Privatizing The Border

Here's a suggestion from Cato:

Cato Institute's Alex Nowrasteh has proposed creating an additional visa category called the gold card that would give foreigners the option of working and living legally in the United States— but not citizenship—after paying a tariff. Congress could adjust tariff rates by age and education to guarantee that all immigrants make a net positive fiscal contribution. This would potentially cut back illegal flows and give the country much greater operational control over the border than physical barriers ever could. It would also generate additional funds to go after drug traffickers or criminals who pose a genuine security threat.

Let me carry that a step further. How about a quasi-governmental outfit, along the organizational lines of the Fed, with a monopoly contract to mind the border. The Acme Border Company (ABC) is put in charge of the border with the charter that as it sells the Gold Cards, it keeps a percentage, minus a fixed fee for every fence jumper caught on this side of the line or Gold Card holder found guilty of a felony offense.  ABC would also be responsible for upkeep of the border barrier which they have an incentive to do in the most cost efficient manner.

Thus ABC would want to install climb and tunnel resistant structures in urbanized areas, and a modest fence or vehicle barrier with cameras out in the hinterlands.

If the government paid ABC for each fence jumper they caught, ABC would have an incentive to leave a hole in their barrier and truck "fence jumpers" to the hole on the Mexican side, put them on company trucks on the US side, and run them back to the government game wardens for the bounty. Split the bounty with the jumpers, and voila! instant money. Let ICE catch the jumpers and the government dock ABC for each one caught and suddenly jumpers have a negative value giving ABC an incentive to beef up weak areas as they are found. If ABC spots some jumpers, they can notify ICE who can then come pick them up at no charge to ABC.

This organization could thus be self financing with Gold Card fees set by congress and adjusted annually. One presumes that the issuance of Gold Cards is the province of ICE and would include at least some sort of background check.

Abortion

Now my position on this topic is to keep it at some remove as I don't see myself as having a dog in this fight. Some of the new laws seem to be a bit overboard, as in the Virginia law that seems to make a 4th trimester abortion legal. This looks to me a bit more like infanticide than anything else and I may be misinterpreting the whole thing, but jumping into the handbasket early on insures one of a good seat.

Anyway it always seemed to me that it wasn't until the 10th to 18th year that parents actually begin to get serious about late term abortions...

One way to address this problem is to treat it before it becomes an issue. Currently 5 genes have been identified that control a persons final height. When all 5 are expressed, you wind up growing to around 7 ft tall. This may help if you want your kid to go into pro basketball, but if he or she turns out to be a complete klutz, it's all for naught. So far the genes for intelligence have not been identified but once that's done, arranging for enough height genes to get junior over 6 feet and an IQ over 125 should put him on the right track for a high paying job in middle to upper management somewhere.

There's a kit for that. although the actual operation is a bit spotty, and the equipment to do an IVF is not included. Don't let that stop you. Nothing ventured, nothing gained after all

The Peasants Are Revolting

Boy, you can say that again. The Bolsheviks currently running (?) this state are complaining that the Republicans, lacking any other recourse, are threatening them with recalls if they proceed with some of their more egregious proposals.  Near the head of that list is the NPV, or National popular Vote bill which would allot Colorado's 8 or 9 electoral votes to whomever wins in Cali, New York and Illinois or Florida.  This will make presidential elections no more important than the off year ones and thus depress turnout, reducing the amount of ballot harvesting required to swing the state.

Darned conservatives, they would bitch if the legislature funded chauffeured limos to take them to the camps. The Dems are aware of this:

Republicans are going to complain no matter what happens, House Speaker KC Becker of Boulder complained to the Colorado Sun.We suppose Republicans should just sit quietly on their hands while Democrats legalize drug injection sites all over the state for heroin and meth addicts. Well, everywhere except neighborhoods where Democratic lawmakers live.

This from a story at Colorado Peak Politics which though conservative, disallows comments except through Facebook.  For those of you who don't live here, Boulder is the home of the state's so-far only assault weapons ban which is so unpopular that even the hippies up there are refusing to comply with it.

The next 2 years here should be carefully watched and studied as a perfect example of the difference between a pure democracy where a 51% majority can impose their will on the 49%, and a democratic republic where the rights of the minority are protected.

Science Marches Onward

News is now out that scientists* have genetically modified some chickens to produce anti-viral and anti-cancer chemicals in the whites of their eggs. Great news that, potentially lowering the cost of producing the drugs.

OK now all you gene boffins: Let's have some eggs containing cholesterol reducing drugs so my bacon and eggs breakfast will not only taste great, but will leave me healthier. And don't stop at modifying the chickens, get to work on the pigs as well. Tack some life-extending hormones into the bacon and there we are.

Before taking this to the market, perhaps they should look in to some modifications to the eggs, you know like coloring the shells. White for basic eggs, brown to designate the anti-viral infused ones, green for the THC infused versions**, and maybe red or pink for the ones containing opioids. No word yet as to how this might affect the meat. Who knows, maybe Tijuana Fried Chicken will challenge the Kentucky version.

*Mad Scientists of course, but they don't like to advertise this.

**You know it's coming.

The New Regime In East California

Michael Bloomberg has come out as opposed to legalizing pot, which we did 2 years ago, saying that this is a stupid idea. He has also come out in favor of "safe sites" for junkies to shoot heroin and other injectable drugs. This will be portrayed as showing that Mr. Bloomberg is not completely opposed to shooting, just as long as icky guns aren't involved.

The E. Cal legislature here is looking at opening the first such site this year across the street from the capitol building. This is a brilliant move on the part of the Donks who currently enjoy one-party rule there as it will make visiting the capitol to register objection to their assorted shenanigans even more distasteful than it is now. Imagine heading downtown to register your objection to the latest tax increase, and finding that in addition to there being no parking within walking distance of the capitol, the building is now protected by a "moat" of junkies either waiting for their daily allotment of "soma" or operating under the influence of it.

This, of course, will be on the outside of the 10 foot high security barrier (don't say wall) running around the building itself and the exclusive parking garage currently located on the south side of the capitol. Card access only to the garage of course. A short tunnel under 14th st would keep the legislators and their staffs from having to interact with the riff-raff or the newly installed moat monsters.

Currently the legislature is considering a bill to allocate our electoral votes to whomever wins the national popular vote, meaning whomever wins Cali, N.Y. Illinois. and Florida. This will make going to the polls a complete waste of time here which should keep costs down for the Donks.

East California

I Did Not Know This

Found at Theo Spark, source of humor, News, and scantily clad women:

WINNING: Taken to a new, higher, level.................from Rico

The Leftards never factor in unintended consequences.

- I include those two "master legislators" [in their own minds, but everyone else just thought of a 'different' word that ended with "bators"] Nancee and Schmuckie.

 

Consider for one moment what they may have enables Trump to 'do' while they drank in Puerto Rico and 'resisted' funding the Wall...resulting in the longest government shutdown (25 days and counting) evah!

- Federal guidelines have existed for quite some time that allow a Federal job that has been vacant/vacated for 30 days to be considered 'permanently vacated' and that job eliminated.

 

In just five more days, Trump could literally pull the drain-plug on the 'swamp' and reduce the Federal workforce by 25%. This would be a YUGE down-sizing of the bureaucracy.

- Considering that all these employees were classified as "non-essential" by their own Federal agencies, this strikes me as a "right-sizing" that is waaay overdue.

 

Anyone want to bet that as soon as someone sobers the Democrats up and tells them they screwed-the-pooch again, they run over to the Oval Office with a $6 billion dollar 'no strings' check to hand to Trump?

 

Oh boy, is this great!

--------------------------

There are, of course some functions that actually do need to be done, but some of those that do not immediately lend themselves to privatization can be assigned to other agencies. The TSA, for example can farm out the anti-hijacking function to the prisons system and the NRA by employing the newly freed sex offenders to the job of groping passengers, and offering an immediate 1st class upgrade to anyone with a valid CCW.

Why The Left Is Mathematically Challenged?

We always knew that the lefties do not favor numbers, statistics, and the like, but did you ever wonder why? This, from a newsletter I get may help explain:

Hoplophobia in Louisiana: A Louisiana high school student was finishing up a math problem and drew the square root symbol, authorities told KATC-TV. Problem was, another student allegedly said the square root symbol looked like a gun – and several other students made similar comments, Allen Parish Sheriff's deputies told the station. And with that, deputies launched an investigation of a terrorist threat allegation at Oberlin High School on Tuesday afternoon, KATC reported, citing the department's Facebook page. Investigators said the students' comment "could" sound like a threat when taken out of context [sic], the station added, and that criminal charges won't be filed against the student... Detectives also searched the student's home and found no evidence that the student possessed or had immediate access to any type of firearm, KATC reported. And there was no evidence the student had any intent to commit harm to students or faculty, investigators added to the station...

https://www.theblaze.com/news/2018/02/23/high-schooler-accused-of-making-terrorist-threat-for-allegedly-saying-math-symbol-resembled-a-gun

DeBlasio Is Right?

In a classic case of the blind pig finding an acorn, NYC mayor Bill DeBlasio may have turned out to have found a nice truffle. Following up on his statement regarding the NYC budget that "there's plenty of money in the state and in this city, it's just in the wrong hands.",  Sen Ted Cruz has introduced the "El Chapo Act" to the U.S. Senate directing that monies and property taken from drug lords be directed to funding of the proposed new border barrier(s) or Wence*, as Scott Adams describes it.

El Chapo, who is currently on trial in the U.S. is estimated to have some $14B in assorted assets subject to forfeiture which would pay for a really nice chunk of barrier that might even included potted flowers on top. Cruz should loudly and publicly thank Mayor DeB for his endorsement of the proposed legislation.

*Some parts of a new barrier would necessarily be in "wall" format, while other parts would be more like a fence. Adams came up with the name but it seems to be slow catching on. What the heck, I liked it.

Colorado To Revise State Flag

Having abdicated all policy decisions to Gov Brown, Colorado will henceforth become known as East California. Here's our new flag:

Catchy, isn't it?

Machine Guns - Cat's Out

With this posting, the cat is well and truly out of the bag in the field of do-it-yourself machine guns. It seems that with a pair of pliers and a wire cutter, one can fabricate an auto sear that will convert your AR pattern gun to a real machine gun and none of that flakey bumpy stock nonsense.

As I read this your semi-auto gun will be externally identical to all the others. The "switch" is the piece of coat hanger wire that requires that you push the take down button, open the gun, drop in the wire and close it up. Not as fast as having an external switch to do it, but just as effective.

Toy/Project It Moves!

I took most of the top stuff off and discovered how you get the bottom stuff off. The rotation was stalled by petrified grease on the moving surfaces. Removing this and replacing it with fresh stuff made everything move quite freely. The new cylinder is a 2" job single acting with a spring return. Fortunately, with the sticky grease replaced, the spring is sufficient to retract the cylinder, and the thing indexes forward with only 20 psi air applied.

Next up is fabricating a tool deck. This will be a donut that will reside around the deck, giving me a place to mount the working tools. I'm still on the idea that this will make a swell reloading press so I'm busily re-inventing all the things that Dillon and RCBS have already worked out. Generally one should avoid re-inventing the wheel, or anything else, but if you think you have a better solution, then forge ahead. In this case, the design is driven by the existence of the table. Start from there and work outward.

The original part the table was designed to make is lost to history, but the holder was designed to hold something just a bit over 1" in diameter and 1/2" thick. There may have been other features, but there's no way to tell. Here's a piece of wood in one of the holders. pressing down on the button near the center of the table held the work piece in place so all the mechanical fountain in the middle was only to hold the parts in place.

Aurora Sentinal Endorses Victim Disarmament

The Sentinel published an editorial endorsing whatever new gun laws the Dems want to propose. I'm sure they will, and ram them down our throats just like 2013. The reaction of the electorate remains to be seen. Here's an annotated version of the editorial. My comments in green:

Colorado Dems must go with the political flow and enact gun safety bills now

By

 THE SENTINEL EDITORIAL BOARD

January 3, 2019

1128

The tide has turned at the state Capitol, and it’s time to seize the opportunity to make Colorado safer.

Appeal to personal safety even though nothing proposed here is likely to contribute to it. Persons made safer consist of mostly violent criminals and corrupt politicians.

Democratic legislators and Colorado’s new governor, who effectively now control state government, would make a grievous mistake by finally enacting long overdue gun-safety legislation.

I'm pretty sure this is a typo although it may well be the only true statement here.

The once-honorable National Rifle Association has evolved to become a ruthless political arm of the nation’s $43-billion-a-year gun industry. Its clear focus is to ensure the easy and prolific procurement, use and sale of firearms and ammunition.

The NRA is not now nor has it ever been a representative of the firearms industry. It is the advocate of the firearms owner. The memberships biggest complaint is that they are too willing to compromise.

Over the past few decades, the NRA and groups such as Rocky Mountain Gun Owners and the Independence Institute have deviously woven a gun-rights mythology with fierce patriotism.

It’s not in any way patriotic to turn firearms on fellow citizens upwards of 100,000 times a year.

Upwards of 60,000 of which are citizens turning them on themselves for whatever reason. Most of the remainder is citizens turning them on (for the most part) fellow citizens in disputes over who owns what corner to sell drugs on or to redistribute other peoples wealth.

Colorado residents are the unwitting subjects of a vastly expensive and relentless marketing scheme coupled with an ocean of money spent annually on ensuring compliance from obedient and fearful members of Congress and the Colorado Legislature.

Don't see what you have to complain about. Michael Bloomberg, Tom Styer and George Soros can spend their money however they wish. Buying the legislature isn't illegal if you do it right.

The NRA mythology is pegged on equating the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, guaranteeing free speech, with the Second Amendment, preserving the ability of citizen militias to help defend the nation against foreign invaders. They have worked tirelessly to persuade Congress and Colorado voters that there should be no regulation of firearms in the same way there is virtually no regulation of speech.

The second amendment is there to preserve the citizens right to speak freely and all the rest of the stuff covered in the bill of rights. The first amendment is currently heavily regulated against anyone complaining about politically imposed tyranny by way of forbidding among other things “hate speech”, which BTW is anything anyone disagrees with.

The result is a chaotic free-for-all where about 100,000 Americans are killed or maimed each year by firearms. We are killed and wounded by guns at a rate that is 25 times higher than any other developed democratic nation. It is our nation’s biggest embarrassment and preventable tragedy.

First leave out the suicides. Tragic as they might be, if guns are not available, people come up with alternatives. The rate does not change. Second, if you leave out 2 or 3 precincts in 3 or 4 large (Democrat run) cities, our gun death rate drops to 3^rd or 4^th lowest in the world.

For those who insist gun-safety measures won’t reduce gun violence and mass murders, the dozens of free, Democratic nations across the globe that protect the rights of hunters and sportsmen and reasonably regulate firearms are proof that it can be done.

Can't win the argument on facts, change the argument. The 2^nd amendment isn't about ducks. It's about politicians. Also remember to never call it gun control. It's to be called gun safety. There are only 4 rules for gun safety. Ever hear an anti-gun pol speak them? Me neither.

Colorado Democrat Party leaders should set aside talk of the last time Democrats had this kind of control in 2013 and pushed through measures to ensure background checks and magazine size. The two bills were born of the Aurora theater shooting massacre and were only the start of a long list of work needing to be done to rein in rampant gun violence.

Abridging the constitutional rights of ones political enemies is a long established pastime of the Democratic party. Disarming ones political enemies is as old as political enemies. Hitler disarmed the Jews, and the Dems passed Jim Crow laws and Black Codes. With only minor changes, they're still pushing these.

Shortly after, Republican extremists surprisingly and successfully recalled two lawmakers over their support of the gun bills. The recall was pulled off in a special election that few voters took notice of. Even if the same extremists pulled the same stunt again, voters and Democrats are wise to the scam.

I knew a lot of those who worked on the recalls. The elections were widely reported, and no one I met could reasonably be labeled an extremist. The 3^rd legislator who was up for recall, Evie Hudak, recognized her impending defeat and resigned before her loss could flip the Colorado Senate.

Some Democrats are fearful of certain backlash from gun-rights and right-wing extremists if they act now on pushing through a red-flag bill and other gun-safety measures that can provably save lives. They should step down now. Every lawmaker was sent by voters to the state Capitol to do a job, not to work to preserve their power.

Finally something I can agree with! The only job any legislator has that might be considered Job #1 is self preservation. If some anti gun billionaire from out of state or even out of country wants a law passed, all he has to do is send a copy of his pet legislation to the head of the local DNC politely suggesting that anyone not supporting this law WILL be facing a well-funded opponent in the next primary race.

The political tide, however, has strategically turned across the state. A majority of voters here have made it clear they no longer believe the outrageous lies generated by the NRA and other gun lobbyists. Voters see through the empty rhetoric of the far-right and have overwhelmingly pushed back against the government of President Donald Trump.

In a typical election year, about 30% of the electorate does not return the ballots they were mailed. The alignment of these “non voters” is about 50/50. The Evil party has figured out how to find the otherwise non-voted ballots on their side of the fence and get a significant percentage of them into the box. The Stupid party hasn't yet figured this out. If they do (30% chance), before the 2020 elections, AND if the Evil party over reaches in the meantime (80% chance) the balance of power can swing back toward the center.

History, voters, common sense and righteousness are on the side of Democrats and Republicans who know that realistic gun-safety legislation can and will reduce gun violence and deaths.

History and God are with us! Wait, I think I've heard that line before.

Start now in Colorado.

Drop on down to Venezuela first. They already have all of your agenda in place. Ask them how it's working out. When all is said and done, I've never seen an anti-gun law that didn't benefit primarily the criminal class. For the lawmakers who propose such things, this is a plus as the resultant increase in crime rates provides justification for more anti-gun laws until the law-abiding population is completely disarmed. Malcontents can then be safely picked up and jailed. See Tony Robinson for an example.