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2006-09-21 Home Front: WoT

US to build 1,800 watchtowers (Mex and Canada borders) - Boeing Contract

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Posted by 3dc 2006-09-21 13:10|| || Front Page|| [11127 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Boeing has promised to have the system functioning within three years of the contract's award.

Ah, so not yet awarded / funded - but that's the purview of the House, where the RINO count is obviously a manageable handicap. Now if the good folks will turn out and vote - we can keep it so.

Up or down vote on this, please.

Posted by Speater Flump2829 2006-09-21 13:18|| 2006-09-21 13:18|| Front Page Top

#2 More comfortable than the seats on their planes (coach).

Posted by Perfesser 2006-09-21 14:43|| 2006-09-21 14:43|| Front Page Top

#3 Why go all high tech? seems to me the Minutemen had it right: just stick a f-ing fence in the way and that will slow the flow down. concentrate the border patrol where the flow doesn't slow and do what you need to. but if you must build towers, then perhaps fire hoses and nozzles filled with that sicky glue to pin the bad guys down in place would be more fun. stuck in the desert under a hot sun while the foam cured in place. sprinkle some sugar on before it dries and that would be even more entertaining.
FYI Perfesser: Seat selection / and interior design is the purview of the airlines, not Boeing.

Posted by USN, ret. 2006-09-21 15:45|| 2006-09-21 15:45|| Front Page Top

#4 Fences, sand berms, and concrete barriers is level one. Quick and fast. Level two should be built a distance back and resemble the Great Wall of China. Tourist attraction and impassable.

Fences make great neighbors and I think most Yanks want to love our neighbors to the South, we really do, they just make it pretty hard at times.

Posted by rjschwarz 2006-09-21 16:16|| 2006-09-21 16:16|| Front Page Top

#5 Oh Great!!! Just what we farking need, more Jehovah Witnesses!!!

Posted by Thoth 2006-09-21 16:37|| 2006-09-21 16:37|| Front Page Top

#6 This is just pork. In this case, there is a strong "point of diminishing returns", as far as the border goes.

For instance, let's say you erect barriers on the 1% of the border where most crossers cross. It is effective in stopping 80% of the crossers, and thus is very cost-effective. Say it costs $50M.

You use some second measure, doesn't really matter what, that costs $200M, and reduces the number of crossers by another 10%. Far less cost effective, because you have passed the point of diminishing returns. However, it still might be *reasonable* to spend $250M to stop 90% total, of border crossers.

But a third measure, say watchtowers, cost EIGHT BILLION DOLLARS. On its own, ignoring the costs of the other two measures, it may promise to stop *another* 5% of border crossers, making the grand sum total 95% of crossers stopped. But is it worth EIGHT BILLION DOLLARS to stop only 5% of illegals?

That has really passed the law of diminishing returns, especially when even more measures would probably not stop even 1% of illegals, even if they cost hundreds of billions of dollars. 95% is the best that can be done, no matter the cost.

(Of course, actual statistics on this will vary from my examples.)

So this brings up a new issue: Some kinds of illegal immigrants the US can tolerate a little, like Mexicans, other kinds it cannot, like al-Qaeda coming in from Mexico. This suggests we need two very different solutions to the problems.

Keeping down the number of Mexicans entering the US is one issue, and plenty of argument there; but for keeping out the non-Mexican illegals, there is a simple and inexpensive method that could keep out very close to 100%.

That is, the US pay Mexicans a bounty for turning in non-Mexicans trying to sneak across the border.

Even by our standards a trivial sum of money, say from $100 to $30,000 for a major al-Qaeda, would seem like an incredible fortune South of the border. Thousands of hungry eyes would follow any foreigner who even approached the border.

Of course they would try to bribe the Mexicans to take them across, and the Mexicans would take their bribes before turning them over for the reward. The Mexicans might also just rip them off and leave them in the desert.

Any way, even if 5% of illegals can still get through the border, it will be almost 100% closed to any non-Mexican, possibly a terrorist.

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-09-21 16:45|| 2006-09-21 16:45|| Front Page Top

#7 Credential the bastards LAWYERS licensed to practice law in all 50 states as soon as they come across the river.

Fence will be up, dogs, towers, radar. Problem will be over in a week.

Posted by Besoeker 2006-09-21 16:49|| 2006-09-21 16:49|| Front Page Top

#8 Actually, if you make the border crossing too difficult, you will see a major drop in the numbers of illegals trying to cross. One of the reasons we have so many people jumping the border is that it has been so easy to do so for so many years. It does not take a lot of effort to cross in a huge number of spots on the border, or used to be that easy. The more we expand the well-built southern fence, the more effort and danger the illegals will suffer trying to get across. At a certain tipping point, only the most committed will even bother to try. That in itself will reduce by a very large percentage the numbers trying to cross. Part of this will be that the true nature of the difficulty in crossing will take a couple of years to filter back throughout Mexico. Then the numbers heading north will slow simply because people will not wish to waste the effort, the money, the time on an increasing unlikely chance to make it through to El Norte.
In other words, the opportunistic crossers will be gone, and only the truly committed will remain.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2006-09-21 17:34|| 2006-09-21 17:34|| Front Page Top

#9 Open the door to your soul Thoth, you cheap bastard, stop hiding behind Satans couch, answer the doorbell of hope, it's only a ~~dime~~ quarter and we'll only be a minute.

Posted by 6 2006-09-21 17:38|| 2006-09-21 17:38|| Front Page Top

#10 Jimi Hendrix!

Posted by borgboy 2006-09-21 17:39|| 2006-09-21 17:39|| Front Page Top

#11 Yes, Jimi was one of the 177,000 lucky winners. Thoth has a ticket, but until he opens the venetian blinds of clear thinking and buys a Watchtower he can't rub off the glory.

Posted by 6 2006-09-21 17:46|| 2006-09-21 17:46|| Front Page Top

#12 Fence first.

Everything else is just pork as 'Moose says.

Posted by .com 2006-09-21 17:49|| 2006-09-21 17:49|| Front Page Top

#13 Fox just said this contract was awarded and they will begin in AZ next spring - so the money is there. Sad that it won't go into the fence...

Posted by .com 2006-09-21 18:00|| 2006-09-21 18:00|| Front Page Top

#14 That is, the US pay Mexicans a bounty for turning in non-Mexicans trying to sneak across the border.

'moose, I have to assume you're talking about those who are not of Hispanic origin. Otherwise the bounty would count for Guatemalans, Hondurans and so forth. I'm confident that you intended this to sort out the Arab types.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2006-09-21 18:20|| 2006-09-21 18:20|| Front Page Top

#15 It's not an either-or thing, .com. Just a huge fence is worthless without someone to watch for scaling, tunneling, or driving a Mexican Army vehicle through. Observation posts alone can't see everywhere, so we need fences to channel them. And you need armed people to intercept.

Posted by Jackal">Jackal 2006-09-21 20:32|| http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html]">[http://home.earthlink.net/~sleepyjackal/index.html] 2006-09-21 20:32|| Front Page Top

#16 I'll take my chances 6.

:)

Posted by Thoth 2006-09-21 20:35|| 2006-09-21 20:35|| Front Page Top

#17 Jackal - Perhaps you'd be happier if I'd said enforcement first. Without the fence, it doesn't work, so the fence is front and center.

Posted by .com 2006-09-21 22:01|| 2006-09-21 22:01|| Front Page Top

23:57 trailing wife
23:49 Texas Redneck
23:47 Frank G
23:45 Texas Redneck
23:44 Thoth
23:43 ex-lib
23:42 .com
23:41 trailing wife
23:41 .com
23:40 Thoth
23:39 Rafael
23:39 .com
23:38 Abdominal Snowman
23:37 Thoth
23:33 Thoth
23:33 trailing wife
23:31 .com
23:31 Thoth
23:27 Thoth
23:26 trailing wife
23:25 Grolurt Hupising1286
23:23 Broadhead6
23:20 Grolurt Hupising1286
23:20 Zenster