A lot of people already avoid Phoenix and Maricopa County, Arizona so they don’t have to concern themselves with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, but it looks like the rest of state has followed his lead and gone weird.

The state is less than 400 miles across whether you use I-40 or I-10, so it’s an easy day with one stop for fuel and food, and you don’t have to buy anything from Arizonans.

The Diné are up North, so you can buy from them, and if you want to visit the Grand Canyon, the Hualapai are on the south side, and that transparent observation deck over the Canyon is theirs.

If you need to use I-10 [or the I-10/I-8 combination to or from San Diego] then you can stop with the Tohono O’odham in the Sonoran Desert. If you have an interest in baskets, they make great ones, but the best ones are not cheap unless you really appreciate the craftsmanship.

If you are interested in how screwed up things are in Arizona, you should check out the Border Issues section in the Tohono O’odham entry.

Remember that Native American reservations are sovereign areas and not subject to the lunacy of the Arizona legislature.

For reasons known only to them, according to Digby the Republican Governors Conference has decided to adopt Guy Fawkes, a religious fanatic who attempted to blow up a government building, as their symbol. I guess it was too soon for them to use Der Reichstagsbrand [Reichstag fire].

Would anyone care to compare and contrast Guy Fawkes and Osama bin Laden?

So, on November 2^nd when you enter the voting booth, do you want to elect those who are apparently OK with blowing up the US Capitol?

Here’s Wikipedia on the 2010 UK General Election being held on May 6^th. All 650 seats in the British Parliament are up for grabs and it is a three-way race. I’m using Wikipedia because it has a neutral tone and has every conceivable link to coverage at the end of the article.

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It is ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand, which is similar to the American Veterans Day, in that it began as a remembrance of World War I, and has become more generalized over the years.

“Anzac Day commemorates the involvement of Australian and New Zealand troops in a World War I campaign on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey.”

The Gallipoli Campaign began as a Winston Churchill [then First Lord of the Admiralty] plan that spun out of control and got a lot of people killed on both sides with nothing much changing, but then, that was quite common in World War I.

Peter Weir’s made a movie, Gallipoli, which, if nothing else, proves that Sergeant Alvin York, and T.E. Lawrence weren’t the only people who fought in World War I.