posting a simple cartoon can lead to a heated, emotional, occasionally ridiculous, but at the same time fascinating and educational discussion of the constitution. click here if you are interested.

heard an interesting suggestion today from a caller on NPR. one of the reasons we have such an illegal immigration problem is that US employers hire undocumented workers in order to avoid paying the going wage, unemployment insurance, social security, et. al. the obvious answer is to actually enforce the laws against employers instead of immigrants. his twist on this, which i like a lot, was to give any illegal immigrant who turns in his employer for wage theft a faster track to legality. make the problem part of the solution!

see some cool photos here and help choose which ones get entered in a contest.

maybe. i’d like to think that i’m not among those who had unrealistic expectations of obama. i find very little that he’s actually done to be upset about. the soundbites riling up the left seem to become quite tame with just a little investigation. for example, common dreams writes that he is denying access to baghram prisoner lists the same day that the new york times reports that he is giving the lists to the red cross. we all wanted every american to miraculously leave iraq and afghanistan on jan 20, but come on…
and all the whining about health care and caving and the public option… it hasn’t played out yet, not by a long shot. he really hasn’t had the chance to actually finish anything, although the economy looks just a teensy bit better.

Barra Navidad, Jalisco, was one of my favorite stops on the trip. I felt like i could have stayed there for a couple of months. Small, quiet, clean, pretty, and friendly. There is a page of photos up at imagecentralamerica, along with two pages from Puerto Vallarta, notable for the wild statues along its boardwalk, and one small page of miscellaneous photos. All are in the new Jalisco section of the site.

please go visit!

teasers:

is there a way to make your posts here show up on facebook?

EDIT: done, thanks to the ever helpful and non-sarcastic

representative Raul Grijalva (D), $0 from the health industry

senator Jon Kyl (R), $709,000 from the health industry

Hidalgo Del Parral, site of one of the most productive silver mines in Mexico’s history, and the place where Pancho Villa was assassinated and originally buried, was our other stop in Chihuahua. i had the perfect blue skies with puffy white clouds that make for great photographs, and a picturesque town to boot. Parts of it looked like 1960’s America, and the mine was a goldmine (pun intended) of wonderful images.

two pages from the town and one from the mine up at imagecentralamerica. please have a look!