I was thinking about a fence along the southern U.S. Border with Mexico. This led me to start calculating how much that would cost. Luckily, a salesman for a razor wire company was nice enough to tell me that a lot of people are doing projects for school on this very topic. He also pointed me to the website http://www.weneedafence.com. They have a good design which they estimated to cost between four and eight billion dollars. That is roughly equivalent to four B-2 bombers or Virginia class submarines. See the picture at http://www.weneedafence.com/the_solution.

This is a quote from the weneedafence.com website to put that cost into perspective”:
A barrier is an essential component of any effort to secure our borders; additional manpower alone cannot do the job.

Simply adding more border agents won't work unless there is one every hundred yards or so along the entire border. That would require between 150,000 and 200,000 agents and support personnel, rather than the 11,000 at present, and an annual budget of five to ten billion dollars.

So, for the one time cost of hiring additional agents for a single year, we could build this fence!

I am not going to address the humanitarian, “poor people just trying to get ahead” issues, but I will quote these figures from the United States Border Patrol website:

According to U.S. government sources, nearly 99% of all people arrested entering our country illegally are citizens of Mexico.

According to several U.S. Congressmen, more than 4,000 people die each year at the hands of illegal aliens living within the United States. They also report that if the number of people killed by illegal aliens operating motor vehicles on our roadways is added, the number exceeds 8,000 dead per year. My wife and daughter were both hit while riding their bicycles (last Thursday and Friday). Both drivers appeared to be hispanic. Am I profiling? Maybe. Is there a connection? Maybe.

So, why are we not billing Mexico for the expense of this barrier? Do we really need their products so badly that we are worried about upsetting them? This barrier would be on our side of the border, so they should have nothing to say about it. After all, we are just cleaning up the mess they have made in their own country because of the greed, the stupidity, and the lack of concern from the Mexican government for the Mexican people.

While I like the barrier planned by weneedafence.com, I think that the cameras should be augmented with gun shot sensors as well. According to a sales person at ShotSpotter (April 26, 2010), a ball park figure for one of their systems is 200-300k per square mile. According to the USBP website, the southern border is 2,000 miles long. Thus, the cost for these gun-shot sensors would only be $400,000,000. This would allow us to pin-point gun shots to within 20 feet of their origin! I am sure that with a length of 2,000 miles, there could be some sort of discount negotiated, so the cost should be much less than that.

The cameras would allow agents at a safe distance and location to view any intrusions and respond accordingly. The agents would be helped by open source software that can detect motion in an area protected by a camera. Many pages describe free webcam software for motion detection. See:
http://www.video-surveillance-guide.com/webcam-motion-detection-software.htm,
http://lifehacker.com/5233052/motion-detection-is-an-effective-dead-simple-security-camera-app
http://www.gotchanow.com and others.

This software in conjunction with a decent camera could provide the detection of intruders with no agent involvement! When an intrusion is detected, then the software would notify the control center of the location, so that one or two agents could handle the entire border. Of course, squads would need to be positioned so that a decent response time is provided. The same camera(s) could automatically be set to follow the intruders and give directional information.

Maybe they could even turn on electric fence power to slow down the intruders until agents arrive. Motion detection would be set from inside the DMZ to 5 feet from southern border fence in order to pick up intruders attempting to cut into fence. If the southern fence is 10 feet from the border, then any movement within that area would be a violation of U.S. Territory and subject to scrutiny. Signs would be posted in Spanish to inform people about that unfenced section of border property, and the criminal act of trespassing. The information from the cameras and gun shot sensors, in connection with armed drones, automated machine guns, and wild animals (such as coyotes and bears would quickly eliminate anyone in the zone), could protect the area inside the fence.

Yes, this same arrangement could be used to keep U.S. Citizens in the country as well, but Mexico would not be my first choice for a place to escape to if needed.

Crazy or Not? You decide!

How do you think the family of the rancher shot last week would vote on this?

Protests by illegal immigrants????

Will someone please explain to me why illegal immigrants think they have a right to protest the new immigration law just passed by Arizona?

Unless I am wrong, the fact that they are in this country without permission ("illegal") means that they violated the laws of America by, at the very least, crossing the border (trespassing onto American soil), and staying here.

Here are a few questions relating to this issue:

1) Why do we call them "illegal immigrants" or "undocumented aliens"? If they have chosen to break the laws of this land, are they not committing a crime by just being here? So, wouldn't it just be more accurate to call them "criminals"?

2) What gives them the "right" to protest passage of a bill that gives the state of Arizona law enforcement personnel permission to question whether they are in this country legally or not? I thought that those rights were only granted to citizens of this country.

3) There is concern that this bill will increase the fear within the Hispanic community. The only reason to be afraid is if you are in the country illegally! If you are a legal and law-abiding resident of this state and country, then you do not have to be worried about being deported! If you are here illegally or your documents have expired, then yes, you are correct in being worried.

4) I heard the other day that politicians are concerned about the power of the growing Hispanic population. What "power" do they have? Are they an American citizen with the right to vote? If not, then who cares what their opinion is! The facts are clear. If you are not in this country legally, and you do not like the conditions in this country, then go back home!

5) Why is their trespassing on American soil any different than if the United States were to send a few million troops into Mexico to stay without permission? Isn't that the definition of an invasion? If the Mexican government allows these people to cross the U.S. border illegally, aren't they aiding in this invasion? So, why do we not just invade the northern provinces of Mexico, put our army forces there and get rid of all the cartels, criminals, and others invading the U.S. and killing ranchers? To make the solution permanent, we could create a DMZ just like the one in Korea. This DMZ would extend 300 yards from the fence. We could populate that area with wild animals to help defend the border. We would also install gun shot detectors to determine when someone is shooting at the animals. Automatic machine guns placed 300 yards from the fence, would triangulate the position of the gun shot and automatically kill the person firing the gun. An armed drone would then be dispatched to kill anyone else found in the area.



Crazy or not? You decide.

Jaime Escalante, of "Stand and Deliver" film fame, died Tuesday March 30, 2010 from cancer at age 79. You may remember that Escalante's students passed the Advanced Placement Calculus AP exam. The odds were that there would not be even one student at that school taking and passing AP Calculus, perhaps the hardest course in American secondary education.

Garfield High School offered the worst possible conditions for learning: 85 percent of the students were low income, most of the parents were grade-school dropouts, faculty morale was bad, expectations were low.

So, what was Escalnate's secret? Here is what Jay Mathews, the Los Angeles bureau chief for The Washington Post from 1982 to 1987, wrote about what he saw:

"It took me several years to understand how Garfield's AP teachers, and the many educators who have had similar results in other high-poverty schools, pulled all this off. They weren't skimming. It wasn't a magic trick of test results. They simply had high expectations for every student. They arranged extra time for study -- such as Escalante's rule that if you were struggling, you had to return to his classroom after the final bell and spend three hours doing homework, plus take some Saturday and summer classes, too. They created a team spirit, teachers and students working together to beat the big exam. Escalante celebrated "ganas," a Spanish word that he said meant the urge to succeed. He was so convinced of the power of teaching that he lied to keep students with him. He said school rules forbade dropping his class. He told the parents of absent students that if he did not see their children in his classroom the next day, he would call the immigration authorities to check on their status." -- Exerted from Jay Mathews blog dated April 4, 2010.

Was it all because of Escalante and his wonderful, gifted teaching style? Maybe in the beginning, but I think that the 1) high expectations for every student, 2) extra time for study, 3) doing homework for three hours after school, 4) Saturday and summer classes, and 5) a team spirit, with teachers and students working together to beat the big exam. Can you believe that he actually expected them to work? Not just work for a few minutes to "complete the assignment", but to work for hours!

I have read recently that some parents and educators think that mandatory homework is tantamount to a sin. They seem to think that no practice nor review of the material is needed to fully comprehend and be able to use the information presented in classes. I wish that we had more "sinful" teachers like Escalante who assigned difficult homework and parents who supported those teachers in their efforts to teach. Parents who think, for whatever illogical reason, that their child does not need to do homework need to remember what it was like when they were in school.

The idea that it takes hard work for most of us to learn something is the basic concept of this website. Learning takes work, and only a few gifted people can skip the steps of study, practice, and yes, memorize needed to be successful in school. No amount of magic wand waving will change this, and only when parents realize that yes, their child must do some work, will they stop blaming the teachers.

Complete information at:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2010/04/unlike_many_escalante_believed.html#more

I am opposed to using ANY American taxpayer money for water stations in the desert

This blog is in response to a request for comments (from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) on the placement of watering stations for illegal immigrants on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona.

I am opposed to using ANY American taxpayer money for water stations in the desert. This includes pay for border patrol personnel to over-see installation, maintenance, and garbage clean up in the area. I see no problem with the border patrol providing officers to work with humanitarian groups in their efforts, as long as the salaries for those officers are fully paid for by the humanitarian groups.

These groups must also pay a HUGE fee (not $500, but $10,000/year at least) for access to the refuge, pay for all water station equipment, installation (including environmental impact studies and permits), water, garbage collection, repair of damage to the surrounding desert because of any immigrants (illegal or otherwise), or the cost of border patrol personnel who may respond to calls for help from people who get into trouble while entering this country through the desert. I also think that another large fee (based on estimated cost of repairing the impact of people on the refuge) should be charged to the humanitarian groups if they need to use vehicles to restock the water stations. That fee would cover any damage to the refuge caused by having people regularly in those areas.

The humanitarian groups must also be made to understand that the people entering this country through the desert are probably breaking several federal laws. They must realize that these "immigrants" are not law-abiding American citizens. They have chosen to violate our border laws and thumb their noses at our sovereign rules.

I was shocked to read the following language in the draft:
“Authorizing placement of stationary water sites and the associated traffic for accessing and maintaining the sites would require some use of Refuge resources, including personnel and funding.” .....“the Refuge would assume costs associated with the long term coordination and monitoring of permits issued for this proposed use. Refuge resources are limited and time expended to coordinate with humanitarian organizations regarding water sites would divert efforts from accomplishing Refuge purposes. However, administration and management of a potential permit for drinking water sites could be accomplished within the existing financial and personnel resources available to the Refuge.” pg 3

Why should American taxpayer money be used for water stations in the refuge? The people using these stations are breaking several federal laws, and they have chosen to violate our border laws and thumb their noses at our sovereign rules. As shown in the draft, they are also destroying the refuge that American citizens are paying for. Why not make the grand and glorious humanitarians pay for all the costs associated with these stations? Even better yet, provide fee payment boxes at each station, so the illegals themselves could “pay-as-they-stop”?