Tired of this yet?

Mexican transit officials kidnapped

 

(CNN) -- Two city officials in Monterrey, Mexico, were kidnapped on Sunday and Monday, respectively, the state-run Notimex news agency reported.

The city's secretary of roadways and transit, Enrique Barrios Rodriguez, and the director of transit, Reynaldo Ramos Alvarado, were taken from their homes by gunmen, Nuevo Leon state officials said, according to Notimex.

According to initial reports, Barrios was kidnapped at his house where he was with his family in the early morning Monday, by a group of men who broke through the front door. His garage door was also knocked down.

Barrios had only been in his post since May 14, Notimex said.

The day before, Ramos was kidnapped in a similar fashion, authorities said.

At about 1:30 a.m. Sunday, the transit director was taken from his home, Notimex reported.

Police offered no motive and did not name any criminal organization as the perpetrators. The state of Nuevo Leon is known to have a lot of drug cartel activity.

Before being named roadways and transit secretary this month, Barrios was an adminstrative director for the city, and had previously served as a state congressman from 2003 to 2006 and a federal congressman from 2006 to 2009.

Thanks for Caring!!!! Blam.

Humanitarian workers killed in Mexico

 

Two human rights workers were killed in an ambush in the Mexican southern state of Oaxaca, authorities said Wednesday.

A Finnish citizen, Jyri Antero Jaakkola, and a Mexican activist, Beatriz Alberta Carino Trujillo were part of a caravan that was attacked Tuesday, the Oaxaca attorney general's office said, the state-run Notimex news agency reported.

The two victims were part of a group of activists from various organizations traveling to the city of San Juan Copala with members of Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca, or APPO by its Spanish initials.

Both died from gunshot wounds, the attorney general's office said. A third person was injured

The APPO is a leftist movement that seized control of the Oaxacan capital for months in 2006 in a bid to oust the governor.

Witnesses told authorities that the gunmen were members of a rival group, the Regional Union of Social Well-being, with whom the APPO has long had hostile relations, Notimex reported. There are other armed groups that are in dispute of the remote area, Notimex said.

The activists' caravan was heading to San Juan Copala on a humanitarian mission to deliver clothes and other goods to residents there, in addition to assessing the violence that has been recorded in the area, the news agency said

Mexico's youth: Hope for the Next Generation of Gravediggers.

10 people, ages 8-21, shot dead in Mexico

 

(CNN) -- Ten children, youths and young adults between the ages of 8 and 21 were gunned down, presumably by drug traffickers, in the northern Mexican state of Durango, the state's attorney general said Monday.

The incident happened Sunday on a road near the town of Pueblo Nuevo in southern Durango.

Attorney General Daniel Garcia Leal said that unknown gunmen who had set up a fake checkpoint on the road shot and even threw grenades at the victims, the state-run Notimex news agency reported.

The victims were in a pickup truck, returning to their homes after having traveled to pick up money to support their school as part of a government social program, Garcia Leal said.

The gunmen motioned the truck to stop but the victims, out of fear of being robbed or assaulted, did not comply, the attorney general said.

No arrests had been made in the incident, which is the latest in which children have found themselves caught in the middle of the country's violent drug wars.

In January, in a case of mistaken identity, 15 people, mostly teenagers, were killed when gunmen attacked a house party in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Ahh, Peaceful Old Mexico

Gunmen kill Mexican singer on the way to concert

 

(CNN) -- A group of gunmen killed a well-known Mexican singer when he arrived at a toll booth in the western Mexican state of Sinaloa, state media said.

The Deputy Attorney General's Office said Sergio "El Shaka" Vega was on his way to perform at a village festival concert when gunmen ambushed the red Cadillac he was driving around 9:30 p.m. Saturday (12:30 a.m. Sunday ET), Mexican state news agency Notimex reported.

Authorities are still investigating the 40-year-old musician's death. They said they found 9 mm shell casings in the car's door, Notimex reported.

Musicians have been targets of Mexican drug gangs in the past.

Violence in Mexico has skyrocketed since President Felipe Calderon declared war on the nation's drug cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006. More than 22,000 people have died in drug violence during that time period, the government said recently.

Wow, strong words.

Phoenix murder of Latino man in May called hate crime

Prosecutors say the Mexican-American man was killed by a neighbor shouting racial epithets.

Just a thought......

 

If we Americans wanted to gear up with Hummers, guns, body armor and assorted militaria, and then just toddle our asses down to Guanajuato to do a little sight seeing and drug cartel hunting, do you think the Federales would post signs around the area to keep out the non criminal Mexicans? Afterall, we are just there because we want a better life... See More (in Arizona), and we are doing the work that Mexicans don't want to. So what if we crossed over illegally, it's a human right to immigrate willy nilly, isn't it? And besides, we aren't gonna stay forever: just until our video game enhanced bloodlust gets satisfied, or we make a few thousand dollars through kidnapping and smuggling.

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Arizona has a lot of gun lovers. Almost anyone in the state over 21 will be able to carry a concealed weapon without a permit starting June 29th, but some pro-gun advocates are already visiting local businesses with their weapons in plain sight in an attempt to make the practice more socially acceptable. Arizona lets businesses ban guns at their discretion, so this weekend the Arizona Star looked at how restaurants and bars are deciding who to piss off more: gun carriers or the people who feel uncomfortable around them.

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Pro-gun arguments have worked with some Tucson restaurant owners. The Hungry Fox, a bustling diner at 4637 E. Broadway, put up a sign prohibiting guns last year but quickly heard protests from customers who, unknown to the restaurant's owners and employees, were concealed-weapon carriers. The restaurant's management quickly reversed the policy.

"We were going to lose a lot of customers, and we can't afford to lose even one," said Dene Little, the restaurant's manager.

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There's even a website, www.gunburger.com, where pro-gun consumers can check out a restaurant's policy before deciding to visit.

One customer of an Italian restaurant where some of the advocates recently ate told the paper, "I found it was pretty hard to have fun and joke in a room where there's a large group of people who are heavily armed."

Groups want FCC to police hate speech on talk radio, cable news networks

 

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is being urged to monitor "hate speech" on talk radio and cable broadcast networks.

A coalition of more than 30 organizations argue in a letter to the FCC that the Internet has made it harder for the public to separate the facts from bigotry masquerading as news. 

The groups also charge that syndicated radio and cable television programs "masquerading as news" use hate as a profit model.

"As traditional media have become less diverse and less competitive, they have also grown less responsible and less responsive to the communities that they are supposed to serve," the organizations wrote to the FCC. "In this same atmosphere hate speech thrives, as hate has developed as a profit-model for syndicated radio and cable television program masquerading as 'news.'"

The organizations, which include Free Press, the Center for Media Justice, the Benton Foundation and Media Alliance, also argue that the anonymity of the Web gives ammunition to those that would spread hate.

The groups did not mention any specific programming on the right or the left in their letter, which supports a petition filed by the National Hispanic Media Coalition last year requesting a probe of the relationship between hate speech and hate crimes.

The groups argue the Internet has made it harder for the public to separate the facts from bigotry masquerading as news.

"The Internet gives the illusion that news sources have increased, but in fact there are fewer journalists employed now than ever before. Moreover, on the Internet, speakers can hide in the cloak of anonymity, emboldened to say things that they may not say in the public eye."

"For these reasons, as the Commission deliberates how the public interest will be served in the digital age, it should consider the extent of hate speech in media, and its effects."

It's always good to have the governments decide what is hate and what isn't.