On Thu, 30 May 2013 21:27:33 -0700, DD_BobK wrote:

Or, I wave $100/day to anyone that stands in the
front parking lot at the Home Depot ...

And break the law?

I don't know if it's legal or not, but police cruisers
drive by every single day. They can't help but see dozens
of these guys standing in the Home Depot parking lot, day
in and day out.

Nobody doesn't know what they're doing.

So, while I don't know the laws, I don't see that the
people *paid* to enforce them are doing anything about
it that is having any success.

Plus, I've never ever hired someone that way. If anything,
I'd hire out the local kids; but the point was that the
work was immense no matter how you look at it, to lug
the brush *uphill* a steep 50 feet to the roadway.

On Thu, 30 May 2013 21:46:41 -0700, DD_BobK wrote:

The technological differences were too large...

I realize you know weapon delivery systems better than anyone
else here, so I won't argue with you on that!

On Thu, 30 May 2013 21:35:09 -0700, DD_BobK wrote:

Don't believe the premise of Guns, Germs & Steel?
It seems as though it would have been inevitable in any case.

I believe in Sun Tzu's premise of defeating the enemy by knowing
both your enemy and yourself, and then using strategy to win.

Guns, horses, germs, cunning, guile, &, I might add, very sharp
swords were formidable; but the real advantage the Spaniards had
were a better strategy than either the Incas or the Aztecs had.

Had the North & South American natives met the invaders on the
beaches, allowing no foot on land, they *might* have prevailed.

However, I've read about every battle in history that I could find,
so I do agree that, in history, repeated attacks by small forces
*have* sometimes defeated overwhelmingly large forces; but, in
general, 200 men at a time shouldn't win a battle against 4,000
opponents - if the natives had only spent the time and energy to
*understand* what they were up against - and then to formulate
a detailed strategy for defeating that enemy.

Easy for me to say, but, these comments, in relation to the
USENET, simply imply that the goal of fully *understanding*
the task at hand is, essentially, the means to a successful
conquest of home repair issues.

Knowing the enemy's weakness, and knowing your strength, is the
key to defeating thousands of those teeny tiny California ants
in your kitchen; or ridding a hillside of a fortress of Poison
Oak; or clearing out the litter of the dead bodies of the Spanish
Moss & Scotch Broom invaders, pulled out, at their weakest point,
during the winter rains; or removing cooty stains from toilets
using chemical warfare to attack where the enemy has his base of
support.

On May 31, 7:37*am, Danny D wrote:
On Thu, 30 May 2013 21:27:33 -0700, DD_BobK wrote:
Or, I wave $100/day to anyone that stands in the
front parking lot at the Home Depot ...

And break the law?

I don't know if it's legal or not, but police cruisers
drive by every single day. They can't help but see dozens
of these guys standing in the Home Depot parking lot, day
in and day out.

Nobody doesn't know what they're doing.

So, while I don't know the laws, I don't see that the
people *paid* to enforce them are doing anything about
it that is having any success.

Plus, I've never ever hired someone that way. If anything,
I'd hire out the local kids; but the point was that the
work was immense no matter how you look at it, to lug
the brush *uphill* a steep 50 feet to the roadway.

DADD-

Do try & keep up....

most local jurisdictions are proscribed for one reason or another from
enforcing laws related to immigration.
Think about the unintended consequences thereof....

So as an example... if the police aren't enforcing vice laws, it's ok
for you to pick up a street walker?

On second thought....never mind.

On May 31, 7:58*am, Danny D wrote:
On Thu, 30 May 2013 21:35:09 -0700, DD_BobK wrote:
Don't believe the premise of Guns, Germs & Steel?
It seems as though it would have been inevitable in any case.

I believe in Sun Tzu's premise of defeating the enemy by knowing
both your enemy and yourself, and then using strategy to win.

Guns, horses, germs, cunning, guile, &, I might add, very sharp
swords were formidable; but the real advantage the Spaniards had
were a better strategy than either the Incas or the Aztecs had.

Had the North & South American natives met the invaders on the
beaches, allowing no foot on land, they *might* have prevailed.

However, I've read about every battle in history that I could find,
so I do agree that, in history, repeated attacks by small forces
*have* sometimes defeated overwhelmingly large forces; but, in
general, 200 men at a time shouldn't win a battle against 4,000
opponents - if the natives had only spent the time and energy to
*understand* what they were up against - and then to formulate
a detailed strategy for defeating that enemy.

Easy for me to say, but, these comments, in relation to the
USENET, simply imply that the goal of fully *understanding*
the task at hand is, essentially, the means to a successful
conquest of home repair issues.

Knowing the enemy's weakness, and knowing your strength, is the
key to defeating thousands of those teeny tiny California ants
in your kitchen; or ridding a hillside of a fortress of Poison
Oak; or clearing out the litter of the dead bodies of the Spanish
Moss & Scotch Broom invaders, pulled out, at their weakest point,
during the winter rains; or removing cooty stains from toilets
using chemical warfare to attack where the enemy has his base of
support.

I guess you should be contacting Jared Diamond and informing him of
his wrong thinking....

Ya, like this could work?

"if the natives had only spent the time and energy to *understand*
what they were up against - and then to formulate a detailed strategy
for defeating that enemy."

How successful would any of your home repairs have been "in a
technical vacuum" & with people shooting at you?
My guess.... not very.

History (& Jared Diamond) proves you wrong again & again...
I suppose you could find some rare examples to support your premise
but LARGE technological differences are nearly impossible to over come
when warfare is involved.

And please do not give me modern examples.
Most technological differences that exist today are small compared to
500 years ago.
Plus the "leakage rate" is much higher today....

You're amazing.

On Thu, 30 May 2013 11:16:59 -0700, chaniarts
wrote:

On 5/30/2013 10:00 AM, wrote:
On 30 May 2013 08:09:41 GMT, JoeBro wrote:

Danny D wrote in :

On Wed, 29 May 2013 21:11:15 -0400, krw wrote:

What use did they have for the wheel?

This is OT, but it always amazed me that the American natives
didn't invent the (transportation) wheel. Seems so logical.


Just because something is logical, doesn't mean that there is sufficient
intellegence available to take advantage of it. As an example of that see
your recent thread on moving stickes.

Intelligence has nothing to do with it. There was little need.


weren't they nomads to some degree? wouldn't it have been a help to
moving household goods?

Across prairies, mountains, and through forests? Likely not. I-80
hadn't been built yet. ;-)

On Fri, 31 May 2013 14:37:00 +0000 (UTC), Danny D
wrote:

On Thu, 30 May 2013 21:27:33 -0700, DD_BobK wrote:

Or, I wave $100/day to anyone that stands in the
front parking lot at the Home Depot ...

And break the law?

I don't know if it's legal or not, but police cruisers
drive by every single day. They can't help but see dozens
of these guys standing in the Home Depot parking lot, day
in and day out.

Nobody doesn't know what they're doing.

So, while I don't know the laws, I don't see that the
people *paid* to enforce them are doing anything about
it that is having any success.

Plus, I've never ever hired someone that way. If anything,
I'd hire out the local kids; but the point was that the
work was immense no matter how you look at it, to lug
the brush *uphill* a steep 50 feet to the roadway.

I hope you pay the unemployment insurance, your end of FICA, and
everything CA adds to your employer's misery, too! ;-)

On Fri, 31 May 2013 10:03:08 -0700, DD_BobK wrote:

most local jurisdictions are proscribed for one reason or another from
enforcing laws related to immigration.
Think about the unintended consequences thereof....

I'll snap a picture of it for you, but there is a white-and-black
sign posted at the very entrances to that Home Depot strictly
forbidding pick up of workers.

White and black signs, are, you may recall, for legal
use only (at least when on public roadways).

I tried to google street view it for you, but they appear
to have blurred out the signs, for some reason:
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/13200374.png

I don't remember exactly what the sign says, as I see it every
time I go there - but next time I go there, I'll snap a photo
of it for you.

On Fri, 31 May 2013 10:13:29 -0700, DD_BobK wrote:

Most technological differences that exist today are
small compared to 500 years ago.

The stirrup, for example, was a huge advantage in its
day. So was the concept of Blitzkrieg in the day of
the Mongols and Vikings. Clearly the aircraft carrier
was a game-changing technological difference, as was
radar and sonar in the more recent WWII.

Moving closer to the present day, had Americans ever
been willing to fight all-out-war against Asians who
didn't attack them directly, we would have won the two
Asian "police actions" we fought, expressly because
our technological prowess was/is greater.

Yet, our strategic goal was implicitly why both those
wars ended in, essentially, a draw - even though we
actually "won" nearly every battle ever fought.

Plus the "leakage rate" is much higher today....

Exactly my point! That's the beauty of USENET!

(Although don't for a second forget the massive
spying going on in the USA by the government of certain
countries historically xenophobic and bent on world
domination - which - history shows - they *will*
achieve, sooner or later.)

On Thu, 30 May 2013 21:30:51 -0700, DD_BobK wrote:

Important piece of information missing...
What prompted the desire to create the debris?

Know thine enemy, and know thyself, and in a hundred
battles, you will prevail (Sun Tzu).

I am trying to eradicate three enemy combatant species
which have taken over acres of chaparral in my control,
namely:
1. Scotch Broom == foreign invader
2. Spanish Broom == foreign invader
3. Poison Oak == native irritant

Those fast-growing invaders from the Mediterranean islands
quickly crowd out the native inhabitants, even to the point
of photosynthesizing from their very stems, so as to suck
the life-giving supplies from the mouths of the native plants
that actually feed the native animals.

The strengths of these nitrogen fixers is that they can
grow where no other plants can; and that they sow seeds
which last for 60 years, a percentage growing every year.

The weakness of the Scotch Broom is a relatively meager
supply line, via a single tap root, which holds tenaciously
in the summer months, but which yields like cutting warmed
butter in the wetness of the winter rains.

So, every winter, I spend a few hours blissfully hunting
Scotch Broom, destroying entire regiments of the stuff,
leaving the wounded to die & decay where they lie on the
slippery mud-soaked slopes (war is mud, after all).

Each spring, the lower-hugging guerrilla Spanish Broom,
which is much harder to flush out, even in the winter rains,
shows its true colors by blossoming a sweet yellow, which
removes all vestiges of camouflage. I've learned that to
mow them down is merely to invite a rebirth from the stumps,
so, the approach is to methodically cut and spray with
chemical warfare (glyphosate), within 5 minutes of the
dismembering. This, and only this, prevents the roots
from springing forth anew, to attack my sunlit hillsides.

The most formidable enemy is the native Poison Oak, which
fortresses in almost impenetrable thickets of wrist-thick
vines, covering every direction. For these, I carefully
cut a swatch through the minefield, taking extreme care
not to become contaminated too badly, although casualties
are inevitable. At times, I use the chainsaw, in sheer
determined all-out frontal attacks; but most of the time
I stealthily tunnel to the commanding root, which is always
at least four or five inches thick, to kill the command
and control center, at its very core.

Note: Those who say you can spray glyphosate on poison oak
have no idea what they're up against, as this enemy is
so deeply entrenched on a hillside that napalm itself
wouldn't flush it all out, in a week of spraying from
helicopters. No. Only a determined single-minded attack
on the core supply line will work, sort of like what the
Persons attempted at the battle north of Plateae before
the Greeks retreated and regrouped at Plateae, for the
battle that arguably saved the Western civilized world
from utter destruction.

And, so goes my battle with the foreign and native
invaders, who are forever attempting to take over my
sun drenched hillsides.

On Fri, 31 May 2013 14:37:00 +0000 (UTC), Danny D
wrote:

On Thu, 30 May 2013 21:27:33 -0700, DD_BobK wrote:

Or, I wave $100/day to anyone that stands in the
front parking lot at the Home Depot ...

And break the law?

I don't know if it's legal or not, but police cruisers
drive by every single day. They can't help but see dozens
of these guys standing in the Home Depot parking lot, day
in and day out.

Drive up, exit, and yell "Federales! HALT in the name of the law!".

The crooks run. Hire the guy still standing and needing work.

It is really simple foggy math.

On Sunday, May 26, 2013 3:37:12 PM UTC-4, Danny D wrote:
My question: Not owning a pickup truck, is there a hand tool for
moving brush piles en masse a hundred feet once on the roadway?

It's called a wheelbarrow.

On 5/31/2013 11:10 AM, Danny D wrote:
On Thu, 30 May 2013 21:30:51 -0700, DD_BobK wrote:

Important piece of information missing...
What prompted the desire to create the debris?

Know thine enemy, and know thyself, and in a hundred
battles, you will prevail (Sun Tzu).

I am trying to eradicate three enemy combatant species
which have taken over acres of chaparral in my control,
namely:
1. Scotch Broom == foreign invader
2. Spanish Broom == foreign invader
3. Poison Oak == native irritant

Those fast-growing invaders from the Mediterranean islands
quickly crowd out the native inhabitants, even to the point
of photosynthesizing from their very stems, so as to suck
the life-giving supplies from the mouths of the native plants
that actually feed the native animals.

The strengths of these nitrogen fixers is that they can
grow where no other plants can; and that they sow seeds
which last for 60 years, a percentage growing every year.

The weakness of the Scotch Broom is a relatively meager
supply line, via a single tap root, which holds tenaciously
in the summer months, but which yields like cutting warmed
butter in the wetness of the winter rains.

So, every winter, I spend a few hours blissfully hunting
Scotch Broom, destroying entire regiments of the stuff,
leaving the wounded to die & decay where they lie on the
slippery mud-soaked slopes (war is mud, after all).

Each spring, the lower-hugging guerrilla Spanish Broom,
which is much harder to flush out, even in the winter rains,
shows its true colors by blossoming a sweet yellow, which
removes all vestiges of camouflage. I've learned that to
mow them down is merely to invite a rebirth from the stumps,
so, the approach is to methodically cut and spray with
chemical warfare (glyphosate), within 5 minutes of the
dismembering. This, and only this, prevents the roots
from springing forth anew, to attack my sunlit hillsides.

The most formidable enemy is the native Poison Oak, which
fortresses in almost impenetrable thickets of wrist-thick
vines, covering every direction. For these, I carefully
cut a swatch through the minefield, taking extreme care
not to become contaminated too badly, although casualties
are inevitable. At times, I use the chainsaw, in sheer
determined all-out frontal attacks; but most of the time
I stealthily tunnel to the commanding root, which is always
at least four or five inches thick, to kill the command
and control center, at its very core.

Note: Those who say you can spray glyphosate on poison oak
have no idea what they're up against, as this enemy is
so deeply entrenched on a hillside that napalm itself
wouldn't flush it all out, in a week of spraying from
helicopters. No. Only a determined single-minded attack
on the core supply line will work, sort of like what the
Persons attempted at the battle north of Plateae before
the Greeks retreated and regrouped at Plateae, for the
battle that arguably saved the Western civilized world
from utter destruction.

And, so goes my battle with the foreign and native
invaders, who are forever attempting to take over my
sun drenched hillsides.


removing groundcover sometimes leads to massive erosion problems.

On Fri, 31 May 2013 12:00:42 -0700, Oren wrote:

Drive up, exit, and yell "Federales! HALT in the name of the law!".
The crooks run. Hire the guy still standing and needing work.
It is really simple foggy math.

Your approach is called the Federale Transform approach.
The guys who run? They're called the Federales Series.

On Fri, 31 May 2013 12:47:17 -0700, chaniarts wrote:

removing groundcover sometimes leads to massive erosion problems.

Bummer that nobody brought this up until now.

If that's the case, I perhaps should have followed this suggestion:
"bundle the pulled plants to create 8- to 12-inch wattles that
can besecured to slopes to prevent erosion."
http://www.cal-ipc.org/ip/management/wwh/pdf/19633.pdf

Paradoxically, these pests were originally planted to
*prevent* erosion:
http://extension.oregonstate.edu/cat...pnw/pnw103.pdf

Unfortunately, all parts of the plant are poisonous:
http://wiki.bugwood.org/Cytisus_scoparius

And, the CDFA says they're a Class C pest, which means they'
€œtroublesome, aggressive, intrusive, detrimental, or destructive
....and difficult to control or eradicate.€�
http://californiarangeland.ucdavis.e...in%20Calif.pdf


Here is how I removed the scotch broom in the winter season:

1. The task was to weed about an acre of these weeds:
http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11912157.jpg

2. I first got below the weed on the hillside & grasped low:
http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11912158.jpg

3. Then I pulled DOWNWARD with all my strength, always downhill:
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11912159.jpg

4. With the ground saturated by rain, the weeds came out:
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11912160.jpg

5. As predicted, the Spanish Broom was the hardest to pull:
http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11912161.jpg

6. Some of the plant roots were as thick as a fat thumb:
http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11912162.jpg

7. However most of the thousand of plants pulled had thin roots:
http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11912163.jpg

8. And now the muddy hillside is devoid of the weed plants:
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11912164.jpg

On Fri, 31 May 2013 12:22:03 -0700, dennisgauge wrote:

It's called a wheelbarrow.

Hmmm... looking at this picture of just one of many collection
points, would *you* use a wheelbarrow on that tangled mess?
http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/13174517.jpg

The wheelbarrow *did* come in handy though, near the end,
when all that was left are these gnarly bits and pieces:
http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/13174109.jpg

On May 31, 10:51*am, Danny D wrote:
On Fri, 31 May 2013 10:13:29 -0700, DD_BobK wrote:
Most technological differences that exist today are
small compared to 500 years ago.

The stirrup, for example, was a huge advantage in its
day. So was the concept of Blitzkrieg in the day of
the Mongols and Vikings. Clearly the aircraft carrier
was a game-changing technological difference, as was
radar and sonar in the more recent WWII.

Moving closer to the present day, had Americans ever
been willing to fight all-out-war against Asians who
didn't attack them directly, we would have won the two
Asian "police actions" we fought, expressly because
our technological prowess was/is greater.

Yet, our strategic goal was implicitly why both those
wars ended in, essentially, a draw - even though we
actually "won" nearly every battle ever fought.

Plus the "leakage rate" is much higher today....

Exactly my point! That's the beauty of USENET!

(Although don't for a second forget the massive
spying going on in the USA by the government of certain
countries historically xenophobic and bent on world
domination - which - history shows - they *will*
achieve, sooner or later.)

DADD-


I assume you don't know the meaning of

non sequitur

On May 31, 4:08*pm, Danny D wrote:
On Fri, 31 May 2013 12:47:17 -0700, chaniarts wrote:
removing groundcover sometimes leads to massive erosion problems.

Bummer that nobody brought this up until now.

If that's the case, I perhaps should have followed this suggestion:
*"bundle the pulled plants to create 8- to 12-inch wattles that
*can besecured to slopes to prevent erosion."
*http://www.cal-ipc.org/ip/management/wwh/pdf/19633.pdf

Paradoxically, these pests were originally planted to
*prevent* erosion:
*http://extension.oregonstate.edu/cat...pnw/pnw103.pdf

Unfortunately, all parts of the plant are poisonous:
*http://wiki.bugwood.org/Cytisus_scoparius

And, the CDFA says they're a Class C pest, which means they'
“troublesome, aggressive, intrusive, detrimental, or destructive
...and difficult to control or eradicate.”http://californiarangeland.ucdavis.e...df/8049%20Broo...

Here is how I removed the scotch broom in the winter season:

1. The task was to weed about an acre of these weeds:http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11912157.jpg

2. I first got below the weed on the hillside & grasped low:http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11912158.jpg

3. Then I pulled DOWNWARD with all my strength, always downhill:http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11912159.jpg

4. With the ground saturated by rain, the weeds came out:http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11912160.jpg

5. As predicted, the Spanish Broom was the hardest to pull:http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11912161.jpg

6. Some of the plant roots were as thick as a fat thumb:http://www4.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11912162.jpg

7. However most of the thousand of plants pulled had thin roots:http://www5.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11912163.jpg

8. And now the muddy hillside is devoid of the weed plants:http://www1.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11912164.jpg

Bummer that nobody brought this up until now.


The real bummer?
In all your OCD-ness.... you often miss the forest.
It's really too bad that accounting training & experience translates
so poorly to other endeavors.

My apologies if I missed the rational that motivated messing with
plants that generated all this debris....
seems like a grout scraping activity.