Amazon, Tacoma Screw, McMaster-Carr, no luck. Tacoma Screw did have Taiwaneae made.
Paris and Marseilles are crowded and noisy. Bern and Basel in Switzerland was also crowded and noisy. Our hotel in the suburbs of Bern was quiet.
Food
The food was often surprising. Not bad or good, just different. We were desperate for something fast in Marseilles, so we ordered at a kiosk in a McDonald's on the corner from our hotel. The fries were awful. Ther Big Mac was different in some way that I cannot articulate. It was okay, just not home. By comparison, the Burger King fries in Basel, Switzerland were indistinguishable from home.
There were a number of meals that were only okay. My daughter and wife were ga-ga over how good everything was. I did not feel their amazement. I wonder if our ten mile days might have contributed to how much they enjoyed their meals. The French onion soup around the corner from Nortre Dame was completely typical of what I get here. The croissants were wonderful, but not immediately superior to what I get in any supermarket here.
Safety
I felt safe in all of these cities. French police in the Paris train station, the Louvre, and Eiffel Tower, were all carrying M4s. Even in the subways, I felt reasonably safe. The streets were clean. Public rerestrooms were generally clean. Beggars were less common in Paris than San Francisco (admitedly, a low bar to beat, but simlar to Boise). I saw one beggar in Switzerland. There were few obviously homeless people in any city we visited.
Diverse
One of the consequences of imperial France's insistence that all their colonial possession citizens were little Frenchmen, regardless of skin color, is that France is very diverse. While some Muslim women were wearing hijabs, most were not. My interactions with Muslims in customer-facing roles seemed friendly and appropriate. Admittedly, I did not go into any of the bad sections of Paris.
Curiously, an East Indian woman told my daughter that the crime problem only became an issue with Africans arriving. Whether this perception reflects reality, I do not know.
Friendliness
Everyone but one person in a tourist-facing role was friendly and kind, contrary to the stereotpe of difficult Frenchmen.
Language
The conquest of the Middle East by Alexander the Great created a single dominant culture with a common secondary language, Greek. The Internet and American dominance in culture has done the same for English. While the customer-facing people all spoke and understood English, they were grateful when my wife and daughter attempted French. At least no one served us a chocolate-covered tractor.
"He says the move makes Saskatchewan the first “fully carbon tax free” province, saving ratepayers money on their electricity bills.
"Moe says the measure will also make businesses more competitive amid tariff threats from U.S. President Donald Trump.
"He adds he hopes the next federal government does not impose a backstop to collect levies from Saskatchewan.
"The province’s industrial carbon tax plan saw electricity ratepayers and heavy emitters pay into a fund where the dollars were used on projects to lower emissions.
"Saskatchewan had stopped collecting the carbon levy on natural gas last year after Ottawa provided an exemption to home-heating oil users."
I keep hoping Alberta and Saskatchewan decide to tell Canada goodbye and join us.
The founder of a Minnesota-based charity was convicted Wednesday of hatching a brazen ruse that pilfered close to $250 million in pandemic relief funds from a federal program meant to feed hungry children in need – in what prosecutors said was the nation’s largest COVID-19 fraud scheme.
Aimee Bock, the 44-year-old founder of Feeding our Future, was found guilty on federal charges of wire fraud, bribery and conspiracy for recruiting a network of people and organizations to operate as many as 250 fraudulent meal assistance sites throughout the state, according to the US Attorney’s Office in Minnesota.
Prosecutors said her non-profit took advantage of a COVID rule change that allowed for student meal-assistance programs to operate off school grounds, as well as for the involvement of for-profit restaurants – blowing federal funding meant to feed underserved children during the pandemic on her “lavish” lifestyle.
Okay, relative to the overall disaster that is our national budget, $250 million is not much. How much was stolen by more competent (or connected) thieves?
The greeen stuff is turned up to 11 in France. A few interesting quirks:
1. Single-use water bottles have attached lids. When you unscrew the lid, a small strand of plastic holds the lid to the neck. Does this reduce the overall environmental load? No, but it does not reduce the number of loose bottle lids on the ground. This is a costless gain.
2. The room lights are dependent on having the room keycard in a slot at the entrance. This is annoying, because if you need to leave the room, whoever is in the bathroom is suddenly in darkness. Yes, you can get a second cardkey. I have seen this in a couple U.S. hotels as well.
Members of a Washington state city council will hold a special meeting just days after appointing a new councilor who identifies as a "bisexual transwoman" while operating an OnlyFans account, according to reports.
MyNorthwest.com reported that Jessica Roberts was the Lynnwood City Council’s original choice to fill a vacant seat, though, on Thursday, the council plans to consider rescinding the appointment after it was discovered Roberts had an account on the subscription-based platform where some creators share explicit pictures, videos and messages.
While Roberts’ account has been taken down, the account's bio reportedly identified Roberts as a "bisexual transwoman." The bio also included graphic details about Roberts' body parts, the publication reported.
Other reports, to which I will not link, are so horrendously misognystic that I will not link. I had run into the LGBT cannibalism fetish before.
1. I grew up below the poverty line.
2, My parents sacrificed mightily to rent in a city with good schools (largely because parents were engineers, scientists, and college faculty).
3. I experienced discrimination in scholarships.
4. My father spent most of my life running from the FBI. (He played poker with the sheriff. Guess who won and who lost.)
I mentioned that I prefer to cut CFC so that instead of making it Dust in the Wind, I can cut useful parts instead. I am getting such an opportunity. I am remaking that motor bracket in CFC. I have a significant piece of CFC from which I can cut a 2.5" x 3" piece.
My sneaky way to connect two CFC parts together at a right angle with screws, since the threaded inserts approach is clumsy and gooey, is to use effectively a coupler:
Vertical part A gets two through holes. The screws goes through them into through holes on the coupler C, with nuts on the far side of C. Two screws from the top of C go into holes in horizontal part B with nuts on the bottom of B.
A commenter made an interesting suggestion of counterboring the far side of the second part to bind and epoxying a nut there. This is a great idea if you need a flat surface on the far side. (It also looks prettier.)
In this case, after cutting off the 2.5" x 3" part, I seem to have an uncut piece that I can cut off to make a coupler.
There seems to be at least one federal employee who appears to have thought that. 3/12/25 Daily Mail:
A top 'DEI' activist is caught on voicemail allegedly offering minority air traffic controller candidates the chance to cheat in a make-or-break entry exam.
Shelton Snow, a powerful figure in the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees (NBCFAE), can be heard promising advance access to test answers in a shocking audio clip obtained by DailyMail.com.
'There are some valuable pieces of information that I have taken a screenshot of and I am going to send that to you via email,' says Snow, an air traffic operations supervisor based out of New York.
'I am about 99.99 percent sure that it is exactly how you need to answer each question.'
The inside info was made available in 2014 to African Americans, females, and other minority candidates – but whites were left out of the loop to 'minimize competition'.
Exactly how many applicants were able to capitalize on Snow's brazen offer to secure coveted controller jobs responsible for the safety of millions of fliers remains a mystery.
But one former NBCFAE member, Matthew Douglas, told DailyMail.com: 'I know several people who cheated and I know several people who are controlling planes as we speak.'
Why does Sniow think so badly of black people? Projeection?
