Arizona News Flash

    Oh Arizona,  How you do embarrass me sometimes.

Blink.

    The Evil Sand Queen of Arizonistan, Jan Brewer, blinked this afternoon.  In the face of a tsunami of threats of loss-of-business for the state, she vetoed the blatantly discriminatory bill SB 1062.

    Let's be real.  Brewer hasn't had a change of heart' she's just as much of a bigot as she ever was.  But even tea-baggers will blink when threatened with loss of jobs and dollars.  Which translates into a loss of votes.

    So thank you, Governor Brewer, for doing the decent thing.  Even though you didn't want to.

the resemblance is striking

    I find Santorum to be an embarrassment to my home state of Pennsylvania - until I realize what a parade of bozos my current residence, Arizona, has trotted out over the past 30 years.

Teabagging Tillie

Yes, that's our governor, Jan Brewer, showing a complete lack of class when President Obama visited Phoenix yesterday.  I expect our local Tea-Baggers to act this way. But elected officials - first and foremost a governor - need to observe proper protocol. Otherwise they end up looking like complete bumpkins.

     OTOH, this does go to show you that Arizona Republicans do not discriminate. If you ain't White, you ain't Right, and they'll hate you, no matter where you come from and no matter what your status in life.

Arizona idiocy

Meet  Keith Elkcimrac (*).  He's an idiot.  He and his drunken friends and relatives were at the Home Run Derby last night.  Keith has the maturity of a 6-year-old, and the common sense of a lemming.  The sight of a baseball makes him joyfully leap towards his death.

    Picture #2 is Keith after he stupidly dove for a ball from his stance in Picture #1.  Keith apparently is illiterate or has a memory as short as his schlong.  Only last week, an adult fan at a Texas Rangers game plunged 20 feet to his death doing the same thing.  His 6-year-old son watched him die.

    But we're not here to talk about Keith's stupidity.  We're here to talk about what drives certain cretins to go into hyper-gonzo mode to catch a worthless baseball.

    Because really, that ball Keith dove for has no monetary value.  It's not like it's Barry Bonds' record-breaking home run, or Derek Jeter's 3,000th hit.  Nor is it for the vicarious thrill of catching it.  Keith and his fellow morons had already caught three other home run balls last night.

    Is it a competitive thing?  The "I'm a man cuz I caught that ball" even if his competition was a bunch of little boys or a couple of fellow drunken neanderthals?  Is he so unhappy with his wife, his life, his job, and/or his dog that he has to do this to gain some satisfaction?

    I don't know.  Personally, I'm all for letting idjits like this plunge to their doom.  It improves the gene pool and means more booze for the rest of us.

    (*) : Yeah, I spelled his last name backwards.  Deliberately.  The impression I got from the AzCentral article today was that Keith was proud of his actions.  Which means he's probably doing a vanity search right now to see how often his name got mentioned on the Internet today.  No reason to give him the satisfaction of finding yet another "hit".

Asinine Arizona

  Governor  Jan Brewer, our resident head idiot, is taking our racist Immigration Law (SB1070) to the Supreme Court.  Oh happy day.  I think she likes showing off our stupidity to the rest of the nation.

    With a little bit of luck, SCOTUS will send Jan back to us with her tail between her legs.  But given the likes of Scary Scalia and Clarence Uncle Tom Thomas and the other three wing-nuts, it's just possible they'll side with her, 5-4.  That will indeed be a sad day.

Down with the Clown!

Liz and I will be making a trip over to the Mesa Public Library tomorrow after work, to sign the "Recall Russell Pearce" petition. Many thanks to the Arizona Democratic Party for the heads-up that they will be set up there until 7:00 PM tomorrow night. I doubt we can bring his highness down, but at least we'll try.

Putting us on the map

Yessirree, bob. Having Jan Brewer as our governor has made Arizona famous. Do you think Terry Goddard can generate this kind of publicity? Not on your life. . True, she reinforces the image of Arizonans as xenophobic idiots. But headlines are headlines. And we haven't had this much press since electing that used-car salesman, Ev Meacham, to be our guv a while back. So here's to you, Governor Jan. You may be a cretin, but you're our cretin.

The ballad of Marcia Powell

Meet Marcia Powell. Not much of a looker, is she? Marcia was a local prostitute. Marcia also had some serious mental problems.

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Because of her career choice, Marcia found herself in jail last May. In case you've never been in Phoenix in May, it can get rather hot. On this particular day, May 19th, 2010, it got up to 107°F.

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At 11:00 AM on May 19th, Marcia told prison officials that she felt suicidal. The prison officials then did a curious thing - they locked Marcia in an outdoor cage to await being taken to a psychiatric facility.

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The cage is normally used as a discipline tool for inmates who are outside and refuse to go back to their cells. Rather than confront said inmates, prison officials try to somehow lure the prisoner into one of these, and then "wait him/her out". It is hoped that the isolation and outside conditions will adjust the prisoner's attitude.

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The prison's policy is to only allow a prisoner a maximum of 2 hours in these outside cages. On May 19, Marcia was kept there for four hours. She repeatedly asked for some water, and accounts vary as to whether she was given any. Marcia also asked to be allowed to go to the restroom, but was refused. Consequently, she defecated in the cage. One of the officers noted that she had soiled herself, but left her there anyway. Investigators later found feces underneath her fingernails and all over her back.

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A prison sergeant saw Powell lose consciousness, but never reported that to supervisors, despite the fact that Powell said she was having trouble breathing.

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After two hours, Marcia asked to be returned to her cell indoors. The request was denied. After four hours, Marcia Powell was dead.

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The Department of Corrections recommended that seven corrections officers on duty that day be charged with negligent homicide. Yesterday, the Maricopa County Attorney's office decided not to do so. Do you think I'm making this up or exaggerating the story? You can read the Arizona Republic's article about it here.

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So a woman is dead because she engaged in the oldest profession and told someone she felt suicidal. And a slew of goons who stupidly and/or callously caused her death are walking around Phoenix today with smirks on their faces.

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The lesson here is this - if you run afoul of the law in Arizona, you better have lots of money t0 hire some good lawyers to get you out. If you're poor, female, with mental issues and without resources, the prison officials can basically kill you in a most foul and painful way, and get away with it.

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Rest in peace, Marcia Powell. Even if nobody else gives a sh*t about what happened to you, I do.

Arizona Mules

Our cretin for a governor, Jan Brewer, has blessed us with a new revelation : Most of the illegal immigrants are drug mules. Think I'm kidding? Read the CNN article about it here. . Is there some sort of dittohead contest to see who can say the stupidest thing? If so, I propose it should be called the Ev Meacham Award, in honor of the former Arizona governor who kinda set the standard for Idiocy. He was such a moron, even the Republicans were embarrassed of him. They impeached Ev eventually. . So here's to you, Brewer. For at least trying to lower the gubanatorial IQ bar. You putz. May you wake up tomorrow as a giant cockroach.

In a class by ourself

Move over, Texas. Out of the way, South Carolina. Begone, Kansas. You all have done some stupid things lately. But you're Mensa material compared to us here in Arizona. .

. We have Rogue State status. You don't. Nyah, nyah, and in-your-face Nyah.

You can read Navarette's article about us here. I can't wait for those drone planes to show up and start dropping bombs on anyone who isn't carrying citizenship papers.

Curse those ethnic studies!

Arizona continued to blaze the Path of Stupidity today, when our governor signed a bill that bans ethnic studies classes that "promote resentment" of other racial groups. You can read CNN's article on it here. . The measure has been a personal vendetta by our state school superintendent, the one very white Tom Horne, who has heard that a Tucson-area Mexican-American class may have said that Hispanics are an "oppressed minority". . Gee, Tom, ya think?! What subversive slander will those leftist teachers promote next? That blacks shouldn't be grateful for our colonial immigration program; a.k.a. "slavery"? That the Native Americans shouldn't be thankful for the whites solving their over-population problem? . The good news, Tommy boy, is that God is on your side. At least the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant one is. Now if we could only ban Gay Pride parades as well. These things promote segregation, you know. If we start letting these minorities feel good about themselves, next thing you know, they'll prefer hanging out with their own kind instead wanting to be colored honkies or closet gays.

Tweet of the week

"This morning, I woke up concerned about (centaurs) & mermaids taking over our state. I heard that griffins commit 40% of all crime in AZ." (Arizona Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, following the vote on a bill that outlaws human/animal hybrids) . Yessiree. Our state economy is bankrupt, we're the village idiots when it comes to immigration reform, it's about to be legal to carry a concealed weapon - without any training - anywhere in Arizona (including bars!), but what really worries our state representatives is whether or not Smokey the Bear, Wolverine, and the Jolly Green Giant might someday be walking the streets of Phoenix. . Thank goodness Sinema at least sees the silliness of our dittoheaded representatives.