Borderline Psychosis Update- US Agents Caught in Fatal Ambush; Dozens Killed in Resort City of Acapulco

SAN LUIS POTOSI: Two Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents acting as liaison officers with Mexican law enforcement were shot in an ambush as they were driving between Monterrey and Mexico City earlier this month.
Details continue to emerge after the Feb 15th attack outside of San Luis Potosi in which the two agents driving in an armoured Chevy Suburban with US Diplomatic plates were forced off the road by as many as 15 assailants following in multiple vehicles. ICE special agent Jaime Zapata was killed in the attack while special agent Victor Avila was shot in both legs and airlifted to Mexico City before being flown to Houston, TX and treated there.

The agents were unarmed during the attack, as Mexico prohibits foreign law enforcement officers from carrying weapons inside the country. Investigators discovered as many as 83 bullet casings at the scene of the shooting.

Zapata and Avila stopped at a Subway along the highway for lunch. As they left the restaurant, an SUV closed in on their Suburban from behind, tailing the agents.

Zapata tried to speed up, but the SUV kept pace and pulled up side-by-side. The passengers flashed assault rifles at the agents and sped ahead down the highway, out of sight.

A second vehicle came from behind, tailing the agents until they met the first SUV they’d seen minutes before.

The two vehicles had boxed in the agents on the highway and crawled to a stop. Gunmen surrounded the agents’ Suburban.

“They were screaming ‘Get out! Get out! Get out!,” one U.S. law enforcement official, briefed but unauthorized to speak on the case, told The Monitor.

The agents showed their U.S. diplomatic papers to the gunmen, showing they were federal agents. But the gunmen refused to relent.

Zapata shifted the vehicle in park, which automatically unlocked its doors. The gunmen tried to pull the agents from the vehicle. But they managed to close the doors.

Zapata’s window was open a crack, allowing the gunmen to stick an AK-47 assault rifle and a pistol through the opening. They “shot indiscriminately,” the official said, striking Zapata several times in the abdomen and Avila twice in the leg.

Within a week of the deadly ambush, soldiers from the Mexican Army arrested six Los Zetas members in San Luis Potosi.

Zapata Espinoza, aka 'el Piolin' or 'Tweety Bird' because of his short stature, was identified by Mexican military officials as a leader of a Los Zetas hit team based around San Luis Potosi.

A spokesman with the Mexican Army said that Espinoza claims to have mistaken the Suburban as a vehicle for a rival cartel, despite the diplomatic plates and Zapata and Avila identifying themselves as US Agents. Members of Mexico's Armed Forces have arrested the local leader of Los Zetas in Coahuila over the weekend.

Special Agent Zapata was laid to rest on Feb 22nd in Brownsville, TX.

GUERRERO: Gunmen in the resort city of Acapulco targeting taxicabs killed at least a dozen people last weekend- nine cabbies and three passengers according to officials. Police in the state of Guerrero arrested four suspects carrying guns, grenades and a machete that they believe was used to decapitate some of the victims.

Gang members in Acapulco have been known to recruit cabbies to transport narcotics or simply extort money from them. The attacks came just hours before a popular international tennis tournament was set to take place in Acapulco.

Authorities had also recovered the bodies of four men whose hands and feet were bound with duct tape from near the Guerrero state capital of Chilpancingo. Judging from the bruising on the victim's bodies, its thought they gang members tossed them from a 600ft tall bridge while they were still alive.

Guilty Pleasure Update- Ice Road Truckers in the Himalayas? Canadians Keep Write On Trucking

Photo Courtesy of Alaskaroads.com

OK- I missed last week's Ice Road Truckers largely because I was imbibing in large quantities of alcohol and watching fireworks before leaving a trail of bottles and patio furniture (but mostly bottles) back to Chalet Fenway. But apparently the History Channel showed a promo that I just now heard about that will feature some of the Ice Road Truckers hauling cement on one of the mountain roads on the Indian side of the Himalayas.

Besides the discussions on the History Channel bulletin boards (apparently some people actually saw the Ice Road Truckers: Himalayas promos themselves but couldn't believe it), a number of articles interviewing Lisa Kelly or Alex Debagorski make mention of their trip to India appear after my customary half-assed internet search while some video of a blue-mohawk sporting Rick Yemm in the Himalayan foothills have been circulating.

OK...besides the really obvious questions like 'What would Lisa Kelly look like in a sari?' or 'Is there some smoldering Bollywood bombshell out there who secretly longs to become a truck driver on a dangerous mountain road?', I have to wonder if the road they're using for Ice Road Truckers: Himalayas would actually be an 'ice road' in the show's definition where they drive across frozen bodies of water. Technically the Dalton Highway might not count but Jack Jessee and Lisa Kelly were shown continuing on past Deadhorse and onto Prudhoe Bay itself.

The two Canadian truckers who have been with the show since its inception- Alex Debagorski and Hugh Rowland- can now add 'author' to their resumes. Last month, Hugh Rowland's On Thin Ice was released by Hyperion press. Alex Debagorski, who wore many hats before the History Channel series even began, has a book due out in November.

Rhode Island State Police: Doing the Job That Obama Wants to Prevent Arizona Police From Doing

As I mentioned earlier, the Department of Justice has initiated a lawsuit against the state of Arizona over the anti-illegal immigrant SB 1070. Given the sound and fury that's surrounded the law that allows state and local police in Arizona to check the immigration status of somebody they encounter while enforcing other laws (traffic stops, domestic disturbance calls, etc), you would think it would be the first of it's kind.

You would be wrong, however. The Rhode Island State Police have been working closely with ICE over the last three years to help verify the identity of immigrants who have been suspected, arrested or convicted of crimes in the state. This level of cooperation between the Feds and law enforcement in Rhode Island has been going for a few years now, much to the chagrin of the American Civil Liberties Union and various 'community organizers'.

Credit where credit is due- the Boston Globe had a pretty good article highlighting the differences in policies between the State Police in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

SCITUATE, R.I. — Rhode Island State Trooper Nuno Vasconcelos was patrolling Interstate 95 a few months ago when he came upon a two-car accident in heavy traffic. The trooper pulled up, stepped out of his cruiser, and asked one of the drivers for his license.

The man said he did not have a license, and under questioning, confessed that he was here illegally from Guatemala.

If the accident had happened 15 miles north in Massachusetts, the man would probably have been arrested for driving without a license, which carries a fine of up to $1,000 and 10 days in jail, then released pending an appearance in district court.

But in Rhode Island, illegal immigrants face a far greater penalty: deportation.

From Woonsocket to Westerly, the troopers patrolling the nation’s smallest state are reporting all illegal immigrants they encounter, even on routine stops such as speeding, to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE.

Perhaps the Commonwealth lawmakers on Beacon Hill might have a change of heart before one of their own gets rear-ended by a drunken illegal immigrant that's driving while intoxicated.

Whoops. Too late.



It's a pretty safe bet that since Isais Naranjo didn't bother with the niceties of coming into the country legally or driving while sober, it's also safe to assume that a driver's licence or auto insurance was out of the question.

But whatever keeps the 'community organizers' happy, I guess.

[Big ol' tip o' the hat to LoppyD]

Happy Canada Day from Not Another New England Sports Blog!

While our independence day is right around the corner, today marks Canada Day (formerly Confederation Day) for our neighbors up north. Sure- we may think of Canada as a safe haven for draft-dodging hippies back during the Vietnam era, but there's more to the Great White North than geriatric hippies and lengthy wait times to see a doctor under their healthcare system.

[Nose Art on WWII-era RCAF Lancaster]

Don't let the decades of Trudeau-esque nanny statism fool you, either- Canada's rugged individualism has been out there for all to see over the last few years [I could even make the case that it was there all along, just not noticed until fairly recently- NANESB!].

You want badass? How about driving 18 wheelers over frozen lakes? You want even more badass? Try being the first one to drive heavy vehicles across the frozen waters in the wilderness: that sounds like ex-soldier, ex-Mountie John Denison ,who began supplying remote mining camps in the Northwest Territories at first with 'Cat trains'- a bulldozer pulling several sleds loaded down with supplies and lashed together- and then with a secondhand Army truck in the 1950s. Today there is a fairly well co-ordinated system overseeing operations of the seasonal ice roads in the Northwest Territories; that's not to say it's no longer dangerous, but imagine heading out into the wilderness in not much more than a secondhand two and a half ton truck. Denison was considered the original architect of the ice roads and was awarded the Order of Canada in 1998. John Denison passed away in Kelowna, BC in 2001 at the age of 84.

Not badass enough? Try one of the longest confirmed sniper kills on record! Then-Master corporal Rob Furlong of Princess Pat's Light Infantry set a world record in 2002 with the longest confirmed kill during Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan's Shah-i-Kot valley, when he dropped a machine gun toting Al Qaeda fighter from a distance of more than 2600 yards (or just over a mile and a half). Having said that, Furlong's record was recently surpassed by a British sniper- also in Afghanistan.

Keep in mind that Canada entered WWII two years ahead of the USA. James Doohan- the actor who played Scotty on Star Trek- was with the Canadian Army when they stormed Juno beach on D-Day. He was hit by gunfire and lost his finger that day but would survive. Later on in his acting career, cameramen would ty and avoid filming his hand that was missing the finger.

Let's not forget ice-hockey, hardly a pursuit for the faint of heart. Sure, it's been awhile since a Canadian team brought home the Stanley Cup, but Canada provides a good deal of the manpower for those championship teams.

One possible upside of the 'Fairness Doctrine' being imposed on American broadcaster is that USA viewers could be treated to a 76 year old Don Cherry reducing Keith Olberman to a snivelling, incoherent shell of a human being with just one glance...well....I guess an even more incoherent snivelling shell of a human being during NBC's Football Night in America (a name NBC 'borrowed' from CBC's long-running Hockey Night in Canada). Hell, Cherry would probably make Olberman's awkward, gangly stepson Rachel Maddow hold his technicolor dream coat while he effortlessly sapped the MSNBC 'personality' of his will to live.
And let us not forget the First Canadians (an Anglo Canadian neolingism for 'Native Americans')such as the Baker Twins- Shannon and Shauna- from the Stellat'en First Nations Reservation in Northwestern British Columbia. OK....to be honest, since I don't watch Smallville, I only found out about them like 20 minutes ago. Apparently Shannon's appearance on Smallville was supposed to be a one-time deal that got extended when the producers found out she had a real-life identical twin.

[Image: CMT]

There's also a good number of country musicians that hail from Canada. In the interest of full disclosure, I hardly ever listen to country music but have to acknowledge that a disproportionate number of attractive women seem to gravitate towards that medium as performers. Montreal-born and Medicine Hat, Alberta-raised Terri Clark (shown above) has been in the business for the last 15 years.

Image: Rocky Mountain Rail Society

Let us not forget the iron horses that- just as in our history- played a pivotal role in the development and expansion of Canada. One could make the argument that Canada as a nation would not have survived were it not for the completion of the Canadian Pacific line between Ontario and the then-obscure pacific coast port of Vancouver. In fact, completion of the line was a condition for British Columbia's 1871 entry into the Confederation of Canada. Canadian Pacific's line was completed in November 1885, followed by Canadian Northern's transcontinental line (which would become Canadian National). Like their American counterparts, Canadians have also taken steps to preserve equipment and structures from that era- such as former Canadian National streamlined U-1-f 4-8-2 Mountain class built by the Montreal Locomotive works. #6060 (shown above) is such an example and is maintained by the Rocky Mountain Rail Society and frequently operated over the Alberta Prairie railroad in Stettler, AB (the Alberta Prairie has a smaller ex-US Army Steam engine of its own it will operate on a more regular basis).

This video from TLC also gives viewers an idea of what it's like to operate a train over the Canadian Rockies in more modern times (it starts about 40 seconds in):


So Happy Canada Day, our neighbors to the north! I'm not sure if you traditionally set off fireworks like we do on independence day, but raise a frosty pint of Alexander Keith's or Okanagan Spring to your underrated nation on this first of July!

Guilty Pleasure Alert- New Season of Ice Road Truckers Begins Tonight

Some people readily 'fess up to having American Idol or Top Model as their requisite guilty pleasure for TV viewing. I'm going to have to say mine is the History Channel's Ice Road Truckers, which has the distinction of being one of the few shows on the network that I've warmed up to and is still around. To be fair, I was watching before the petite Lisa Kelly (above) made an appearance in season 3. The first two seasons were spent on the seasonal ice roads of Canada's Yukon and Northwest Territories with 18 wheelers hauling supplies across frozen lakes into and out of the otherwise inaccessible diamond mines there.

Season 3 featured the Dalton Highway, which serves as a corridor for oilfield equipment and supplies between the North Slope and Fairbanks, AK. Apparently season 4 will see a return to the Dalton Highway, which marks the first time the History Channel and Thom Beers' camera crew hasn't been booted off an ice road.

It's also worth noting that for all the bitching and moaning I did about a set aside, no-bid contract where an Alaska Native Corporation pocketed about $20 million for doing nothing earlier this year, the transportation company that's responsible for most of the commercial traffic on the Dalton is in fact a subsidiary of an Alaska Native Corporation itself.

Today's Train of Thought: Ice Castles- October 11, 2009

Today's train of thought features yet another unmodified GP9 still hard at work in 2009 (no accompanying images of Jennifer Tilly this time- sorry).

Railpictures.net contributor Bo Gray braved the aftermath of the ice storms that slammed into Kentucky earlier this year to catch RJ Corman Kentucky Lines GP9 #9003 heading up this local as the crew cautiously makes their way through the ice-slicked landscape in Lexington, KY towards the end of January 2009.

RJ Corman Railroad group is a holding company that owns and operates about nine different disconnected shortline railways in Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Tennesee. They have also made some unique moves in terms of motive power, such as the purchase of an operating 2-10-2 'QJ' Class steam locomotive from the People's Republic of China, an annual Kentucky Derby office car special and the purchase of Quebec-based genset locomotive manufacturer Railpower Technologies in June of 2009.