Guns Cause Murder?

The correlation between U.S. murder rates and NICS background checks/100,000 people from 199-2014 is -0.93.  Yes, I'm working on another paper to blow holes in their claims that guns increase murder.  Interestingly gun sales per 100,000 Americans doubled from 0.033 in 1999 to 0.066 in 2014.

proof that state tax credits to encourage filmmaking our mistake

There's no other explanation for the movie Cowboys vs dinosaurs which I saw recently on Netflix. It was every bit as bizarre and tragic  as the title sounds.

More Proof That Idiocracy Is Documentary

5/2/16 Weekly Standard:

One of the best lines attributed to, though not actually said by, Winston Churchill is, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." The line sprang to mind when The Scrapbook read of the plight of the U.K.'s new polar research vessel (presently referred to as NPRV), which risks being saddled with the moniker "Boaty McBoatface," courtesy of an online poll.

A project of the Natural Environment Research Council, the $300 million state-of-the-art research vessel is set to be completed in 2019. It will be "the UK's largest and most advanced research ship yet," equipped to prowl Arctic and Antarctic waters, aiding in climate research. To mark the start of construction, NERC decided to invite the public to vote on name suggestions using the hashtag #NameOurShip.

Close-Up Lens

I bought some close-up lens for the Pentax from Amazon a while back.  They turned out to be Polaroid brand and we finally had a chance to try them out.  First the carrying case with the 28mmkit lens:

Then 1+, 2+, 4+, and 10+

Close up with 4+ lens:

How a mouse sees our cat:

Flowers in Rhonda's garden:

And in her nature preserve:

This is the 28mm view of the preserve:

Need U.S. Population Estimates 1999-2015

Amazingly enough, a Google search does not find what should be a common table.  Alternatively, does some nice person want to speed up the next law review article by pulling the national population numbers out of the FBI's UCRs for those years.  Here. thanks!

A Gay Conservative Goes to Amherst to Speak

Loud, childish, and foul mouthed: the progressive audience.
Comments here are a riot!

How did a two year old grow so large?

Said she didn't want to give her name because she had received death threats.
-
What she failed to mention, is that many of those death threats came from her family..

She will graduate sumo cum laude. 

Methinks G*d forgot to change the gene pool filter.

Remember the piece I wrote about obesity in lesbians and childhood sexual abuse trauma?

These Are the Idiots Can't Defeat?

The Democrat Freak Show Never Ends

Topless protestors at Trump rally demanding equality.

Who Someone's Enemies Are and How They Behave Says A Lot

4/28/16 Daily Mail:

Protesters clash with cops at California Trump rally: Hundreds of Mexican flag-waving demonstrators smash up a squad car, punch a Donald supporter and scuffle with riot police amid angry scenes

• Police clashed with protesters outside Donald Trump's rally in Costa Mesa, California Thursday night
• One group of protesters was filmed trying to flip over a police car outside the Pacific Amphitheater where he spoke
• Hundreds of demonstrators flooded the streets, hurling rocks at motorists and forcefully declaring their opposition
• One Trump supporter was seen bloodied after being punched in the face, while about 20 people were arrested

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3565010/Police-clash-protesters-outside-Donald-Trump-rally-California.html#ixzz47EclolWR
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Carbon Dioxide: It's What Plants Crave!

You did see Idiocracy, right?  From Watts Up With That:

From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25.

An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.

Green leaves use energy from sunlight through photosynthesis to chemically combine carbon dioxide drawn in from the air with water and nutrients tapped from the ground to produce sugars, which are the main source of food, fiber and fuel for life on Earth. Studies have shown that increased concentrations of carbon dioxide increase photosynthesis, spurring plant growth.

However, carbon dioxide fertilization isn’t the only cause of increased plant growth–nitrogen, land cover change and climate change by way of global temperature, precipitation and sunlight changes all contribute to the greening effect. To determine the extent of carbon dioxide’s contribution, researchers ran the data for carbon dioxide and each of the other variables in isolation through several computer models that mimic the plant growth observed in the satellite data.

Results showed that carbon dioxide fertilization explains 70 percent of the greening effect, said co-author Ranga Myneni, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University. “The second most important driver is nitrogen, at 9 percent. So we see what an outsized role CO2 plays in this process.”

Being Green Costs A Lot of Green

From Watts Up With That:

Lake Land College recently announced plans to tear down broken wind turbines on campus, after the school got $987,697.20 in taxpayer support for wind power.

The turbines were funded by a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, but the turbines lasted for less than four years and were incredibly costly to maintain.

“Since the installation in 2012, the college has spent $240,000 in parts and labor to maintain the turbines,” Kelly Allee, Director of Public Relations at Lake Land College, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The college estimates it would take another $100,000 in repairs to make the turbines function again after one of them was struck by lightning and likely suffered electrical damage last summer. School officials’ original estimates found the turbine would save it $44,000 in electricity annually, far more than the $8,500 they actually generated. Under the original optimistic scenario, the turbines would have to last for 22.5 years just to recoup the costs, not accounting for inflation. If viewed as an investment, the turbines had a return of negative 99.14 percent.

“While they have been an excellent teaching tool for students, they have only generated $8,500 in power in their lifetime,” she said. “One of the reasons for the lower than expected energy power is that the turbines often need to be repaired. They are not a good teaching tool if they are not working.”

Would love to know which billionaire's company got the contract.

San Francisco Has Burning Man

Los Angeles has Wasteland Weekend, a Mad Max inspired event.

Maybe I'm Just Very Unlucky...

Or does the Twitterverse seem to have a lot of crazy people Tweeting?

Lower Level SSP Group Broke Away from SSP Alliance Council, Intends on Pushing Partial Disclosure and Inner-Earth Anshar to Begin Contact with Surface
In this week's episode of Cosmic Disclosure, with Corey Goode and David Wilcock, several items of importance were revealed.

Fatigue

I treadmiiled for 40 minutes this evening, much on 1.5 degree slope.  Fatigue gone, and blood pressure down to 115/65.

More Evidence Of the Mental Health Crisis

4/28/16 WBAL:

Davis said the man voluntarily walked out of the building and across 41st Street, but did not listen to officers' orders and kept his hands in his pockets. That's when three officers fired a total of at least three shots, striking the suspect at least once. As there was still what he claimed to be a bomb attached to his chest, he remained on the median of 41st Street and is conscious. Police are interacting with him and manipulating his body using a bomb-handling robot.

The device strapped to his chest was actually made up of candy bars wrapped with foil, connected with wiring, a motherboard and apparent fire extinguisher parts wired to a handheld apparatus all meant to resemble a real explosive.

"It does not appear this device was something capable of being an actual explosive," Smith said.
A motive is not yet known.

"Why did he do this? We don't know the answer to that, and we want to know the answer to that," Davis said....

The security guard, Jourel Apostolidies, said the man handed him a flash drive. On the drive were videos of the man talking to the camera about what he believed were government conspiracies.

"My first thought was to get him out," he said. "My first instinct was to make sure he keeps his cool head."

The man was wearing a hedgehog onesie, light vest and combat boots, Apostolidies said. After he issued a request for staff to evacuate, he said he sat down and talked with the man.

"I'm not going to say I saw a bomb, what I saw was an attempt to make a fake bomb," he said.

I need to see this outfit!

More details evidencing the mental illness under the most bizarre headline ever:

Panda Bomber With Candy Bar Explosives Shot by Snipers, Stripped By Robot

Alex, wearing a panda costume, allegedly entered the WBFF-TV office, said he had a bomb and tried to handover a flash drive he said contained information about a government cover-up. The hoax bomb turned out to be chocolate bars wrapped in aluminum foil.

“About two weeks ago, Alex came to me and said that he had a revelation from God and Jesus that there was going to be a terrible event,” Edward Brizzi said.

Alex said that the world was going to end on June 3, and that he needed to get the message out and to save some people, his father said. “We were watching him after that,” Edward Brizzi said. But three days later, he went for a walk and ended up in a neighbor’s yard, and was restrained by authorities and hospitalized for four days, Edward Brizzi said.

ICYMI

Neil deGrasse Tyson Verified account ‏@neiltyson

Nephew from Idaho, puzzled by locks on my NYC apt door. I asked, Don't you have locks at home? He replied, No, just Shotguns.

Things Must Be Getting Desparate Out There

A telemarketeer (o is it teleannoyer) called me yesterday and was so busy giving his pitch, he did not notice I was telling him I did not need or want his product.  I finally had to hang up on him.  Are they hiring deaf people?

A couple minutes ago, I received a call from Mahalia asking how man years I had had my GE alarm system.  "I don't have or need one."  So she asked again, and found it impossible to believe that I did not need one.

Yes, You Get A Lot of Attention This Way

Idiot selling pipebomb and suicide vests at gun show,  Gpoing naked in public or relieving yourself in the middle of the street does, too.  I would not recommend it.

Why I Live Here

Back porch picture:

Bible study Thursday mornings is at a friend's house with these onlookers:

Windows 10 Task Scheduler

I have used Task Scheduler in Windows for some years to automate backup of my files, having it execute a batch file that does an xcopy.  On my wife's PC, running Windows 10, I am having problems.  Trying to set it up to call that batch file, it claims that there is one by that name in place, even though it won't show it or run it.  Lots of discussions of this problem out there, but none of the solution work, so I downloaded something from www.splinterware.com that seems to do much the same thing.

Why the Left Thinks ISIS Isn't Our Problen

Feminists choose to ignore:

But imagine this: in the city of Mosul alone, at least 250 innocent women were murdered in cold blood because they refused to become sex slaves. Human Rights Voices explains:

The Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, has executed at least 250 women in northern Iraqi city of Mosul in Nineveh province for refusing sex slavery, according to reports Wednesday. The women had been ordered to accept “temporary marriages” to the militants, and were all put to death after their refusal.Said Mamuzini, an official from the Kurdistan Democratic Party, told the AhlulBayt News Agency that sometimes the families of the women were also executed for rejecting to submit.

More Hollywood Hypocrisy

From Twitchy:

Flashback — It was just last month that Marvel threatened to boycott Georgia over the allegedly anti-gay Free Exercise Protection Act, which Governor Nathan Deal vetoed:

What a bunch of hypocrites. Marvel licensed its name for a theme park in less-than-gay-friendly Dubai that opens in August:

Remember: it isn't hostility that homosexuality that bugs Hollywood, it is Christianity.  If executing homosexuals is done to make the Prophet happy, no problem.

Here's a more detailed list of corporate hypocrites.

Islam is An Emergency

From theLocal.at:

An asylum seeker from Iraq accused of raping a ten-year-old boy in a toilet cubicle at a swimming pool in Vienna pleaded guilty in court yesterday.

Twenty-year-old Amir A., who is from Iraq and married with a child of his own, claimed that was a "sexual emergency" when he attacked the schoolboy last December at the Theresienbad in Vienna's Meidling area.

The young boy was swimming at the pool by himself and had befriended a 15-year-old boy, who was with the Iraqi man. When the youngster went off to the showers after his swim the 20-year-old followed him and pushed the boy into a toilet cubicle, where he assaulted him.

After the attack the seemingly unconcerned man stayed in the swimming pool and was even using the diving board when police came to arrest him.

An acquaintance who worked in Iraq for two years with the Judge Advocates office told me that an expression he heard a bit there was: "Women are for babies, boys are for pleasure, and goats are for emergencies."  I guess the victim looked like a goat.

This must be why feminists are backing the party of unlimited Middle East immigration.

Why GOP Stands for Gay Old Party

4/26/16 USA Today:

CHICAGO — Former speaker Dennis Hastert will learn on Wednesday whether his stunning fall from grace will also include prison time for bank fraud that he committed as part of an effort to cover up an accusation of sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy.

Hastert, who was the longest serving GOP speaker in history, pleaded guilty in October to one count of making illegally structured withdrawals to avoid triggering banking laws that would have required his banks to report the transactions.

Prosecutors have asked U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin to sentence Hastert to up to six months in federal prison for the charge.

This, plus Idaho's own Senator Widestance, explains the lack of resistance to the Democrats.  Much of GOPe is probably hiding their preferences,

This is Frustrating

I have an HP 1536MFP, which has given me many years of excellent service.  The automatic document feeder has stopped feeding, complaining about mispick failures.  I have cleaned the rollers and separator, with no change.  I am sure it is something simple, but I am not sure what.

For Your Next Trip Through National Security Theater

Now at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2770902.

ABSTRACT: No-fly lists are part of the post-9/11 national security infrastructure. Gun control advocates argue that they should be used to disqualify persons from possessing or receiving firearms. This paper examines both the constitutional and practical difficulties with such laws.

Returning to Their Roots

4/25/16 Vocativ:

A prominent Ku Klux Klan leader says that the group has raised thousands of dollars for Hillary Clinton’s campaign and that the Klan is officially endorsing the Democratic frontrunner for president—a claim the Clinton campaign vigorously denies.

Shortly after setting a giant cross on fire with dozens of other members of various white nationalist groups in Georgia on Saturday, Will Quigg, a Grand Dragon in a California branch of the KKK, sat down with Vocativ—which was there for a larger reporting trip about the modern state of the hate group—to talk about the 2016 election. According to Quigg, “For the KKK, Clinton is our choice.”

When Will PayPal And Apple Get Tough With Homophobia?

Yahoo News:

Cairo (AFP) - An Egyptian court has sentenced 11 men accused of homosexuality to jail terms of between three and 12 years, legal sources said.

The defendants were arrested in a flat in the leafy Cairo suburb of Agouza in September last year.

The court convicted them of "debauchery and incitement to debauchery", the charges generally used to prosecute alleged homosexuals in Egypt as the law does not formally prohibit same-sex relations.

Proof Norwat No Longer Controls Itself

4/26/16 Telegraph:

Norwegian authorities are offering a "bonus" 10,000 kroner (£1,000) to asylum seekers willing to leave the country voluntarily.

The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) says the measure is less expensive than keeping refugees in immigration centres in the country.

Launched on Monday, the scheme will run for six weeks, state broadcaster NRK reported UDI saying.

The money will be paid to the first 500 asylum seekers to apply on a first-come, first-served basis.
“We need to entice more [people] to voluntarily travel back by giving them a bit more money on their way out. This will save us a lot of money because it is expensive to have people in the asylum centres,” Sylvi Listhaug, integration minister, said.

I shudder to think what they will do if Russia invades Norway.

For Those Engaged in Warfare With the "Guns are a Crisis? What will we do?" crowd

http://www.claytoncramer.com/USMurderRates1960-2012.jpg and http://www.claytoncramer.com/USViolentCrimeRates1960-2012...

Remember most Americans think murder is increasing.

Huffington Post Commenters Are Really Fascists

Like this guy:

Bring home the military and join them with all law enforcement agencies and begin a country-wide roundup of all weapons (legal and illegal). Cancel all permits. Then start from the beginning. Folks can buy back their guns (limited to 2 per household) via permit fee. Weapons with no permit will be permanently confiscated. Impossible scenario! We passed the point of "no return" when it comes to gun ownership. Reality is that the problem will continue to get worse day-by-day REGARDLESS of any meaningful legislation.

PLCAA

Democrats are hot to repeal PLCAAA, the law that says gun makers and sellers can't be held responsible if a gun works.  NSSF reports that the Democrats are again out of touch:

NEWTOWN, Conn. — Seven of 10 American voters do not support allowing crime victims to sue firearm manufacturers and retailers when firearms they made or sold lawfully after background checks are used illegally in crime. Instead, voters from across political parties and geographic regions back the defense that the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) provides the firearms industry.

More than 70 percent of voters disagree with a position one presidential candidate has made a centerpiece of her campaign. Like that candidate, others running for federal office have chosen to run against and misrepresent this decade-old law that prevents crime victims from suing firearm manufacturers and retailers who have not broken any laws.

Why Is Trump Doing So Well?

4/26/16 National Review:

The latest straw in the wind is last week’s report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing that life expectancy for white women declined slightly from 2013 to 2014.

Other studies indicate rising death rates for a white working class that is in a slow-motion economic and social meltdown. Self-destructive behaviors are outpacing medical advances against killers like heart disease and cancer. Hopelessness may not be a condition studied by epidemiologists, but it is cutting a swath through a segment of white America. A paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences late last year highlighted the bleak American exceptionalism of this crisis. It focused on middle-aged whites. In the 20 years prior to 1998, their mortality rate fell about 2 percent a year, in keeping with the trend toward lower mortality in other advanced countries. Then the rates diverged. Rates kept declining in countries like France and Britain. They began increasing for middle-aged whites in the United States.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/434544/white-working-class-mortality-rates-are-increasing

These are people that the left hates, and they are succeeding in driving poorly educated whites into ghetto black conditions.

Proof That Young People Have Taken Over Corporate America

4/26/16 USA Today:

A conservative Christian activist group has gained more than half a million signatures and counting from people pledging to boycott Target over its transgender bathroom policy.

The petition started by the American Family Association on Wednesday raises concerns that Target's inclusive stance on transgender rights encourages sexual predators and puts women and young girls in danger, because "a man can simply say he 'feels like a woman today' and enter the women's restroom."
The boycott has more than 517,000 signatures as of Monday afternoon, marking it as one of AFA's most popular campaigns....

"We certainly respect that there are a wide variety of perspectives and opinions," says Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder. "As a company that firmly stands behind what it means to offer our team an inclusive place to work — and our guests an inclusive place to shop — we continue to believe that this is the right thing for Target."

She added that hundreds of Target stores "have single-stall, family restrooms for those who may be more comfortable with that option."

Target made its position public in a blog post last week, stating that the company welcomes "transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity." The announcement comes as legislation on transgender issues in multiple states has spurred several major corporations and businesses to take a stance on LGBT rights.

 Homosexuals have made a huge mistake inviting transgendered under the blanket.  You can sign up here.  Now

701,762 Signers

If You Have A Spiritual Bent, This Is Fascinating

4/26/16 Telegraph:

Human life begins in bright flash of light as a sperm meets an egg, scientists have shown for the first time, after capturing the astonishing ‘fireworks’ on film.

An explosion of tiny sparks erupts from the egg at the exact moment of conception.

Scientists had seen the phenomenon occur in other animals but it is the first time is has been also shown to happen in humans....

“We discovered the zinc spark just five years ago in the mouse, and to see the zinc radiate out in a burst from each human egg was breathtaking.

“This means if you can look at the zinc spark at the time of fertilization, you will know immediately which eggs are the good ones to transfer in in vitro fertilization.

“It’s a way of sorting egg quality in a way we’ve never been able to assess before. “All of biology starts at the time of fertilization, yet we know next to nothing about the events that occur in the human.”

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

More Reasons Why President Trump Will Tell Obama "You're Fired!"

4/26/16 Breitbart:

Election data compiled by Breitbart News on the Democratic Party’s primaries and caucuses in 2016 and 2008 show that turnout in is down significantly, nearly 20 percent, from the last contested election.

The data also show that the about 4.5 million fewer people have voted in the Democratic presidential contest this year versus 2008.

It's a strongly contested primary, but between two old white people.  For many Democrats, what do they care? Some years ago, a Democratic senator in a closed meeting described the Democratic Party as "Jews. Union. Blacks. Trial lawyers." (He immediately denied it.)  Harsh reality: that's largely still true. 

Jews continue clinging to Israel's enemy. 

Union leadership needs the Democrats to hold on to their declining control of jobs.

Trial lawyers don't want to give up their Mercedes addictions and get real jobs.

Blacks are increasingly figuring out that their leaders have sold them down the river, or just don't see someone that looks like them on the ballot.

Animal Rights Activists

4/20/16 Daily Mail:

Ostrich is freed from a circus by animal rights activists… and is immediately killed when it runs in front of a car

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3549866/Ostrich-freed-Munich-circus-animal-rights-activists-immediately-killed-runs-car.html#ixzz46tiEfzi6
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

A comment on the article:

If this lot had brains they'd be dangerous! Decades ago the same lot "liberated" the birds and animals from a pet shop I was managing, releasing them all into the wild, mainly tropical birds, in the middle of an English winter, it was a death sentence for them.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3549866/Ostrich-freed-Munich-circus-animal-rights-activists-immediately-killed-runs-car.html#ixzz46weVY04q
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Don't Quite Know What This Neans

Some Federal Farm Credit Bureau bonds I bought a few years ago have been called. I paid $20,120 for them so slightly above par.  They were paying 3.7% per year, so losing a $120 on the principal isn't too bad.  But I think this means farmers have been refinancing their debt at lower interest rates.  Why did it take this long?

Just a Reminder For When I Order an Equatorial Platform

From Optical Ed's.

OTA weight: 68 pounds.

Bottom of rotation: 13 inches

Top: 26 inches

No-Fly Lists

My confidence in the federal courts is falling fast.  Latif v. Holder, 28 F. Supp. 3d 1134 (D.Oregon 2014) compares the no-fly list to a Terry stop, where Terry described a stop and frisk as a "minor inconvenience and petty indignity," unlike the no-fly list which is permanent.

Why Can't Americans Be Open-Minded About Abortion Like Europeans?

4/25/16 NBC News:

The act that made abortion legal in England, Scotland and Wales for women up to 24 weeks pregnant does not apply to another part of the U.K. — Northern Ireland.

That means that there is a near-total ban on abortion there, even in cases of rape, incest or fetal abnormalities. Terminations only are allowed under strict criteria: if the pregnancy threatens the mother's life or would adversely affect her mental health.

Courts in Northern Ireland can inflict the harshest criminal penalties for abortion of anywhere in Europe — up to life imprisonment.

That's how it came to pass that a 21-year-old woman was convicted this month of having an abortion. She was given a three-month suspended sentence.

Note: "up to 24 weeks."  To pro-choice extremists, that means fascists are in charge of most of the U.K.

Next President Gets to Scoop Obama's Foreign Policy Poop

Yahoo News:

MIHAIL KOGALNICEANU AIR BASE, Romania (Reuters) - Two highly advanced U.S. fighters flew to the Black Sea on Monday for the first time since Washington beefed up military support for NATO's eastern European allies who say they face aggression from Russia.

President Barack Obama promised in 2014 to bolster the defenses of NATO's eastern members, unnerved by Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea and the Kremlin's backing for pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.

A U.S. KC-135 refueling plane flew with the two F-22 Raptor fighters from Britain to Romania's Mihail Kogalniceanu air base on the Black Sea.

"We're here today to demonstrate our capability to take the F-22 anywhere needed in NATO or across Europe," said Squadron commander Daniel Lehoski.

"We want to ... actually fly the aircraft and train with our NATO allies," he told a traveling Reuters reporter.

 In 1980 if you had shown me this news story about our ally Romania, I would have wondered what alternate history book this came from.  Today, it reminds me that the Democrats can destroy anything they touch.

San Francisco: The Little Yellow School Bus of American Politics

4/24/16 New York Times reports on the sudden arrival of reality:

San Francisco, America’s boom town, is flooded with the cash of well-paid technology workers and record numbers of tourists. At the same time, the city has seen a sharp jump in property crime, up more than 60 percent since 2010, though the actual increase may be higher because many of the crimes go unreported.

 Recent data from the F.B.I. show that San Francisco has the highest per-capita property crime rate of the nation’s top 50 cities. About half the cases here are thefts from vehicles, smash-and-grabs that scatter glittering broken glass onto the sidewalks.

The city, known for a political tradition of empathy for the downtrodden, is now divided over whether to respond with more muscular law enforcement or stick to its forgiving attitudes.

Remember: Californians believe that separation from reality is a Constitutional right.

Muslim Immigrants in Germany

Yes that's Adolf Hitler and Allah Akbar.

Is Trump Rreally a Threat to the Repubcan Party?

To hear GOPe tell the story, Trump is going to be massively defeated by Clinton.  Yet this report makes me ask Are all these Republican primary voters really Democrats?  Or is Trump mobilizing what used to be Reagan Democrats?  People who want jobs again?  4/25/16 Breitbart:

Newly compiled data after the New York Republican primary shows that among the states that have voted so far in 2016, GOP primary and caucus turnout is up well more than 8 million votes and well more than 60 percent over 2012’s process.

Top GOP officials say that the intense interest in the GOP primary throughout the year so far only serves to benefit the Republican nominee in November, whoever it ends up being.

In total, so far, nationwide the GOP has seen an increase of 8,719,041 votes in 2016’s primaries, caucuses and conventions over 2012’s primaries, caucuses and conventions. In 2012, 14,452,500 people voted in each of the states and territories that have held contests so far in 2016. In 2016, 23,171,541 people have voted in the GOP contests so far. That is a 60.33 percent increase in GOP contest turnout in just four years.

My experience and traditional political science says Republicans are consistent voters (unlike Democrats) and they turn out even in uncontested primaries.  This growth is likely Americans who finally have realized the Democrats are the billionaire's party.

Updating a Great Line from Gore Vidal's 1964 Play The Best Man

At the Democratic convention, a politician talks to the DNC chair and says to a friend, "There goes the only known connection between the KKK and the ACLU."  This was back when prominent Klan leaders sat on the DNC.  Today, the Democrats are the only known connection between gay rights activists and people that chop up gay rights advocates.From 4/25/16 Telegraph:

Two people were hacked to death on Monday at an apartment in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka, police said, with a local television channel identifying one of them as a leading gay rights activist.

"Unidentified attackers entered an apartment at Kalabagan and hacked two people to death. Another person was injured," Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Maruf Hossain Sorder told AFP.

He did not identify the dead, but private television Channel 24 said one of them was the editor of Roopbaan, the country's only magazine for the LGBT community.

A spokesman for a gay rights group, Boys of Bangladesh, confirmed to AFP by text message that the Roopbaan editor was among the dead.

The editor was behind an annual Rainbow Rally, which since 2014 has been held on April 14, Bengali New Year....

Ahead of the banned rally earlier this month, the editor told AFP that they had received threats from Islamists, who posted messages online.

"They have even set up an online group to threaten us," he said.

 I know for a lot of gay people, feeling normal and accepted is very important.  But the continued gay preference for the party of Islam is likely to end badly, after all Christians have boarded trains for those central Nevada "re-education camps."

Fatigue

I have been having fatigue and shortness of breath p[roblems for several weeks now; that;s why cardiologist ordered an echocardiogram.  Still no word on results but my blood pressure is up from where it has been since I started taking Metropolol.  I have things to do still; hoping this isn't the start of the closing credits theme.

My cardiologist says the results look good.  Aortic valve is working well, with 50-60% ejection fraction.  The mitral valve is leaking but not enough to worry about.  (Good: fixing that requires going full Aztec.)  My blood pressure is up, so he may be adjusting my medications.

Returning the AccuSize Tapping Head

The JT6 arbor will not stay in the tapping head.  The supposedly JT6 arbors that came with it do stay, suggesting dimension problems with their notion of JT6.  Yes, I cleaned both male and female JT6 with acetone, and lightly tapped the arbor in place.  No luck.  As is usually the case, Chinese tools are usually overpriced even when free.

What a Shocker!

Burning plants and inhaling the smoke is bad for you (and not just tobacco).  4/22/16 CBS News:

Heavy marijuana use in the late teen years puts men at a higher risk for death by age 60, a new long-term study suggests.

Swedish researchers analyzed the records of more than 45,000 men beginning in 1969 and 1970. The scientists from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm reported that 4,000 died during the 42-year follow-up period, and men who'd used marijuana heavily at ages 18 and 19 were 40 percent more likely to die by age 60 compared to guys who hadn't used the drug.

The authors of the new study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, said the findings contradict previous research involving the same group of men.

But this study was longer and participants might have reached an age where the long-term effects of cannabis were taking a toll on health, said addiction expert Scott Krakower, an assistant unit chief of psychiatry at Zucker Hillside Hospital, in New Hyde Park, NY.

"Cannabis users have poorer health in general. You'd expect there to be increased mortality risk," Krakower told CBS News. He pointed to another long-term study linking early heavy marijuana use with lung cancer, and a second study that associates the drug with increased heart problems.

Restoring Voting Rights For Convicted Murderers

4/22/16 Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Gov. Terry McAuliffe signed an executive order Friday restoring the voting rights of 206,000 ex-felons, a sweeping action the governor said was aimed largely at rectifying Virginia’s “long and sad history” of suppressing African-American voting power.
The move, coming in a presidential election year, outraged Republicans who accused McAuliffe of abusing his power to help longtime ally Hillary Clinton win a battleground state by putting more likely Democratic voters on the books.

The governor’s order applies to all violent and nonviolent felons who had finished their sentence and supervised release as of Friday, even those who have not applied for a restoration of rights. Previous Virginia governors have restored rights on an individual basis, but none has done it for an entire category of offenders with one pen stroke.

My guess is that few will actually vote, but it is a reminder that Democrats care deeply about having their sort voting.

European Hard Left Now Opposing Obama

4/23/16 Yahoo News:

On a visit to London on Saturday, Obama sought to address sceptics' fears head-on, admitting that some past trade agreements had "served the interests of large corporations and not necessarily of workers in the countries that participate in them".

The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has run into major opposition, not least in Europe's top economy Germany, where critics have raised the spectre of eroding ecological and labour market standards and condemned secrecy shrouding the talks.

As the whistle-blowing crowd moved through Hanover in unseasonably cold weather, one banner reading "Don't give TTIP a chance" featured the image of a bull tagged "privatisation" and a cow branded "democracy".

A mock coffin was emblazoned with the words "Democracy killed by money".

Dieter Berlin, a 73-year-old pensioner, attended the rally with his wife Hanna, waving a banner reading "No GMOs on our plates" in a reference to genetically modified foods.

Berlin said he had turned out over fears of a race to the bottom with free trade.

"We want to keep our educational standards, not adopt the American educational system. And we want to hold onto our environmental standards too," he said.

His friend Heino Kirchhof, 73, said TTIP would widen the gulf "between poor and rich -- that is going to threaten the stability of the world."

Another demonstrator, 38-year-old Ladislav Jelinek of the Czech Republic, said he worried that pollution and food safety protections could be hollowed out by the treaty.

 Remember: Obama is more fascist than socialist.

Imagine if Clinton Made This Same Promise With Respect to Rap Culture

Daily Caller:

As president, Hillary Clinton claims she would “use every single minute of everyday… [to] change the gun culture” in America.
Speaking from Hartford, Connecticut on Thursday, Clinton said, “It is just so easy for people to reach a gun to solve their problems. It makes no sense. And we could do this consistent with the Second Amendment. We can do this with the support of responsible gun owners. And that’s exactly what we’ll do.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/21/clinton-calls-for-a-change-in-gun-culture-in-america-video/#ixzz46f8exDdt

More cultural imperialism.

Understanding Our Increasingly Insane Society

My wife encouraged me to look up "distorted thinking":

1. Filtering: You take the negative details and magnify them, while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation. A single detail may be picked out, and the whole event becomes colored by this detail. When you pull negative things out of context, isolated from all the good experiences around you, you make them larger and more awful than they really are.
2. Polarized Thinking: The hallmark of this distortion is an insistence on dichotomous choices. Things are black or white, good or bad. You tend to perceive everything at the extremes, with very little room for a middle ground. The greatest danger in polarized thinking is its impact on how you judge yourself. For example-You have to be perfect or you're a failure.
3. Overgeneralization: You come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence. If something bad happens once, you expect it to happen over and over again. 'Always' and 'never' are cues that this style of thinking is being utilized. This distortion can lead to a restricted life, as you avoid future failures based on the single incident or event.
4. Mind Reading: Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you are able to divine how people are feeling toward you. Mind reading depends on a process called projection. You imagine that people feel the same way you do and react to things the same way you do. Therefore, you don't watch or listen carefully enough to notice that they are actually different. Mind readers jump to conclusions that are true for them, without checking whether they are true for the other person.
5. Catastrophizing: You expect disaster. You notice or hear about a problem and start "what if's." What if that happens to me? What if tragedy strikes? There are no limits to a really fertile catastrophic imagination. An underlying catalyst for this style of thinking is that you do not trust in yourself and your capacity to adapt to change.
6. Personalization: This is the tendency to relate everything around you to yourself. For example, thinking that everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you. You also compare yourself to others, trying to determine who's smarter, better looking, etc. The underlying assumption is that your worth is in question. You are therefore continually forced to test your value as a person by measuring yourself against others. If you come out better, you get a moment's relief. If you come up short, you feel diminished. The basic thinking error is that you interpret each experience, each conversation, each look as a clue to your worth and value.

Black Lives Matter Activist Pleads Guilty

4/18/16 NJ.com:

In a surprise move, a Kean University graduate accused of sending Twitter messages threatening black students on campus appeared in court Monday and pleaded guilty to the charge.

Kayla McKelvey, 25, of Union Township, pleaded guilty to a single count of third-degree creating a false public alarm, acting Union County Prosecutor Grace Park said in a statement.

In exchange for her plea, the prosecutor's office will recommend she receive a 90-day jail sentence, Park said.McKelvey, who is black, must also agree to pay $82,000 in restitution for the police response and investigation of the threats.

Last Thursday, Superior Court Judge William Daniel rejected McKelvey's appeal to be permitted in to a Pre-Trial Intervention Program that would have placed her on probation and could have allowed her to have the charge dropped from her record.

$82,000!  How many iterations of "Would you like fries with that, sir," will it take to pay that off?

Glad We're Focused on North Carolina's Bathroom Law

Or we might be worried about this 4/22/16 CBS story:

Federal law enforcement investigators are searching in at least three states for more than 500 pounds of explosives stolen from a CSX train, CBS News has learned.

CBS News Justice Department and Homeland Security correspondent Jeff Pegues reported a law enforcement source says the amount stolen has authorities concerned that the explosives could fall into the wrong hands.

Not to worry: Barack Hussein Obama was going to open a new era of peace!

This Is Either a Mob Hit, Or There's A Relative With Serious Mental Health Problems

4/22/16 CNN:

CNN)Eight family members found dead in a rural southern Ohio community were shot in the head "execution style," most while they slept, authorities said Friday.

Officers are searching for the killer or killers, who are probably armed and a danger to surviving family members, Pike County Sheriff Charles Reader said. 

 

"We have a specific family that's been targeted but I don't think there's been a threat to any other members of the community," he said. "I've given the family precautionary measures to make. They know we're available."

Investigators discovered seven adults and a 16-year-old dead at four crime scenes, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said. The victims included a mother slain while her 4-day-old child lay beside her, he said.....

'There may be more than one' killer

"It would appear all of them were shot in the head," DeWine said. "It would appear it occurred at night. ... The mother was killed in bed with the 4-day-old right there."

 

The deaths are homicides, DeWine said. Nobody killed themselves.

 

"The Rhoden family was targeted and we've talked to the family and expressed our concern," he said. "The sheriff's office will work with them for protection."

 

Siding Estimates

Amazing the range.  Reve quoted us about $31,000 for vinyl.  They also noticed some wood rot that turned siding from an alternative to paint, into a necessity.  They emphasized all the ways in which their product was different from the competitors (all of which had pretty much identical features).  Any surprise that they wanted us to commit before anyone else gave us estimates?  Reading the BBB complaints about Reve is disheartening.

Western Siding quoted about $18,300.  Treasure Valley Exteriors quoted about $19,500.  Treasure Valley Seamless quoted $21,000 for steel siding.

No question steel will last decades longer than vinyl, but I do not expect to live longer than the vinyl.  Steel also recycles nicely but again I won't be around to recycle it.

At this point, it is primarily about price and who has better customer satisfaction.  For those considering siding, there seems to be so much profit in this that there is a threat of a bidding war.

How to Get a JT6 to Stay

I have the JT6 to straight shank arbor, but how do you get it to stay?  The weight of the head causes it to pull off the JT6 end of the arbor.  Here.

"Love Wins Fag" Hoax Gets Better

Here.

But breaking developments in this story may shed some light on what motivated Brown.

On Wednesday, Fox 7 Austin reported that Brown was sued just one month ago for nearly $30,000.

The complaint was filed on March 11, 2016 for breach of contract by the National Collegiate Student Loan Trust for unpaid student loans related to his education at Slippery Rock University, a public, master’s level university in Pennsylvania. Brown is being sued for an unpaid student loan balance of $24,885.25 and unpaid interest of $3,030.26, for a total of $27,915.51.

Fox 7 Austin also reported that the Facebook page of Brown’s church, the “Church of Open Doors,” was soliciting donations claiming that they are moving to a new location and expanding, but when they visited the address listed, they “found nothing, just an apartment complex.”

A Google search for the address listed on the Facebook page brings up the AMLI South Shore apartments. A nearby address listed on the Church of Open Doors’ website isn’t a church either, but a postal/courier business that also rents U-Haul trucks.

Obama Administration Putting Gun Nut on $20

But it is 4/20/16 New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department will announce on Wednesday afternoon that Harriet Tubman, an African-American who ferried hundreds of slaves to freedom, will replace the slaveholding Andrew Jackson on the center of a new $20 note, according to a Treasury official, while newly popular Alexander Hamilton will remain on the face of the $10 bill.

Other depictions of women and civil rights leaders will also be part of new currency designs.

This is a twofer for Democrats; puting a black woman in place of an Indian-killer.

Armed Robbery When You Aren't At Work: Not a Big Deal at VA

4/19/16 Daily Caller:

Department of Veterans Affairs Under Secretary David J. Shulkin gave false information to Congress Tuesday, claiming that a Daily Caller News Foundation post was wrong, only to have department officials be forced to admit shortly afterwards that the story was accurate.

TheDCNF exclusively reported in March that Elizabeth Rivera was reinstated to her VA job, thanks to union rules after she got out of jail on an armed robbery charge and subsequent criminal conviction.

TheDCNF asked department officials about the situation prior to publication and even got a written statement saying that Rivera’s behavior was not sufficient grounds for termination since it occurred in her off hours. Rivera was the driver in a 3 a.m. armed robbery with a career criminal....

But in the final seconds of Tuesday’s hearing, Miller, a Florida Republican, returned from outside the hearing room and announced that “I just confirmed with the Caribbean Healthcare System that the individual we were discussing is still on the payroll.”

“Thank you for correcting that,” Shulkin responded.

“Why in the world would someone who has been convicted of armed robbery still be working at Veterans Affairs?” Miller asked.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/19/house-panel-embarrasses-va-undersecretary-in-oversight-hearing-video/#ixzz46NOwdVLW

Presumably because the White House doesn't have any job slots open.

If Someone on Our Side Wrote This, We Would Not Publicize It

4/15/16 Everyday Feminism:

Rather, the point I want to focus on here is the experience of living with mental health issues that are “ugly” or social undesirable — disorders like violent psychopathy or paranoid schizophrenia that are generally considered unlikeable, freaky, disgusting, dangerous, or monstrous, even in social circles that consider themselves “progressive” on mental health issues.

In the same vein as the research I have been doing on child sexual abuse, homosexuality, and social dysfunction:

My whole life, I had struggled with patterns of behavior and emotion that I knew were “bad,” but couldn’t seem to control.

I lied compulsively about things that didn’t make sense. I was terrified of being abandoned, to the point that I became furiously, sometimes abusively, upset if I thought that my friends were hanging out without me. I was full of self-loathing and anger that I bottled up, and then released by self-injuring.   

I was charming and made friends easily, but friendships never lasted longer than a year or two — and each time one ended, I hated myself so much that I wanted to die. 

I did nearly die, twice, of suicide.

And, of course, I had grown up as a closeted trans girl of color in a cis, white supremacist society.  Ever since I could remember, I had been filled with rage and fear and self-loathing as a result of the constant messages that society, friends, and family sent me that said I was deviant, bad, wrong to the core....

Was there something broken inside me? Could it be fixed? 

I found my answer in that textbook — in a sub-chapter labeled, “Personality Disorders, Cluster B.”  My “symptoms” fit the profile of a mental disorder called Borderline Personality Disorder, a condition closely associated with psychopathy. It was, the textbook said, historically considered untreatable. 

In other words, there was something broken inside me — and no, it couldn’t be fixed.

Transparency

Remember all the hype when King Obama was crowned about transparency?  4/20/16 Daily Caller:

Federal health officials refuse to give Congress hundreds of subpoenaed documents on Obamacare’s failed co-ops so that people will continue enrolling in the deeply troubled program, a congressional leader said Tuesday.

Twelve of the 23 co-ops created in 2011 under Obamacare at a cost of $2.4 billion have failed, and another eight of the remaining 11 are likely to go under this year. But the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) won’t hand over documents subpoenaed months ago by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who chairs the House oversight committee, thinks HHS officials are purposely keeping potential co-op customers in the dark as long as possible.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/20/feds-blow-off-house-subpoena-for-obamacare-co-op-docs/#ixzz46NH1k88T

Does anyone in the media feel any guilt about putting this fraud in the White House?

There's a Right to Use the Other Sex's Bathrooms and Locker Rooms

4/19/16 Washington Post:

A federal appeals court in Richmond has ruled that a transgender high school student who was born as a female can sue his school board on discrimination grounds because it banned him from the boys’ bathroom.

In backing high school junior Gavin Grimm, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit deferred to the U.S. Education Department’s position that transgender students should have access to the bathrooms that match their gender identities rather than being forced to use bathrooms that match their biological sex. The department has said that requiring transgender students to use a bathroom that corresponds with their biological sex amounts to a violation of Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination at schools that receive federal funding.

This Used to Be a Crime

Now it is encouraged.  Many years ago, a friend told me of having to take a leak in Central Park at night and since NYPD was in the middle of one of its periodic "crackdown on crime" stunts he was arrested for public indecency as an exhibitionist and was for life a registered sex offender.  4/19/16 CBS News:

SAN FRANCISCO- A religious organization has filed a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco to remove an open-air urinal it calls unsanitary and indecent from a popular park.

The Chinese Christian Union of San Francisco filed a civil complaint last week demanding the city remove the concrete circular urinal from the iconic Dolores Park.

The group says the urinal, which is out in the open and screened only with plants for privacy, "emanates offensive odors," ''has no hand-washing facilities" and "it's offensive to manners and morals."

The lawsuit further alleges that the facility installed in February discriminates against women and the disabled and exposes those who use it to "shame and embarrassment."

Not surprisingly, the comments from the LGBT community are very supportive of it.  I am guessing the observation deck is very popular.  This of course in a city that only recently banned public nudity to ferocious protests.

Saudis in Trouble!

4/19/16 Financial Times:

Saudi Arabia is raising $10bn from a consortium of global banks as the kingdom embarks on its first international debt issuance in 25 years to counter dwindling oil revenues and reserves.


The landmark five-year loan, a signal of Riyadh's newfound dependence on foreign capital, opens the way for Saudi to launch its first international bond issue. It comes as the sustained slump in crude encourages other Gulf governments, such as Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Oman, to tap international bond markets.

My Schadenfreude has two reasons.

The Saudi government has been a large funder of Muslim proselytizing throughout the world.

1. Islam is religiously offensive to me.

2. By promoting it, it makes radical Islam more likely to be a secular problem for the West.