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Mexico is becoming a narco-state.  The Small Wars Journal brings the coverage.

Mexico is under siege, and the barbarians are dangerously close to breaching the castle walls. Responding to President Felipe Calderon’s latest drug crackdown, an army of drug cartels has launched a vicious criminal insurgency against the Mexican state. So far, the conflict has killed over 1,400 Mexicans, 500 of them law enforcement officers. No longer fearing retaliation, cartel gunmen assault soldier and high-ranking federale alike. The criminal threat is not only a threat to public order but to the state. A top-ranking Mexican intelligence official has noted in interview that criminal gangs pose a national security threat to the integrity of the state. Cartels are even trying to take over the Mexican Congress by funding political campaigns, CISEN director Guillero Valdes alleged. Should Mexico’s gangs cement their hold further, Mexico could possibly become a criminal-state largely controlled by narco-gangs. This is not just a threat to Mexico, however.

As the intensity of the violence grows, so does the possibility that Tijuana and Juarez’s high-intensity street warfare will migrate north. Recent cartel warfare in Arizona indicates that America has become a battleground for drug cartels clashing over territory, putting American citizens and law enforcement at risk. But the northward migration of cartel warfare is not the worst consequence of Mexico’s criminal insurgency. A lawless Mexico will be a perfect staging ground for terrorists seeking to operate in North America. American policymakers must act to protect our southern flank.

Mexico has tougher gun laws than the US, and Mexican drug cartels are buying guns in the US to smuggle into Mexico for use in the ongoing criminal insurgency.

Why can’t we do more to remove the lucrative nature of the drug trade?  This is a market driven scourge.  The narco gangs are awash with cash because of the market for drugs in the US.  There should be a market driven solution to this problem.

This video of Pastor Deacon Fred of Landover Baptist Church is priceless.

I just watched Barack Obama’s speech and it had more negative toward John McCain than I anticipated.  But there was one thing that should have been in there that wasn’t.

We the people.

He should have said that several times, about five times, to draw people back to what government is about.  He should have referred obliquely to the distrust in government fostered by Reagan’s “Government is the problem”.

We the people are not the problem.

The problem is that government is at the beck and call of special interests.

We the people.

There is a ‘get after them’ quality to Howard Dean that I like.  He is quick on the lip and it cuts like a knife.  Last night on The Daily Show, there was a noticeable time lag.  Catch it at around 3.00 on this video.  Said Dean:

“Do you think there is a delay in this circuit, Jon?  This is like inside John McCain’s brain.”

No, “computer viruses in space” is not a pitch for a TV show, it is what we have.  Laptops on the International Space Station have been infected by a virus.

The laptops carried by astronauts reportedly do not have any anti-virus software on them to prevent infection.  Once it has scooped up passwords and login names the Gammima.AG worm virus tries to send them back to a central server.

This is pathetic.  There are laptops in space that are trying to ‘call home’ and deliver the logins and passwords of the laptop users.

Get a Mac.

Clever snark, as opposed to the bombastic type I practice, sneaks up on you.  Here’s Josh:

When Mitt Romney says that it was “hard work” that got John McCain all those houses that he got for marrying Cindy Hensley, what does he mean exactly?

Yes, indeedy.

Joe Scarborough is a butthead.  Mika is a twit.  Why are these clowns on TV?

I’m watching him trying to take David Schuster to the woodshed on TV.  If I can get a transcript of this crap, I’ll clip it and put it here.  I don’t have the patience to transcribe it because it gets my blood pressure up.

People who are opposed to the death penalty state axiomatically that it is morally wrong.

Meet Duncan.

Elections in America are about personality.  People vote for the personality, not the issues, for the most part.  Both campaigns are now running advertising spots during the Olympics.  The spots couldn’t be more different.  Here’s McCain:

Here’s Obama:

What the McCain people don’t seem to get is that people are watching celebrities on TV when they are watching the Olympics.  McCain’s spot is telling them that they are dumb for watching the Olympics.  Obama is telling the viewers that what they are doing is okay, and that he will help them recover the middle class.

Me: Gee, this car is already six years old.

Bookzilla: We could open the hood and shove in some birthday cake.

Me: (gasping for breath)