Rocks Thrown at Border Patrol Chopper

"Dave Stadt" wrote in message
t...


Very simple.....votes. Upset the Latino community and its all over.


When Arizona passed it's Prop 200, the highest percentage block voting FOR
it (some 75% or so) was the legal/2nd generation Hispanics.

"Michelle P" wrote in message
ink.net...
Perhaps we should arm the border patrol with rocks so they can return
"fire".
I was a the the Boeing Museum of flight a couple of weeks ago and saw
the first air to air weapons. Bricks cut in half. I think we should
return to these. True skill is required to hit your opponent.

A "Y" shaped stick and some rubber --- a slingshot.

wrote:

Rocks Thrown at Border Patrol Chopper

One baseball-sized rock gashed the rotor, forcing the pilot to
land nearby, said Michael Gramley, spokesman for the Border
Patrol sector based in Yuma, Ariz.
---
Perhaps we should arm the copter with machine guns and fire back?

Maybe get that person a baseball pitching contract...

"W P Dixon" wrote in message
I know where you are coming from Jay, my 1st wife was of hispanic
descent, father Nuevo Laredo, mexico and Mom from Bogota Columbia....and
they did not like the wide open borders either. Though my father in law
had a very good paying job he said the illegals kept the pay down for
Mexicans that were here legally.

Aluckyguess wrote:
I never thought about that but he was right.
I think the reason they let them in is they are funding our social security
system with phony ID's. They pay in but will never collect.

And there are people who are working to allow them to collect that money.

Perhaps we should arm the copter with machine guns and fire back?
No, that would be barbaric.

Why? A rock can certainly bring down a civilian helicopter if it hits
something critical - a rotor disc, an oil or fuel line, whatever.
Military helicopters are armored against this - but as a result they
weigh a ton (literally that - or more) and cost a fortune to operate.

If this happens too low to autorotate but too high to put down without
energy, the pilot and passenger(s) will be injured or killed. Why is
it barbaric for the pilot to shoot back?

But what is so wrong with stopping illegal immigration?

It would make servants something only the very rich could afford.

Actually, what illegal immigration does is distort our economy and
stifle progress.

Let me give you an example. Most of the pilots at my home field don't
cut their own grass. They have someone come out to do it. It's
miserable work - riding a mower in the hot sun, loading and unloading
equipment - but the price is quite reasonable. It works out to
something like $15-$20 hr on a contract basis. The guy shows up in a
truck with an old gas-powered tractor (that spews lots of hydrocarbon
into the atmosphere) and does all the work. I suspect that he clears
maybe $10/hr at best, with no benefits, when you figure in travel time
and his expenses, and it's seasonal work at that.

This (like most of the jobs illegals do) could be automated - but not
trivially. What's necessary is a mower with some intelligence. It
would know where the boundaries of the property are, and what parts of
it are to be mowed, and it would have some simple sensors to keep from
running over the neighbor's kid (or cat). It would peobably be
electric - which would mean a limited operation time, as it would have
to go back to its station and recharge every 30 minutes - but since it
would never forget what it already did, that would be no big deal. All
the pieces are there - this would be no more complicated than
industrial automation - but there's no incentive. It would cost about
$3 million to design and test the thing, and the first batch you sold
would have bugs that would need to be worked out. Since most people
wouldn't buy one (they would just hire the illegals) you would never
recoup the R&D cost - you would need to sell 50,000 of them in the
first two or three years to make it work, and the first batch would
probably cost $1000 each in such low volumes

Of course it would be a lot different if you had to pay someone a
living wage to do the job. Then the cost would be more like $60/hr,
and people would buy the thing even at $800. Of course as the volume
increased and the patents ran out, the price would fall to where there
it was cheaper than a gasoline riding mower.

This is just one example, but it's fairly typical. Cheap labor is
always the enemy of automation, and certain segments of our economy are
addicted to cheap labor. In the long run, of course, automation is
cheaper than even the cheapest labor (unless you're willing to have
people working and STILL living in a squalor most of us would find
deplorable) but the industries that develop automation can't afford to
think in the long term. If it doesn't have a 3 year payback and a 15%
ROI, it won't happen.

Michael

The OTHER Kevin in San Diego" skiddz "AT" adelphia "DOT wrote:
So I should ****-can my plans to fly for a living and go mow lawns at
$60/hr?? Sounds like of my co-worker's wife who gets something like
$150/hr to [get this!] braid horse manes and tails..


Of course he makes more money; look at the ****ty conditions in which he works.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE

On 26 Aug 2005 11:15:19 -0700, "Michael"
wrote:


This (like most of the jobs illegals do) could be automated - but not
trivially. What's necessary is a mower with some intelligence. It
would know where the boundaries of the property are, and what parts of
it are to be mowed, and it would have some simple sensors to keep from
running over the neighbor's kid (or cat). It would peobably be
electric - which would mean a limited operation time, as it would have
to go back to its station and recharge every 30 minutes - but since it
would never forget what it already did, that would be no big deal. All
the pieces are there - this would be no more complicated than

google search for automatic lawn mower comes up with 162,000 hits,
including production electric robotic lawn mowers already for sale...

"Michelle P" wrote in message
ink.net...
Perhaps we should arm the border patrol with rocks so they can return
"fire".
I was a the the Boeing Museum of flight a couple of weeks ago and saw the
first air to air weapons. Bricks cut in half. I think we should return to
these. True skill is required to hit your opponent.
Michelle

Salt rock, that will teach them.
wrote:

Rocks Thrown at Border Patrol Chopper
Aug 25 3:31 PM US/Eastern

AHHHH,
Take the ****ters out of commercial airliners for awhile and you won't
feel so bad.

Patrick
student SPL
aircraft structural mech

"The OTHER Kevin in San Diego" skiddz "AT" adelphia "DOT" net wrote in
message ...
On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 19:43:41 GMT, "Mortimer Schnerd, RN"
wrote:

The OTHER Kevin in San Diego" skiddz "AT" adelphia "DOT wrote:
So I should ****-can my plans to fly for a living and go mow lawns at
$60/hr?? Sounds like of my co-worker's wife who gets something like
$150/hr to [get this!] braid horse manes and tails..


Of course he makes more money; look at the ****ty conditions in which he
works.

Cute. I just closed doors on my biz of nearly 8 years becasue I was
tired of schleping through people's toenail clippings and wading knee
deep in fetid water getting buildings linked up with fiber optic
cable... THAT is a ****ty environment and I never made anywhere close
to $150/hour.

Michael wrote:

the first batch you sold
would have bugs that would need to be worked out

So much for the cat or kid, eh?

Laugh

- Andrew