The Mexican Drug Problem is like a MRSA infection. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a bacterium responsible for several difficult-to-treat infections in humans. It may also be called multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or oxacillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (ORSA).(from Wikipedia).  All attempts to stamp out the cartels in Mexico have failed and they are now spilling over into the USA.

Al Jazeera's Rob Reynolds reports from the US border town of Columbus. "US government officials say they will now focus on training and equipping Mexican police in the latest joint effort to battle Mexico's drug cartels.
Under the initiative, sheriff's deputies from Texas will be sent to Mexico and Central American countries to train their peers at the national and local level.
But US police themselves have been plagued by allegations of corruption and collaboration with Mexico's drug cartels" 

This video describes the situation.  Click here.
Note:  This link did not work for me on Mozilla Firefox but did work on Google Chrome.and Internet Explorer.

Will the US government ever decide that the Cartels are like a carnivorous monster that just keeps chewing up people and gets bigger and bigger. The tactics we have been and currently are using are just not doing the job.  Maybe it will take the Seals to do the job as they did with bin Laden.  It certainly is not going to work when we keep sending boys out to do a man's job.

THEIR FENCE: THEIR RULES

Amtrak refuses permission to a local church to put a banner up on a bridge advertising a church function.  It is gratifying to see someone, somewhere, able to respect property boundaries and the right to control what is yours.  It took a leash law in many communities to protect private residences from everyone's stray pets, many of whom were far bigger than the residents of the property on which they freely defecated..

 It seems that inanimate objects can lay claim to greater protection for their integrity than a woman's body is able to maintain in our society today.  Amtrak has control of the fence it owns.  However, in many states, a woman doesn't own her own impregnated body.  This rule is mostly acknowledged by people who want the government to get out of their lives...just one of the many hypocritical inconsistencies by our elected officials in Congress today who are full of conflicting edicts and goals for the rest of us.

McConnell and Bachmann , as well as others, claim to be working for the good of the people they represent though they say their primary goal is to make Obama a 'one-term' President.

WANTED MANUAL: HOW TO BE, LOOK AND ACT OLD

Like everything else, old is not one-size-fits-all.  Old can start when some of your friends are in middle age or not until your 9th decade or more.  Being old can leave you surrounded with friends and family, or totally alone.  Alone seems to be the most difficult for some.  They get cats for whom they have to tend litter boxes just to have this hairy thing rub up against them. Or they get dogs who get them up at dawn and who they have to walk and popper scoop in all kinds of weather when the rest of us can snuggle in our beds.   When the friends in whom you have confided are all gone before you, you are left alone searching for someone whom you can trust.  Your children needn't be burdened with your loneliness, the loss of much of your strength and stamina, and least of all do they need to hear how your miss having someone to physically love.  All children believe their parents had sex once, holding their noses and blushing wildly, only to conceive them.  Parents look back with very different memories and wonder if any of their passion was inherited by their children as they remember when.....

Old age can leave one with many fears:  How will I survive on a FIXED income? What will I do if I lose my house and everything that is familiar to me...neighbors, memories and my toys? Why are my children so far away when I might need them? How will I handle my arthritis and loss of strength when there is still so much I have to do?  and on and on.....

Remembering how boring old people had seemed to you when you were younger, you hope you will not become boring yourself. (though most don't realize they are repeating themselves because they can't remember what they just said)   How can people who do little, see  no one, read little, watch game shows and sports rather than politics (because they are easier to follow), not be boring?  Not even old people really want to hear about other's physical problems when they are facing their own. Of course, since they retain little of that boring stuff from friends, they can hear the same stuff every time they meet hopefully not too often since medical appointments take up a good deal of their time.  For marrieds, that is double time.

Despair in old age is when  younger people have an image of what you should be and you're not it.  You are not  just sitting waiting for them.   Oddly, you become a generation called "great" as in aunt or grandmother or whatever.  There is nothing to indicate that others think you great at all.  You are welcomed out of duty to family parties but really can lonely let loose with friends who appreciate who you are and don't get defensive if you voice an opinion which is not a directive at all.

In all, old age looks far worse to those who haven't gotten there yet.  Once there, it does not seem so bad after all. There is, you see, a light at the end of the tunnel.  It can be good (Heaven), bad (Hell) or nothingness (Oblivion).

TOBACCO COMPANIES ARE DESPERATE

Tobacco companies are suing the US government for allowing the new warning labels.  A great deal of research has gone into studying the negative effects of smoking, in humans. The article quotes:  "Tobacco use is estimated to be responsible for 443,000 deaths in the US each year."   It proves the two claims made in the label.  I wonder what the courts will do with it. It is sad that we can no longer trust that the courts will make an impartial judgement.  Their claim is based on the right to free speech...which to the best of my knowledge gives no one the right to blatantly lie about substances that will shorten one's life.

The tragedy is that those who smoke will quickly go into denial with "that is not going to happen to me."  There are many other medical conditions that smoking can claim as participating to bring to full bloom.  When will amassing dollars cease to make people deny the number of people that are dying as a result of their products and activities?  It is unlikely that will ever happen.  People must be responsible for their own choices.  These can only be made with full disclosure as to the dangers.

Since I am not a smoker, I have not and probably will not see these warnings on a pack of cigarettes.  However, I am clear that I am not the one who needs to see them as my word to smokers is totally irrelevant, as, unfortunately these warnings will also be.  Too many fingers have been lost because people have ignored them when trying to clear the blades of snow blowers and lawn mowers.  Some people will not learn; we can only hope to teach the young to resist taking up the habit.  Parents, set an example.for the sake of your children.

DOES AMERICA HAVE A COMMON ENEMY?

Ronald Reagan talked about inventing an attack by space aliens to rally the country to come together against the common enemy.  It is unlikely people would buy a story that we were invaded today by aliens.  During and after WWII, we all unite4d against the common enemy of Japan, China, Italy and Germany.  We loved our country, respected our President, our flag and burst with patriotism.  We knew, in some form or another, we suffered the same hardships, some greater than others.  We helped and trusted one another.

When our country came together so strongly,  our government was also united.  That is not true today.  Our Representatives in the house have given their loyalty to those outside of government, fighting the American people, the American way, and our Constitution.

Earlier in blogs, I have written that those Republicans who have signed a pledge to NEVER raise taxes which they consider to trump their oath of office, are  traitors to this country yet they hold it hostage.  They boldly state that their goal is to make Obama a one-term President.  Usually that sort of threat was made by promising to gather votes to win by the opponent.  Not so right now.  Now they lie, distort what he says and does, and clearly are on the inside of government working against it. Yet no one has brought up their un-American work as members of Congress.

How is such a disparate group to be threatened by an outside force that would bring them to bond with the Democrats?  I believe that it would happen only if their treachery is made clear to all for what it is.  Treason is not a label that most Americans would want to wear.  It is time the rest of us call it for what it is instead all trying to game play.

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CONTRADICTIONS FROM SOME PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

Texas Governor, Rick Perry

Rick Perry, in a video of his, speaking on MSNBC: "America is not broken, Washington, D.C., is broken,"   Apparently he does not follow with the Constitution as it has set up government.  He has talked of having Texas, where he is governor, secede from the United States.  This does not raise respect for him on my part as having enough brains to run the United States.and do well with foreign relations.  In an article in the L. A. Times, it said:"Of all the early primary states, secular New Hampshire may offer the best test of whether the broader presidential electorate is ready for another socially conservative, Southern governor who has talked openly about his faith and how it has guided his political life".


"With some voters openly suspicious of faith-centered politicians, a number of Republican strategists say Perry's chances in New Hampshire — and nationally, were he to win the nomination — rest on whether he can keep a singular focus on economic issues without making voters leery about the role that religion plays in his thinking."

Michele Bachmann

Bachmann claims she can turn around the economy is just a few months but only said what she would not do.  She has the repeal bill for the 'Obamacare' legislation'.  She will not extend the jobless benefits.

Bachmann prides herself in being the leader in the House who refused to raise the debt ceiling.  Believing herself to know more than all the leading economists because she runs a small business and farm subsidized in essence by the government, she stands alone for the good reason that she cannot find too many others to agree with her ignorant stand.

From an article in the Telegraph of Iowa: "

Both candidates have enjoyed strong support from evangelical Christians and supporters of the small government, low tax tea party movement, and are now making big plays for those two important constituencies in Iowa. They are battling to emerge as the top alternative from the party's most conservative wing to the perceived front-runner, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

"I happen to think the biggest issue facing this country is that we are facing economic turmoil, and if we don't have a president that doesn't get this country working, we're in trouble," Mr Perry told about 300 Republicans in a Waterloo ballrooom. "And I've got a track record."

Mrs Bachmann touted her experience running her family's small business in Minnesota."  Click here for the whole article.

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DO IOWANS NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU NEED TO BE A GOOD PRESIDENT?

It is impossible to comprehend the disrespect Iowans must have for the office of President of the United States if the believe Bachmann is ready to run this country..  The BBC's Jonny Dymond wrote:  " Mrs Bachmann had campaigned hard in the state, firing up her supporters with her rhetoric and style."  Snake Oil salesmen fired up the crowd.  It did not translate to a positive good for the people and it would not be a positive good for the country to have an incompetent, 'ill-prepared on governmental issues' President.

Her religious views suggest that she does not understand the 'separation of church and state' as written into our Constitution.  If it is true that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it,  What must we presume about someone who distorts history  because she doesn't know it and thinks it is good to speak without a prepared speech and teleprompter.  Since when is it wrong for  a President to make sure he covers all points that are important and carefully makes sure his writers are consistent with his views?

It would, indeed, surprise me if enough people are blinded by her rhetoric and biases to swing a national electorate in her favor...at least I would like to believe that we need someone well-trained in Constitutional Law and with a mind that can grasp difficult concepts in foreign affairs, diplomacy, trade issues, economics, and dealing with issues of import to a majority of the citizens, such as creation of jobs..  So far all I have heard from her is that she has signed onto the Norquist pledge (which I consider treason), believes the myth that homosexuality can be 'cured', that government should be smaller except for the money she receives from it, and many other idiocies that do not encourage me to believe that she really is in touch with this country's citizen's issues or would lift a finger to help them any more than she has done with her voting record..