Every Tragedy Has a Life Lesson

The Boston terrier/pit bull rescue dog we adopted a month ago had to go back.  My wife's account of it has some important life lessons:

We Are All Rescue Dogs

I had a sad day yesterday. I had to return a rescue dog that I adopted a while back. I cried throughout the day. My last moment with her was her huddling in my car, eyes dilated with fear as the assistant reached in to take her out of my car. Her fear was a stab to my heart, for I had lavished love, toys, snuggle time, play time, a safe yard (I had to put up a fence), a good buddy (my Springer spaniel), walks, runs, hikes and treats on her every day. I sang her songs, played games with her and tried to make her a part of our family, with no holds barred.

“It takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun,”

4/28/19 Daily Caller:

Stewart said he chased him all the way out to his car and began pounding on it — the shooter had managed to lock himself in. When Stewart saw him reach for a rifle, he punched the side of the car as hard as he could, intending to figure out a way to drag him out of the car. That’s when a Border Patrol agent who attends the synagogue came running out to the parking lot, yelling for Stewart to get down because he had a gun. (RELATED: Trump Praises Off-Duty Border Patrol Agent Who Engaged Synagogue Shooter)

Stewart says this man may have saved his life and pointed to his use of a civilian’s gun as evidence that gun control isn’t the answer to these kinds of tragedies. Stewart was off-duty and was apparently handed the weapon by someone else on the scene.

How fortunate California has not achieved its end game on gun "control."

Why Do I Doubt This Will Get Much Coverage?

4/27/19 Breitbart:

The manifesto also includes a “lightning round” — a question and answer section in which Earnest discusses his hatred of President Donald Trump and reveals he is inspired by Adolf Hitler, Tree of Life Synagogue shooter Robert Bowers, and New Zealand mosque gunman Brenton Tarrant.

NBC News further reported: “The shooter claims in the Q-and-A section to eschew political ideology, saying he does not support Donald Trump because of his support for Israel. The writer also complains that conservatives aren’t violent enough in support of their politics.”

4/27/19 NBC News:

The shooter claims in the Q-and-A section to eschew political ideology, saying he does not support Donald Trump because of his support for Israel. The writer also complains that conservatives aren't violent enough in support of their politics. 

I am a bit surprised NBC would publish that.  The good news is that he used a rifle not legally for sale in California, so this must be fake news.  He could not have legally purchased it--he is too young.

Ammo Giveaway

Bulk Munitions

Things You Do and Do Not Want to See

Your two dogs playing tug-of-war... with a marmot.

So Much for Poverty Causes Islamic Terrorism

4/23/19 Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sri-lanka-blasts/picture-emerges-of-well-to-do-young-bombers-behind-sri-lankan-carnage-idUSKCN1S00G2 reports that the bombers in Sri Lanka were from well to do homes and well educated. 

“Most of the bombers are well-educated, come from economically strong families. Some of them went abroad for studies,” Wijewardene told a news conference.

It is an article of faith to the left that it is the grinding poverty of the Islamic world, caused by American support of the Israeli "colony" that causes this. The refusal to look at how Islam's hostility to capitalism impoverished them is a serious problem.

Optional Reality

4/25/19 New York Post https://nypost.com/2019/04/25/rabbi-blasts-ilhan-omar-for-promoting-idea-jesus-was-palestinian/amp/ reports that the Congresswoman from Minnesotastan is claiming Jesus was not Jewish, but Palestinian.  Why should reality be required of a Democrat?

This Should Be Enough Reason for Trump to Call Up the Unorganized Militia

4/23/19 Fox News:

Heavily armed men escort migrants across US border, surveillance video shows

The Federal Government Should Cut Off Funding to Colleges With Racially Discriminatory Practices

4/24/19 The College Fix:

Wake Forest University is hosting a series of “listening sessions” for faculty and staff of color that aim to advance inclusion efforts on campus.

The listening sessions come amid ongoing racial tensions on campus, including a protest Monday at which some students decried the “white supremacy” that allegedly runs rampant at the private, North Carolina institution.

“Dear faculty and staff colleagues, this is a reminder about our upcoming listening sessions on inclusion that I am holding for faculty and staff of color over the next several weeks,” stated an April 18 email from Michele Gillespie, dean of the college, to campus employees.

Imagine white-only sessions to discuss black intimidation of white faculty.

Typesetting

When I teach Western Civ, I explain Gutenberg's use of movable type, and how until the 1960s, printing would have been recognizable to Gutenberg, even with the electric motors operating the presses.  After that, he would have yelled "Witchcraft!"  This video from 1959 explains typesetting:

One of those trailing edge jobs that the left used to complain would be destroyed by automation.  Look at all the out of work typesetters roaming our streets threatening to throw lead type at us!  A reader tells me the alloy used for type was Linotype and made great cast bullets, but is now hard to find,

Limited Blogging: I Am Grading Papers

Spoiler Alert

The tomb is empty, and those who believe blowing up churches is helping their cause are severely deluded.

Ever Had a Really Bad Date?

The person who can't take a hint and keeps trying to set up a second date?  Here's how to make sure there is no second date.  4/19/19 USA Today:

PHOENIX – A woman accused of sending a man more than 159,000 text messages and breaking into his Arizona home wants her case to go to trial, believing a jury will find her innocent while also ordering her and the man she's accused of stalking to wed.

Those were among the comments made by Jacqueline Ades in a recent phone interview with The Arizona Republic from Maricopa County's Estrella Jail, where she has been held since May 2018.

Ades' case has garnered national attention after authorities said she continued to stalk a Paradise Valley man after a single date, broke into his home and sent thousands of text messages to him over the course of 10 months, including some in which she threatened to wear his flesh and devour his organs, according to Maricopa County Court records.

Yes, found mentally incompetent.   How do you text someone 159,000 times?  No job to go to?

And how did this mismatch made in hell come about?

According to the documents, Ades met the man on a dating website and began stalking him soon after, flooding him with text messages, sometimes as many as 500 in a single day.

Florida Man News Stories

Hysterically funny reminders that Florida Man's descendants are the people of Idiocracy.

30 extremely bizarre Florida Man stories that prove that America is in far more trouble than we thought…

#1 Florida man steals $33,000 in rare coins, uses them in change machines

#2 Florida Man Arrested for Allegedly Throwing Live Alligator Into Wendy’s Drive-Thru Window

#3 Florida man, drunk and naked, allegedly set house on fire in failed cookie baking attempt

#4 Florida man finds World War II grenade, tosses it in the trunk, brings it to a Taco Bell

#5 Florida Man Shattered Toilet After Firing Gun Indoors, Missing Roommate—’Hell Yes, That Could Have Hurt Me’

#6 Drunk Florida man arrested at Olive Garden after eating handfuls of pasta

#7 Florida man arrested for shoplifting after job interview at Kohl’s

#8 Monkey in diaper found clinging to Florida man in stolen car, police say

#9 Florida man dies in meth-lab explosion after lighting farts on fire

#10 Puppy shoots Florida man, deputies say

#11 Florida man caught on video licking doorbell

#12 Florida man arrested for speeding told deputies, ‘the car is a Ferrari and it goes fast’

#13 Florida man gets out of jail, back in 15 minutes later

#14 Florida Man Threatens To Destroy Everyone With Army Of Turtles, Police Say

#15 Florida man arrested in golf cart with 5 bottles of Fireball

#16 This Florida man stole laxatives — because he thought they were opioids, police say

#17 Florida man spent weeks in jail for heroin that was actually detergent

#18 Police: Florida man angry over cost of cigarettes hits clerk with beer bottle

#19 A Florida Man let it all hang out at a strip club, dancer says. He wasn’t part of the act

#20 Florida man wanted a woman’s egg rolls so badly it landed him in jail, police say

#21 Thong-wearing Florida man arrested while building shed with garbage on stranger’s property

#22 Florida man caught abusing young alligator, putting cigarette in its mouth

#23 Florida man arrested after traffic crash found with ‘fake urine,’ says it’s for ‘role play’ with spouse

#24 Florida man finds iguana in toilet, calls 911

#25 Florida man tried to bring replica grenade launcher on plane, TSA says

#26 Florida man uses fake ID, steals $41K in dental implants, $10K for French bulldog

#27 Florida man denies syringes found in rectum are his

#28 Florida man threatens to kill man ‘with kindness,’ uses machete named ‘Kindness’

#29 Naked Florida man revealed on video sneaking into restaurant and munching on ramen

#30 Florida man escapes alligator by punching it in the face while searching for golf balls

Needless to say, sometimes things don’t end well for Florida Man.

For example, one Florida Man was just killed by a rare bird when he fell down in the backyard of his own home.  The following comes from a CNN article entitled “A cassowary, a rare emu-like bird, attacks and kills Florida man, officials say”…

Finally, Created the Piece I Needed

A cube of acetal 2.83" on a side with a right angle 30 degrees offset from the top.  I had tried to do this with a ball end mill, but the programming turned out to be harder than I thought.  This beautiful sine vise:

turned out to be a bit big to fit on the Sherline's mill table, so I returned it.  After much upset, I noticed that the Sherline tilting table had enough space between the sides and enough holes in the bottom to attach the workpiece with two 5/16"-18 bolts.  They held it very solidly.  While the piece does not need .001" accuracy, I did make sure the workpiece was within .005" of square on the tilting table.

I had to turn the tilting table 90 degrees from how the holddown screws fit into the T-slots, because there is barely three inches of travel in the Y axis, and for making a cut from -.25" to 2.98" (the end mill is 1/2" diameter), I needed to cut along the X axis.  One of the things that I like about Sherline in spite of the limited power and Y axis travel, is how much thought went into the accessory designs.  The Sherline vise is held in place by holddowns that grab at the sides of the vise.  The tilting table has holes at each end that take screws to go into T-nuts.  (You can see both of these features in the video below.) But I was going 90 degrees from the intended direction so those holddowns would not work. The base plate of the tilting table is the right thickness for the mill vise holddowns to securely hold it. 

In the video, the mill is going ,1 inches/minute.  Why so slow?  I wanted to leave it unattended during my afternoon nap and at .1 ipm, nilling .1" off per slice, even 1" high, I could be sure it would not jam.

Should Not Be Surprised

St. Bob of Mueller's report changed nothing for the Democratic activists with bylines.  They are single-mindedly chasing obstruction of justice for something where no crime existed.

Backtick in bash

echo "scale = 4; .5/2" | bc -l
produces expected result: .2500

set x=`echo "scale = 4; .5/2" | bc -l`
executes but x is set to a blank.

set x=$(echo "scale = 4; .5/2" | bc -l)
does the same thing.  Has backtick changed since 2014?

Progress.  Bash variables need no spaces around the = and set is not required, or wanted.  The for loop:

for y in ($(seq -f "%0.4f" $y $advanceY $endY) does not increment by .1 (the value of advanceY), but by 1.  Duh: advanceY is not $advance.

This problem remains
echo "scale = 4; .5/2" | bc -l
produces expected result: .2500

x=`echo "scale = 4; .5/2" | bc -l`
executes but x is set to a blank.

x=$(echo "scale = 4; .5/2" | bc -l)
does the same thing.  Has backtick changed since 2014?

Philosophy Does Attract Some Odd Birds.

4/18/19 New York Times about guy arrested carrying gasoline and lighter into St. Patrick's Cathedral:

Mr. Lamparello is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the City University of New York. His mother told the New Jersey authorities he had an apartment in New York City....

He was a 2004 graduate of Boston College and was listed as teaching courses at Brooklyn College this spring. The police said Mr. Lamparello also taught at Seton Hall University in New Jersey.

4/18/19 New York Daily News reports:

“I’m not leaving!” Lamparello screamed as he threw himself on the cathedral floor. “God wants me here! I know all the sins the priests have committed!”

I suspect that I know why he is crazy and trying to light the ultimate candle in St. Patrick's.

Lamparello’s stunned father, in a chat with The News, described his son as a “brilliant” college professor who sounded fine in a phone call just hours before his arrest.

“Extremely out of character,” said the distraught dad Leonard, 79, about his son’s behavior. "He’s a brilliant professor. His writings — other professors can’t even understand his writings."

Must be brilliant if he can't communicate with anyone outside his tinfoil hat.

A Year Ago, I Had a Student Who Was a Graduate of Evergreen State College

That should tell you enough right there.  He dropped the class and told the department chair that I was politicizing history.  I had referred to the struggle between elites and the masses in American history.  When he challenged what I considered elite ideas, I mentioned the National Health Service in Britain and gun control.  He engaged in a vigorous defense of the NHS, which he claimed to have extensively studied.  I mentioned that British papers have reported on thousands of patients starved to death in NHS hospitals.  Because he didn't believe it, I brought the articles, which quoted government officials admitting it.  He dropped the class shortly afterwards.  4/15/19 [U.K.] Mirror (a tabloid, what the masses read):

Man with Down's Syndrome's 'cruel and horrific' death after 19 days without food

Giuseppe 'Joe' Ulleri wasted away at Manchester Royal Infirmary after the 'failure in his overall care'

2/2/19 Mirror:

Hospital patients die from starvation and thirst because nurses are over-stretched

But this week it was revealed that three patients a day are dying from starvation or thirst or choking on NHS wards. 

1/9/17 [U.K.] Independent:

Two patients die from starvation or thirst each day in UK hospitals and care homes, say statistics

Are You a C & E Christian?

One who identifies, perhaps only culturally, as a Christian and attends church only on Christmas or Easter?  If you do no9t have a church already in mind, and obviously if you live in the Boise area, let me invite you to worship with my wife and me at Restored Community Church, 3633 W. Floating Feather, Eagle at 10:45 on Sunday.

And if you are a cynic about religion, let me remind you that the only serious obstacle preventing the Islamic States of America is Christianity.

Gee, I Cannot Imagine Why

4/16/19 Reuters:

Christianity grows in Syrian town once besieged by Islamic State

Today's Argument Against Centralized Control

The first Shell I went into today, I could not pump gas.  The worker inside explained that someone had driven off without pulling the pump out of the car.  (I've done that once myself.)  So all pumps were disabled.  Sort of makes sense.  Remember the scene in The Birds where one Angry Bird knocks out the guy pumping gas?

At the next Shell, gas was not pumpable either, and the attendant had no idea why.  I am guessing all Shell stations in a particular area (hopefully, Boise, not Idaho) are ried together in some overly paranoid safety scheme.

The Murders Democrats Ignore

4/15/19 Philadelphia  Inquirer:

Mass shooting events in suburban settings such as Parkland, Fla., get a lot of public and political attention. They involve multiple victims shot by the same person at one location — a shattering blow to a single community.

Yet the urban toll of gun violence is much higher — and in Philadelphia, a frequent event. Shootings in the city often take place in different neighborhoods and involve different residents. But for the victims’ communities and the hospitals responsible for treating them, having multiple bullet-ridden patients come to the emergency room all at once from various locations can be as devastating as the more widely reported single-site mass shootings.

The difference?  These are black people, largely, Democrats, and these tragedies are concentrated in antigun governments.  The white voters that Democrats still need to win elections are less likely to pay attention to these inner city tragedies.  And the mass media ignore anything that fails to push their current favorite gun control agenda: banning rifles, one of the least commonly used firearms for murders of all types.

The Funniest Thing Today

Cher is all for open borders, until Trump says to send them Sanctuary cities and states:

Pop singer Cher seemed to do an about-face on the immigration issue, questioning why a city and state that “isn’t taking care of its own” should bring in and “take care of more.”

“I Understand Helping struggling Immigrants, but MY CITY (Los Angeles) ISNT TAKING CARE OF ITS OWN,” Cher said in a Sunday tweet. “WHAT ABOUT THE 50,000+????????Citizens WHO LIVE ON THE STREETS. PPL WHO LIVE BELOW POVERTY LINE,& HUNGRY? If My State Can’t Take Care of Its Own(Many Are VETS) How Can it Take Care Of More?”

Is there anyone better at exploding progressive heads than Trump?

That Sine Table Issue

That led me to ask about trig.  I may have a simpler solution. The Frankenvise base is about 5" wide by about 7" long.

1. I have some 5" x 5" red oak.  I could put that in the chop saw and make a 30 degree cut.  (The diagonal face will be sqrt(5**2 + 5**2)  = 7.07" x 5".

2. Then side mill the short end to square; put that in the vise (the long end is already close to parallel to the short end)  and square the sides by face milling and then the long end.

3. Put it in the vise and using a level, get the diagonal face level so that I can face mill it to a flat surface.

4. Then cut a slot in all four faces near the bottom of the diagonal block so the clamps that I currently for clamping Frankenvise to the table can be used to clamp the 30 degree block to the mill table.

5. Then drill and tap four 10-32 holes in the diagonal face of the block so that screw and washers firmly hold Franken vise to the 30 degree block .

Not as versatile as a sine vise, but sized to fit my mill table and use my existing Frankenvise, as well as fasteners and materials already in stock.  Then I put my acetal cube in Frankenvise and cut a right angle to get my 30 degree and 60 degree angles right angle.

Actually, the red oak is 3 x 3.  It is the basswood that is 5 x 3.  Basswood is pretty soft.  Instead of tapping it, I will make through holes, recess the bottom of the holes so the screws won't run into the mill table, and use washers and nuts on both ends of the holes to secure the screws.

No, that won't work The 5" dimension won't fit under the blade; adjusting the chop saw to cut at angle, I see a scale that goes to 45 degrees, but that is relative to the vertical.  I can't cut a 30 degree cut.

Ah, but while the block I need to mill at a 30 degree angle will not fit in the mill vise, it will go beetween the angle ears on the tilting table.  There are a couple of .365" holes that I will use to fit 5/`6" bolts through into the workpiece.  Simplest solution of all!

Clearly Too Stupid to Live

4/13/19 WGN:

LAREDO, Texas — A Laredo woman reportedly didn’t appreciate her common-law husband’s lack of response when she asked him if she was pretty, causing her to assault him, according to the Laredo Morning Times.

Police said 20-year-old Lizeth Guadalupe Ramirez told them her common-law husband assaulted and tried to strangle her, but her husband had a different story.

The man said he and Ramirez were seeing a movie when she asked him if she was pretty. He said he did not hear the question, but his lack of response irritated Ramirez.

Even if isnt true, the right response is my honest response to my wife, "You are as beautiful as when I married you in 1980."

Another Victory

SECOND AMENDMENT FOUNDATION, INC., and ILLINOIS STATE RIFLE ASSOCIATION,  Plaintiffs,  v. EAST ST. LOUIS HOUSING AUTHORITY 

ORDER OF FINAL JUDGMENT AND PERMANENT INJUNCTION

2. Upon entry of this final order and permanent injunction, Defendants shall take the necessary steps to strike or amend the challenged sections of the ESLHA Lease, such that the ESLHA will no longer prohibit Plaintiffs, and other ESLHA residents who are otherwise qualified under Illinois law to possess firearms, to possess functional firearms, that are legal in their jurisdiction, in their residences. 

Apparently the woman was being evicted for using a gun in self-defense.  Who would need a gun in a housing project?  Obviously paranoid.

Spring Has Sprung

And a neighbor lives at the end of the rainbow:

By the way: the 16 megapixel camera gives great detail when the picture is zoomed.

This is the lowest rainbow that I think my wife and I have ever seen.  Rainbows are antisolar; you can only see them when that part of the sky is exactly opposite the Sun.

Whoever Sent Me the Magnetic Stripping for My Parallels

Thank you.  While the Sherline vise is aluminum, the Frankenvise is cast iron, and the magnetic stripping holds to the parallels and to the vise jaws.  Not enormous grip, but enough to keep them from falling down until I put material on top.

To Quote Mr. Bean: "I Concentrated on the Trigonometry"

I even received a B.  (Math classes were the only classes in high school where I did not easily get an A.)  So why is this so hard?  I am trying to cut a channel that is a right angle in a flat workpiece, with a 30 degree angle on one side and 60 degrees on the other.  This diagram:

where ACD is 30 degrees and ABD is 60.  So I wrote a program to compute a movement of my ball end mill from B to A on line b and then back up line c to B.  The first part worked pretty well, computing the depth of cut by using the distance along CD to calculate depth of cut as z=y sin 30.  (The cut is in the x direction.)

By using the right x, y, and z increments (very small), I got a pretty decent finish in redwood without any obvious steps:

(Ignore the gouge just left of center, there were several early tries.)  But the cut on the right is actually more like 30 degrees.  It is not a right angle.

So computing z for the 60 degree angle is apparently not z=y sin 60.  What am I calculating wrong?

Another solution, (clumsy).  I am not using my Sherline tilting table because the parts that show the angle prevent any mill vise larger than their 2" from going in there, and this is a 3" workpiece.  Clumsy solution to try: Make a block that is 2" wide to fit in the Sherline vise and extends out 2" above the vise to which I screw the workpiece.  This requires very precise alignment of workpiece to block in the Sherline vise, but I am running out of alternatives.

Cut a 3" x 3" block, square all sides, trim bottom to 2" x 2" x2" to fit in vise and extend beyond angle "ears."  Drill and tap two 1/2"-13 holes in workpiece and corresponding 1/2" through holes in the extension block.

How to Handle Buck Passing

The Most Impressive Piece of Journalism That I Have Seen in a Long Time

What amazes me is that Seattle-ites insist on keeping crazy people in charge of their city government.  Local TV journalism at its finest.  Share with your friends that to make [Boise, Nashville, Denver] more like Seattle.  They focus on the drug addiction, but do mention that many of these homeless are also mentally ill.

An Awesome Debugger for Linux

Mostly because Eclipse Oxygen will not work on the antique that I use for my mill, I am still using the standard development tools for writing C programs: emacs, gcc, and a really cool debugger called Data Display Debugger.  If, for whatever reason, you can't used an IDE for such work, I recommend DDD.

Need the Idaho Enhanced Concealed Weapon License?

Like if you teach at a public college of university?  Taught by a friend.

NRA

Personal Protection Handgun Course
Idaho ENHANCED Concealed Weapon License

12 hour course 8am - 8pm

NRA Personal Protection in the Home Course exceeds Idaho 18-3302K ENHANCED Concealed Weapon License requirement, certificate recognized by all states as firearms training (Though NOT for certain states' CCW , see list below)
 

$150 Course Fee includes NRA handbook, fliers & NRA Course Completion & Idaho State Police Training Certificates. Classes are small (7 at most). PAID advance registration is required to reserve your seat. Class is open to Instructor-approved citizens who have no felonies or other legal gun-ownership disabilities. Liability Release form signature required.
 

Course consists of approximately 4 Hours Classroom, 4 Hours on the Shooting Range, 4 Hours Legal Instruction. Includes Basic Handgun Safety, Familiarization, Hands-on Firearms Handling, Shooting Skills & Instruction. Personal security & avoiding violent confrontations will be covered in depth. Safety & Awareness are critical.

Several hours will be spent on the firing range bringing student skills up to standards. Idaho State Law and Federal Law regarding firearms, concealed weapons, self-defense and after-event issues will be taught by a licensed Idaho attorney (formerly served as a public defender, a prosecutor and as an Idaho State deputy attorney general)

BRING: warm jacket & hat (it gets cold and windy at the desert shooting range) and a button up shirt or turtleneck so no hot brass goes down your shirt to ‘brand’ you and make the event unsafe, eye and ear protection and handgun & at least 2 boxes of 50 rounds of factory ammunition ( Idaho law requires 98 rounds ), lunch snacks drinks notepad highlighter pencil post-its (Don't have a handgun or eye/ear protection? let me know I have a few loaners & can help you select the right one)

T. ALLEN HOOVER

NRA Certified Instructor                 NRA Training Counselor

          (208) 631 3003                               PO Box 6232 Boise ID 83707

  TALLENHOOVER@AOL.com          www.TALLENHOOVER.com

Size Matters

The sine vise that I bought a week ago is a beautiful piece of work, but I am going to have to return it.  It is just too big for the Sherline table.  I made some clamps to lock it down using the T-nut slots in the table, and they hold it pretty securely (after an unreasonable amount of work making them).  But there is not enough motion available in the Y axis to do what I need.  Turning the vise 90 degrees should have solved the problem, but the length in that direction again reveals that 3" of Y axis motion is not enough.

The item that I need to make was only to simplify and speed up making a part that I only make in small quantitIes. I suppose that I could try to make the part I need in a part not at an angle using a ball end mill, but I doubt it will be smooth enough.  I really need a mill too big for my available space. Worse, I cannot justify spending that kind of money for ScopeRoller's needs, and as a hobby, machining just is not that important.

Needed to Compare Two PDF Documents

Lots of programs that cost for comparing two PDFs.  Schwab issued me a corrected tax statement (1099-MISC, 1099-INT, and all the rest) and I wasn't sure how much difference it would make in the large checks that I need to write to the IRS and State of Idaho shortly.  The corrected form from Schwab labels each changed line as CORRECTED but doesn't tell you the old number.  But if you use Word to compare two PDF files, it does it!

Oppressing the Third World

Brunei has announced new laws.  4/4/19 Straits Times:

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, BRUNEI (AFP) - Transgender woman Zoella Zayce fled her native Brunei last year as the country shifted towards hardline Islam, and thinks more of the LGBT community will follow after the death penalty for gay sex was introduced.

The absolute monarchy on tropical Borneo island, ruled by a sultan who has been on the throne five decades, implemented tough new Islamic laws on Wednesday (April 3), including death by stoning for sex between men, and adultery.

The new syariah penal code has sparked a global outcry, with governments around the world condemning the measures, and celebrities - led by actor George Clooney - calling for Brunei-owned hotels to be boycotted.

While I am horrified by this new law, whatever happened to the traditional leftist respect for local tradition and sovereignty?  Sounds like ethnocentrism to me.

More Evil From That Man!

4/4/19 CNBC:

The number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits dropped to a more than 49-year low last week, pointing to sustained labor market strength despite slowing economic growth.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits declined 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 202,000 for the week ended March 30, the lowest level since early December 1969, the Labor Department said on Thursday.

No wonder Democrats are upset; who will be dependent on them if so few people are out of work?

The CreateSpace to KDP Conversion

Amazon discontinued their CreateSpace service a while back, saying that the conversion to the KDP platform would be easy.  Not so.  The Kindle editions moved over just fine, but you have to start from scratch on paperback editions: create a new cover, request a new ISBN, upload the text again.  Worse, many of the features of the CreateSpace platform (ordering author copies) are gone.  Why did they screw this up so badly?

Is there a competitor to CreateSpace/KDP for print books?  Obviously you won't get them onto Amazon.

Why, We Have a First Amendment

As much as the presstitutes have degraded the news business, this really shows the direction the left is going.  3/14/19 NBC News:

A former Fox News employee plans to tell Congress about allegations that the outlet tried to stop her from reporting on the Stormy Daniels controversy during the 2016 election, citing an exception to a nondisclosure agreement she signed.

On Thursday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings formally requested that the reporter, Diana Falzone, talk with committee investigators and provide documents related to her attempts to report on Daniels’ allegations that Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former longtime lawyer, paid her hush money after an alleged affair with Trump in 2006.

Falzone’s lawyer, Nancy Erika Smith, told MSNBC on Thursday night that Falzone will now comply under an exception to her NDA with Fox News.

“The law requires that you be allowed to participate in any government investigation — and no NDA can stop that,” Smith said on "The Beat with Ari Melber."

If Republicans had subpoenaed NBC reporters about their coverage of Russiagate, the ACLU would be rightly concerned that this was an attempt to intimidate the news media.

Wow! Bad Laws Have Consequences

3/27/19 New York Times says that bigger bullets are deadlier than smaller bullets: 9mm is more deadly than .22, and .45 ACP is worse than 9mm.  The clueless twits at least admit:

In the 1970s and 1980s, the guns most commonly used in crime tended to be revolvers or small, inexpensive pistols that fired .22-caliber rounds, so-called for their 0.22-inch diameter. 

But regulations meant to reduce crimes committed with these cheap, disposable guns, sometimes called “Saturday night specials,” pushed them out of gun stores. And advances in gun technology caused a new generation of weapons to hit the market — and eventually the streets. The newer guns, which started to become common in the 1990s, were semi-automatic. 

Gee, their gun control scheme did not work!  Imagine that!  Oh yes, semiautomatic pistols in the 1980s were because of "advances in gun technology."

A Major Victory in California

Duncan v. Becerra, (S.D.Cal. 2019) struck down California's large capacity magazine ban for violating the Second Amendment.  It points to examples where victims with large capacity magazines successfully used them against multiple attackers and one where the victim had a low capacity magazine, and the other hand using a cellphone to call 911.  I've never been trained on how to change magazines without a free hand: have you?  A number of nice touches:

Individual liberty and freedom are not outmoded concepts. "The judiciary is — and is often the only — protector of individual rights that are at the heart of our democracy." -- Senator Ted Kennedy, Senate Hearing on the Nomination of Robert Bork, 1987.

The decision points to how rare mass murders are relative to other crimes:

Who has not heard about the Newtown, Connecticut, mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, or the one at a high school in Parkland, Florida? But an individual
victim gets little, if any, media attention, and the attention he or she gets is local and short-lived. For example, who has heard about the home invasion attack on Melinda Herman and her twin nine-year old daughters in Georgia only one month after the Sandy
Hook incident?15 Who has heard of the attacks on Ms. Zhu Chen or Ms. Gonzalez and her husband?16 Are the lives of these victims worth any less than those lost in a
mass shooting? Would their deaths be any less tragic? Unless there are a lot of individual victims together, the tragedy goes largely unnoticed.

And this little dig:

The magazine ban admits no exceptions, beyond those for law enforcement officers, armored truck guards, and movie stars. 

Quoting a decision calling a 10 round limit only a minor burden because there are other options:

Accordingly, a prohibition on possession of magazines having a capacity to accept
more than ten rounds applies only the most minor burden on the Second Amendment."). But describing as minor, the burden on responsible, law-abiding citizens who may not possess a 15-round magazine for self defense because there are other arms permitted with 10 or fewer rounds, is like saying that when government closes a Mormon church it is a minor burden because next door there is a Baptist church or a Hindu temple. 

Of course the 9th Circuit will hear the appeal, but Judge Reinhardt has recently been demoted to Hell, so who knows?  A great victory from my friend Chuck Michel.  The deeper I  read, the more impressed I get.  On appeal, California's argument is going to be reduced to "It's not fair!"

Copy Cat Crimes

I have written about the problem of copycat mass murders before, and I have mentioned copycat mass murders in 1890s Chicago using illuminating gas.  My research assistant found this tragedy where the copycat aspect is utterly undeniable.  Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.), 03 Feb. 1887:

The preceding tragedy: 

“A Maniac Mother,” St. Paul Daily Globe, Apr. 24, 1886, 1.