Chant With Me: "What Do We Want? Common Sense Knife Control! When Do We Want It? Now!"

7/26/26 Daily Mail:

A beloved California art gallery manager who was writing an illustrated children's book has been stabbed to death in broad daylight. 

Rachell Summers, 73, was stabbed 11 times outside Capitola Mall in Santa Cruz County on Monday in what investigators have called a random act of violence.

Tyler Leibelt, 19, has been charged with murder while lying in wait and using a deadly weapon, court records show. He has not entered a plea. ...

Leibelt ran up to Summers outside the mall and stabbed her from behind, the court document said.

Summers was 'stabbed multiple times in her back, defensive stab wounds to her forearms, and stab wounds to her center chest, more than 11 total,' prosecutors alleged in the filing.

The 19-year-old ran into the mall, leaving a trail of the grandmother's blood behind him. Prosecutors say he also discarded a knife....

Leibelt told police that 'he purchased two knives so that he could hold one in each hand as he was killing someone,' the court filing says. 

He gestured stabbing with both of his hands during the interview with investigators.

Investigators have found nothing to suggest that Leibelt knew Summers before he targeted her in the deadly attack. It is also unclear why he chose her as his victim.

Leibelt told police that he had been suffering from 'homicidal fantasies for awhile' and claimed he had 'previously disclosed these fantasies but he 'kept getting let out' of custody,' according to the filing.

Prosecutors noted that a gun violence restraining order was issued against the alleged killer in November last year. 

He allegedly told sheriff's deputies during that incident that he 'expressed a desire to cause a mass casualty event,' the court document said.

He also allegedly 'wrote a goodbye letter expressing a desire to kill as many people as possible.' [emphasis added]

Gun violence restraining orders make us so safe--from gun violence. Those other methods for murdering people are so much nicer. 

Released from custody. Police should have requested an involuntary commitment order until California Welfare and Institutions Code sec. 5250.

A Fascinating Book: Tamed

Alice Roberts. Tamed: From Wikd to Domesticated, the Ten Animals and Plants That Changed Human History.

This is a popular history of the domestication of the animals and plants that to a large extent created our civilization. My wife found it interesting but not as well written as her English Composition teaching standards required. Yes, there are areas where I found the structure less than satisfying but it tells stories so interesting that I can forgive some minor issues.

If I fault this book for anything, it is that for many of these stories, it recounts the early attempts to understand the domestication process, then the later attempts, and now today’s theories.  While that development process has a certain detective story interest to it, it is far less satisfying to me and much wordier than just presenting current theory. 

Since I teach Western Civilization, these domestication events are of great importance. There is a bit of wit and humor scattered through the book, although not as thoroughly entertaining as Mary Roach's similar popular science books.

One surprising deficiency, since the author is a professor is that the lack of either traditional footnotes or endnotes. The bibliography is detailed, but if i am curious about one little detail, I should not need to read through a dozen books and journal articles to find it.

The chapter on humans i thought might examine the futile attempts of eugenics but it is an examination of how for a variety of reasons, humans have changed genetically in ways that have tamed us, making us more able to get along with each other.  Also along discussion of why GMO is the Island of Dr. Moreau disaster that many Greens assume but of course it turns into evil greedy corporations cannot be trusted with this, only the selfless universities and other nonprofits. 

Choose One

1. LGBTWTF making a spectacle of themselves. 

2. Muslim immigrants. 

6/26/26 AP:

BERLIN (AP) — A van ramming and stabbing near Berlin’s Pride festival that left one person dead and many others injured is believed to have been an Islamic extremist terror attack, Germany’s interior minister said Sunday.

The suspect in Saturday night’s attack remains at large. Authorities issued a wanted notice and warned people against approaching Abdul Ballout, a German citizen with Lebanese roots, saying that he may be armed and dangerous. 

Authorities said he is believed to have injured several people with a van in a park near the Pride festival’s closing party. Several people were also apparently stabbed.

One I find annoying. The other is a public safety problem. I do hope Queers for Palestine sees this in their newsfeed.

I Am Going to Miss My Forest

Although the new house has even more forest, some of it hickory. I am not yet sure if this the species with edible nuts.

Magic Cushion

 I mentioned a few weeks back that the seats in my CT5 were too painful for my wife to sit in for even short periods. (Her 2022 Hyundai Tucson Limited is only slightly longer until pain becomes unbearable.) The rather stiff bolsters cause her great pain. After many experiments ordering and returning cushions to Amazon, we found one that she can comfortably both ride and drive with.

Amazon.com: C CUSHION LAB Patented Pressure Relief Seat Cushion for Long Sitting Hours on Office/Home Chair, Car, Wheelchair - Extra-Dense Memory Foam for Hip, Tailbone, Coccyx, Sciatica - Light Grey : Office Products

Buy C CUSHION LAB Patented Pressure Relief Seat Cushion for Long Sitting Hours on Office/Home Chair, Car, Wheelchair - Extra-Dense Memory Foam for Hip, Tailbone, Coccyx, Sciatica - Light Grey: Back & Seat Cushions - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

amzn.to

200 Motels and Buckaroo Banzai in the Fifth Dimension Now Seem Rational and Normal

 Everything, Everywhere, All at Once (2022). The girlfriend who dragged me off to watch 200 Motels whispered in my confused ear part-way through, "It makes more sense if you take acid first." No, thank you. This movie might be similarly enhanced by LSD. Or perhaps permanent insanity lies that way. It was visually stunning. There is a almost incomprehensible plot involving travel between different universes. Amazing kung fu sequences, too. You will never watch Ratatouille (2007) the same way again.

A movie that I just watched and very much enjoyed was The Sheep Detectives (2026). If you liked Babe (1995), and Chicken Run (2000), you will like this. Not giving away much: shepherd reads murder mysteries to his flock in the evenings. After his murder, his flock uses what they have learned to find the killer.

The Dead Not Only Vote...

They also cash checks.  7/21/26 New York Post:

The Treasury Department has blocked nearly $100 million in taxpayer money from going to dead people since implementing a government-wide payment verification process last year, The Post has learned. 

The department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service discovered the money set to go to ghosts after a review of an eye-popping 885 million payments worth a total of nearly $2.7 trillion.