In 1853, the U.S. Government bought a 29,670 square mile chunk of dirt in a deal that, as history buffs will tell you, ended up being called the Gadsden Purchase. It was a dick move: purchasing the land meant bisecting the territory of the area's indigenous Tohono O’odham Nation. This left half of the Tohono O’odham in Mexico and the other half in the United States. Today, the Tohono O’odham are a federally recognized tribe, with somewhere around 34,000 members. This number includes around 2,000 Tohono O’odham who live in Mexico. It's not uncommon for the tribe to cooperate with Homeland Security where protecting the border is concerned. But guess what? A tribe that had their lands split up by the Federal government once isn't crazy about having it done again.
According to Splinter, the Tohono O’odham Nation controls the second largest land base in the United States. This includes a full 75 miles of the U.S./Mexico border. Given that members of their tribe live on both sides of the border, they're less than chuffed with the notion of allowing the National Guard onto their lands to surveil their territory or to allow a border wall to be built on their property. The reasons for their objections are sound: Having a wall thrown up in the middle of their land would keep members of their tribe from easily traveling to participate in culturally important events on their own frigging land.
From Splinter:
Tohono O’odham chairman Edward D.
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In 1990, Peter Kuper (previously at BB) drew a grimly prescient cartoon featuring Donald Trump and the Wall he built. It's a few thousand miles north of the currently-planned location, but Kuper nails most of its key design elements.
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In Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands, some total moron designed, financed and constructed a large coastal wall right where a ferry was headed.
Videos and photos of the accident appeared quite serious, although no injuries have been reported.
The ship involved was the Volcan de Tamasite and, according to information received by The Canary, 140 passengers were on board at the time, though nobody seems to have been seriously hurt, some reports have mentioned up to four people with minor injuries.
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Der Postillon reports that Ikea now offers an affordable flatpack solution for any wannabe autocrats looking to shave a few dollars off their $25bn whitey elephants.
The simple, Scandinavian designed border wall (with a 5 year guarantee) is primarily made of pressboard with a birch effect and can be assembled with the help of a hex key. A 12,000 page instruction manual with easy-to-understand pictures makes construction child’s play – as long as there is not a single screw missing.
“However, assembly requires two people: one person can hold the wall while the second screws it together”, it states in IKEA’s offer.
The problem is, of course, that it looks great when you put it together the first time, but one move and it turns into a a pile of rickety MDF. Previously. Read the rest
Trump International Golf Links was built on the site of a protected 4,000-year-old sand dune; he bullied anyone who wouldn't sell their homes to him to build it and then sent the holdouts a bill for the 15-foot-high wall he built around their homes to block their view of the ocean; he promised a $1.25B investment and ended up investing no more than $50m; he promised 6,000 jobs and created 95; he promised two golf courses and only opened one; he promised to build a 450-room luxury hotel and 950 apartments and built neither -- and now he does everything he can to prevent the creation of clean-energy wind-turbines off the coast. Read the rest
During the storm a couple of nights ago, we heard an almighty thunderclap and our dogs came dashing into the house. Once the rain ebbed and we went outside, we found this scene just around the corner: a wall apparently blown to pieces, with cinderblock chunks thrown as far as 40 or 50 feet. It seems too far for a plain old wall collapse. Could that have been caused by the lightning strike? If so, how? Steam pressure from the waterlogged bricks being suddenly superheated, like a tree strike? Read the rest
