Chaotic Mexico

Near-and-dear who sends me stuff sends this from the Austin American-Statesman to the effect that UT has asked exchange students in Northern Mexico to come home for their own safety.Read that story here.
In other chaotic news, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has called out state troops to guard the border after a rancher was apparently killed by a border-jumper just over the Arizona line. The bootheel of New Mexico is some pretty rugged territory and there's a lot of illegal crossing going on there and over to the Columbus/Palomas area. Remember that Columbus was the site of the famous Pancho Villa raid in 1916. That attack provoked the Punitive Expedition led by Black Jack Pershing. Mexicans like to nannyboo us because Pershing never caught Villa, but it's worth noting that the Centaur of the North was reduced to hiding in caves like an animal and never did anything much thereafter.
And from the Web site of the world's worst newspaper, a Dallas Morning News story on border fracases:

EL PASO – Texas law enforcement officials are bracing for a bloody weekend along the border, advising farmers to arm themselves as signs across northern Mexico point to a new escalation of violence after coordinated drug cartel attacks against the military this week.

Read all that story here. Just like the old frontier days, plowing with a musket across the plow handles in case the hostiles attack, except now I guess it'd be a Winchester behind the tractor seat.