Several weeks back a few news stories popped up on my radar about drug/gang violence in Mexico but, frankly, didn’t pay that much attention to it. With 368 kidnappings for ransom in the country in 2008 the drug cartels shooting it out in a border town didn’t seem all that unrealistic.

Well, the violence in Ciudad Juarez is, apparently, getting so bad the 5,000 Mexican soldiers already in the city are not enough. Local business owners are calling for United Nations peacekeepers to stop the violence. What blows me away is Ciudad Juarez and the murder rate. Through mid-October there 1,986 homicides or roughly 7 per day.

I’m blow away.

Will the Mexican government ask the U.N. to step in?

I’m not a meteorologist, nor do I play one on TV, but I am really surprised at how quickly hurricane Ike’s projected path changed in a matter of hours. In the last two days the storm went from hitting New Orleans to just about hitting the US / Mexican border. The surprise, for me, is the path changed significantly from this morning – in a matter of 4 hours.

When I first logged on all models were showing Houston was still the target of the storm but come lunch time it’s Corpus Christi. That’s a big difference in a short period of time which says to me one shouldn’t underestimate where this guy is going.

Think about it – the models are changing so quickly, so dramatically, anything could happen in a matter of hours. While targets have it trending west and south into less populated areas, the Gulf should still fear a turn to the north.

Never underestimate Mother Nature.

Here is the current storm path: