These are a couple of interesting stories that could only happen here. (here being North America, for the purposes of this post).

In the first, Canadian Mennonites looking to expand their agricultural community on cheap land free of government oversight are drawn to Chihuahua, where their efficiency is all set to cause the extinction of the endangered Aplomado falcons and deplete the water table They almost landed in Arkansas but were denied.

(note to the liberal news media: can't Mitt Romney's Mormon-imperialist-Mexico-invading forebears be similarly blamed for wiping out some species there?)

The grasslands favored by the falcon in Chihuahua state are also important to migratory birds and endangered Mexican pronghorn antelope.

But the habitat's destruction by the Mennonites has gone virtually unhindered by Mexican authorities, say environmentalists who fruitlessly tried to use the nation's endangered species law to save it.

"No one knew of the population," Montoya said of his discovery of falcons in the valley. "And 16 years later, they're going to disappear."

The empty nest

The Aplomado falcon is listed as a protected species in Mexico. But so far, the only protection it has received in Chihuahua has been on paper.

No one knows this better than Roberto Rodríguez, a scientist with a Chihuahua City environmental group who has filed multiple criminal complaints over the destruction of Aplomado habitat....

A few thousand Mennonite farmers came to Chihuahua in the 1920s from Canada, where after a stay of 50 years the government had begun intervening in their children's schooling. In Mexico, they were left alone.

Generations later, the Mennonite population has boomed — an estimated 68,000 live in the Cuauhtémoc area — but the growth has pushed their agricultural lifestyle toward collapse.

"The basic problem of this community is land, due to their demographic explosion," said Zacarías Márquez, a history professor at the Autonomous University of Chihuahua. Mennonite families have as many as 10 children, he noted.

The pressure has pushed Mennonites into other states. They've mostly held fast to tradition but an increasing minority are getting university degrees, joining mainstream society and even leaving Mexico. The community has also faced recent allegations of drug trafficking.

"It worries us," said Johan Fehr, the leader of the sect's Manitoba Colony in Chihuahua. "Our people need more territory."

They've looked for it in Mexico, Canada and the United States. A group of Mennonites would have moved to a 60,000-acre area in Arkansas if they had obtained visas, Fehr said.

They've found little suitable land. And land with fertile soil and water free of government red tape is definitely suitable.

Despite Weibe's problems, Aplomado falcon territory has plenty of groundwater, as attested by a half-dozen functioning wells within sight of his efforts.

In a country where it's often impossible to drill a well without paying hefty permit fees, bribes, or both, the Tarabillas Valley stands out for having few, if any, such restrictions.

In the other story, a 25 year old teacher fled to Mexico with her eighth grade student, who she had been screwing. (see, all of those movies are true). The kid is an illegal immigrant but the teacher sounds pretty darn white for someone fleeing to Mexico with a little boy with the plan to "blend in". Her name is "Kelsey Peterson" for chrissakes.

Kelsey Peterson, 25, in her car Nov. 2 in the parking lot of a shopping mall in this border city. The teacher was turned over to U.S. authorities to face federal charges of transporting a child across state lines for sexual activity, ending a weeklong search, and agreed Wednesday to be extradited from California to Nebraska.

Arenas released the boy, an illegal immigrant, to relatives who live in Yuma, Ariz. The eighth-grader told The Associated Press in Mexico that he had sexual intercourse with the teacher, whom he called his best friend, and that the pair went to Mexico to "get away for a while."

Arenas said Peterson entered Tijuana, Mexico, from San Diego with a car full of clothing, bottled water, toiletries, family photos, Disney DVDs and her dog, Miley.

"She drove down here planning on trying to blend in," Arenas said...

Arenas said he questioned the two until nearly midnight as he waited for the FBI and the boy's relatives. The boy sat on the opposite end of a long table at the police station as his former teacher professed her love for him, acknowledged a sexual relationship and said she had no regrets.

As Peterson and the boy parted, she said she would "always love him in her heart," Arenas said.

Why do these teacher-child rape cases always seem to involve a white teacher and an immigrant boy? In that famous teacher-student love affair that included a prison break in Seattle or somewhere out there a few years back was the whitey teacher shacked up with a Filipino boy or something?