Of all the places to see this happening, Texas?

McALLEN — A South Texas grand jury has indicted Vice President **** Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on state charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in Willacy County's federal detention centers.

The indictment, which had not yet been signed by the presiding judge, was one of seven released Tuesday in a county that has been a source of bizarre legal and political battles in recent years. Another of the indictments named a state senator on charges of profiting from his position.

Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra himself had been under indictment for more than a year and half before a judge dismissed the indictments last month. This flurry of charges came in the twilight of Guerra's tenure, which ends this year after nearly two decades in office. He lost convincingly in a Democratic primary in March.

Cheney's indictment on a charge of engaging in an organized criminal activity criticizes the vice president's investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees because of his link to the prison companies.

Megan Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Cheney, declined to comment on Tuesday, saying that the vice president had not yet received a copy of the indictment.

The indictment accuses Gonzales of using his position while in office to stop an investigation in 2006 into abuses at one of the privately-run prisons.

Gonzalez's attorney, George Terwilliger III, said in a written statement, "This is obviously a bogus charge on its face, as any good prosecutor can recognize. Hopefully, competent Texas authorities will take steps to reign in this abuse of the criminal justice system."

Willacy County has become a prison hub with county, state and federal lockups. Guerra has gone after the prison-politician nexus before, extracting guilty pleas from three former Willacy and Webb county commissioners after investigating bribery related to federal prison contacts.

Another indictment released Tuesday accuses state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. of profiting from his public office by accepting honoraria from prison management companies. Guerra announced his intention to investigate Lucio's prison consulting early last year.

Lucio's attorney, Michael Cowen, released a scathing statement accusing Guerra of settling political scores in his final weeks in office.

"Senator Lucio is completely innocent and has done nothing wrong," Cowen said, adding that he would file a motion to quash the indictment this week.

Last month, a Willacy County grand jury indicted The GEO Group, a Florida private prison company, on a murder charge in the death of a prisoner days before his release. The three-count indictment alleged The GEO Group allowed other inmates to beat Gregorio de la Rosa Jr. to death with padlocks stuffed into socks. The death happened in 2001 at the Raymondville facility, just four days before de la Rosa's scheduled release.

In 2006, a jury ordered the company to pay de la Rosa's family $47.5 million in a civil judgment. The Cheney-Gonzalez indictment makes reference to the de la Rosa case.

None of the indictments released Tuesday had been signed by Presiding Judge Manuel Banales of the Fifth Administrative Judicial Region.

A second batch of indictments targeted public officials connected to Guerra's own legal battles.

Willacy County Clerk Gilbert Lozano, District judges Janet Leal and Migdalia Lopez, and special prosecutors Mervyn Mosbacker Jr. — a former U.S. attorney — and Gustavo Garza — a long-time political opponent of Guerra — were all indicted on charges of official abuse of official capacity and official oppression.

Garza, the only one who could be immediately reached Tuesday, called it a sad state of affairs.

"I feel sorry for all of the good people this unprofessional prosecutor has maligned," Garza said. "I'm not at all concerned about the accusations he has trumped up."

Banales dismissed indictments against Guerra last month that charged him with extorting money from a bail bond company and using his office for personal business. An appeals court had earlier ruled that Garza was improperly appointed as special prosecutor to investigate Guerra.

After Guerra's office was raided as part of the investigation early last year, he camped outside the courthouse in a borrowed camper with a horse, three goats and a rooster. He threatened to dismiss hundreds of cases because he believed local law enforcement had aided the investigation against him.

On Tuesday, Guerra said the indictments speak for themselves. He said the prison-related charges are a national issue and experts from across the country testified to the grand jury. Asked about the indictments against local players in the justice system who had pursued him, Guerra said, "the grand jury is the one that made those decisions, not me."

The indictments were first reported by KRGV-TV.

Here's a good quiz.

Test yourself

http://www.nasm.si.edu/geographyfromspace/begin.cfm?year=2008

It's sad and awful but please find out who is missing and or murdered in your city or state.

To bad only cute white girls get this much press

Can you name all 50 states?

Can you name the continents?

If you are here you have the world at your fingertips. No excuses not to know!

So folks it is Geography Awareness Week. Be aware

Read this and change it. Teach yourself, your kids...anyone you can.

Geography A Growing Biz, Can You Find Iraq On A Map?

Debra Dale Reporting
WBBM Newsradio 780

CHICAGO (WBBM) - This is Geography Awareness Week. It's a National Geographic-led campaign backed by a coalition of national business and non-profit organizations to expand geographic learning in school, at home, and in communities.

A National Geographic-Roper survey shows only 19 percent of U.S. children own a world map, half can't find New York on a map, and 63 percent can't find Iraq even though our troops have been there since 2003.

The goal of the campaign is to make geography education a priority. Their message is that young people need to know geography in order to understand today's world and succeed in tomorrow's. But they're not getting enough of it, in or out of school.

Shearer says the rise of www.mapquest.com and global positioning systems (GPS) has led to the creation of about 70,000 jobs in the U.S. every year in the field of geo-spacial technologies

There is a bill pending in Congress, the Teaching Geography is Fundamental Act, which aims to devote more funding to geography education. The bill appears to be stalled pending modification of the No Child Left Behind Act.

On the Net: www.mywonderfulworld.org

I am from Michigan.

I have met Ted.

I would never ever vote for him. Not even for dog catcher.

If I were going to vote for any musician it would have to be one that's played an original riff in the last twenty-five years.

Maybe the accent is the trouble.

Bush is an easterner pretending to be a Texan.

Maybe that's why he fails to pronounce some words correctly.