Snowing Up A Storm Out There

The poor UPS drivers climbing our steep but at least paved driveway.

Latest Spam/Scam

We have written a program that makes money on the stock exchange without human intervention!
It does not make mistakes and takes a decision only after analyzing all the world markets.
It is beyond ordinary individual power.
While you are sleeping, the program is working.
Please, do not rush to make a lot of money; otherwise you will attract attention of somebody who could understand that it is trading machine.

Most of these show a weak knowledge of English.  Even when not technically wrong, they read "funny."

Is anyone stupid enough to be taken in by these?  Progressives are dull enough, but usually well enough off from their trust fund that I assume they don't bother.

Attitudes About Rape

Progressives keep using Europe and its social democracies (really welfare state capitalism--most democratic socialists abandoned socialism long ago) are the model for the U.S.  11/30/16 RT (yes, I know they are effectively Putin's propaganda arm):

A Eurobarometer survey has shown alarming tendencies in attitudes towards sex without consent, with about 27 percent of respondents across the EU saying sex without consent is justifiable.

Most respondents cite reasons like being drunk or on drugs (12 percent), agreeing to go home with someone (11 percent), wearing revealing clothes, or not clearly saying no or physically fighting back (both 10 percent).

Sorted by country, those surveyed in Romania and Hungary tended to be the most likely to say each situation could justify sex without consent, while respondents in Sweden and Spain were among the least likely to say so.

Russia has become, at least in its own mind, a defender of social conservative values.

As a number of the commenters on that story point out, a large percentage of Europeans now are Muslims, which might explain these numbers as well progressive desires to increase their numbers here.  Violent crime is always the argument for gun control, even when it involves a car and a knife.

"Self-Radicalization": What Am I Missing?

11/29/16 Reuters story:

WASHINGTON/COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - A Somali immigrant who injured 11 people at Ohio State University in a vehicle and stabbing attack before he was shot dead may have followed the same path to self-radicalization as militants in a number of "lone wolf" attacks, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

Self-radicalization sounds the the political version of the sin of Onan.  I suspect there would be less if we could develop an IP-seeking drone that traces back to the originating authors of the ISIS garbage.

Sounds Like Cultural Appropriation to Me

11/29/16 U.K. Independent:

People demonstrating at North Dakota's Access Pipeline protest have expressed frustration at white demonstrators who are reportedly turning up to "colonise" the camp.

Concerns have been raised by protestors on social media, who claim that people are arriving at the Standing Rock demonstration for the "cultural experience" and treating it like Burning Man festival.

I understand the Indian upset.  This is not a party.  But you lie down with progressives you wake up with fleas.

The Ohio State Terrorist Attack

11/29/16 Chicago Tribune:

The Somali-born student who went on a car-and-knife rampage at Ohio State University railed on Facebook against U.S. interference in Muslim lands and warned, "If you want us Muslims to stop carrying lone wolf attacks, then make peace" with the Islamic State group, a law enforcement official said Tuesday....

A law enforcement official said Artan came to the United States in 2014 as the child of a refugee. He had been living in Pakistan from 2007 to 2014. It is not uncommon for refugees to go to a third-party country before being permanently resettled. 

Wow!  A Muslim refugee!  No wonder Democrats want more!  I understand this car and knife attack is being called an argument for gun control.  Of course.  Never let facts get in the way of your fanaticism.

Turning on Collision Coverage

Every winter, for a number of years, I have turned on collision insurance on the X-type and removed it on my three season car (until two years ago, the Corvette).  I reverse this when we get past snow.  This isn't really necessary anymore because the Jaguar XF with snow/ice tires is as surefooted as the X-type with studded snow tires, and the tire switching twice is really cheap.  But I need a new battery in the X-type, so I called Progressive today to turn collision on.  It used to be immediate turn-on and turn-off.  Turn-on is now delayed five days, but turn-off is still immediate.  Why?

I think I have figured it out.  Someone is driving a car without collision coverage.  He has an accident, then calls the same day and turns on collision, figuring that the insurer won't know if the accident was before or after collision was turned on.  With a five day interval this scam won't work.  It is annoying, but the battery problem can wait five days.  I have been thinking of trading the X-type and TrailBlazer in on a new SUV (perhaps a Jeep Patriot) for my wife and this collision switching will no longer be needed.

Becoming Wealthy: Updated

If you haven't read this, you might want to.  I want all my readers to be rich.  I have updated it with new learning about preferred stocks and retirement.

Cute Bumper Sticker I Saw Yesterday

In Idaho, no problem.  In New Jersey or New York, it  might get you pulled over and searched:

Guns Don't Kill People
Drivers With Cell Phones Do

High-Yield

I had to reinvest some Treasury proceeds.  Northstar Realty Finance Corp NRF:NYSE is a Real Estate Investment Trust with an 10.47% annualized yield at present.  

GENERAL ELEC CAP CORP NT 53 GEH:NYSE is a preferred stock with a 4.88% annualized yield trading yield for long-term security; I can't picture General Electric going under, and preferred stocks have a very high position in the queue for assets at bankruptcy.   It is also below its call price of $25 per share.  The next possible call is 01/29/18, so I can be sure of getting some nice dividends over the next year plus two months.

I am a bit focused on high yield stocks and when interest rates go up, on bonds.  My long-term disability checks will stop in February, and at some point I will finish my research project for NRA.  Having significant growth in my Schwab account so that I can start taking 5% a year from it will become important.

Remember: if you are interested in becoming wealthy (and many are not), see this.  I need to update it with what I have since learned about maintaining wealth in retirement.

Slippery, Sloppy Snow

Driving down the driveway in yesterday's sloppy wet snow was a bit like sledding, not driving, so I went down to Eagle Tire Pros to have my snow/ice tires installed.  What a difference!

The little Jaguar, an X-type,* has been garaged since last winter, with a solar panel and battery minder hooked up to keep the battery charged.  Alas the battery is not charging.  I suspect that I will have the battery replaced today.

* We keep waiting for Jaguar kittens, but perhaps we need to keep them both in the same garage.

Veni, Vidi, Vici

You may be aware of this marvelously concise description by Julius Caesar of the Battle of Zela, often reused, or referenced by others: from the heroic King Jan of Poland V"enimus, Vidimus, Deus vicit" ("We came, We saw, God conquered") after the Battle of Vienna to the really asinine: Hilary Clinton "We came, we saw, he died." (after Gaddafi's death).

It struck me that the Reader's Digest version of the Gospels can be fit into this model: Veni, et resurrexit, vici (I came; I resurrected, I conquered.)

Saw This in a Thrift Store

Very sad because it is not that he is a widower.

First Serious Snow

Those in the Dakotas or Michigan, go ahead and laugh at our "dusting."

Not Your Typical Mass Murder

11/28/16 KDKA:

COLUMBUS, Ohio (KDKA/AP) — At least 9 people have reportedly been injured in a stabbing and shooting incident at Ohio State University.
Columbus Fire Department officials tell CBS affiliate WBNS that 9 victims with gunshot wounds and stab wounds have been transported to area hospitals.

Seven of those patients were reportedly stable, at least one of them critical.

Law enforcement says one suspect has been shot and is dead and that they were possibly looking for a second suspect....

Police tell WBNS that the incident started around 9:30 a.m. this morning when a vehicle ran into the chemical engineering building. Witnesses said two people jumped out of the vehicle, one with a gun, the other with a knife.

What are the chances one is named Mohammed?

Castro's Death

Progressives everywhere are mourning the death of Fidel Castro, as Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau observed, Castro "made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation."

Hmm: Hitler created a really great road system, which inspired the U.S. Interstate highway system,  His scientists demonstrated that cigarettes cause cancer.  He dramatically reduced unemployment, implemented an innovative campaign to reduce population and thus the ecological load on Europe, as well as massive redistribution of wealth (much into governmental coffers), and a very low cost urban renewal program.

See how easy it is to be a progressive?

I Used to Feel Bad About Peer-Reviewed Journals Not Even Considering My History Papers

From the Global Warming Policy Forum:

Hoss Cartwright, a former editor of the International Journal of Agricultural Innovations and Research, had a good excuse for missing the 5th World Congress on Virology last year: He doesn’t exist. Burkhard Morgenstern, a professor of bioinformatics at the University of Gottingen, dreamt him up, and built a nice little scientific career for him. He wrote Cartwright a Curriculum Vitae, describing his doctorate in Studies of Dunnowhat, his rigorous postdoctoral work at Some Shitty Place in the Middle of Nowhere, and his experience as Senior Cattle Manager at the Ponderosa Institute for Bovine Research. Cartwright never published a single research paper, but he was appointed to the editorial boards of five journals. Apparently, no one involved in the application processes remembered the television show Bonanza, or the giant but amiable cowboy named “Hoss” who was played by actor Dan Blocker. Despite Cartwright’s questionable credentials, he was invited to speak at several meetings such as the 5th World Congress on Virology—typically a mark of recognition as an expert.

Weimar Republic Currency?

Somewhere I have a 100,000,000 mark note from the Weimar hyperinflation.  Venezula is headed there.  11/27/16 Washington Post:

CARACAS, Venezuela — It’s not so easy to find someone who still uses a wallet in Venezuela, where inflation is expected to reach 720 percent this year and the biggest bill — 100 bolivars — is worth about 5 U.S. cents on the black market.

 The currency has dropped dramatically in value as Venezuela’s oil-based economy has cratered and the government has frantically printed more money. Prices, meanwhile, are soaring. So Venezuelans must handle huge volumes of cash — so much that the bills don’t always fit in a standard wallet — with many people packing wads of currency in handbags, money belts or backpacks.

The owner of a tiny kiosk selling newspapers, cigarettes and snacks in one of Caracas’s nicer neighborhoods said that each evening he quietly stuffs a plastic bag full of the day’s earnings, around 100,000 bolivars (about $52) in notes of 10, 20, 50 and 100 bolivars. This is a country with one of the highest crime rates in the world, and carrying that much cash is dangerous. He said he doesn’t feel safe, despite having his own scooter rather than using public transport.

Another progressive victory!

Today's Curious Bumper Sticker

"The river may be quiet, but that doesn't mean the crocodiles have left." 

I'm hoping the figurative crocodiles are terrorists, not Republicans.

Scary Thanksgiving Food

I was surprised and pleased to see a huge unsold quantity at Winco two days after Thanksgiving.  Heinz canned gravy.  Why would you not make it yourself?

Remember the Bicycle Generators in Soylent Green?

A green lighting system:

What could be better for providing light in a poor country with no electricity [for lighting other] than a cheap kerosene lamp? A group of renewable entrepreneurs think they have found the answer – meet Gravity Light, a third world LED lighting system powered by lifting a bag containing 12Kg (27lb) of rocks every 20 minutes.

So every 20 minutes, some poor person has to lift 27 lbs of rock to have light.  So much better (if you live in a First World penthouse) than allowing their country to join at least the Second World.  What is the efficiency of the corn to human energy conversion?

Those Reactionary Sexist Teachers

MSN News reports that exit polls showed that 1/5 of American Federation of Teachers members voted Trump, and 1/3 of National Education Association members also voted for Trump.  Of course the head of the AFT knows why:

AFT President Randi Weingarten, whose union represents about 1.6 million teachers and other workers, said some of the reason for Clinton's defeat was timing — and perhaps sexism. 

“Frankly I was always concerned about whether the country was ready to have a female president,” she said. “There was an intensity of hatred that male political figures never get. So I think we’re never really going to understand it.”

Yeah, unlike the fawning uncritical love fest that Trump enjoyed.  That picking a Wall Street candidate who at best was negligent with confidential emails and likely so because of pay-for-play does not even occur to Weingarten.  That many  members are married to men who are probably seriously injured by the destruction of the economy doesn't occur to these idiots.  And why should we give them useful knowledge?  Just let them keep picking anti-gun candidates whose major qualifying attribute is below the waist.

While the latest exit polling shows that the bulk of union members still voted Democrat in 2016, the Washington Post reported that Trump trailed Clinton by only eight points among union households. The data shows Trump brought out more union support than any Republican since Ronald Reagan carved out a group of Democrats thereafter known as the “Reagan Democrat.”

Hmmm.  I mentioned before the election that this looked like a repeat of 1980, except in 1980, Democrats picked someone who was a highly competent leader compared to Obama/Clinton.

Indeed, according to some union activists, Trump’s ascension to the Oval Office may present “an extinction level event” for unions as Republicans take control of both houses of Congress, the White House,and maybe even the Supreme Court if Trump follows through on campaign promises to appoint conservative-leaning justices.

If only.  Of course other union leaders are saying that it had nothing to do with issues such as climate change (industrial extinction) or gun control (bans):

Perhaps in an effort to console himself, The AFL-CIO’s political director, Michael Podhorzer, told Politico that union members didn’t vote on issues. As far as Podhorzer was concerned, his members only broke for Trump because they didn’t like Mrs. Clinton’s personality. “I would argue that this was not an election that was won or lost on issues and policies,” he insisted.

They broke  for Trump because of his more winning personality?

A Lovely Thanksgiving

My daughter and son-in-law and their two kids, and a college student they had as a roommate over the Christmas break (dorms closed and her parents are missionaries in Taiwan), our son and his girlfriend, and my son-in-law's brother and his two kids.  Unfortunately, some are making long car trips today, so we will soon see Flaming Turkey Wings on the menu.

Squaring Tubes With an Milling Machine

Okay, after an hour changing the belt and swearing I would never leave the mill alone on the first try again, it worked well.  I changed the program to cut the top half of the tube one pass, and the bottom of the tube on the second pass.  I also made the first slice at .1" from the nominal end of the tube (in case there were any rough edges sticking out and because it probably isn't square out of the chop saw).  Then .05" from the end, then .01", then 0, then 0.1".  Everything comes out pretty nice with just a little pattern from the finishing mill, which sands out nicely.  Not quite as pretty as squaring it on a lathe, but adequate for my needs.

I Have Loved Jesus, Take the Wheel From When I First Heard It

Just saw the video that Carrie Underwood made.  Awesome!  Tells two stories at once.  When you find your life spinning out of control, or just sitting in a hospital bed wondering when if ever you are getting out.

Awesome Picture, Especially for Day After Thanksgiving When Pizza Orders Skyrocket

Fox channel 5 (not sure where):

Domino's training reindeer to deliver pizzas in Japan

This was first on American TV.  For Britain, this is post-Christmas:

Home Schooling

I sometimes wish we had home schooled our kids, no because the schools were that bad in Rohnert Park, Cal., but because the values of most of the kids reflected the values of the parents.  As a college instructor, I sometimes had reminders that some of those doing so were not doing their kids any favors, such as a student who had never done a research paper before arriving at College of Western Idaho.

Still, stories like this give me hope.  11/18/16 USA Today:

Torsoe was one of several hundred home-schooled teenagers deployed by a group called Generation Joshua in key Senate races in the days before the election to work for Republican incumbents whose re-election would determine whether the chamber remained in GOP hands.

All four – Toomey in Pennslvania, Marco Rubio in Florida, Roy Blunt in Missouri, and Ron Johnson in Wisconsin – won races. And all four outperformed independent polls in the last week of the campaign, helping to keep the Senate in Republican control.

And How Did This Happen?

11/25/16 U.K. Independent:

CNN 'accidentally airs' 30 minutes of non-stop hardcore porn

And because of what this "special" replaced:

Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown takes on an entirely new meaning

Apparently only in Boston, where some viewers probably thought it was edgy, transgressive, or because it starred trans porn stars, an attempt to shake normal people out of their bourgeois morality.

So, how?  Did hey get hacked?  Was some bored tech in Boston watching this and accidentally pushed the wrong button?  Is no one paying attention to what they are sending?

Another Machining Lesson Learned

I have developed enough confidence in my knowledge of feed rates and depth of cut when milling acetal on the top surface to start it up and come half an hour later to a completed operation.  I am currently trying to side mill aluminum to square off a tube.  (Yes, I should do that on the lathe, but machining steel dulled my carbide tool and of course I had no spares.  Next time, ten of them, which also gets a 20% discount from Sherline.) 

What happens if your finish end mill gets stuck and stops turning?  I shudder to think what happens on a gear-driven vertical mill.  On the Sherline, it burns out the drive belt--a $5.50 part.  But it takes an hour and myriad temptations to swear.  The cleverness of the Sherline design makes some replacements very hard.  No more trusting it until I have run through attended at least once,

Yes, New York Isn't Like America

11/23/16 New York Times:

A man with a gray ponytail rhythmically flogged a mostly nude woman draped over a small picnic table. Surrounding them, diners reclined on pillows, sultan style, around nine human “tables,” naked but for flesh-tone underwear and high heels. Dinner, consisting of North African comfort food prepared by a former “Chopped” contestant named Samia Behaya, was artfully arranged atop them.

“I would recommend not using your hands,” said one comely female platter, covered in raw sliced root vegetables. A man obligingly knelt beside her and plucked a radish from her torso with his teeth. “Vegetables are sexy,” cooed a nearby woman in a bustier bodysuit.

Organized by Abby Hertz, 32, a performance artist based in Bushwick, the party was called Lust and was billed as an alternative Thanksgiving, a pre-emptive reprieve from the constraints of going home for the holidays. The recurring party, which was first held on Valentine’s Day, straddles the worlds of sex, art and dinner.

Leather vests, corsets and latex predominated, but there were glimpses of glitter, sparkles and a dash of rainbows, too. “This is much more inclusive than typical fetish parties,” said Joe Hart, 31, a sustainability consultant from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, who was shirtless and wearing dark lipstick and a pair of lace suspenders. “It’s a measured ‘anything goes.’"

I know that not every New Yorker thinks this is okay, but it says a lot about what constitutes art to the intellectuals there.

 

Racism That Progressives Have Promoted

11/23/16 New York Daily News:

Cops busted a Queens man for trying to push a straphanger onto the subway tracks in Harlem and yelling, “I hate white people!”

Police cuffed Gary Weeks, 51, of Wavecrest for the bizarre attack Monday at 2 p.m. at the 4-5-6 subway station at 125th St. and Lexington Ave., officials said.

The straphanger was waiting for a northbound train when Weeks walked up to him and tried to push him onto the tracks.

Good Planning: Unfortunate the Left Insists That We Increase the Risk

11/24/16 Yahoo News:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York police will use sand-filled trucks, radiation detectors, bomb-sniffing dogs and heavily armed officers on Thursday to defend the 90th Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which Islamic State has encouraged its followers to attack.

Officials expect 3.5 million people to converge on the 2.5-mile (4-km) parade route in Manhattan for the annual, nationally televised ritual that initiates the holiday shopping season with giant balloons shaped like cartoon characters.

The 82 sand trucks from the Sanitation Department will be used to counter a threat by Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh, which has called the parade an "excellent target."

The group has encouraged readers of its online magazine Rumiyah to use motor vehicles to kill and injure people, similar to the way a Tunisian-born assailant killed more than 80 people at a Bastille Day celebration in Nice, France.

The sand trucks weigh 16 tons (14.5 metric tons) and twice that when filled with sand, making them difficult to move even if rammed by large vehicles.

So this is why we need to import 100,000 inadequately screened refugees from Muslim nations?

Tornadoes & Climate Change

Last year the White House was warning that climate change was going to increase deaths from tornadoes.

Now the 11/23/16 Washington Post tells us about a tornado record:

In all of November, only one lonely tornado has touched down in the entire U.S. This lack of tornadoes is nearly unprecedented, but consistent with the calendar year of 2016, in which has twister activity has rivaled the lowest levels on record.

Through Monday, zero tornadoes had been reported so far this month. That changed Tuesday when a tornado was spotted by a pilot in northeast Kansas.

With an average November tornado tally of 58 (1991-2010), we are in near-record low territory for the month.

Only four other years in records dating back to the 1950s have witnessed comparably low tornado activity in November according to Harold Brooks, a tornado expert with NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory. 1976 had zero tornadoes, 1954 had two, and three occurred in 1980 and 2009, he said.

Remember, my book about climate change is available in both Kindle and paperback formats.

Falling Abortion Rates

11/23/16 ABC News:

The number and rate of abortions tallied by federal authorities have fallen to their lowest level in decades, according to new data released Wednesday.

The latest report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, incorporating data from 47 states, said the abortion rate for 2013 was 12.5 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44 years. That's half the rate recorded in 1980.

The last time the CDC recorded a lower rate was 1971, two years before a Supreme Courtruling extending abortion rights nationwide.

Even if you aren't pro-life, this is good news.  Abortion is an expensive and medically poor form of birth control.

Racists in Politics

From 11/23/16 RealClearPolitics:

Symone Sanders, former spokeswoman for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, appeared on CNN Wednesday afternoon to weigh in on the future of the DNC and the Democratic party. Sanders dismissed the idea of Howard Dean returning as DNC chairman commenting, "we don't need white people leading the Democratic party right now."

"Howard Dean is also on record maligning young people and millennials. Telling those Bernie folks they just need to get in line and maligning Bernie Sanders. And that is not what we need," Sanders said about the former party chairman.

Bad news Symone, the Democrats are still majority white. Why are you discriminating against whites?

Some Things Never Change

A longshot Republican wins the electoral college but a minority of the popular vote.  Disgruntled Democrats, dominated by a wealthy wing terrified of having their wealth impaired threaten secession,  They express concern that the new President is a threat to their way of life and institutions.  Intellectuals defend their institutions, and admit socialism is better than capitalism. They actually actually start secession during the period before the new President takes office.  Mobs in an East Coast city threaten him before the new President takes office.

Sounds modern?  No.  It's the 1860 election.

Read Carefully

Sherline's indexable lathe cutting tool is a 3/8" tool, so it requires a different tool holder than the 1/4" carbide cutting tools that I have been using.  I will just order up a bunch of those and throw them away every month or two.  I have never been successful at resharpening the HSS tools.

Consumer Expectations Index

11/23/16 Bloomberg News:

On the surface, the message from the University of Michigan's final reading of consumer sentiment for November is that President-elect Donald Trump will fix what ails the nation — fast.

The consumer expectations index of the survey rose by 8.4 points from October to 85.2 — a one-month gain last exceeded in the December 2011 — a testament to households' optimistic view on the outlook for the U.S. economy and their own pocketbooks.

And 'optimistic' might be an understatement. According to the latest report, in some cases, Americans are the most hopeful they have been in more than a decade. For the first time since 2006, 37 percent of households said they expect their personal finances to improve in 2017. Also hitting decade highs: real income expectations, as wage growth continues to gain strength in a broadening swath of the economy.  

Count on the progressives to say that Obama's policies are finally bearing fruit.

Marijuana & Guns

I'm skeptical that marijuana users should be gun owners, but for the same reason that I am skeptical that heavy drinkers should be gun owners. My experience over the years is that moderate potheads are pretty rare--unlike people who drink a beer or a glass of wine at dinner. This is something that many of my former pothead friends also tell me.  YMMV.  As marijuana has been legalized for medical and recreational uses, there has been a question whether this makes them ineligible to purchase a gun.  We all know the Obama Administration is pro-pot (aren't all progressive Democrats?) so this 11/22/16 The Cananbist article is surprising:

The federal government just doubled down on its efforts to keep guns away from cannabis patients and legal adult-use marijuana consumers.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has long had an existing ban on gun sales to anyone who uses marijuana. The ban was upheld in a controversial 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in August; a medical marijuana patient in Nevada said the ban violated the Second Amendment, but the 9th Circuit unanimously agreed that pot and other drug use “raises the risk of irrational or unpredictable behavior with which gun use should not be associated.”

Now the ATF is releasing a revised version of Form 4473 — the federal Firearms Transaction Record and considered “ATF’s most important form,” according to an ATF representative — that adds a new warning statement reminding applicants that marijuana is still considered federally illegal despite state laws allowing medical marijuana or recreational use. In other words: The ATF doesn’t want gun sellers or buyers to mistake the increasingly common state-legal cannabis for the nonexistent federally legal marijuana.

So does Obama actually run the federal government anymore or is this just a way to reduce gun ownership?

I Can Remember When Reason Was a Libertarian Publication

Now they publish pro-gun control articles.

Millenial International

Marvelous parody of actual well-intentioned relief organizations.

Strange Notion of Revenge

11/20/16 Yahoo:

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - At least 16 people died and 50 were wounded in Libya in four days of clashes between rival factions in the southern city of Sabha, a health official said on Sunday.

According to residents and local reports, the latest bout of violence erupted between two tribes after an incident in which a monkey that belonged to a shopkeeper from the Gaddadfa tribe attacked a group of schoolgirls who were passing by.

The monkey pulled off one of the girls' head scarf, leading men from the Awlad Suleiman tribe to retaliate by killing three people from the Gaddadfa tribe as well as the monkey, according to a resident who spoke to Reuters.

Someone please explain the logic involved.  This is why we need more Muslims to move here?

Why, Oh Why, Did Clinton Lose?

11/22/16 Washington Post quoting a local Democratic party official:

“Look, I’m as progressive as anybody, okay? But people in the heartland thought the Democratic Party cared more about where someone else went to the restroom than whether they had a good-paying job,” he complained. 

Madeness or Progressivism?

What's the difference?  11/22/16 Cleveland 19:

AKRON, OH (WOIO) -The Akron Fire Department says that a 69-year-old man set himself on fire Saturday after yelling about the election results in a local coffee shop.

The department says the man, who was dressed in a U.S. Marine Corps uniform, walked into Angel Falls Coffee on South Highland Ave. yelling about the recent protests over the election results. 

He then left the coffee shop and approached a passerby and handed the passerby his cellphone and asked him to video record him, according to the police report.

Police said the man grabbed a can of gasoline from his car and set himself on fire. A witness in a nearby business ran out and extinguished the flames.

I suppose he could have been a Trump supporter, but that seems unlikely.

Things I Really Admire

A well-thought statistical study.

One very thorough study in its attempt to control for other factors that might contribute to mental illness besides CSA [child sexual abuse] surveyed female twins (n=1411), perhaps on the assumption that they would have similar genetic predispositions towards substance abuse and similar developmental environments.  These represent a wide range of ages “born between 1934 and 1974.”  The family environments in which they were raised were assessed for family disruption and “parental psychopathology,” to distinguish CSA from other causal factors.[1]  The survey identified divided CSA into three categories: nongenital (sexual invitation, sexual kissing, and exposing); genital (contact but no intercourse ) and intercourse (with no apparent distinction between oral, vaginal and anal intercourse).[2]  The Odds Ratios are for twins where one reported CSA and the other did not, or reported a “less deviant form of CSA,” adjusted for family functioning and parental psychopathology, which might be “genetically transmitted to their offspring.”[3]

The OR for several psychiatric disorders (major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, bulimia nervosa, and substance abuse for both alcohol and other drugs) where more than two disorders were diagnosed were 2.33 (P<.001) for any CSA; 1.42 (not significant) for non-genital CSA; 1.78 (P<.01) for genital CSA; and 4.81 (P<.001) for intercourse.[4]

---

[1] Kenneth S. Kendler, Cynthia M. Bulik, and Judy Silberg, et al., “Childhood Sexual Abuse and Adult Psychiatric and Substance Use Disorders in Women: An Epidemiological and Cotwin Control Analysis,” Archives of General Psychiatry 57 [October, 2000], 954.
[2] Ibid., 955.
[3] Ibid., 958.
[4] Ibid., 957, Table 5.

Really Ancient History

An 1879 San Francisco Concealed Weapon Permit.

Ancient History

I was cleaning up my desk at thje insistence of my wife, and I found a document that needed scanning to be shared.  Alan S. Krug, "Firearms Registration Costs vs. Benefits: (A Survey of State Law Enforcement Agencies on Firearms Registration)". National Shooting Sports Federation, 1970/

It is available at http://claytoncramer.com/primary/other/FirearmsRegistrationCostsvs.Benefits.pdf

National Reciprocity Bills

Rep. Labrador (R-ID) is cosponsor on two national concealed carry reciprocity bills, HR923 and HR986.  Make sure your Congresscritter gets on board.

I Think This is a Surrender

Saul Cornell; 56 Am. J. Legal History 21 (2016):

It is ironic that recent efforts to understand the original meaning of the Constitution have shown little interest in understanding the way Americans in the Founding era theorized the nature of language itself, particularly constitutional communication. Compounding this irony is the fact that Federalists and Anti-Federalists each were deeply concerned about the way politics could infect constitutional language, distorting it. By contrast, most forms of originalist inquiry have been far less sophisticated, choosing instead to approach language as if it were a transparent medium of objective communication. Future efforts to understand the original debates over constitutional meaning need to reject such simplistic and anachronistic assumptions. Indeed, historian Jack Rakove has recently argued that any attempt to understand the nature of the original debate over the Constitution must grapple with the underlying conceptions about the nature of language held by members of the Founding era. In particular, Rakove notes that Madison's own approach to constitutional language and interpretation echoed themes and concerns about semantic instability found in Locke. Historian and philosopher Hannah Dawson has focused renewed attention on the connection between Locke's views of language and his political theory. Dawson argues that Locke believed that "the meanings of words are unstable, that different people mean different things by the same words." This view had profound consequences for post-Revolutionary politics and law.

This is something of a victory.  Cornell is admitting that dictionary and contemporary use of words doesn't give him his desired results no matter how he tortures the history.   If you don't recognize his argument, it is deconstructionism: the belief that it is impossible to really know what a writer intended because the meaning of words is highly dependent on your race, class, and economic situation.  The originator of this idea was Paul De Man.  After his death researchers found that during Nazi occupation:

The record showed that, for all intents and purposes, the young de Man was a fascist. His eyes were open; he did not write in the shadows. The paper he did most of his journalism for, Le Soir, was the biggest daily in Belgium. The Germans took it over almost immediately after occupying the country, in May, 1940, and staffed it with collaborationists. Anti-Semitic articles were sometimes a front-page feature.

De Man started writing for the paper in December, 1940, just after his twenty-first birthday. His articles—he eventually had a weekly column, called “Our Literary Chronicle”—largely followed the Nazi line, as did the pieces he contributed to a smaller German-controlled paper, Het Vlaamsche Land (The Flemish Land). He championed a Germanic aesthetic, denigrated French culture as effete, associated Jews with cultural degeneracy, praised pro-Nazi writers and intellectuals, and assured Le Soir’s readers that the New Order had come to Europe. The war was over. It was time to join the winners.

And the response of his deconstructionist fans?

And there was some hermeneutical fancy footwork—a big mistake when what most needed defending was the integrity of hermeneutics. No one approved of what de Man’s articles appeared to be saying, but a few tried to suggest that, on finer analysis, they weren’t really saying it, or they were saying it and unsaying it at the same time—that the articles were, as one professor put it, “enormously complex and profoundly ambiguous.”

You can't really tell what he meant because the meaning of writing is in some sense unknowable. There's a joke about the literature professor who tells his students that because the meaning of words is unknowable, we can't really know for sure what a book means.  Then he calls home and leaves a message for his wife asking her to order a pizza for dinner.  If he arrives home and finds one of his students on the table with an apple in his mouth, well, how could his wife have known what he wanted?

Because the meaning of words is  unstable and therefore true meaning is impossible to determine, I am pretty sure Cornell's article really means: machine guns are protected by the Second Amendment.

Let me clearer: Saul Cornell for many years ran the Second Amendment Research Center at Ohio State, the goal of which was to argue the Second Amendment did not protect an individual right to arms.  Since DC v. Heller (2008), this seems to have vanished as an effective propaganda center.

Saturday Night Live: Captures the Madness Well

California Voters Support Laissez Faire

and support keeping businesses from leaving California.  But there's a reason for this sudden reversal of attitudes.  11/9/16 USA Today:

LOS ANGELES -- The adult film industry scored a big victory in California as voters Tuesday rejected a ballot proposition that would have required porn film actors to wear condoms in all their sex scenes.

Proposition 60 was portrayed as a workplace health and safety measure -- albeit an unusual one -- that critics said would have chased the vast adult-film industry out of state.

With 96% of the vote counted, the proposition was defeated by a 53.9% to 46.1%

What about protecting workers from unnecessary risk?  What about reducing STDs?  Drive businesses out of state that don't involve degrading people: good.  But suddenly a business complains and the population of Sodom and Gomorrah is concerned.

Best Headline and Subheadline Ever

11/18/16 Front Page:

STOP HATING WHITE PEOPLE AND MAYBE THEY’LL VOTE FOR YOU
It’s either that or the Magical Intersectional Muslim Transwomen Coalition.

Where's the Punchline?

11/19/16 Free Beacon:

The National Institutes of Health is spending roughly a quarter of a million dollars to create a video game about reproductive health.

The University of Chicago and a video game developer were awarded a joint project this summer to develop a STEM game for teenagers called “Caduceus Quest,” named after a mythological symbol popularly (and incorrectly) associated with medicine.

The study will “develop and test a serious game, Caduceus Quest, to engage youth in STEM learning, facilitate reductions in sexual and reproductive health risk behaviors, and promote asset development toward holistic, long-term well-being,” according to a grant for the project. “Caduceus Quest will be a multi-platform, theory-based, role-playing game in which players build up teams of doctors, policymakers, researchers, youth advocates, educators, etc. to solve medical mysteries and epidemiologic crises around the city.”

The link in their article is broken.  This one works.

Now That You Are Recovering From that Shock

You've heard of turducken.  There's a new tragedy of overstuffing food and people:  Piecaken.

Whenever You Start to Feel Sorry For Your Life

You find someone that reminds you of, "I cried because I had no shoes, until I met a boy with no feet."  I spent part of my afternoon ferrying a woman to a doctor then to an ER.  Her story of tragedies kept screaming Victim with all caps, blinking, and fifteen exclamation marks after it.  This was something that told me that there was a horrible tragedy in her youth to make her identify so strongly as a victim.  She was molested by her uncle from 3 (her earliest memory) until she ran away from home at 13.  Then at 14, she was subjected to a gang rape that exceeds even the tragedies in I Never Told Anyone.  The guys who kidnapped her off the street in Salinas were apparently upset that one of her orifices wasn't large for multiple simultaneous occupancy, so they cut her to meet their needs wants.  Talk about people in need of public and painful execution.

Write-In Choices, DeKalb County, Georgia

Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

1. "Anyone Else" (Seven votes)
2. Cannabis
3. Taco Bell
8. "."
9. "Give us better choices"
10. “I exercise my right not to vote for any of these non-principled jokers.”
11. "A bald eagle"
12. "Barney Sanders, the former governor and U.S. senator"
13. Beetlejuice
18. The "Sweedish" (sic) Chef
19. Justin Timberlake
20. Atlanta rapper Killer Mike
21. "Me"
22. Country legend Willie Nelson
24. Sherlock Holmes, fictional detective
25. Robocop
25. Satan (two votes)
26. Hillary Clinton, who was on the ballot but curiously written in about 12 times
27. "Sweet Meteor of Death" (two votes)

The Fall of the House of Clinton

Great Jonah Goldberg column, worth reading in full for his wit:

The ship’s antediluvian WiFi groaned downloading the document, like Michael Moore at Walmart trying not to stand up in his scooter as he strains to grab a family-sized tub of SpaghettiOs from a high shelf. The Travel Office, the commodities futures, the Rose Law Firm billing records, the Lincoln Bedroom, on and on it went. A great feeling of dread came over me....

James McDougal, Bill’s former business partner, once said that the Clintons ‘are really sort of like tornadoes moving through people’s lives.’

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/g-file/442319/bill-clinton-hillary-clinton-house-clinton-finished

And to quote from The Great Gatsby:  "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy--they smashed up things and ceatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they made."

The Power of Trump

Progressives insisted that illegal immigrant amnesties were a human rights issue.  But 11/18/16 Washington Times reports:

The administration has already taken the first step to accommodate President-elect Trump’s positions, agreeing Friday to take a timeout on President Obama’s push to kick-start his 2014 deportation amnesty.

In documents filed with a federal judge in Texas the Justice Department said that in light of the new management that will take over next year, the case should be suspended.

"Accordingly, the parties respectfully submit that further proceedings on the merits of this case, including the submission of a schedule for resolving the merits, should be stayed until February 20, 2017,” the Justice Department and lawyers for Texas said in a joint request of Judge Andrew S. Hanen.

If this was really a human rights issue, why drop it?  They don't want a final blow to their nonsense in the closing days of the Obama Administration, or has Obama finally figued out he is on the wrong side of history?

Things That Drive Me Crazy

The end mill holder on the mill will not unscrew. I have had this problem before; I actually sold a manual Sherline mill last year because I could not remove the end mill holder. I have used as much force on the rods as my hands can supply; I have put some oil down the interior of the spindle; I have tapped the bottom of the holder with a brass hammer (end mill removed of course); I have used a hammer on one of the rods to try and break it free. One of the reasons I have bought non-Sherline end mill holders in the past is that they have a hex fitting allowing use of a wrench.

I have now removed the headstock from the mill, held it in a vise, and tried to tap the rods used for removing the mill holder.  No luck.  Tried it both CW and CCW.

ViseGrips are your friend.  Headstock in vise.  ViseGrip on mill holder.  Turn CCW as seen from bottom.  Problem solved; discarding all Sherline mill holders.  I wish that I had tried this with the manual mill I sold last year. 

Listed it on eBay.  Someone may want it.

What the Exit Polls Show Us

CNN shows the exit polling for Clinton v. Trump.  29% of Latinos voted for Trump; 53% of white women voted for their supposed enemy, Trump; even 8% of blacks.  43% of college graduattes voted Trump.  All the assumptions of the Democrats and the lamestream media (whoops, I repeat myself) just assumed that women, Latinos, and blacks would never vote for Trump.

Scott Adams (Dilbert's father) points to this article that should drive a stake through the heart of Republicans convinced that Trump's campaign would hurt us with minorities and progressives who insisted that Trump was appealing to white racists:

Now the votes are in, and Trump got greater support from minorities than Romney or McCain before him. You can read the Washington Post article, Trump Got More Votes From People Of Color Than Romney Did, or look at the raw data (source)...

Trump made gains among blacks. He made gains among Latinos. He made gains among Asians. The only major racial group where he didn’t get a gain of greater than 5% was white people. I want to repeat that: the group where Trump’s message resonated least over what we would predict from a generic Republican was the white population.

Muslim Reaction to President Trump

11/18/16 New York Times:

In Iraq, where modern history has been profoundly shaped by the decisions of American presidents, officials and citizens alike are weighing Mr. Trump’s harsh words against his promise to defeat terrorism.

Surprisingly, some Iraqis seemed less offended by Mr. Trump’s comments linking terrorism to Islam than American liberals.

Iraqis have endured years of Islam being used to justify mass killing, and some see Mr. Trump as a truth-teller in calling out Islam — or a certain brand of it — as the problem.
Iraqi Shiites say they believe Mr. Trump will take a harder line on Saudi Arabia, the Sunni power that many see as the incubator of the extreme form of Islam, Wahhabism, that forms a basis of the Islamic State’s ideology.

“The victory of Trump is the beginning of the end of extremist Islam and Wahhabism,” said Mouwafak al-Rubaie, an Iraqi lawmaker and the country’s former national security adviser. [emphasis added]

Of course, because liberals in their guarded penthouses have less to worry about from Islamic terrorism than Muslims in rough parts of the Earth.

Jigs

I started talking about jigs a couple days ago because I was planning to make one to help me get the tube that I need to have parallel slots to help me get the first slot vertical once the tube is turned 180 degrees so the next slot is also vertical.  Then I thought of the work involved and decided to go back to a longer 1/2" end mill so that I can cut both slots in one operation (probably at 0.5 in/min at first as an experiment).  I found one with the flat spot on the shaft and 1 1/4" cutting length for $5.40.

There's still one issue: I need to drill two .2010" holes (for 1/4"-20 tapping) at right angles to the slots and a 1/4" hole aligned with the slots.  Rotating the part without a rotary table is going to be approximate at best.  The solution I think is to drill the pilot hole for the 1/4" hole at the same time as the slots.  As long as I don't loosen the clamp, I can remove the endmill and put the drill chuck in with a center drill and mark the location,  Then put in the drill press and complete the hole through.  Next, I put a 1/4" rod through the hole, and rest the tube on a .5" high support to keep it level for drilling the .2010" pilot hole.  The rod will rest on the jaws of the clamp, forcing a 90 degree angle for drilling the pilot hole.  I use the pilot hole on the drill pressto cut through both sides.  All I need now is a 3" long, .5" high, .75" wide piece of acetal as the support for the tube.  I will mill a .2" slot by .2" deep slot down the middle so the tube rests instead of rolling.

The Liberal Refrain: "Why Can't We Be More Like Europe?'

When they are talking about guns, gasoline prices, and sex, but not when talking about abortion, or now Islam.  11/18/16 The Local Austria:

Austria’s Interior Minister Sebastian Kurz has called for an immediate ban on Islamic fundamentalists who distribute copies of the Koran, saying that the law needs to be changed to crack down on “Salafist campaigns - an expression of political Islam which we can no longer tolerate”....

Cities in Switzerland are now also considering a ban on the radical Salafist groups distributing the Koran.

Obviously banning distribution of the Koran would run afoul of the First Amendment, but we know progressives believe in a living, breathing, constantly mutating Constitution.

Neat Gadget

My wife's car charger gave up the ghost.  While looking for a replacement I found this one, which promised faster charging than the standard charger.  Sure enough, it is very noticeably faster.  While the description tells you it can charge two phones once, there is only a cable for one.  There's a USB port you can plugin a cable for the other phone.  Both charge  very quickly.  Where the charger plugs into the cigarette lighter you get a blue lighted circle.  My wife kids it is now Starship Enterprise.

Another Letter to my Congressman

I suggest you propose the Population Decentralization Act, which would provide tax incentives for businesses in big cities to relocate into lower density areas of the U.S.  Advantages of such decentralization: more Americans would get the benefit of lower cost housing; rural and suburban parts of America would have more jobs; terrorist attacks are usually in high density locations because the death count will be higher; natural disasters such as floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes will affect a smaller number of people per event, resulting in less need for massive concentrated resources.  Just imagine what it is going to be like when Los Angeles suffers a 8.1 quake!  The number of injured people needing medical care will overwhelm the area and surrounding hospitals.

Steel is Harder Than the Brinnel Hardness Numbers Suggest

I was battling with squaring an aluminum tube this morning, and I suddenly remember that when cutting gets difficult, it usually means the cutting tool is dull.  I think the squaring of steel a few days ago is the problem.  I just ordered new carbide tools, but I also notice the carbide tips are indexable, if I can find the right Torx tool.  Whoops!  Some of their cutting tools are indexable; not the relatively cheap ones I use.

More Evidence That Social Media Attract the Wrong Kind of People and How Unhinged Progrssives Are

11/17/16 NBC News:

An Ohio man was in court Thursday on a federal charge that he tweeted an explicit threat to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump.

Zachary Benson, 24, of the Cleveland suburb of Fairview Park, could face five years in prison if he's convicted of the single count of making threats against the president and successors to the presidency..

According to the agency, the specific alleged threat to the president-elect read:
"My life goal is to assassinate Trump. Don't care if I serve infinite sentences. That man deserves to decease [sic] existing."

Another basket-weaving or puppetry major who doesn't know the meaning of infinity.

And another fool, in this case a CEO.  11/15/16 ArsTechnica:

Matt Harrigan, the CEO of San Diego-based network security startup PacketSled, resigned yesterday after a flurry of comments he made on Facebook went viral over the weekend, prompting the company to place him on administrative leave and to report his comments to the Secret Service. Harrigan's comments weren't the usual sort of executive meltdown—they amounted to a declaration that Harrigan was going to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump.

In a Facebook thread about last week's presidential election, Matt Harrigan wrote, "I'm going to kill the President Elect."

"Bring it secret service," he wrote.

While those may have been rage posts stemming from the election last week, Harrigan went on to describe how he was going to buy a sniper rifle and hunt down Trump when he moved into the White House. "Getting a sniper rifle and perching myself where it counts," he wrote in one of a series of comments on a thread about the election. "Find a bedroom in the whitehouse [sic] that suits you motherfucker. I'll find you."

The White House has bulletproof windows, dummy.

Another Letter to My Congressman Raul Labrador

During the campaign, President-elect Trump argued for a national reciprocity law that would require every state to recognize concealed carry permits issued by any other state, rather like the way they recognize driver's licenses issued by other states.  Please introduce such a bill.

Opponents will complain this overrides state power to make their own laws.  But the safe transit provision of the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986 (18 USC 926A) does something similar by allowing the transport of guns from state A to state B through state X if the possession of the gun is lawful in states A and B.  And of course, states already recognize out of state driver's licenses.  And the Supreme Court in McDonald v. Chicago (2010) has recognized that the "right to keep and bear arms" applies to the states, just like the rest of the Bill of Rights overwhelms state rights' claims.

Some will argue that this law would mean every state would have to recognize licenses from states with relatively lax concealed weapon permit laws, and which issue to residents of other states, such as Washington State.  If this objection is raised, the bill could specify that it only applies to non-residents of the state.  Federal law is already sufficient to prosecute convicted felons, domestic violence misdemeanants, and those prohibited on the other grounds listed in 18 USC 922(d).
The same objection about lax license laws equally applies with respect to driver's licenses which authorize people to operate a powerful and potentially lethal weapon on public roads.

There are a surprising number of tourists arrested and convicted in restrictive states such as New York and New Jersey for unknowingly violating the restrictive laws of these states.  This needs to stop.

Let me emphasize that the "limited to non-residents" idea is a compromise, just like some of the "shall-issue" laws were often complex and limiting at first, but were eventually improved with positive experience of the laws.