Chico Steel Balls, doctor to the CSIS drug runners!
Dvader said:Yeah I saw this piece on Juarez Mexico which they say its like a movie, dead bodies lying around, people being kidnapped all over. Yikes.
Juarez is a huge deal too, it's where most of the good between the US and Mexico pass through (at least by land).
TJ sounds like a warzone from what I hear through the so.cal. media.
The 1,500-ton vessel sank between 9:00 p.m. (1200 GMT) and 10:00 p.m. near the island but the cause of the incident was unknown, the Navy said. A rescue operation was under way.
Yonhap news agency quoted officials as saying there was an explosion in the rear of the ship but the cause was unknown.
The disputed border in the Yellow Sea was the scene of deadly naval clashes in 1999 and 2002.
Earlier Friday, North Korea's military accused the United States and South Korea of trying to topple the Pyongyang regime and said it was ready to launch nuclear attacks to frustrate any provocations.
The military General Staff cited a South Korean newspaper report as evidence of "desperate moves of the US imperialists and the South Korean puppet warmongers" for regime change."
aspro said:Steel, are you exposed to this crazy "drug war" we hear about all over the place?
Yup. Every major city here in Mexico is affected, and small towns are even worse, with drug bands raiding them on killing sprees.
A few months ago, an intense firefight and chase went down exactly in front of the hospital where I work on, which ended a few blocks later, with grenades being thrown off, and cars exploding and burning down. Pretty fucked up shit.
aspro said:Dvader said:Yeah I saw this piece on Juarez Mexico which they say its like a movie, dead bodies lying around, people being kidnapped all over. Yikes.Juarez is a huge deal too, it's where most of the good between the US and Mexico pass through (at least by land).
TJ sounds like a warzone from what I hear through the so.cal. media.
Juarez is hell, but the scary thing is that almost every big city over here can become a Juarez anyday.
SteelAttack said:Yup. Every major city here in Mexico is affected, and small towns are even worse, with drug bands raiding them on killing sprees.
A few months ago, an intense firefight and chase went down exactly in front of the hospital where I work on, which ended a few blocks later, with grenades being thrown off, and cars exploding and burning down. Pretty fucked up shit.
That's insane. Is the military involved or just the police? Or is the governmental opposition merely tokenism?
aspro said:SteelAttack said:Yup. Every major city here in Mexico is affected, and small towns are even worse, with drug bands raiding them on killing sprees.
A few months ago, an intense firefight and chase went down exactly in front of the hospital where I work on, which ended a few blocks later, with grenades being thrown off, and cars exploding and burning down. Pretty fucked up shit.
That's insane. Is the military involved or just the police? Or is the governmental opposition merely tokenism?
The military is involved, they were brought into the war (that's what it is, basically, a civil war with a death toll approaching 20,000) by presidential mandate, because everybody knew that all local and state police corps were crooked as shit and completely overrun by drug cartels.
Unfortunately, the only thing that has changed with the involvement of the military is the roughness of the fights, and the amount of deaths. Nothing is bound to change in the foreseeable future because things are fucked up not because people buy and sell drugs (that happens everywhere), but because of the rampant impunity and corruption that goes all across the country, from the lowest level local judge and cop, to the highest order magistrate and politician. Almost everyone's neck-deep in shit and with their pockets completely lined with drug money.
aspro said:If the government were to do something radical, like legalize elicit drugs, that probably would not help either right? Cause the bad guys would still find a way into the process? (and too many vested interests).The current war framework doesn't seem to be working.
Legalizing some drugs would only leave a huge contingent of felons with nothing else to do but diversify their interests. Right now, most, if not all drug cartels are not only involved in drug trafficking, but also other illegal businesses, ranging from extorsion of pirated goods vendors to express and high-profile kidnapping.
No framework will work as long as the root of the problem stays, corruption at every government level and impunity for those with enough money to buy it.
aspro said:Is it because the PRI were in for so long that corruption became a part of the system? Or does bribery etc... come from some deeper cultural ethos?In my state there was a party that was in power for so long that corruption became widespread, they were thrown out, now another party has been in power for 20 years and they are just as corrupt. I think whenever a party has been in for too long (like more than 10 years) it is dangerous.
It's probably a combination of factors. Yes, having a single-party government for so long really helped in how corruption became a usual part of everyone's lives. But I believe there's also an idiosyncratic aspect to it, deep inside all of us.
Most people on the streets share a common mindset, which is "fuck whoever is in front of me before I get fucked up by him/her". Whoever that fails to comply or adhere to that mindset, is usually labeled as an idiot, or a moron. So, given the opportunity, almost everyone will gladly screw anyone, as long as they think they can get away with that without too much consequences.
SteelAttack said:... But I believe there's also an idiosyncratic aspect to it, deep inside all of us.
Most people on the streets share a common mindset, which is "fuck whoever is in front of me before I get fucked up by him/her". Whoever that fails to comply or adhere to that mindset, is usually labeled as an idiot, or a moron. So, given the opportunity, almost everyone will gladly screw anyone, as long as they think they can get away with that without too much consequences.
I wonder if that is a victory over colonization thing? In most countries that have been colonized the indigenous population is usually subjugated to the point where they have no voice. But in Mexico and India that was not the case, the indigenous group survived and effectively removed the new group (less so in Mexico, but still more so there than say, the US or Australia).
aspro said:SteelAttack said:... But I believe there's also an idiosyncratic aspect to it, deep inside all of us.
Most people on the streets share a common mindset, which is "fuck whoever is in front of me before I get fucked up by him/her". Whoever that fails to comply or adhere to that mindset, is usually labeled as an idiot, or a moron. So, given the opportunity, almost everyone will gladly screw anyone, as long as they think they can get away with that without too much consequences.
I wonder if that is a victory over colonization thing? In most countries that have been colonized the indigenous population is usually subjugated to the point where they have no voice. But in Mexico and India that was not the case, the indigenous group survived and effectively removed the new group (less so in Mexico, but still more so there than say, the US or Australia).
Probably. In the past, I have worked extensively with people in rural, small towns, and the collective mindset in town with an overwhelming indigenous majority is pretty much the same.
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Tell me to get back to rewriting this site so it's not horrible on mobileYodariquo said:
Oh, yeah. Poor people working at cellphone companies. The announcement that the registry of your cellphone lines was mandatory was made official MONTHS ago, and there are still over 25 million guys that don't want to comply with it.