Stalin wannabes…

I’m cleaning up my old bookmarks… and found a bunch of sites I’d marked but just never got the time to explore. If there’s a common theme, maybe it’s just Mexico v. Control Freaks… some wins, some losses.

We’re from the government and we’re here to help

From Raw Story, May 25:

According to a front page article in Friday’s LA Times, “Mexico is expanding its ability to tap telephone calls and e-mail using money from the U.S. government, a move that underlines how the country’s conservative government is increasingly willing to cooperate with the United States on law enforcement.”

Gone in a minute(man)

A post from the Minutemen on Libertypost.org (sort of the less sane version of Free Republic.com):

Dear State Leaders, Chapter Leaders and fellow Minutemen, By now you have probably heard rumors or received an email about a massive purge of your National and State Leaders. These rumors are true. The numbers are staggering and to any one who is capable of reason, the devastating effect on your MCDC is inescapable. As you review the documents attached you will recognize many of the names of those leaders. Maybe one is your state leader, or the leader of a State in which you served on the border. Others you will recognize by their reputations as long time, completely dedicated Minutemen and Leaders.

Do cows need passports?

Fernando del Valle in the Valley Morning Star (Brownsville, Tx)

BROWNSVILLE — Like some farmers along the Rio Grande, Edward Mathers is counting on a series of gates to open the fence that will cut across his land.

But others warn that the federal government is likely to restrict access to keys or remote control devices that would open such gates.

“I’m not happy, but I can live with the inconvenience,” said Mathers, who farms about 1,000 acres along the river.
U.S. Border Patrol agents told him that 50-foot-long gates would open along a 10-foot-high fence to let him tend to land on each side of the fence, Mathers said.

But in San Pedro, farmer Fermin Leal said he was told farmers will have to contact Border Patrol agents to open the fence’s remote-controlled gates.

At the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Washington, D.C., spokesman Russ Knocke declined to confirm plans to install gates along the fence that’s part of a project to cut the flow of illegal immigration.

Don’t drink the water… and don’t get baptized in it

From Journal Chretien (France):

More than five weeks after town bosses in Chiapas state, Mexico, signed an agreement to restore water lines cut off from Christians since January, the Protestants still rely on dirty, distant wells and puddles for washing and drinking.

The April 23 agreement calls for the autocratic rulers or caciques of Los Pozos, 29 kilometers (18 miles) from San Cristobal de las Casas, to withdraw a threat to expel 65 Christians and restore the electricity and water services of several Protestant families. Another of the pact’s central aims is to keep “traditionalist Catholics,” who practice a mixture of indigenous ritual and Roman Catholicism, from forcing the evangelicals to help pay for drunken religious festivals that they consider idolatrous.

Evangelical pastor and attorney Esdras Alonso Gonzalez told Compass that the Protestants were glad the traditionalist Catholic caciques have ceased forcing the Protestants of Alas de Aguila church to participate in the saints’ day festivals, but that water lines cut since January 30 had not been restored.

“Everyone in the municipality is respecting the agreement, except in the matter of water – it’s horrible,” Alonso said. “We don’t know when they’re going to restore the water ; the brethren have not been able to get good information.”

Chiapas state officials brokered the agreement between the evangelicals and the traditionalist Catholics of Los Pozos. Alonso said state officials are responsible for ensuring that local town bosses fulfill terms of the pact.