Death of a City

You know all you need to know about Texas -- that big braggart of a state where everyone goes around armed with a handgun, threatening peaceable citizens, and shooting up the town every boozy Saturday night.

And you know all about Mexico, that gentle southern neighbor where disarmed peasants go humbly around, doffing their sombreros to the damas, smiling "manana, senor," and donating their pitifully few small pieces of silver for a new bell for  Santa Maria's Cathedral.

Ahem. It isn't the guns. It is the politicians.


Massacres, beheadings, YouTube videos featuring cartel torture sessions and even car bombs are becoming commonplace in Juarez, where more than 3,000 people were killed in 2010, according to the federal government, making it among the most dangerous places on earth.


El Paso, by contrast, has had three violent deaths — and one was a murder-suicide.

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The piece concentrates on citizens'  flight from a city I once loved.  It's the drug violence, of course, but the most frightening and revealing passage is about the federales' effort to figure out just how many Juarez people have fled.

Now, the Mexican army and federal authorities are going door-to-door, conducting an emergency census to determine just how many residents have fled.

Many people, however, refuse to answer their questions for fear authorities are simply collecting information about neighborhoods so they can begin extorting residents — just like the drug gangs.

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Mexico is a failed country because it has been corruptly governed since September 16, 1810, and because its people have no tradition of standing tall and telling its dictators du jour to go the Hell. And because of the "war on drugs"  --  lost the instant it was declared.  When unworkable and unenforceable laws create a market so skewed that drugs easily command 100 times their pharmaceutical costs, the war lords are in control. No level of horribly expensive DEA macho can alter that.

RTWT, if you please.
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EDIT: Link fixed -- to AOL reprint of disappearing AP original. Thank you, Billll

Home to The Big Chill

The kids and their kids treated me to a fine Christmas celebration over on the river. The weather for the 340-mile drive home wasn't nearly so accommodating, but at least it was diverse, beginning with rain, then fog, then sleet,  then snow. Sort of a mishmash including the worst of everything.  (Think Obamacare, here.)

So the trip took a little longer than usual, but the real shocker came when I opened the living room door. It felt chilly. A  thermometer check revealed 31 degrees. Some dumdum had set the thermostat on the new electric heater a little too low.  The good news is that the water didn't freeze, and that's a big bullet dodged. An armload of dry oak soon produced a comfy 75.

A standout gift came from a lad named Ryan who wrapped a surplus ammo can for me.  As one of the revelers said, "He knows his grandpa." I was touched and promised the boy I would use it  only for .45ACP, never desecrating it with a less noble caliber.

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Onward and upward tin 2011. May you thrive. May we all survive to heap another year of scorn on the statists of the right and the statists of the left.

Sarah Palin Really Can't Spell

She typed it refudiate.

She meant refeudiate, of course.

As in: "In 1941 we had to refeudiate with the Germans."

A little while ago I wrote about $4 bacon. Looks like I understated the case. As bad as 2010 is, next year looks worse for the two basic food groups, i.e., (1) bacon and (2) everything lese.

More government-mandated and subsidized corn likker is going into our Suburbans and Lexi.  That makes corn dearer. Right now it's trading at an amazing $6+ a bushel. That means it is harder for pig farmers to make a buck. That means they're not so anxious to raise pigs. That means fewer critters on the market. That means higher-priced pig parts.

No such post would be complete without a reminder that the Washington payday loan office operated by Bernanke and Geithner plays a leading role in this stunning remake of that movie classic, "March to Weimar."
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