I never denied any problems in the United States - merely that to compare a dictatorship to our republic is an interesting stance to take. We have our fair share of shortcomings, but to compare out government and freedoms to that of a dictatorship that imprisons political dissidants is going quite far.

As an aside, I wasn't aware that websites like um, indymedia.org and infoshop.org were corporate media outlets, as you suggest.

And of course they've experianced decades of murderous dictatorships - they've been experiancing the current one for nearly 50 years.

As for the topic at hand, the county sheriff's budget was cut by 350,000 - thus the department is reducing it's staff by 6... How they're managaing that when a deputy is paid 120,000 dollars a year I'm not quite sure. ;)