Links and Minifeatures 02 04 Saturday

Just got a search where the search was "negative ARM loan explained in Spanish" Interestingly enough, the question itself was in english. Well, I'm certain somebody has articles in spanish, but my spanish is weak enough that I do not trust myself to translate. On the other hand, I'm going to post a Useful Tip for those who don't know. Alta Vista has a free service called Babel Fish (From the original Hitchhiker's Guide radio program. Early internet had a very high concentration of science fiction geeks like me) that will translate a web page (cut and paste the URL) or up to 150 words ad hoc at a time. Actually, it used to be unlimited but I see why they've cut down. They're pretty good but they do have their breakdowns, so be wary of "My hovercraft is full of eels," or "My uncle is sick but the highway is green," type stuff. One of the things about the old listservs was that pretty soon everyone learned a lot of tricks and resources, and I thought I'd pass this one on. I also added it to the "Other Resources" roll to the right. If you have any to pass on to me, I'd love to get them.

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Digger's Realm has an article on the Mexican military covering drug smugglers, opening fire on US law enforcement, and personally threatening them and their families.



Black Jack Pershing, call your office.



This needs to get dealt with. Have Condi summon their ambassador and say "We want those responsible caught, tried, and punished. You have two weeks to make the arrests. If your military attempts to frustrate our border guardians again in any way shape or form, it will be treated as an act of war. Frankly, Mr. Ambassador, we both know to the last centavo how corrupt your government is at all levels and what a favor we would be doing the Mexican people by adding 31 new states to our union. The people of Mexico are worthy of better, and if they didn't have such a shortsighted group of kleptocrats leading them, they would be a world economic power in the same league as the United States. Thus far, it has not been our responsibility or worth our trouble to deal with the problem, but on top of everything else we have to deal with because of your incompetence for the last ten generations, this is too much. Our patience is at an end. Either start acting like a responsible democratic government, or face the consequences, and nobody with a Mexican government job from dogcatcher on up will ever be allowed to work in a government job again. That is all. Dismissed."



Discuss. I thought Vicente Fox and PAN might be the start of real change for Mexico, but it has become more obvious to me since that PRI, PRD, and PAN are all the same stuff from nearly identical outhouses.



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HT to Argghhh! for a pointer to a beautiful column Farewell to the Fallen.



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Armies of Liberation has the scoop on 23 Al Qaeda members who just happened to escape as the trial for the Cole bombers begins.



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Inside Larry's Head has some arabic cartoons about jews that put the lie to any need for concerns as to their religious sensitivities.



Compared to these, the infamous danish cartoons are a paean to sensitivity. So mild as to not be worth mentioning



So what's it like having the illusion of the shoe on the other foot? I can only observe that everyone else has already demonstrated at least a million times more sensitivity towards Muslims as they have towards other religions. Your religion and your faith have got to be laughably weak and childish not to be able to handle it.



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Family in town for the weekend so if I don't post any more, you know why. There are articles waiting to go tomorrow morning and Monday.