BS: Good fences....

Subject: BS: Good fences....
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 01:26 AM

Mike Huckabee used the volatile situation in Pakistan Friday to make an argument for building a fence on the American border with Mexico and found himself trying to explain a series of remarks about Pakistanis and their nation.

On Thursday night he told reporters in Orlando, Fla.: "We ought to have an immediate, very clear monitoring of our borders and particularly to make sure if there's any unusual activity of Pakistanis coming into the country."

A sound idea. It worked for China with the Great Wall.....very few Pakistanis in China.

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 02:46 AM

Passport investigation suggests security hole
Dateline investigation suggests that even now, six years after the 9/11 attacks, terrorists could easily get a passport to cross almost any border
NBC News
updated 4:45 p.m. CT, Fri., Dec. 28, 2007

According to the article, fake passports appear easiest to get in a couple of South American countries.

"Passports from Spain and most other European countries are prized on the black market because they do not require a visa to enter the United States."

If an employee of a Spanish or other Euro embassy in SA can be bribed to supply blank documents, and especially if that employee or an appropriate other one can enter the phony name into the national database, the the faked passport becomes a real passport.

So why wouldn't a Pakistani terrorist go to South America first, to get documentation, and then pass right on up through Mexico to the US?

Or fly up to Canada and come in through the other border.?

One example doesn't make a rule, but:

Milorad Ulemek, who assassinated Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic in March 2003, used a stolen blank passport to create an alias, and then crossed borders 26 times with the document before the assassination, according to Interpol chief Noble.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 04:20 AM

Very little democracy in China too....

Walling off a nation does not work when that nation still insists on being part of the world.

Look at what happened to the Berlin Wall, to Russia and the Baltic states.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Barry Finn
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 04:27 AM

Eye, & Scotland too.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Wainwright99
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 04:31 AM

Here in Oz we have ocean all around us - sure beats a fence any day!

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: autolycus
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 05:00 AM

And since did building a wall deal with/solve the cause?


   Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Emma B
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 05:39 AM

bad fence

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Riginslinger
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 07:55 AM

"Good fences make good neighbors;" Robert Frost always said.

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 08:06 AM

I think that works with individuals; respected territorial boundaries of private property & personal space thus juxtaposed with all the inevitable tensions that involves, which is maybe what Frost was getting at: something there is that doesn't love a wall (see Mending Wall ).

Does the same necessarily go for nationhood? And by what means might we extricate such wretched primeval tendancies?

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: bobad
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 08:51 AM

Norman McLaren's take on fences: "Neighbours" (Youtube link)

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Riginslinger
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 09:31 AM

Sedayne - Rereading the poem after a great number of years--and thanks for posting it--it seems as though the narrator doesn't really see the value of the fence unless one or the other of the neighbors kept cows. The fact that one grows pine trees and the other grows cherry makes the fence less practical.
                The neighbor, on the other hand, sees a need for the fence even though there is no livestock in the picture. The whole thing seems to go to cause the reader to wonder a little about the neighbor.
                Fast forwarding all of this to the present, relating all of this to the proposed American border fence would seem to depend upon the reader's willingness to equate illegal aliens to livestock.

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: curmudgeon
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 10:02 AM

There is a fine Yankee subtlety in this poem. Consider what is alluded to that "..dosn't love a wall..." and at the same time consider the poet's name - Tom

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 10:07 AM

I fully support the notion that we should immediately build a great big fence along the border between the US and Pakistan.

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Sorcha
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 10:22 AM

Oh yes, Rapaire! Fences everywhere! And please, let's not let in the penguins either!

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 10:40 AM

And another one along our border with Nunuvat. Yupik terrorists are a definite threat to our welfare.

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Riginslinger
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 01:18 PM

"...we should immediately build a great big fence along the border between the US and Pakistan."



                      Huckabee has publicly admitted that he might have been mistaken about there being a border between the United States and Pakistan. I mean, give the guy a break. He's already come clean on having been educated as a Baptist Minister.

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: number 6
Date: 29 Dec 07 - 04:43 PM

"Four score and a hundred and fifty years ago
Our forefathers made us equal as long as we can pay
Yeah, well maybe that wasn't exactly what they was thinkin'
Version six-point-oh of the American way
But hey we can just build a great wall around the country club
To keep the riff-raff out until the slump is through
Yeah, I realize that ain't exactly democratic, but it's either them or us and
And it's the best we can do"

Amerika (the best we can do) ... Steve Earle


biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: autolycus
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 09:01 AM

Should have read 'Since when did building a fence/wall solve the underlying causes of a problem?

How about fences everywhere - between Egypt and Chile, San Francisco and everywhere, Norfolk in England and everywhere (oh, that's already in place, between papua new Guinea and Austria.

(I'll put the joke this reminds me of on the joke thingy. Follow me   :-)

Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: topical tom
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 06:10 PM

Just listen to "Who's Gonna Build Your Wall" by Tom Russell

   

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: topical tom
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 06:12 PM

On Myspace. I fouled up on the blue clicky again!

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Sorcha
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 06:30 PM

Oh yes! MORE walls! Walls everywhere!!! And paint them yellow too!

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 06:55 PM

No, I think a nice light blue would be better than yellow. Or maybe something in a neutral beige in case we ever want to sell the place.

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: bobad
Date: 30 Dec 07 - 07:05 PM

We Can Be Together
Jefferson Airplane

We can be together
Ah you and me
We should be together
We are all outlaws in the eyes of america
In order to survive we steal cheat lie forge fred hide and deal
We are obscene lawless hideous dangerous dirty violent and young
But we should be together
Come on all you people standing around
Our lifes too fine to let it die and
We can be together
All your private property is
Target for your enemy
And your enemy is
We
We are forces of chaos and anarchy
Everything they say we are we are
And we are very
Proud of ourselves
Up against the wall
Up against the wall motherfucker
Tear down the walls
Tear down the walls
Come on now together
Get it on together
Everybody together
We should be together
We should be together my friends
We can be together
We will be
We must begin here and now
A new continent of earth and fire
Come on now gettin higher and higher
Tear down the walls
Tear down the walls
Tear down the walls
Wont you try

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 04:17 AM

They recently added partitions to my office desks - grouped in rows of 2 and 3, facing each other to make a bank of 4 or 6. These barriers were erected in the hopes of channelling people's attention to their computers. The work levels dropped, noise level increased, as did the amount of mess and the time it took to answer the telephones.

People were standing up to hold conversations over the barriers, thus not working. People talk louder over the barriers because they feel they cannot be heard through them - the barriers are psycological as well as physical. The phones go unanswered because no-one can see over the barriers without standing up. We cannot tell who is at their desks or engaged on a telephone call so the majority of people ignore the phone as 'not their job'. Finally, they took away another few inches of the available space that had already been reduced by a quarter a few months previously, leaving some with not enough room to store all their necessary equipment.

Walls don't work, unless you keep sheep.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 04:48 AM

Wasn't there a bloke who drew a circle in the sand around his deckchair on the beach one morning and at the end of the day the only 'trespassers' had been small children & dogs?

Might give it a try come the summer...

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: autolycus
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 06:25 AM

Maybe he wasn't interesting-looking, sexy, or attractive, or looked furious.

The Psychology of Barriers   ,sighs> another book there.

Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 06:44 AM

My personal favourite of all barriers is the Ha-Ha

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: autolycus
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 07:26 AM

aka wter-free moat.

Englishman's home etc.etc, to which I tend to add that his car is the Englishman's castle on whels. (And not only englishmen,o.

Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Riginslinger
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 10:59 AM

That's an ohm, right--an English man's 'ouse?

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Amos
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 11:17 AM

Only if you are a member of the resistance.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Donuel
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 12:04 PM

Hey Huck forget the fence...

All Huckabee would have to do is round up all the gas station attendents and convenience store employees around here if he wants to put populate "special camps" with Pakistanis.

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Riginslinger
Date: 31 Dec 07 - 12:09 PM

Funny, Amos, funny!

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 10:04 AM

Fagin. Now there WAS a fence.......

Subject: RE: BS: Good fences....
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Jan 08 - 10:26 AM

Fagin couldn't hold a candle to Jonathan Wilde.