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from the if-you-build-it-they-will-come...and-cut-through-it dept.
Smugglers have found an easy way to get through the vertical steel tube Mexican border wall. From https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/smugglers-are-sawing-through-new-sections-of-trumps-border-wall/2019/11/01/25bf8ce0-fa72-11e9-ac8c-8eced29ca6ef_story.html
The breaches have been made using a popular cordless household tool known as a reciprocating saw that retails at hardware stores for as little as $100. When fitted with specialized blades, the saws can slice through one of the barrier's steel-and-concrete bollards in minutes, according to the agents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the barrier-defeating techniques.
After cutting through the base of a single bollard, smugglers can push the steel out of the way, creating an adult-size gap. Because the bollards are so tall — and are attached only to a panel at the top — their length makes them easier to push aside once they have been cut and are left dangling, according to engineers consulted by The Washington Post.
The taxpayer-funded barrier — so far coming with a $10 billion price tag — was a central theme of Trump's 2016 campaign, and he has made the project a physical symbol of his presidency, touting its construction progress in speeches, ads and tweets. Trump has increasingly boasted to crowds in recent weeks about the superlative properties of the barrier, calling it "virtually impenetrable" and likening the structure to a "Rolls-Royce" that border crossers cannot get over, under or through.
In other words, no one did any serious pen testing on the wall design, or it would have been obvious that with all that leverage, the top tie-in was easy to flex.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 04 2019, @06:17PM (46 children)
Sheesh. The wall is imperfect, therefore we must allow unlimited hoards of identity thieves and worse to just pour across with no attempt to do anything about it? Millions upon millions of these people would make our country about as nice as Central America -- do you want to live like that? The USA doesn't have magic dirt to make people civilized.
It is pretty clear that we need a zone in which people get arrested. Put a 4-foot chain-link fence on the border, a road north of that, and then a 30-foot wall or pile of razor wire. Anybody attacking the serious border is already on US soil and thus gets arrested. (or if we still had balls, shot)
(Score: 5, Funny) by sjames on Monday November 04 2019, @06:30PM (1 child)
Why not immigrant repelling rocks? They can be fairly cheap if bought in bulk and easily put in place.
Hey, the one I have for tigers works great!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 04 2019, @08:40PM
I have a ball cap just like that! It works so good that you can hardly find a tiger in North America if it's not locked up so it can't be repelled.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by martyb on Monday November 04 2019, @06:52PM (15 children)
Yep, all of 'em are "bad people". You don't want no "bad people" moving in now do you? Especially nowhere near where you live. Right?
I seriously doubt that ALL of the folk are "bad people", but rather regular folk like you and me who just want to live their life and take care of their family, and have found themselves thrust into the midst of fighting between drug cartels, street gangs, or may be suffering from political persecution and can get no help from bribed police.
Inasmuch as you find their coming here distasteful, imagine what many are fleeing from and what you would do in their shoes.
For the amount of money being spent to keep them out ($10 billion / ~330 million Americans giving a bill of approx. $3000 for every one of us to pay) against the few millions of people wanting to come here, it certainly seems to me to be money badly spent.
It seems to me you have not had to face the extremes these people did. Put yourself in their shoes for a bit and tell me what you might do differently. Walk hundreds of miles in hopes of getting a better life? I cannot imagine what horrors these folk have seen and experienced.
Uniformly, the people I have met who have fled war-stricken lands and poverty to come to the USA are uniformly grateful for their new life, hard-working, friendly, and happy to help others who now struggle as they once did. Maybe we could learn a few things from them.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 04 2019, @07:02PM (10 children)
Well, Marty, it's for certain that they aren't all "good people" either. The cartels are already operating north of the border. They come, and they go, fearlessly, and do as they please while here.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday November 04 2019, @11:05PM (8 children)
While true, the cartels have enough money to dig deep enough to get under a 6 foot footer.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by deimtee on Tuesday November 05 2019, @10:00AM (7 children)
Yeah, but at the moment the bad people are hiding in amongst all the good people that cross the border. If you build a wall that only the bad people can get past you can just shoot anyone who crosses illegally.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday November 05 2019, @02:09PM (6 children)
Fuck. So many in favor of MURDER here today.
May you end up in their position.
You are a sick ..... well, obviously not human, nor a person. Perhaps a shitstain on the bedsheets of life.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday November 05 2019, @03:14PM (2 children)
Your definition of murder does not coincide with either my definition, or the legal definition.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday November 05 2019, @03:58PM (1 child)
So when you see that family running for the border, are you willing to kill unarmed people in cold blood with no trial? Fits my definition.
But your right, doing it at the border wouldn't technically be murder.
More like a war crime.
Murdering people seeking asylum. Is that really a country you could take pride in? Land of the oppressed, home of the coward? Not the ideal I served for.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday November 05 2019, @04:50PM
The guy breaking into my home at night doesn't have to be armed, to justify me shooting him dead. There is the "front door", where these "migrants" can ring the bell, and ask for admittance. And, there is the window in the bathroom, where the "migrants" can break into the house, hoping that no one notices them. You're asking me to not shoot the assholes coming through the bathroom window, or the basement door, or the attic vent. Just let them in, let them make themselves comfortable, and maybe I should offer them snacks and beverages.
Bro, I don't share your white guilt. Don't ask me to not shoot the burglars.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Tuesday November 05 2019, @04:59PM
You're criticizing him for not valuing human life, while calling him subhuman.
Pot: kettle
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday November 05 2019, @08:25PM (1 child)
I said
You can either take it as a precise literal statement, or you can take it as sarcasm. It works either way. But pick one or the other.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday November 06 2019, @04:03AM
Meh, should never post on a really ultra bad day. Reduced reading comprehension and enhanced psychotic reactions. Nice bag o' ganja sure improves the attitude. Come now, I made a great punching bag for a few hours now didn't I? Hehehe.
Tis' good to let the psychosis have a bit o' yard time occasionally. Clears the cobwebs. Resets the guidance computer.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Thexalon on Tuesday November 05 2019, @02:27AM
And of course everybody knows that the US had and has no drug problems whatsoever except those caused by Latin American drug cartels. No tobacco plantations, no cannabis, no snuff, no Chinese-run opium dens, no Irish and Italian booze gangs, no meth labs, no crack labs, and no big companies pushing highly addictive pain pills.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 04 2019, @08:48PM
Well it would be nice if they stayed and made an actual effort to fix things down there. If a large proportion of them are unhappy with the situation you should have a lot of available manpower
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 04 2019, @08:50PM (1 child)
Yeah, sure, their life sucks. So what? They don't get to come here.
Analogy: There are homeless people and burglars outside. Surely you will let them into your home? Your door can't stop them all, so why bother, and lots of them are miserable. Why are you excluding them from your home?
If I wanted to live with Central Americans, I would simply move to Central America. You are welcome to do so. I don't want the USA to be like El Salvador.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday November 04 2019, @10:30PM
The El Salvadorians might want their country to be peaceful though, so how about you gringos stop messing their country up? If you guys left them alone they might not have to escape the various murderous dictators you keep foisting on them.
I imagine the same goes for the Nicaraguans, Hondurans, and Guatemalans as well.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Monday November 04 2019, @09:50PM
$30, not $3000.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday November 04 2019, @07:00PM
Ewwwww, toxic masculinity! /sarcasm
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Monday November 04 2019, @07:54PM (9 children)
You're missing the point.
*Every* wall is imperfect, unless it's well guarded. The absolute best that a wall can accomplish is to slow people down enough that guards have a chance to spot them. And that's rarely more than buying you a few minutes.
As such it makes great sense to build walls for security in places where visibility is low or chaos is high and people could easily cross and disappear in a few seconds.
That's not the reality along the Mexican border (except in a few areas, where there has already been a wall for decades). The border is mostly flat desert, where you can see people coming from miles away (quite often all the way to the horizon, =~50 miles), and keep seeing them for just as long after they've crossed. That gives you a half hour or more to spot them and intercept, even if they're driving very fast across rough terrain - slowing them down for a couple extra minutes as they cross the wall is wasted effort, and very expensive wasted effort at that.
What you need is guard towers, drones, or some other surveillance to spot them coming, and watch them go, until guards can intercept them. If you have those, the wall contributes nothing. And if you don't have those... the wall still contributes nothing. So why exactly are we paying an outrageous amount to build a wall?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday November 04 2019, @09:07PM (1 child)
That's not really clear...unless you are on a budget. I suspect that it would be quite possible to build a wall that would be difficult enough to penetrate that some other approach would be used. But it wouldn't be cheap.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday November 04 2019, @09:19PM
Some other approach than a ~$100 sawzall? Certainly. But in the absolute worst case they use a $50 ladder or grappling hook. Obviously that'd mean you can't drive through it, but if you don't have guards smugglers just transfer people from one vehicle to another waiting on the other side of the wall. Or just blow a hole in the wall and drive through - nobody has built a wall yet that can withstand a skilled demolition team with a few sticks of dynamite.
Walls buy you time, nothing more. You can make them arbitrarily difficult to destroy, but destroying them will always be far, far cheaper than building them, so there's some severely diminishing returns to consider. And climbing over them will always be pretty easy.
It's only the guards that make a wall secure. Without them a wall, no matter how strong and intimidating, is just an inconvenience.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @04:42AM (2 children)
Look, there is no way the US is going to hire enough guards to really control the border. But we don't have to. The problem of denying access to large portions of land have already been largely solved.
It's called a minefield.
Build a fence on the border, hang signs up on it that say "If you cross this fence, you will die". Add pictographs for the illiterates. Behind the fence build a road (for access and maintenance). Then another fence. Then a two mile wide area filled randomly with landmines. Then another fence. Send copters over occasionally to replenish any mines that get triggered.
This will never happen, of course, because Americans in general no longer have the willingness to kill to protect their land. This is why they will lose it, and be conquered by those who are perfectly happy to kill.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday November 05 2019, @02:00PM
Goddam. Another advocate for MURDERING people fleeing from oppression.
May you as well end up on the business end of your own suggestion.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday November 05 2019, @04:57PM
And, y'know, because 4 fences, routine helicopter patrols, and a metric assload of mines is fucking expensive
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @03:31PM (3 children)
Which is what the Dems were saying all along - a wall is fine but without supplementation it is useless.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday November 05 2019, @03:58PM (2 children)
As were left-leaning independents such as myself. Except that a wall is *not* fine - it's an ecological nightmare.
I'm actually in favor of cracking down on illegal immigration - though I'd say targetting the illegal employers would be FAR more effective than trying to stop a flow of desperate people. Make it a felony with mandatory jail time to hire an illegal immigrant, and place a nice big bounty (perhaps a fast-track to citizenship) for proof of someone doing so, and you'd shut down the demand overnight. Very few people would sneak across the border if there were no money in it.
But if you're going to try to stop the flow of people, then you need to do it right - with guard patrols. There's already a natural moat along most of the border, and no place to hide. A wall adds nothing, and does so at incredible expense.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 05 2019, @05:09PM (1 child)
Never happen. The economy depends on illegal, below-minimum-wage workers. If all illegals were rounded up and deported in less than, oh, twenty years, the US economy would crater even worse than the Great Depression and take even longer to recover. All the national level politicians know this, which is why Dems never massively raise and streamline legal immigration and Republicans never do anything truly effective to secure the border.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:44AM
I fear you may be right. Which makes it all the more horrific that we're putting desperate people's lives through the wringer for the sake of political theatre.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 04 2019, @10:34PM (13 children)
Frankly, if it is a choice between you and a bunch of Central American migrants, I think I would prefer to take my chances with the migrants.
Ummm,...yeah. You have already demonstrated that amazingly well. It would also be good if our "magic dirt" gave us in the USA a bit more self-awareness and empathy.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 05 2019, @02:49AM (12 children)
Feel free to go see the utopias they've made of their homelands, then tell me how wonderful it would be to have as many of them here as want to come. And don't even go playing race card nonsense on that statement. It's 100% cultural and ours has objectively proven itself better over the past two centuries and change. People not raised here do not value what we value. Sure as fuck not what you value, because that kind of idiocy can only come to be in extremely prosperous nations where the people have almost no real hardships.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @04:44AM (8 children)
It's not "cultural", it historical, you gibbering idiot! A large part of the reason that their homelands are a mess is because of meddling in their internal affairs by the USA and other nations.
Really? Are you sure about that? You wouldn't happen to be pure-blooded native American, would you? I know I'm not. You do realize that the vast majority of us are descended from immigrants who came here from many different countries, right? For example, my grandparents came here from a mess of a country that at the time had recently been taken over by an Austrian corporal with dreams of world domination. He seemed to think that blue-eyed, blond-haired Aryans were the pinnacle of the evolutionary ladder, even though he wasn't one himself. (Go figure) I don't think that either I, my grandparents, my parents, my brothers, or anyone else in my extended family are threats to our American values. In fact, many would argue that this country was literally built by people that came here from "shit hole" countries. Given that, do you really understand American values? Do you really belong here? No, seriously. Do you really belong here? Are you sure?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 05 2019, @02:31PM (7 children)
Nope, sorry, it's cultural. You only get to blame someone else for your government or society from the time they interfere until you decide to do nothing about it or participate in it; after that the blame is entirely yours.
Drop the faux history lesson. It's a a bullshit red herring and you know it. The past has some wisdom to share but it does not tell you what you are or dictate the future.
Now as to immigration, I'm in favor of anyone and everyone who legitimately wants to become an American doing so as long as they A) do so in accordance with our laws and B) integrate into our culture rather than trying to wag the culture they're fleeing with them.
We're not called the Great American Melting Pot for no reason. Anything from immigrant culture that meshes with ours, we gleefully steal and make our own. That doesn't mean we're going to or even should allow the bits that oppose our values though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @04:12PM (4 children)
I give up. You are a gibbering fool. Enjoy the poverty of your ignorance. And may karma come back round to bite you on the ass.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @05:07PM
Another soul saved from trying to argue rationally with a pea brain.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 05 2019, @05:10PM (2 children)
Well, giving up is the proper response when you've been soundly beaten and you know it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @10:06PM (1 child)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!
Hint: just because you are the last person jabbering away doesn't mean you are the "winner". But don't worry, little buzzardbrain. Maybe someday, when you grow, up you too will learn the finer points of how to engage in reasoned debate.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 07 2019, @10:51PM
You mean I'll be just like you?! Oh, joy! Oh, rapture!
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @10:48PM (1 child)
Oh, really? Is that so? Care for a dose of your own medicine? Currently, President Trump has committed multiple offenses that would have landed just about any one of the rest of us in jail. So, what are you doing about this? Are you willing to accept the blame as "entirely yours"?
<sarcasm>Oh, noes!!! Somebody has obliterated the Buzztard's nicely crafted narrative with some inconvenient facts! Whatever will he do?!?</sarcasm>
Amazing! The Buzztard can spew pithy little aphorisms but can't see how they might apply to others. Is he even sentient?
When I was growing up in Michigan, in the heart of the Midwest, my parents and grandparents used to like to engage in some of their German customs. Mostly it occurred around holiday time. It didn't really bother anyone else in the community and no one appeared to mind too much. Now, I live in the Southwest. People here do things slightly...different. Mind you, not too much but it is a a noticeable change. People like chilies on just about everything. Lot more Spanish speaking people, but the vast majority of them know English too. Sometimes, you can see some Latinx folks dressed up and doing traditional dances in the old town square. From my perspective, that is about the extent of their "trying to wag the culture they're fleeing with them". So, is celebration of German heritage acceptable while Latinx not? If so, what in your view is the distinction?
What I see are people trying to flee oppressive conditions back home, much like what my grandparents were trying to do. What is it that you see here that is fundamentally opposed to "our values"? Be specific.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 07 2019, @11:11PM
You think I don't take responsibility for what my politicians do and try to change it? You really need to clean the shit out of your ears.
No, somebody spouted irrelevant nonsense in an effort to derail the spanking they were getting.
Sorry, it's "Latino". You idiots get to make up Spanish words even less than you get to make up English ones. Mind you, I completely understand why you hate the Spanish language; it only has two genders.
What you see are people raised in an oppressive culture that lead to a nation becoming a grade-A shithole. And you're inviting them to come here and keep doing exactly the same things. Further, they're not entitled to just waltz in because they want to, no matter how much you think they should be. If they want to integrate into American society, yay. If they want to bring their corruption and other criminality as a way of life up here, thanks just the same but we already have more than we want of those.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @07:42PM (2 children)
Yeah. I've been there. You're wrong. About them, about what culture is, that yours is better, and that America somehow means "adopt our culture or fuck off."
You're an idiot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @07:42PM
No, revision.... You're not an idiot, and I know that.
But you're not right.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 07 2019, @11:16PM
Good for you. I've been lived around and worked with more legals and illegals than I can count, so you're not any more an authority than I am for having hit some tourist spots on vacation.
Here's what Teddy "the enormous hippie" Roosevelt had to say on the matter:
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday November 05 2019, @01:56PM
"It is pretty clear that we need a zone in which people get arrested. "
Already have that.
"Put a 4-foot chain-link fence on the border, a road north of that,"
Already have that in El Paso, but much taller, easily defeated with wire cutters. Main feature ongoing repair costs.(some of it is being replaced by bollards, and we already know how well that works.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/a-look-at-why-a-wall-wont-stop-immigration-surge/ [washingtonpost.com]
"pile of razor wire"
A little uninformed are we?
It was tried, the razor wire now guards private property in Tijuana.
Some heavy gloves, a wire snip and you're now a Mexican security company.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/20/mexico-trump-border-wall-tijuana [theguardian.com]
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday November 05 2019, @09:54PM (1 child)
Wow. You're a real bigoted piece of shit. I find that very interesting, because you are *exactly* like the bigoted pieces of shit arguing that the Irish were scum and that American didn't have "magic dirt" to convert them to whatever you find acceptable. Do we repeat history or what?
Get the fuck over it. America is a land of immigrants. Ask any Native American about it :)
If you had any luck at all, your eyes would be opened by actually spending time with some of the people you hate. Implied lack of total civilization huh? I'm working right now with a gentleman from El Salvador, which doesn't have a great reputation amongst the South American countries. Yet, he's educated, can write good code, and has better penmanship than any American I've ever known. Seriously. His fucking notes are a like a damn work of art, and all the development logs he keeps look just as good. Plus he's just a super nice guy.
There is a lady from Guatemala in my neighborhood. Human bacteria according to you? Well, that uncivilized slob must have found some of that magic dirt, because her house is immaculate, her children well behaved and doing well in school, her guacamole salsa to die for, and a front yard and garden that is extremely well kept and beautiful.
Neither of these people are rich, and both came here under hard conditions, and both work as hard as any American I know.
I could go on, but I wish my great fortune upon you. Specifically that of having met so many wonderful Americans that immigrated here. Ohh, and American/British food sucks ass dumbass. Don't also be an ungrateful piece of shit too, because we know damn well you've had a taco mother fucker :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:40AM
Now I want tacos :(