Information Request

It is widely believed among gun control nuts (and more than a few gun owners) that the various"assault weapons" are easily converted to full auto.  Except for wiring the sear back, a really stupid and sometimes lethal move, it really isn't.  (A few years back, an idiot did that with an SKS at a range in the Bay Area.  A total of 29 rounds were fired, most of which ended up in the shooter.  One the gun starts firing, releasing the trigger does nothing.)  Some readers indicate the incident was a frozen firing pin, not illegal conversion; not surprising, SKSs then came thoroughly soaked in Cosmoline.

There's both statutory and case law that clearly states that any gun that can be readily restored or converted to full auto is already a machine gun, even if you don't do it.  (A few semiautos have been reclassified as machine guns by BATF because of this.)

I see the gun control sheep make this statement often.  If you can give me pointers to such statements, and even better by politicians or leaders of the nuts, all the better.  Yes, there's a law review article I am writing on this myth.

Voters Are Not Completely Stupid

I mentioned a while back a Congresswoman from Florida indicted for soliciting money for a charity that primarily helped her.  She lost the primary.  8/30/16 The Hill:

Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.) is projected to lose her Democratic primary, making her the fifth House incumbent this cycle to be defeated in a primary.

Brown, who was indicted last month and whose district was redrawn after court-ordered redistricting, was defeated by former state Sen. Al Lawson in a primary for the Jacksonville-area seat.

With 98 percent of the votes counted Tuesday night, Lawson had 48 percent to Brown's 39 percent, according to the Associated Press. 

In early July, Brown and Chief of Staff Elias “Ronnie” Simmons, were charged with 24 counts of fraud in connection with a fake charity. The charges include mail and wire fraud, conspiracy and tax fraud, according to the Department of Justice.

If she had been convicted, would she have only received 30% of the vote?

The Tapmatic Reversing Tapping Head

A couple of minor struggles although with prompt, friendly, and helpful support from Tapmatic:

1. There's a retaining ring that holds the stop arm on the bottom of the head.  I could not figure out to install it, and the instructions gave no hint.  Retainer ring pliers: a tool completely unknown to me.  A neighbor used some very small end needle nose pliers instead to spread the ends enough to slip into place.

2. The collets that hold the taps seemed just a little too big.  I just needed to squeeze them manfully to get them into the housing.

I was able to run the tapping head sufficiently to power tap a 1/2"-13 x 1" deep hole in acetal.  When I released the handle, it reversed the tap.  It looks ugly to watch, but it works.

Not Tapmatic's fault, but the drill press chuck keeps falling out of the spindle.  This has been an intermittent problem for months, but the weight of the Tapmatic head combined with the rotational forces involved is aggravating the problem.  The proper solution is clean the arbor and spindle interior with acetone (or nail polish remover if only the local grocery store is open) and tap it back in with some vigor.  This isn't going very well so I am attempting to order a replacement arbor from Harbor Freight.  It appears the arbor is held into the chuck just by friction, and I should be able to tap it out through the open jaws.

Ever Wonder How the Holocaust Happened?

Progressives ignored just like they are doing today.  8/30/16 U.K Sun:

HIDDEN HELLS OF ISIS Thousands of bodies found in 72 mass graves as images reveal the shocking scale of ISIS’s industrial-scale murder
A SHOCKING investigation has uncovered the true scale and horror of ISIS’s bloody and merciless rampage across Iraq and Syria.The Associated Press (AP) has documented and mapped 72 mass graves, the most comprehensive survey of its type carried out, with many more expected to be uncovered as ISIS’s territory shrinks.

The Most PC of Corporations Gets EUed

8/29/16 Daily Mail:

Apple holds Europe to ransom: Tech giant threatens to cut jobs in EU after Brussels orders it to pay back £11BILLION in tax over 'illegal' sweetheart deal with Irish government 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3764393/Apple-faces-bill-billions-Irish-tax-affairs-EU-rules-company-effectively-received-state-aid.html#ixzz4IpgLo5nU Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

The Winer Gets His Just Deserts

8/29/16 New York Post:

Abedin, a top Hillary Clinton aide, released a statement saying, in part, “I have made the decision to separate from my husband.”

But further texts obtained by The Post show the ex-congressman had been expecting that news. He told his sext buddy that his nearly six-year marriage had been “busted” by the scandals he had forced Abedin to endure.

Great picture Weiner took of himself: the ultimate moronic expression.

Shocking and Wonderful

8/24/16 Business Insider:

A boycott against Target over its bathroom policy seems to be costing the retailer more than anyone expected.

The boycott started in April after Target announced that it would welcome transgender customers to use any bathroom or fitting room that matched their gender identity.

The announcement triggered an immediate backlash. Critics said the policy opened the door for sexual predators to victimize women and children inside the retailer's bathrooms, and more than 1.4 million people signed a pledge to stop shopping at Target unless it reversed the policy.

But Target didn't back down.

Now shopper traffic is declining for the first time in years, and the company is installing single-occupancy bathrooms in all of its stores to give critics of the policy more privacy. The new bathrooms, which already exist in a majority of Target stores, are costing Target $20 million to install, Fortune reports.

The company revealed its traffic declines last week when it reported second-quarter earnings.

Target's same-store transactions, which is how traffic is measured, fell 2.2% in the second quarter. Overall, sales fell 7.2% to $16.2 billion.

"In the second quarter, our No. 1 challenge was traffic, which affected sales in all of our merchandise categories," Target CEO Brian Cornell said last week on a call with analysts.

Remember How Brexit Was Going to Destroy the British Economy?

8/27/16:

One of Britain’s largest recruitment firms said the employment market has boomed since the EU referendum with an extra 30,000 new jobs on its books since the Brexit vote.In the eight weeks following June 23, there were 400,000 new jobs posted on Reed’s website – 30,000 higher than the same period in 2015 and an increase of 8 per cent.James Reed, chairman of Reed.co.uk, whose parent Reed Group has a turnover of more than £1billion, told The Mail on Sunday: ‘A lot of economists were confounded by last week’s Office for National Statistics figures which showed unemployment continuing to fall during July. But we were not surprised.

Read more: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-3761506/400-000-new-jobs-Brexit-bonanza-goes-against-tide-Project-Fear.html#ixzz4IjrikTGo
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Cool Android App

Physics Toolbox Suite seems intended to show off all the built-in sensors of your Android device:
gForce Meter, Linear Accelerometer, Barometer, Proximeter, Hygrometer, Thermometer, Compass, Light Meter, Magnetometer, Sound Meter, Pitch Detector, GPS, and a few useful output tools: Tone Generator, Stroboscope, Color Generator, and Ruler.

How You Can Tell a Democrat is Doing Childcare

8/28/16 New York Post:

This is baby-sitting — Anthony Weiner-style.

While his wife, Huma Abedin, travels the country campaigning for Hillary Clinton, the disgraced ex-congressman has been sexting with a busty brunette out West — and even sent her a lurid crotch shot with his toddler son in the picture, The Post has learned.

The stay-at-home cad shot the revealing photo while discussing massage parlors “near my old apartment” shortly after 3 a.m. on July 31, 2015, a screenshot of the exchange shows.

Weiner was clearly aroused by his conversation with the 40-something divorcee when he abruptly changed the subject.

“Someone just climbed into my bed,” Weiner wrote.

“Really?” she responded.

Weiner then hit “Send” on the cringe-inducing image, which shows a bulge in his white, Jockey-brand boxer briefs and his son cuddled up to his left, wrapped in a light-green blanket.

This isn't the first time Weiner has done something inappropriate with his cell phone.  He doesn't seem able to learn.

Amazon Sells EVERYTHING!

I get emails from Amazon vendors offering me discounted products in exchange for reviews.  These are almost entirely Chinese, with predictably bad English:

Hello,this is seller from amazon. We supply high quality gods for customer on amazon. 

Anglican Church Getting Ready to Split?

8/28/16 Telegraph:

A group of parishes is preparing what could be the first step towards a formal split in the Church of England over issues such as homosexuality, with the creation of a new “shadow synod” vowing to uphold traditional teaching.

Representatives of almost a dozen congregations in the Home Counties are due to gather in a church hall in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, later this week for the first session of what they say could eventually develop into an alternative Anglican church in England.

Organisers, drawn from the conservative evangelical wing of Anglicanism, say they have no immediate plans to break away - but are setting up the “embryonic” structures that could be used to do so if the established church moves further in what they see as a liberal direction.

I've never been terribly impressed with the Anglican Church's commitment to Biblical Christianity, and as the worldwide Anglican Church has to choose between the Bible and today's latest fad, I suspect these rebels are going to find common organization with the many Third World Anglican churches that are scratching their heads at the home nation church.

Two Pretty Awesome Films

Jane Got a Gun (2016) produced by and starring Natalie Portman.  A Western revenge drama.  Jane also got some dynamite, some Molotov cocktails, and a Union Army sniper, just to even the odds.  Am I surprised I didn't hear of it on theatrical release?

War in Winter (2008) is about German occupation of the Netherlands and resistance fighters helping a RAF pilot escape.  I suspect entirely fictional, but powerful.  My junior high German teacher was a Dutchwoman who forged documents for the Dutch Resistance.  Of course, it was easy because the local German military commander supplied the Resistance with blank identity forms.

American Voters And Gun Control

44% report a gun in home

% of registered voters who say it is more important to control gun ownership than protect gun rights

52% protect the right of Americans to own guns

46% Control gun ownership

One of my far left friends from long ago responded to this with:

It is important to know people opinions for governance.
However opinions and facts do not always match.

The progressive hatred of democracy.

Once again, I am pleased that I don't live in Canadian murder hellholes.

Idaho: 2.0/100,000

For the Canadian provinces:
Manitoba: 3.43
Saskatechewan: 2.13
Alberta: 2.52
Yukon: 6.88
Nunavut: 10.93

Yet all those provinces have Canada's restrictive gun control laws.

Idaho at that point had a shall-issue concealed weapon license law (now,  no licenses are required).  I can buy a gun without background check or waiting period, either at a licensed dealer or a gun show.  Friends own machine guns, completely legally.  Idaho is very similar demographically to Saskatechewan, Alberta, and Manitoba.  If gun availability or porous borders make , Idaho should be substantially worse than those Canadian provinces, not better.  Of course the gun control nuts don't care about murder rates; this is really about cultural disparagement.

Nightmare I Am Glad I Woke Up From

I dreamed that I woke up paralyzed except for eyelids.

Today's Physics Problem

How much energy do hydrogen atoms in interstellar space make on the front of a 500 meter diameter spacecraft travelling at 95% of the speed of light?  Yes, this is for the novel I am intermittently writing.

KE= 1/2 mv^2
m = mass of a hydrogen atom (not a molecule, interstellar hydrogen is about one atom per cubic meter, the last time I saw a figure quoted)
v = 2.85 x 10^8 m/s
KE units are joules

Calculate m by taking the mass of a mole of molecular hydrogen, which is 2 grams and contains 6.022x10^23 (Avogadro's number) molecules.  That means each molecule of hydrogen weighs 3.32 x 10-24 grams, so each hydrogen atom weighs 1.66 x 10-24 grams.

KE of each atom hitting is therefore 1/2 * 1.66 x10^-24 * (2.85 x 10^8)^2 or 1 x 10-7 joules.

The area of the face of a 500 meter diameter cylinder is pi*r^2 or 1.96 x 10^5 meters

Each meter forward in interstellar space (means therefore 1.96 x 10^5 hydrogen atom impacts per second.

Total energy per second (in spaceship time, which is relativistically altered of course by the speed) is 1.97 x 10-2 joules.  Over an hour, this is 1.17 joules.

A 9mm Parabellum has about 600 joules of energy.  Interstellar hydrogen atom collisions even at .95c are essentially trivial.

Anyone see any errors?  Really important if you plan to build a light-speed spaceship.

In case it isn't obvious, I am a fan of hard sci-fi like Asimov and Larry Niven.

Excellent and useful comments.

And yes, I tried to type 95%, not 05%.

Harbor Freight Tools: As Usual, More a Waste of Time Than Money

I have a 6" bench grinder from Harbor Freight.  Clumsily made, bad assembly instructions, but it works.  I got in my head that it would be neat to buff the aluminum parts of ScopeRoller products to mirror finish.  Harbor Freight sells the bench grinder with buffing wheels at the ends also.  Can I replace one of the grinding wheels with a buffing wheel?  Sure.  But after an hour trying to get the grinding wheel off (HF instructions useless but I found a YouTube video that shows how to clusily do it) and then running it with the buffing wheel?  Waste of time; the difference in weight and therefor inertia makes it hop around and because the buffing wheel is only held in place by an arbor (the center hole is much larger than the shaft), it tends to move around and starting running into the interior of the casting that keeps stuff from flying.  Useless, but at least only wasted a couple hours and $4.49.

I may send these aluminum parts out for polishing.

Causes of Poverty

I have often seen the claim made that 90% of poor adults:

1. Dropped out of high school.

2. Had children out of wedlock.

This doesn't seem implausible to me.  Does anyone know if there is some study from which this comes?

From a social advocacy group:

6. A higher percentage of young adults (31%) without a high school diploma live in poverty, compared to the 24% of young people who finished high school.

From UC Davis:

The Census Bureau reports poverty rates by educational attainment for people aged 25 and older. In 2014, the overall poverty rate for people aged 25 and older was 12%.
The poverty rates by work experience for that age group ranged from 5% to 29%.
5% for people with a bachelor’s degree or higher
10%for people with some college but no degree
14% for people with a high school diploma and no college
29% for people with no high school diploma

That's impressive.  Dropout alone is a big factor.

Brookings Institute:

Since 1970, out-of-wedlock birth rates have soared. In 1965, 24 percent of black infants and 3.1 percent of white infants were born to single mothers. By 1990 the rates had risen to 64 percent for black infants, 18 percent for whites. Every year about one million more children are born into fatherless families.

The same paper argues that Roe v. Wade played a big part in increasing these births:

Since 1969, however, shotgun marriage has gradually disappeared (see table 1). For whites, in particular, the shotgun marriage rate began its decline at almost the same time as the reproductive technology shock. And the disappearance of shotgun marriages has contributed heavily to the rise in the out-of-wedlock birth rate for both white and black women. In fact, about 75 percent of the increase in the white out-of-wedlock first-birth rate, and about 60 percent of the black increase, between 1965 and 1990 is directly attributable to the decline in shotgun marriages. If the shotgun marriage rate had remained steady from 1965 to 1990, white out-of-wedlock births would have risen only 25 percent as much as they have. Black out-of-wedlock births would have increased only 40 percent as much.

Another Gun Control Success Story

8/25/16 CTV Toronto:

Three dead in Scarborough crossbow incident; Case linked to suspicious package found downtown

I'm going to blame the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism).

Many years ago, Sonoma County had a crossbow murder trial.  Even weirder it was a murder for hire.

Remember Mad Magazines Snappy Comebacks Articles?

This qualifies:

AUGUST 25--A man spotted yesterday afternoon performing oral sex on a woman lying down on a Florida beach boardwalk told cops that he was an “emergency responder and had to assist the female as it was his duty,”

Tired of Being Compared to Nazis?

The 1924 NSDAP party platform is here:

We therefore demand:

11. The abolition of all income obtained without labor or effort.
Breaking the Servitude of Interest.
12. In view of the tremendous sacrifices in property and blood demanded of the nation by every war, personal gain from the war must be termed a crime against the nation. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
13. We demand the nationalization of all enterprises (already) converted into corporations (trusts).
14. We demand profit-sharing in large enterprises.
15. We demand the large-scale development of old-age pension schemes.
16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle class; the immediate communalization of the large department stores, which are to be leased at low rates to small tradesmen. We demand the most careful consideration for the owners of small businesses in orders placed by national, state, or community authorities.
17. We demand land reform in accordance with our national needs and a law for expropriation without compensation of land for public purposes. Abolition of ground rent and prevention of all speculation in land.
18. We demand ruthless battle against those who harm the common good by their activities. Persons committing base crimes against the People, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished by death without regard to religion or race....

20. In order to make higher education – and thereby entry into leading positions – available to every able and industrious German, the State must provide a thorough restructuring of our entire public educational system. The courses of study at all educational institutions are to be adjusted to meet the requirements of practical life. Understanding of the concept of the State must be achieved through the schools (teaching of civics) at the earliest age at which it can be grasped. We demand the education at the public expense of specially gifted children of poor parents, without regard to the latters’ position or occupation.

21. The State must raise the level of national health by means of mother-and-child care, the banning of juvenile labor, achievements of physical fitness through legislation for compulsory gymnastics and sports, and maximum support for all organizations providing physical training for young people. 

Remember the 1932 slogan:

Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz.

Common needs before individual needs.

Sure sound Republican, don't they?

A Sign of Madness

8/23/16 CBS New York:

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A public display of one of Shakespeare’s classics is offering a very revealing performance, but the participants said it is not about shock value.

CBS2 was there for a clothed dress rehearsal for the dressed-down performance of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” by Torn Out Theater.
The all-female cast will be all nude come showtime next month inside Prospect Park in Brooklyn. The group also performed earlier this year in Central Park.

“We were really interested in getting an audience to be able see nudity as non-sexual, non-threatening, and eventually not even strange,” said director Pitr Strait. “By the end the play, it’s normal.”

As CBS2’s Valerie Castro reported, the actors said it sends a message of body positivity.

“It’s being courageously vulnerable and generous with yourself as an artist, first and foremost, and saying, I’m doing this for this purpose,” said Suzannah Gratz.

Why is AP Doing Their Job?

8/23/16 Yahoo News reports on AP's report about corruption and even CBS covered it:

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. It's an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president.

At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press. Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million.

Racism As Government Policy

State University of New York at Binghamton has a training course for Residential Assistants (who work in the dorms).  8/21/16 Binghamton Review:

It came as a shock to Binghamton Review, then, when a page from Binghamton University’s Residential Assistant training schedule was sent to our Facebook page. Listed alongside an event meant to give RAs an “overview of disabilities in Higher Education,” was one called “#StopWhitePeople2K16.”

Naturally, we decided to check and see if this information were legitimate, and have determined that the event’s existence is well within the realm of possibilities. We would, however, love to be shown proof that the event was not part of the RA training schedule.
Essentially, the event was meant to teach RA’s about “understanding diversity, privilege, and the society we function within.” This type of rhetoric is commonplace in the university, and has become inseparable from the concept of social justice.

If you subscribe to the extremely leftist notion that to be racist against white people is “reverse racism,” and therefore white people cannot experience racism because “reverse racism” does not exist, then the title of this conference will not bother you. For the rest of the student population, however, the title may come as a bit of a shock, or at the very least spark interest in understanding the hashtag.

This nonsense that whites can never be victims of racism because they are, simply because of their race, in positions of power and authority, has been popular in leftist circles since I was an undergraduate.  Is a poor white person automatically in a position of power?

The Nerve of the Texas Legislature

They think because they own and fund the University of Texas, they can pass laws that regulate behavior there.  8/22/16 Texas Tribune:

A federal judge has denied three University of Texas at Austin professors’ initial attempt to keep guns out of their classrooms under the state’s campus carry law.

U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel ruled that the professors, who had sought a preliminary injunction to block implementation of the law, had failed to establish their likelihood for success. UT students resume classes on Wednesday, and the professors' case will continue to work its way through the court while the law remains in effect. 

The professors, Jennifer Lynn Glass, Lisa Moore and Mia Carter, filed their lawsuit against the university and the attorney general’s office. In the suit, the professors said the possibility of guns on campus could stifle class discussion in their courses, which touch on emotional issues like gay rights and abortion. They argued that was a violation of students' First Amendment right to free speech.

Earlier this month, after the case had a preliminary hearing in federal court, lawyers for the state asked that the suit be thrown out. UT-Austin joined the state, suggesting that the "incidental impact" on free speech does not violate the First Amendment.

UPDATE: It gets worse. 8/23/16 Texas Tribune:

Students, alumni and spectators eagerly snatched up more than 4,500 donated dildos Tuesday evening at the University of Texas at Austin, preparing to assuage their frustration over a new state law allowing handguns to be carried on public university campuses.

Cocks Not Glocks, a protest group formed last fall, is urging students and others to openly carry the sex toys around campus, offering a multicolored counterpoint to the concealed weapons that holders of handgun licenses can now legally carry inside UT classrooms and most buildings.

“We want these dildos on backpacks as long as there are concealed handguns in backpacks,” said Ana López, a UT sophomore and one of the Cocks Not Glocks organizers.

Tuesday night’s distribution — which featured dildo juggling and the sale of t-shirts with slogans such as "Take It and Come" — was a prelude to an anti-campus carry rally planned for Wednesday, the semester's first full day of classes.

“We want to make sure that students don’t just go home and take these [sex toys] as a joke,” López said.

How juvenile; comparing a tool of self-defense to a sex toy.

More Leftist Attempts to Destroy Hard Sciences

8/23/16 NPR:

Many colleges and universities have diversity requirements. Students have to take at least one class that directly engages with topics like race, ethnicity, gender. Well, one school, Hamilton College, a liberal arts college in New York state, is looking to go one step further. Joining us by Skype to tell us more is Karen Brewer, a chemistry professor at Hamilton College. She is chairing a subcommittee that will review potential courses before the school's new diversity requirement takes effect next year. Professor Brewer, thanks for joining us.

KAREN BREWER: Well, thank you for having me.

SIEGEL: Other colleges require diversity courses. What's going to make Hamilton's different?

BREWER: What's different about Hamilton's requirement is that each department will design the requirement for their majors. And in that way, they can make it relevant and meaningful to those students for their future goals in the department and their majors as well as in their careers.

SIEGEL: But if a student is majoring, say, in computer science or physics, is it germane to their major to take a course about race or ethnicity? Aren't - isn't the stuff they're studying essentially race neutral?

BREWER: Well, science depends upon a diversity of perspectives in order to kind of decide what questions to ask and what approaches to use to answer those very complex questions.

SIEGEL: Is it really important that your chemistry degree come along with some understanding of race and gender in chemistry?

BREWER: It's germane to what I said before, that science is dependent upon having a variety of perspectives. But also, it's conducted in laboratory groups in industry, government that are becoming more and more and already are very multicultural and multinational. So students thinking about this in the context of sciences is really beneficial to their careers. They'll hopefully be able to work more efficiently and better in teams, show leadership in those teams and hopefully to spot innovation when it's coming from a different perspective..

Remember ethnicity influences what happens when you combine sodium hypochlorite with nitric acid.

Are We Sure the Klan Didn't Put Them Up to This?

8/22/16 Cleveland channel 19:

AKRON, OH (WOIO) -A group of men chanting "Black Lives Matter" were accused of viciously beating up seven white victims in Akron early Sunday morning.
According to the police report, the attack happened around 12:30 a.m. in the area of Carroll and Goodkirk streets.
Police said seven white men were walking when they were approached by five black men and two white men, shouting, "Black lives matter."
The suspects started hitting them with bottles, punching and kicking the victims. One victim fell to the ground and was kicked in the head several times before losing consciousness. The suspects then took the victims' belongings before running off.  

More Evidence States Should Be Reducing Funding to State Universities Until Adults Take Over

So absurd that I went to West Virginia University's website to verify it is real:

Yes, using the non-PC pronoun around the transgendered is now a Title IX violation.

Setting Up a Wireless Router As Access Point

The TP_LINK wi-fi extender seems to have stopped working and the Reset button does NOT return it to its new state.  Worse, TP_LINK's support website will not let me in, nor does resetting my password help.  It appears that all I need is a wireless router.

0. Find a cheap used wireless router.

1. Connect a PC to the router.

2. Disable DHCP.

3. Give it an IP address that is not in the reserved IP address range of my current router.

4, Disconnect the PC from the AP router.

5. Plug my Ethernet cable into the WAN port on the AP router.

Is it that simple?

I am returning the TPLINK wifi extender.  It doesn't work and customer support could not figure it out.

How Far Back Do You Think the Term "Narc" Goes?

I am reading The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes, published early in the 20th century: "Had Johnson been a 'nark' of the police..."

Nice to See That Not Every Judge has Bought into The Nonsense

8/22/16 USA Today:

AUSTIN, Texas — A federal judge in Texas is blocking for now the Obama administration’s directive to U.S. public schools that transgender students must be allowed to use the bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their chosen gender identity.

Hundreds of school districts Monday woke up to news of the order by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor on the first day of class in Texas and elsewhere.

The decision dated Sunday comes after Texas and 12 other states challenged the Obama directive as unconstitutional during a hearing in Fort Worth last week. It applies to schools nationwide, as many districts reopen this week after the summer vacation.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, immediately cheered the decision.

“This president is attempting to rewrite the laws enacted by the elected representatives of the people, and is threating to take away federal funding from schools to force them to conform,” Paxton said. “That cannot be allowed to continue, which is why we took action to protect states and school districts.”

What makes this so absurd is to argue that such discrimination violated the sex discrimination laws.  

A New Blog on My Blogroll

My daughter is a social worker.

What Has Replaced Nigerian Princes, American Soldiers in Iraq With Crates of Cash

The crisis has finished! Work with us!
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I'd like to update that your system account it's all setup for you to start using today.
You now have access to the software that could make you bank in minutes.
Members just like YOU are earning up to 2,500 USD a DAY using this same software.
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Where do these scamsters find people stupid enough to buy into these schemes?  Have I ended up on a list of Democratic voters?

Threaded Inserts

ScopeRoller uses casters with two different stem sizes: 3/8"-16 and 1/2"-13.  The smaller size is for the less expensive (much less expensive!) low-priced version.  It would be good to have a single size threaded hole so that I can make up dozens of the threaded inserts at once.  One alternative that I have used once to retrofit an existing threaded hole is what is called a threaded insert, which looks like this:

The external thread is 1/2"-13; the internal thread is 3/8"-16.  You turn it into your 1/2"-13 threaded hole with a screwdriver, then screw the 3/8"-16 stem into the interior.  This lets you use one size threaded hole for both stem sizes.

There are many variants of this.  Some have little keys that you push inside to lock the external threads into the hole:

This prevents unscrewing the smaller thread from unscrewing the insert.

The problem is price.  The only reasonably priced ones (under $1 each) that I  have found so far are these:

These are brass with what are called "knife edge" threads, intended for self-tapping into wood.  (Very popular with home brewers, apparently.)  This might work okay in acetal, but at some point I want to switch to aluminum, and these threads apparently break under stress.  I really don't need brass, either.  But I am not having any luck finding them under $1.

Rockler seems to have what I need. $6.99 for a pack of 8.  Back ordered right now.

Irony Alert

NBC New York:

2 Killed During Newark's Annual Anti-Violence Celebration

For the second consecutive year, an annual anti-violence event in New Jersey's largest city has been marred by deadly shootings.

Two men were killed and a woman seriously wounded in separate shootings that occurred around the same time late Friday night in Newark, prosecutors in Essex County said Saturday. However, it does not appear that the incidents are connected.

Source: 2 Killed During Newark's Annual Anti-Violence Celebration | NBC New York http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/2-Killed-During-Newarks-Annual-Anti-Violence-Celebration-390806071.html#ixzz4I3tKZeCK Follow us: @nbcnewyork on Twitter | NBCNewYork on Facebook 

Must be a lie; New Jersey has very strict gun control laws.

Mass Production

No, not the kind that happens when a photon turns into matter and antimatter.  ScopeRoller is becoming enough work that I am starting to manufacture and stockpile components in boxes in the workshop.  2" square, 1/8" wall sleeve sections, 1.75" trapezoidal acetal sections that will be drilled and tapped for caster stems.  Instruction sheets.  Soon assembly of a set will be a few minutes of part picking and 10 minutes of assembly.  I am ordering a reversing tapping head to speed up the process and switch from acetal insets to the cheaper aluminum.

Got Mentioned in an Article About Black Guns Matter

http://billypenn.com/2016/08/21/inside-black-guns-matter-phillys-second-amendment-answer-to-police-brutality/

Dash Cam

I have been thinking of getting one. This looks reasonable:



Not because I am worried about accidents but because I love producing stuff like this:

I used to mount my antique Sony video camera on an adapter that I made that screwed into one of the Corvette's T-top connectors.  The Corvette is gone and converting analog video to digital is absurdly slow.

Windows 10: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

I downloaded a video from youtube and converted to a WMV file.  Under Windows 7,it worked fine.  But copying it to a Windows 10 PC, it always started far into the file regardless of whether I was using Windows Media Player or Groove (the Windows 10 equivalent). Downloading and converting under Windows 10 had the same results.  Utterly mystifying, like all things Windows 10.

Imagine if Seattle Was Offering

A class about black criminality?  8/18/16 U.K. Daily Mail:

An academic and author is offering courses for white people teaching them how to cope with their 'white fragility' - and tickets for the lectures have sold out.The City of Seattle is offering the class through its Office of Arts and Culture, with Dr. Robin DiAngelo taking students through the course.The workshops, which cost $60 to attend and had its first four-hour session on Wednesday night, focus on: 'the specific way that racism manifests through White Fragility and provides the perspectives and skills needed for white people to have more constructive cross-racial interactions'.The Office of Arts and Culture also defines 'white fragility' as: 'the inability for white people to tolerate racial stress.''White people in the U.S. live in a racially insular social environment,' a description on its website reads.'Because these racial perspectives are so rarely challenged within this environment, white people have not had to develop the stamina needed to tolerate racial stress. 

'When white people are challenged in cross-racial interactions, White Fragility triggers a range of defensive moves including: argumentation, invalidation, silence, withdrawal and claims of being attacked and unsafe. 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3747572/Seattle-classes-white-fragility-sold-out.html#ixzz4HnIkpb5Y 
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Path to Windows 7 Libraries?

I use xcopy to backup the contents of my Libraries, so I need a command line path to the various Libraries.  There are hundreds of answers on the Web, all wrong.  This should be easy.

Alternatively is there a backup program that keeps the files you backed up visible on your backup drive through Windows Explorer?

Windows 7 backup/restore do what I need, just very slowly.

Maybe He Really Is With Us?

8/18/16 U.K. Daily Mail:

Early reviews are that Trump was right on target when he aimed and fired.

'He fired several shots. I saw two for-sure bullseyes. At the distance we were I couldn’t tell you there wasn’t more,' Ron 'Duck' Wyatt, the mayor of nearby Troutman told DailyMail.com. 

'It was excellent marksmanship,' the former firearms instructor for police and civilians added.
Iredell County sheriff Darren Campbell vouched for Trump's skills while introducing the mogul to a supportive crowd of police officers. 'I gotta say this man can shoot,' he said....

Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on FacebookSheriff Campbell told reporters Trump shot an M-4 at the rural range, off a gravel road near Lake Norman, where Trump mentioned he owns property.

'I can tell you he shot quite well. He did a good. He is obviously proficient. It showed,' Campbell told DailyMail.com afterward.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3747692/Trump-target-fires-M-4-rifle-meeting-police-boasting-just-went-range-little-shooting-practice.html#ixzz4HjZK7CJZ Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

I am imagining Hildabeast trying this akin to Gov. Dukakis' famouse ad with him riding a tank.   But there would be no survivors.

So What Happened to Florida

Did the SMOD take out Florida?  I received a phone call from 321 area code a couple days ago, and since neither my phone nor me recognized the number, I assumed it was a ScopeRoller customer.  I have called back several times since then and I always get "All circuits are busy."

Wow! State Department Admits Criminal Behavior

8/18/16 AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- State Dept. says $400 million cash payment to Iran was contingent on American prisoners' release.

That's the whole article.

HP ADF Rollers

Someone (I can't remember who) told me that when the HP Automatc Document Feeders stop grabbing paper, it is usually that the rubber rollers are no longer sticky, and there is a fluid that you can apply to solve the problem.  This HP support document indicates that you clean them with distilled or filtered water.  That didn't work.

Anyone know what this magic fluid is?

One of my readers pointed me to this which has rave reviews.

Published

Cramer, Clayton E. (2016) "Assault Weapon Bans: Can They Survive Rational Basis Security?,"ConLawNOW: Vol. 8: Iss. 1, Article 1.  Somehow the law review converted Scrutiny to Scrutiny.

Fixed.

Obamacare: "Signed, Sealed and Delivered"

Saw this bumper sticker recently on the car of someone who probably doesn't know that many of the uninsured discovered that the $5000 deductible made the insurance too expensive for the middle class.  Now 8/16/16 Washington Post:

Insurance giant Aetna’s decision to stop offering much of its individual coverage through the Affordable Care Act is exposing a problem in President Obama’s signature health-care law that could lead to another fraught political battle in Congress.

Aetna’s announcement Monday night was the latest sign that large insurers are losing money in the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces, heightening concerns about the long-term stability of a key part of Obama’s domestic policy legacy. But addressing this issue could open the door to a nasty political fight, given that some Republicans have vowed to repeal the law outright.

If insurers continue to lose money, more are likely to withdraw from the marketplaces, a move that would reduce choices for consumers and could contribute to higher premiums. In one county, Aetna’s exit in 2017 could leave no insurers offering policies through its marketplace.

Aetna said it will exit 11 of the 15 states where it offers coverage through the Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare. That affects about 80 percent of its customers covered through insurance marketplaces.

Great comments on the article about this shows how wonderful Obamacare is.

More Criminal Gun Control Nuts

I have mentioned that gun control is a projection problem of essentially criminal people who believe everyone else is at least as evil as them;  hence the recurring arrests and convictions of members of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.  A new one: 8/15/16 New York Times:

NORRISTOWN, Pa. — She was a rising Democratic star. She was the first in her party to be elected state attorney general. She was one of the most powerful women in Pennsylvania.

But on Monday night, Kathleen G. Kane, the state’s top prosecutor, became a convicted criminal.

A jury found Ms. Kane, 50, guilty of nine criminal charges, including perjury and criminal conspiracy, convicting her of leaking grand jury information, and then lying about it, in an effort to discredit a political rival.

Ms. Kane was caught up in a web of scandal and counterscandal, threaded with lewd emails, political rivalries and alleged leaks. It has cost other state officials, including two State Supreme Court justices, their jobs and Ms. Kane her law license, although she has remained on the job as attorney general.

Bloomberg put her into office to push gun control, arbitrarily ending recognition of many other states' concealed carry licenses contrary to state law.

Windows 10 Beta Users

If you didn't know you were one, you aren't paying enough attention.  Why carefully QA when you can give away something that mostly works and fix all the problems that it emails back to you?  There's a reason my primary PC and my wife's are Windows 7.

Suddenly the external speakers on the Toshiba stopped working.  Headphones plugged into same 3.5mm jack worked fine.  I fiddled with all the myriad sound settings and controls, with no luck.

Apparently Windows 10 installed an update with an audio driver that did not work with external speakers.  I grabbed an audio driver from RealTek and boom.  It all works again.

When in Doubt, Build a Jig

When trying to machine or manufacture something, building a jig to hold something in position is almost always a good idea. I have been struggling with how to improve the accuracy of position of a piece of acetal inside a piece of square aluminum tube. The problem is that the acetal sometimes ends up a fraction of an inch too far out or too far in. So I took a piece of acetal already at the right depth and angle in an aluminum tube and put that against the workpiece in a vise.  Then I use a smaller piece of aluminum tube behind the acetal to tap it against the opposing jig.  It is then exactly in position.  Because the aluminum tube into which the acetal goes has a 1/4"-20 hole in it, a thumbscrew locks the smaller aluminium tube in position against the rear of the acetal piece. Now I can drill through the square aluminum tube into the acetal and be sure that it is exactly matched up with the end of the aluminum tube where it meets the jig.

Hard Boiled Eggs

I learned, I think from my mother, to immerse hard boiled eggs immediately in cold water to make them easier to peel.  Like much that I learned from my mother, it was both utilitarian and pedestrian.  (Can you tell that I am reading too much Arthur Conan Doyle?)  Why does this work. I suddenly realized why yesterday. The membrane that prevents easy peeling is pressed by the expansion of the white against the inside of the shell; immediate cooling causes the white to shrink back pulling the membrane with it. Thus, there is nothing causing the membrane to stick to the inside of the shell.

Car Porn

I use this term quite carefully.  Like the other kind, this is stuff that makes you want something you can't realistically have: sex with with women so extreme in their physical attributes that they are probably mostly artificial; levels of pleasure that are probably better on filn than in reality; and it makes you look on your current car with disappointment.  Head 2 Head  is comparisons of various vehicles that even I would be a fool to buy.  The first episode compares two Mercedes offroaders, a 4x4 and 6x6 with price tags >$200K.  Some of the other comparisons involve cars in the realm of people with good jobs: Camaro Z28, Ford Mustang.  Some are just silly like testing a Bentley.

Apex is what caused me to stop watching.  Bugatti Veyron: 1200 HP, top speed 255 mph; $1.5 million price.  If you want to know why there is rage at the 1%, it is cars like this, which have no practical value as cars.  As one of people involved admitted, these are about bragging rights.

Hyena Road

Action war movie.  It's gotta be about U.S. military, right?  No, about Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.  Remember what had been for a while the most long distance sniper kill in history:

Furlong enlisted in the Canadian Army and served with the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.
In March 2002, Furlong participated in Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan's Shah-i-Kot Valley. His sniper team included MCpl. Graham Ragsdale (Team Commander), MCpl.Tim McMeekin, MCpl. Arron Perry, and Cpl. Dennis Eason. A group of three Al-Qaeda fighters were moving into a mountainside position when Furlong took aim with his Long Range Sniper Weapon (LRSW), a .50-caliber McMillan Brothers Tac-50 rifle, loaded with Hornady A-MAX 750 gr very-low-drag bullets. He began firing at a fighter carrying an RPK machine gun. Furlong's first shot missed and his second shot hit the knapsack on the target's back. The third struck the target's torso, killing him. The distance was measured as 2,430 m (2,657 yd).

An awesome, if depressing film reminding us that when the U.S. invoked the NATO treaty, Canada did its part.

Why the Democrats Appeal So Well to Feminists

Because the Democrats want more Muslims to move here.  7/30/16 U.K. Daily Mail:

A hardline Muslim preacher suspected of radicalising three British jihadis told teenage disciples that it is ‘permissible’ under Islam to have sex slaves.

Ali Hammuda, an Imam at a Cardiff mosque where three young jihadis from the city worshipped before travelling to Syria to join Islamic State, also told the group of boys as young as 13 that the ‘day of judgment is close’ – a key part of IS’s warped propaganda....

The cleric’s extraordinary preachings were recorded secretly at a halaqa, or religious study circle, at the Al-Manar mosque by an undercover reporter. The event was publicised by posters mimicking the famous British wartime propaganda slogan, declaring Keep Calm And Come To Halaqa. Fringed by drawings of sports equipment, the poster added: ‘Brothers Only, Ideal age 13-18. Followed by indoor football.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3716280/Yes-boys-sex-slaves-Outrage-British-Muslim-cleric-mosque-Cardiff-jihadis-radicalised-tells-teenagers-captives-permissible-Islam.html#ixzz4HLFlXk9U Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

The invitation to boys 13-18 would be equivalent a Christian church inviting overweight Christians to an event where they were told gluttony is compatible with Christianity.

And this guy isn't a kook extremist.

The largest Muslim umbrella group in Wales has claimed “all mosques and Muslim institutions in Wales” are peaceful, as they backed an imam who told his congregation that war is approaching and Islam allows them to take women as slaves and rape them.

The Muslim Council of Wales (MCW), an affiliate of the Muslim Council Britain, said in astatement signed by 40 prominent “community leaders” that Imam Ali Hammuda’s comments had been “misrepresented”.

And this isn't a weird misreading of the Koran, as I have pointed out before.

Another Illegal Mayor Against Guns?

8/10/16 New York Times:

First, the residents of Stockton, Calif., learned that their mayor was the owner of a stolen gun linked to a homicide. Days later, he was arrested at a camp he runs for disadvantaged youths, accused of secretly recording teenagers playing strip poker, providing alcohol to minors and endangering children there a year earlier.

Those were the latest in a string of episodes that have placed Stockton’s mayor, Anthony Silva, under intense scrutiny, upending a Northern California community of nearly 300,000 people that is already struggling to repair wounds inflicted by violent crime and the 2008 foreclosure crisis.

Like many other criminals either convicted of or arrested for felonies, he is a member of Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Gun control advocacy is primarily a projection problems.  Criminals in high office project their own defects on everyone else.

Brain Fatigue

I have mentioned in the past that very demanding mental work like debugging even fairly simple programs seems beyond me now.  But even relatively simple tasks if done long enough seem to fatigue my mental capacities.  When I tax my brain too many hours in a row, my speech slurs more severely.  My wife has been insisting that I do less because by the end of the day I am not very understandable.  She says it is like living with an alcoholic, a painful subject since she grew up in an alcoholic home.  I now have to limit myself to about five hours a day, and spend the rest relaxing, or reading light materials, such as The Collected Stories of Sherlock Holmes.

A Series of Pilot Errors Prevented This Important Paper From Being Visible on SSRN

But now it is, not that anyone on the Left cares about racism:

The Racist Origins of California's Concealed Weapon Permit Law

Clayton E. Cramer 

College of Western Idaho

Joseph Edward Olson 

Hamline University - School of Law
April 27, 2015
Abstract:      

California’s concealed weapon permit law has a curious history, awash in racism. This paper examines the history of why California’s constitutions (1849 and 1879) lack the right to keep and bear arms provisions common in other state constitution and shows the openly stated racist intentions behind California's three concealed weapon statutes, including the current law.

You Could Get Cynical About the Clintons

I don't think charitable contributions by a candidate are the most important measure of their worth but this looks bad.  8/12/16 Daily Caller:

Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill deducted $1,042,000 in charitable contributions last year — $1 million of which went to their own family non-profit, the Clinton Foundation...

The documents show that the power couple earned $10,745,378 last year, mostly on income earned from giving public speeches.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/12/96-percent-of-hillarys-charitable-donations-in-2015-went-to-clinton-foundation/#ixzz4H8w1uD9w

No wonder they sympathize with the poor and middle class.  Who can live on that?

Even the L.A. Times is Covering the Clinton Corruption

8/12/16 Los Angeles Times:

But Clinton, too, has had difficulty staying on task. The fresh batch of emails was pried from the State Department thanks to a lawsuit filed by the conservative advocacy group Judicial Watch. It revealed what appeared to be seedy dealings by Clinton’s team at the agency.

In one message, a top Clinton aide appears to be trying to get a million-dollar donor from the family’s Clinton Foundation access to the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, after an executive at the foundation requested it. In another, the foundation executive appeared to request special help finding a job for an associate, and he was assured that the right people knew of the potential employee.   

Any guesses as to whether Clinton News Network covers this?

Democrat Controlled City

No wonder they support gun control.  Their people are out of control.  8/11/16 Chicago Tribune:

Nearly 100 people have been shot in Chicago in less than a week, pushing the number of shooting victims so far this year to more than 2,500 — about 800 more than this time last year, according to data kept by the Tribune.

Between last Friday afternoon and early Thursday, at least 99 people were shot in the city, 24 of them fatally.  At least nine people were killed on Monday alone, the deadliest day in Chicago in 13 years, according to Tribune data. Among the wounded that day was a 10-year-old boy shot in the back as he played on his front porch in Lawndale.

The number of shooting victims in Chicago stood at 2,514 Thursday morning. At this time last year, 1,725 people had been shot.  The city has not seen this level of gun violence since the 1990s, a trend the Police Department has blamed on lax gun laws and feuding gang factions.

How about blaming on the savages that elect Democrats?