Hee. Ryan Kearney at New Republic with a rebuttal of Rep. Steve King’s “drug-running illegals with calves the size of cantaloupes”:
… “Lost in all the jokes about cantaloupes, though, was the real absurdity in King’s quote: that anyone could conceivably carry 75 pounds of pot. True, the weight itself is not necessarily prohibitive, though it would take a very fit, hydrated person to carry that much through the desert. But dried marijuana, no matter how “dank” its buds are, is not a heavy product by volume. Which is to say, it takes a lot of pot to get to 75 pounds. How much, exactly? This picture, from a 2011 post in Kansas City alt-weekly The Pitch about a highway bust, shows exactly that weight in marijuana. No backpack is large enough to fit this much bud. You’d need at least four or five immigrants, and mango-sized calves would do just fine.”
***********
Speaking of recreational intoxicants, what’s on the agenda for the weekend?
Butch
Recreational intoxicants are on the agenda. Why do you ask?
NCSteve
So basically, King just told the Mexican drug lords they need to start a hash manufacturing industry.
max
No backpack is large enough to fit this much bud. You’d need at least four or five immigrants, and mango-sized calves would do just fine.”
They don’t use immigrants. Too many people, not enough water. Humans look like humans on IR, but mules are just mules could be any large animal or a farmer or what have you. So they use burros or mules. (Actually, they mostly use cars, but if they were crossing in the middle there, it’s the mules.) And it’s going to be the same guys over and over, because a man’s gotta make a living.
If immigrants are involved in the drug trade it’s cocaine in condoms from South America or it’s guys already across the border who get into courier jobs (because it’s least likely to get them deported) inside the US. That is, they get into it for the same reason US citizens get into the courier trade.
Guys with calf muscles like cantaloupes are working in ag.
max
[‘Employed by those rich farmers that get all those subsidies that Steve King is in favor of.’]
bill d
I guess you need the calves the size of cantaloupes for balance, not for strength.
//
Bill Arnold
Was wondering when people would notice that. There are plenty of Americans who have experience with bales of hay for instance. And hay bales are reasonably well compressed.
PeakVT
Legal recreational intoxicants and trying to get the basement dried out. The two may be related.
MattR
Recreational chemistry, that’s the game plan.
Cygil
Left out in what he’s saying is… he’s really implying drug mules have the fitness, determination and guts to make excellent hard-working entrepreneurial Americans. They are, after all, small cogs in a very large machine working hard to satisfy a huge American market. You don’t see American workers with “calves the size of cantaloupes” risking arrest, deportation and even death just to get that pizza to your door, but pot smugglers are prepared to go the extra mile.
The chief objection to pot has always been the drug and tobacco companies don’t control it. The tobacco companies are currenctly flirting with moving into the marijuana market, waiting to see where the regulartory environment will go and whether the federal backlash will continue or recede. But if they do, expect “Pedro the Mule” to become a mascot like Joe Camel.
the Conster
Got a new job and I’m starting a week from Monday. Good pay, full benefits and will celebrate with intoxicants starting now.
jl
There are some very intrepid and admirable dogs, like St Bernards or Mastiffs that could carry 75 pounds, And obviously many wonderful and desirable breeds of horses. So the idea’s probably not ridiculous to King.
Edit: and of course, mules.
Edit2: dogs and horses and mules of the kind that those who understand our culture, would want to celebrate.
Joseph Nobles
@max: “[‘Employed by those rich farmers that get all those subsidies that Steve King is in favor of.’]”
Another example of what an idiot @SteveKingIA is. He’s so fixated on “cantaloupe calves,” he can’t even see he’s biting the hand that feeds him.
Cygil
@max
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/04/143025654/migrants-say-theyre-unwilling-mules-for-cartels
They definitely do use illegal border crossers as drug mules. I’m sure they use other methods as well.
zombie rotten mcdonald
Isn’t most of the pot used in this country already grown here anyway?
For me, it’s music all weekend. Reunion show of the Shoes tonight, then local alt-country rising stars Trapper Schoepp And The Shades tomorrow night.
Not saying that recreational chemistry won’t be involved, just to be clear.
Mandalay
Chris Christie has come up with a very straightforward “no apologies” position on national security:
He’s not agonizing and dithering over civil liberties vs. state surveillance; he’s insisting that state surveillance wins.
I don’t care for that view myself, but if he runs for president he won’t have to waffle to reporters, and it will be easy for him to look like a strong leader. I thought this guy has no plans to run, and no hope of winning even if he did, but now I’m not so sure. Plenty of Americans – including some Democrats – will swallow his tough talk.
jl
And as long as we are talking facty stuff on an open thread.
I keep hearing seeing and reading asinine stories about something or somebody called ‘Whites’ becoming a minority in the country compared to all the other groups (ethnic, racial) put together.
Why? Wasn’t that last month’s or last year’s story?
And why do all of these stories confuse race, ethnicity and culture? I have not seen one these idiot reports that can get the fact race and ethnicity and cultural background and related but distinct things. So have idiot stories about the sad besieged ‘Whites’ becoming a minority compared to a group of scalawags that includes something called ‘Hispanics’.
Can not one media outlet get it straight that ‘Hispanic’ is ethnic and cultural not race? That there are White, Black, and in places in the world, many Asian and S Asian Hispanics? It looks like not.
Unconscious racism and happy oblivious incompetence rampant in our corporate media. And what sorts of people run our corporate media, I wonder? (Edit: And if they are racist idiots, why should I worry about them becoming a ‘minority’?) And why are they obsessed with this non-story?
That’s why I am trying to just tune it out and enjoy the summer for at least a little while.
kindness
Maybe Congressman King meant they were smoking 75 lbs of pot? Who knows, maybe Tommy Chong runs with them?
And in all honesty, that pic isn’t 75 lbs of pot. Not unless it was pressed in a junk auto compressor or something. 75 lbs would be much much bigger. Each of those bags may hold a lb each.
zombie rotten mcdonald
@Cygil:
I saw one documentary where they made a van out of pot and drove it across the border.
Yatsuno
@the Conster: WOOT!!
Parents are in town and signing paperwork on new place tomorrow. Cannot wait to tell this psycho condo association to go to Hades in a handbasket.
jl
@max:
” max
[‘Employed by those rich farmers that get all those subsidies that Steve King is in favor of.’] ”
Steve King is from Iowa, and its subsidy crops are highly mechanized. Low cost immigrant labor is important to fruits and veggies and flowers, which is a mix of small farmers and big ag, and any subsidies small compared to corn, soybeans, cotton and such.
I think King is just playing to the scared racist Whites, and he is either or both himself.
Just Some Fuckhead
Can we get a Chris Christie ballwashing thread so I can gloat about how awesome he is?
burnspbesq
@Yatsuno:
That’s redundant.
burnspbesq
Lot of work to do and no desire to do it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Just Some Fuckhead: I would prefer not.
SFAW
@NCSteve:
They can set up a latter-day Triangle Trade, if’n they can get Ireland to send them the corned beef.
Interrobang
The leader of the Canadian Liberal party just came out in favour of legalizing pot. If I were really a conspiracy theorist, I’d be wondering about now how much American Drug War (read: Republican) cash is going to be flowing into the Conservatives’ coffers by way of whatever established
money-laundering outletsproxies they have, because having us sitting on your northern border with legal pot would be seriously bad news for the Reefer Madness crowd.For what it’s worth, I’m hardly even self-interested about this, as I stopped with the schmoke years and years and years ago, and don’t know if I’d restart now or not.
maya
Well, Steve King, who JC named his cat after I understand, could have said, “watermelon thighs” so we may assume he practiced some restraint.
And, yeah, 75 lbs of sativa would be a lot more than what’s in the photo.
raven
@zombie rotten mcdonald: Yea, it was called Up In Smoke!
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
Bill it anyway.
raven
@Interrobang: You didn’t quite because of access did ya?
burnspbesq
Mets suddenly don’t suck. 13-8 in July. 11-0 laugher over the Nats this afternoon.
I am at a loss to explain.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: I prefer roast beef hash myself.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I hope to see “Chris Christie Ballwashing Thread” as an actual title one day. I’m betting on mistermix.
burnspbesq
@SFAW:
I got out of BigLaw so I wouldn’t have to do that.
ruviana
@Yatsuno: I’ve been dipping in and out of comment threads–does this mean you are staying in Seattle?
Comrade Mary
Speaking of thieving little bastards, the squirrels have now taken 10 tomatoes, including one that was getting pretty red. Unless I can build something pretty sturdy with chicken wire, I just have to frisk the plants each day and take in any tomatoes that I can windowsill-ripen.
They’ve been drinking my water, too, the little bastards. No more!
burnspbesq
@Comrade Mary:
A gun or a dog. Pick one.
Amir Khalid
When I hung around the KL magistrate court as a reporter 25 years ago, the pot-possession cases usually involved amounts of a gram or less, carried in an inch length of drinking straw. So now I’ve learned something: 75lbs of pot is not necessarily too heavy for one person to carry, but it’s definitely too bulky.
By the way, how big is that speed-limit sign?
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Heathen.
raven
@Amir Khalid: It’s an interstate sign not a speed limit sign. They are about a foot high.
Baud
Wow. This is the last time I take Steve King seriously.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: It isn’t a speed limit sign. It is an interstate highway sign for I70, a major East-west artery.
Comrade Mary
@burnspbesq: Can’t I just teach a dog to shoot a gun?
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
Yeah, and some Rethugs are sounding not-insane.
Think of it as the MLB equivalent of Lucy and Charlie Brown. Even if they were to get as far as the World Series, they’d bring back (based on advice from Omar Minaya) Armando Benitez for a critical save, he’d blow it, and the Cubbies win.
Amir Khalid
@raven:
@Omnes Omnibus:
Come to think of it, 70mph does seem an improbably high speed limit.
Yatsuno
@Comrade Mary: Jill has Canadian health certifications to cross the border. She’s also a big sweet lovebug. You would no longer have a squirrel problem after she’s done.
@burnspbesq: Canuckistani. Dog much easier to get than gun.
Litlebritdifrnt
Seeing as all of the absolutely fucking stupid bills that the NC house passed today are now going to the Governor’s desk where he says he will sign them, despite the fact that he said he would not sign any abortion bills when he was campaigning (lying fucker) I am going to be drinking heavily, then tomorrow morning I am going to get up early and gorge my brain with stupid on demand television shows like Storage Wars because I don’t want to think about what a stupid fucked up State that I live in. The only good part about it is that the legislature is now out of session until 2014 so at least they can’t screw anything else up and make us even more of a laughing stock that we already are.
Wine and lots of it. Thats the ticket.
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
You and your self-respect. Jeebus, get OVER it!
zombie rotten mcdonald
@Baud:
Wow. This is the last time I take Steve King seriously.
was there a first time?
gelfling545
@Yatsuno: Condo associations are all psycho. Every one of them. After I retired I helped out in the office of a property manager who managed condos exclusively. Oh, sweet Baby Jesus, I’ve never seen anything like the burning desire those folks had to control other people’s lives. (All window curtains MUST be white – no that’s not white; it’s off white; Mrs. A hung a wind chime on her balcony. Mr. B doesn’t take in his morning paper until after 11; aaarrrggghhh.) Condos strike me as the proof that there is temporal punishment due for sin i.e. purgatory.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
Not in
Nuevo AztlanTexas, it isn’t.Omnes Omnibus
@Comrade Mary: Does the dog have thumbs? Is it as smart as new Navy recruit?
Patricia Kayden
Did anyone ask King for evidence that his claim was true? Repubs are very good at making outrageous claims and then not backing them up with facts.
Interesting how his Repub colleagues haven’t forced him to at least pretend to apologize for his racist remarks. Latino outreach indeed.
jl
@Omnes Omnibus:
” It is an interstate highway sign for I70, a major East-west artery. ”
Ah, so it’s them Mormon illegals with heads the size canned hams running the stuff to Maryland?
Or Marlylander illegals with bellies the size of Smith Island cakes running it hidden in crab cakes, to slip into the flavored waters of hapless Utah?
I’m confused again.
Baud
@zombie rotten mcdonald:
Well, no. But this is definitely the last.
johnny aquitard
@zombie rotten mcdonald: Didn’t the tail pipe cause it to catch fire and then clouds of pot smoke wafted through out the van and laid down a vertible smoke screen behind it, and the guys inside got all stoned including the narcs who were following them?
I remember that one too.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
No one’s forced him to apologize, but Boehner was sober enough for a few minutes the other day to condemn King’s remarks.
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: All I know is that it was always under construction when I lived in Ohio.
Yatsuno
@ruviana: I’m staying around Seattle for awhile. I have really good doctors here and also have a bunch of medical stuff coming up that would take forever to get a new set of docs caught up on. But in a year that could change since my desired career path at the IRS will most likely require a move.
@Amir Khalid: There are stretches of highway in WA that go 70 mph. It’s quite fun to drive that fast.
jl
@Baud:
” Well, no. But this is definitely the last. ”
Listening to people llke Steve King can do funny things to the mind. So, I can sympathize.
raven
@Amir Khalid: Not anymore. Here’s a map.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@raven: I’ve never seen an interstate shield that’s only a foot high. Minimum size for the numbers is 900x900mm.
This photo might help.
johnny aquitard
@raven: Naw, I swear they’re bigger than that. They have to make them big so they seem normal sized from a car zipped past at 70. (Mph, not Interstate).
quannlace
Tonight, lots of Pinot Grigio. Maybe mixed with a little bit of mugwort. Supposed to be good for women’s troubles.
Fort Geek
@Amir Khalid: It’s pretty typical, actually, on major (Federal) highways, which tend to be long and relatively straight.
State highways usually allow 55mph at most.
johnny aquitard
@Amir Khalid: It’s at least 70 mph in most of the states.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Comrade Mary: An AR-15 will solve that problem.
/The NRA
Amir Khalid
This must be the shittiest news story I’ve ever come across. So think carefully before you click on the link.
Violet
Anyone read this David Corn piece about Groundswell?
Saw it linked at TPM. They’re partly sort of a wingnut Journolist and they’re well aware of how Republicans are perceived (as racists) and yet they’re stoking the white panic. I don’t think they’re really going to help things in the long run.
burnspbesq
@Comrade Mary:
If you can figure that one out, the world will beat a path to your door.
A dog is more likely to be a responsible gun owner than most people I know.
jon
That pot just isn’t packaged very tightly. The stuff I’ve seen (from my Border Patrol acquaintances and others who work in the areas around Ajo, Arizona) is very compact, wrapped in burlap, and often further wrapped in plastic with backpack straps attached. It does help defray the costs to the coyotes (guides for illegal aliens) to carry a load. Often, the migrants have no choice in the matter.
Back when I had my prison job, an inmate told me he used to walk from Nogales, Sonora to Tucson, carrying a backpack of weed and leading a group of migrants who didn’t get charged if they arrived with their packages intact. He said it took a few days of walking, but it was a good job for a teenager from Sonora. His adult years told him otherwise, though I’m unaware of his current activities (and not that interested in knowing them.)
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Fort Geek: I assume those have at-grade intersections. State highways that are also freeways (accessible only via interchange) will often have higher speed limits.
raven
@johnny aquitard: “Hey, you pigs wanna give us a puch?
Honus
@Bill Arnold: a bale of hay weighs about 50-75 lbs. And it’s about the size of a big backpack. And it’s usually not as dry as a bag of pot. Still, I’m not carrying one for very long in the desert.
A kilo (2.2lb.) brick of compressed pot is a little smaller than a shoebox. So at best, think of the size of about 25-30 shoeboxes. Anyway, King is an idiot. Everybody drove box trucks of pot back from Mexico back in the day. Walking it was too slow and expensive.
Mnemosyne
@jon:
I still seriously doubt they’re carrying 75 pounds of weed, though. Even the US Army only carries 40-60 pounds in their packs.
And I doubt you’re going to be able to compact 75 pounds down small enough to fit into a backpack, even if you put it in a Space Bag.
jon
Here‘s some well-packaged mota.
Honus
@jl: Not many St Bernards or Mastiffs will carry 75 lbs through Texas or Mexico for very long.
raven
@jon: In the old days we’d run it our damn selves!
EV?RY YEAR ALONG ABOUT THIS TIME IT ALL GOES DRY
there’s NOTHING ROUND FOR LOVE OR MONEY
that’ll GET YOU HIGH
HENRY GOT PISSED OFF AND SAID he’d RUN TO MEXICO
TO SEE IF HE COULD COME BACK HOLDIN?
TWENTY KEYS OF GOLD
NOW THE ROAD TO ACAPULCO IS VERY HARD INDEED
AND IT isn’t ANY BETTER IF YOU haven’t ANY WEED
HENRY?S DRIVING HARD AND STRAIGHT
ON TWISTY MOUNTAIN ROADS
there’s FIFTY PEOPLE WAITING BACK
AT HOME FOR HENRY?S LOAD
AND NOW he’s ROLLIN? DOWN THE MOUNTAIN
GOING FAST, FAST, FAST
AND IF HE BLOWS IT THIS ONE?S GONNA BE HIS LAST
RUN TO ACAPULCO TO TURN THE GOLDEN KEYS
HENRY KEEP THE BRAKES ON FOR THIS CORNER IF YOU PLEASE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTNRsoBhnqM
Belafon
@Amir Khalid: I do 80 on a stretch through Hunt county in Texas to and from work each day. The speed limit’s 75.
piratedan
@jon: the thing is, there’s water and even civilization in that stretch with towns like Rio Rico, Amado, Tubac, Green Valley and Sahuarita in between here and there. It’s not as bad as trying to cross on the Rez itself (west of that corridor) or the Jornada Del Muerte in NM.
jon
@Mnemosyne: Most of it involves trucks now. Dropped off here and there, much loss expected, and it’s all a matter of evading the police and Border Patrol. My friend who works wildlife conservation jobs in the desert sees bales on the roads all the time. Doesn’t touch them, because they aren’t his.
Honus
@SFAW: Was with you right up until the “Cubbies win” part.
raven
What a dumb conversation. Trying to figure out if this motherfucking moron has his weight straight.
johnny aquitard
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Which means 75lbs of weed is a huge pile o’ pot.
Even Cheech & Chong couldn’t smoke up that much weed in a year.
IowaOldLady
Headline in my local newspaper:
White House mulls shutdown threat to avert spending cuts
I thought I was blaming House republicans for any shutdown. Is that not so?
johnny aquitard
@raven: And yet, here we are.
burnspbesq
On the west end of Green River, Utah on I-70 there is a sign that says “Next services 106 miles,” and it’s true. Most desolate stretch of road I’ve ever driven.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
What’s a speed limit?
You might not understand that question but I live in CA where we consider those signs to be at best, suggestions of the minimum speed.
Belafon
@IowaOldLady: You should write the paper and point out the obvious contradiction: A shut down would be a spending cut.
raven
@burnspbesq: On my first honeymoon we flew to LA and picked up my wife’s best friends brand new Fiat 124 sports coupe to drive back to Illinois. We drove up to SF and then across Cali, Nevada and Utah. This was 72 and there was no speed limit in Utah, I let that motherfucker fly.
burnspbesq
Buy popcorn futures now: Greenwald is testifying before a House committee next Wednesday.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/07/26/glenn-greenwald-and-other-nsa-critics-to-testify-before-congress-rep-grayson/
piratedan
@burnspbesq: pretty much true even for the East side of I70 too, except for that turn off to Moab, there’s jack shit out there til Colorado. Although I’d have to say that Interstate 8 from Casa Grande to Yuma ranks right up there.
raven
@piratedan: Oh god, the stories I could tell.
piratedan
@burnspbesq: my understanding is that it will be via skype, I expect “technical difficulties” to loom large once he’s done telling his side of the story.
Honus
@jl: I-70 runs right through Wheeling, not far from John Cole’s house. In one legendary section six lanes run down a steep hill, around a hairpin turn, through a tunnel and onto a bridge over the Ohio River. My dad was a project engineer on that section when it was built back in the 1970s.
piratedan
@raven: I have no doubt of that, and in the last five years, I’ve driven over a shitpotfull of the Interstates out west, you can easily lose yourself in the expanse.
jon
@piratedan: Doesn’t get much better on the other side of the AZ/California border. Not much is not much. And there’s a whole lot of that out there.
burnspbesq
@raven:
The Corps doesn’t care how fast anyone drives through Camp Pendleton on I-5. Before all the population growth in OC and SD in the 1990s, I can remember going through there at 115 and being passed repeatedly.
SectionH
@Comrade Mary: I feel your pain. I think the blasted squirrels here have gone through 2 or 3 dozen of our San Marzanos, and Mr. S is Unhappy. We have wire fencing dug into the ground, and about 3′ tall around the tomato teepee. He’s using both commercial and homemade capsaicin-based repellents, and that has slowed them down a bit, but they’re still doing damage. It wouldn’t be so annoying if they’d just eat the whole tomato, but no, they’ll take a few bites and leave the rest for the ants.
He finally got fed up enough he bought a humane trap. So far we’ve taken 3 of the buggers “over the hill and far away” to some empty land behind the Wild Animal Park. Not near anyone else’s garden, although I was tempted to dump them behind the house of the guy who had the big Rmoney sign in his yard last fall.
opiejeanne
@Amir Khalid: In California there are long stretches of Interstate 5 (Mexico to Canada) that are 70mph, once you get out of the two big cities it runs through on its way to Oregon where, alas, everyone with out of state plates must slow down because of the hatred of Oregonians (peoeple from elsewhere who live there now) for anyone from their home state, especially California. My uncle retired to Oregon from the San Diego area and within 5 years was bashing all of the newcomers from California.
opiejeanne
@Yatsuno: It’s necessary to go that fast after you leave LA, on the way to Sacramento. There’s a whole lot of dangerous, sleep-inducing nothing along much of that route.
Honus
@BillinGlendaleCA: Actually, a good bb gun will do just fine. Squirrels talk a lot, you know.
A .223 will knock down a deer. It’s the literal definition of overkill for squirrels.
Steeplejack
DVR Alert!
TCM is finishing up its month of Friday night François Truffaut movies with a bang tonight. (All times EDT.)
cleek
i’m going to semi-seriously bring up the subject of leaving NC. cause fuck this place. let my employer find some other schmuck to pay the GOP House’s overtime salary, next year.
SFAW
@Honus:
Yeah, that NL/AL thing always confuses me.
OK, “Red Sox win.” Without Bobby “I’m an Awesome Manager and NOT a Self-Promoter in extremis” Valentine running the show, of course. (He’d get brought back to the Mets for the Series, just so he could pull Matt Harvey, who was pitching a one-hitter, and pitch-count in the 60s, in favor of Benitez.)
Amir Khalid
Thanks everyone for explaining about highways and speed limits. I was under the impression that the 55mph limit applied to all American highways.
SFAW
@raven:
And you would, if only you could remember them.
burnspbesq
@SFAW:
I read something this morning on espn.com that suggested that some contenders might be interested in acquiring Bobby Parnell before the trade deadline. That level of desperation to acquire a closer is hard to imagine.
johnny aquitard
@Honus: I use a slingshot loaded with an ice cube on the rabbits that get too interested in my garden.
It shoos them away just fine, doubt it would injure them even if the ice cube flew true enough to hit what I’m aiming at. And I don’t have to worry about rocks all over the lawn for the mower to chew into or have to go pick them up if they bounce too far and end up in a neighbor’s yard.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne:
Source?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Honus: Looks like we need that snark font, I thought the ‘NRA end tag’ would work.
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
Maybe the Mets can trade him, and replace him with Franco, or Pedro Martinez, or Doc.
ETA: Or Sidd Finch, even.
jl
@Honus: That comment was a bitter joke on King’s remarks that compared picking ‘good’ immigrants to picking a good dog.
@Honus: Thanks for the info. I take note, and promise to drive that legendary section someday, gingerly.
Yatsuno
@opiejeanne: FYWP.
Been there. Driven it. Never really want to drive it again.
mai naem
I knew a guy who used to bring smuggle marijuana through Nogales in the early 2000s.. He was in HS when he was doing it. He said he stopped because 1/he found the lord and 2/He realized he had been extraordinarily lucky and his luck was going to run out pretty soon if he didn’t get out. He worked at BK and he said he would go with his backpack and his BK cap on with a BK bag with a Whopper and just say he was going across to take a Whopper to his nana(!) Then he would come back with the marijuana bricks in his backpack and say he’d taken the Whopper to his nana. I didn’t keep up with him but the stuff he told me would make one heck of a movie. He did also tell me he would never do it nowadays because the Border Patrol is that much better with technology..
johnny aquitard
@Omnes Omnibus: Hmm. I suspect you have some unpleasant memories of that not being the case. : )
Fort Geek
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Pretty much (graded intersections); I don’t remember seeing a state road doing freeway duty (NW Florida), but I don’t do a lot of driving these days.
Jerzy Russian
@burnspbesq:
I have been there. Beautiful but very desolate. There are a few primitive rest areas, so at least there are places to lawfully stop and take a leak.
The speed limit on I-15 through Utah had some “experimental” stretches with an 80 MPH limit. I am not sure if they are still experimenting.
SectionH
Four now. We just caught the 4th squirrel.
Steeplejack
My “rich people’s problems” complaint for the week:
For some reason the USA Today suddenly changed their crossword app this week from one that I thought was about the best on line to one that absolutely sucks: it’s sluggish, keystroke navigation is inconsistent, and the “current” clue doesn’t reliably follow you around as you navigate the grid. It’s really painful to use.
burnspbesq
@opiejeanne:
The drive from Omaha to Denver is also pretty drowsy.
SFAW
@SectionH:
Call us when the stew is done.
Patrick
@Patricia Kayden:
That’s funny. I’m still waiting for our so called journalists to ask Donald Trump about his evidence that his private investigators dug up about Obama not being born in the US.
kindness
Out here in Northern Cal I have not seen any redbud (the south o the border stuff) since the 90’s. Everything is local and that was even before pot became legal (the medical variety anyhow). Now other parts of the country may still get the stuff. Can’t say I know why. Folks I know who grow travel across the country to sell to others because the legal clubs out here pay them squat.
Guess I don’t get out as much as I used to.
@SectionH: What are you doing with them after you catch them?
RSA
This was not intended to be a factual statement; it was intended to be a racist statement.
Honus
@BillinGlendaleCA: Sorry, I kind of figured it was snark, but wanted to say that in case any NRA types were lurking.
maya
@Jerzy Russian: “The speed limit on I-15 through Utah had some “experimental” stretches with an 80 MPH limit.”
Isn’t Utah one of those Stand Your Gas-peddle states?
WereBear
THIS. The MIL is hellbent on getting Mr WereBear & I into a condo; pointing out that we have four cats and want a cottage garden has not sunk in because she does not understand condo associations.
I do.
Another Halocene Human
For those bemoaning crappy local Dem parties…
Consider organizing a local Labor Party. It’s not a wankfest like the Green Party. Rather than endorse candidates, the Labor Party is a way for activists to organize around issues, support the union movement from outside and the fair wage movement from the inside, hold forums to educate people, and become directly involved in direct community volunteering activities. In my local area the Labor Party’s #1 focus in healthcare. They pushed a lot for single payer, and are still pushing for it (but not in an emoprog, kill the ACHA sorta way). They work with Occupy, the Central Labor Council, SDS, NAACP. They hold talks at AARP gatherings and at the library and at special events. They helped get a Wage Theft ordnance passed. Most importantly they’ve been a clearinghouse for energized local activists across race, gender, class, and age lines. Most of the other groups are pretty segregated.
Going to a Labor Party meeting is more engaging, fruitful, and less depressing than any Dem party around here. (Our Dems are fractured along race and class lines and too fooking clueless to change… Have fun watching the GOP pick off seats one by one, idiots.)
opiejeanne
@Amir Khalid: Used to until the Republicans repealed that law.
Fort Geek
@Amir Khalid: It used to, starting in 1974, as a fuel-saving measure.
Repealed in 1995.
Jerzy Russian
@maya:
OK, that made me laugh. Utah, along with Texas, Arizona, and Montana would qualify as SYG(p) states. Nevada too, upon further reflection.
ruemara
@the Conster: Go you! Congratulations!
I’m settling into my new position as well. Holding out hope that I got the job I’m still waiting to hear back on. Or some other good thing will happen, please.
RE: Topic. That’s a rather large quantity of mj.
johnny aquitard
@Amir Khalid: Oh, that’s sooo Carter era. That loser. Mandating 55 on all federal highways to increase fuel economy and save energy. What a loon. An environmentalist moonbat. Next thing you know such a goody-two-shoes will build homes for the homeless and the poor, just because it’s the right thing to do.
The real christian people of america hate this holier-than-thou lib who was always trying to show them how to live and make them be ashamed for being themselves and being true to their conservative principles. That’s why the god-fearing party still hates him, because he made everybody drive 55, that hippy bleeding heart liberal weak-sister wuss.
You know who else forced everyone to drive 55? Yeah, him.
opiejeanne
@WereBear: We had a condo association for two years. Nice detached house, but those folks were nuts. We will NEVER live in one again. I had my garage door open while I was cutting out a skirt for my daughter (I have a BIG cutting table; I retired from running a costume design company) and the condo pres came by to chat while I was doing so.
A week later I get a warning from the city’s zoning department about running a business in my garage.
The old prez lived in the house across from us and he was nice but he was probably the only sane person on the board, and he left because there were bigger houses on bigger lots being built closer to the beach for a ridiculous bargain price, and he jumped on it when they broke ground. Once he moved out the nuts had full control.
JWL
“Coming into Los Angel-eez
Bringing in a couple of Keez
Don’t check my bags if you pleez
Mr. Custom’s man”.
Why is a democrat can’t sneeze without hearing demands for an apology from the GOP, while democrats never, ever play that game?
? Martin
@Ruckus: Ms Martin and I, on our parting trip before trading in our speedy pre-family car averaged slightly over 100 MPH from LA to SF. We were passed several times along the way – once doing just shy of 130 on the 580.
dance around in your bones
I saw calves the size of cantaloupes on the guys who bicycle-pedaled us in India (always felt kinda guilty about it) and the porters in Nepal who carried stuff up and down the mountains from Kathmandu to Pokhara and beyond and back- including iron safes, sledge-hammer heads and even old ladies in basket chairs….when my husband and I trekked 200 miles from Pokhara to the base os Mt Everest and back we made a point of NOT hiring porters…..not that we had the money to do so, but it just felt wrong.
I walked the shoes off my feet on that trek and walked barefoot for two days until my husband traded a shirt for a pair of flip-flops for me. Ok, it was the 70’s, but good times!
This bullshit ‘all immigrants are drug-smugglers’ is fuck-nuts. Most immigrants are just like us – they want to provide for their families and have a decent job. They’d like to be able to cross the border back and forth without huge hassle. Shit, Americans do it all the time. It’s not rocket surgery.
SFAW
@? Martin:
If you were driving a white Challenger, I’m glad you managed to avoid those D-9s.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Source
They carry close to 100 pounds in total weight, but only about 40 of that is the backpack — the rest is body armor, arms, etc.
WereBear
@opiejeanne: I used to belong to a lovely, world-wide, rose chat board, back when I had a house and 80+ rose bushes. (On lawn loving Long Island, no less. Neighbors figured I was insane.)
This cured me permanently of wanting to deal with anything of the sort. They decide what color of flowers I am supposed to plant? Geddoutahere!
SFAW
@dance around in your bones:
Now, don’t be sayin’ that shit. Rationality never won an argument with the Rethugs, ya know.
Mnemosyne
@johnny aquitard:
Another source said that they’ll have guys carry up to 100 pounds on their backs during training, but not when they’re actually in the field.
Another Halocene Human
@Interrobang: The leader of the Canadian Liberal party just came out in favour of legalizing pot.
If the RMCP has a union, expect them to come out swinging in defense of their border control agents.
Their main function seems to be profiling border crossers they think are smuggling pot.
Well, pot and apples.
JWL
@dance around in your bones: A story I heard told many years ago:
Mick Jagger once called the late, great impresario Bill Graham from a luxury hotel in India. He spoke plaintively to Graham of the hellish poverty that was plainly visible from the balcony of his suite, which prompted Graham to counsel, “When you call room service, be sure to order the least expensive champaign”.
Citizen_X
@burnspbesq:
Pah. A dog who could shoot would be constantly spraying your yard trying to hit squirrels, and would shoot at all passing cars, all cats, most dogs, some people, and the moon.
Now: on to the recreational substance abuse!
dance around in your bones
@Steeplejack: You are a gem. Just set up the DVR for 3 of those movies, thank you.
Another Halocene Human
@raven: I very much doubt that. The MUTCD from 2004 gives 12″ as the heighth of those dinky street parking regulatory signs whereas the recommended height for freeway signs starts at 24″ (Wrong Way, etc) and goes up from there.
Wikipedia (take this with a grain of salt) says the shield for a 2-digit Interstate is 36″ tall. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System#Interstate_shield
max
@Cygil: They definitely do use illegal border crossers as drug mules. I’m sure they use other methods as well.
{reads story} OK, well then, that’s very new. If you’re used to listening to the tales of border patrol in the local paper, there were always a lot of immigrant types getting turned around, but not very many (at all) getting busted for drugs as well. The smugglers were always using cars and tunnels and whatnot (and their personnel weren’t immigrants, they gang members and whatnot). Drugs (of all types) are small and expensive and thus precious – immigrant types (and their bodies) are a dime a dozen and easy to lose to the BP or whatnot.
But apparently they have gotten nasty. This still isn’t gonna change the calculus. Stop the immigrants and the drugs dealers will just shift transport methods. Stop the drug dealers and the immigrants will still come. The ones that are already here have done whatever smuggling their going to do, so the comment makes no sense.
@jl: Steve King is from Iowa, and its subsidy crops are highly mechanized. Low cost immigrant labor is important to fruits and veggies and flowers, which is a mix of small farmers and big ag, and any subsidies small compared to corn, soybeans, cotton and such.
Well, the subsidies are mainly to soybeans and corn (via ethanol – which is dumb), and I’m with you on mechanization in Iowa but I also know that Iowa has lots of unauthorized types at this point, because I keep reading about them getting busted.
I think King is just playing to the scared racist Whites, and he is either or both himself.
Well, yeah. That’s what the whole thing with the cantaloupe calves is about. (What size cantaloupe is he talking about anyways, since I have small cantaloupe calves? (really!)) But even unauthorized types forced to pack dope across the border are not going uh, abnormally endowed. In the calf department. Precisely because dope ain’t that heavy to begin with. They might have big calves (?!) but that would be from heavy lifting of heavy things. Like bananas or some shit.
The rant makes sense from a ‘panic the old white ladies about the
strapping black buckshordes of medium-sized brown bucks’ point of view but otherwise, what?max
[‘But 2016 campaign season is here!’]
Another Halocene Human
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: What is this millimeter of which you speak?
Tenths of inches or GTFO! ;-)
WereBear
True, that. And would STILL be more responsible that the current gun-nut humans.
Yatsuno
@Comrade Mary: This. Cannot. Be. Happening. Please tell me he’s not leaving Tronno. PLEASE!!!
dance around in your bones
@SFAW: I had a friend in Mexico who had a tiny little shop – she wanted to cross the border and buy stuff for her shop (like, at dollar stores and etc) within the 30 mile zone and just come back home, put it in her shop and sell it. She jumped through all the hoops and paid the fees and got shut down.
Meanwhile, I knew many Americans who drove down from San Diego and LA with trailers, bought Mexican curios and pottery and such and drove back to the US with no problems. It just seemed completely unfair to me. My friend didn’t want to emigrate to the US, she just wanted to shop there and come home to her family. I think most of the Mexicans I knew were the same – they love their country and want to keep living there, but would like the freedom of movement that Americans enjoy. Is that to much to ask? Fuck no.
Another Halocene Human
@burnspbesq: I wonder if the real intention is to restrain law enforcement such that homegrown terrorists can’t be prosecuted for lack of evidence. These sheethaids tell everything on social media.
I think Greenwald is a stalking horse for the right, despite that one book he wrote that I liked.
Another Halocene Human
@piratedan: this is why the CZ is the best way thru Utah
(note the EB time thru SLC, also, too)
Another Halocene Human
@dance around in your bones: Don’t feel bad about the pedicab (aka rikisha) drivers unless you stiffed them on their tips!
We have pedicabs in Florida. Oh, the electric go-karts pretend to be green, but we know the truth….
You may have noted the weather here. They usually operate after dark. :) Of course this is when drunk people need rides.
Msskwesq
King is delusional. I am a criminal defense attorney in an Iowa city near I-80 and have represented many drug dealers (under court appointment) of all types including pot dealers/mules driving down the interstate. Not one of them had unusual body structure especially large calves. Most of my clients have actually been redneck white guys on meth or crack. I have represented a good number of suburban perscription pill poppers with their pharmacy heroin (eg: oxycontin.) A few of my client are/were Latino some were African Americans most were/are white. I also have lots of middle and upper class clients with multiple OWI’s. King is just a huge bigot.
dance around in your bones
@JWL: Well, I never stayed in a luxury hotel in India nor ordered even the cheap champagne. But seeing the child and adult beggars was disturbing – about the same as seeing the homeless here in sunny southern California.
I always gave away all my spare change to panhandlers (even now I do, and I don’t care what they spend it on) .
I remember wrangling with a cab driver in Kabul about the fare and throwing the Afghanis (money) at him in a last ditch effort to resolve the dispute – then I stepped out of the taxi and fell right into the jui (an open sewer ditch, ubiquitous in AFG) and humiliating myself big time. After that I just stopped caring about the few cents that I could wrangle from the taxi guy. He definitely needed it more than me.
The stuff traveling can teach you!
Another Halocene Human
@dance around in your bones: The US has a pretty high personal exclusion before they decide you’re an importer with all that entails.
danielx
@raven:
Having made the error of buying that model once, what’s amazing it that it made it from CA to IL without a breakdown en route, probably in the worst possible spot.
As to what’s on the agenda, doing house stuff tomorrow and helping a friend hang new kitchen cabinets on Sunday…tomorrow evening may involve recreation of SOME sort.
Hobbes
Where did the drug running illegals get calves the size of cantaloupes?
Cmm
Quick help…I am cooking corn on the cob, which I haven’t done for years, and I can’t remember, does the corn go in the water from the start or dropped in when it boils?
dance around in your bones
@Another Halocene Human: Yeah, that’s nice for the Americans – but for the Mexicans it’s much more of a hurdle to cross.
My friend filed all the papers, paid the fees (which were considerable for her) and still got shut down for no discernible reason. Just stamped NO! on her paperwork and that was it. It was such a disappointment for her. (P.S. No refunds of her paperwork fees). All she wanted to to do was shop in the border area for her tiny little store.
I couldn’t tell her why it was ok for Americans to shop in Mexico so easily for resale in the US and not for her to do the same thing vice versa.. It just sucked monkey balls and I am still pissed about it.
My own opinion is that if people were able to travel freely across the border things would be better for all of us. Fuck the miniscule amount of terrorists.
burnspbesq
@danielx:
FIAT = Fix It Again Tony
SiubhanDuinne
@dance around in your bones:
I used to get into huge arguments with my aunt — and still do with my moralizing semi-wingnut siblings — about this, specifically the “I don’t care what they spend it on” part. If they buy soup and a sandwich, fine. If they buy a cheap bottle of wine to ease their pain, fine. If they’re saving up to buy a house or invest in the next bubble, fine. Once the coin leaves my hand, IT.IS.NONE.OF.MY.BUSINESS.
dance around in your bones
@SiubhanDuinne: I totally agree. It is not my business what people use the few quarters or dollars I send their way for………… just, subsist. Survive – whatever way you can, that’s what I think.
I’m not going to rule the world, even if I could get the parts. Spend it how you want it, oh peoples.
Ruckus
@? Martin:
Not quite the same but once heading south on 101 on my unfaired motorcycle I hooked up with a semi pulling doubles doing 85. I stayed close enough to him to keep from being blown off the bike and signaled him in and out of the left lane when passing cars. We did that for over 200 miles. And the speed limit for trucks in CA is 55.
But a 100 mph average is pretty good. Who needs a high speed train? And I don’t think you could do that today with the road condition. I5 is pretty rough what with the minimal repairs that is apparently all we can afford these days.
Ruckus
@dance around in your bones:
Have you crossed the border in the last few years? Hassle free? Not so much anymore. Since 9/11 this country has lost it’s shit and it wasn’t all that before then as far as the Border Patrol is concerned. I think the attitude was/is why would anyone want to leave Merca? To do so must mean you are a commie.
daverave
I can’t drive…. FIFTY-FIVE !!!1!!!
dance around in your bones
@Ruckus: Well, yes I have. I won’t tell ya how.
I have to say I hate this Brave New World we are in now. I remember when you could run up to an international flight and pay cash and get on the flight in minutes……no body frisking and no paying for extra baggage and you could order a vegetarian or kosher meal no sweat and the flights were half-empty so you could grab a whole row in the back of the plane, flip up the armrests, grab a few pillows and blankets and a couple of Johnny Walkers and sleep the whole way to Delhi or Kabul or wherever.
Back in the day.
Ruckus
@dance around in your bones:
My international travels have been pretty limited as of late but I have crossed both the north and south borders for business and years ago that was a snap. Since I have been believed by the TSA to be carrying a photon bomb in my knapsack(that’s the only explanation I can figure out for all the attitude and inspections) on every flight that I have taken in the last 12 yrs I’m pretty thankful that I can’t afford to travel any more.
dance around in your bones
@Ruckus: Everything has gotten so much more complicated.
I used to visit my best friend in Whistler, BC years ago, and all I needed was my driver’s license. One of the last times I went the customs guy said to me ‘Well, technically, you need a passport but we are really only looking for people who don’t look like you (i.e. – not white) and he said it in a way like I would understand….it was pretty weird, but I was glad they didn’t deny me entry because of my lack of a passport (which I had at home, but since I had never needed it before for travel to Canada I didn’t bring it!)
Life has gotten so complicated lately. “Produce your papers!”
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Celebrating Sysadmin Day by spending a three day weekend with LittleMan and TinyDancer. Need to decompress after the crap that’s gone down the last couple of weeks.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I can more or less accept that. I definitely recall dragging around 100 lbs of stuff, but it did include things like extra ammo for a crew served weapon or a tripod; a lot of that did get stuffed into or strapped onto the ruck.
opiejeanne
@WereBear: OH, rose clubs… flower clubs… well, garden clubs in general are peopled with a lot of folks who feel they have no real power in the world so they decide they will rule this one tiny corner of it.
With an iron fist.
The most hilarious moment was a 70-year-old neighbor who showed up at the local flower show holding this unattractive poppy specimen and wanted to be directed to the herbs division, and then she winked at me. It was an opium poppy that she’d grown from the seeds you get at the grocery store in the baking section.
SectionH
@kindness: Taking them over the hills and far away. Actually to a road where there are no houses within a couple of miles. It overlooks the Wild Animal Park, which co-exists with native wildlife pretty well. We walk there in the am fairly often, and I’m amused by which critters get noticed, who are just handing around, unofficially as it were.
ETA: very late, I know, but I did want to answer that question.
Also too, Rusty 5 has now joined his compadres.
SectionH
As long as I’m the last poster here anyway, @raven: OMG, I remember that song. I thought it was funny back then, but I couldn’t tell you who did it without cheating.