Govern, Do Not Do Social Media

12/15/25 AP;

"WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Monday blamed Rob Reiner’s outspoken opposition to the president for the actor-director’s killing, delivering the unsubstantiated claim in a shocking post that seemed intent on decrying his opponents even in the face of a tragedy."

He could have pointed to the hints that Reiner's son's mental health problems were a factor or even better, let friends and family grieve.  Trump needs to govern more and social media way less 

Letting the left determine how he reacts is playing into their hand 

Global Warming Willl Starve Us All

 12/15/25 Reuters:

Earlier this month, the Canadian government announced record harvests of spring wheat and canola for 2025. And because most of the grains produced in Canada are shipped and consumed abroad, those gains have major implications for the rest of the world's ability to feed itself affordably.

Australia, another large global grain exporter, has also reported rising crop yields despite drier conditions

.

You might almost wonder if increased plant food in the atmosphere makes crops grow better.

Buck 110 Knife Clip

My wife found this perfect Buck 110 lockback at the side of the road.  It slips out of my pocket too easily, so i ordered an add-on clip from NWLynch.  I needed to tap 2-56 holes.  And yes, for all the tips and drills that I own, I needed to buy both.

It holds in my pocket very nicely.

Change

12/14/25 Bloomberg discusses how the Stste Department switched from a sans serif font to a more traditional serif font and what this all means.

What is tells me is that there should be more focus on the words than the typeface as long as they are not using a font like Hostage.  That could be entertaining however..

Light Pollution

We were invited to a house in Wilder last night, a town well away from Boise.  I could still barely still 3rd magnitude stars.  Industrial plants such as Simplot's potato operations are surprisingly bright.  Boise does not help either. 

Appropriately Named Rep. Stalker (D-KY)

Explains why white kids need to be feel bad about their race.

As usual, a privileged person assumes she is privileged because of her race.  That she is privileged because Mom and Dad stayed together and created a stable home for her never occurs to her.

Million Monkeys, Million Typewriters, Million Dreams

I had q dream last night involving the word "rengulate."  There is no such word. But it kept coming back in multiple dreams  It is not a verb although it has the form of one.  It is not a category of animal like an ungulate.  Why did my subconscious create this verb. Can any of you assign a meaning for what seems to be a perfectly fine, million monkeys, million typewriters, million years word?

I Have Had Weeks Of Not Busy

This has allowed me to spend time on hobby activities.   Suddenly, College of Western Idaho's LMS (learning Management System) Canvas is operational for me to prepare for my spring semester class.  I am headed to New Orleans and Alabama on vacation December 27th, so i am attempting to get this all done before I leave.  I have taught this class before using the Blackboard LMS.  It is not like starting from scratch but about three hours per week of instruction to move to Canvas.  It is pretty tiring so I cannot spend all day at it. Blogging needless to say is lower priority. 

Adventures in Optics

That 52mm 152mm F.L. achromatic lens arrived Monday.  It seems a decent piece of glass for its intended purpose: a wide angle low power finderscope.  I had considered making the rest of the scope from carbon fiber composite, but this is perilously close to polishing a cow pie to perfect brilliance.   It turns out that perfectly respectable refractors can be made from lens like this and PVC plumbing pipe.  SCHEDULE 40 pipe in 2" nominal diameter is just about exactly the right size for this.  A 2" to 1" nominal size coupler allows you to use a PVC tube that is 1.31" OD.  To make go through the coupler I will bore through the coupler.   The 1" nominal tube will need boring to accept the 1.25" eyepiece.  I will tap the coupler to accept a thumb screw.  This will five a drawtube for coarse focus.  I have a helical focuser that goes into the draw tube for getting this nice and sharp.

Another fitting whose purpose is unclear (at least for plumbing) is the right ID for the achromat lens to rest in it.  I will put some 52mm O-rings at the front to hold the lens in place.  I need to figure some way to add set screws for adjusting the collimation of the lens to the tube.  I suspect my solution will only be approximate and that is probably good enough for intended purpose  

Bored? In Need of a Research Project for Your Colonial American History Class?

 I happened on this collection of estate inventories at the Colonial Williamsburg website.  Searching for gun produced 354 matches.  Gathering up all that data and summarizing it might be interesting.

Using the Rotating Table

LinuxCNC's axis GUI shows what the program will do and while it does it.  This is the first time I have written code using the rotating table and seen the display.

I am not sure how useful this really is.  It looks like a hose reel.

Grand Jury Transcripts Release

12/9/25 CNBC:

 A New York federal judge on Tuesday ordered the unsealing of grand jury materials and other documents related to the prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite convicted in 2021 of procuring underage girls to be sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein.

Judge Paul Engelmayer's order came at the request of the Department of Justice, which cited the Epstein Files Transparency Act that Congress passed last month.

So what will Democrats claim now?  Trump's DOJ asked for their release and here they are. This 12/8/25 Bloomberg News article is paywalled but the headline shows that the PreCrime Investigation Division now has a PreNews Reporting Division: "As Epstein Files Deadline Nears, Here's What Might Emerge."

Peaky Blinders is Not Islamic Enough

 12/9/25 Yahoo News:

Four Afghan men who dress up as the Peaky Blinders have been arrested by the Taliban for violating “Islamic values”.

The group, all in their early 20s, who are known online as the “Jebrael Shelbys” after the Shelby family in the BBC crime show, were arrested in the Herat province in western Afghanistan.

The men parade around their township of Jebrael imitating the characters from the show, which is set in interwar Birmingham.

I guess dressing up as people who beead others with a knife for believing wrong would have been okay.

Can We Be Next?

 12/9/25 NBC News:

Can children and teenagers be forced off social media en masse? Australia is about to find out.

More than 1 million social media accounts held by users under 16 are set to be deactivated in Australia on Wednesday in a divisive world-first ban that has inflamed a culture war and is being closely watched in the United States and elsewhere.

Social media companies will have to take “reasonable steps” to ensure that under-16s in Australia cannot set up accounts on their platforms and that existing accounts are deactivated or removed.

Australian officials say the landmark ban, which lawmakers swiftly approved late last year, is meant to protect children from addictive social media platforms that experts say can be disastrous for their mental health.

“With one law, we can protect Generation Alpha from being sucked into purgatory by predatory algorithms described by the man who created the feature as ‘behavioral cocaine,’” Communications Minister Anika Wells told the National Press Club in Canberra last week.

While many parents and even their children have welcomed the ban, others say it will hinder young people’s ability to express themselves and connect with others, as well as access online support that is crucial for those from marginalized groups or living in isolated parts of rural Australia. Two 15-year-olds have brought a legal challenge against it to the nation’s highest court.

Supporters say the rest of the world will soon follow the example set by the Australian ban, which faced fierce resistance from social media companies.

They can express themaselves the way several thousand generations of young people have done: face to face with friends; through art, music, repairing stuff and playing (remember what that is).  Or like my friends and me, learning to program computers* and doig dangerous projects involving low grade explosives and hydrogen balloons.  None of us lost fingers.

*Building web pages with SquareSpace or editing silly cat videos does far less intellectual development than learning how to write interrupt service routines.

 

Tensions Increase Over Taiwan

 12/8/25 BBC:

Japan has protested after Chinese fighter jets locked radars on Japanese aircraft as tensions between the two nations worsened.

Locking radar onto an aircraft is considered a threat because it can signal a potential attack. Japan said there were two such incidents Saturday off its southern Okinawa islands.

Japan said it scrambled fighter jets in response to the Chinese J-15 fighter jets, while Beijing accused Tokyo of "harassing" its forces during a training exercise. No injuries or damage were reported.

Diplomatic ties between Japan and China have spiralled since last month, after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested that Tokyo could take military action if Beijing attacked Taiwan.

Beijing views self-governed Taiwan as part of its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to "reunite" with it.

Both sides have since engaged in increasingly hostile rhetoric towards each other, with the widening rift affecting daily life for citizens in both countries.

I keep hoping Xi thinks before acting stupid.  The U.S. and its allies Singapore, Phillipines, Australia, and Vietnam could interdict Chinese exports and perhaps more critically oil imports through the Straits of Malacca and South China Sea.  Invasion of Taiwan would ratchet up existing G7 anger at Chinese trade policy to a level from which China might not recover for years. I also think Chinese military might may turn out to be at Russian levels of corruption and incompetence.  The energy Xi has put into prosecuting military corruption at the general officer level hints that this problem may be present at lower ranks as well. If you know (or suspect) your superiors are dirty, why not get a piece of the pie for yourself?

Adventures in Optics Part 2

This part with the threaded end holds the lens and a 2" ID pipe slides into the non-threaded end.

The threaded end was 1.91" ID, so it would have partially obstructed the 2" diameter (actually 52mm) of the lens.  I was going to amputate the threaded version but then I found this threaded end cap:

I now have a cool dust cap that will never wear our or get easily lost.

I still have a few holes to drill here and there.  This ring goes inside the threaded fitting part to both center the lens in the tube and allow me to put setscrews in that fitting to press that ring for collimation adjustment.  

This started out as something else and needed to go from .5" to .25" wide.  Cutting on the mill would require tightening it down more in the mill vise than would be advisable for a weak, brittle material like PVC.  The lathe was the obvious choice.  Cutting that much off using the standard lathe tool is not practical. I do not have a parting tool for the lathe.  Perhaps I should get one.  

Solution: put it on the three jaw on that rotary table.  Bring 1/8" endmill to the outside of the ring.  Cut down into the ring very slowly.  Rotate the table at 50 inches per minute 

This is a cheap, likely only so-so strategy for collimation, but this is a finderscope, not a high end refractor so good enough 

This is how it will look after I get the lens in place.  The big ring on the left is a union to hold the main tube and eyepiece draw tube together.

One more thought.  The drawtube is now very thin wall.  1.31" OD and 1 25" ID.  I doubt that a thumbscrew would hold in such think material.  I will cut a 1.5" OD, 1 31" ID x .5" piece of carbon fiber to glue on the end of the drawtube, then tap a hole for the thumbscrew.   The black of that part will go nicely with the black of the helical focuser as contrast to the rest.

I am still waiting on 52mm ID O-rings.  In the meantime, flat black paint on interior and bright white on exterior. 

Paint.   I should have thought this through before pulling out the paint cans. Tape all holes on the inside before spraying interiors.   Then tape all holes on the exterior, paint exterior and interior. Then remove all tape on interior and paint again.  Then remove retake interior holes and paint exterior again.  Otherwise you get spray through the holes.  I will then touch the ends with a brush.

I Have Always Considered the 1970-72 Malibu One of the Outstanding Body Shell Designs of the Era

A roommate at the beginning of time bought a 1970 Malibu.  So imagine my pleasure at reading this SupercarBlondie article about a guy who restored his 1970 SS with a little change from stock: "Montana man gets his 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle rebuilt as a 1,200HP beast."  Yes a twin turbocharged Chevy Big Block.

I shudder to think what top speed on this might be.  They weighed about 3500 pounds as I recall.  

Taboos as Protection

I overheard our youth pastor, who is Navajo, mention that snakes and reptiles are taboo in his culture.   This should be no surprise.  The Southwest is awash in rattlesnakes and Gila Monsters both of which are venomous.

Do You Wonder Why We Have So Msny Leftist Cat Ladies?

7/25 Journal of Psychistric Research:

Highlights

• •
  Mental health hospitalization rates are higher after abortion than deliveries.
• •
  Risk is elevated for psychiatric disorders, substance use, and suicide attempts.
• •
  Patients with preexisting mental illness or age <25 years are most at risk.
• •
  Risk of mental disorders is greatest within five years of abortion.
• •
  Risk of most mental disorders disappears 17 years after an abortion.

Conservative Woman reports on efforts to legalize abortion until birth in Britain, which like most European nations has much more restrictive abortion laws than Roe v. Wade America.

We Stayed in a Very Nice Hilton in Richland

 As usual carpets demonstrate too many interior designers did way too much acid long ago.

Or these are the color version of UPC bar codes.

Making That Wide Angle Finder

 I need a way to hold the lens in a weird PVC part that slides over the end of the 2" tube.  

But I also need to make sure it is held securely against the front.  So I cut a piece of 2" tube about 3/4" long.  I will slit this so it locks the lens in position and screws hold it in the weird fitting.  The internal lens holder and external tube need holes that are exactly 120 degrees apart so...

The internal lens holder sits in a three jaw chuck, which screws on to a rotating CNC table, which is attached to a tilting table at 90 degrees.  If this had many features, I would write a program.  Instead, I use semiautomatic mode to position the center drill at top of tube, tell it to cut to 0,5" down, back up, then rotate 120 degrees.

The Princes Are Not All in Nigeria

 12/3/25 Department of Justice:

The CEO of a Fresno-based home health care company was arrested at San Francisco International Airport while attempting to board a flight to Nigeria. He is charged in a criminal complaint alleging that he fraudulently obtained more than $7 million in payments from the Department of Veterans Affairs for services that were never actually rendered, including care purportedly rendered to veterans weeks after they had died, U.S. Attorney Eric Grant announced.

 

Am I The Only Person Who Sees An Inconsistency Here?

 12/5/25 CNN:

During interviews with the FBI, the suspect arrested in the pipe bomb probe told investigators that he believed the 2020 election was stolen, providing perhaps the first indication of a possible motive for the bombs placed near the DNC and RNC headquarters, people briefed on the matter said....

The bureau believes the man compiled bomb-making supplies for months before leaving the viable explosive devices outside of the political offices.[emphasis added]

So was this BLM activist preparing bombs before the stolen election?  Or did he just come up with this excuse in the hopes of getting in on the J6 pardons?

Orange Peacemaker Bad!

 12/4/25 AP report:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump praised the leaders of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda for their courage as they signed onto a deal on Thursday aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Congo and opening the region’s critical mineral reserves to the U.S. government and American companies.

The moment offered Trump — who has repeatedly and with a measure of exaggeration boasted of brokering peace in some of the world’s most entrenched conflicts — another chance to tout himself as a dealmaker extraordinaire on the global stage and make the case that he’s deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize. The U.S. leader hasn’t been shy about his desire to receive the honor.

Instapundit.com observes correctly that the journalists "slammed Trump in about every third sentence of their report."  I wonder if any of these journalists ever wonder why they need to be attacking Trump for following Jesus' suggestion, "Blessed are the peacemakers."

69 Today

 I fel healthier than at any time since 2014.

Not What I Was Expecting in the Los Angeles Times

 12/5/25 Los Angeles Times:

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has repeatedly insisted that she will not allow the U.S. military to fight drug cartels inside her nation’s borders.

“It’s not going to happen,” Sheinbaum said last month after President Trump yet again threatened such an operation. “We don’t want intervention by any foreign government.”

But while Sheinbaum passionately defends her nation’s sovereignty, recent polls and interviews from across Mexico show that a significant number of people here in fact welcome more American involvement in their country’s battle against organized crime — including having U.S. boots on the ground.

Slightly more than half of Mexicans surveyed by polling firm Mitofsky said they believe “U.S. authorities should enter Mexican territory to fight organized crime and arrest its leaders.” A third of respondents to a poll by El Financerio newspaper said they support the deployment of the U.S. military to Mexico to combat cartels.

The reason is obvious.   Many Mexicans believe their military lacks the capacity to do the job, likely because cartel wealth and intimidation has compromised so much of the Mexican government.  

I really cannot blame Mexicans for this.  Mexico is a poor country.  The prospect of a million dollar bribe there is likely equivalent to $10 million here.  I would like to think most of our officials would not be swayed by a bribe but $10 million for most Americans is an unimaginable amount of luxury.

The intimidation factor may matter more.  Organized crime has always benefited from being able to threaten family and friends.  In a nation where very few people may lawfully possess arms and police are as likely as not on the cartel payroll, what is your alternative?

Oh Boy! A New Word!

Scromiting.  11/3/25 The Hill reports on vomiting while screaming caused by "cannabis hyperemesis syndrome (CHS)" which a relative who lives in a pot-friendly state developed. 

Remember: it's natural, how bad could it be?

"

The "That Was My Roommate's Jeans" Defense is Not Going to Work

12/3/25 KBOI:

Velasco was taken into custody and booked into the Ada County Jail. Further investigation led officers to a Boise hotel room linked to the case, where they found approximately 12,785 grams of methamphetamine and 101 grams of fentanyl powder. Both substances tested presumptive positive.

"This seizure represents a major disruption to the flow of dangerous drugs into our community," said Boise Police Lt. Terry Weir. "The amount of fentanyl recovered in this case is enough to kill over 500 people. Our officers see firsthand how methamphetamine and fentanyl contribute to overdoses, and this case highlights the importance of proactive policing and strong investigative work."

Amazing What Two Million Illegals Leaving Does to the Rental Market

12/2/25 CNBC:

A slew of new supply is still making its way through the multifamily housing market. That, coupled with weakening demand, especially from the youngest workers, is pushing vacancies up and rents down. 

The national median rent for apartments fell 1% in November from October, and now stands at $1,367, according to Apartment List. It was the fourth consecutive month-over-month decline. Apartment rents are down 1.1% from November 2024 and have fallen 5.2% from their 2022 peak. 

"Earlier this year, it appeared that annual growth was on track to flip positive for the first time since mid-2023; however, that rebound stalled out and reversed course during a particularly slow summer," according to Apartment List researchers.

After hitting a record high for this index, which dates back to 2017, in October, the national multifamily vacancy rate remained at 7.2% in November. 

The historic surge in multifamily construction over the past few years is now pulling back, but a good supply of new units is still coming online at a time of much weaker demand.

The stack of articles about dropping rental rates around the country here is good news everywhere.

 

Probate

The attorney pursuing my illegitimate half-brother's inheritance informs me that the full probate process is not required because he has been dead more than two years.  Something called Summary Administration will satisfy Florida's Unclaimed Property Office.

More About Balcony Solar

I mentioned a couple days ago.  When I searched on amazon for "balcony "plug and play" solar" I got matches that look interesting.  A long-time concern that I have had about PV systems as civil defense is EMP damage.  If you bought one of these and put in a Faraday cage, you would have a post-apocalyptic power solution that you could be pretty sure will work.

Swords and Squatters

 9/30/25 Oaklandside:

“The average squatter,” says James Jacobs, “has no melee experience.”

No familiarity with katana swords or other bladed weaponry. No training in kendo, iaido, or other martial arts. 

If anyone knows the typical combat background of a squatter, a person living in a home illegally, it’s Jacobs. He runs a company called ASAP Squatter Removal, offering do-it-himself eviction services to property owners throughout the Bay Area.

Say a homeowner or bank or landlord discovers somebody occupying their property without authorization. They could call the police, though officers might not come. Police tend to shy away from tenancy disputes, leaving them to the civil courts. The property owner could go ahead and file an eviction lawsuit, but that can drag on for months. 

Or they can call Jacobs. 

For a fee, Jacobs will surveil the place and force out the people inside of it using a complex concoction of homespun arms and militarized tactics.

This is not a new problem.  I knew someone in San Jose in the 1980s who had a problem with squatters who took over his cabin in Sana Cruz.  The police were no help.

I suppose if the owner was not actually using it for himself or as a rental and the squatter was not actively damaging the property, I can see how progressives might persuade themselves that homeless squatters are just doing social justice.  But squatters seldom treat such homes well.

 

Machining PVC

Compared to aluminum, CFC, or even Delrin, PVC is easy. (It is an odd smell as it cuts.)  It is soft enough that you want to cut at low speed to avoid melting.  I needed to put a not quite blind 1.31" hole that diameter all tge way through and it was startlingly easy.  Tapping a 1/4-20 hole for a thumbscrew to lock the draw tube in place was very quick.  The next step is cutting a 5.5" length of pipe on the chop saw then using the mill to get very square ends on it.  The focal length of the objective is 152mm.  This should bring the focal point right out the end of the tube, where the draw tube  starts.  A drawtube about 2" long will allow eyepieces with focal lengths of 6mm to 40mm to focus there.  I am putting a helical focuser at the end of the draw tube which adds about an inch so perhaps a 5" tube.

Next I need to bore the draw tube to 1.25" ID.  Fortunately, I have a 1.25" Forstner bit to put in the lathe.  Then tap a hole for another 1/4-20 thumbs crew to hold the eyepiece there.

 

One nice thing about PVC: it does not spew carbon dust everywhere which is a nuisance to clean up.

Do the Stupid Names Cause This? Or Are TheyJust a Symptom of a Broken Culture?

11/24/25 CBS News:

A homeowner who shot and killed one of four men suspected of breaking into his home in Richmond Heights on Saturday told CBS News Miami that it was the "scariest moment" of his life....

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue came to the scene and rushed the injured suspect, later identified as 26-year-old Quanterry Alvin Whitley, to the hospital, where he later died....

CBS News Miami spoke with Lashundia Jackson, the mother of Whitley. She said the homeowner should never have fired his weapon.

I would like to say he did not do a home invasion. That is inaccurate. That is not who he is. That is not who he was. He would not do that. He was not that type of person," Jackson said of her son." [Stupid names emphasized]

Yes, I Hired an African-American By This Standard

7/3/25 New York Times:

"As he runs for mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani has made his identity as a Muslim immigrant of South Asian descent a key part of his appeal.

"But as a high school senior in 2009, Mr. Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, claimed another label when he applied to Columbia University. Asked to identify his race, he checked a box that he was “Asian” but also “Black or African American,” according to internal data derived from a hack of Columbia University that was shared with The New York Times."

And by this low standard, Elon Musk is an African-American. 

Long Term Care Insurance

Medicare covers nursing care and hospice.  Other categories such as memory care for those with the grave misfortune of Alzheimer’s are not.  A relative by marriage ran through $5000 per month in the last couple years.  Fortunately, she had purchased long-term care insurance, which left her millions untouched for her heirs.

I have not thought about this much, partly b because it is terrifying to imagine the last year of two before checking out and partly because my own parents managed to avoid these sort of ugly ends.  My father went from good health to death with only a couple days in the hospital.   My mother went from living at home fairly independently to death in a hospital in less than a week.

I think it likely that neither my wife nor me will battle Alzheimer’s because we keep our brains very active, constantly learning.  Nonetheless, it seems wise to consider purchasing coverage while we are still only in our 60s.  I confess that the prospect of burning through $5000 per month on memory care just does not seem thst scary.  That is not pocket change for us but there are no U-Hauls to Heaven.

Any thoughts or experiences on this?

UPDATE: One reader shared a horrible story that puts a worrisome asterisk on Medicare covers nursing care.  I did some digging and found out that what they cover has some gotchas: 

"So what happens when Medicare stops paying for nursing home care? Your loved one either extends Medicare coverage, privately pays for the nursing home, applies for Medicaid to pay for the nursing home, or gets discharged to a lower level of care.

"From day 21 to day 100 in a nursing facility, Medicare continues to contribute towards in-patient rehabilitation, but coinsurance payments are typically required from you. Additional coverage for days 21 through 100 depends on your Medicare supplemental or Medicare Advantage plans.

"Once you reach day 101 or plateau in rehab, Medicare coverage for nursing home care ceases. You are responsible for all costs (easily $300-500 per day in Florida) unless you have additional insurance policies or qualify for other programs such as Medicaid. This can be a critical juncture, necessitating a review of your financial resources and possibly the need to explore alternative long-term care options."

So if you stop improving, they stop paying and you can see several hundred dollars a day 

Epstein's Underlings Are Perhaps As Sleazy As Epstein

11/30/25 Daily Wire:

Democrat Delegate Stacey Plaskett, the Virgin Islands’ non-voting member of Congress, garnered headlines recently when it came to light that she took direction from sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a 2019 congressional hearing.

Her relationship with Epstein is especially notable because Plaskett herself had “private nude images” of her stolen by her own ex-staffers, who used them to attempt to sabotage her re-election campaign. The husband of one of the culprits was, like Epstein, later found dead.

It gets worse the deeper you read.

Interesting Article About Balcony Solar

11/30/25 Guardian:

"Acquiring solar panels to use on balconies are soon to become available for millions of Americans, with advocates hoping the technology will quickly go mainstream.

'Earlier this year, Utah became the first state in the country to pass legislation allowing people to purchase and install small, portable solar panels that plug into a standard wall socket.

"When attached outside to the balcony or patio of a dwelling, such panels can provide enough power for residents to run free of charge, home appliances such as fridges, dishwashers, washing machines and wi-fi without spending money on electricity from the grid."

The output of the micro inverter is a 110VAC plug so the current goes into your existing wiring feeding anything plugged in to other outlets on that breaker.

Theoretically, anything that can feed power back into the grid needs an interrupter to protect electric utility workers in the event their side is down.  It appears these changes in state laws would allow PV systems producing low voltages to be hooked up to the house wiring.  This is attractive for its simplicity and relatively low cost.

Anyone have any knowledge to share?

Thanksgiving

This is the first Thanksgiving in many years where we went somewhere else instead of hosting.  It was my son-in-law's very large extended family in the Tri-Cities of Washington.  We had 24 people eating together.  Among interesting road names: Bombing Range Road.

Never Machine What You Can Buy

IIn this case, 5mm D type shafts. 

5PCS Stainless Steel D-Shaft Compatible for Robotics/FRC/First/FLL/WRO/STEAM/VEX 3.9 x 0.2in

Even with a carbide endmill, cutting a flat on 5mm stainless steel is slow. 

Afghanistan

I had a conversation with a friend over Thanksgiving about AWs.  His question was "Why are they protected arms?"  He is not hostile to guns or even AWs.  He likes them.  I explained about the insurrectionary theory of the Second Amendment, which he understood, but he did not think they could possibly be useful against the full might of the U S. military.  

Afghanistan.  We and most of our NATO allies brought all their high-tech weapons to bear and could not defeat a bunch of ignorant 14th century  goatherders.

Moving With Guns

The more I look at this move, the more complex it gets.  Using PODS or UBox means that I cannot move guns or ammunition, even the small quantities of ordinary monthly to month usage.  

I can ship the guns FFL to FFL but at the far end, I will need to have a Tennessee driver's license to receive them from an FFL.  So as soon as I arrive, I need to be moved nto the new house to get a license. Ammo i can ship UPS.  If i have a new address already, I can ship them there.

I could drive my car there with guns and ammo in it, but but this is a five long days drive.  My wife thinks it would be too wearing on me.  She might be right.  If I had someone to split the driving with me, it would be a somewhat entertaining trip; i have not taken the cross-country drive since 1967.  I would obviously provide accommodations, meals, and return airfare to anyone prepared to do this.

Paint Fill Engravings

I mentioned a technique that seemed to work but this YouTube video looks better. 

Probably Time to Buy Bonds

At least, if you are risk-averse.  I am seeing car ads for 60 month 0% car loans.   This means companies with big money expect low interest rates the next five years.  Buying bonds means a guaranteed return and bonds likely to appreciate in value.

Two Days Ago...

Anniversary of JFK assassination. In many ways, the optimistic feelings of the 1950s died.  So much good happened in thst decade.  Racial segregation of schools ended.  There was an explosion of economic advancement for Americans, both black and white.

I am just old enough to remember it.

Concerning the First Amendment

Joseph Story was an early Supreme Court justice.  His Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States have been cited repeatedly by the Supreme Court.   There are 172 citations in federal court decisions since 2021.  Concerning freedom of religion, let me quote from there:

1877. The real object of the [First] amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance, Mahometanism, or Judaism;, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government. [2 Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 606 (1873).

If you examine the laws of the early Republic, you will see that this appears repeatedly.  The dominance of Christianity was simply assumed.  The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, section 10, includes this requirement for officeholders:

And each member, before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz:

I do believe in one God, the creator and governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine inspiration.

And no further or other religious test shall ever hereafter be required of any civil officer or magistrate in this State.

From the North Carolina Constitution of 1776:

That no person, who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State.

 The South Carolina Constitution of 1778, Article III:

III. That as soon as may be after the first meeting of the senate and house of representatives, and at every first meeting of the senate and house of representatives thereafter, to be elected by virtue of this constitution, they shall jointly in the house of representatives choose by ballot from among themselves or from the people at large a governor and commander-in-chief, a lieutenant-governor, both to continue for two years, and a privy council, all of the Protestant religion, and till such choice shall be made the former president or governor and commander-in-chief, and vice-president or lieutenant-governor, as the case may be, and privy council, shall continue to act as such.

Article XII defines the qualifications of state senators:

 [N]o person shall be eligible to a seat in the said senate unless he be of the Protestant religion, and hath attained the age of thirty years, and hath been a resident in this State at least five years.

Article XIII defines the requirements to be an elector for the General Assembly, and to be elected to the General Assembly:

The qualification of electors shall be that every free white man, and no other person, who acknowledges the being of a God, and believes in a future state of rewards and punishments, and who has attained to the age of one and twenty years.... No person shall be eligible to sit in the house of representatives unless he be of the Protestant religion, and hath been a resident in this State for three years previous to his election.

Article 38 does establish a religion--but not a particular denomination:

 XXXVIII. That all persons and religious societies who acknowledge that there is one God, and a future state of rewards and punishments, and that God is publicly to be worshipped, shall be freely tolerated. The Christian Protestant religion shall be deemed, and is hereby constituted and declared to be, the established religion of this State. That all denominations of Christian Protestants in this State, demeaning themselves peaceably and faithfully, shall enjoy equal religious and civil privileges.

 Obviously, the Court lost the original intent along the way.

This is Why No Other DA Volunteered

11/26/25 CNN:

A Georgia prosecutor on Wednesday officially dropped the historic racketeering case against President Donald Trump and others for attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, closing the chapter in a legal effort once seen as a grave threat to Trump’s political future.

The move means that Trump has dodged criminal legal jeopardy for his attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. The federal cases against Trump from special counsel Jack Smith on election interference leading up to the January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot and on mishandling classified documents were previously dropped.

“Given the complexity of the legal issues at hand — ranging from constitutional questions and the Supremacy Clause to immunity, jurisdiction, venue, speedy-trial concerns, and access to federal records — and even assuming each of these issues were resolved in the State’s favor, bringing this case before a jury in 2029, 2030, or even 2031 would be nothing short of a remarkable feat,” Peter Skandalakis, the prosecutor on the case, wrote Wednesday.

Trump is 79.  In 2031 he will be 85.  Will he still be alive?  The Presidency is very hard on the health of those who take the job.

 

The Framing Understanding of the First Amendment

Not necessarily the only one, but Justice Story is often cited. From Justice Joseph Story's Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States:

1877. The real object of the [First] amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance, Mahometanism, or Judaism;, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government. [Story, 2 Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 606 (1873),]

 

Too Flexible Endmill

Why was my rectangle not completely square?  I do not mean in the corners where a round emdmill necessarily guarantees the corner will be limited by the diameter of the endmill.  Then I watched the endmill cutting circles.  It was definitely bending.

This is a Kodiak 1/8" diameter, 3" long endmill, made in USA.  This is a tradeoff issue. The extra length means deeper reach, but also it can bend a little.  This also makes it less likely to break when overloaded.  I am now using my Taiwanese Speed Tiger end mills which are 1" long.  They seem to flex less.  Again, this is a question that requires a level of knowledge by the machinist that I just starting to reach.  Do you need the deeper reach?  If so, slower feed rates to reduce flex, or a shorter endmill.

The flex doubtless increases vibration, making the endmill holder set screws less effective.  I need to put a flat on the SpeedTiger endmill shank too.

When Grinders Go Bad

 I was about to use my bench grinder to put a flat in my 1/8" carbide endmill when the grinder shorted out in a most spectacular way: sparks from the switch.  I'm glad I was not close.  Rather than buy a new bench grinder, I decided to buy one of these:

LINE10 Tools 1/2-Inch Drill Arbor Adapter for Buffing and Grinding Wheels.  

I was able to mount my buffing wheel and grinding wheel (both of which I removed from the grinder before burial at toter), in my drill press.  They work perfectly here and I have one less tool consuming desktop space.

.

17 Strikes and Your Out? How Many Strikes if You Are POTUS?

Time (no date):

Sex trafficking on Meta platforms was both difficult to report and widely tolerated, according to a court filing unsealed Friday. In a plaintiffs’ brief filed as part of a major lawsuit against four social media companies, Instagram’s former head of safety and well-being Vaishnavi Jayakumar testified that when she joined Meta in 2020 she was shocked to learn that the company had a “17x” strike policy for accounts that reportedly engaged in the “trafficking of humans for sex.” 

“You could incur 16 violations for prostitution and sexual solicitation, and upon the 17th violation, your account would be suspended,” Jayakumar reportedly testified, adding that “by any measure across the industry, [it was] a very, very high strike threshold.” The plaintiffs claim that this testimony is corroborated by internal company documentation.

The brief, filed by plaintiffs in the Northern District of California, alleges that Meta was aware of serious harms on its platform and engaged in a broad pattern of deceit to downplay risks to young users. According to the brief, Meta was aware that millions of adult strangers were contacting minors on its sites; that its products exacerbated mental health issues in teens; and that content related to eating disorders, suicide, and child sexual abuse was frequently detected, yet rarely removed. According to the brief, the company failed to disclose these harms to the public or to Congress, and refused to implement safety fixes that could have protected young users. 

I hear a lot of leftist whining about how greed drives so much. It does. So that is why Meta backed Biden. It is not like Zuckerberg is going to be out on the street, begging for clicks and food.

 

Blogging Up a Storm

 I am supervising the mill.  While watching it cut pieces, I am sitting in front of a PC anyway.  The replacement of the slow WiFi adapter with a fast one makes blogging possible.

Will Avi Loeb's Reputation Ever Survive 3I/ATLAS?

When Professor Loeb started talking about 3I/ATLAS as an interstellar spacecraft, it was an interesting, but implausible idea. But he is sticking with this idea in absurd ways.  11/21/25 Medium:

Today a new image of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS was taken by M. Jäger, G. Rhemann, and E. Prosperi and reported here. The image stacks 20 exposures of 100 seconds each, observed at 4:15 UTC on November 20, 2025. The displayed field has dimensions of 16.7 arcminutes on a side, equivalent to 1.6 million kilometers at the 3I/ATLAS distance of 326 million kilometers from Earth. The image shows two narrow jets directed opposite to each other and oriented vertically from the 3I/ATLAS-Sun axis. Together with the tail and anti-tail along this axis, the sideways lines constitute an X-shaped pattern. They extend out to a distance of about a million kilometers from 3I/ATLAS.

The simplest interpretation is that these lines are the streak of an Earth-based communication satellite which coincidentally intersected 3I/ATLAS in projection in the sky for a few seconds. There is another line near the bottom of the image, also likely to be a satellite streak....

If not a satellite streak, these straight and narrow sideways-jets is that they are lines highlighting the trail of gas or dust associated with the linear path of small mini-objects that departed from 3I/ATLAS. If the mini-objects started their journey near perihelion — at closest approach of 3I/ATLAS to the Sun on October 29, 2025, they traversed a distance of a million kilometers in 22 days. This corresponds to a speed of 500 meters per second relative to 3I/ATLAS.

The mini-objects could either be pieces of ice that broke apart from the surface of a natural comet nucleus or small probes that were released from a technological mothership. By monitoring these components in the coming weeks, we should be able to distinguish the two interpretations.

Occam's Razor.  Of course, if we see this:

 

All my snarky criticisms go away.

 

 

Having Fun With a Serious Scientific Subject

11/20/25 Scientific American:

Roughly four and a half billion years ago the planet Theia slammed into Earth, destroying Theia, melting large fractions of Earth’s mantle and ejecting a huge debris disk that later formed the moon. Scientists have long wondered what Theia was made of and where it came from. Now they have evidence that it formed very close to home.

The original giant impact model of the moon’s creation, proposed in the 1970s, predicted the moon was made mostly of Theia’s material. This scenario implied there should be differences in the chemical composition of the moon and Earth, but research has found that the two are nearly identical—far more similar than two independent planetary bodies should be. A new study, published today in Science, took a close look at other things Theia gave us beside the moon: additional molybdenum and iron left behind in the collision.

Ancient Earth would have had these heavy elements accumulate in its core but not in the rocky mantle closer to the surface, so any iron present now in Earth’s mantle likely came from Theia and can tell us about that planet’s composition, says study co-author Thorsten Kleine, director of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen, Germany.

That is the teaser for a serious article from a publication largely taken over by the left since I stopped subscribing about 1981.  The fun aspect is how the 11/20/25 New York Times covered this with a title that mocks the "9/11 Was An Inside Job" bumper stickers popular with the Alex Jones fans:

The Moon Was an Inside Job

New research suggests that Theia, the object whose collision with Earth is theorized to have caused the formation of the moon, came from closer to the sun.

 

Why Does Andromeda Strain Come to Mind?

11/20/25 NBC News:

For nine months in 2022, moss lived in space.

It wasn’t in a lab aboard the International Space Station, like other gardening experiments conducted in orbit — rather, the moss was attached to the station’s exterior, fully exposed to the harsh environment of the cosmos.

The purpose of the space moss test, reported in a study published Thursday in the journal iScience, was to see if moss — an early land plant capable of thriving in some of the most extreme environments on Earth — could survive long-term exposure to the vacuum of space.

Surprisingly, the researchers found that the moss spores not only endured, they “retained their vitality” and were still capable of reproducing when they eventually returned to Earth.

“Most living organisms, including humans, cannot survive even briefly in the vacuum of space,” Tomomichi Fujita, the study’s lead author and a professor in the department of biological sciences at Hokkaido University in Japan, said in a statement.

If you read Crichton's phenomenal novel (in my case, at one sitting; was I wreck for high school the next morning) you will recall that Project Scoop, which brought the nasty organism to Earth was a space survivor of early Earth organisms.  The idea of anything surviving the extraordinary conditions of space (vacuum, no water, radiation, heat, and cold, is like implausible science fiction.

 

The Far Left (as Opposed to the Fascist Left) Opens the Raincoat

 11/21/25 TruthOut:

n 1947, the United Nations General Assembly committed the UN’s original sin when it partitioned Palestine to create Israel. This launched the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of the Indigenous people, and the establishment of a settler colonial state.

Now, 78 years later, the UN Security Council has committed the UN’s second cardinal sin. It enshrined Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, put its imprimatur on Israel’s genocide, and granted colonial control over the lives of the Palestinians to the United States, which has aided and abetted the genocide.

Another bunch of idiots who do not know what genocide means.

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

Article II

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

1. Killing members of the group;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The IDF's actions are not targetting Palestinians, Arabs, or even Gazans.  They are targetting military forces of a group that has engaged in acts of war (and not even lawful forms of war) against Israel.  Arabs in Israel are in no danger of disappearing, or elsewhere, hence the willingness of Arab nations to go along with this treaty.

Why Foreign Campaign Contributions Matter

 111/21/25 BBC:

WhatsApp messages have revealed how a prominent MEP for Nigel Farage's Brexit Party took bribes as part of a pro-Russian influence campaign in the European Parliament.

Nathan Gill, who went on to become leader of Reform UK in Wales, has been jailed after admitting taking money from an alleged "pawn" of the main security agency in Vladimir Putin's Russia.

Gill was paid thousands of pounds to give TV interviews in favour of a key Putin ally and to make speeches in the European Parliament between December 2018 and July 2019.

The 52-year-old father-of-seven had pleaded guilty to eight counts of bribery and was sentenced to 10 and a half years at the Old Bailey on Friday.

Prosecutors found WhatsApp chats between Gill and a Ukrainian called Oleg Voloshyn, a former member of the Ukraine Parliament for a pro-Russian party.

Gill, an MEP for six years, was also paid to host Putin's most trusted associate in Ukrainian politics at the parliament in Strasbourg.

The problem with foreign influence on our elections far precedes the recently exposed proxy funding of Obama's election. 6/23/2000 New York Times:

Mr. Gore then replied, "Well, that's right. That is more accurate. Let me, let me amend that. That was first time it was alleged to be, to have been a fund-raiser."

The Hsi Lai event, which was held on April 29, 1996 in Hacienda Heights, Calif., was one of the most embarrassing episodes of the 1996 campaign finance scandal. The event was organized by Maria Hsia, a longtime political ally of the vice president who had collected money before the event from monks and nuns, some of whom had taken vows of poverty.

As a tax-exempt religious institution, the temple was not allowed to serve as a venue for political fund-raising or to make political donations itself. Mr. Gore was asked repeatedly in late 1996 and 1997 about whether he knew the event was a fund-raiser, and according to Mr. Conrad responded with differing statements.

Ms. Hsia was convicted in March for hiding $109,000 in illegal contributions and making false statements to federal regulators about the temple luncheon. She is awaiting sentencing.

More from the far left 2/19/01 American Prospect:

 The Buddhist temple. In April 1996, Gore attended a fundraising luncheon at the Hsi Lai Buddhist temple in Hacienda Heights, California. This event, which was organized by Maria Hsia and John Huang, raised $166,750 for the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Much of this money was raised illegally; the laws broken were far from being trivial or outdated. There were $55,000 in contributions laundered through monks and nuns, who made the contributions in their own names and were then reimbursed by the temple from its general funds. At least three of the contributors were foreign nationals. In addition the temple, which enjoys tax-exempt status as a religious institution, was used illegally for partisan politics. Insofar as the monks were reimbursed with temple funds that came from tax-free donations, American taxpayers indirectly subsidized Gore’s fundraising effort.

1/12/01 BBC:

An Indonesian businessman has agreed to plead guilty to making illegal campaign contributions to US President Bill Clinton, US officials said.

The US Justice Department said that billionaire James Riady had agreed to pay an $8.6m fine for contributing foreign funds - the largest fine ever levied in a campaign finance case.

Mr Riady pledged $1m in 1992 to back Mr Clinton, then Arkansas governor.

Foreign campaign contributions are illegal under American law.

The businessman has agreed to surrender and was scheduled to appear before a judge in Los Angeles on Tuesday, despite Indonesia having no extradition treaty with the US.

I sometimes wonder how much of Tucker Carlson's Hitler whitewashing is his pursuit of clicks vs. foreign funding.