Because it’s the Memorial Day weekend, you are probably not reading this. In fact, if you are, we want to thank you for your interest, but since everyone else is away somewhere, we’re going to post Steve Sailer’s column on Monday night, when people will be back. He’ll be commenting on the latest National Review, which contains a deeply wrongheaded column by Jim Manzi. [Undetermined, June 2, 2008 (Pay archive| free version) ]

Bad is going to worse in Mexico border towns. When police chiefs flee to the USA for asylum and cartels can mass murder at will, it’s anarchy. AKA, a failed state.

In Ciudad Juarez, at least 14 people were murdered in 24 hours, following a terrorizing threat that the weekend would be the bloodiest one in memory. Needless to say, that sort of thing tends to make people stay away and not engage in normal life and business in the city. Cartel violence has closed businesses in Tijuana as well.

Back to Juarez: Border Violence (Dallas Morning News, By Alfredo Corchado, May 25, 2008).

In signs of panic, concerts planned for the weekend were canceled, nightclubs closed early on Friday and Juárez Mayor José Reyes Ferriz cut short his visit to Colombia, returning Friday night.

The city across the border from El Paso was on red alert Saturday, and the mayor said extra forces were on duty.

“I can’t recall a more grave time in Juárez,” said Alfredo Quijano, editor of the newspaper Norte de Ciudad Juárez. “We’ve had other massacres … but never anything like this.”

The hysteria began Thursday with an e-mail warning that gunmen would fire at malls and restaurants and threatening “killings all over the city.”

On Friday night, El Paso’s TV stations and the El Paso Times reported about the e-mail, deepening the alarm on the U.S. side of the border.

“I’ve cut my trips short to Juárez because of long bridge lines and killings there,” said El Paso resident Oscar Rodriguez, 34, a telemarketing specialist. “But with this, I’ll be crazy to return to Juárez anytime soon. It’s crazy. Where is the rule of law?”

Where indeed? Certainly not in Mexico.

Below, a map of the cartels which are battling each other and Mexico City for control of territory.

Glenn Reynolds asks “A COMBAT ZONE on the U.S. / Mexico border?”

Indeed. We’ve been writing about this for some time.What he’s talking about is this video below, and the underlying CNS News story U.S. Report Says 128 Americans Murdered in Mexico in 3 Years, By Penny Starr, May 23, 2008. The advice is to avoid Mexico. Of course, there is also  large number of Americans killed in America by Mexicans. Certainly more than 128 in three years. What does the State Department think about that?