How Did I Miss This?

I can see coincidence but I can also see how even a rational person might scratch their chin and go, "Hmmmm."  4/27/13 Daily Mail:

"An uncle of the Boston bombers was previously married to a CIA officer's daughter for three years, it emerged today."

Since we now know that CIA has some highly partisan employees, it would not be implausible that they might have been set up to do this.  But not revealed at trial?  The radicalized Muslim explanation and wild coincidence still fits the evidence better.

They Admitted the Death Count is Overstated

 4/8/20 Real Clear Politics:

DR. DEBORAH BIRX: So, I think in this country we've taken a very liberal approach to mortality. And I think the reporting here has been pretty straightforward over the last five to six weeks. Prior to that when there wasn't testing in January and February that's a very different situation and unknown.

There are other countries that if you had a preexisting condition and let's say the virus caused you to go to the ICU and then have a heart or kidney problem some countries are recording as a heart issue or a kidney issue and not a COVID-19 death. Right now we are still recording it and we will I mean the great thing about having forms that come in and a form that has the ability to market as COVID-19 infection the intent is right now that those if someone dies with COVID-19 we are counting that as a COVID-19 death.

How Delusional Are These People?

The Washington Post reported on how NPR's Nina Totenberg reported something that all justices involved explicitly said was false: that Gorsuch refused to wear a mask because Chief Justice Roberts wanted to protect Justice Sotomayor.   Roberts insisted that he made no such request.  Sotomayor and Gorsuch made a joint statement denying that there was any truth to it.  

The Post story to their credit presents this as a Totenberg screwed up big time and observed that she has a history of failing to reveal conflicts of interest in her Supreme Court reporting.

That is not the tragedy.   It is the comments section where many of these people see Totenberg's false reporting as proof that all of Trump's appointees are jerks and should not be on the Court.  There are a lot of Post subscribers who are completely unable to read and comprehend.  Perhaps they are just so angry that they cannot see straight. 

RCA VS084 Battery?

 I removed this battery (maybe three of them) from my radiation survey meter a year or two back and now I have no idea where I put it.  I must have had them; I had it calibrated.

Amazingly enough I found the modern equivalent on Amazon.  I am hoping that the coming festivities in the Ukraine do not make them necessary.

Less Drama

A relative who voted for Obama said he wanted less drama.  1/22/22 Fox News:

"Families of US Embassy personnel in Ukraine ordered to begin evacuating as soon as Monday: officials"

This is not "burn the code books" stage but I suspect they are stacked in a fireproof bin. I understand Sweden and Finland will join NATO if Russia invades Ukraine. 

But at least no mean Tweets.  Putin was afraid of Trump.  Let us hope that there are still enough soldiers who know what sex they are to fight a conventional war.

Taiwan better be ready to blow up Three Gorges Dam.

Where Communism Leads You

All the worst aspects of free market capitalism as the left would claim seem to be more common in Communist countries.  The Soviet Union tried to create "True Socialist Man" who was more concerned for the common good than his own selfishness.  It failed BIGLY because people are by nature self-interested.  At best, some religions can promote concern for others, but this is by no means a certain consequence and so our laws and government structure is built around the assumption that people will look out for their own interests, sometimes destructively so.  This video shows what the Chinese call tofu-dreg construction (and when you see the materials used, tofu makes sense).  They correctly lay the blame on the delusions of Communism:

Another Amazing and Likely Short-Lived Victory in the 9th Circuit

 McDougall v. County of Ventura (9th Cir. 2022):

The panel reversed the district court’s order dismissing, for failure to state a claim, an action alleging that Ventura County’s COVID-19 public health orders mandating a 48- day closure of gun shops, ammunition shops, and firing ranges violated plaintiffs’ Second Amendment rights. 

The panel first held that the Orders’ 48-day closure of gun shops, ammunition shops, and firing ranges burdened conduct protected by the Second Amendment, based on a historical understanding of the scope of the Second Amendment right. 

In assessing the appropriate level of scrutiny, the panel held that the district court erred by determining that Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905), applied to Appellees’ Second Amendment claim. The panel held that Jacobson, which addressed a substantive due process challenge to a state statute requiring smallpox vaccinations, did not apply here because Jacobson did not concern the specific, constitutionally enumerated right at issue, and essentially applied rational basis review. The panel declined to determine whether the Orders were categorically unconstitutional and instead, because the Orders failed to satisfy any level of heightened scrutiny, based its decision on the traditional tiered scrutiny analysis. 

The panel held that the Orders’ burden on the core of the Second Amendment warranted strict scrutiny—which the Orders failed to satisfy because they were not the least restrictive means to further Appellees’ interest, especially when compared to businesses that had no bearing on fundamental rights, yet nevertheless were allowed to remain open. The panel distinguished this case from Silvester v. Harris, 843 F.3d 816 (9th Cir. 2016), which applied intermediate scrutiny in assessing California’s 10-day waiting period between purchase and possession of a firearm. The panel held that the Orders at issue here imposed a far greater burden than the 10-day delay at issue in Silvester.

This is a twofer: a "specific, constitutionally enumerated right" must be evaluated using strict scrutiny and also use of less than strict scrutiny in Jacobson for requiring vaccinations cannot be used if such an order violates an enumerated right.  Would a person's sincere religious objections to vaccination defeat Jacobson?  Freedom of exercise of religion would certainly fit.  The government would need a less restrictive method to solve the problem than mandatory vaccination.