New Primary Source Documents Addition

 Transcripts of the trial of Timothy McVeigh.

I am glad that he confessed before execution.  I found reasonable doubt reading the transcripts.  His defense attorney was spectacular.  The government's case was full of holes.  The leftover leg and the retired Northern Ireland Medical Examiner's description of an IRA bombing that was premature and left eight torsos and nine penises was pretty amazing.

A Doctor in the Family

My daughter was just awarded her doctorate in social work.  She only gets the Dr. Cobb treatment for a little while 

Victory (and My Small Part)

Boland v. Bonta (C.D.Cal. 2023) granted a temporary injunction against California's Unsafe Handgun Act.  I played a small part (see pp. 14-15)..  Cornell portrayed early gun proofing laws and gunpowder storage laws as evidence the government has always the right to intervene in firearms laws for public safety.  My part cited by the judge was testifying that these laws only applied to large quantities (30 pounds and 28 pounds being common amounts).  Demonstrating that Cornell did not even have the right location for the N.Y. law was just icing on the cake.  This was six hours on Zoom hold.  By the time I finished poking holes in Cornell's declaration, California's attorney did not cross-examine me 

A Quote That I Vaguely Remember

Part of it was "The British Empire was created by accident and otherwise..."  it is a very witty aphorism that sounds like Samuel Johnson in my memory.   Why do I need it,  I am reading R.F. Kuang's Babel: an Arcane History.  This is a profoundly entertaining parallel universe which you will have to be enchanted by when I finish it or you read it yourself.  

Kuang is clearly a fascinatingly brilliant scholar (working on her Ph.D. at Yale now) and a spectacularly beautiful young woman.  She is one of those reminders that people in the extreme tails of intelligence have a heck of a time finding mates, because people of dissimilar intelligence lose interest in each other pretty quickly.  How I met my wife is one of those reminders that God works in mysterious ways.

How to Stop Mass Murders

In the middle of a very good Politico article by my friend John Lott about why Biden's proposed gun control measures are already in effect in California without success, is a link to a list of 37 mass murders stopped since 2015 by concealed carriers.

Fascinating Home Mortgage Rate Inversion

Or is it a perversion?  My credit union is offering 30 year fixed at the same interest rate as the 5/1 ARM: 6.625%.

Clearly, interest rates will be dropping in the next several years. I am just too tired to figure out what these differences tell us.

Treasury bond yield-curve inversions signal recession is imminent.  What does a flat mortgage interest curve tell us?

I misread this: 30 year fixed 6.875%.  10/1 ARM 6.625%.  It still tells us something but I do not know what.

Treasury bond yield curve inverted (although not dramaticaly) on March 6th.

That might hint at a coming recession if the slope was more severe 

Today's Phishing

Hello

There is an unclaimed inheritance fund of my foreign late client who has the same last name as you.                               

Regards,                                 

Kelly Adams

My response was to ask for his social number and bank account number.