Tragedies That Might Not be Avoidable

 But if there is, these sort of suits should be a wakeup call. 1/27/26 Boston.com:

Lindsay Clancy, the Duxbury mother accused of killing her three children, is now suing several of her mental health care providers, alleging they failed to diagnose her bipolar disorder and prescribed a revolving door of pharmaceuticals that triggered a psychotic break. 

“Lindsay Clancy did everything a mother in her situation could do,” the medical malpractice lawsuit states. “Her husband advocated for her. Her family drove from out of state to help care for her children. And still, the medical system failed her completely.”

Filed last week in Norfolk Superior Court, the lawsuit accuses several medical providers of a “catastrophic failure” to properly diagnose, treat, and monitor Clancy as her postpartum mental health rapidly declined. Instead, the suit alleges, they subjected Clancy to a “disorganized, uncoordinated course of polypharmacy” that only made her worse. 

Clancy had been experiencing auditory hallucinations for weeks leading up to the killings, according to the complaint, but the commanding voice took on a new urgency after her husband left to pick up dinner on Jan. 24, 2023.

“This is your last chance. Kill the children so you can kill yourself,” the voice purportedly said. “THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE. YOU HAVE TO KILL THE KIDS SO YOU CAN KILL YOURSELF.’”

According to the lawsuit, Clancy entered a dissociative “dream-like state” as she strangled 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan inside the family’s home, telling them, “Go to God, baby.” 

In the course of my mass murder research, I have found way too many similar tragedies where postpartum depression led to a mother murdering all her children, often followed by suicide. If you know someone who has recently given birth and is showing symptoms that include hallucinations, it is time for someone to intervene. One would hope mental health professionals would have seen this and said, "Wait a minute. The drugs are not working."

If Greed is Driving the Transmadness by Doctors, This May Discourage It

 1/31/26 National Review:

A woman who received a double mastectomy at the age of 16 under the guise of transgender-related healthcare was just awarded $2 million in the first successful medical-malpractice lawsuit brought by a destransitioner.

Fox Varian sued her New York-based psychologist and plastic surgeon for facilitating her gender-transition double mastectomy in 2019, independent reporter Benjamin Ryan who attended Varian’s recent trial, said. Although a host of detransitioners have sued doctors who rush to “affirm” gender confusion with life-altering surgeries, Varian’s is the first known successful lawsuit.

Claire Deacon, Varian’s mother, was led by her daughter’s psychologist to believe that breast removal was the only way to heal Varian’s gender dysphoria, she told the jury. At first Deacon told Varian’s psychologist Kenneth Einhorn that top surgery was “never gonna happen” if she could help it.

“This man was just so emphatic, and pushing and pushing, that I felt like there was no good decision,” she said, according to an Epoch Times report. “I think it was a scare tactic: I don’t believe it was malice, I think he believed what he was saying … but he was very, very wrong.”

The idea of her 16-year-old daughter receiving a mastectomy made her “physically ill,” Deacon said. But Deacon was led to believe by Einhorn that Varian would be unhappy unless she was affirmed in her gender dysphoria. It was the “the hardest, most difficult, gut-wrenching” decision, Deacon told the jury.

Defendants Einhorn and plastic surgeon Simon Chin implied that Varian wanted the medical procedure, and was even at risk of suicide should she not receive a mastectomy. Chin’s attorney called Deacon’s consent a “critical fact” of the case, and asked jurors what might have happened to a potentially suicidal Varian had Chin refused the surgery.

That seems a little light on the damages, but likely more than this butcher earned mutilating this girl. Yes, mother and daughter should have stood their ground and said NO, but "the science" and why not trust someone in a white coat?

Complexities of Categories

 For this incredibly long research project, I have sometimes needed to expand particular descriptors: what sort of location (work, school, public place, residence, other private location)? Cause has been a surprisingly straightforward one.  There are cases for which no single cause really fits. This is one where first reports suggests divorce. The next report got a bit weird: not really at work, but work-related as well as confused relationships.

Hollywood, Fla. (1968)

08/07/1968: “Estranged husband of one of the daughters,” 31, forced entry into Phil Wein stein’s home, shooting him, his wife and two of the three daughters to death before suicide.  (The third child was found by police hiding under the bed, unharmed.) Police later explained that the murderer had worked for the father’s law firm. He was fired because of “An intra-family love triangle involving two young sisters one of them, his wife.”

Category: family non-resident

Suicide: yes

Cause: other

Weapon: pistol[1]

---

[1] "Gunman Slays 4 In Family, Kills Self," Orlando Sentinel, Aug. 08, 1968, 24;  “Man Slays 4 In Family, Kills Self,” [Elmira, N.Y.] Star-Gazette, Aug. 08, 1968, 4.

Email Problems

 My personal email firstname @ firstnamelastname.com receives but cannot send.  Thunderbird times out on send.  My mailhost has no answers.  They see connection attempt.  So I tried Outlook.

SmtpSubmissionPermanent5XXException: Smtp submission failed. Server 'claytoncramer.com' Port '465'. --> Unexpected SMTP server response. Expected: 235, actual: 535, whole response: 535 Incorrect authentication data

Failure code: d8f5

Dysonsphere Meets Grok

SpaceX wants to put a million solar powered AI data centers in orbit to provide unprecedented computing power.

Musk never thinks small.

Drug Conviction as Lifelong Firearms Disqualifier

 U.S. v. Hembree (5th Cir. 2026):

Defendant–Appellant Charles Hembree was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).  He has a single predicate felony conviction: a 2018 conviction for simple possession of methamphetamine.  On appeal, Hembree challenges whether § 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional as applied to him and raises various constitutional challenges to his conviction.  For the reasons explained below, we find Hembree’s conviction unconstitutional as applied and reverse the district court’s conviction. 

This is because under the Bruen standard, there is no tradition under U.S. law of disarming persons for drug abuse.

The government acknowledges that illegal drug possession was “a problem that the [founding-era legislatures] did not perceive” but anchors on the Supreme Court’s statements in Rahimi, which were echoed by our court in Diaz, that “a ʻdead ringer’ for or ʻhistorical twin’ to past regulations” is not required to “pass constitutional muster.”  Instead, the government argues, “what matters is whether founding-era legislatures would have understood their powers to include the ability to pass such a law.”  The government highlights that our court “in Diaz pointed to two aspects of [historical] tradition: laws severely punishing certain crimes at the time of the founding and laws disarming persons who pose a danger with firearms.” Following that approach, the government draws on two bodies of law to justify its use of methamphetamine possession as a predicate felony for § 922(g)(1).  First, it points to “[h]istorical laws authorizing severe punishment for knowing possession of contraband,” arguing that these laws “show that permanent disarmament of those convicted of possessing illicitly obtained goods today, like Hembree, is consistent with the Second Amendment.”  Examples offered by the government include laws punishing the knowing receipt of a stolen horse, the theft of mail, and the counterfeiting and forgery of public securities with death.  Next, it points to “[h]istorical laws disarming dangerous people” and argues that “[d]rug crimes are inherently dangerous, even in situations where a defendant has ʻonly’ been convicted of ʻmere’ drug possession like Hembree, because the possession of narcotics entails the dealing with and enriching of drug traffickers.”  The government further urges that “the facts of the underlying case demonstrate the dangerous nature of narcotics,” but the only facts it points to beyond the mere fact of Hembree’s felony conviction are the facts of the present § 922(g)(1) case.4 Hembree takes a narrower view of the historical analogue.  He cites that, until a century ago, “there was virtually no effective regulation of narcotics in the United States.”  David T. Courtwright, A Century of American Narcotics Policy, in Treating Drug Problems: Volume 2, 1 (Dean R. Gerstein & Henrick J. Harwood, eds., 1992).  Hembree reasons that the “federal government did not even begin criminalizing non-medical drug use until the early Twentieth Century” and opium and other substances were legal.  Further, Hembree posits that “[i]t was not until 1906 that the Pure Food and Drug Act first required that certain substances, such as alcohol, cocaine, and heroin, be accurately labeled, Pub. L. 59-384, 34 Stat. 768, 770 (repealed 1938), and the first ban on possession and distribution came about a decade later.”  Under Diaz, he argues that § 922(g)(1) can only be constitutionally applied to a defendant if “his disqualifying convictions would have been subject to [harsh felony] punishments in the Founding Era.”  Because “conduct similar to possession of methamphetamine was not even criminal, much less subject to the death penalty or forfeiture of estate,” at the Founding, Hembree argues that the government has not met its burden of proving that disarming him is within the tradition of regulations and punishment at the Founding. 

The government argued that drug dealing is an inherently dangerous crime, but Hembree's conviction was for possession, not dealing. 

Threading

I tapped the collar on the extension tube for a 1/4"-20 thread but the appropriate thimbscrew did not lock the eyepiece securely. Why?

The collar is about 1/4" thick and thst is not enough threads to clamp down adequately I persuaded myself.  So I did an 8-32 thread and it worked.  8 threads instead of 5.

UPDATE: Another disappointment: the thumbscrew holding the extension tube in the tube interface does not hold it in place square to the interface.   I think the problem is that interface flange is only .5" wide and that is not holding it square even though it is very little difference in ID and OD.  I think the interface should be 1" wide.  I have no 1" thick pieces from which to start.  I do have a  5" thick piece of CFC that I can laminate into a 1" thick piece. 

Be Glad We Are Willing to Adopt Innovation from Other Cultures

Time to Disengage From Antisocial Media

1/28/26 Newsweek article about angry conservative attacking Rep. Omar with apple cider vinegar captures how antisocial media feedback loop is polarizing American society.  Rep. Omar is a pretty despicable person and deserves serious criticism.   A syringe of apple cider vinegar is not "serious criticism." It is not free speech. It is a criminal assault that actually accomplishes nothing but gin up sympathy for a member of the Squad.

Walk away from a system that makes money off meanness and hatred! There are plenty of places to get news and commentary that are not feedback loop driven (like your favorite blog).

Baby Wipes for the Shop

My hands get pretty disgusting in the shop either from adding oil to the oil dispenser on the mill or carbon fiber dust.  It is hard not to get this stuff on door knobs or light switches.  My wife bought what she calls Baby Wipes for the Shop which clean my hands well enough to safely get to the sink for hand washing. 

ICYMI: Pretti Was Not An Onlooker

 You can watch BBC News coverage at Mediaite where they explain this video from a few days earlier shows Pretti attacking ICE vehicles and generally acting confrontational, leading to him being shoved to the ground by ICE.  He has a gun on him. If they had arrested him for his crimes a few days earlier, he might well be alive today.

1/22/26 CNN now reports that Pretti's family confirms that is Pretti in the video.

External USB Drive Not Showing Up in DISKMGMT.MSC

 Whenever I upgrade a hard disk, I pop the old one into an external case for use as a USB drive.  This is really a nice use for drives that might otherwise need something more thorough than FORMAT.  I am looking at a drive that is one of the early such transplants.  The USB cable has two USB-A connectors on the far end from the drive enclosure. When I plug this into a USB port, it is invisible to Windows DISKMGMT.MSC program.  Any suggestions to figuring out if this drive is just finished?

The Ring is on the Weld

The ring that I cut last night needed a little cleanup on the lathe.   I cut a 1.6" OD ring from a 1.55" wide pieces so when it reached the few thousandths of depth it ceased to hold solidly and produced a less than perfect bottom.  The lathe cleaned the outer edge nicely and I bored about  03" from the interior to get a loose fit on the extension tube.

The CFC supplier recommended 3M ScotchWeld for gluing CFC.  The ring and tube are sitting on a Release Agent wet piece of paper so it does not stick. I understand this might take a couple hours to complete curing.  At that point I will tap a 1/4"-20 hole for holding the eyepiece. 

National Museum of Industrial History

Have any of you visited it?

Precise Date of Viking Settlement in Newfoundland

 10/21/21 Nature:

Transatlantic exploration took place centuries before the crossing of Columbus. Physical evidence for early European presence in the Americas can be found in Newfoundland, Canada1,2. However, it has thus far not been possible to determine when this activity took place3,4,5. Here we provide evidence that the Vikings were present in Newfoundland in ad 1021. We overcome the imprecision of previous age estimates by making use of the cosmic-ray-induced upsurge in atmospheric radiocarbon concentrations in ad 993 (ref. 6). Our new date lays down a marker for European cognisance of the Americas, and represents the first known point at which humans encircled the globe. It also provides a definitive tie point for future research into the initial consequences of transatlantic activity, such as the transference of knowledge, and the potential exchange of genetic information, biota and pathologies7,8.

Social Media is a Disease

 1/26/26 WDTV:

Jackson County woman arrested for recruiting people on social media to assassinate Trump.

Apparently a librarian. This surprises me not at all.  Librarians have been at the forefront of sexually explicit books on the shelves for children.  

More Evidence That We Are Not Fighting the Brightest Crayons in the Box

 1/27/26 Washington Examiner:

EXCLUSIVE — The Department of Homeland Security told the Washington Examiner it was investigating a woman from Kenmore, New York, who allegedly sought to kill Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

Think about this for a second. You go into a gun store, which even in New York is a reliable blue enclave. Even if the gun store owner does not care about your goals, he is going to assume that this is some sort of ATF sting operation. So you claim you want a gun to commit a federal felony? 

How Cold Is It In My Shop?

Outside temperature is finally out of the teens but it is not much warmer in the garage even with an electric heater running. When trying to pick up small tools or parts with numbly cold hands, it is unpleasant. If I planned to stay here another year, an A/C would make sense.  I had one in the last house and it was very nice.

My last 1/8" carbide endmill broke a week or so ago so I have been using a 3/16" carbide endmill with fewer broken tragedies.  I needed to use 1/8" again to make best use of a scrap 1/2" thick piece of CFC. Even 5 inches/minute was a bit much at .01" cutting depth.  Fortunately, it broke right at the holder so I was able to salvage the lower half. (Now using 1 inch/minute.  Slower but surer.)

I had made the part that I needed yesterday but after polishing it on the lathe is realized it was cut from a 3/8" thick piece not 1/2".  So I am trying again.

The CFC extension tube is a very thin wall.  Thick wall CFC tube is scarce and expensive.  I need to put a thumbscrew in the wall to lock an eyepiece in place. This wall would not thread well so I have made a CFC ring with a 1.6" diameter and a 1.345" interior hole to epoxy onto the CFC extension tube. Then I can tap this 1.6" diameter assembly to get a nice thread for the thumbscrew with a similar appearance to the extension tube.

UPDATE: This was the first attempt at the ring.  When first out of the mill, it was a bit too small.  I bored it in the lathe just a bit too large 

Here you can see it has cut the 1.345" ID hole into which the extension tube goes.  Now it is cutting a 1.60" OD circle  

Main Character Syndrome Out of Control

Meet Melinda, a healthcare worker at @VCUHealth. She posted a series of videos encouraging people to inject ICE agents with succinylocholine, a temporary paralysis drug, and spray poison on them. She also encourages woman to go on dates with agents and drug their food.

Any… pic.twitter.com/CMJN12GhOc

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 27, 2026

I am not surprised an unhinged leftist would think such things.  But her willingness to record herself saying these dark fantasies (giving her the benefit of the doubt) and in a way that made her, and thus her employer, identifiable is just bizarre.

I will not call this Toxic Femininity.  Toxic Masculinity is a dangerously exaggerated set of traits that are at least stereotypically masculine.  These dark thoughts do not exaggerate caring for others to the point of regarding convicted child rapists as victims in need of protection from a cruel and uncaring system.  That might qualify as Toxic Femininity.  This is just brainwashing to the point of real evil.

It just occurred to me as I was vacuuming: if a peace officer (or anyone else) saw someone brandishing a syringe in a hostile setting, assuming poison would be reasonable. Deadly force is now justified.

This Does Not Look Good

 1/24/26 New York Post coverage indicates that Pretti was shot multiple times after he was disarmed.  Yes, if Minnesota did what they should and turned over convicted felon illegal aliens when released, this would not have happened.  Yes, coming to a protest armed, even lawfully armed, is a bad idea.  It is just barely possible that officers who shot Pretti saw the gun and opened fire not realizing it was another officer who had the gun.  It still is pretty tragic. 

Of course, that was the goal of these interferences with ICE: provoke violence and death so we stop asking about the $9 billion welfare fraud.

Please Suggest a Solution For America

Australia's ban on antisocial media for those under 16 seems a logical attempt at returning useful literacy and maturity to kids.  Pretty clearly, this is not possible in America. Aside from the enormous need that parents have to fob off parenting to anyone else, there are likely constitutional questions. Is there any way to give the next generation a chance?

Precision in Zeroing

It took several tries to get the piece that mates the finderscope tube to the eyepiece extension tube holder.  Even then, it was not pretty.

I ran the program to cut a 1.335" hole into which the eyepiece extension tube will slide.  Then I removed the workpiece from the vise to verify a good fit.  Not tight not loose.  Then I put back in the vise aligning it to the edge of the vise jaws so that I was back to X=0.  Then I ran the program to cut the 2.01" hole to slide this tailpiece into the tube.  I was not quite on 0 and the two circles were not exactly coincidentally centered.

Okay, I will put it in the lathe and trim the outer edge to get it centered. This turned out to be very difficult.  (I was still waiting for my 3" lathe chuck to get back from Sherline.   The 2.5" chuck is just barely capable of holding the workpiece with so much center discrepancy.)

So, I had destroyed my last 1" thick piece of Delrin.  I tried again with a .5" thick piece. For reasons unknown, the mill threw the workpiece and mill vise onto the desk  Somehow I salvaged the workpiece enough for another pass although it was ugly from being thrown around by the mill.  

Worse, the outer circle was not regular but I was able to trim it on the lathe to dimensions that barely slide into the finderscope tube.  I trimmed the end so that I had .247" releaved enough to drill and tap three 6-32 holes at 120 degrees apart.  By very carefully use of the edgefinder I was able to put through holes at the end of the finderscope tube that exactly lined up to the tapped holes.

Last step today was putting a threaded hole in the  25" of the tailpiece to let me use a thumbscrew to hold the eyepiece extension tube in place.  Of course this is too small for the 1/4"-20 thumbscrew I have.  I did find some M4 thumbscrews in stainless; the extension tube is CFC.  Of course, I have an M4 tap, but the M4 thumbscrew is a little short.  Home Depot's fasteners guys did not even know what a thumbscrew is much less have one in stock so waiting for Monday delivery by Santa Amazon. 

ICE Behavior

 1/22/26 New York Post article by my friend John Lott:

Countless news stories have amplified fears that under Trump, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are wildly violating basic rights.

NPR, to cite just one example, recently claimed that “many” American citizens “have been mistaken” for illegal immigrants, and that there’s “a long history of immigration agencies not having a good track record.”

But the numbers tell a very different story about how ICE is doing under Trump.

Let’s set the baseline: Between the president’s Jan. 20, 2025, inauguration and the end of November, Trump’s administration arrested an extraordinary total of 595,000 illegal aliens and deported 605,000.

The 170 ICE-detained US citizens cited in Stanage’s diatribe included about 130 arrested for interfering with or assaulting officers, according to the left-leaning ProPublica — justifiable under any reading of the law.

Only about 40 or so of those who were detained claimed to be US citizens accidentally or erroneously arrested by ICE, and just half of those people were held for more than a day; most were released in a few hours.

Any error is serious, but 40 mistakes out of 595,000 arrests amounts to an error rate of just 0.0067% — roughly one wrongful detention for every 14,925 arrests.

Compare that with the final two years of President Barack Obama’s administration.

In fiscal years 2015 and 2016, ICE recorded 263 mistaken arrests, 54 mistaken detentions (book-ins), and four mistaken removals.

During those two years, ICE made a mere 239,645 arrests, meaning the 54 mistaken detentions alone produced an Obama error rate of 0.0225% — about one mistake for every 4,444 arrests.

Overall, the error rate under Obama was 3.36 times higher than under Trump.

Unfortunately, there’s no comparable public data for other past administrations, or the rest of the Obama years.

As further evidence of ICE’s irresponsibility, Stanage charged that “32 people died in ICE custody last year.”

That claim, however, misleads without context; the numbers only make sense when compared across administrations.

During the course of Obama’s two terms, from 2009 to 2017, 56 individuals died in ICE custody.

That administration didn’t publish clear detention totals, but the closest available figures show about 498,646 detentions and deportations over five fiscal years, an average of roughly 99,729 per year.

If that annual rate held throughout the entire administration, ICE processed about 797,834 individuals.

Under that estimate, 56 deaths translates into a rate of 0.007% — roughly one death for every 14,314 detainees.

By comparison, the rate last year under Trump was slightly lower: 0.0054%, or one death for every 18,594 detainees.

Both those figures are substantially below the average death rate for the detainee age group.

Stanage’s rant omitted one key data point: the number of Americans accidentally deported.

The reason for him not doing so is straightforward — none occurred.

That’s right, for all the tumult and fury, ICE under Trump made no erroneous deportations through November.

By contrast, ICE under Obama deported two US citizens in fiscal year 2015, and two more in fiscal year 2016.

Cited Three Times in Kipke v. Moore (4th Cir. 2026)

Unfortunately not in the decision which upheld most of Maryland's sensitive places prohibition on licensees carrying arms but which did strike Maryland's vampire rule, although I suspect the Court will hand down a ruling in Wolford argued Tuesday that kills the vampire rule in every state.

Judge Agee's concurring in part and dissenting in part opinion pointed out the historical evidence against the treatment of mass transit as a sensitive area.(I mean why would you ever need a gun on a subway or city bus.  It is like a car pool, right?)

Just Finished Reading

The subtitle description of these Victorians as "eccentric" captures it well. Lots of odd characters stumbling to make sense of dinosaur fossils while staying to the general Biblical narrative until Darwin.

To understand Darwin and his loss of faith that led to his publishing Origin of Species (1859) let me recommend Richard Keynes' Annie's Box: Charles Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution (2001   Keynes is a descendant of Darwin and his book starts with discovery of Darwin's writing about his daughter who died young provoking a storm of guilt from marrying his first cousin. (Darwin blamed this semi-incestuous marriage for his daughter's weak health.)

I Wonder What Changed?

1/13/26 CNN:

"Homicide rate declines sharply in dozens of US cities, a new report shows"

What changed during 2025? Did we remove large numbers of criminals from our cities?

Today's Machining Discovery

If you try to machine a path where an existing cut exists do not attempt too deep a cut or the tool may follow the existing cut.  This will lift a workpiece right out of the mill vise.  (Perhaps not clamped down as hard as it needed.  Perhaps the sides were not quite as square as I thought.)  .1" is too deep.  .01" is not a problem. 

Always Measure Twice

I got the code to cut a circle pocket leaving a central cylinder working correctly.   But when I measured the interior of the PVC tube in which this part will go, I recorded it as 2.853".  I should have immediately remembered, "No it is about 2" ID."  I was cutting out of a 3" x 3" workpiece so I should have had plenty of room.  I have two more pieces of acetal which will be not pretty but you still make a serviceable part. One of these is a 3.2" x 3.2" x 1/2" piece that i abandoned when I realized that my outer cut would have to go through the vise jaws.  But I was trying to that with a 1/2" diameter end mill.  With a 3/16" end mill this will work.

Suddenly, It's the State's Fault

 1/20/26 CBS News:

The Trump administration has justified its ongoing immigration crackdown in Minnesota by citing a need to curb fraud and pointing to a widening scandal involving members of the Somali American community. Yet prosecutors say the mastermind of the state's biggest fraud scheme to date was not Somali but a White woman — 45-year-old Aimee Bock.

In an exclusive interview from her jail cell, Bock defended her conduct, admitted regrets and argued that state officials who she worked with should bear some of the blame. It was the first time Bock spoke publicly since she was arrested for her role in what prosecutors say was a $250 million COVID-era effort to defraud a federal program to feed hungry children....

During a five-week trial last year, prosecutors alleged Bock signed off reimbursement claims for millions of meals that were never served. She was also charged with collecting bribes. Together, she and the meal site operators were accused of stealing tens of millions of federal dollars and spending it on luxury cars, real estate ventures and vacations.

"That money did not go to feed kids," said Acting U.S. Attorney Lisa D. Kirkpatrick at the time. "It was used to fund their lavish lifestyle."

A jury convicted her on all counts. She's now awaiting sentencing and faces up to 33 years in prison. Evidence submitted at trial included text messages where Bock compared Feeding Our Future to the mob....

Bock told CBS News she was neither mastermind nor mob boss.

"It was heartbreaking," Bock said, describing the moment she heard the verdict. "I believe in accountability. If I had done this, I would've pled guilty. I wouldn't have gone to trial. I wouldn't have put my children and my family through what we've been through. I've lost everything."

Criminal conviction is a high standard.  It is hard to imagine that she ended up with a right-wing jury in Minnesota.

Last month, a judge ordered her to forfeit more than $5 million in proceeds from the scheme.

Unless she had a stupendous salary at Feeding Our Future, from where will that money come? 

I Accuse Piers Morgan of Self-deprecating Humor

 1/19/26 Entertainment Week:

"Piers Morgan accident leads to hip replacement, fractured femur: 'I blame Donald Trump'"

Not Thinking This Through, Are They?

 An X post where anti-ICE activists buy salt at Target and then return it to ask Target to stop letting ICE arrest Target employees. 

1. What is Target going to do? Call out its SWAT team? Launch air strikes on DHS HQ?

2. How does this injure Target, other than wasting time of their Customer Service workers?

As leftist agit-prop, it may get the Theater Kids high marks, but what realistically does it do? It does not get anyone killed or protect the child rapists that Minnesota government is trying to protect. Hey, at least they are not threatening the lives of government workers.  I guess that is a win.

Besides, don't they know that you buy salt to melt ice?  Probably not. Their illegal alien staff do that job.

Using Thicker End Mills

Thin end mills let you cut very small features (think slots) and waste less material when doing coarse cuts.  The downside is that they are weaker by i think the square of the change in diameter.  

I was cutting circles with 1/8" carbide end mills.  If you get the feed rate too high--snap and there it goes.  The 1/4" end mill seems pretty darn solid at every feed rate.

A while back, I bought some 3/16" end mills when I was still planning to cut my own setting circles.  (Before I discovered a website that lets you create them, download, and print them.)  The great difficulty was finding an endmill holder for the Sherline that holds 3/16" end mills.  Sherline sells one that is supposed to do so.  I ordered one from a retailer of their end mill holders and it was clear too big.  In retrospect, I wonder if that particular one was defective.   It makes no sense to make a holders that precludes centering the endmill right in the center.

In the meantime, I realized that while not quite as perfect from a runout standpoint, I can use a 3/16" endmill in a drill chuck also.  Even if less than perfect, it is probably good enough for my purpose. 

The Mailing Handguns Act Appears to be Unenforceable

Assuming post office updates their regulations before I move, this should simplify the move.  The post office already allows you to mail long guns to yourself in other states.  I was a little concerned about using an FFL because I would have to be a resident of Tennessee to receive a handgun from an FFL. So directly from airport to Tennessee DMV to get a driver's license.  This way I can just mail everything to me c/o a postal service.  When I arrive, no need to go through background check.

Grok Smart

 I was battling with some code to make my circle pocket program do sort of a revere pocket--clearing an annulus around the center column.  It is embarrassing how much capacity I have lost these last ten years.  I asked both ChatGPT and CoPilot to rewrite the annulus clearing section.  Neither got it right but CoPilot managed to create an incomprehensible piece of C, although not quite to a level suitable for the International Obfuscated C Contest.  (Are you old enough to remember those?)

Grok got it right first time!

Does Anything Make You Laugh Louder Than a Professor Blathering On About Privilege?

Especially to anyone who worries about:

1. Losing a finger doing a car or plumbing repair?

2. Getting shot or stabbed while arresting a violent criminal?

3. Having to shoot a violent criminal in self-defense, knowing full well that if he is black and has a history of convictions for violent crimes, he or she will be prosecuted?

4. Having political activists try to run them over with a car?

5. Having to raise a family with a runaway father whose child support checks are just as absent as he is?

Think about it: you get paid $40,000+ a year to teach, grade papers, and otherwise avoid injuring yourself at work.

Pay Attention: This Story Has Too Many Negatives

1/19/26 Colorado Sun article reports on a suit Colorado just lost.  One of the abortifacient pills is apparently two different drugs.  If you take the first pill without the second, your pregnancy will continue just fine.  Some clinics were beginning to offer women treatment to allow them to Undo the Undo (so to speak).  Colorado made that illegal. Yes, the defense of a woman's choice did not include the choice to change their mind. Unsurprisingly, Colorado lost this suit.

History

My niece mailed me a stack of paperwork associated with my mother.  Some of it brings back painful memories. One a letter explaining why there would be no contact between my kids and my mentally ill brother Ron's.  He was just too unpredictable. 

Another is my mother's 1934 high school yearbook from Garfield High in Seattle. 

My mother left column one from bottom.

AI Just Signed Its Own Death Warrant

 I saw this mentioned at Instapundit.  It is somewhat old news. 5/18/22 Boston.com:

Scientists at Harvard and MIT are part of an international team of researchers who found that artificial intelligence programs can determine someone’s race with over 90% accuracy from just their X-rays.

The problem is that no one knows how the AI programs do it.

“When my graduate students showed me some of the results that were in this paper, I actually thought it must be a mistake,” Marzyeh Ghassemi, an MIT assistant professor and coauthor of the paper analyzing the subject, told The Boston Globe. “I honestly thought my students were crazy when they told me.”

The researchers wrote in the study that many studies have shown that AI diagnostic systems seem to be using race in their considerations for diagnosis and treatment, to the detriment of patient health.

In the paper, they gave an example in which an AI program that examined chest X-rays was more likely to miss signs of illness in Black and female patients.

Thus, the aim of the study, which was published Wednesday in the medical journal The Lancet Digital Health, was to determine the degree to which AI systems can detect race from medical imaging, and to find out more about how these AI systems are detecting race. 

To do this, the research team trained AI systems for the study using standard data sets of X-rays and CT scans of different parts of the body.

Each image was labeled with the person’s self-reported race, but contained no obvious racial markers, such as hair texture or skin color, or medical racial trends, such as BMI or bone density. The team then fed the AI systems images without race labelling.

The researchers found that the AI systems were somehow able to determine the race of the person who the images were taken from with over 90% accuracy. The AI systems were even able to detect race from medical images regardless of what part of the body the image was of.

 Now if this is actually making decisions to the patient's detriment, this is a problem.  But that the AI was 90% of the time correectly guessing patient race is unsurprising.  From American Journal of Human Genetics (Dec. 29. 2004):

We have analyzed genetic data for 326 microsatellite markers that were typed uniformly in a large multiethnic population-based sample of individuals as part of a study of the genetics of hypertension (Family Blood Pressure Program). Subjects identified themselves as belonging to one of four major racial/ethnic groups (white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic) and were recruited from 15 different geographic locales within the United States and Taiwan. Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity.

This should be no surprise.  What we identify as race is not terribly subtle.  It would be startling indeed if skin color, lip shape, hair and eye color. etc. that is plainly visible by sight had no genetic origin.

Part of the problem driving the current insanity is that after the Holocaust what had been a legitimate line of scientific inquiry became hopelessly intertwined with German Rassenkunde (racial science). That decent people would choose to distance themselves from all that makes perfect sense. 

 But forensic anthropology is a science. You can look at a skeleton and determine with some certainty what sex this person was; it is not something uncertain or dependent on how you feel you should be regarded.

Metric and morphological techniques employed by forensic anthropologists for determination of race are reviewed. Included are several studies which examine cranial morphological techniques such as presence of the oval window of the inner ear, which occurs more frequently in Whites than in Native Americans; or the shape of the alveolar region which distinguishes between Asian, African, and North American Indian groups. A table of common cranial morphologic traits is presented. Metric techniques have also been used to determine race from the skull. Regression equations derived from measurements of the cranial base indicate a 70-90% accuracy for classifying Blacks and Whites, while multivariate discriminant functions for discriminating Blacks, Whites, and Native Americans correctly classify 82.6% of the males and 88.1% of the females. FORDISC, a computer program developed at the University of Tennessee, is another metric technique reviewed that not only distinguishes Whites, Blacks, and Native Americans but also male Hispanics, Chinese, and Vietnamese. Platycnemia, femoral curvature and other morphological attributes of the post-cranial skeleton may be used in support of a racial determination; however, several investigators have turned to post-cranial elements not only to use in support of cranial findings but for use when cranial information is not available. As a result, several discriminant functions from measurements of the pelvis, femur, tibia or combinations of these elements have been developed. Accuracy for these techniques varies from 57% to 95%, depending on the sample and technique used.

 

A Simplifying Design

I had planned to cut the tailpiece of the wide angle finder so that it would slide onto the rear of the PVC tube and be held in place by 6-32 screws.  This meant that in addition to a 1/4" long tube into which the coarse eyepiece focuser tube, I needed 1/4" lip about 2.45" ID into which the screws would go.  This meant 1/4" for lip, 1/4" for focuser tube extension and 1/4" at least for wall between.

As I thought more about it, I realized that I could simplify.  Instead of a lip on the outside, I will slide the tailpiece inside the PVC tube.  Thread the holes in the tailpiece and screw through tube into those holes.  This reduces me to 1/2" thick starting workpiece. I could do this with CFC.  But why?  Delrin is not as tensile strong or stiff as CFC, but neither matters in this context.  And Delrin is actually lighter: 1.4 g/cc vs. typically 1.6 g/cc for CFC.

Insomnia

If a torus had right angles on all sides what would you call it.  I would say a ring or sleeve but I suspect there may be a more precise term.  I need to write code that removes everything around a cylinder. After milling, a cylinder at a specified location and height remains and everything else has been filled away. 

Revolutions Podcast

 When out for walks, I listen to the Revolutions podcast.  These include a sequence about the English Civil Wars, American Revolution, and French Revolution (to which I am still listening).  These are profoundly deep dives into these subjects.   I know enough fine detail about the American Revolution to only see on error in that one: Thomas Jefferson had no significant influence on the 1787 Constitution because he was ambassador to France at the time. At most, his exchange of letters with Madison about the practical limits of a Bill of Rights shows a more realistic understanding of how little paper guarantees constrain a democratic government. 

As I said, these are very deep dives that remind me how much I need to study the English Civil Wars and the French Revolution.  I had the very broadest outline of the savagery and political infighting. Anyone who learns about the Revolution eating its young will recognize how rapidly ideology and paranoia turn even good intentions into madness. I fear that if the Democrats get back in power in 2028, we might well get similar craziness. 

Anyway, all this to mention this law passed under Robespierre's domination which you will recognize as part of the Biden Administration efforts to suppress disinformation.  Most of the progressive nations of Europe have similar goals.  

"Those who have disseminated false news in order to divide or disturb the people;"

The use of mob action in Paris reminds me of how the Democrats used BLM rioting to achieve their goal of defunding the police. Blue cities under Antifa rule would likely resemble Paris under sans cullotes mob actions. 

Sharing Common Code

For my machining projects, I have written lots of C programs to create gCode to operate a CNC mill. These are feature-specific: mkslot cuts slots from specified start x, y to end x, y for specified depth; mkhexagon, mkrectangle for cutting slots that will drop the rectangle out the bottom.   My biggest nemesis have been mkcircle, to cut a circle of specified radius centered at x, y and mkcirclepocket which cuts the circle and gouges out the center. 

I made use of ChatGPT to write C code to do a series of inward circles for the pocket. Because I started from scratch on mkcirclepocket instead of expanding the capabilities of mkcircle, I ended up with a slightly different interface and one of them worked more accurately than the other.  Mkcircle takes a start x, y for the left side of the circle and end x, y for the right side of the circle.  Mkcirclepocket accepts a radius and x, y for the center of the circle.  

I only used mkcircle with a 1/8" diameter endmill and thus did not immediately notice that it was not terribly accurate on diameter with larger diameter mills.  This became enough of a nuisance that today I modified mkcirclepocket to accept a -pocket parameter so that without, it cuts circles and with it, cuts you know, pockets. 

Whenever two programs produce similar results, you should look for ways to make the difference an option.

I thought I was going to need to write a new program to machine away everything but the center column.  But no, just add a -ring d parameter to mkcirclepocket.  Pocket already circles inward to cut the pocket.  It now just stops when d is reached. 

Have You Used This Service?

 Effectively, a gun store that has experience and shipping prices to ship guns via UPS with better rates than UPS direct, as if they would deign to do business with mortal gun owners.  ShipMyGun.

This is No Surprise to Regular Readers

12/19/25 Science Alert:

We know that the genes we're born with contribute to the risk of psychiatric disorders during our lifetimes, and a new study shows there is significantly more biological overlap across these conditions than previously thought.

The international team of scientists behind the research believes that their findings can help improve how these conditions are diagnosed and treated: not just through symptoms and behavior, but also through shared genetic factors.

"Right now, we diagnose psychiatric disorders based on what we see in the room, and many people will be diagnosed with multiple disorders. That can be hard to treat and disheartening for patients," says neuroscientist Andrew Grotzinger, from the University of Colorado Boulder.

"This work provides the best evidence yet that there may be things that we are currently giving different names to that are actually driven by the same biological processes."

BIpolar disorder and schizophrenia are one of those shared genes diseases.

Stay Flexible

I am cutting a 1.35" hole through a 2.5" x 3.0" block of Delrin.  The CFC draw tube will slide through this.  The original plan was for a 62mm recessed pocket that would slide over the end of the 60mm PVC tube.  I am a little unsure if I can make this work in a 2.5" wide workpiece.   The alternative is to cut it so it slides inside that tube.

But Everyone Knew Trump Would Destroy the Economy

1/15/26 Goldman Sachs forecast:

What’s the forecast for US economic growth in 2026?

US GDP is projected to expand 2.5% in 2026 (fourth quarter, year over year), versus the consensus economist estimate of 2.1%, according to Goldman Sachs Research. On a full-year basis, the economy is forecast to grow 2.8%. The probability of a recession in the next 12 months has fallen from 30% to 20%. All forecasts are as of January 11.

What Makes Minnesota So Sad Is How Easily This Could Have Been Avoided

Had the Blue states and cities agreed to turn convicted violent illegal aliens over to ICE when they were released, there would have been relatively little public pressure for these large scale raids.

Yes, illegal aliens are a problem for other reasons: driving down wages of lawful residents (many of whom are Hispanic), using Social Security numbers of lawful residents, fairly high rates of crime among single young men (just like single young male lawful residents). But the Democrats insistence that convicted child rapists are victims just shows how far the academic desire to see everyone with brown skin as victims takes you.

Insurrection Act for Minnesota?

 How about stopping transfers of money to Minnesota instead.  This would be at least as effective.  When South Carolina seceded (and not even in protest of enforcement of federal law), they were, I am pretty sure, receiving no substantial funding from Washington.

If Minnesota objects to federal law enforcement, fine, no enforcement of federal gun control laws.  If people in adjoining states want to sell Glock switches to the fine college-bound youth of Minneapolis, go ahead.

Gutsy DOJ Call

1/15/26 The Hill:

A nearly 100-year-old federal ban on mailing handguns through the U.S. Postal Service is unconstitutional and cannot be enforced, according to an opinion released Thursday by the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The 15-page opinion concluded that a 1927 law, which made it illegal to use the Postal Service to mail concealable firearms, such as pistols and revolvers, infringes on the Second Amendment.

“Section 1715 makes it difficult to travel with arms for lawful purposes, including self-defense, target shooting, and hunting,” wrote T. Elliot Gaiser, the assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel.

“The statute also imposes significant barriers to shipping constitutionally protected firearms as articles of commerce, which interferes with citizens’ incidental rights to acquire and maintain arms,” the opinion continued.

The law has, as is usual, a nasty racist history. The Mailing of Firearms Act which prohibits use of the U.S. Post Office for shipping concealable firearms, now 18 USC 1715, was debated in Congresses before its passage in 1927.  A sponsor of that bill in 1925 was Senator Shields (D-TN) who explained the need for this law as the high murder rate in Memphis, Tennessee:

Fifty-three negroes killed by negroes.  Only seven negroes killed [by] whites.  Only two whites killed by negroes--one a white burglar and the other assassinated by negro bandits....

Here we have laid bare the principal cause for the high murder rate in Memphis--the carrying by colored people of a concealed deadly weapon, most often a pistol.  Can we not cope with this situation?[1]

Prohibiting mail order shipping of handguns was supposed to make it easier to enforce state laws regulating handgun ownership—of which the focus was apparently blacks.

---

[1] 65 Congressional Record 3946.  The bracketed “by” appears to have been left out of the transcript.

Nice to Get Recognition for Doing Peer Review

Ice Fog

One down side of Southwestern Idaho winters is ice fog. Fog below freezing deposits ice everywhere. Slick roads and staircases. 

On the plus side the rime frost is pretty

Wolford Oral Arguments Tuesday

1/15/26 SCOTUSBLOG:

The Second Amendment provides that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” On Tuesday, in Wolford v. Lopez, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the latest chapter of the ongoing dispute over the scope of that right: a challenge to a Hawaii law that bans gun owners from bringing their guns onto private property that is open to the public without specific permission from the property’s owner. Four other states have similar laws: California, Maryland, New York, and New Jersey.

This is a pretty important case. A business can post a sign saying guns not allowed.  Defaulting to prohibition creates a presumption that does not generally apply.  Consider if a state required you to have advance permission before entering their property with a concealed book promoting Communism.  Would the ACLU consider that constitutional.  "You do not need to carry a book like that into private property."

Imagine if a state passed a law requiring advance permission for homosexuals to enter the premises. If a business is open to the public, even if you do not want to bake a cake for them, why an advance permission required?

ICE Agent Has Internal Bleeding

1/14/26 CBS News:

"The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fatally shot Renee Good last week in Minneapolis, Jonathan Ross, suffered internal bleeding to the torso following the incident, according to two U.S. officials briefed on his medical condition. "

Fortunately, He Was Released on Bail

1/13/26 GlobalNews.ca:

Three girls were rescued by police in Lethbridge from a forced confinement situation in which one of the girls was allegedly drugged and pimped out to several men over multiple days.

The Lethbridge Police Service said on Tuesday it has charged a man with unlawful confinement, sexual exploitation and human trafficking in connection with multiple incidents where vulnerable girls were targeted and sexually assaulted....

 Atoa, who police said has been in custody since his arrest in mid-December, was granted bail following a court hearing on Monday. He is anticipated to be released from custody Tuesday on several conditions.

But, he was not out long. 1/14/26 Calgary Herald:

About 30 minutes after his release from custody, an accused Lethbridge sex offender was arrested for breaching his release order conditions, police said Wednesday.

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Skye Atoa, 50, who faces charges of sexual assault, sexual exploitation and human trafficking, was granted bail and released from custody Tuesday afternoon.

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After being released, Atoa was required to go to a court-ordered residence. However, after he was dropped off, police said he made “no attempt to comply with the requirements” and instead went to a store.

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“Through proactive investigation, police observed the subject in the store’s perfume aisle in very close proximity to a young female and he was immediately arrested,” said Lethbridge police in a Wednesday news release.