Text 16871, 80 rader
Skriven 2011-04-14 06:41:26 av Bob Ackley (1:300/3)
  Kommentar till text 16839 av Björn Felten (2:203/2)
Ärende: Taxes (was: Australian immigration)
===========================================
Replying to a message of Björn Felten to Mark Hofmann:

 MH>> starting with the US/Mexico border.

 BF>    Let me see now. That border is 3169 km long (according to
 BF> Wikipedia). You have 2.5 million troops abroad. That means you
 BF> could have one troop for every 1.25 metre along that entire border
 BF> -- isn't that about arm's length's distance? :)

War story:  When I was at Clark AB in the Philippines the base used Negrito
tribesmen
as guards at various places around the base.  Polynesian and Negrito Filipinos
don't get
along well at all.  Anyhow, new base commander comes in, sees the Negrito
guards, finds
out what they're doing and orders the base to get rid of them (cheapest guards
there are,
they worked for rice,. literally).  Negrito chief goes to base CO and tells him
to pick any
building on the base, guard it with GI cops, and his people will get through
the guards
(during WW II they used to sneal into Japanese barracks and cut every other
man's throat -
how much sleep do you think the ones that woke up got after that?).  CO accepts
challenge,
guards a small building with GIs spaced about eight feet apart all the way
around.  Nobody
saw anything, nobody heard anything, nobody felt anything.  Next morning base
CO and 
Negrito chief arrive at building, base CO turns to Negrito and says 'Your
people didn't
get past mine' - or words to that effect; Negrito chief points to cuff of
nearest GI guard's
trousers, there's a yellow chalk mark - and there was a yellow chalk mark on
the pants cuff
of every single GI guarding that building.

It occurred to me back in the late 1960s that the way to shut down the Ho Chi
Minh
trail was to hire about a battalion of Negritos, explain what they were
supposed to do,
and turn them loose in the jungle.

I also thought it might have been useful to plant poison oak or poison ivy in
the jungles
of South Vietnam.  It should flourish there.  Anybody who showed up with a rash
would
be arrested.  Note that Poison Ivy Dermatitis can be a very debilitating
problem.

 MH>> The US needs to worry
 MH>> more about itself vs. the rest of the world. We should be self
 MH>> sufficient - completely, and there is no reason why that couldn't
 MH>> happen.

 BF>    I guess that's what e.g. the rag heads from the Middle East have
 BF> been trying to tell you for decades now.

 MH>> The sad fact is, there are still countries out there with crazy
 MH>> dictators which then becomes a "world problem" eventually.

 BF>    True. But why does the US feel the need to act as world cop? And
 BF> is US military presence really the best method?

(1) It wants to, and (2) probably not.

 BF>    How about working for a better and more free and open internet?
 BF> Free information seems to have been doing more for toppling some
 BF> dictators recently, than all the US bases in the area...

Can't argue with that.

Note that the US government has been trying to control computer based 
communications since PC owners discovered modems.  Thus far it has been
unsuccessful at the individual level - on the much larger level it has been
somewhat successful.  Most alt.binary newsgroups are now banned in this
country (local governments harrassing ISPs until they quit carrying them).

--- FleetStreet 1.19+
 * Origin: Bob's Boneyard, Emerson, Iowa (1:300/3)