitch he has a "fearful cannon". He talks about his extra fingers and toes:

No one has told me it is a bad thing. I can do what I want, play like everyone else and I go to school.

More to come -- this ain't going away.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Puebla, Mexico, Valsequillo, Mario Marin

Puebla, Mexico: State government successfully creates race of super human midgets. UPDATE 1

2007-06-05T21:15:00.000-05:00

In the previous post I detailed the health problems at the Valsequillo reservoir, the largest in Mexico. I took you from October of last year when Reforma first blew the lid off this decades-long travesty through the Puebla state government's initial reaction to the Reforma reports. In reality, at least in the mind of a politician, the government's reaction seems reasonable. "We've got a problem that has existed for a long, long time and we are putting together a plan to address it."

That didn't last long.

First, I'll return to the timeline established by the reports from Reforma. As you'll recall the initial report in Reforma was published on October 29, 2006 and detailed the 8 years of work done by University of Puebla (UAP) researcher Professor Antonio Valdez García. Prof. García had dutifully catalogued, for 8 years, the cases of birth defects, mutations, learning disabilities and a host of diseases brought on by people's water wells being poisoned by the reservoir's water.

On November 16, Reforma published an interview with Ricardo Meneses, 87, who at one time made a living fishing on the reservoir. According to Reforma, Meneses still lived "with the illusion of returning to fish in Valsequillo." Reforma quoted Meneses and used this quote as the title to their 11/16 report:

"Esa agua apesta y ya no sirve"
"That water reeks and is useless."

Meneses went on to reminisce of days long gone by:

What a time! It had carp and bluegill. The fish were enormous, a half a meter (20") and 6 to 7 kilos (12-14 lbs.).

They came from the markets in Puebla, San Martin Texmelucan and even from Mexico City because the fish here were delicious. But now, pure sh*t and water lilies. That water reeks and is useless.

Reforma's reporter said that within 200 meters of the dam itself he could see at least 5 restaurants and 2 hotels but very few customers. And none of the restaurants served any fish.

Meneses:

Before, the families lived by fishing and many had bake ovens in their houses. But that all ended. Tourism ended also and although there are still restaurants, nobody visits them anymore.

"But with the promised reservoir cleanup project by the state, Meneses dreams of fishing Valsequillo once again." Dream on.

On Novemebr 17, Reforma reported that the state had discovered a privately owned waste water treatment plant that has been in disuse since the factory in which it is located was closed in 2004. Only one catch. It is owned by Kamel Nacif (El Rey de la Mezclilla -- The King of Blue Jeans, of Lydia Cacho and "Mi gober precioso" fame. In any event, state officials say that if they could bring that treatment plant online, it has the capacity to treat all the industrial, commercial and residential sewage from three of the largest industrial parks in the city as well as the neighborhoods that surround them. With all the problems that the accused pedophile Nacif has as well as those of his enabler, Puebla governor Mario Marín, the plant may prove to be just a bit too pricey.

In any event, this was also the first time that Reforma reported that Puebla state officials were beginning to try to downplay the water contamination problems. One Joel Gutiérrez, head of -- take a deep breath -- La Unidad de Apoyo Ejecutivo de la Secretaría del Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (The Executive Support Unit for the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources) proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he has no idea what he's talking about. He pooh-poohed the idea that an environmental crisis existed and rejected the eight years worth of reports about heavy metal content in the reservoir as well as its consequences on the people living nearby.

"The Valsequillo reservoir receives about 300 million cubic meters of wate annually and the waste water that arrives at the lake is no more than 70 or 80 million cubic meters.

This indicates that the greater quantity of water that supplies the reservoir is rainwater . . . It is not pure sewage but a mixture of rainwater and residual water." (emphasis mine)

Furthermore, he said that the waste treatment plants in Puebla improved the quality of liquid in Valsequillo.

Well, I'm sure that treating the water doesn't make it any worse. What this moron doesn't seem to understand is that if only 20-30% of the water entering the reservoir is poison, the entire watershed is poisoned.

We continue.

On March 14 of this year, Reforma reported that the state was claiming that it had earmarked 70 million pesos for the "rescue" of Valsequillo. Manuel Beristáin, delegate (whatever that is) for the Comisión Nacional del Agua admitted that the total cost to clean up the lake would be 3 billion, 800 million pesos, or about 350 million dollars. If you think about that number versus the situation -- a huge reservoir contaminated by lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium, fecal coliform and amoebae run amok, poisoned water wells supplying drinking water to 5000 inhabitants, 10% of whom (25% of the children) exibit birth defects, mutations, brain damage and learning disabilities -- 350 million dollars is a spit in the ocean, or in the reservoir, or wherever you'd care to spit.

There was a very curious statement made by delegate Beristáin with regards to the apportionment of the initial 70 million pesos. He said,

Of the 22 municipalities adjacent to Valsequillo, only those which present viable projects for the treatment of their sewage and residual water will be allowed to share the 70 million pesos.

They will construct sewage treatment plants and sewage collection networks to stop dumping their sewage into the Atoyac River and then on to Valsequillo.

What about the municipalities that do not present a "viable project" as well as those that present an "unviable project"? Is the state going to move in with bulldozers and pinch off their sewage pipes to the river? Caterpillar can hear the shysters drawing up the lawsuits now.

Much more to come. This will whet your appetite. The state is beginning to vociferously deny high heavy metal content and is blaming the birth defects and mutations on -- wait for this -- incest. And governor Mario Marín weighed in this morning with his newly acquired tecnical expertise, ala Al Gore, to claim that none of the health problems detailed by university professor García are caused by lead. "Lead only causes leukemia," quoth the Gober Precioso.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Puebla, Mexico, Valsequillo, Mario Marín

Puebla, Mexico: State government successfully creates race of super human midgets

2007-06-04T21:47:00.000-05:00

Count'em yourself. I make it six.

This youngster has 6 fingers on each hand as well as 6 toes on each foot. 24 digits in all. Reforma took down the original photo that was posted early this morning showing all 24 perfectly formed digits.

UPDATE: Whoops, here it is again.

Count'em yourself. I make it twenty-four.

The title to this post may seem to seek to make light of a tragic situation but I assure you I see no humor in this. It's just that the reaction by state officials to the human suffering would lead one to believe that the Puebla state government is, in fact, in favor of creating mutant midgets.

Where shall we start? Let's try back in 1999 when Puebla University researcher Antonio Valdez García began to report on mutations showing up in children living around the Valsequillo reservoir, about 18 miles south of Puebla City. Prof. García has been updating his reports every year since 1999 and no one has been paying any attention. That's 8 years worth of reports on mutations such as the pictured 6 toes and fingers, cleft lip, cleft palate, skin lesions, low body weights, stunted growth (dwarfism) and babies born with various levels of brain damage. Prof. García's reports were all made available to state health and environmental control officials who, of course, ingnored them.

In addition to the reports on birth defects and mutations, Prof. García did thousands of tests on the water at various points in and around the reservoir. He also has reported faithfully, since 1999, unacceptably dangerous levels of heavy metals including but not limited to lead, chromium, cadmium and mercury in the water. He also took blood samples from the children living in the towns and villages around the reservoir and reported that many had up to 5 times the high limit of lead in their bloodstreams.

Finally, back in October of last year, Reforma got wind of Prof. García and the poisonous brew in the Valsequillo reservoir and sprayed it all over the pages of the newspaper. Again, no meaningful action from state or federal officials.

The Valsequillo reservoir, built in 1946 and whose official name is Manuel Ávila Camacho, named after the crooked PRI president who made a fortune from the construction of the dam that formed the reservoir, ceased to be of any recreational use by about 1980. The water was too filthy and smelled so bad that no one wanted to vacation there anymore. The folks living around the reservoir started digging wells because they couldn't drink the water.

By 1990, the wells had all been poisoned by the water from the reservoir. In 1999, Prof. García began his quixotic quest to inform state officials of the consequences of their incompetence. To no avail, of course.

And it doesn't stop with 6-toed underwight and altitude challenged 12 year-old dwarfs. The reservoir is choked with water lilies -- lily pads -- and is no longer of any use to boaters. However, the campesinos who live near the reservoir send down their cattle to munch on the lily pads. The water lilies are loaded with the heavy metals which then enter the tissues of the cattle. Many of the cattle are milk cows and the poisoned milk is then sold to the townspeople and villagers around the lake as well as sent on to Puebla. The beef cattle as well as older non-producing dairy cattle are butchered and the meat is sold for human consumption in Puebla.

And anybody foolish enough to come in direct contact with the reservoir's water faces outageously high levels of coliform and every imaginable type of amoeba. Colic, diahrrea, salmonella and typhoid are just a few of the deseases listed by Prof. García as risks if you come in any contact with the reservoir's water.

The link above and most of the information up to this point in the post is from the October 29, 2006 Reforma report. Let's fast forward to November 16, 2006, when a state official finally was heard from. This from the state Secretary of Desarrollo Urbano y Obras Públicas de Puebla (SEDUOP), Javier García Ramírez:

It can be seen in the children of the region that they suffer from low height (dwarfism) and they don't grow much because of the high lead contamination of the water. This must be treated as a public health problem.

Gee, ya think?

Sec'y García Ramírez laid out a plan to attack this problem which had been festering (literally) since 1946. First, the state would construct "colectores marginales" (marginal collectors) which would preclude the dumping of raw sewage by some 22 municipaities, including Puebla, the 5th largest city in the country, as well as over 100 waste producing businesses directly into the Atoyac River, the principal source for the reservoir.

Let's think about that first step for just a moment, shall we? What happens when the "colectores marginales" get full, an ocurrence which occurs every day? Why, they open the floodgates and dump it all into the river, just as before the "colectores marginales" were built by a construction company closely allied with one politician's family or another. I can tell you from personal experience that you can shoot a round of golf at the Puebla Country Club in the afternoon and everything is all rosy. Then you pass back through the area at 10:00 at night and the air is unbreathable. The stink will make you wretch. They open the gates and fill the river with raw sewage and industrial waste at night when you can't see it. And the people who live in and around the area on the south side of town continue to march faithfully to the polls and return the PRI to power, just as they have done for 80 some odd years.

We continue with the official "plan" of the state of Puebla. The second step was to be to arrange the construction of sewage treatment plants. But as a "preliminary measure", some 22 cities, towns and villages would have to construct sewage lines. That's right folks, to date there are some 22 municipalities whose sewage treatment process consists solely or at least mainly of tubes running directly to the Rio Atoyac. Do not pass go, do not collect $100. Those 22 municipalities include, but are not limited to Puebla, San Martín Texmelucan, Xoxtla, Cuautlancingo, Coronango, Juan C. Bonilla, Ocoyucan, San Andrés and San Pedro Cholula, Calpan, San Matías Tlalancaleca, San Salvador El Verde, Santa Rita Tlahuapan y Huejotzingo. The raw sewege and industrial effluent comes from as far north as Tlaxcala.

So, afer building "colectores marginales" to hold the raw sewage and industrial effluents for 24 hours or so before dumping it all into the river and later into the Valsequillo reservoir, and then installing sewage systems in 22 municipalities including the 5th largest city in the state, the state officials would then begin to look for financing to build and bring online the sewage treatment plants. The United States contributed 800 thousand dollars for the "development of the rescue plan". The state government has talked to Japanese banks, German banks and the Inter-American Development Bank. That is as far as they have gone with this "rescue plan" as far as I can see.

More from Sec'y García Ramírez:

Over the many past decades, this water (sewage) arrived at the Rio Atoyac (and thence to the Valsequillo reservoir) without treatment; domestic sewage with coliform and industrial sewage with lead or whatever depending on the type of manufacturing plant. Now is the time to clean up the reservoir.

Gee, ya think? But I repeat myself.

Ricardo Meneses, 87, remembers what it was once like:

I need to get this posted so I'll write at least one more post to get you updated. In the meantime, if you've got a subscription to Reforma, you can follow the story's progress, or lack thereof, at the following links:

Here
Here
Here
Here
Here
Here
Here
and
Here

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Puebla Mexico, Valsequillo

Oaxaca, Mexico: 6 Central American illegals crushed by 100 in trailer

2007-06-04T08:03:00.000-05:00

Six Central American illegal immigrants died after being crushed by 100 others in a trailer of bananas in the Isthmas of Tehuantepec. The human traffickers responsible for these people had installed a second floor throughout the length of the trailer. The women and children, about 100 of them, were put atop the false floor and the men, 100 of them also, placed underneath it. Crates of bananas were then packed into the tail end of the trailer to hide them.

The false floor collapsed on top of the men, crushing 6 of them to death. 10 others were injured sufficiently to require hospitalization. One of those injured had to be transferred to Oaxaca city in grave condition. Seven of the ten injured are from San Salvador and it is assumed that most of the dead are Salvadorans as well.

One of the survivors said that there originally had been 300 people packed into the trailer. Wilbert Ramos Pastrana of El Salvador said,

We left Chiapas last night with some 300 in the trailer. The women and children were on the top floor and the men were underneath it. Soon I heard a crunching sound from underneath the floor and I pased out. I just now woke up.

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Oaxaca, Mexico: Macho Machiavelli

2007-06-02T23:11:00.000-05:00

APPO secretly supported the entrance and occupation of Oaxaca by the PFP. In a document, titled "Unity Is the Way", released by the FPR (Popular Revolutionary Front -- the commies) and read aloud to the press by APPO's very own professor Zenén Bravo Castellanos, APPO has admitted that it welcomed the arrival of the PFP in October.

The FPR in the Zócalo in July, 2006

The position taken by many "consequential groups" within APPO was that the arrival and occupation by the PFP was concrete evidence of the "ungovernability" of the state of Oaxaca. "Ungovernability" is one of the prerequisites for the federal removal of a governor from office.

In addition, APPO feared that, if the PFP withdrew, APPO would "cease to be national news". In fact, the federal Secretary of the Interior made an offer to APPO just days before the final showdown in the streets on November 25. Interior offered to allow APPO to march back into the Zócalo, occupied by the PFP, and hold a demonstration, but only if APPO agreed to leave the Zócalo at the conclusion of the festivities. Interior pledged that if this occurred, the PFP would withdraw within 3 days. In addition, Interior insisted that all concerned parties, both APPO and the federal government, sign a document detailing the agreement.

APPO refused. Instead, the APPO leadership opted for a circle around the PFP in the Zócalo. This seige led to the November 25 confrontation in the streets which ultimately crushed APPO and sent its leaders scurrying into hiding.

The Secretary of the Interior offered to allow us to hold a demonstration in the Zócalo, in exchange for which we would promise to leave after our mobilization. However, those groups which today are said to be correspondent to the fight, opposed it.

. . .

"and we were to promise not to take the Zócalo and Interior promised that, in no less than three days, the PFP would leave the city, for which we would have to sign a document.

But the comrades who today oppose APPO's participation in the elections would not agree to sign the text. Instead, they proposed to surround the federal police who were guarding the Zócalo."

Now, one might wonder why a key APPO leader would read aloud such a damning expose which clearly identifies APPO as the agressor and the federal government and the PFP as the peacemakers, even though I've been insisting that this was so since last July. Wonder no longer.

Professor Zenén Bravo Castellanos is a candidate for higher political office. He's running for a state congressional seat. Obviously, Bravo Castellanos believes that APPO should be participating in this election. He is in the minority as APPO has only put forward four candidates for public office in the upcoming elections. That's right . . . just four. So what better way to take a whack at your opponents inside the APPO leadership councils than to expose them as war mongers and the self admitted instigators of the November 25 debacle?

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, FPR, APPO, Zenén Bravo Castellanos

Fruithurst, Alabama: The Fred is dead

2007-06-01T23:35:00.000-05:00

11-year-old Jamison Stone and his quite dead Fred
The 1051 pound monster hog/pig shot by an 11 year-old boy has been identified. He is Fred, the beloved pet of Rhonda and Phil Blissitt, who escaped from the loving care of a jerk they sold him to just 4 days before he was shot dead.

The Blissetts had raised Fred from the time he was 6 weeks old and considered him a family pet. They say he played with their grandchildren as well as their pet chihuahua. They sold him along with all the rst of their pigs.

They allowed their grandchildren to play with a 1051 pound boar? I have a little trouble getting a grip on that one.

Note: Not to be confused with Fred!. That would be Fred Thompson, the next president of The United States of America.

This was a "canned" hunt. I hate those things. I hate even the thought of those. A "canned" hunt is where an animal is trapped inside some type of enclosure and shot to death. It is considered "sport" by many. The boy is not at fault here. His father and the owner of the pig who bought him from the Blissetts are at fault. I knew a guy once who paid a pretty penny for the priviledge of walking up to an American bison (buffalo) to within 6 feet or so of its face, then shooting it in the head a half a dozen times before it dropped dead at his feet. I fail to see the attraction.

The kid killed the monster with a .50 caliber pistol. He followed the hog inside a low fenced enclosure for over 3 hours, took at least 16 shots at it and hit it 6 times before its sad demise.

Alabama fish and game officials say that because Fred was not a true feral hog, the potential world record kill will not be recognised. Fred will go down in history as just one huge dead pig.

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Mexico City: The PAN and the PRI are watching with glee.

2007-06-01T22:24:00.000-05:00

I've been out all day and just got back to check on things in the DF. For those of you who may not know, Mexico City is a federal district, much like Washington, DC. The city is commonly referred to as "the DF" so as to avoid confusion with the names of both the state of Mexico as well as the country itself.

The city's authorities are claiming that the marches, blockades and street battles that took place throughout the day all went off with a "saldo blanco" or a "clean slate". In other words, nobody got kilt.

The striking teachers are now threatening to shut down museums and archeological zones.

We will not hesitate to close the museums and archeological zones when this strike explodes nationwide."
Pedro Hernández, Sección 9, CNTE

The object of all of this unrest is the reformed ISSSTE law, the principal objection to which is the extension of the retirement age for government employees from 55 to 63 years of age. This change is to take place on a one year per year basis so it won't fully be in effect for another 8 years. The reform was necessary to avoid bankrupting the ISSSTE pension system (do I hear Ford, GM, Chrysler?). The reform was passed with the PAN of President Felipe Calderon joined by the PRI of, well, nobody of any note. The PRD of AMLO objected vociferously, albeit unsuccessfully.

When anything really unpopular happens on a national scale, and that means almost anything unpopular because the federal government controls just about everything here, Mexico City gets whacked by the protests, marches, riots, burnings and beatings. One would think that the PAN and the PRI would have realized this and hesitated before passing such an unpopular law.

And they no doubt did hesitate . . . for about 1.5 seconds. The Mexico City government is a PRD government. It has been since Cuauhtemoc Cardenas was the city's first elected mayor. All previous city administrations had been appointed by the PRI controlled federal government, so you know how that went . . . badly . . . for decades. When the city government became such a thorn in the side of the the PRI under Ernesto Zedillo and then the PAN under Fox and now Calderon, the federal legislature with the PRI and the PAN voting together are making sure that the PRD city administration gets its just deserts.

When AMLO was mayor in December of 2000, he got so fed up with it that this populist, man-of-the-white-socks-and-Blue-Ribbon-beer-working stiff issued his infamous Proclamation 13, which stated that he had the utmost respect fot the constitutional right to protest against the evil federal government, just not in his f***ing streets. The proclamation, called Bando Número Trece, said;

I make it known to the citizens of the federal district (Mexico City):
That the subject of the marches, riots, sit-ins and blockades is critical.
That it is our duty to conciliate between free expression and free transit.
That we have enough serious transportation problems due to structural problems and the vastness of the city.

In this framework, we are announcing the following policy.

1, g) We will not permit the blockading of streets and primary traffic arteries which snarl traffic, increase contamination and interfere with the free transit of other people.

Now, even one of the big shooters in the PRD, Jesús Ortega, is calling for a limit to "violent protests" against the ISSSTE law. He claims that people who might otherwise be sympathetic to the protesters' cause are being turned off by 6 hour commutes to travel 10 blocks through clouds of tear gas and whistling missiles, every damned day.

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Mexico City: "Sorry, we're closed for the day."

2007-06-01T11:02:00.000-05:00

Protesting teachers and students who just want the day off have effectively shut down Mexico City today. Here is a partial list of the blocked streets and highways in and around the city as of about 2 hours ago:

Paseo de la Reforma: There is a street battle going on here at the ISSSTE headquarters building as protesters try to set up a permanent camp.

Paseo de la Reforma: There are at least two other blockades along this boulevard, one at the Auditorio Nacional and the other at the TURISSSTE building.

The intersection of Avenida Montevideo and Insurgentes is blocked.

Avenida Insurgentes at Paseo de la Reforma is blocked.

The street in front of PRI headquarters is blocked. I think that's Insurgentes also but I don't know exactly where.

Calzada Ignacio Zaragoza is blocked by marchers on their way to the Camera de Diputados. This cuts off the airport and Puebla.

The intersection of Eje 8 Sur and Avenida Coyoacán at PAN headquarters is blocked as well as Eje Central Lázaro Cárdenas and Calle de Moras.

In Iztacalco, Avenida Añil, Avenida Granjas and Avenida Azcapotzalco are all blocked.

The México-Cuernavaca highway is blocked. Protesters took over the toll booths early this morning and allowed vehicles to pass without paying the tolls. After being evicted by PFP officers and tear gas, the protesters spread out across the highway and shut it down.

Mexico-Cuernavaca highway blocked

Indios Verdes is blocked by a march.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, [tagname]

Mexico City: 2 million pesos damage to ISSSTE building on Paseo de la Reforma

2007-06-01T10:36:00.000-05:00

APPO and Sección 22 sure wore out their welcome in a hurry, didn't they?

Protesters yesterday assaulted the giant ISSSTE headquarters building on Paseo de la Reforma, doing 2 million pesos damage to the structure. They were finally run off by city security forces. Two protesters were injured in the more than 5 hour street battle which included the usual rocks, bottles, clubs and machetes from the "peaceful citizens exercising their constitutioinal rights" and helmets, shields, batons and tear gas from the cops.

One of the injured, with a broken arm, was none other than Raúl Ballesteros, 34, of Sección 22 of Oaxaca. These guys sure get around, don't they? He was taken to, ironically, an ISSSTE hospital for treatment. I wonder if they'll slap him with the entire 2 million peso bill. "Sr. Ballesteros, your treatment at this ISSSTE hospital for the injuries you suffered when you attacked the ISSSTE headquarters building is free of charge as it is your right under the law. However, there is this little matter of $2,000,000.00 which you must pay before we can release you. We accept cash and all major credit cards." Har.

ISSSTE officials vow to file charges against the "peaceful citizens exercising their constitutioinal rights" for vandalism, kidnapping and for forcing the closure of a government building. The "peaceful citizens exercising their constitutioinal rights" denied these charges and responded that it was the police who closed the building. Well, yeah. The cops had an accountant on hand to tote up the damage and when it hit $2,000,000.00, he said "That's the vandalism repair budget limit for today. Close 'er up!"

The protesters returned today with more weapons and reinforcements and are attempting to set up a permanent encampment on Paseo de la Reforma. The battle rages on as I write this.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, ISSSTE, APPO, Sección 22

Mexico City: Bienvenidos Los Zetas

2007-06-01T10:04:00.000-05:00

Drivers who passed in front of the TV Azteca studios in Ajusco this morning were greeted by a huge "manta", which is a sign painted on cloth and strung in the air, which said:

Bienvenidos Los Zetas
ahora vamos por ustedes y sus familias

Police arrived at mid-morning to remove the manta. They are also scrutinizing security camera tapes to try to determine who might have installed the manta.

In case you may not know, "Los Zetas" are the hit men, most of whom are ex-military or deserters from same, who are employed by the drug cartels to murder, kidnap, assault and terrorize rival cartel members, police, politicians who either oppose the cartels or who support a rival cartel, lawyers who know too much, businessmen who steal too much (from their cartel partners), reporters and newspaper executives who report too much, the family members of all of the aforementioned as well as the populace in general.

I'm not sure what the manta means but it was probably a message from a drug cartel which does not currently employ them.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Los Zetas

Fred Thompson: The next President of the United States of America

2007-05-30T10:13:00.000-05:00

Maybe. Only Rudy Giuliani has a shot at stopping him. There is no special interest-pandering, flip-flopping Democrat with the juice to do it. Americans may indeed want an "adult with a firm hand on the tiller."

The Fred! has landed

QandO has some questions
Michael PFvdG: . . . Thompson is most certainly electable.
Don Surber compares him to the following:

Ben Roethlisberger, backup to Tommy Maddux. Super Bowl record: 1-0.
Tom Brady, backup to Drew Bledsoe. Super Bowl record: 3-0.
Brad Johnson, backup to Warren Moon, Randall Cunningham, Chris Simms, Brian Griese, Daunte Culpepper, Tony Romo. Super Bowl record: 1-0. Combined Super Bowl records of Moon, Cunningham, Simms, Griese, Culpepper and Romo: 0-0.
Trent Dilfer, backup to Casey Weldon, Shaun King, Tony Banks, Matt Hasselbeck, Charlie Frye, Alex Smith. Super Bowl record 1-0. Combined Super Bowl records of Weldon, King, Banks, Hasselbeck, Frye and Smith: 0-1
Kurt Warner. backup to Trent Green, Marc Bulger, Eli Manning, Josh McCown, Matt Leinert. Super Bowl record: 1-1. Combined Super Bowl records of Green, Bulger, Manning, McCown and Leinert: 0-0
Brett Favre, backup to Chris Miller, Billy Joe Tolliver, Dan Majkowski. Super Bowl record: 1-1. Combined Super Bowl records of Miller, Tolliver and Majkowski: 0-0.
Steve Young, backup to Joe Montana. Super Bowl record 1-0.
Joe Montana, backup to Steve DeBerg. Super Bowl record 4-0.
Terry Bradshaw, backup to Terry Hanratty. Super Bowl record 4-0.
Earl Morral, backup to Y. A. Tittle, Bobby Layne, Tobin Rote, Tom Kennedy, Gary Wood, Johnny Unitas, Bob Griese. Super Bowl record: 1/2-1/2 (replaced by Unitas during Super Bowl III defeat by Kansas City, replaced Unitas during Super Bowl V victory over Dallas)
Bart Starr, backup to Tobin Rote, Babe Parilli and Lamar McHan. Super Bowl record 3-0 (plus 2 NFL Championships prior to Super Bowls, so 5-0 would not be unrealistic)

Don shows us that these "backup quarterbacks", who at one time or at many times during their careers "looks good holding that clipboard in that nice crisp uniform on the sidelines. He ain’t never thrown an interception or fumbled the ball." hold a combined (roughly) 20-1 edge over the starters they eventualy replaced, except for Unitas and Montana who won a bunch before being replaced. I like 20-1 odds.

Fred!'s got Babalu Blog's vote.
Dean Barnett favors Mitt Romney but still thinks this is great news.
AllahPundit asks, "Will Fred! flop!?"
The Captain is looking forward to Thompson's campaign.
Mary Katherine Ham says, "He's got the charisma of Rudy with better social-con creds than most of the pack."
Scared Monkeys thinks that Hillary and Obama will ". . . look shrill and lightweight compared to him."

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Fred Dalton Thompson

Oaxaca, Mexico: APPO lawyers denounce death threats and theft of defense funds

2007-05-30T07:43:00.000-05:00

APPO defense lawyers are demanding that the federal government take action to protect them from harm which they claim has been threatened. In a press conference, Ernesto Méndez, General Coordinator of the Comité de Familiares y Amigos de los Desaparecidos, Asesinados y Presos Políticos de Oaxaca (Committee of Families and Friends of the Disappeared, Murdered and Imprisoned Political Prisoners of Oaxaca -- COFADAPPO) claims that nine APPO defense lawyers have received death threats and that APPO's attorneys are being followed around by state policemen in unmarked cars.

The COFADAPPO coordinator hauled out the usual laundry list of people to blame for the death threats:

We blame the "tyrant" Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, State Attorney General Evencio Martínez Ramírez, State Secretary of Civil Defense Sergio Segreste, President Felipe Calderon, the federal Secretary of the Interior (whose name Mendez apparently couldn't remember), federal Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora, George Bush, Mark in Mexico and global warming brought on by bovine flatulence (cow farts).

...

We demand that the the Senate Commission On Human Rights, headed by Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, as well as Amnesty International and all the rest of the organizations (presumably human rights watchdog orgs) demand that the federal government take precautionary measures to protect our lives.

COFADAPPO is an organization founded by the painter Francisco Toledo, most fondly remembered for his successful battle to prevent a McDonald's from being established on the Zócalo. Toledo lead the fight against Mickie D's so that the restaurants on the Zócalo would be protected from fair competition and could continue serving meat, poultry, fish, fruits and vegetables of uncertain origin, uncertain hygiene and uncertain preparation methods at prices higher than in, say, Indianapolis. As you sit on the throne in your hotel room with the cold chills and the squirts, remember this, folks; it ain't the water -- it's the food.

Francisco Toledo
Motto: "Montezuma's got nuthin' to do with it"

Toledo's art. Nice, eh? And, no, he's not a house painter.

When you visit the Zócalo, especially on a Sunday, note that the restaurants around the outside perimeter are filled with happy patrons (the rich) while the inside perimeter is lined with people (the poor) who cannot afford to eat on the outside perimeter. Those on the inside perimeter have their loyal friend Francisco Toledo to thank for this. You might then visit either of the two McDonald's at Plaza del Valle and note that they are both filled with happy patrons who cannot afford to eat on the Zócalo's outside perimeter. The local owners of both these franchises also thankfully thank painter Toledo. But I digress.

Then lawyer Mendez made this surprising announcement. He denounced some of the recently freed APPO "activists" for stealing money destined for the remaining prisoners. He charged that the APPO thugs who had been freed on bail which had been collected on their behalf had then organized unauthorized collection efforts to raise money for those still in jail and then pocketed said funds.

Without our knowledge and approval, they have carried out indiscriminate fund drives in diverse institutions and union and student organizations. That is to say, they have enriched themselves through the pain and suffering of our imprisoned comrades.

Say it ain't so!

Mendez is charging that the street thugs, gang toughs and petty criminals paid 200 pesos per day, first by APPO and then by the EPR, to man barricades, burn stacks of stolen tires, torch buses and cars, smash windows, spray paint 400+ year old buildings, firebomb state and federal office buildings as well as private buildings and homes, kidnap unarmed traffic cops, rape foreign visitors, rob stores, businesses and pharmacies at gunpoint, destroy the 911 emergency system central command and control center, smash open and/or haul away ATM machines, do 900 million pesos in damage to the Guelaguetza stadium and destroy the state's economy would then stoop so low as to steal a few thousand pesos???? I'm shocked . . . shocked to discover this.

Aren't you?

You might also note that the laundry list of those whom APPO and/or COFADAPPO hold responsible for, well, whatever, now comes on a preprinted form that looks like so:

WE BLAME:
Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz
State Attorney General (fill in name of current office holder)
Commander of the Policia Ministerial (fill in name of current office holder)
State Secretary of the Interior (fill in name of current office holder)
Federal Attorney General (fill in name of current office holder)
Federal Secretary of the Interior (fill in name of current office holder)
President of the Republic (fill in name of current office holder)
George Bush (or fill in name of current office holder if Republican)
Mark in Mexico
Global warming brought on by bovine flatulence (cow farts)

Puebla, Mexico: A miracle worked by the Niño Cieguito

2007-05-28T11:08:00.000-05:00

The Puebla ~~football~~ soccer team has for many years been a model of ineptitude. In case you don't know how it works here, there are two divisions of ~~football~~ soccer, the 1st Division and the 2nd Division. The 1st Division is considered the "big league" and the 2nd Division is the "minor league". This arrangement also exists in most of the rest of the ~~football~~ soccer crazy world.

Unlike, say, professional baseball in the USA, where a minor league team is and always will be a minor league team, a 2nd Division ~~football~~ soccer team in Mexico or Brasil or Germany can earn its way into the 1st Division, always at the expense of a poorly performing 1st Division team, of course. That is the goal of hundreds of 2nd division clubs and their fans all around the world -- get to the 1st division and then stay there.

It was so bad in Puebla for so many years that, at one point, a new owner, upon taking control of the team, traded the entire team, along with a boatload of cash, for another owner's team that was already in the 1st Division. That would be somewhat akin to the owner of the Toledo Mud Hens trading his team, along with a boatload of cash, to the owner of the Kansas City A's, which could lead to headlines like, "Mud Hens Bury Orioles" or "Tigers Devour Mud Hens" or, whatever.

The seller's outraged fans conducted the usual rioting, blockading and boycotting, but to no avail as the seller was already yukking it up on the Riviera. Whether Mayan or French remains unclear. Alas, the Puebla jinx struck the new 1st Division team and it, too, was soon relegated to the ignonimous Second Division.

The fans and players in Puebla needed to take stronger action. They needed a miracle. They went to the "Niño Cieguito" to get it. The "Niño Cieguito" (blind infant Jesus) resides in the Temple of the Convent of San Joaquín y Santa Ana in downtown Puebla. Fans dressed the icon in a Puebla team uniform and then prayed, a lot.

Puebla's "Niño Cieguito" dressed in team uniform

Sure enough, a miracle was bestowed upon the city and its faithful (to whatever team was in town) fans. The Puebla ~~football~~ soccer team won its final game of the season and had a good enough record to be promoted to the 1st Division in the Mexican ~~Football~~ Soccer league.

A little history might be in order. In 1944 in Morelia, a thief hid himself inside the Convento de La Merced. After the doors were closed and locked, he set about sacking the sanctuary. A statue of the boy Jesus began to weep and cry out. The thief tried to cover the statue'ss mouth to quiet it but to no avail. He then took out his knife and pried the eyes out of the statue but it still would not be quiet. In a panic, he grabbed up the statue and, along with the rest of his haul, fled into the countryside.

The next day, upon discovering the thefts, church officials called in the police who were soon able to capture the thief. He confessed all and related the story as well as the whereabouts of the discarded statue, which he had also broken into pieces. The statue was repaired as well as possible and was moved to Puebla, although still without its eyes as it yet appears today. The Santo Niño Cieguito has been credited by its followers with many miracles over the years.

I might note that there is a church in Puebla devoted solely to the granting of miracles. It is called the Iglesia del Nuestro Señor de los Milagros (Church of Our Lord of Miracles) and I have visited it many times, usually on Wednesdays and Sundays after buying my Melate tickets. To no avail, I might also add.

Oaxaca, Mexico: Of moustaches and men and Charlie B., wherever you are.

2007-05-27T20:07:00.000-05:00

With all of the hoopla over Rosie O'Donnell leaving The View and her chief writer being escorted off the premises for defacing a picture of Elizabeth Hasselbeck, I began to wonder what would happen if other famous photos were defaced in a like manner.

O'Donnell's chief writer, Janette Barber, was tossed out of the ABC studios when she was caught drawing a moustache on a photo of Hasselbeck. O'Donnell and Hassellbeck had gone round and round on The View when O'Donnell accused America and our soldiers in Iraq of being the "real" terrorists. Hasselebeck challenged O'Donnell when the fat one accused American troops of murdering more than 600,000 Iraqis since our occupation began. Rosie didn't like that so she stormed out of the building leaving her toady behind to draw sophomoric pitchers.

I further began to wonder about defacing photos of famous people in exactly the opposite manner. That is, removing hair instead of penciling it in.

The mind boggles at the possibilities.

John Bolton

John Bolton after a shave and a haircut
How about this one?

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton, 42nd President of the United States

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton after a shave and a haircut
Or this one?

Albert Gore, ex-VP and proponent of discredited Man-Made Global Warming Hoax

Al Gore after a shave and a haircut

And, finally, last but not least:

Rosie O'Donnell, formerly of The View
Notorious loudmouth bully
Believes 9/11 was Bush conspiracy
Believes US soldiers are terrorists
Claims we murdered 600,000+ Iraqis

Rosie O'Donnell after a shave and a haircut

The next-to-last photo -- the one that is un-retouched by Mark in Mexico's talented photo lab tecnicians -- has an interesting history. I have traced it back through the following sources:

I stole it from The Jawa Report, who stole it from

Ace of Spades HQ, who stole it from

Crotchety Old Bastard, who stole it from

Venomous Kate (I like her . . . hisss), who stole it from

Parkway Rest Stop, who stole it from

velociworld, who stole it from

Grouchy Old Cripple in Atlanta, who credits

Charlie B.

Charlie B., where are you?

UPDATE: I had to retrieve and reinsert 6 of the 8 photos. I dunno why. Maybe I pissed someone off.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Rosie O'Donnell

Puebla, Mexico: Is Volkswagen Mexico ripping off its employees?

2007-05-23T11:27:00.000-05:00

Did Pancho Villa speak any Spanish?

About 100 VW employees gathered at the SAT (the tax folks) office in Puebla at 8:00 this morning to deliver a formal complaint about not receiving their profit sharing checks from VW this year. Here in Mexico it is, by federal law, a requirement that a company distribute profit sharing checks to its employees in the month of May for profits from the preceding year.

This profit sharing requirement, along with the various and onerous tax schemes promoted by the government, the crumbling or never-existed-in-the-first-place infrastructure, third rate educational system, law of the mordida and all the way down to business executives and/or family members being picked off the streets in kidnapping operations, contribute to the sad fact that hardly any Mexican businesses make a profit even when they do make a profit, if you catch my drift.

The workers group was met at the door by . . . nobody. There was no one there to receive their complaint. Possibly because they had arrived at 8:00 AM. In Mexico you will be hard pressed to find any public servant at any staff level at his/her desk at 8:00 in the morning. So they spread out into the street which is a major thoroughfare that links Puebla to Cholula (where the airport is) and blocked it. After about an hour someone inside the SAT offices reluctantly agreed to receive their useless and soon-to-be-archived-in-File #13 complaint.

Volkswagen AG announced breathlessly to its shareholders that its 2006 profit more than doubled over 2005's numbers, to $3.61 billion. 2005's paltry profit was only $1.47 billion. VW's shares rose more than 9% on the news. And this profit was weighed down by some 2 billion euros in restructuring costs and severance pay to some 20,000 fired workers throughout the company's various operations.

However, back in August, 2006, VW de Mexico had announced a 1 billion peso loss for the first half of 2006 at the Mexico plant in Puebla. That plant employs somewhere between 16,000 and 20,000 employees.

You would think that with massive losses like this the Puebla plant would soon be scheduled for closure. In fact, however, VW is in the middle of a $2 billion investment program at the Puebla facility so that it can continue to bleed money, I guess.

We all know that ain't so. Why is VW sinking so much cash into a money losing facility? Because it is not losing money. In fact, VW brags that it is making money. This from VW's own VW Goup Supply.com:

VW de México plays a pivotal role for the Volkswagen Group. Highly qualified employees produce top-notch quality products for global markets and implement our objectives successfully: Cost-cutting, productivity enhancement and maximized profit. (emphasis mine)

Here is one way they do it. This is especially favored by the multi-nationals. ACME International's (or fill in any company's name) Official Spokesperson for the Board of Directors:

"Yasss, we lost a billion dollars at our Mexico facility last year. We also lost a billion dollars each at our facilities in France, Germany, Russia, China and Afghanistan. I am pleased to announce, however, that the company earned a record 50 billion dollars in overall profit in spite of losses at each and every one of our facilities.

The company accomplished this by earning 60 billion dollars at our Caribbean operations center, located in a broom closet in an otherwise abandoned warehouse on a rotting quay in Georgetown, Cayman Islands. Our Cayman Islands broom closet contains our Design Center, our Finance Center, our Engineering Center, our Human Resources Center and our Operations Command and Control Center. Our private landing strip and executive jet fleet hangars are also located close by.

The Cayman broom closet bills each of our manufacturing centers 10 million dollars per day for services rendered to the manufacturing facilities and they are all happy to pay.

We look forward to implementing the Cayman broom closet's directives in 2007 and 2008 to reduce our inefficient and bloated workforce at our manufacturing centers by 20,000 jobs each of the next two years as well as wage and benefit cuts of 15%, also each year.

This is also called "skimming".

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Volkswagen, Puebla, Mexico

Oaxaca, Mexico: nationwide wave of violence has arrived here

2007-05-21T21:37:00.000-05:00

UPDATED: Scroll down.

At least it looks like it has arrived. Now, if you live in Huatulco or Puerto Escondido you've seen, heard or read about several knock-down drag-out shootouts in those resort towns, so you're bound to be less than impressed with this breathless report. However, for the rest of us living peacefully and meandering around the almost daily roadblocks thrown up by one protesting group or another, the outright spillage of lifesblood in the streets has been rather rare. No more.

Saturday, in Huatulco, an AFI agent was gunned down in a hail of bullets from fully automatic AR 15's and AK 47's as he arrived at his office (I thought those weapons were illegal here -- oh yeah, only the assassins carry such weapons -- the agent was armed with his trusty .38 revolver). The AFI is sort of like our FBI . . . sort of.

Today, in Acatlan, the state's sugar cane field and refinery union leader was gunned down, again with AK 47's and AR 15's (I thought those weapons were illegal here -- oh yeah, only the assassins carry such weapons -- Timoteo Gutiérrez Castro was armed with his trusty pocket knife).

Also today, just a mile or so outside of town, the PRD's leader in Ejutla de Crespo, Félix Cruz Barrita, was shot to death as he approached Oaxaca City in his car. No word yet on the weapons of choice by the murderers but it would be a safe bet that they were far more heavily armed than he. UPDATE: Police now say that, based upon testimony from family members, this murder was probably a "crime of passion".

One could surmise that the death of the AFI agent was ordered and carried out by organized crime figures (read narcotics) while the death of the PRD's Félix Cruz Barrita was ordered and carried out by organized crime figures (read the PRI) and the death of Cañero union leader Timoteo Gutiérrez Castro was likewise ordered and carried out by organized crime figures (read sugar magnates).

So it's here, the gun violence, that is. The state's government and the federal government as well are wholly incapable of protecting the citizens from death by lead projectile. Since guns are just about completely illegal here, the citizens have no way to protect themselves either.

I thought it quite funny when Freddy Alcantera, the head of the hotel and restaurant association here, was complaining bitterly about the US State Department's renewal of its advisory to avoid Oaxaca like the plague. The updated advisory was issued, unfortunately, the same day as the massacre at Virginia Tech. Freddy mumbled something about Oaxaca being more secure than American universities.

The thing Freddy doesn't understand is that the killings at VT were an anomaly. Such a thing is unlikely to be repeated in our lifetimes or even the lifetimes of our children. Meanwhile, gangland style executions and assassinations are occurring in Mexico at the rate of about 20 per day.

El Universal had calculated, as of about two weeks ago, that gangland style assassinations, executions and shootouts had claimed about 1000 lives so far this year -- and that didn't include Mexico City or Mexico State figures. Those are the two largest entities, respectively, in the country. Exactly why Universal's figures did not include the DF nor Mexico State figures is unclear. It may be that the PRD governments are better at hiding these incidents than are the PAN or the PRI. I dunno.

In any event, the citizens are beginning to pay the price for the decades long abolition of firearms in Mexico which helped to guarantee the PRI's PRI-eminence. And these are the same citizens who faithfully voted the PRI into power decade after decade.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, gangland slayings

Oaxaca, Mexico: Where a boycott ain't a boycott

2007-05-21T09:35:00.000-05:00

I noticed this lost-in-translation problem a few years ago but paid it little mind. It has now become, or will become, a much more important issue.

Sección 22 (the teachers who go on strike every year and have for the past 26 years or so) as well as APPO, have announced that they will "boycott" this year's Guelaguetza festival. From Cambridge Dictionary of American English:

boycott

verb [T]
to refuse to buy (a product) or take part in (an activity) as a way of expressing strong disapproval
The union called on its members to boycott the meeting.

boycott

noun [C]
She organized an economic boycott of the company's products.

The actual word used in the Spanish language versions, both in Oaxaca as well as other national news media sources, is "boicotear". From WordReference.com:

boicotear
verbo transitivo
to boycott

Well folks, that is not correct. A "boycott" in Mexico, as well as other Central and South American countries, is to blockade. That is, the boycotters not only refuse to buy or participate in an activity, but they also stop you -- by force -- from doing so.

That's a "boycott" in Mexico.

In fact, APPO and Sección 22 stated that they would "boycott" this year's Guelaguetza festival "like we did last year". Uh-oh. Last year's "boycott" included the burning of the amphitheater's dance floor, twice, the painting of slogans all over the walls and seats, the theft of light fixtures, electrical and sound cables and all the plumbing fixtures from the restrooms and, ultimately, the cancelation of the state's bggest money maker, the Guelaguetza festival. All that to the tune of some 900 million pesos in losses to the state's inhabitants.

The bright side to this impending disaster is that the state won't lose that much money this year. Oaxaca no longer has 900 million pesos to lose.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Guelagueza Festival

Tokyo, Japan: 2000 of dumbest people in world found in Japan

2007-05-16T13:10:00.000-05:00

2000 Japanese consumers have been discovered -- so far -- who purchased poodles over the internet but received sheep instead. The swindle was uncovered when a couple took their "poodle" to a dog grooming shop to have its toenails clipped and were informed that it had hooves. Other victims were just beginning to question why their "poodles" refused to eat dogfood.

But not one -- NOT ONE -- fraud victim called authorities and said, "Banzai! I ordered a poodle but received a flocking sheep instead!"

French Poodle

Japanese Poodle

Japanese authorities are reportedly also investigating the following incidents as possible internet fraud cases.

1. Tokyo 500 organizers sue NASCAR because neither Jeff Gordon nor Junior showed for the highly touted race. The race was won by Billy Ray Bob "Bubba" Hatfield. All contractual arrangements were made over the internet with a shadowy company owned by Betty Lou Thelma Liz McCoy. When contacted by this ace reporter, Betty Lou Thelma Liz responded, "I didn't say, 'Nextel', I said, 'Next year.'"

Tokyo/NASCAR/Next Year 500

2. Tokyo officials are investigating the sale of 2000 "men's bikinis", supposedly part of Oscar de la Renta's introduction of his "Hazard County Fashion" linenup. Japanese buyers brought this fraud to the attention of officials when they began to complain of "barnyard odors" emanating from the clothing.

Oscar de la Renta's "Hazard County Fashion " men's bikini
(available exclusively in Tokyo)

3. Two men are pictured shortly after their arrest for impersonating Paul Newman and Robert Redford during a promotional tour of Tokyo. Japanese film industry organizers had made arrangements with Lary Flint Productions over the internet for the tour by Newman and Redford to promote their upcoming tribute to Akira Kurosawa titled, "Harvey and Lyle". Authorities began an investigation when film industry executives complained that Harvey/Newman seemed only capable of saying, "Mo' grits in mah grits," while Lyle/Redford appeared to be completely mute.

Paul "Harvey" Newman and Robert "Lyle" Redford in Tokyo

4. Japanese government and Tokyo City authorities are investigating the sale of the legendary Triple Crown winner Secretariat to a Japanese billionaire. The reclusive magnate, as yet not identified, called in law enforcement after watching a Discovery Channel tribute to "Big Red" and discovering that the famous thoroughbred died in 1989. The irate buyer, who paid 450 million dollars (about 6000 trillion yen) for the "horse" and just received the animal last month, at first thought the animal had merely been damaged in transit. He is said to now believe he received Mr. Ed, in-stead.

Secretariat . . . or Mr. Ed?

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Japanese sheep

Belgium: US news media asleep at the wheel -- not so Mark in Mexico

2007-05-16T09:42:00.000-05:00

Where are Google, My Yahoo, Memeorandum, Lucianne et al when a big story breaks about political strategizing outside the box? Asleep at the wheel, so to speak. Not so Mark in Mexico.

From Belgium comes this hard hitting report of a Belgian Senate candidate who was being buried by the exhorbitant promises made by her opponents. So she has retaliated.

Tania Derveaux is offering 40,000 jobs, er, bl**jobs, that is, on a, ahem, first come first served basis. In the interest of consumer protection, here are a couple of photos of Senate candidate Derveaux.

Now, to be perfectly fair, Reforma is all over this story. And to be more than fair, the only links to this story that I could find when writing this post were in German, French and the aforementioned Spanish language Reforma.

Reforma reports that Ms. Derveaux has placed this announcement on her website, link thoughtfully not provided (I don't want to arrive and find myself in place number 40,001). What you must do is, first, vote for Ms. Derveaux. Then, after casting said vote, you may apply for your, er, reward at her website. If selected, you then get in line, I guess.

Reforma reports that there are some rules that must be followed in order to collect on Ms. Derveaux's campaign promise, which, she assures us, is not merely a lick-and-a-promise.

1. You must be of legal age of consent. I'm of an age where I'll consent to just about anything -- of this nature, that is.Consenting adult. To what, he does not care.

2. You must use protection. I'll come equipped with my trusty .45 Buntline Special, impressive in the length and diameter of its barrel, as well as its heft, as well as its muzzle velocity, as well as . . . you get the idea.

.45 Buntline Special, carried for protection.

This might be more like it, truth be told.

3. You must use adequate hygiene. I'll pass through a Turbo Car Wash prior to my, uh, appointment with the aspiring, young politician and the local Jet Wash afterwards.

Adequate hygiene -- before and after
Soft Touch? That's a nice touch.

4. You may not exceed the time limit of five minutes. Five minutes? Uh-oh.

Tick . . . tick . . . tick . . .

5. You must agree not to attempt any other type of physical contact.

No other physical contact possible . . . that's what Lecter said, anyway.

That does bring up some interesting arithmetic, however. Five minutes times 40,000 is, approx, 200,000 minutes or, approx, 3,333 1/3 hours or, approx, 416 2/3 eight-hour days. Man days, so to speak. That's more than a year. A lot more than a year. In fact, it is well more than a year and a half if she takes weekends off. If, or rather when she gets elected, I don't see how she's going to have much time for legislating. In Europe, they don't perform any jobs -- any type of jobs -- on weekends. That's going to be a long line.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Tania Derveaux

Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico: Have you seen this girl?

2007-05-11T13:26:00.000-05:00

Name: Dana Firemann (she's being identified in Mexican news reports as Dana Firemann Rishpy)
Nationality: Israeli
Last Seen: March 31, 2007 in Tulum

This description also available:

Dana Rishpy, 25 years old, from Haifa, Israel, has been missing since March 30, 2007. She was seen last in Tulum, South East Mexico. She is about 5'7", long brown straight hair, green eyes, speaks english and hebrew. If you have seen her, or know of people traveling in the area, please urgently contact tel. 52-1-5554840490 (Mexico) or Dalit at (972)-54-6353802 (Israel). More info in: findana DOT com

There seems to be some confusion as to her name. She identifies herself as Dana Firemann.

Here is a video taken of her about 6 months before she disappeared:

More info and photos here: www.findana.com, again identified as Dana Rishpy.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, [tagname]

Mexico City: PEMEX missing a ton of money and 1.5 million barrels of oil

2007-04-02T11:08:00.000-05:00

The audit for the budget year 2005 recently completed by Mexico's Auditoría Superior de la Federación, kind of like our GAO, found a ton of money as well as almost 1.5 million barrels of oil missing from PEMEX. And you wonder where all the money goes?

The ASF discovered that PEMEX had transferred some 2 billion 688 million pesos to the oil company union, the STPRM. That was actually the good news because the ex-director of PEMEX, Raúl Muñoz Leos, had signed an agreement with the union to pay it 7 billion 781 million pesos. The ASF said that, 1., Muñoz Leos signed the agreement without ever budgeting the money, which is illegal; 2., Muñoz Leos signed the agreement without permission from the PEMEX board of directors, which is illegal; 3., Muñoz Leos signed the agreement without the approval of both the Secretary of Energy and the Secretary of Hacienda (the tax man), also illegal.

The ASF also said that only 963 million pesos of the transferred money could be considered legitimate union business of one kind or another. The remaining 1.7 billion pesos was for illigitimate uses. Those "legitimate" uses were to pay for May Day celebrations and the annual commemoration of the anniversary of the nationalization of Mexico's oil. 90 million dollars worth of partying that should really be a wake.

The ASF said that documents which it had reviewed indicated that much of the 1.7 billion pesos was intended for "housing" costs of workers. However, said the ASF, the law requires PEMEX itself, not the union, to provide housing programs for its workers through banks and other financial institutions. If PEMEX was in fact also doing this, then what was the 1.7 billion pesos really used for? No one yet knows because the ASF is not empowered to audit the union's books. In other words, no one will ever know.

And the union's secretary treasurer, Congressman Ricardo Aldana, signed illegal, un-numbered reciepts accepting the money. He and other union officials were, at one time, in hot water for accepting billions of pesos in PEMEX money on behalf of the union rank-and-file and then sending that money on to the PRI for use in the presidential campaign of 2000. No one has ever been punished for that large scale robbery referred to here as "PemexGate".

The ASF said,

"We're becoming accustomed to tripping over the same rock twice.

It's not a lack of procedures controlling the director general (of PEMEX) but it has to be said that the spending rules are all in place and here we are seeing that, once again, the rules were ignored."

The ASF also detected a slight discrepancy between what PEMEX says it invoiced in 2005 and what the transportation unit says it actually shipped.

PEMEX invoiced 618,154,800 barrels but the office responsible for transport says it only moved 616,667,100, a loss of 1 million 487 thousand barrels of oil, about 5 billion pesos. The ASF is asking for answers but as yet neither PEMEX nor its refiners have been able to account for 5 billion pesos in missing oil. PEMEX pipelines, pumping facilities, storage tanks and transport ships and tankers all suffer from daily leaks but 1.487 million barrels seems like a lot to dribble out into the bays, lakes, rivers and roadways.

Add the 5 billion pesos in missing oil to at least 1.7 billion pesos in illegaly transferred and now disappeared money and the total is 6.7 billion pesos, or more than 600 million US of A dollars. Most experts, including PEMEX's current director, estimate that the national oil company loses about 1 billion dollars a year to internal corruption. The ASF just found 60% of it.

Since the Mexican government finances itself at somewhere between 40 and 60 percent directly from PEMEX, the above mentioned loss in 2005 alone might account for some other interesting things that the ASF turned up. PEMEX is owed by various federal departments, from 2004, 192.5 million pesos. From 2005, the CFE (the federal light company) still owes PEMEX 137,176,000 pesos, the Airport Authority owes 45,255,000 pesos, the Army and Navy owe 10,127,000 pesos while various "private entities" still owe PEMEX 119,617,000 pesos. And that's just from 2004/2005.

What's worse, the ASF discovered that PEMEX has no program in place to collect said overdue monies. That, says the ASF, is also against the law. The joys of nationalized industries, eh? What does PEMEX, the nationalized oil company, do when the CFE, the nationalized light company, won't pay its bills? Cut it off? Probably not. That would create fistfights during presidential cabinet meetings. Most unbecoming of overpaid bureaucrats.

Now, all of this auditing business is a fairly recent development brought on by various fiscal and other government reforms voted into law over the objections of whomever had the ox most likely to be gored. Can you imagine what the total losses to the Mexican people have been throughout all the long 60-some year history of PEMEX, its union and the PRI when there were no audits? Trillions of pesos, hundreds of billions of dollars, without doubt.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, PEMEX

Oaxaca, Mexico: Was APPO about to follow in Timothy McVeigh's footsteps?

2007-03-30T12:50:00.000-05:00

Two city employees discovered a bag filled with 64 "sausages", or sticks, of Tovex Blastrite Gel explosives at about noon yesterday. The workers were involved in a sewer cleaning project when they found the bag, hidden in a sewer line, just 30 feet away from APPO's barricade "La Monumental" in the Brenamiel area at the northwestern entrance to the city.

Timothy McVeigh used 350 lbs. of Tovex to set off thirteen barrels of ammonium nitrate, nitro-methane and diesel fuel that destroyed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in May, 1995, killing 168 people. Anyone who wishes can see Mcveigh's bomb design as sketched with his own hand right here, or here.

The workers' boss called the police and the army. Mexican Army bomb disposal personnel removed the Tovex to the army base on the east side of the city. Army personnel pegged the value of the Tovex at 40,000 pesos, about 4000 dollars at the time it would have been purchased.

You can use the drawings linked above to build your very own truck and/or car bomb and kill hundreds of people if that be your desire. It looks like that's just what APPO had in mind. The PFP may have arrived just in time.

Note to FBI and Company investigators: The recent Google search for "Tovex Blastrite Gel" was by yours truly. You can let this one go.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Tovex Blastrite Gel, APPO

Berlin, Germany: Speigal Online Berlin bureau chief soon to seek new employment

2007-03-29T14:15:00.000-05:00

At least he will have to if he writes many more columns like this one titled, "Evil Americans, Poor Mullahs" I just spotted this at Memeorandum and took a look at it. The Berlin bureau chief for Speigal Online, the soon-to-be-unemployed Claus Christian Malzahn, rips Germany and Germans in particular for their anti-Americanism.

He's responding to what he calls "the by-no-means-surprising result of a Forsa opinion poll commissioned by Stern magazine." In said poll, Germans, especially younger Germans, considered The United States a greater threat to world peace than Iran. 57% of them, according to Stern. Malzahn says,

There are some Germans who will never forgive the Americans for VE Day, when they defeated Hitler. After all, Nazism was just an accident, whereas Americans are inherently evil.

Anti-Americanism is the wonder drug of German politics. If no one believes what you're saying, take a swing at the Yanks and you'll be shooting your way back up to the top of the opinion polls in no time.

Malzahn commits the heresy of comparing criticism of the USA to criticism of Iran:

Not a day passes in Germany when someone isn't making the wildest claims, hurling the vilest insults or spreading the most outlandish conspiracy theories about the United States. But there's no risk involved and it all serves mainly to boost the German feeling of self-righteousness.

Iran is a different story. The last time someone made a joke on German TV about an Iranian leader, the outcome was not pleasant. Exactly 20 years ago, Dutch entertainer Rudi Carell produced a short TV sketch portraying Ayatollah Khomeini dressed in women's underwear. Carell received death threats. The piece, which lasted all of a few seconds, led to flights being cancelled and German diplomats being expelled from Tehran. Carell apologized. Jokes about fat Americans are just safer.

You'll want to visit Speigel Online and read it all. I was, however, curious to see if Speigel was up to the old Yassar Arafat trick of making one speech in English and quite a different one in his native language. I was curious to see if Speigel even posted the column by its Berlin bureau chief to its German version. Well, they did. My German is, er, poor, but maybe yours is better. I think the German version leaves nothing out that you will read in English. For instance:

Antiamerikanismus ist das Wundermittel der deutschen Politik.

And,

Antiamerikanismus ist prima bigott.

Looks like a pretty accurate translation to me.

The Captain and Michael van der Galien both have posts up about this - in English. They're worth a visit also.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Nuremberg

Buenos Aires, Argentina: UNESCO blasts Latin American teachers

2007-03-29T12:15:00.000-05:00

UNESCO, about the only UN organization that gains any respect at all from the US government, says this about education in Latin America.

Many in the teacher's profession are to be criticized for excessive "corporatismo" (unionism) and through this (unionism) they concentrate their demands on better salaries, they tend to reject performance evaluations, they don't seem seriously dedicated to improving the education of their students and they don't take any responsibility for poor educational performance.

Amen to that, although UNESCO could also be describing the US's NEA as well as Sección 22 and the SNTE. While the boulder I just tossed at the NEA is richly deserved, let me make it perfectly clear that I am well aware that the educational system in the USA cannot be compared to anyone's to our immediate south, or further south, for that matter.

An old friend of mine once made a comment about unions and union contracts that bears remembering. He said, "There was never one single contract signed with one single union in the entire history of the organized labor movement which was not also signed by one management team or another. There were always two sides to the table and never was just one side present at any contract signing" UNESCO, meeting in Buenos Aires, also recognized this and did not hold back on its criticism of Latin American governments' responsibilities for their horrendous educational systems.

Governments have adopted education policies, in the short term, which result in a conspiratorial relationship between teachers unions and governments which yield salary increases and massive amounts spent on training (more days off from the classrooms).

This results in insufficient salary schemes with little public oversight, in a teaching career linked to seniority, in a passive role for individual teachers and a weak dedication to performance as well as the poor education of their students.

UNESCO proposes (don't hold your breath) the following:

1. Governments must create systems, processes and transparent (oversight) mechanisms for evaluation and accreditation of their colleges of education as well as have the competency of graduates certified by an outside and independent entity.

2. Tutorial systems must be set up to help new teachers confront their classrooms (I'll drink to that), improve teacher performance and convert the colleges of education to professional development centers.

3. Governments must create some sort of performance rating system for prospective new teachers (something other than "Pass/Fail") as well as link starting salaries to that performance rating.

4. Governments must institute teacher salary policies that are subject to oversight and are directly dependent on student performance.

5. When millions of teachers throughout Latin America take to the streets, from Mexico City to Santiago, Chile, in protest of having to actually teach somebody something in order to receive their outrageous pay increases and thereby bringing the economies of various countries and states to a grinding halt, shoot them all, especially in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Just kidding about that last one.

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Oaxaca and Mexico City: Chaos reigns

2007-03-28T11:05:00.000-05:00

Streets blocked, schools and universities closed, public transportation services suspended and violent demonstrations in front of the National Senate, all in the name of . . . what, exactly, I'm not too sure.

In Mexico City yesterday and continuing into today, we've got thousands of protesters marching in the streets and torching stuff in opposition to the new ISSSTE law. The ISSSTE is, roughly speaking, Mexico's social security system for government workers only. There is yet another system for private industry workers, I think. The state workers' system, like at least one other that I can think of offhand, is drowning in a sea of debt to its pensioners. More people being paid who don't work than there are payers to support them.

The new ISSSTE law, approved by the Chamber of Deputies and, in only a slightly modified form, also approved by the Senate, is an attempt to prevent the social security system from bankrupting the country. As is the norm, the protesters don't care. They want theirs and to hell with everyone else.

Having said that, the ISSSTE is, as are all of Mexico's bureaucracies, rife with incompetence and corruption from top to bottom. The new law will remove pensions from the control of the bureaucracy and place it in the hands of private investment funds. Now, instead of having his money stolen by corrupt bureaucrats, a Mexican governnemt worker can have his money stolen by already wealthy bankers and businessmen. Hooray!

The new law also raises the minimum retirement age to 64 from 58 years. For more info, see Ana Maria Salazar and Bloomberg.

In Oaxaca, the taxi companies and APPO and Sección 22 of the teachers union shut down the city. The taxi drivers are protesting the illegal issuance of permits and concessions to thousands of "pirate" taxis and "moto-taxis" as well as legal permits being suddenly declared "illegal". The transport secretariat in Oaxaca is yet another government bureaucracy rife with, well, you know the drill. Twenty thousand pesos or so will get you anything. Proper and timely legal documentation gets you nada.

APPO and Sección 22 are protesting, as usual, not having everything that they demand handed to them on a silver platter. And, oh yeah, the Juarez University faculty went on strike for a day to demand the firing of the veterinary school dean and a few others, as well.

Speaking of moto-taxis, have you ever seen one of these? They are as dangerous and unsafe a vehicle as has ever been allowed on the roads -- Mexico's or anyone elses. Here in Oaxaca just a month or so ago a 3 year-old fell out of one and suffered irreparable brain damage. To the best of my knowledge, there is not a single one of the thousands of these cheap, Chinese-made vehicles operating with a legal license, at least in Oaxaca.

Moto-taxi: cheap, Chinese-made and dangerous hell.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, ISSSTE

Washington, DC: The return of the notorious United Fruit Company

2007-03-20T11:56:00.000-05:00

Do you remember the United Fruit Company, now Chiquita Brands International? This is the company made notorious for its past practises of bribing corrupt Central, South American and Caribbean dictators to grant it favorable tax rates, excuse its land holdings from a myriad of Latin American land reform programs, grant it control over transportation routes and aid it in acquiring dozens of other businesses up to and including the Guatemalan Postal service and engineering the forceful overthrow of at least one Latin American government. The company was even mentioned in the Godfather II movie when Cuban dictator Batista was supposedly presented with a solid gold telephone.

Chiquita/United Fruit is back in the news. The company admitted in federal court that it paid several million dollars in "protection" (extorsion) money to various Columbian terrorist groups between 1997 and 2004, when Chiquita sold out its banana interests in Columbia. The admission was part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors which will include the payment of a 25 million dollar fine.

Chiquita admitted paying the money to both left-wing and right-wing guerrilla armies and paramilitary forces, then of using a variety of accounting tricks to hide the payments. The money was paid to the right-wing paramilitary army, the AUC, listed in 2001 by the US State Department as a terrorist organization. The AUC is blamed for some of the bloodiest massssacres of Columbian peasants during the long civil war which has been fought there.

About the same amount was paid over the same time period to the ELN and the FARC, the left-wing guerrilla armies that control a huge swath of Columbian territory. The AUC, the ELN and the FARC are now the principal exporters of Columbian cocaine.

Chiquita's lawyer claimed that the money was paid as protection money to safeguard the company's workers. Chiquita says it was approached with dark threats concerning its workers safety and felt it had no choice but to pay. The money was paid initially by check but later payments were made in cash. Chiquita officials at the highest levels of the company were involved and Columbia is now making noise about extraditing them to that country to face trial for supporting terrorism.

"I am Chiquita Bah-nah-nah and I come to pay-ay."
Chiquita's payments, while authorized at the highest levels, were not authorized by the board of directors. When the State Department listed the AUC, ELN and the FARC as terrorist organizations, making it illegal to do any business with them, Chiquita played dumb and continued the payments. Only when a low ranking Chiquita employee discovered the payments and officially notified company executives (most of whom already knew all about it) was any action taken.

Apparently, company officials went to "outside counsel" seeking advice. They were told to stop the payments immediately as such payments were an indefensible violation of US law. Company officials pointed out to their outside counsel that the safety of their employees as well as security of the company's installations in Columbia would be put at risk. The counsel's response? "Get out of Columbia". This article gives the actual quotes from that outside counsel, apparently gleaned from court documents.

"Must stop payments."

"Bottom Line: CANNOT MAKE THE PAYMENT"

"Advised NOT TO MAKE ALTERNATIVE PAYMENT through CONVIVIR"

"General Rule: Cannot do indirectly what you cannot do directly"

Concluded with: "CANNOT MAKE THE PAYMENT"

"You voluntarily put yourself in this position. Duress defense can wear out through repetition. Buz [business] decision to stay in harm's way. Chiquita should leave Colombia."

"[T]he company should not continue to make the Santa Marta payments, given the AUC's designation as a foreign terrorist organization[.]"

"[T]he company should not make the payment."

Company officials then visited the Justice Department and admitted making the payments. Chiquita could only get an admission from the Justice Department that the issue of security was "complicated". However, Justice told Chiquita that the payments must stop. Instead, Chiquita made at least another $800,000 in payments while it negotiated with a Columbian company to buy Chiquita's Columbian banana operations. Chiquita sold its Columbian subsidiary, called Banadex, Chiquita's most profitable operation, to the Columbian buyer.

However, the company's repeated payments to registered terrorist organizations in violation of US law, its continued payments even after being advised by both outside counsel and Justice Department officials to discontinue the practise immediately, and its efforts to hide those payments, whether by check or by cash, led to the prosecution and the plea agreement.

What a tortured history has Chiquita.

1871: Railroad magnate Henry Meiggs signs agreement with Cost Rican government to build a railroad from capitol to coastal port.

1877: Meiggs dies and his nephew, Minor C. Keith, who had been assisting in the project, takes over. Keith had been planting bananas along the route and was making a good little bit of money on the side.

1882: Costa Rica defaults on payments to the railroad company. Keith has to borrow 1.2 million from UK and US banks to continue the project.

1884: Costa Rican government gives Keith 800,000 acres along the railroad and a 99 year lease to operate the railway.

1899: Keith loses $1.4 million when a stock broker goes broke, forcing him to merge with the Boston Fruit Company, forming United Fruit Company,. now headquartered in Boston.

1890: Rairoad is finished but Keith makes more money from bananas than from rail traffic.

1901: Guatemala hires United Fruit to manage its postal service.

1930: By this time, United Fruit was the largest employer in Central America and had eaten at least 20 rival fruit companies.

1930: In 1930, Sam "Sam the Banana Man" Zemurray sold his Cuyamel Fruit Co. to United Fruit.

1933: Zemurry led hostile takeover of United Fruit due to the company's poor management. He moved the headquarters to New Orleans and ran the company until 1951.

1954: Guatemala's president overthrown by CIA backed military after United Fruit executives convinced Allan Dulles, his brother John Foster Dulles and Presidents Truman and Eisenhower that president Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán was a commie. Arbenz was actually a reformer who really intended to implement land reform. He had told United Fruit that the government would buy the company's uncultivated land for the value as declared on the company's tax returns, probably about $0.09 per acre. United Fruit's position was that it had to hold large tracts of uncultivated land to protect it from the loss of banana plantations from hurricanes, a not infrequent occurrence (check with Ray Nagin).

1958: The Eisenhower administration, apparently now angry at United Fruit, instituted antitrust actions against the company, eventually forcing it to sell all its Guatemalan holdings.

1959: All of United Fruits Cuban holdings, including banana and sugar plantations, sugar mills, highways and railroads, are expropriated by Fidel Castro.

1968: Corporate raider Eli M. Black buys 733,000 shares of United Fruit, becoming the company's largest shareholder.

1969: Zapata Corp. takes control of United Fruit.

1970: Black merges United Fruit with his own AMK and creates United Brands.

1975: Poor management by Black as well as bad luck with weather causes Black to leap out of the 44th floor window of his office in the Pan Am Building in NYC. The sudden stop at street level kills him.

1975: SEC uncovers plot by United Brands to pay $2.5 million in bribes to Guatemalan president Oswaldo López Arellano to protect the company's remaining holdings from land reform proposals and export taxes. Trading in UB stock is halted and López Arellano's administration likewise is halted by a military coup.

1984: Carl Lindner's American Financial takes control of United Brands, renames it Chiquita International, and moves it to Cincinnati.

It is amazing that this outfit has managed to survive at all.

Now, as they say, for the other side of the story.

First, and foremost, let me make it perfectly clear that businesses, be they homegrown or foreign, do not force a country's government officials to take multi-million dollar bribes at the point of a gun. And when Company A from France, where this is quite legal, and Company B from Germany, where this is also quite legal, sit down and start throwing around cash, Company C from America, where this is most assuredly illegal, has little choice but to play.

Let me also make it clear that the constitutions and laws in Central and South American countries, along with the staggeringly huge and inept bureaucracies those constitutions and laws have created, make it inevitable that businessmen will play just as dirty as the locals want to play. It's a given. If you want to survive in business in Central and South America, you have to do it under the table.

Secondly, United Fruit Company, through all its permutations, has probably done more for the country of Guatemala and its people than all the duly elected presidents, military dictators and juntas that have ruled it all these many years. Throughout the 60's and 70's, United Fruit Company sold off its Guatemalan holdings, bit by bit, to small, local fruit companies from which United Fruit continued and yet continues to buy bananas. United Fruit was its own, private, SBA.

The company, throughout its long, tortured history in Guatemala, as well as the rest of Central and South America and the Caribbean, built highways where there were none, built railroads where there were none, built schools where there were none, provided rent free housing to its employees who had none, waged successful warfare against the mosquito and the malaria it carried when various governments waged none, provided millions of jobs where there were none, paid millions of dollars to protect those employees when their own governments could provide none, built ports where there were none, constructed and operated sugar refineries where there were none, etc., etc., etc.

Because of a few wrong headed, bone headed and illegal decisions made by management up and down the line, over a history of 125 years, United Fruit became a favorite target of leftist propagandists. And, once again, the latest permutation of United Fruit Company is in the news and being whacked by a federal judge for doing something the company believed it was justified in doing, which was completely legal when it started, but it just didn't stop when it should have.

One must ask the this question: Had Chiquita stopped the protection extorsion payments when the US government made them illegal, how many Chiquita employees would have been murdered and how many more would be out of work due to destroyed installations or simply out of fear for their lives? Who knows?

Before throwing too many rocks at Chiquita banana, answer that question.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Chiquita, United Fruit Company

Mexico City: Legislature having trouble counting "braceros"

2007-03-19T11:17:00.000-05:00

The "braceros" were a huge group of Mexican workers allowed into the United States on special work visas between 1942 and 1964. The initial reason was to allow Mexican workers in to replace Americans who had gone off to war. Most of the braceros worked in agriculture but many others found work in construction and even in manufacturing facilities.

The US government withheld 10% of each bracero's income for purposes of Social Security benefits, then turned that money over to the Mexican government for future payment to the braceros. What do you think happened to all that money?

That's right, it disappeared. Every stinkin' peso of it.

After years of demanding their money, and during the Fox administration, someone, somewhere, finally thought to make an official inquiry to the USA as to the money's likely whereabouts. The US government's calm, and official, reply was, "Well, yeah. And we sent it all to your government."

The initial reaction from the Fox government was, unfortunately and very publicly, "We have no record of any such money being sent to us by the Gringos." That was a mistake. If anything can be said for the American bureaucracy, it has records. Millions of tons of records from that era and previous eras and now billions of tons as well as trillions of gigabytes of records from the modern era. And when those records involve cash money and US bank transfers, they are in twelve-tuplicate and signed and re-signed and countersigned.

Records? We don't got no records. We don't have to show you no stinkin' records. But, now that you've accused us of theft on a massive scale from dirt poor Mexican campesinos who worked back breaking, long hours in our beanfields while our brave young men and women shot up Nazis and the Empire of Japan, we will.

And we did.

The money had all been transferred over time from US banks to the Mexican Banco de Crédito Agrícola de México, now called Financiera Rural. The records were impeccable and the Fox government had to eat a little crow. I wrote a post about this a couple of years ago but I cannot find it now. Hey, here it is. One small discrepancy found, however. In that old post I said that the Fox government was beginning to pay up. Not so, as you shall soon see.

The Fox government announced in 2005 that, uh, indeed, there had been some 5000 braceros in the program and it would pay the money to any still left alive. The US government said that, uh, no, it was 5,000,000. The Fox accountants went back to their abacuses and finally determined that the Mexican government owed 38,000 pesos each to some 200,000 to 250,000 still living, breathing braceros. The families of deceased braceros were, er, SOL.

The Mexican House of Deputies approved this 38,000 peso payment to each of the estimated 200-250 thousand braceros in April, 2006. The measure has been hung up in the Senate ever since. The argument is over just how many braceros there are. The Deputies approved a measure to pay the money to 200-250 thousand braceros for a total of somewhere between 7.6 billion and 9.5 billion pesos. The Secretaría of Gobernación can only count 47,000 braceros able to fully document their participation in the program.

The reasons for that are two-fold. First, the Mexican government never bothered to inform most of the braceros that the money was being withheld and why. So, the braceros didn't bother to keep their records. Second, the government's attempts to register the remaining braceros were frought with disorganization and bureaucratic entanglements.

No real surprise there. Mexico is still paying out hundreds of millions of pesos every year to "Mexican Revolution war widows" which would indicate that the country of Mexico has the highest percentage of 100+ year-old ladies in the world . . . all widows of freedom fighters. Most of those old ladies, however, are in their 70's which means that the Mexican revolution widowed them 25 years before they were born. Residual widowhood, I would presume. Actually, all these old ladies claim to have been married at the age of twelve to 65 year-old Mexican ex no-reelecionistas and veterans of Villa's División del Norte. All that ridin' and shootin' and anti-Porfiriatin' kept those old guys horny, I guess. Or maybe it was the uniforms that held the attraction to impresionable, twelve year-old girls.

So the executive branch of the government now recognizes only 47,000 braceros. Well, that's a heap bit better than the 5000 it initially admitted had belonged in the program but still way short of the 200-250 thousand left alive and a long way from the 5,000,000 from whom the US government withheld money, later transferring it to Mexico. And the Mexican Senate would really like to know whether it's approving the expenditure of 1.8 billion pesos or 7.6 billion pesos or 9.5 billion pesos. And to whom, exactly.

This seems like a reasonable question to me. However, one would think that shame alone would push the legislators and the federal government's executive to get a move on. After all, it's only been 65 years since the program started and only 42 years since its end. But then, we are talking about a duly elected federal government with its duly appointed bureaucracy where the word "shame" holds no shame.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, braceros

Mexico City: APPO loses another one

2007-03-19T10:21:00.000-05:00

The APPO "planton" (campout or permanent, 24/7 demonstration) which has been set up in front of the National Senate for, er, months, was removed early this morning by city police forces. The DF forces were under the ultimate command of the city's mayor who is an APPO sympathizer, except when APPO trashes his city instead of ours. So long as APPO conducts its dirty business in Oaxaca, disrupting our lives and wrecking our streets, buildings and economy, Mayor Marcelo Ebrard is behind them (a few steps back) all the way. When APPO tries the same tactics in his city, however, little patience is shown.

The DF police are reporting that the removal of the demonstrators and their belongings took place "without incident". APPO, of course, is claiming assaults, robberies and "humiliations". I'm not quite sure what "humiliations" are.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, APPO, Mexico City, Marcelo Ebrard

Global Warming: Martin Durkin strikes back; "The death of this theory will be painful and ugly. But it will die. Because it is wrong, wrong, wrong."

2007-03-18T15:49:00.000-05:00

Martin Durkin, the documentary film maker and ex (or perhaps still current) Marxist, strikes back at critics of his film, The Great Global Warming Swindle.

Writing in The Telegraph, Durkin says

The remarkable thing is not that I was attacked. But that the attacks have been so feeble. The ice-core data was the jewel in the global-warming crown, cited again and again as evidence that carbon dioxide 'drives' the earth's climate. In fact, as its advocates have been forced to admit, the ice-core data says the opposite. Temperature change always precedes changes in CO2 by several hundred years. Temperature drives CO2, not the other way round. The global-warmers do not deny this. They cannot.

In regard to commenter Dave's reproduction of the letter to British Channel 4 (see Comments in the post linked above), Durkin simply says,

So what else do they hit me with? Prof. Carl Wunsch, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who appeared in the film, later claimed he was duped into taking part. He was not.

Thanks, Marty, but we could have used just a bit more detail than that.

Interviewed in spiked, Durkin says,

"I wanted to call it 'Apocalypse My Arse (Ass)', but in the end we decided on 'The Great Global Warming Swindle'. It's a provocative title, which helps with ratings."

As far as the unfortunate swipes, like that taken at Durkin by Dave for his Marxist past, Durkin says, mockingly,

"Shock, horror", he says. "Exposing that a journalist has a Marxist background is like exposing that he wears trousers."

spiked points out that Durkin chose the title as a take-off from a no doubt highly forgettable Sex Pistols film. The spiked article details the manner in which the global warmer's "debate" the issue:

1. They mention Durkin's "leftist" and "Marxist" past. Like, oh, Christopher Hitchins sans bourbon. Or maybe with the bourbon. Nobody, however, like bourbon as much as Hitchins. Not even Mark in Mexico, and he really likes bourbon.

2. They issue dire warnings, like, "keep an eye out for who is due to appear in the film and more importantly who they work for". Yeah, like the Pasteur Institute in Paris, The University of Winnipeg and MIT (that's in the Massachusetts of Kerry and Kennedy, notorious right wing zealots), all beholden to big oil, or big coal, or George W. Bush, or Halliburton, or somebody equally dangerous.

3. They claim, "'the jury is in on global warming', or, 'the science is done and dusted', or you're a 'denier' if you question the consensus."

4. One, a reporter from London, whose expertise on climatology is derived from reading what other reporters write, criticizes a Durkin expert for living in Winnipeg, Canada. And the man from Winnipeg is a climatologist and professor of Climatology.

5. They go after Channel 4 by complaining to Britain's Office of Communications (Ofcom).

The bottom line, so far as Durkin is concerned, is this:

Too many journalists and scientists have built their careers on the global-warming alarm. Certain newspapers have staked their reputation on it. The death of this theory will be painful and ugly. But it will die. Because it is wrong, wrong, wrong.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Martin Durkin

gc in Costa Rica: The Great Global Warming Swindle

2007-03-17T17:13:00.000-05:00

If you have not already seen this, you absolutely must make time to view it. gcblues in Costa Rica sent out the link. The video is called "The Great Global Warming Swindle" and is the best (and the first) really detailed answer to the Global Warming/Kyoto Accord/Strip The USA Of All Its Money/Kiss Al Gore's Ass global warming scare mongers.

There are three major things that I see in this news video from Great Britain that are key to understanding the global warming hullabaloo.

First: Tens of thousands of jobs now depend on keeping this fraud alive and Al Gore in the public eye.
Hence, IT . . . IS . . . ALIVE!

Second: Almost all of the world renowned experts interviewed by the producers of this documentary were former members of the UN's IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change). They either quit in disgust or were kicked off the panel. However, the IPCC still lists each and every one of them as "Participating IPCC Authors". These ex-panel members all say, to a man, that the IPCC is not and was not a scientific panel. It is and was a political panel. They say that the IPCC advertises itself as a panel made up of "the world's top 2500 climate change experts". The documentary's experts, almost all ex-IPCC panel members, say that there are nowhere near "2500 top climate change experts." More like 25. So the IPCC had to fatten up its membership with politicians, bureaucrats, political appointees, your formerly unemployed second cousin twice removed etc. In other words, anything this panel comes up with is most likely crappola.

Third: Al Gore's OSCAR WINNING DOCUMENTARY's strongest and most hard-hitting message and graphic is that Gore claims to show a direct correlation between the atmosphere's C02 (carbon dioxide, cee-yo-tooo) content and global temperature change over the past 650,000 years. Just one little problem: What Gore didn't say was that there is about an 800 year lag between the temperature change on the planet's surface and the increase (or decrease) in C02 (carbon dioxide, cee-yo-tooo) in the atmosphere. In other words, the ice core data used, or miss-used by Gore to ram home his point actually shows the exact opposite. That is, atmospheric C02 content appears to be reacting to global temperature fluctuations, not the other way around.

There is a fourth issue that I think is also important, but I don't list it as one of the three most important because I have heard so much debate about it. That is that the world's oceans are so vast and so deep that any change noted in temperatures in one area or another is most likely a response to a cause some 300-500 years earlier. And, say these scientists, any change in temperature noted in all of the world's oceans, such as is claimed by the Global Warming fear factorists, may be a reaction to causes fully 1000 years in the past.

There is a lot, lot more.

You'll need some time, about an hour should do. Then, if you are truly interested in this subject, and I think that we all should be, you'll want to add the link to your "My Favorites", or whatever, so you don't lose track of it. After all, gcblues and Mark in Mexico aren't going to be around forever to keep you this well informed.

Thanks to gcblues.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, IPCC, global warming

Mexico City: Carlos Slim; good guy or bad guy?

2007-03-13T14:49:00.000-05:00

The world's third richest man, whose fortune grew by 19 billion dollars just last year alone, is in the news. First, I found this article where he supposedly pokes fun at (criticizes) Bill Gates and Warren Buffett for donating such a big chunk of their fortunes to charity. In Buffett's case it will supposedly be 100% of his billions before he's through. Slim is quoted as saying,

"Our concept is more to accomplish and solve things, rather than giving; that is, not going around like Santa Claus," said Slim, as he cracked jokes, smoked a cigar and outlined business plans at a rare news conferences. "Poverty isn't solved with donations.

OK, we all know that. At least the Republicans all know that. And the historians and economists all know that. The vote panderers like Pelosi, Reid, Sharpton and AMLO also know that but ignore it in their never ending quest for popular popularity -- and votes -- and money.

As to Sr. Slim's comment I would ripost with the fact that Gates and Buffett have done more in the past five years to foster job creation and economic growth than has Slim throughout his entire career. Having said that, I did a bit more snooping around in search of Sr. Slim's other comments and actions regarding both philanthropy and real time, honest to goodness contributions to the Mexican economy. What I found seems to fly in the face of the first two paragraphs of this post.

Sr. Slim is reported to have anounced, just yesterday, that he will donate 10 billion dollars over the next four years to form three foundations, one each promoting health care, education and sports development, all for the poor. That ain't exactly cab fare.

He had already announced a 2.5 billion dollar additional donation to his charitable foundation, Fundación Carso, bringing its current funding level up to 2.8 billion dollars. That ain't exactly bus change.

In addition to Mexico, Slim's business interests in other Latin American countries have netted him so much cash that he'll also be setting up or adding to existing charitable foundations there.

And to bolster his position that charity can't end poverty, Slim has come forward to declare that he approves of the Secretary of Communications' rejection of Telmex's bid to buy or establish cable television networks. He said he did not necessarily agree with the government's position that Telmex end its stakes in Televisa and Cablevision but, regardless of the government's position, Telmex was selling off its shares in both companies over time. Slim also said that the land-line telephone business in Mexico should be open to 100% foreign-owned firms as opposed to current law which permits only 49% foreign ownership. Slim said that foreigners were "skirting the law with ownership schemes" anyway, so why not just make it legal?

Slim also jumped on the "Save PEMEX" bandwagon by warning that if the state owned oil company didn't receive at least 18 billion dollars in immediate investment, "in four years we'll be importing oil." One might choose to read between the lines here just a bit and conclude that what Slim is really saying is that PEMEX must be opened up to private investment since the Mexican government doesn't have anywhere close to 18 billion dollars and the oil company will die without that infusion.

There are no more details on Slim's statements that I can find, but one would have to wonder exactly how Slim proposes that Mexico go about opening PEMEX to direct private investment. Mexico would have to rewrite its Constitution (it's done that many times already, so where's the beef?), rewrite and/or dump a huge number of existing laws and statutes as well as rewrite its tax revenue collection procedures. And all of this the government would have to do in the face of violent street warfare led by or urged on by AMLO and others of his ilk.

Not a pretty picture to contemplate but then neither is the bankruptcy of PEMEX. I have a feeling that I know how Sr. Slim would handle it and I also have a sneaking feeling that I would probably approve, but I'll leave all that to your imaginations.

In a very rare news conference that spanned over four hours, Slim fielded reporters' questions on a whole host of topics. And he saved the best for last. He was asked for his response to charges that he bought Telmex for far less than market value. He challenged reporters to check their facts and their numbers. he claims that he bought Telmex for "16% over market value" at the time.

And then he elaborated just a bit.

"It would be absurd to say that (ex-president) Carlos Salinas and I were in cahoots. If I had been in cahoots with Salinas, I would have only paid 1 billion dollars instead of 8 billion."

WHACK! The old high, hard beanball right to Carlos Salinas' temple.

So, is Carlos Slim Helú a good guy or a bad guy? Neither, or both, depending on your politics. He's a rich businessman who intends to use his skills, influence, money and the law to get richer. Just like every other rich businessman. And just like every other businessman who wishes or dreams he was rich.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Carlos Slim Helu

Oaxaca, Mexico: The aftermath of yesterday's Sección 22/APPO march

2007-03-09T19:01:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, now Thursday since I am late to the post with this post, marked the 10th, or 100th mega-march, I'm not sure which. Attended by some 8000 attendees and participated in by the same 8000 participants, the march was not without incident. The 8000 number is that given by government sources. Sección 22 and APPO are, of course, claiming 800,000. So, we split the difference and call it 8001 marchers.

A group of about 40 "youths" began spray painting houses and businesses along the route. This brought on the first confrontation between teachers and the APPO thugs. While much jawing was taking place, a tour bus happened along. The "youths" attacked the bus with their spray paint. The teachers then stepped forward again to ask that the "youths" desist. The "youths" attacked the teachers with kicks, punches, oranges, rocks, bottles and were now throwing the cans of spray paint. After about 30 minutes, the overwhelming number of teachers managed to drive off the APPO thugs.

APPO is, of course, claiming complete innocence, accusing Governor Ruiz Ortiz of sending the thugs to "stain the teachers peaceful movement". Right.

The teachers, not wishing to now be accused of pacifism, sent a contingent of about 15 gorillas to attack and break into the home of one Pedro Gómez Castillejos, also a teacher as well as a fellow activist. It's just that he's affiliated with Sección 59 rather than Sección 22. Sección 59, if you'll so kindly recall, is the teachers' union that also teaches school. Sección 22 is the teachers union that unionizes, marches, camps out in the zócalo, craps all over the city and state etc. etc.

Profesor Gómez Castillejos was not at home at the time. Probably he was off frittering away valuable protest/march/rock-throwing/spray painting time teaching school somewhere. So the Sección 22 gorillas attacked his wife and sons, instead -- right in their own dining room.

The gorillas first tore down the front gate, then started bashing away at the walls, windows and doors as they forced their way into the house.

"'You are the sons of Castillejos,' they said and they began hammering on the walls of my home," said Mrs. Castillejos (who is also a teacher). "

"They started throwing rocks at me, so many it was like a hailstorm. Thank God I was able to survive that. But look (showing her broken left arm), a teacher hit me with a club."

Now, keep in mind that this assault on a woman and her children took place inside her house. Her son says he recognized one of the attackers, a Profesor José Alberto Sol Techacha.

José Alberto Sol Techacha,
I know a Mayan priest who'd like a word or two with you.
For, ah, cleansing purposes, of course.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Sección 22, Sección 59, APPO

Guatemala City, Guat.: Mayans to "purify" selves after Bush visit; Bush to bathe in hydrochloric acid.

2007-03-09T12:28:00.000-06:00

This is a hoot.

Mayan priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate "bad spirits" after President Bush visits next week, an official with close ties to the group said Thursday.

A spokesman with no official ties whatsoever to the Mayans said that "'spirit guides of the Mayan community' decided it would be necessary to cleanse the sacred site of "bad spirits" after Bush's visit so that their ancestors could rest in peace."

These would be, I would suppose, those self same "spirit guides" who guided the Maya, spiritually speaking, to rip the hearts out of living, screaming victims, then lop off their heads and kick them around in football games.

Bush is going to visit Iximche, which is about 30 miles west of Guatemala City. Iximche (pronounced "kalamazoo" in the Mayan dialect) was the capitol of the Kaqchiqueles kingdom. The Kaqchiqueles (pronounced "Kokomo" in Mayan) were a mighty people whose reign lasted for a whole, uh, 50 years.

And since these morons masquerading as a poor, downtrodden lot whose happy, in tune with nature lifestyle was wrecked by the white man (who couldn't speak English, I might add) have now set themselves up as targets, here come the potshots.

The Maya

They developed a common culture by absorbing and developing elements borrowed from their neighbours.

Hence, the "Mayan culture" is really somebody elses. Kind of like the Chinese.

The aim of this rather limited warfare was to take prisoners. Low status captives generally wound up as slaves to their captor, but high-status captives were scheduled for ritual sacrifice. The deliberate taking of a human life was deemed necessary to sanctify certain ritual occasions, such as the ascendancy to the throne by a new ruler or the dedication of a new building. Naturally the capture of a rival ruler was highly prized, as the sacrifice of the unfortunate individual lent extra importance to the occasion. The usual method of such a sacrifice was decapitation in a public ceremony. Aside from decapitation, the favored method in Postclassic times was a trick acquired from the Mexican cultures to the north, the removal of the heart. Women and children were sacrificed just as often as men The intended victim was stripped and painted blue before being led to a courtyard or temple where the victim would be placed face-up over a convex altar-like stone also painted blue. The arms and legs of the victim were held by specially designated priests while a fourth, called the nacom, would penetrate the victim's chest with a flint knife just below the left breast. Reaching inside the chest cavity, the nacom would pull out the still beating heart and hand it to another priest, who would then smear the blood on that idol to which the sacrifice had been made. If the sacrifice had taken place on the top of a pyramid, the corpse would be thrown to the courtyard below where priests of lower rank would skin the victim except for the hands and feet. The skin would then be worn by the officiating priest who would solemnly dance among the spectators. If the victim had been an especially brave warrior his body might be butchered and eaten by the nobles and other spectators.

A bow and arrow was also used in human sacrifice. The victim was stripped, painted blue and bound to a stake. According to a sixteenth century account, " The foul priest in vestments went up and wounded the victims in parts of shame (the genitals), whether it was a man or woman, and drew blood and came down and anointed the face of the idol with it."

Dancers, all armed with bows and arrows " began one after another to shoot at his heart ... in this manner they made his whole chest ... like a hedgehog of arrows"

A recently discovered painting at Tikal shows a man who has been bound to a stake and disemboweled.

The famous Sacred Cenote (a natural well) located at Chichen-Itza was found to contain numerous skeletons of men, women and children who were sacrificial victims. Bishop de Landa, in the sixteenth century reported: "Into this well they have the custom of throwing Men alive as a sacrifice to the gods in times of drought, and they believed they did not die though they never saw them."

I'm confused. Do they plan to decapitate Bush, rip out his still beating heart and smear the blood on statues of Hugo Chavez or Che Guevara, skin him and march around solemnly whilst wearing his hide, butcher him and eat him, fill his chest with arrows like a pin cushion, toss him into a pond and hope he can't swim, or all of the aforementioned?

Victims had their hearts cut out or were decapitated, shot full of arrows, clawed, sliced to death, stoned, crushed, skinned, buried alive or tossed from the tops of temples.

Children were said to be frequent victims, in part because they were considered pure and unspoiled.

Oh, yeah. Eliminate them nasty Bushco bad spirits.

Human sacrifice was perpetrated on prisoners, slaves, and particularly children, with orphans and illegitimate children specially purchased for the occasion.

But in carvings and mural paintings, he said, "we have now found more and greater similarities between the Aztecs and Mayas,'' including a Maya ceremony in which a grotesquely costumed priest is shown pulling the entrails from a bound and apparently living sacrificial victim.

They prized a long, backward sloping forehead; in order to attain this look, infants would have their skulls bound with boards. Crossed-eyes were an important item of physical beauty; infants would have objects dangled in front of their eyes in order to permanently cross their eyes (this is still practiced today).

Bush should be safe. They'll all be running around in circles trying to catch the guy on the right. "No, your other right!"

This self annointed protector of the "Mayan community", one Juan Tiney, says that the cleansing ceremony must take place because, "That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture." Uh-huh.

Uncontrolled warfare was probably one of the main causes for the Maya's eventual downfall. In the centuries after 250--the start of what is called the Classic period of Maya civilization--the skirmishes that were common among competing city-states escalated into full-fledged, vicious wars that turned the proud cities into ghost towns.

As far as pseudo-Maya Juan Tiney's comment about "ancestors rest in peace:

Much like the Upperworld, the Underworld was divided into nine layers. Each of the layers were ruled by a deity, Lords of the Night. The Underworld was cold, damp, and dark, and was believed to be the destination of most Maya after death.

So Tiney is concerned that his ancestors will rest peacefully in . . . hell?

I love all this "noble savage" crap. When one begins to actually research the histories of all these many "proud civilizations", one realizes that the differences between the European whites and the conquered blacks and browns was merely one of who won and who lost.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Maya

Washington, D.C. Federal Circuit Court: ". . . we conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms."

2007-03-09T11:39:00.000-06:00

The Ruling

To summarize, we conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad). In addition, the right to keep and bear arms had the important and salutary civic purpose of helping to preserve the citizen militia. The civic purpose was also a political expedient for the Federalists in the First Congress as it served, in part, to placate their Antifederalist opponents. The individual right facilitated militia service by ensuring that citizens would not be barred from keeping the arms they would need when called forth for militia duty. Despite the importance of the Second Amendment's civic purpose, however, the activities it protects are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual's enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or intermittent enrollment in the militia.

United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
March 09, 2007.

The ruling was 2-1 with Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Panty Waist Commie Pinko Mary Jane Henderson dissenting. The entire ruling is here.

GUN UP!!!!

Don't piss off Molly.

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Oaxaca, Mexico: Local superstitions zero in on Coke's Zero

2007-03-08T17:18:00.000-06:00

They've just introduced Coca Cola Zero here and already the anti-American lies, half truths, supertstitions, myths and fables have sprouted up. Led, no doubt, by those disaffected, long haired, Birkenstock wearers who used to meet every Tuesday at the Welty institute. That's just up the street from ADO a couple of blocks and across the street from a coffee shop that used to be pretty nice until its service went to hell.

I'm watching you.

Anyway, the rumors and lies are a'flyin'. Rumor has it that Coca Cola Zero has been banned in the USA by the FDA because it is poison. Rumor has it that Coca Cola Zero contains benzene and causes cancer in children. Rumor has it that the mighty Coca Cola Company has decided to unload its massive inventory of Coca Cola Zero syrup on unsuspecting and helpless campesinos in Oaxaca, Mexico.

What a load of crap. None of the above rumors are true. Coca Cola, along with Pepsi and a whole host of smaller bottlers, has been sued many times over the past few years by money grubbing shyster lawyers over benzene content. Let's take a look at that.

Coca Cola products, like those of Pepsi and all the rest, are NOT (NOT) produced with benzene. However, under certain conditions of light, heat or heat and light, Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) and benzoates used in the soft drink recipes can react to form benzene inside the already canned or bottled products. The FDA has, somewhat wearily, taken a look at this issue about a thousand times and all lawsuits not settled by the frightened smaller bottlers have been thrown out of court.

Coke and Pepsi refuse to be cowed by a bunch of John Edwards types who seem, or rather, seemed to think that meritless nuisance lawsuits would cow the 2 big players. Not so, sayeth Coke and Pepsi. In any event, the latest round of ambulance chasers struck back in August and managed to get two small time bottlers to promise to change their recipes and pay $35,000 each towards the legal bills of the fake clients rounded up by the shysters (one was a shyster's next-door neighbor -- "Hey, Bubba. Sign this here dock-yew-munt, will yuh? We be gonna make millions, har, har.").

Coke said, "Call the FDA." The American beverage Association says, "Repeated reviews by the FDA over the years continue to turn up the same answer: there is no threat to the health of consumers." Coke and Pepsi lawyers are as weary of all this as is the FDA and federal judges must be getting just as tired.

However, it is much easier to convince uneducated campesinos in Oaxaca, Mexico to believe that Coca Cola and the CIA, acting under orders directly from George W. Bush, as best he was able to understand the instructions he received from Dick Chaney, who is a mere puppet of the worldwide Jewish cabal and its nefarious, two millenia long attempts to corner the world market on used foreskins, are engaged in a vile conspiracy to once and for all eliminate the Zapotecs from the Oaxaca central valleys area which the Mixtecs, Aztecs, Spanish, PEMEX and the PRI have all been unable to do.

And special agent Mark in Mexico, planted here some years ago in eager anticipation of the massive, approaching death toll, is here to count the bodies.

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Oaxaca, Mexico. Fear and loathing in a private school

2007-03-07T11:29:00.000-06:00

I began to receive emails inquiring into the condition of my condition(s) in light of a lack of serious blogging and reporting over the past couple of weeks. Man, have I got a story for you. It will take me a while to write it, like, maybe, the rest of this week. When it is finished, I'll publish it. Quickly, it concerns the following:

You are all aware by now, I'm sure, of the ongoing train wreck which masquerades as the public education system in Mexico. And I'm also sure that you are all aware that anyone who can beg, borrow, steal or otherwise scrape up the necessary funds to pay for tuition, books, uniforms and other odd and sundry school supplies will do so in order to remove their kids from public schools and get them into private ones. So, I would assume that you would assume that the private schools are much better than the public schools, right?

Not. So. fast.

I just spent two weeks inside one of the larger and one of the oldest and best established private schools in Oaxaca City.

GAG

It would be hilarious if it weren't so sad. I'll tell you about it but it will take some time. Please be patient. It will be worth the wait.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Mexican private schools

Zihuatenejo, Guerrero: Federal forces corner kidnap gang; leader dead, latest victim not found

2007-03-06T19:08:00.000-06:00

I've been to Zihuatenejo numerous times. If you're visiting Ixtapa and want to rent a good offshore fishing charter you have to go to Zihutenejo to find one. It always struck me as a really sleepy little coastal town. You may also remember Zihuatenejo as the dream destination of Morgan Freeman in "The Shawshank Redemption". It is now a prime stop on the "highway of death" which stretches along Guerrero's Pacific coast from Acapulco to Lázaro Cárdenas.

The feds discovered the kidnapping gang lead by Miguel Ángel Valencia Bracamontes was holed up in a "safe house" in Zihuatenejo. As federal, state and local forces surrounded the house early this morning, he opened fire with an AK 47. He's now the late gang leader . . . late, as in dead, DOA, FORD (Found On Road Dead). The feds captured his wife and three other members of the ring.

They did not, however, find Dr. Isidro Olivares, kidnapped on March 1. His family had paid an 800,000 peso ransom but it looks like they'll not be getting him back.

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PEMEX, Tabasco, Mexico: Company pays for clean up of "natural asphalt"

2007-03-06T18:05:00.000-06:00

PEMEX is paying 100 pesos per day to some 108 local citizens to walk Tabasco's gulf beaches and pick up chunks of "natural asphalt" This "naturally occurring asphalt" is really globs of solidified crude oil mixed with sand and some kind of plant identified as "lirio", which could be lily-of-the-valley, iris, water hyacinth or water lily, depending on the dictionary of your choice.

PEMEX insists that the "natural asphalt" comes from "natural asphalt producing sites" over which it has no control. A PEMEX spokesman claims that there are "more than 1000 'naturally occurring natural asphalt producing natural asphalt producing sites' in the Gulf of Mexico" . . . naturally (as opposed, of course, to naturally occurring but non-producing natural asphalt producing sites, I think).

The local head of Profepa (Mexico's environmental watchdog . . . sort of), Ramiro Berrón, apparently immune to multi-million peso bribe offers and death threats, "advised PEMEX that he will continue watching the company's advances in cleaning up the nasty globs even if their source is 'natural'".

Now, I'm fully aware that this might possibly be a truly naturally occurring natural phenomena. However, with PEMEX's almost unbroken record of never telling the truth about anything that might be viewed as unfavorable and its equally sterling record of vastly overstating anything that might be viewed as even remotely favorable, I must agree with Reforma's generous use of quotation marks (" . . . ") as well as quotes inside quotes ("' . . . '").

"Natural asphalt" direct from Route 66's lastest repaving project.

A little neighborhood cleanup of "nature's" oily garbage.

"If you find this, please mail to Ray Nagin, New Orleans, LA, USA"

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Mexico City: 42% of Mexico's prison inmates are innocent

2007-02-25T14:46:00.000-06:00

This is a bit of a shocker. The Open Society Institute, which has conducted studies in over 60 countries, along with Mexico's own Centro de Investigación para el Desarrollo (CIDAC), says that Mexico's prisons are filled, on average, to 130% of capacity with some at 300% of capacity. What's worse, 42% (90,000 inmates) of those in prison in Mexico have never been sentenced. They are legally innocent.

And the reason they've never been sentenced is usually because there is not enough evidence to convict them. So the prosecutors never call their cases. The inmates have no lawyers representing them to force the issue. So they are forgotten.

The OSI says that judges are loathe to release a possibly guilty person, prosecutors are given quotas of jailed persons to fill and police likewise have weekly and monthly quotas. This results, says the OSI, in police and prosecutors going through the paperwork formalities of multiple arrests for basically the same crime. OSI cites as a common example the arrest of someone for armed robbery. Then paperwork is filled out and the person, from behind bars, is arrested again for carrying an illegal weapon.

This results in a judge, or sometimes multiple judges, seeing an inmate in court once for one crime, then sometime later for another crime, instead of hearing all the charges at the same time which resulted from one arrest only. More paperwork, more bureaucracy. It's so bad in the courts, says OCI, that judges cannot physically hear all of the cases assigned to their courts. Because most courts still use typewriters to record proceedings, the proceedings last for hours. Judges end up having secretaries or even unqualified "stand-ins" fill in for them when they are too exhausted to continue holding court.

OSI says that, in spite of the judges', or the stand-ins', reluctance to release possibly guilty persons for lack of evidence, some 40,000 arrested people are released every year for lack of evidence against them. I would assume that this lucky 40,000 all had access to lawyers. For those without resources sufficient to hire lawyers to spring them from trumped up charges, it's just like in Russia -- tough Shishitski.

And inside the prisons life is hell. The prisons, according to OSI, are run by the inmates. Crime inside the prisons is much higher than on the streets. Murder and suicide rates inside the prisons run between 8 and 9 times higher than on the streets.

OSI says that Mexican prisons are "warehouses for human beings where any type of rehabilitation is unthinkable." "They are rife with corruption and lack health and hygiene sufficient for human survival."

The OSI charges that the prison system, "has been used irrationaly and indiscriminately and is a pillar of a crime policy made desperate by a justice system swamped by the crime phenomena and the citizenry's demand for security."

It's the Queen of Hearts approach to crime fighting. "Off with their heads."

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Mexico City, Open Society Institute, CIDAC

Mexico City: "Supercop" dies of cancer -- in prison

2007-02-24T16:52:00.000-06:00

Alberto Pliego Fuentes, once admiringly called "Supercop", has died from cancer. He died in the El Altiplano prison (formerly known as La Palma) where he had been allowed to leave periodically for cancer treatments.

Pliego Fuentes was the policeman who tracked down and finally captured Daniel Arizmendi and the rest of his gang in 1997. Arizmendi, known as "Mochaorejas", was the bloodiest and most feared kidnap gang leader in Mexico and maybe in the world. His nickname means, literally, "ear muncher". He was so named for his proclivity to cut off an ear of his victim and mail it to the family to impress upon them the urgency of his ransom demands. He also would send along other pieces, like fingers and toes, if the family did not immediately pay up. There was a reference to this during the opening credits of the movie "Man On Fire".

In 1992, Pliego Fuentes caught noted kidnapper Andrés Caletri in a Mexico City suburb. Somehow, Caletri got loose. In 2000, Pliego Fuentes also participated, along with other federal forces, in tracking down and capturing Caletri once again, this time in Pinotepa Nacional, Oaxaca.

But, as is so often the case here, he couldn't resist the lure of big money offered by the drug cartel leadership. He was arrested in another Mexico City suburb in February, 2005, and charged with aiding and abetting, in the form of information and protection, the Juarez drug cartel operating in Morelos. Pliego Fuentes was charged with using his position and information he gained to protect Juan José Esparragoza Moreno, "El Azul", one of the principals of the Juarez cartel.

A truly sad end for what had been the spectacularly successful career of a much admired law enforcement officer.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts

Mexico City: 500 police protest corruption and extorsion

2007-02-24T16:32:00.000-06:00

Some 500 state police in Mexico City districts marched in various locations to protest their salaries, lack of training, lack of clearly defined shifts (1st shift is dawn to dusk, 2nd shift is dusk to dawn, 3rd shift is everything in between), and an end to being extorted by their commanders for money. The cops say they have no choice but to extort money from motorists in the form of bribes because they have to pay their superiors for their "rights". Those rights include the privilege to pay their superiors for their rights. Whatever.

This is the oldest story in Mexico. It happens in every police force, in every labor union and in most plants and factories. If you want the good job or the best hours or the prettiest co-workers nearby, yuh gotta pay.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts

Chilpancingo, Guerrero: Louie Louie's gold mine back in business.

2007-02-24T15:02:00.000-06:00

The Luismin gold mine that I wrote about here and here, which has been shut down by a blockade for almost 60 days, is back up and running.

The ejidatarios (small land owners/farmers who don't really own the land and, in any event, are all poorer that the dirt and rocks that comprise said land) have agreed to lift their blockade after an agreement was reached with Louie Louie. Crisóforo Guzmán, "one of the leaders" of the ejidatarios and Eduardo Luna Arellano, Director General of Louie Louie mines, announced the following.

As to the demand of the ejidatarios for an annual payment of 90,000 pesos per year per hectare for some 700 hectares, the two sides agreed to abide by a appraisal of the value of the gold stake vis a vis Luismin's previously negotiated payments to the ejidatarios for "their" land. That appraisal will be made by the local Tribunal Unitario Agrario, or Dept. of Agriculture tribunal. Har.

As to the demands by the ejidatarios for more "public works" to be paid for wholly by the mine owners, the following was promised by the mining company:

1. Any miner who took part in the blockade and was then fired by Luismin will be returned to his job with full back pay.

2. The mining company will finance a computer center

3. The mining company will complete a highway to the village of Carrizalillo

4. The mining company will pay for the purchase and installation of a water tank (I would presume this actually means a water tower) to bring or to pressurize the potable water system to Carrizalillo

5. The mining company will remodel the village's health center

6. The mining company will arrange for a mobile dental health lab to visit weekly

7. The mining company will organize a basketball tournament (Larry Bird and Magic Johnson anxiously await invitations).

Now, this agreement with the ejidatario "leader" would have to be considered shaky, at best, in light of the mining company's project manager's statements of just 2 days ago. Tomás Iturriaga said that the angry ejidatarios were "little representative of the whole". He said that the ones who were blockading his project were only some "30 of 160 ejidatatios". That means that his company has a very tentative agreement with a "leader" who represents less than 19% of the total campesinos affected.

Just like negotiating with the hydra of APPO leadership.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Luismin, APPO

Mexico City: Take a train, drive an automobile, ride a burro. Do NOT fly with a Mexican airline.

2007-02-23T17:43:00.000-06:00

The national carrier Azteca has been given 5 days by a Mexico City judge to get out of Mexcio City International Airport. Azteca, the country's 5th largest national carrier, owes the airport 76 million pesos. The airline owes the airport operator a lot more. The airport's operator, AICM, has filed 11 seperate lawsuits over time against Azteca. This decision only covered 3 of those lawsuits.

The airline also owes the federal government 62 million pesos for fees connected with operating in Mexican airspace. Azteca also owes 15 million pesos for aviation fuel.

So, an airline is in financial trouble. So what? It happens every day, right? Well, listen, or rather, read this: Last December, 18 Aztec pilots, including the company's chief pilot, resigned because the airplanes were not safe to fly.

Azteca Airlines carries 2000 passengers a day. The chief pilot and 17 other company pilots resign because the airplanes aren't safe. The response from the government?

Nada.

Wear a parachute.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Azteca Airlines

Oaxaca, Mexico: downtown small businessmen sue state and federal governments

2007-02-23T17:14:00.000-06:00

Downtown businessmen, that is to say, the small businessmen, have sued Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, President Calderón, the federal tax collectors (Hacienda), the state tax collectors (Finanzas), the federal police (Seguridad Pública), the federal small business loan commission (Crédito Público) and the state police (Protección Ciudadana de Oaxaca) for 200 million pesos in damages suffered during the 7 month teachers strike and APPO uprising. Note that no big business was involved. That's for two reasons. There ain't no big business here, and anyone who considers himself a "big businessman" is in too tight with the political powers-that-be to sue any of them.

The small businessmen are threatening to present evidence that the state government supported the most radical of the insurgents, like Rueda Pacheco of Sección 22 and the Sosas of APPO, and then lost control of them. Hell, we already all knew that. Those of us capable of independent thought knew that. The long-haired-Birkenstock-wearers, of course, continue to maintain purity of thought and action.

Former Governor José Murat Casab used to rent luxury tour buses, at the state's expense, to help the striking teachers leave his zócalo in Oaxaca for the beeeeg one in Mexico City. Both Murat Casab and Ruiz Ortiz bought off the Sosa's with taxi concessions. Both governors bought off the various odd and sundry (and numerous) "campesino" movements with cash, food and other goods and services. This has been going on for years.

It wasn't until current governor Ruiz Ortiz and ex-governor Murat Casab got into a poo slinging contest over just who got theirs the firstest and who got the mostest that all hell broke loose. Social movemment? Nah. A fight over pie slice proportions was all it ever was.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, José Murat Casab

Oaxaca, Mexico: teachers fighting over the schools, fishermen fighting over the fish, SNAFU

2007-02-22T17:47:00.000-06:00

Another normal day passes in Oaxaca. 7000 teachers (according to their numbers, I've yet to see even one) are supposedly camped out in front of various state offices throughout the city, demanding . . . more. What they really want are the 250 schools supposedly still under the control of parents and local politicians who won't let members of the striking Sección 22 back in. What they really, really want are the 2000 schools and 20 alternate teaching sites manned by members of the rival (and non-striking) Sección 59.

The government, now pretty much cowed by the teachers (Sección 22) and wary of another explosion such as occurred from last May through November 25, has managed to wrest 77 of the schools away from the parents and municipal leaders who don't want Sección 22 to return. That leaves about 173 by my count, 198 by Reforma's count, still in the hands of those other than Sección 22 or Sección 59. For its part, the newly formed Sección 59 just wants to hang on to what its got. This group of teachers has not been making any noise about taking over any more schools. They probably should have.

Their leader, Erika Rapp Soto, is now accusing the state government of being so frightened of Sección 22 that it has sent out "brigades", consisting of 2 employess of the state education commission and 2 from the state secretary of state's office. They are, according to Rapp Soto, driving around from occupied school to occupied school, telling the teachers and the parents that their Sección 22-less schools will not be accredited so their kids cannot graduate.

Rapp Soto says this is illegal, but it works. She says the government has managed to get 77 schools freed by the frightened parents so that the lazy, good-for-nothing members of Sección 22, along with their bought and paid for fake diplomas, can re-enter the schools.

Rapp Soto says that the Sección 22 leadership is doing its own dirty work also. She charges that teachers and administrators are withholding records and accreditations for students that willfully attend any school staffed by Sección 59 members.

So, we're back almost to where we started back in May, 2006; teachers camped out in the streets. The question remains, will we end up back where we ended up on November 25, 2006; with war in the streets?

Leaving the blissful environs of the state's classrooms behind, we move on to the tuna war. The fishing fleet out of Puerto Angel arrived back in port yesterday and began unloading wounded fishermen -- 15 in all. They had been shot by members of the "northern tuna fleet." According to boat captains, the Puerto Angel fleet had been having problems for some time with the northern fleet encroaching on their fishing territory.

Yesterday, they ran into about 20 boats from the northern fleet. According to Gener Pineda Cervantes, president of the Oaxaca Fishermen's association, they tried to signal their intentions to hold a meeting to discuss the intrusion by the northern fleet into Oaxaca territory. It was then they were attacked.

Pineda Cervantes says he's taking this fight to Greepeace. "There are dead turtles and bottlenosed dolphins. They are killing off some species like the bonito and salmon, species they are not supposed to catch. They are leaving us with nothing.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Sección 59, Puerto Angel, Greenpeace

Mexico City: Secretary of Defense Galván, "We'll win this fight."

2007-02-20T17:04:00.000-06:00

Mexico's Secretary of Defense, Guillermo Galván:

In no way, never, are they (narco traffickers) going to win this battle. We have a united front composed of all the sections of the executive branch and we are surely already tipping the balance in our favor.

galván, speaking to the senate, warned that "this foght will not be won in a day" and that it might take years to reach the goal of crushing the drug cartels once and for all.

Galván emphasized that law enforcement was approaching ever closer to the bases of the drug cartels, as evidenced by the narco traffickers' violent reactions against civilian government and civil service employees. Those actions included the attempted assassination of a federal deputy in Nuevo Laredo just last night.

PRI deputy Horacio Emigdio Garza Garza was hit by three bullets in the drive-by shooting. His driver / bodyguard was killed. Garza is also a two-term ex-mayor of Nuevo Laredo.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Mexico City, Nuevo Laredo

North Korea: Kim Jong Il orders all Japanese cars confiscated

2007-02-19T12:08:00.000-06:00

North Korea's tin pot dictator, Kim Jong Il, he of elevator shoes and Chia-pet hair, is in a snit at the Japanese. So he ordered all Japanese cars in his wart which he calls a country to be confiscated.

That got me to wondering. What would America's highways look like if George Bush ordered all Japanese cars confiscated?

Like this.

George Bush orders all Japanese cars confiscated!!

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Cross posted at Pale Horse Galleries

TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, [tagname]

Chilpancingo, Guerrero, Mexico: Update on Louie Louies's mine

2007-02-18T14:57:00.000-06:00

For yesterday's post where I mentioned a dispute between ejidatarios (dirt poor campesinos) and a gold mining company called Luismin (Louie Louie's Mine) comes new information. The campesinos, who are blocking the entrances to the mine and have been for some 40 days and 40 nights, are demanding a more just payment from the Louie Louie as well as the reair and reclamation of their damaged land once the mining company has moved on.

The campesinos are demanding 90,000 pesos per hectare per year for rent of the 700 hectareas the mining company is digging up. That is a pretty good chunk of change, be it pesos or whatever. That's a payment of a bit less than 6 million dollars annually for the extraction of gold from about 1400 acres. That does seem a bit excessive.

I cannot determine the value of the gold being extracted nor the cost per ounce to remove it. These numbers are very difficult to check. However, Louie Louie has threatened to pull up stakes and go elswhere unless the campesinos back off. The campesinos did have control of the mine itself, but were forcibly removed on January 20 by police. Now they block ingress and egress. The mining company is claiming a loss of 88 million pesos during the 40 day shutdown.

If that loss represented, say, a 50% profit margin (not unheard of in Mexico when exploiting the land and poor folk), that's a profit of 8 million dollars every 40 dys or, roughly 72 million dollars annually. The campesino's demand for 6 million dollars does not then look so excessive. If, however, the 40 day loss represents a profit potential of 15%, then Louie Louie would be looking a an annual profit of less than 16 million dollars. The 6 million dollars demand by the campesinos would then be usurious.

Since the numbers are almost impossible to pin down, who knows?

The company Luismin is a wholly owned subsidiary of Goldcorp. If you follow that link you can read about the company's wonderful relationship with the surrounding communities and about how 85% of the people view the company favorably and only 9% view it unfavorably. There is no mention of exactly how the process worked whereby the company got mining rights from the government to explore and drill on campesinos' land nor how much, if anything, the campesinos are being paid.

This article says that the campesinos are being paid 800,000 pesos annually, or less than 77,000 dollars. The article goes on the say that Luismin/Goldcorp/Louie Louie's expects to extract some 2 buillion 322 million pesos in gold each year from the land, or about 200 million dollars. At 30% profit, that's 60 million dollars. Again, who knows?

2 + 2 = 5.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Luismin, Goldcorp

Oaxaca, Mexico: Biblical cedars?

2007-02-18T14:23:00.000-06:00

Some people down the street began construction on a new house. Here in Mexico, if you aren't familiar with it, almost all homes are built behind walls. Everybody lives behind a wall. There was a line of nice cedar trees planted down the edge of the sidewalk -- public property -- but they interfered with the new home construction. Or better, they interfered with the construction of the wall which would surround the property.

So, as is quite common here, the people simply cut down 3 of the cedars. Again, publicly owned trees on public property. However, as I was astonished to see, even with no rain since October, the cedars are pulling a Lazarus.

I don't know how this is possible with almost no water whatsoever. The people left only 3 stumps, all about a meter high. And from those three stumps are sprouting new cedar branches.

Here is what the trees looked like before.

This is one of the stumps. See the new sprouts?

Look at these 2 stumps. Completely covered in new sprouts.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, cedar

Chilpancingo, Guerrero, Mexico: Governor seriously ill; struck deaf, dumb and blind.

2007-02-17T12:33:00.000-06:00

"We have been asking for months that Governor Torreblanca meet with us but he neither sees us nor hears us nor listens to us."

That's from Pedro Nava, leader of the Organización de Pueblos y Colonias de Guerrero (OPCG). There are several issues of great urgency to the campesinos but of no particular import to hizzoner. Guerrero is building a dam, La Parota, which will submerse all the campesinos' land with little or no recompense. OPCG would like to discuss that with the governor.

OPCG also comes on behalf of the citizens of Carrizalillo, who want to be paid a fair amount by the gold mine company Luismin (Louie's mine) that is extracting the precious metal from their lands. I think that Luismin is currently paying them something like $0.02 (USD) per 16 tons and what do you get? For the citizens of Carrizalillo, only another day older and deeper in debt.

OPCG says that the governor has had several meetings, all with the mining company.

OPCG is really upset now and promises to demonstrate in front of the governor's office on Monday. The reason they are so upset is that they were promised a meeting yesterday with the governor's secretary. When OPCG representatives arrived at the state house, they were told that the secretaries were all gone for the day, but that the secretaries' "representatives" would meet with them. The OPCG delegates declined to meet with representatives to the secretaries to the governor.

What a bureaucracy, eh? The secretaries to the governor have representatives.

Q: "And what is your job here in the state house, sir?"

A: "I'm a personal representative to a personal secretary to the governor."

Q: "And what does that entail?"

A:" Uh . . . I represent a secretary who secretaries for the governor. What, are you stupid or something?"

Hollywood, USA: Judge agrees with Winnie the Pooh; "Disney don't own me."

2007-02-17T11:44:00.000-06:00

In a court case stretching back over 15 years, the Disney Company was dealt its final setback over the rights to Winnie the Pooh as well as the other A. A. Milne characters from his Christopher Robin children's books. Now Disney faces a monstrous 2 billion dollar lawsuit demanding residual payments from the several gazillion bucks the company has earned from sales of toys, clothing, books and just about everything that you can imagine that has carried Winnie's name and/or likeness.

In dismissing Milne's grandaughters' suit against the Slesinger family, which bought the rights to Pooh et al in 1930 from Milne himself, the judge cranked the Disney company pretty good yes. Disney was not tecnically a party to the suit but had paid all of the Milne grandaughters' legal expenses, no doubt totaling many millions of dollars. Disney is, however, still under the gun for claims by the Slesinger family over the money earned from sales of Pooh stuff, which, in 2006 alone, totaled 6 billion dollars.

The Slesinger family has not had great success in their pursuit of this money but I would think that this latest action by the federal judge can only help them. The family's lawyers just recently filed actions with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office seeking to have Disney's trademark rights to the Pooh canceled. The Slesinger family's claim is that Disney did not have rights to the characters and, therefore, any trademark rights granted to Disney are improper.

This will go on for many more years, I'm afraid. And it has been a dirty fight, so far. A California state court judge sanctioned Disney for destroying millions of pages of evidence. Then another California judge dismissed the Slesinger's suit for royalty payments after discovering that a Slesinger family private investigator, who learned of the ongoing destruction of the records, admitted sifting through Disney's garbage in order to retrieve the records. It seems that neither side can count on victory when dueling judges rule one way one day and another way another day.

However, the Slesinger family's latest broadside will be filed in federal court, not a California state court. That action will seek redress from Disney for breach of contract, copyright infringment and fraudulently underpaying royalties. And the federal courts, up to and including the United States Supreme Court, have been exceedingly kind the the Slesinger family so far.

Don't tell the kids.

See ya, Disney! It's time to pay up.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Winnie-the-Pooh, A. A. Milne, Disney Company

Puebla, Mexico: City mayor perfectly describes Washington politics in his annual speech

2007-02-16T12:39:00.000-06:00

Puebla's Mayor Enrique "The Artful" Doger gave his annual report to his cronies on the city council, yesterday. During his speech, he criticized (and rightfully so) the political atmosphere of

. . . constant problems, artificial conflicts and being held the economic hostage of the state.

Today we live in a situation where political and social life are being made more difficult and are deteriorating. We're being taught a lesson in the use of force and power, of blackmail, of using the lie as method, of causing problems and scandals when the people are demanding results through effort and coordination.

Wow. He just described the Congress to a tee. Oh, wait, he was talking about Puebla City versus Puebla state. I thought he was describing the Democrat party in the House and Senate. You know, "the loyal opposition".

As if to punctuate the mayor's remarks, a group of 25 protesters began shouting epithets at him while unfurling banners decrying a lack of public works in four different municipalities bordering the city. He stepped back from the podium and diplomatically asked them to hold it down until he could finish his speech and he would "attend to them".

Instead, the rabble cranked up the volume to the degree that security officers had to move to them. Then a press photographer took a picture of the protesters and got slapped by one of them. Then all heck broke loose with protesters, photographers and security officers pushing, shoving, slapping and punching each other. Doger, ever the artful one, continued with his speech.

What probably happened here was this. These protesters were a little gift from the state's governor. Doger and the governor of Puebla state have been at odds since Doger took office. While that may seem strange, what with both of them being PRI stalwarts, there is a big difference between the two. Mario Marín, the governor, is a slimy sleezeball (allegedly) and accused murderer (allegedly) from the old school of PRI politics. He's a long time PRI apparatchick from the streets who used murder (allegedly), extorsion (allegedly), blackmail (allegedly) and bribes (indubitably) to ascend to his current lofty position. He's also an ex-mayor of Puebla City. He slimed his way into the governor's chair and is now busy stealing (allegedly) everything not securely bolted down.

Doger, however, is the former rector of the big Puebla University, -- UAP (pronounced, I kid you not, "wop".) He's fairly young, smart, and a corrupt Mexican politician of the more modern variety. He'd fit right in in Washington, Boston, Philly, Chicago, LA, San Francisco etc. etc.. Hence, his style clashes with Marín's lack thereof. Marín is a street thug whereas Doger is a wielder of the scalpel.

Case in point: Two years ago or so an investigative reporter in Cancún named Lydia Cacho wrote a book in which she described a ring of pedophiles operating in the resort. She said that the ring's membership was made up of some very wealthy and well known Mexicans and she named names. One of those guys, Jean Succar Kuri, is now cooling his heels in jail while two underage girls wait to testify about his sexual proclivitities towards little girls, aged 6-14.

Cacho also named as a member of the ring a big shot in Puebla, one Kamel Nacif, also known as "The King of Bluejeans". Nacif got pissed and called his buddy, Governor Marín. Someone, no one knows who or why, taped the conversation. It is suspected that the AFI (kind of like our FBI) was either tapping Nacif's phone or the governor's phones, or all the phones. In any event the phone call was released to the press by person or persons unknown.

The taped conversation has made Marín the laughingstock of the country, which is saying a lot because the country is jamb packed with laughingstocks. In the phone call, Nacif is thanking Marín for a big favor, says he'll send him two bottles of the very finest cognac, and addresses Governor Marín as "Mí gober precioso," -- "My precious little gov," -- if you hadn't figured that out already. Well, "Mí gober precioso" has now appeared about 10 million times in print media, signs, banners, on TV and everywhere else you can imagine, all to the chagrin of the gober precioso.

And what was this big favor that accused pedophile Nacif was calling to give thanks for? He apparently was so incensed with Lydia Cacho's accusations that he called upon his gober precioso to do something about it. Now remember, Cacho is in Cancún, state of Quintana Roo, several hundred miles and several states away from Mario Marín, governor of Puebla. Not a job too challenging for an old time street thug like Marín, however.

He simply called upon a friendly local judge to issue an arrest warrant for the journalist. Then he dispatched two carloads of Puebla police officers across several states to visit the condo of Lydia Cacho, in Cancún in the middle of the night. They arrested her, illegally as hell, and dragged her back to Puebla. Hence the slobbering phone call of thanks from accused pedophile Kamil Nacif to street thug Governor Mario Marín.

That is tantamount to the governor of Missouri sending Missouri State Police officers, in the dark of night, across several states to Ohio, and arresting a citizen of Ohio and dragging said citizen back to Missouri. You can't do that, even in Mexico.

Bad move all around. Not only does the tape get released, but Lydia Cacho had a whole lot of evidence, like video tapes of sex parties with little girls, gynaecologists reports of the physical damage to the children and still photos of the goings on as well as dozens of witnesses tucked away. All this in anticipation that her book would cause just such a reaction from the pedophiles and their corrupt politician/fellow pedophile friends.

Lydia's lawyers managed to get her out of the Puebla jail on bail before she could be murdered. The charges against her were "defamation of character". It took a year for her lawyers to get those charges dropped. Here is how that went down and it is an interesting study in Mexican "justice". After the taped phone conversation turned this into a national cause celebre, the bought-off Puebla judge who issued the illegal arrest warrant suddenly declared "not my jurisdiction". Then she resigned.

Nacif pressed the same charges in Quintana Roo, but a very wise judge there, that is, one who was reading the newspapers, said that the book was published in Mexico City, therefore the alleged crime of defamation did not occur in his state, hence, no jurisdiction either, or also, or whatever. So Nacif, still dumb to the mountain of bad publicity beginning to descend upon his head, pressed charges in Mexico City. Before he could do that, however, the Mexico City government threw out its defamation laws as far as journalists are concerned. So, one year after her original illegal arrest and transport across state lines, a Mexico City judge threw out the charges because defamation is not a crime in Mexico City.

Now, the Puebla judge who issued a clearly illegal arrest warrant has resigned in disgrace, Kamel Nacif is frantically trying to stay out of jail, several dozen other pedophiles are fleeing the country or hiding under their beds and Mario Marín is defending himself in the Supreme Court on charges of official misconduct. If the court finds him guilty, an iffy proposition at best, his political career is over and he might well end up in jail. And Lydia Cacho, released from her illegal incarceration, is busy helping federal prosecutors put several people away for a long time.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Puebla, Mexico, Enrique Doger, Mario Marín, Lydia Cacho, Kamel Nacif, The king of bluejeans, Jean Succar Kuri

Huatulco, Oaxaca, Mexico: Do not drink the water II; Because it's ours

2007-02-15T14:02:00.000-06:00

Remember "Do not drink the water!, where I wrote about the water company's monopoly? Where the water company drills water wells right next to contaminated rivers and streams and then supplies water to the cities and towns which is contaminated with fecal coliform and heavy metals? And about how the water company won't allow cities, towns and villages which are sitting on or near clean water supplies to tap into those supplies?

Wait, IT'S EVEN WORSE THAN THAT!

How about a newly drilled government water well that has supplied nothing but mud since it began operation?

Wait, IT'S EVEN WORSE THAN THAT!

How about a newly built water treatment plant put in operation to treat the water (mud) from the new government-operated well which only lasted for 25 days before the equipment all went kaput because of the mud?

Wait, IT'S EVEN WORSE THAN THAT!

How about the state's governor and other members of the hoi polloi dedicating the aforementioned mud-producing water well and soon-to-be-kaput water treatment plant in a big public "Look-what-we-did-for-you-today?-vote-PRI-early-vote-PRI-often ceremony, 25 days after which the water treatment plant went, "Phhhhtttt"?

Wait, IT'S EVEN WORSE THAN THAT!

How about the local people, using donated brick, tools and labor, digging, entirely by hand, their own water well because their neighborhoods had not a drop to drink? Then when the city discovered that nice, clear, somewhat clean and somewhat drinkable water was being produced by a well dug, entirely by hand, by simple folk who just needed water in their homes, sending in work crews to begin laying pipe to divert the water from the neighborhood well away to other neighborhoods?

Wait, IT'S EVEN WORSE THAN THAT!

How about Huatulco's mayor, José Humberto Cruz Ramos, fresh from appearing alongside the governor at the dedication of the mud-producing government water well and soon-to-be-in-25-days-kaput water treatment plant, decreeing that the water producing water well, dug entirely by hand with donated labor, tools and bricks, should be named in hizzoner's honor?

Wait, because it may get worse even yet.

The citizens who live in the colonia El Crucero 20 de Noviembre weren't taking this lying down. They attacked the work crews laying the water pipe and chased them away. They now stand guard over their precious water-producing water well 24/7 to protect it from . . . their own city government.

And why can't we reach some accord here? A little cooperation? A little go along to get along? It's the politics of revenge. The inhabitants of El Crucero 20 de Noviembre vote predominantly PRD. The mayor is PRI. The governor is PRI. Now, to be honest, a lot of money was thrown away by the incompetent PRI government on a mud-producing well for the PRD neighborhood as well as the 25 day water treatment plant wonder, and the governor did arrive to dedicate the mud . . er . . . water well. But as soon as he left and the government's failures became obvious, the local political hacks stepped in and the fun began.

As I write this, the citizens of colonia Crucero 20 de Noviembre, joined now by neighboring colonia Fraccionamiento el Zapote, face off 24/7 against city police with violence to soon ensue.

Does one wonder why it is so easy for politically corrupt "people's leaders" to get otherwise honest, hard working folk to march in the streets, burn buses, assault unarmed traffic cops and spray paint a 500 year-old city?

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Huatulco, Oaxaca

Madeira Beach, Florida: It ain't just Mexico, folks.

2007-02-14T11:13:00.000-06:00

Readers, especially those who either haven't been around long or who haven't had time to browse my archives, may think that I think that corruption, hanky de pankies, hornswoggling, flim-flamming and cork-screwing are limited to Mexico -- and Venezuela -- and Cuber -- and Bolivia. It just ain't so.

When was the last time you sat down in a US restaurant, especially a Florida restaurant, to a dinner of "fresh Gulf grouper"? Chances are it wasn't grouper at all. This article lays out how diners, restaurants and even multi-million dollar seafood distributors are being defrauded by mislabled fish -- fish filets labeled as Gulf grouper but actually something else. And sometimes that something else is laden with salmonella and carcinogenic fungicides. And sometimes that something else cannot even be identified by laboratories and fish scientists (ichthyologists).

Asian farm-raised catfish, emperor fish, painted sweetlips (what the hell is that?), tilapia and green weakfish (or weak greenfish, I'm not too sure) were fish species identified from samples served at Florida restaurants, all of which thought they were serving Gulf grouper.

So as to avoid confusion in the future as well as fishy fraud, I'll show you what all these fish look like before being fileted.

Gulf Grouper - the real thing

Painted Sweetlips - I think

Emperor fish - sometimes swim with grouper

Tilapia

Self explanatory

Cheap-ass Asian catfish

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Gulf grouper

Cancún, Quintana Roo, Mexico: The woven web becomes more tangled.

2007-02-13T12:37:00.000-06:00

This article caught my eye and I read it, did a little Google action on it which led to more links which led to, well, you know the drill. It concerns one Jesús Argüelles Mandujano, aka Felipe de Jesús Argüelles Mandujano, aka "El Rayo", former Chief of Police of Cancún.

In November of 2003, 5 agents of the AFI (kind of like our FBI) were executed in Cancún. In December of 2004, just over 1 year later, Chief of Police Argüelles Mandujano -- "El Rayo" -- along with some other city, state and federal officials, were taken into custody and sent off to a federal prison in Mexico state. Their arrests were propogated based on information obtained from four "protected witnesses", known by code names as "María", "Rosendo", "Arturo" and "Samantha". The first three appeared in court yesterday in a "careo" against ex-chief Argüelles Mandujano who had just been flown back to Cancún to face a criminal court judge. I don't know what happened to "Samantha".

A "careo" is, literally, a face-to-face confrontation between an accused and his/her accuser(s) in front of a judge. The judge gets to use this faceoff as a means to determine which side is most likely telling the truth. These "careos" are a good reason why sex crimes go unreported here or, if reported, un-prosecuted. A lady knows she is going to have to face her attacker, in close proximity, in front of a judge who has the power to declare the accused innocent on the spot, depending upon how much the judge has been paid by the lawyer and family of the accused, and allow him to walk out of the courtroom along with his accuser. An uncomfortable thought for most ladies, I'm sure.

In any event, I Googled 'ol Jesús, or Felipe de Jesús, or "El Rayo" and guess whose name also popped up? Remember this guy?

That's right, it's Raúl Luis Martins Coggiola, pimp king of Cancun

Three months ago, the Cancún offices of the daily Por Esto!, out of Mérida, Yucatan, were bombed, or rather, hand-grenaded. Por Esto! says that it was the work of Martíns and a group of narco traffickers known as "Grupo Tabasco". The daily charges that the bombing was planned in Martíns night club/whorehouse "The One" and carried out by Martíns personal chief of security, one "Edgar", aka "La Guacha". The newspaper further alleges that Martíns helped Edgar, La Guacha, escape Cancún on the night of the bombing and moved him to the USA where he is currently in hiding. Calling all CIA and DEA!!

But, oh my, the newpaper doesn't stop there. Por Esto! says that its facility in Cancún was bombed because the newspaper has in its possession documents and a list of local businessmen and politicians who have been benefiting from drug proceeds by laundering the money through their hotels, restaurants, night clubs, tourist docks and piers, salons, boutiques etc..

And who handles all that cash -- we're talking tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of Yankee dollars here? Why, our old buddy, pimp Raúl Martíns. Need a gigantic loan that a bank won't touch? See Raúl at The One. Need a politician or group of politicians bought off and you're just a bit short of the necessary cash? See Raúl at The One. Or, on the other hand, if you've got a dozen suitcases stuffed with several millions in hundred dollar bills and need someplace to "invest" it all, see Raúl at The One. "We washee weely kleen."

Grupo Tabasco, according to Por Esto!, is headed by Clemente Soto Peña aka "Jesús Canchola" and Joel Montoya Félix aka "El JR". These guys, along with Edgar "El Guacho", make their money dealing cocaine out of some 600 drug houses throughout Cancún and Quintana Roo's gold coast. In other words, they cater to tourists as well as rich Mexicans who have homes, villas and condos in the area. This is the high end retail end of the drug business in Mexico.

The newspaper charges that former governor Joaquin Hendricks "covered up" the formation of Grupo Tabasco during his reign. It is alleged that "El Rayo", now on trial for the murder of the 5 AFI agents, became chief of police after working his way up through the ranks by means of murder. This gave Grupo Tabasco control of the police force in Cancún and carte blanche for both their drug distribution/sales operations as well as the money laundering operation which was spearheaded by Martíns along with his businessmen and politician buddies.

A retired Mexican army colonel managed to get himself appointed chief if staff of the local police force. What he found horrified him. He went public with the information that he personally knew of at least 167 drug houses in Cancún. He further stated that "organized crime in Cancún is a 'floating business' that changes location all the time." Col. Wilfrido Flores Saucedo and his bodyguard, Alejandro Morales Xicoténcatl, were found machine-gunned to death in their car last June in downtown Cancún.

Add into the mix the secret videos that Martíns is known to have made of local businessmen and politicians playing with Martíns imported Argentine beauties, bombed Jewish social centers and Israeli embassies in Argentina, and it's a real cesspool. By "secret videos" I mean that one doesn't know they exist until one refuses to go along with some sleazy scheme or another. Then, out pops the weasel. And one usually just decides to go along so as to, uh, get along.

Por Esto! charges that the bombing of its Cancún offices was planned during a meeting in The One by Martíns, "El JR", "Jesús Canchola", "El Guacho" and a guy named Mariano Galué Ancona, an ex-assistant police chief to "El Rayo". Now, how do you suppose that the newspaper Por Esto! would come by all of that information? The girls are talkin', Raul, and they'll burn you yet.

We hope.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Cancun Mexico, Raul Martins, Joaquin Hendricks

Oaxaca, Mexico: Do not drink the water!

2007-02-13T10:37:00.000-06:00

A city official, the Regidor de Contraloría (comptroller) warned residents that the city's water supplies are of "low quality and, furthermore, contaminated by fecal coliform." Yuuck. No link provided because this is from yesterday's print editions.

Diego Marcos Ortiz Silva was interviewed in his office in City Hall, where he said that the drilling of water wells in close proximity to the rivers and creeks guaranteed that the water delivered to the city would be contaminated. He said that the rivers and streams had been contaminated "for decades with raw sewege, trash, garbage, dead animals, waste oil and heavy metals."

Ortiz Silva accused the water company, ADOSAPACO (don't ask) of failing to test water supplies before drilling the wells. He claims that the state-owned water company prefers to maintain its monopoly on the city's water supplies rather than allow many municipalities and colonias to find their own water. In other words, the water monopoly is supplying contaminated water to communities which are sitting on or near clean water supplies but are not allowed to tap those supplies.

The Comptroller pointed out that the majority of people in the city lack resources sufficient to buy bottled water, so they must drink it from the tap. And it is poison.

Now, if this happened in any civilized country, there would be a water emergency declared. The city, state and federal governments would swing into action to haul in supplies of clean drinking water. Engineers and scientists would be called in to go to work to clean up the water supply so that it no longer would cause the people to sicken and die.

But not here. Here, a city official bitches about it and the newspaper prints it and nobody else really gives a shit so nothing will be done, at least in our lifetimes. Lifetimes that will be considerably shorter if we drink the water.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, fecal coliform

Oaxaca, Mexico: Oaxaca's observatory vandalized and abandoned

2007-02-12T18:45:00.000-06:00

Yet another victim of the violence that wracked the city and state from May through the 25th of November is the vandalized and heavily damaged observatory, officially known as the Observatorio Astronomico Canuto Muñoz Mares, located, I think, atop the Cerro de Fortin - the big hill you probably drive around on the northwest corner of the city. This observatory, or at least the telescope therin, was a gift from the city of Palo Alto, California in 1972.

The observatory was attacked, vandalized and stripped of anything that could be carried away at the same time that the Guelaguetza amphitheater was vandalized and burned. According to the Oaxaca daily El Imparcial,

The vandalism and sacking of the observatory by the teachers and other political groups that participated in last year's conflict jsut about destroyed it completely, says the Society (Sociedad Astronómica de Oaxaca), and the city governmet has taken no action to retore it.

Now, the competing daiy, Noticias, which is the virulently anti-government print voice of APPO and the striking teachers and which just could not bring itself to denounce the violence against innocent citizens and institutions, played this just a bit more discreetly. Noticias says,

The lenses and telescopes were the most expensive items lost during the socio-political conflict through which Oaxaca lived.

Noticias says that the director of the city's social development said that "deterioration was inevitable" (meaning it was caused by age) and that he didn't know the total cost of the "sacked" components, broken windows, smashed doors, lost files, etc.

Noticias also immediately changes the subject to two other locales which are in need of repair/restoration due to being abandoned by, er, everybody. Those are another observatory and a library which nobody has ever heard of and probably never will.

Noticias reports the city official as saying that the observatory restoration is well on its way, is 90% complete and should be finished in "a month to a month and a half."

That's not what the director of the Astronomical Society told El Imparcial. He says that the society has just now solicited the city council to do something about the observatory to save it and that the director of social development still has to get a budget approved. So, who to believe?

Newspaper War!!!

I don't believe anything I read in Noticias but you make your own decisions.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Oaxaca observatory

Abraham Lincoln: Happy Birthday!

2007-02-12T11:51:00.000-06:00

The Big Trunk (Scott Johnson) at Powerline reminds us to remember the man on his birthday.

Lincoln's words of wisdom, preserved for us in a myriad of sources as quotations, are too numerous to list here. My favorites, however, are:

If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.

Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

This for the Mexican governors, the state and federal legislatures, the judges and the police:

Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.

And, finally, for our friends in APPO and Sección 22:

There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.

Mexico City: Felipe Calderón vows, "We won't surrender" to narco violence.

2007-02-11T15:38:00.000-06:00

In a speech at an Air Force base, Mexican President Felipe Calderon answered both the weepy hand wringers as well as Mexican organized crime. And he did so in no uncertain terms.

We will not surrender, neither to threats nor to overt attacks against the security of all Mexicans.

While organized crime's actions against society may be becoming more violent, the response by all three levels of government (local, state, federal), the armed forces and by society itself will become more implacable.

We will neither offer truce nor safe harbor to the enemies of Mexico. This is a fight that we will win if, among all Mexicans, we continue to join forces and solidify our energy, our talent and our will.

The president asked for the help, understanding and patience of the Mexican people, local governments, all political parties, the press, and the Church, because, he emphasized, this subject (organized crime) is of the utmost importance to the nation.

The president mentioned the church in particular perhaps in response to the Bishop of the Diocese of Chilpancingo-Chilapa (Guerrero - one of Mexico's most violent states), Alejo Zavala Castro. He sniffled that "More police and weapons are not going to solve the narco-terrorism problem. You've got to give the people more economic opportunities."

Right. Calderón will immediately inaugurate programs whereby grade school dropouts can earn a million bucks a week, pay no taxes, cruise around in limousines and yachts and watch all the competition get gunned down in the streets. Programs like that are just a dime a dozen, there, Bishop.

Oh, and the Bishop also declared that he and his flocks have been diligently praying for, er, what, I'm not exactly sure. I would presume that the Bishop's most heart-felt prayers have been going out to all those who have only recently stopped a bullet or 30.

Mexico's Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera believes in being a lot more practical. After Calderóns call yesterday for the support of the country, Cardinal Rivera Carrera responded during his Mass this morning. He said that the president's call to arms was "very opportune" and that "all Mexicans have something to contribute."

He said that the fight was not that of the State nor the government alone, but had to start within each family "because that's where the problems originate, where there is a lack of values." OK, I'll buy into that much, your Eminence.

Later, at a news conference, he added that the government, all institutions (including, presumably, the Church) and all the citizenry had the duty to join forces against "this cancer of narco traffickers." That's better yet, your Eminence!

Cardinal Rivera Carrera: "I'll whack 'em with my stick.
It's really heavy. It's 24 ct. gold. It'll hurt a lot."

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Felipe Calderón, Cardinal Noriberto Rivera Carrera, narcotraficantes

Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico: More on porn, phone porn, this time

2007-02-11T15:24:00.000-06:00

Horacio López, sub-director of Colegio de Bachilleres 43 ( a bachiller is kind of a college prep high school), announced that cell phones would be banned from the school's campus. He said that for several days last week teachers and school officials noticed that students were passing a file around over their cell phones.

A teacher snatched a phone and was horrified to find that a porno video was the reason of all the activity. Some number of phones were confiscated and all others have been banned from the school. Parents were notified to "watch their children closely to assure the kids were using cell phones as well as other audio and video equipment solely for school work". Right.

Colegio de Bachilleres 43 must be a prep school for future municipal employees destined for jobs in Guanajuato.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico, high school pornography

Uriangato, Guanajuato, Mexico: Busted with porn!

2007-02-11T14:51:00.000-06:00

The mayor of Uriangato, suspecting that some hanky de pankies were occurring on his watch, pulled a surprise computer inspection throughout Uriangato municipal offices. Guess what he found? Here, I'll let Mayor Carlos Guzmán tell it:

"More files of photos of naked women and sex acts were found than official government files or projects."

"Everything from nude men to nude women to sex acts were found."

Among those busted in the surprise porno inspection were the municipal Director of Economy, Enrique Patiño; the Director of Public Works, Felipe de Jesús Mora; and the Director of the Property Title Office, Joaquín Mora. 17 other municipal officials were likewise ensnared.

The mayor will dock the 20 officials' paychecks 2 weeks pay for the infractions. He threatened to fire anyone caught a second time. He told the city council:

"We're not going to spend the municipal government's work time and computer equipment on immoral activities."

"This could be considered as the illegal diversion of funds and materials for personal use."

"Watching porno is not the work of a city employee and they should be ashamed to collect their salaries while failing to perform the duties which they were assigned."

The 20 municipal porno monitors had no comment for the press.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Uriangato, Guanajuato, Mexico, pornography

Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico: Calderón calls in the Mounties while incompetent, corrupt, local officials whine.

2007-02-10T19:21:00.000-06:00

On 8 January, a Canadian citizen, one Adamo de Prisco, died in the middle of Avenida Escénica in Acapulco when he was run over by a car. Acapulco police officials ruled it an unfortunate accident. This in spite of a host of eyewitnesses who claimed that de Prisco was first savagely beaten inside the discotheque Mandara by club employees. Those witnesses told investigating officers that de Prisco managed to get away, then fled out the door into the street where he was subsequently squashed by a passing automobile.

All of that beating and fleeing stuff was too messy for Acapulco police to deal with, so they shoveled it under the rug and declared, "accidental death, nos sentimos muchísimos." Federal authorities were not in quite such a hurry to get back to that week's edition of Juana La Cubana on channel 9, however.

The feds, led by, as you may recall, their commander-in-chief, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, were just a bit too busy rounding up drug cartel capos, triggermen and money cleaners and shipping them off to the USA to disappear forever into the gaping maw of the federal prison system, to take direct action. So, they did the next best thing. They invited the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to come to Acapulco and conduct their own investigation.

RCMP Capt. Edward Nelson bids adieu to his girlfriend,
Donnie MacJeanne, as he takes leave for Acapulco.

WHOA!! That pissed off state and local authorities who thought they had cleverly solved and closed the case. The Guerrero state governor, Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo, managed to remain relatively calm as he said that the decision to call in the Mounties was a federal decision and he would welcome the presence of the Mounties with "appreciation", eh. Right, eh.

One of his flunkies, the city's director of tourism, was not nearly so restrained in voicing his opinion. Said an outraged Miguel Angel Elías Aguirre while quaking at the thought that a tourist's death was caused by hired dance hall gorillas, spit,

"I don't like what has happened because it is the jurisdiction of the Mexican government. I would like that the competent authority release its official report."

See, Miguel Angel, that there is the problem. The competent authorities are, er, not competent. But the Mounties certainly are.

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TAGS: Oaxaca, Mexico, Oaxaca teachers strike, Pale Horse Galleries, gifts, collectibles, Mexican arts and crafts, Acapulco, Mexico, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Felipe Calderón

Lansing, Michigan: Gov. Granholm to release 5000 criminals because she's not "mad at them" anymore.

2007-02-09T18:41:00.000-06:00

PARTEEE!

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, already riding the crest of unpopularity in her state, has proposed releasing 5000 parole-eligible prison inmates, er, immediately. State Corrrections Commissioner Patricia Caruso says,

We need to decide who we're afraid of and who we're mad at.

We need to be sure the people we're afraid of are locked up. Are we mad enough to spend an average of $33,000 a year to lock them up until they die or until they finish every last day of their sentence?

Note that Michigan is a matriarchal society. Other examples of matriarchal societies would be the US House of Representives as well as hyena clans, but I repeat myself.

Charles Manson sings,
"Slide, ride, fly to Michigan
Stomp, romp, hop to Michigan"

Manson has been eligible for parole sine 1978. Under Granholm's grand plan, he would have been loose on the streets for the past 29 years. Think about that.

Manson, imprisoned, unfortunately, in California back when they could get a conviction there, described Governor Granholm and the other Michigan matriarchs quite well during his 1998 parole hearing:

So don't blame me and say I'm taking over your minds,
because you didn't have any to start with.