Arizona is our 48th State. We finally decided to render unto it statehood in 1912, fifty years after it had become a territory and a hundred years before it would become a permanent penal colony.  It is part of a group of states known as the four corners.  I never quite understood the moniker because there are so many other sites in the U.S. that are four corners. The point is that if you are standing at a certain point you could simultaneously find yourself in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah.  Of course, since the advent of the Star Gate franchise, this is not such a big deal anymore.

To the south of course, Arizona has a 389 mile border with Mexico.

There are 6.2 million folks taking advantage of the sun and imported water in Arizona. The religious breakdown goes something like this:

40% Protestant, 28% Catholic 20% unaffiliated and 6% Morman.

Here are some other little odds and ends I discovered during my google exercise the last few days:

Poverty rate: 18% http://www.statehealthfacts.org/profileind.jsp?rgn=4&cat=1&ind=16

Prison population:  35,000 inmates as of 2007. 1997 cost $400 million. 2007 cost $800 million.  http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/Arizona_descriptive.pdf

Oh and they are considering outsourcing their death camps. http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/Arizona_descriptive.pdf

Arizona is no stranger to private prisons or, for that matter, aggressive privatization efforts (recently, the state put up for sale several government buildings housing executive branch offices in Phoenix). Nearly 30 percent of the state's prisoners are being held in prisons operated by private companies outside the state's 10 complexes.

In addition, other states, including Alaska and Hawaii, have contracts with private companies like Corrections Corporation of America to house their prisoners in Arizona.

For advocates of prison privatization, the push here breathes a bit of life into a movement that has been on the decline across the country as cost savings from prison privatizations have often failed to materialize, corrections officers unions have resisted the efforts and high-profile problems in privately run facilities have drawn unwanted publicity

"We have private prisons in Arizona already, and we are very happy with the performance and the savings we get from them," said Representative John Kavanagh, a Republican who is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and an architect of the new legislation authorizing the privatization. "I think that they are the future of corrections in Arizona."

Under the legislation, any bidder would have to take an entire complex -- many of them mazes of multiple levels of security risks and complexity -- and would not be permitted to pick off the cheapest or easiest buildings and inmates. The state also wants to privatize prisoners' medical care. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/24/us/24prison.html

Arizona's two United States Senators are John McCain (R), the 2008 Republican Presidential Nominee, and Jon Kyl (R).

Kyl votes just like any repub.   http://www.votesmart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=26721&type=category&category=13&go.x=8&go.y=11

I have to look at Senator John Kyl's conservative countenance on MSM all the time.  There is gossip that has Kyl secretly meeting with Kit Bond; both naked as jay birds with only holsters and six guns performing  oral sex on each other...but these are only rumors. A great thinker this Kyl:

It would be hard to find a more compelling example of the American dream than Alberto Gonzales.

The tax on inheritances, or the 'death tax' is unfair, inefficient, economically unsound and, frankly, immoral.

"has been a longtime champion of Medicare modernization, and of providing seniors with access to preventive medicine and the new drugs that are transforming health care in this country. I saw this commitment firsthand in my work on the 2003 Medicare reform bill."

http://thinkexist.com/quotes/jon_kyl/

blahblahblahblahblah

McCain is more fun, really:

"I think she's most qualified of any that has run recently for vice president, tell you the truth." --on Sarah Palin, interview with Don Imus, Oct. 22, 2008

"I might have to rely on a vice president that I select' for expertise on economic issues." --GOP debate, Nov. 28, 2007

"Rates were c*nt in the Bush years." --committing a freudian slip while campaigning in Manchester, NH, Oct. 22, 2008 (Watch video clip)

"Our economy, I think, is still -- the fundamentals of our economy are strong." --Jacksonville, Fla., Sept. 15, 2008

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation." --in the Sept./Oct. issue of Contingencies

"[Sarah Palin] knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America. ... And, uh, she also happens to represent, be governor of a state that's right next to Russia." --after being asked about Sarah Palin's foreign policy experience, interview with WCSH-6, Portland, OR, Sept. 12, 2008

"It's easy for me to go to Washington and, frankly, be somewhat divorced from the day-to-day challenges people have." --speaking at the ServiceNation forum in New York, Sept. 11, 2008

"You know, I think you may have noticed that Senator Obama's supporters have been saying some pretty nasty things about Western Pennsylvania lately. And you know, I couldn't agree with them more. I couldn't disagree with you. I couldn't agree with you more than the fact that Western Pennsylvania is the most patriotic, most god-loving, most, most patriotic part of America, and this is a great part of the country." --Moon Township, Penn., Oct. 21, 2008 (Watch    http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/johnmccain/a/mccainisms.htm

"He's (for) health for the mother. You know, that's been stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to mean almost anything. That's the extreme pro-abortion position, quote, 'health.'" --mocking Obama's support for protection of a mother's health in abortion decisions, presidential debate, Long Island, New York, Oct. 15, 2008 (Watch video clip)

"My friends, we've got them just where we want them." --on Barack Obama and the state of the presidential campaign, Virginia Beach, Virginia, Oct. 13, 2008

"Across this country this is the agenda I have set before my fellow prisoners. And the same standards of clarity and candor must now be applied to my opponent." --Bethlehem, Penn., Oct. 8, 2008 (Watch video clip)

A guy named Hayworth is taking on McCain in the primaries for the Arizona Senate Seat.  He used to be a Congressman and now he is a fascist radio emcee/pundit/asshat. McCain is killing him in the primaries. It is rumored that Hayworth used to put on a cowboy hat and pay to watch Bond go down on Kyl in the Senate men's room facilities...but again, it's only a rumor.

Between 2001 and 2005 inclusive, Mary Hayworth, J.D. Hayworth's wife, received $101,872 compensation from her husband's leadership PAC, TEAM. During the same period, TEAM PAC also paid outside sources for bookkeeping and political consultation/fundraising a total of $61,676.

In the period between 2001 and February 2006, inclusive, TEAM PAC took in $538,109. This puts administrative costs for TEAM PAC at around 30% of contributions over a five year period.

(Data Source: Center for Responsive Politics)

Hayworth was listed in the Center for Responsible Politics Newsletter "Capital Eye", as being the 2nd largest recipient of Abramoff related contributions, receiving $64,060. [5]

In his 2006 book, Whatever it Takes: Illegal Immigration, Border Security, and the War on Terror, Hayworth praised automaker Henry Ford's ideas on the early 20th-century concept of "Americanization," endorsing them as a model for integrating immigrants into American society. Many historians view Ford's views in this area as anti-Semitic. In response, the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix sharply criticized Hayworth in a August 2006 editorial. Matt Lambert, a spokesman for Hayworth, responded by saying, "This has nothing to do with Henry Ford or antisemitism; it's all about politics." [6]

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=J.D._Hayworth

So Arizona presents choice, real choice. A 73 year old with concentration problems who only votes 93% with the repub voting bloc and a younger sociopath who votes 100% with the repub voting bloc.

But I wish to go back and discuss this hot house's prison system.

Joseph M. "Joe" Arpaio (born June 14, 1932) is an American law enforcement officer, and the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona. Arpaio, who promotes himself as "America's Toughest Sheriff,"[1][2] has become controversial for his approach to operating the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. He has a large number of vocal supporters as well as opponents. Maricopa County voters reelected him sheriff in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008.

Arpaio is famous for his tent city prisons. They have been featured on 60 Minutes and such. You know the stuff about him limiting the prisoners to two meals a day of green bologna. Oh and he got rid of naughty magazines.

He even started his own radio station. This Italian and former New Yorker would make the inmates listen to Sinatra and classical music four hours a day, five days a week.

Arpaio set up a "Tent City" as an extension of the Maricopa County Jail (33°25′40″N 112°07′26″W / 33.42778°N 112.12389°W / 33.42778; -112.12389 (Maricopa County Jail)). Tent City is located in a yard next to a more permanent structure containing toilets, showers, an area for meals, and a day room.[16] It has become notable particularly because of Phoenix's extreme temperatures. Daytime temperatures inside the tents have been reported as high as 150 °F (65 °C) in the top bunks.[17] During the summer, fans and water are supplied in the tents.[18]

During the summer of 2003, when outside temperatures exceeded 110 °F (43 °C), which is higher than average, Arpaio said to complaining inmates, "It's 120 degrees in Iraq and the soldiers are living in tents, have to wear full body armor, and they didn't commit any crimes, so shut your mouths."[19] Inmates were given permission to wear only their pink underwear.

In 1995, Arpaio reinstituted chain gangs. In 1996, Arpaio expanded the chain gang concept by instituting female volunteer chain gangs.[21] Female inmates work seven hours a day (7 a.m. to 2 p.m.), six days a week. He has also instituted the world's first all-juvenile volunteer chain gang; volunteers earn high school credit toward a diploma.

But this is not THE news in Arizona right now. The issues surrounding Apaio deal with our border problems.

(CNN) -- Federal authorities are moving to rein in the man dubbed "America's Toughest Sheriff" after complaints that immigration raids by his deputies amounted to unconstitutional roundups of Latinos.

Reporting from Denver -- A federal grand jury is investigating Joe Arpaio, the Arizona sheriff known for his aggressive stance on illegal immigration, for possible abuses of power in launching investigations of local officials who disagree with him, authorities said Friday.

Two Maricopa County officials have been subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury to testify about Arpaio's actions against county officials since they moved to cut his budget in late 2008.

Since then Arpaio and County Atty. Andrew Thomas, an ally, have filed criminal charges against two county supervisors, have said dozens of other county workers are under investigation and have filed a federal racketeering lawsuit accusing the entire county political structure of conspiring against them.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/09/nation/la-na-arpaio9-2010jan09

You see the Sheriff was seeing many of his arrests go bad.  There appeared to be Constitutional Issues concerning some of his investigative tactics.  So he teams up with the County Attorney and starts charging judges and country officials with a variety of crimes.

So now, a grand jury is investigating him. There is good news. I mean Arpaio is 78 years old.

Grampa died last week

And now he is buried in the rocks

Everybody still talks about

How badly they were shocked

But me, I expected it to happen

I knew he lost control

When he built of fire on mainstreet

And shot it full of holes.

bdylan

In a lot of ways, old man Arpaio reflects the character of Arizona.