Imagine if the Sexes Were Reversed and Some Other Verb Was Used

Nationally famous (at least in Australia) knows how to make an impression on a fan whose book she signed. 6/28/17 U.K. Daily Mail:

Controversial feminist Clementine Ford has encouraged a fan to 'kill men' in a handwritten note inside a copy of her latest book.

The Melbourne-based author and Fairfax columnist has regularly spoken about being the target of graphic abuse, trolling and death threats from men on social media.

But a picture shows that when signing one copy of her latest book, 'Fight Like a Girl', Ms Ford wrote to a fan: 'Have you killed any men today? And if not, why not?'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4642078/Clementine-Ford-fire-shocking-note-fan.html#ixzz4lY727kNk Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

I have no idea what some man did to her to provoke such hate, but I suspect it was serious than a wolf whistle or staring at her too long.

Discoveries in the Jaguar XF

Jaguar's adaptive cruise control has two features from what I have read:

1. Brakes when you get too close to another car.

2. Slows you down to the set cruise control speed if you are going down a slope and engine braking isn't doing the job.

The first feature is a substitute for an attentive driver.  If you need this, put down the cell phone or the electric shaver and drive.

The second feature is actually useful.  I have nothing but significant down grades from my mountaintop Shangri-La to... pretty much anywhere.

If you don't have adaptive cruise control, I have discovered a so-so substitute for feature 2.  Press the race flag button and the dynamic stability control button (the car has snakes under the wheels).  You may have to hold for a second or two.  I am not sure that both are needed, but that's the combo that I have been experimenting with.  Now put the transmission in S (semiautomatic mode).  Set the cruise control on your downward slope.  Except on very severe and long slopes, it holds the requested speed.

How?  The Trac DSC mode (I think stands for Track DSC) biases the transmission into a lower gear.  This makes it fly like a bat out of hell when putting the hammer down.  It also keeps it one gear higher than normal, reducing speed when rolling down hill, so cruise control can keep the desired speed.

This is not completely effective on very steep grades, because it wasn't designed for this.  If you going down U,S. 395 south just north of Mono Lake, you better plan on using the - paddle shifter at times.

This use of Trac DSC to bias down the gears should reduce gas mileage, but it seems to be subtle if at all for me.

Not Headed Back to Alaska Anytime Soon, But Interesting Article About Bear Spray

Here.

1. Bear spray may be overhyped as an a deterrent.

2. Some experts say bear spray plus gun.

3. More likely to die in a motor vehicle accident in Alaska, than bear attack.

The Cat Knows

My wife and I do our best cat impressions and our cat sometimes comes to us but he is obviously not fooled.  My pet name for my wife is Kitty, so I just attached a cat meowing ringtone to her number.  And the first time I called from her phone to mine, the cat went beserk, twitching its tail by the backdoor, ready to kill that cat.

The only kitty he is ever going to see up here is a mountain lion.  My wife has heard them outside the bedroom window.

Chair Repair

I mentioned that I could not replace the hydraulic cylinder that controls chair height; this particular very comfortable leather chair I bought at a thrift store for $25 is a different design than the one those cylinders are for. Removing the leg assembly would require a torch.   Instead I bought a 4" OD, 1/8th wall aluminum tube, cut it into two half cylinders on the bandsaw,  fit them together around the cylinder assembly,, and clamped them together with two pipe clamps. Thanks for all the advice! It is not adjustable for height, but it is at a height that let's me almost use both hands for typing.  It is not even all that ugly, although I keep imagining a steam punk version in brass.

Video Tape

One season at least of Twilight Zone was recorded on video tape instead of film.   Many soap operas at one time were recorded on video tape instead of film.   I understand the reasons; cheaper and probably faster to get ready for broadcast.   Why does video tape look so much different from film?

A New Argument Concerning Gun Control

A traditional argument for restrictive gun control is that guns are disproportionately used in murder in the U.S.  There were 48,620 actors in the U.S. as of 2011; there were 132,930,000 workers in the U.S. as of Dec. 2011.  Actors were thus .03% of the American workforce.  Four U.S. presidents have been assassinated, one by an actor.  Actors are therefore grossly disproportionately overrepresented among presidential assassins.  I guess banning actors would make as much sense as restrictive gun control.

Just kidding, but useful next time an actor jumps on the gun control wagon.

Absolutely Amazing Article by Gary Kleck

Large-Capacity Magazines and the Casualty Counts in Mass Shootings: The Plausibility of Linkages

Abstract

Do bans on large-capacity magazines (LCMs) for semiautomatic firearms have significant potential for reducing the number of deaths and injuries in mass shootings? The most common rationale for an effect of LCM use is that they allow mass killers to fire many rounds without reloading. LCMs are used is less than 1/3 of 1% of mass shootings. News accounts of 23 shootings in which more than six people were killed or wounded and LCMs were used, occurring in the U.S. in 1994-2013, were examined. There was only one incident in which the shooter may have been stopped by bystander intervention when he tried to reload. In all of these 23 incidents the shooter possessed either multiple guns or multiple magazines, meaning that the shooter, even if denied LCMs, could have continued firing without significant interruption by either switching loaded guns or by changing smaller loaded magazines with only a 2-4 second delay for each magazine change. Finally, the data indicate that mass shooters maintain slow enough rates of fire such that the time needed to reload would not increase the time between shots and thus the time available for prospective victims to escape.

The U.S. Population is Growing Faster Than I Realized

Congresswoman Maxine Waters claims the proposed revision of Obamacare will:

“Take, for example, the state of Kentucky. Almost one-third of those people in that state are covered by Medicaid, and so they’re talking about eliminating 700 billion,” she said, looking off camera, seemingly seeking confirmation, “in, uh, Trumpcare bill.”

It appears she doesn't know that the US population is a bit over 300 million.  Kentucky is a bit less.  Does Maxine not know what million and billion mean? Admittedly, this was on MSNBC, so not sure how man of their viewers will catch this.

Some have suggested that she means $700 billion, bot 700 billion people.  The entire costs for Obamacare nationwide were $940 billion over 10 years--so $94 billion per year.

Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks California's New Magazine Ban

6/29/17 Associated Press:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. –  A federal judge is blocking a California law set to go into effect Saturday that would have barred gun owners from possessing high-capacity ammunition magazines.

San Diego-based U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez said in ruling Thursday that the law banning possession of magazines containing more than 10 bullets would have made criminals of thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens who now own the magazines.He issued a preliminary injunction backing the legal challenge by the National Rifle Association-affiliated California Rifle & Pistol Association.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (HAH-vee-air Bah-sehr'-ah), who is defending the state law, did not immediately comment.

The judge says the law approved by voters in November takes away gun owners' Second Amendment rights and amounts to the government taking people's private property without compensation.

Don't get too excited.  Such preliminary injunctions only prevent enforcement while the matter is litigated, and are based on the judge's perception f who is likely to win.  It says a lot about the general insanity of California voters that this was passed by initiative.

The judge's injunction points out that the 9th Circuit's method for determining if a right is protected: "It is, unfortunately, an overly complex analysis that people of ordinary intelligence cannot be expected to understand."

More goodness:

Some conclusions can be drawn from the Mayor’s survey submitted by the Attorney General. Of the ten mass shooting events that occurred in California, only two involved the use of a magazine holding more than 10 rounds. In view of the large population of California and the five-year time period studied, it appears that the Prop 63 amendments to § 32310 aim to eliminate that which is an incredibly rare danger to public safety. Moreover, based on this preliminary evidentiary record submitted by the Attorney General, § 32310 is a poor fit as a means to eliminate the types of mass shooting events experienced in California. In other words, § 32310 appears to be a poor fit as a means for the State to achieve its four important objectives. 

Fake News Costs

6/28/17 Reuters:

The U.S. ABC television network, owned by Walt Disney Co (DIS.N), has settled its closely watched defamation lawsuit with Beef Products Inc over news reports on a processed beef product that critics dubbed "pink slime," both companies said on Wednesday.

Terms of the settlement, which also covered the Beef Products Inc (BPI) claims against ABC reporter Jim Avila, were not disclosed.

Privately-held BPI had claimed that the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and Avila defamed the company by calling its processed beef product “pink slime” and making errors and omissions in a series of 2012 reports. BPI calls the product "lean finely textured beef."

BPI attorney Dan Webb told Reuters the settlement came together "quickly this week," but declined to provide details, citing a confidentiality agreement signed by both parties.

Some reports say $1.8 billion. And this is likely to end badly for another fake news purveyor.  6/27/17 Breitbart:

On Tuesday evening, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin hired Hulk Hogan’s lawyers and sued the New York Times for defamation for falsely accusing her of inciting Jared Lee Loughner to shoot Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) in a June 14 editorial. The Times’ editorial was published on the day that James Hodgkinson shot House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) while he was practicing for the Congressional Baseball Game with his GOP teammates.

“Today, Sarah Palin took a stand against The New York Times Company by filing a lawsuit which seeks to hold The Times accountable for stating that Governor Palin is part of a ‘sickeningly familiar pattern’ of politically motivated violence and that she incited the horrific 2011 shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords, a tragedy where the gunman seriously wounded numerous people and killed 6, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl,” Palin’s lawyers—Ken Turkel, Shane Vogt, and S. Preston Ricardo—said in a statement.

The complaint, filed in Manhattan federal court, states that “at the time of publication, The Times knew and had published pieces acknowledging that there was no connection between Mrs. Palin and Loughner’s 2011 shooting.”

Clicks Aren't Worth It

6/29/17 Washington Post:

Before Monday, before the 911 call and police investigation, Pedro Ruiz III, an aspiring YouTube star in rural Minnesota, spent considerable time persuading his girlfriend to shoot a gun at his chest.

There would be a thick encyclopedia book between the barrel and his body, authorities say he told 19-year-old Monalisa Perez. The pages, he reasoned, would stop the bullet.
So on Monday evening, the young couple positioned two cameras outside their home and prepared for their breakthrough stunt. They wanted fame, family said, and danger often brings it.

“Me and Pedro are probably going to shoot one of the most dangerous videos ever,” Perez teased in a tweet at 5 p.m. “HIS idea not MINE.”

He even had evidence that it had worked once before — a different book with an entrance hole but no exit.

Letter to my U.S. Senators

Don't fix it; repeal it completely and come up with a better solution at a later time.  Obamacare was supposed to improve health care for Americans.  Curiously, death rates have been rising since 2010, after many years of decline.  See Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Underlying Cause of Death 1999-2015 on CDC WONDER Online Database, released December, 2016. Data are from the Multiple Cause of Death Files, 1999-2015, as compiled from data provided by the 57 vital statistics jurisdictions through the Vital Statistics Cooperative Program. Accessed at http://wonder.cdc.gov/ucd-icd10.html on Jun 29, 2017 10:09:15 AM.  US death rates in 2015 were higher than they were in 2003.

I understand that many of your Republican colleagues are reluctant to upset their owners, the health insurance companies who own the entire Democratic Party.  Failure to repeal Obamacare will likely mean lots of Republicans not voting in subsequent elections.  Please consider the consequences of trying to be Democrats Lite

Obamacare As Cause of Increasing Death Rates

This article in The Federalist points that death rates rose after Obamacare extended health insurance.  I ran a quick check through CDC Wonder and indeed, after years of declining death rates starting in 2004, death rates from all causes rose starting in 2010.  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Underlying Cause of Death 1999-2015 on CDC WONDER Online Database, released December, 2016. Data are from the Multiple Cause of Death Files, 1999-2015, as compiled from data provided by the 57 vital statistics jurisdictions through the Vital Statistics Cooperative Program. Accessed at http://wonder.cdc.gov/ucd-icd10.html on Jun 29, 2017 10:09:15 AM

Like gun control. passage of policy A is supposed to reduce social ill B.  If A is correlated with an increase in B, it may not mean that A causes B--but it at least argues that A is not very effective at reducing B, and perhaps we should be looking at finding the stronger cause of B.

Registering the Dead to Vote

6/26/17 channel 6 Virginia:

HARRISONBURG, Va. — A man paid to register Virginia voters prior to the 2016 Presidential Election will spend at least 100 days in prison for submitting the names of deceased individuals to the Registrar’s Office.

James Madison University student Andrew J. Spieles, 21, of Harrisonburg, pled guilty Monday in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia. As part of the plea agreement, Spieles agreed to a prison sentence of 100 to 120 days.Spieles worked for Harrisonburg Votes when he committed the crime, according to acting United States Attorney Rick A. Mountcastle.

Harrisonburg Votes is a political organization affiliated with the Democratic Party.“In July 2016 Spieles’ job was to register as many voters as possible and reported to Democratic Campaign headquarters in Harrisonburg,” a U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesperson said. “In August 2016, Spieles was directed to combine his registration numbers with those of another individual because their respective territories overlapped. After filling out a registration form for a voter, Spieles entered the information into a computer system used by the Virginia Democratic Party to track information such as name, age, address and political affiliation. Every Thursday an employee/volunteer hand-delivered the paper copies of the registration forms to the Registrar’s Office in Harrisonburg.”

Now, why register the dead to vote?  Are you expecting them to vote?  Or someone else to vote in their name?  Why ID should be required to vote, and yes, considering who he worked for, such laws probably favor Republicans.

CNN Hits a New Low

Remember: leftist bias is imaginary, rather like Elmo.

Does interviewing a puppet qualify as Fake News?

In a Sci-Fi Movie, This Would Be Comic Relief

6/28/17 Gulf News:

Patrol vehicleAbout the size of a child’s electric toy car, the driverless vehicles will patrol different areas of the city to boost security and hunt for unusual activity, all the while scanning crowds for potential persons of interest to police and known criminals.

The new security system is so advanced that the mini-vehicle even comes with its own drone which can be launched via a rear sleeve — both are monitored and linked to Dubai Police command room.

Dubai Police signed a new deal with Singapore-based OTSAW Digital to deploy the new autonomous outdoor security robots — called O-R3 by the firm — as part of the Smart Dubai initiative, making Dubai the first city in the world to have O-R3 in operation, said police.

Minimum Wage Effects

6/26/17 Bloomberg.  Seattle raised minimum wage to $15/hour to help low-wage workers:

This morning's data gives ammunition to the mayor's opposition. The University of Washington released its second study, this one covering the increase from $11 an hour to $13. And this study found huge effects: For every 1 percent increase in their hourly wage, low-wage workers saw a 3 percent reduction in the number of hours worked. As a result, they lost about $125 in earnings a month, clawing back the entire gain from the earlier hike and more.

Anyone who has studied economics is unsurprised.  As compassionate as it sounds, raising minimum wage  is usually bad for those supposed to benefit.  If this is such a good idea, why not set it at $100/hour, and make everyone rich?

1%er Complains About His Wealth

6/27/17 CNBC:

Warren Buffett says people like him are the problem with the U.S. economy.

With a net worth of more than $75 billion, Buffett is currently the second richest man alive, according to Forbes. As the CEO of investing house Berkshire Hathaway, he is hallowed as the Oracle of Omaha. But for all his personal success, Buffett says the issue really is the 1 percent.

"The real problem, in my view, is — this has been — the prosperity has been unbelievable for the extremely rich people," says Buffett on PBS Newshour.

"If you go to 1982, when Forbes put on their first 400 list, those people had [a total of] $93 billion. They now they have $2.4 trillion, [a multiple of] 25 for one," he says. "This has been a prosperity that's been disproportionately rewarding to the people on top."

Okay, Warren, put your money where you mouth is.   $75 billion given to the poorest 5 million Americans would be $15,000 per person.  Why do rich people always back candidates who want more money going to the government instead of using their wealth to help the poor?

New BBC Documentary

My wife watches any documentary or drama about the Holocaust.  It is, after all, one of the defining moments of the 20th century.  BBC has a new documentary: Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution.  What's left to say?  New documents unearthed in the Eastern bloc since the fall of Communism in Europe.  Quite interesting, in a depressing way, that makes BBC cop shows like Hinterland seem almost light-hearted.

My wife has noticed how the Nazis compounded Jews and Communists and especially those evil Jewish capitalists into one self-contradictory group.  The left has been doing the same with conservatives, Christians, Republicans, (and of late) homophobes and owners of "white privilege."  (And don't forget the proposal to try global warming deniers for crimes against humanity, because coal trains are comparable to trains to Auschwitz.  That from one of your employees at NASA.)

Our concern is that this similar emotional appeal and false compounding could lead us to something similar, or at least civil war.  Trump will be replaced by a Democrat one of these days as a generation grows up who think BusHitler is history and "Trump as the new Hitler" is also history.  Just make sure you have enough guns and ammo.

More Proof Trump is an Evil Idiot

From Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Not only a falling unemployment rate for everyone, but the lowest black unemployment rate since 2000.  That evil Mr. Trump.

Great Moments in Political Wit

After describing how the author of a California single payer health plan has admitted it was going nowhere:

If California can’t get single payer passed, it might just be dead.

But somebody ought to drive a stake through its heart, decapitate it, shoot it with a silver bullet, set it ablaze, and scatter the ashes — just to be sure.

Always Something to be Grateful For

That's the rather saccharin sentiment on one of my wife's many plaques around the house.  A few days ago, I had reminder that it is true.  At the gym there was a woman in her 70s walking through the gym with a cane in one hand and the other hand curled up in a way that made me think stroke.

Geocentrism Lives

I was looking for a good short video explaining Mars retrograde motion.  Not thrilled with what I have found.  Most amazing are geocentrists explaining how retrograde motion proves the Sun circles the Earth.

Trump's Supreme Court Appointment Bearing Fruit

6/26/17 AP reports the Court has reinstated Trump's travel ban, pending a hearing at the next session.

6/26/17 AP also reports they are going to hear the case of the Colorado cake baker who refused to make a same-sex wedding cake.

Rising Sea Levels

I am working on my notes for teaching Western Civ in the fall, and I noticed:

•In places that didn't have flowing streams or dams, there was wind, and by the High Middle Ages, windmills are widely used for grinding grain and pumping water—especially in the Netherlands, where sea levels rose about five feet between 300 and 1000 AD, flooding many areas.

This came out of the textbook, so I went looking for other sources about rising seal levels for that period back when evil mankind was burning oil in vast quantities and otherwise abusing Gaea.  Here's what I found:

In 1954 a special issue of the Dutch journal "Geologie en Mijnbouw" appeared about "Quaternary changes in level especially in the Netherlands". Below are two figures, viz. by Van Straaten en Bennema, taken from this issue. They show that already in 1954 the first 'smoothers' and 'wigglers' regarding sea level rise were present. :

You may have to click to see detail, but indeed there is about 1 to 2 meters sea level rise in that period.

Remember: every real scientist agrees that climate change is anthropogenic.

Perpetuum Jazzile

You may be aware of this group for their a capella version of Toto's Africa:


Listening them do this is just awesome.  Watching this bunch of Slovenians, I find myself impressed with how frighteningly cleancut they all are.  No obvious piercing or tattoos.  Is Slovenian youth really this civilized?  Or are they just nicely weird?

Sound Question

Trying to record from an Audio-Technica PRO24 stereo microphone into my wife's Lenovo ThinkPad, plugged into the audio jack.  Using the Y-splitter cable because Lenovo has stopped using separate input and output jacks.  From Manage Audio Devices, Recording tab, I can see the Realtek Microphone, the one built into the laptop and it shows sound coming in (at least the sound level thingie is going up and down).  But the external microphone does not appear.  Worse, when I run Sound Recorder, it hears no sound at all.  I have tried this external microphone on my Lenovo X140e and it works fine.  Any suggestions?  Realtek HD Audio Manager, Microphone tab gives me nothing useful to try.

Actually on the X140e, it is the builtin mike recording, not the external.

Beginning to think I should buy a USB stereo mike for this.  Any recommendations?  Of course this won't fix the problem with my wife's ThinkPad--it won't record from even the built-in mike which shows a signal in Manage Audio Devices, Recording tab.  This must be a driver of configuration issue.

What Type of Fastener?

My very nice leather office chair has a failed hydraulic cylinder so it won't stay up.  Theoretically, you can replace the hydraulic cylinder.  I bought one and discovered that my chair was enough different that I could not use it.  The other approach is to put a tube around the column of the chair that prevents it from dropping: a 4" ID by 12" long by 1/4" wall tube should do it.  It has to go on from the sides, so slice it into two half cylinders.  But what fastener to hold the two half cylinders together?  Airplane clamps have to go on over the top, I believe.  Any other ideas?  Maybe a C clamp with round jaws?

Split ring clamp is the magic word.

Fascinating Article About Inbreeding Among Muslims

In Reproductive Health Journal:

Consanguineous marriages have been practiced since the early existence of modern humans. Until now consanguinity is widely practiced in several global communities with variable rates depending on religion, culture, and geography. Arab populations have a long tradition of consanguinity due to socio-cultural factors. Many Arab countries display some of the highest rates of consanguineous marriages in the world, and specifically first cousin marriages which may reach 25-30% of all marriages. In some countries like Qatar, Yemen, and UAE, consanguinity rates are increasing in the current generation. Research among Arabs and worldwide has indicated that consanguinity could have an effect on some reproductive health parameters such as postnatal mortality and rates of congenital malformations. The association of consanguinity with other reproductive health parameters, such as fertility and fetal wastage, is controversial. The main impact of consanguinity, however, is an increase in the rate of homozygotes for autosomal recessive genetic disorders. Worldwide, known dominant disorders are more numerous than known recessive disorders. However, data on genetic disorders in Arab populations as extracted from the Catalogue of Transmission Genetics in Arabs (CTGA) database indicate a relative abundance of recessive disorders in the region that is clearly associated with the practice of consanguinity....

Another study shows that the risk of having an IQ lower than 70 goes up 400 percent from 1.2 percent in children from normal parents to 6.2 percent in inbred children: "The data indicate that the risk for mental retardation in matings of normal parents increases from 0.012 with random matings to 0.062 for first-cousin parentage." (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 1978 Effect of inbreeding on IQ and mental retardation"). The study A study of possible deleterious effects of consanguinity concludes, that "The occurrence of malignancies, congenital abnormalities, mental retardation and physical handicap was significantly higher in offspring of consanguineous than non-consanguineous marriages." 

I am sure that this has nothing to do with the culture of that part of the world.

And of course, those who support laws against incest are just nasty bigots.

To my surprise bans on first cousin marriages in the U.S. are pretty recent with some websites claiming it was prejudice against the poor and immigrants, and denying that increased rates of birth defects are pretty irrelevant: "the increased risk of spina bifida and cystic fibrosis at only 1.7% -2.8% higher than for children of unrelated parents."  Yup, what if your kids end up with those problems?  Bigots.  Does cognatamatrimonia phobia have a nice ring?  From cognata, Latin for cousin, and matrimonium, Latin for marriage.

The Twilight Zone

Everytime I sit down and bingewatch Rod Serling's masterpiece series, I catch new and interesting aspects. both in individual episodes and across the entire series.  The first theme that I never noticed before, is how the threat of nuclear war hangs over so many episodes: the one with the bookworm (Burgess Meredith) surviving a complete destruction of civilization in the bank's underground vault and several other episodes.  Were I to teach second semester U.S. history, I would probably show that episode to show how the 1950-1970 period was dominated by this fear.

The Holocaust and totalitarianism is also a dominant theme, both directly (the camp commandant who returns to the scene of his crimes) and indirectly ("The Obsolete Man") and probably the most disturbing ("It's A Good Life").  Sometimes totalitarianism and nuclear war ("Third from the Sun").

I just finished watching "Monsters Are Due on Maple Street") which is most obviously about McCarthyism, but more generally about mob mentality and paranoia.  The aliens at the end might as well have been speaking with Russian accents.  (For a little paranoia recursion:  Was Sen. McCarthy a Soviet agent trying to discredit concern about Communist influence, and provoking irrational fear?)

While many of themes and even plot lines reappear (the World War II lieutenant who can see which of his soldiers will die the next day, and later in the series, he is a Civil War soldier with the same skill); there are some themes that show Serling's concerns were not just 1950s liberalism but also gambling addiction ("The Fever").  How sad he never tackled smoking; he might have lived many more years.

It is also fun to watch for actors (often so bit that you have to look to see them) who later went on to larger careers: William Shatner ("Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", "Nick of Time"); Leonard Nimoy ("A Quality of Mercy"); Robert Redford ("Nothing in the Dark"); Inger Stevens ("The Hitch-Hiker"); George Takei ("The Encounter")>

Special effects are dreadful but the series was about ideas and drama (although sometimes comic)  If you are too young to have grown up with this brilliant piece of Golden Age TV, do so..

Democrats Are Going to Regret the Whole Russia Collusion Fiction

6/23/17 USA Today:

WASHINGTON — Senate Judiciary Committee leaders said Friday they are seeking information about former attorney general Loretta Lynch's alleged efforts to stifle the FBI's investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while Clinton was secretary of State....

The committee, in a statement released Friday by Grassley and Graham, cited an April story by The New York Times reporting that the FBI came into possession of a batch of hacked documents, including one authored by a "Democratic operative who expressed confidence that Ms. Lynch would keep the Clinton investigation from going too far." After reading that story, Grassley requested a copy of the document from the Justice Department, which he said never responded.

A month later, The Washington Post reported that the email had been sent by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., in her former role as the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, to Leonard Benardo of the Open Society Foundation, an international grantmaking network founded by Democratic mega-donor and businessman George Soros. That email, according to the Post, indicated that Lynch had privately assured Clinton campaign staffer Amanda Renteria that the FBI's investigation wouldn't "go too far."

Remember: Muslim No-Go Zones in France Do Not Exist

Nebraska Democratic Party Official Glad Rep. Scalise Shot

6/22/17 Fox channel 42 reports on the audio and firing.

Experiments With Latex-ite

I applied I hope the last coat today, filling in a couple of depressions and squaring up the area resurfaced as best I could.  As I finished the bucket, a solution an annoying problem occurred to me.

Latex-ite is mostly asphalt cement so it is viscous enough that it does not spread out under gravity much at all. Raking it with the intended tool is only somewhat effective at making a flat even surface.  The bottom of the bucket never completely empties, even upside down for many minutes.  To get that last bit of brownie mix out, and get a surface that flattens out under gravity, I threw some water in, mixed, and poured it as a last layer.  So far, it looks better than the raked surface.

The Peace and Love Generation

I know the 1960s generated a lot of anger at America, hence the "Empress Hilary deserved to win" reaction.  6/22/17 Columbus Dispatch:

A voice mail that threatened U.S. Rep. Steve Stivers and his family landed a Westerville man in federal court Wednesday, charged with a crime that carries a 10-year prison term if he is convicted.

In the voice mail that authorities said was left with the Upper Arlington Republican’s Hilliard district office on Sunday, the caller mentioned the June 14 baseball practice during which House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and four others were wounded or injured in Alexandria, Virginia.

“I’ve seen the prayer ya’ll were saying at the baseball diamond ... I think ya’ll better hit your knees and pray for the people that you’re screwin’ up their lives,” the message stated, according to a criminal complaint filed by Capitol Police in U.S. District Court in Columbus.

“We’re coming to get every goddamn one of you and your families. Maybe the next one taken down will be your daughter. Huh? Or your wife. Or even you.”

E. Stanley Hoff, 68, is charged with threatening to “assault, kidnap, or murder a United States official.” He appeared in federal court wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt, jeans and sandals in addition to ankle and wrist chains.

Obama Cabinet Member Demolishes Part of the "Russia Hacked the Election" Claim

6/21/17 New York Post:

WASHINGTON – Former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told a House congressional panel Wednesday that he wasn’t informed for months that Russian hackers had broken into computer systems at the Democratic National Committee, which blithely shrugged off help from his agency.

“Hindsight is 2020,” Johnson told the House Intelligence Committee.
“In retrospect … I should have bought a sleeping bag and camped out in front of the DNC in late summer.”

Johnson said he was “not happy” to learn several months after the crime occurred that the DNC had been hacked and he expressed “disappointment” the DNC rejected the help of Homeland Security professionals to help identify intruders and patch vulnerabilities in its IT system.

“The answer [from the DNC], to the best of my recollection, was not reassuring: the FBI and the DNC had been in contact with each other months before about the intrusion, and the DNC did not feel it needed DHS’s assistance at that time,” Johnson said.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) argued even if Johnson had camped out at the DNC it wouldn’t have made “any difference” since it wasn’t cooperating with the feds.
“The DNC never turned the server over to law enforcement,” Gowdy said.

“Why would the victim of a crime not turn over a server to the intelligence community or to law enforcement?”

“I’m not going to argue with you, sir,” Johnson responded.

Coalition of the Willing Larger Than I Thought

I was listening to NPR the other day, and they were discussing operations in Afghanistan.  The interview was with a New Zealand general in charge of some part of the operation.

Now I see this 6/22/17 USA Today article:

A Canadian soldier in Iraq has killed an ISIS militant from more than two miles away, shattering the world record for a confirmed sniper kill in military history.

According to Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper, the gun specialist from the elite Joint Task Force 2 achieved the feat with a shot from a high-rise during an operation within the past 30 days.

“The shot in question actually disrupted a Daesh [Islamic State] attack on Iraqi security forces,” a military source — who requested anonymity because the unit’s operations are classified — told the paper. “Instead of dropping a bomb that could potentially kill civilians in the area, it is a very precise application of force and because it was so far way, the bad guys didn’t have a clue what was happening.”

The 3,450-meter shot, which took about 10 seconds to reach its target, was independently verified by a video camera and other data, the source said.

Canadian sniper in Iraq?  I thought we were alone there.

This is very interesting partly because our HVAC guy was Special Forces sniper in the first Iraq war.

Another Gun Control Success Story

6/21/17 Yahoo News:

Mexico City (AFP) - Mexico registered a record number of murders last month, officials said, underlining the country's struggles to deal with the horrific violence surrounding the multi-billion-dollar narcotics trade.

There were 2,186 homicides in May, said a report from the National Public Safety System -- the highest figure since the country began keeping track 20 years ago.

Legalizing Pot and Car Crahes

6/22/17 CBS MoneyWatch

Does driving while high have any impact on auto accident rates? Legalized recreational marijuana use in Colorado, Oregon and Washington correlates to about a 3 percent increase in auto collision claim frequencies compared to states without such legislation, according to a new Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) study. It's the first one the group has conducted since the drug went on sale legally.

"More drivers admit to using marijuana, and it is showing up more frequently among people involved in crashes," the study said.

It is an article of faith that legalizing pot reduces impaired driving because drunks drive, while pot smokers do not, and pot substitutes for alcohol.  It should be apparent that anything that increases the percentage of people intoxicated is likely to increase number of people driving while intoxicated.  Further, I have seen no evidence that pot replaces alcohol abuse; often it seems to be in addition to alcohol.

Democrats Wonder Why They Lost

From Gallup:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Thirty-eight percent of U.S. adults say the threat of terrorism makes them less willing to attend events where there are thousands of people. This is up from 27% in July 2011, the last time Gallup asked the question. It is also the highest level recorded since Gallup began asking the question after 9/11.

That includes me.  The largest public event I attend is church, and the pastor and much of the congregation are packing.

My Inner Cynic is Going on Vacation

As a general rule, money buys elections.  Unless a candidate has some incredibly dark negative (Klan membership), the biggest spender usually wins.  Simple reason: name recognition drives most voting decisions.  When I ran for state senate some years ago, I was running against a pro-gay, anti-gun Republican in the primary, but the difference between "Corder" and "Cramer" isn't much: Six letters starting with a C and ending -er.

I was surprised and pleased to read this:

As if the 2016 presidential primaries and general election were not enough, the Georgia 6 special election underscored that money does not win elections. This special election was the most expensive House election in U.S. history, and the candidate who spent the most lost.

Ossoff's campaign raised and spent $24 million, while Handel's campaign only raised and spent $4.5 million. Handel did receive more support from outside groups ($18.2 million supporting her or attacking Ossoff) than Ossoff did (just under $8 million supporting him or attacking Handel). But Ossoff still received $10 million more in support than Handel.

Ironically, Ossoff's huge war chest might have hurt him. In the last two months, the Democrat reported receiving nine times more donations from California than from Georgia. In the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area alone, Ossoff reported receiving 3,063 donations, nearly four times the Georgia total of 808 gifts. Republicans hit him on that, while Democrats focused on Handel's support from "dark money."

In the presidential election, Hillary Clinton outspent Donald Trump by a factor of 2-to-1, pro-Clinton ads outnumbered pro-Trump ads 3-to-1, "dark money" spending for Clinton beat Trump by 3-to-1, and Clinton backers ran 3 times as many ads in battleground states. The three biggest super PACs in that cycle backed a losing candidate.

Perhaps  "Democrat" is becoming the equivalent of Klan in terms of negatives.

The Billionaires Really Need to Spend Their Money the Way That They Claim Makes Sense

Charles Glasser at Instapundit:

NAPKIN MATH: Ossoff raised $23.6 million to make a symbolic run against President Trump, most of it from Marin County, California and Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. Running the numbers, Democrats might have been better off considering that same amount would have bought 855,072 school lunches (at $2.76 each); 236,000 elementary school textbooks (at $100 each) or even 956 Priuses (at $24,685 each).

The billionaire left screeches that Republicans don't care about the poor, but their money trying to regain power could be better spent.

Quantum Entanglement

One of those things that works, but shouldn't.  6/17/17 Chicago Tribune discusses the latest experiments where two photons hundreds of miles apart mirror each other's state.  Clearly impossible, but proven to happen.  The potential for instantaneous communication across the enormous distances of space should be obvious.  The Star Trek transporter is really just transmitting information about an object, not actual matter, so quantum entanglement might allow long distance transmission of data without the struggles about range and power.  How you get that information in enough detail to replicate a human is a different nearly impossible task.

Ego Problem

6/14/17 HeatSt:

It was bound to happen sooner or later—Hillary Clinton has weighed in on Wonder Woman.

She admits she hasn’t seen the DC Comics superhero blockbuster but now it’s a huge smash hit, she’s keen to talk about it, characteristically relating the film to herself, her never-ending political ambition and her determination to avenge last November’s shock presidential election defeat to Donald Trump.

Speaking in a 95-second video message at the Women in Film Los Angeles’ Crystal + Lucy Awards on Tuesday night, Clinton paid tribute to Elizabeth Banks, actress, director and Clinton activist who was receiving an award for Crystal Award for Excellence in Film.

She then moved on to Wonder Woman: “Now I haven’t seen Wonder Woman yet, but I’m going to, in part because it’s directed by the fabulous Patty Jenkins.

“But something tells me that a movie about a strong, powerful woman fighting to save the world from a massive international disaster is right up my alley.”

And Trump was a narcissist?

No Need to go to Gym Today

I just did the Latex-ite workout.  Lifting a 4.75 gallon bucket of asphalt several times; turning it over;  spreading it out;  troweling it into the gap between garage floor and driveway was about as many steps and as much exhaustion as my gym workout.

I Knew This Was Going to Happen Eventually

6/18/17 Daily Mail:

Police hold back furious crowd as they arrest 'terror attacker who ploughed into a crowd of Good Samaritans helping collapsed OAP' before brave worshippers managed to pin him to the ground
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4616452/Man-arrested-van-ploughs-people-outside-mosque.html#ixzz4kSy7BS6T Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Fortunately no one dead as of yet. Revenge for Islamoterrorist attacks.   This is not only morally wrong:

1. Most Muslims do not support Islamoterrorist attacks.

2. Most victims worldwide of Islamoterrorism are Muslims.

3. It is random attack on innocent civilians.

It is also pragmatically wrong:

1. May drive some Muslims into lone wolf attacks.

2. Creates fear of the larger non-Islamic society.

3. Probably reduces willingness of Muslims to report extremists.

4. Gives ISIS an excuse for more terrorist attacks.

Father's Day

I have what I consider the best gifts of all: two children that I am proud of.

Some parents are focused on financial success: "My son's a doctor!"

In spite of some very painful teen years, my daughter is someone that makes me feel like a good father.  She is a social worker, providing counselling primarily to teens.  She is also on-call for a problem about which had never thought.  Police officer finds a situation where a child may be at risk in the wee hours.  Is the situation so serious it requires immediate removal, or can it wait until morning?  Call in a social worker to evaluate.

My son, unlike many other millennials, ended up with a useful degree (Communications) and is not living in his parents' basement.  (This is good; we would have to dig one.)  He is self-sufficient and advancing in his career managing web content.

SHIBA

My friend Terry Hoover (who teaches awesome firearms training classes) turned me on to SHIBA, an Idaho program that shows those going on to Medicare how to optimize their Medicare supplemental insurance. I filled three prescriptions Friday,  and cost $6.

Lock, Stock, and Barrel Nearing Completion

I am fast approaching completion. Dave Golden is powering through it, catching many stupid mistakes and improving some clumsy sentences.

More Asphalt Fun

I am about to do what I hope is my final asphalt coat for the telescope garage driveway.   (This is necessary for testing a new ScopeRoller project.) The last coat had a few rocks stuck in it, so I knocked most of them loose. The last coat should overwhelm any remaining rocks. I also have a couple depressions that need filling in. They are not very deep, so filling them in should be easy.

Sleep Apnea

I forgot to put my BreatheRight strip on Friday night. I woke up miserable, and stayed that way all day.  Last night, the experiment demonstrated that it is necessary to overcome at least in part my sleep apnea. I just cannot imagine being like that every day.

Left Insanity Keeps Growing

6/16/17 HeatSt:

After a shooter in Alexandria left House Majority Whip Steve Scalise in critical condition and wounded four other people, a longtime New Jersey Democratic political strategist responded by introducing the hashtags #HuntRepublicans and #HuntRepublicanCongressmen.

“We are in a war with selfish, foolish & narcissistic rich people,” wrote James Devine on Twitter. “Why is it a shock when things turn violent? #HuntRepublicanCongressmen.”

Devine has run for office, consulted for numerous New Jersey campaigns, and worked in the offices of state lawmakers. He’s also a blogger.

George Takei (a talented actor before turning into a buffoon):

The universe doesn't joke around. The officer who saved bigoted, homophobic Rep. Steve Scalise during baseball practice was a black lesbian.

Never Listen to Economists

They will tell you that feeling morally superior doesn't solve the problem of causing workers at the bottom to lose their jobs.  6/13/17 Fresno Bee:

In a pair of affluent coastal California counties, the canary in the mineshaft has gotten splayed, spatchcocked and plated over a bed of unintended consequences, garnished with sprigs of locally sourced economic distortion and non-GMO, “What the heck were they thinking?”

The result of one early experiment in a citywide $15 minimum wage is an ominous sign for the state’s poorer inland counties as the statewide wage floor creeps toward the mark.Consider San Francisco, an early adopter of the $15 wage. It’s now experiencing a restaurant die-off, minting jobless hash-slingers, cashiers, busboys, scullery engineers and line cooks as they get pink-slipped in increasing numbers. And the wage there hasn’t yet hit $15.

As the East Bay Times reported in January, at least 60 restaurants around the Bay Area had closed since September alone.

A recent study by Michael Luca at Harvard Business School and Dara Lee Luca at Mathematica Policy Research found that every $1 hike in the minimum wage brings a 14 percent increase in the likelihood of a 3.5-star restaurant on Yelp! closing.

Too Good to Miss

6/15/17 Daily Caller:

The left-leaning Washington Post awarded four “Pinocchios” to the lie that former Alaska Gov. incited schizophrenic Jared Loughner to shoot Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords in 2011 — a long-debunked claim that the NYT used to attack Republicans after a left-wing Bernie Sanders supporter tried to murder dozens of Republican congressmen on Wednesday.

The NYT editorial board claimed there was a clear “link to political incitement” in the Giffords shooting because Palin placed crosshairs on Gifford’s district as one of the House seats Republicans needed to flip in 2012. The editors later described it as a “sign of incitement” that was “direct.” There is no evidence to support that claim.

When the left calls out the left; watch out for falling pig droppings.

Trump Really is Rich

During the campaign there was a lot of screeching that he wasn't releasing his tax returns because he really wasn't that rich.  6/16/17 CNN blows that away:

President Trump reported hundreds of millions of dollars in income Friday in financial disclosure forms that shed more light on his vast business holdings.

At his golf courses alone, Trump reported $288 million in income in the past year. That includes $19.8 million from his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he has spent some weekends as president.

Trump reported $37.2 million in income in the past year from Mar-a-Lago, the private Florida resort where Trump hosted the president of China and ordered missile strikes against Syria. The club has doubled its membership fee in the past year.

The Mar-a-Lago income figure was $7.4 million higher than on his previous financial disclosure filing, in May 2016.

Trump reported $19.7 million in income through mid-April at his luxury Washington hotel, which has been a center of concerns about conflict of interest because of the possibility that foreign governments can curry favor with the president by booking rooms there. The hotel opened in September.

The president reported up to $7 million in book royalties, including $1 million to $5 million from his book "Great Again: How to Fix Our Crippled America." He reported nearly $11 million from the Miss Universe pageant and an $84,000 pension from the Screen Actors Guild.

Not An Assault Rifle

News media reporting baseball shooter used an assault rifle.  No, an SKS, not included in any law defining assault weapons because not a detachable magazine.  But why expect accuracy from mainstream media when they can run fake news.

To their credit, CNN has corrected their story.

Most fake news outlets are still insisting it was an M4.

Y2K

Back in the 1980s, I was writing software for an integrated fiber optics digital loop carrier (trust me, you don't want me to explain it), and I pointed out to my boss that Y2K was coming.  He laughed at my concern.  The federal government is apparently still spending money preparing for it, or just ignoring existing paperwork requirements.  6/15/17 Bloomberg Politics:

Seventeen years after the Year 2000 bug came and went, the federal government will finally stop preparing for it.  The Trump administration announced Thursday that it would eliminate dozens of paperwork requirements for federal agencies, including an obscure rule that requires them to continue providing updates on their preparedness for a bug that afflicted some computers at the turn of the century....

Seven of the more than 50 paperwork requirements the White House eliminated on Thursday dealt with the Y2K bug, according to a memo OMB released. Officials at the agency estimate the changes could save tens of thousands of man-hours across the federal government.

The agency didn’t provide an estimate of how much time is currently spent on Y2K paperwork, but Linda Springer, an OMB senior adviser, acknowledged that it isn’t a lot since those requirements are already often ignored in practice.

And gobs of other pointless rules.  How silly to put a successful businessman in charge of our government!

Progressive Fruit

6/16/17 CBS reports that Illinois may be the first state to go bankrupt:

Like Puerto Rico, Illinois has a massive pension crisis. Its unfunded pension liability for the state's five major plans grew 25 percent alone in one year, reaching $251 billion, according to Moody's. On a per-household basis, the state's pension debt burden stands at $27,000, according to the conservative-leaning Illinois Policy Institute. 

So how did the state's pensions balloon into such a crisis? First, the pension problem has been a long time in the making. The state has more than 660 government pension funds, which are sometimes called defined benefit plans because they promise workers will receive a specific pension when they retire. 

But critics say some of those pensions carried overly optimistic assumptions, especially given periods of market turmoil like the global financial crisis, which ate into investment returns. The state's general assembly wasn't required to fully fund pensions, which meant tax money was spent on other priorities such as schools or infrastructure. 

Population is declining as people vote with their feet. 

Amazingly, Not The Onion

6/12/17 PJMedia:

On Sunday, Black Lives Matter activists pulled off the sort of victory that right-wing hooligans could only hope to achieve: They stopped a gay pride parade.“We are calling you out!” Alexandria Williams, co-founder of the group’s Toronto chapter, shouted through a megaphone as the Black Lives Matter float came to a halt and marchers sat down. Amid rainbow-colored smoke bombs, she accused event organizers of harboring “a historical and current culture of anti-blackness” -- a curious claim considering how the festival welcomed Black Lives Matter as “guests of honor.”

Cultural Appropriation

6/13/17 Yahoo News:

Indigenous advocates from around the world are calling on a UN committee to ban the appropriation of Indigenous cultures — and to do it quickly.

Delegates from 189 countries, including Canada, are in Geneva this week as part of a specialized international committee within the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a United Nations agency.

Since it began in 2001, the committee has been working on creating and finishing three pieces of international law that would expand intellectual-property regulations to protect things like Indigenous designs, dances, words and traditional medicines.

The meeting takes place as concern grows worldwide about the rights of cultures to control their own materials. In the U.S. this week, designer Tory Burch agreed to change the description of one of her coats for women after Romanians protested that it had been described as African-inspired when it actually appropriated a traditional Romanian garment.

Okay, no electricity, glasses, snowmobiles, or steel for American Indians; those were cultural appropriations from white culture.  Having been through three major surgeries let me include the most important gift of our culture: general anesthesia.

More evidence that the UN has too much money.

Quick! Call PETA!

6/15/17 Washington Post:

HOPE, Maine — A Maine woman says a rabid raccoon attacked her while she was out for a run, so she drowned it in a puddle.

Rachel Borch, of Hope, says she was running in woods near her home June 2 when she saw the raccoon charging with its teeth bared. She says she knew the animal was going to bite her, so she held out her hands so it would bite her there.

The 21-year-old says she then noticed a puddle in a nearby swampy area. She ran over with the rabid animal still biting down on her thumb and held its head underwater until it drowned.

Too Much Winning

6/14/17 CBS:

MADISON, Wis. — A Taiwanese company that assembles Apple's iPhones and other electronics is considering building a plant in Wisconsin that could employ thousands of people and give Gov. Scott Walker a huge political boost as he prepares to run for re-election.

A person with direct knowledge of the negotiations who was not authorized to speak publicly confirmed to The Associated Press on Wednesday that the state is in talks with Foxconn. At least one other upper Midwest state, Michigan, is also pursuing the plant.

It hasn't happened yet, but even serious discussion is a win.  And there won't be discussion of exploitation and virtual slavery in Wisconsin, will there?

Michael Savage Obviously Put Him Up to This :-)

6/14/17 WND:

Less than 24 hours before a supporter of former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders fired at Republican members of Congress at a baseball practice, seriously injuring House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and four others before U.S. Capitol Police took down the assailant, talk-radio host and author Michael Savage warned of violence by “marginal” people who are set to explode and “kill somebody.”

Blaming Palin for the Baseball Shooting

6/14/17 New York Times:

Was this attack evidence of how vicious American politics has become? Probably. In 2011, when Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in a supermarket parking lot, grievously wounding Representative Gabby Giffords and killing six people, including a 9-year-old girl. At the time, we and others were sharply critical of the heated political rhetoric on the right. Before the shooting, Sarah Palin’s political action committee circulated a map of targeted electoral districts that put Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized cross hairs. But no connection to that crime was ever established.

Jake Tapper at CNN points out:

even way back in Jan 2011 we knew that Loughlin's obsession began 3 years before the Palin map. 

Genealogy?

Found this very useful search site.  Includes birth, marriage, and death records for England.

Not Alone

6/14/17 The Hill:

The office of Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) received a threatening email with the subject line “One down, 216 to go…,” shortly after a shooter opened fire on GOP lawmakers who were at a congressional baseball practice, according to her office.

The person who sent the email then wrote in the body of the email, "Did you NOT expect this?"

"Did you NOT expect this? When you take away ordinary peoples very lives in order to pay off the wealthiest among us, your own lives are forfeit. Certainly, your souls and morality were lost long before. Good riddance,” the email said.

If this is as wide a sentiment among the left as I think, it is going to be the start of a very ugly civil war.

Slow Learner

6/13/17 USA Today:

A Texas woman who was freed from a life sentence last year after President Obama granted her clemency is behind bars again.

According to the Houston Chronicle, Carol Denise Richardson, 49, was arrested for theft in Pasadena, a Houston suburb, and violated other conditions imposed when she was released from prison.

"This defendant was literally given a second chance to become a productive member of society and has wasted it," Assistant U.S. Attorney Ted Imperato said in a statement released by his office. "She has clearly shown a willful disregard for the law and must face the consequences for her crimes and actions."

Richardson was convicted by a federal jury in June 2006 for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of crack cocaine and two counts of possession with intent to distribute the drug, the paper reported. With an extensive criminal background, she was sentenced to life in prison.

Republican Congressman Shot; Left Exults

Someone opened fire on the Republican baseball team (did not even know that there was such a thing).  Many shot, including one Congressman and another's aide, left predictably responds with cheers and excuses.  Shooter's Facebook page is full on left-wing Democrat.

Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It's Time to Destroy Trump & Co.

And of course Sanders backer::

I want Bernie to Win the White House.

He asked earlier which party this was.  He couldn't see the horns and tails.

The Washington Post  mentioned shooter's left-wing Facebook page.  New York Times? No.

Bought new furniture from Amazon

Bought new furniture from Amazon, a couch, love seat, and chair:

I have bought a lot of furniture over the years made in China; this is by far the most impressive.  I suspect the US patent numbers on the side of the box are related to the assembly method.  It arrived in boxes so small that I briefly wondered if I had ordered inflatable furniture.  (This is the first time I have ordered from Amazon that it wasn't USPS or UPS delivered.)  The fasteners required precisely positioned holes in all the parts; and they were.  Instead of screwing into wood, the fasteners went into threaded metal inserts in the wood.  (Retired engineer; I notice these things.) 

Each piece took my wife about 10-15 minutes to assemble; she was a wiz at it by the third piece.  The cushions and pillows were inside the bottom frame, which reduced shipping volume substantially.  

A nice touch is that the back cushions are Velcroed in place so they don't fly off when you get up.  

All the fasteners were present and with enough surplus that even if we had lost a few, it would not have stopped assembly.

They are comfortable, especially compared to the broken down 1995 couch and loveseat they replaced.

Instructions were very clear; if you can't figure them out, surrender your car keys.
I doubt that they will last as long as Flexsteel's competing products, but at this price, I can afford to replace them in 10 years and feel good about it.

Because of how they assemble and disassemble, if you need to get these through a narrow hallway or door, it will be easy to move them.