You're Having a Bad Day? Ask These Candles How Their Days Have Gone!

I used to by mistake use these to make the bearings on my Dobsonian move more smoothly. (That does not work. Clean them thoroughly instead, especially of any candle wax.) I kept them in the telescope in the last house. Think of the punishment "hot house' in Cool Hand Luke or the marvelous parody in Take the Money and Run, where the protagonist is locked in a hot house for two days with a life insurance salesman.

At Least He is a FORMER CIA Official

 5/27/26 New York Post:

A former high-ranking CIA official who allegedly lied about his credentials to secure $77,000 in bogus military leave was busted after FBI agents found a mind-blowing fortune, including $40 million worth of gold bars, hidden inside his Virginia home.

The feds conducted a raid at the residence of David Rush last week, uncovering a staggering 303 gold bars, $2 million in cash and nearly three dozen luxury Rolex watches, according to court documents.

Rush, until recently a “senior executive service-level employee” at the CIA, reportedly requested the massive haul of gold and foreign currency for “work-related expenses” between November and March.

If all the Medicaid/Medicare fraudsters and crooks who did not have a a good reason to take $2 million of gold bars home were routed out, would we still be running a deficit every year?

The article explains that he was caught when he defrauded the government of $77,000. This led to the discovery that his bachelor's and master's degrees did not exist nor his military pilot's license. 

If the CIA is this careless about background checks, how careful are the other departments?

The profound greed, too. $40 million is a lot of money. You can live very, very comfortably on that forever.  He could have stolen $2 million, created a new identity (he did work for CIA) and never been caught.

Do You Recognize This?

 I am organizing my entropic collection of telescope parts preparing for my cross-country move. Stuff I do not need (how many 2" to 1.25" adapters did I buy and when?) I will sell. Some parts make me scratch my head and say, "What is this?" It is beautifully machined and polished. Might I have upgraded some part of a Losmandy mount in the long tunnel of time?

I Would Not Want These Released Either

 Especially if I was senile and dishonest.  5/27/26 NPR:

WASHINGTON — Joe Biden sued the Justice Department on Tuesday in an effort to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts of the former president's interview with a ghostwriter that were obtained by the special counsel who investigated his handling of classified documents.

Biden's lawyers said in a lawsuit filed in Washington's federal court that the Justice Department plans to release the files to Congress and a conservative group, the Heritage Foundation, after the department had previously argued that they were exempt from disclosure under the public records law.

Biden's lawyers argued that the disclosure would "constitute an unwarranted invasion of President Biden's privacy."

"Every American, including a sitting or former Vice President, has a right to privacy in the personal conversations he has within his own home," his attorneys wrote. "And when the U.S. Department of Justice obtains that private information through a criminal investigation, the Department bears a particular responsibility to protect it from disclosure."

Trump was prosecuted (and his wife's lingerie drawer was searched) as part of an investigation into failure to properly handle classified documents. I would think Biden deserves the same attention.

I Have Seen a Lot of Evidence That the Standards for Federal Judges Are High Enough

 Willingness to accept expert declarations that fail the Bellesiles Test (do the cited aources actually exist? Do they say what the expert claims?) What are clearly ends-driven decisions.

Among the most disappointing was a district judge in Fresno who refused to hear expert testimony about the history of domestic violence disqualification in the colonial period, insisting that at Duke University Law she learned that women and children were chattel property and so such a question was irrelevant.  Of course, the only women and children who were chattels were slaves. Free women and children had defined rights.  Of course chattel alone defined mobile (non-real estate property). All chattels were property. "Chattel property" is redundant.  

Oh yes. Another case that came before her in the courtroom was a guy who spoke no English and was seeking a more lenient sentence on a case involving possession of 50 pounds of meth. She gave him a more lenient sentence.

She may have learned this at Duke Law (an institution that leaves me increasingly unimpressed), but humility is an important trait in a judge.  5/27/26 CNBC:

A federal judge has been disciplined for having sex in their chambers with a high-ranking law enforcement officer within earshot of staff, attending a partisan political event and for lying to superior judges who investigated the claims, a disciplinary committee revealed.

Still Amazed at Her Cluelessness

Mayor Bass talks about how nice Los Angeles was when she grew up: affordable housing; no homeless people on the streets; jobs. She wants another four years to fix what she failed to do in her first four years. Oh, and she forgot to mention that in the 1970s they need let reservoirs go dry and let thousands of homes burn. If voters relect her, they have no one to blame but themselves. 

Ancient History

At least into the 1950s, it was fashionable to bronze each baby's first shoes. My mother kept all of her childrens' bronzed baby shoes on the mantle. I am not sure if these were dipped or more likely eelectrocuted.

Eventually, I received one of mine.