I Wish I Had An Assistant to Move My Toters On Trash Day

I found this at VodkaPundit.

Please, Tell Me That This Was Not Obvious to the SSA

Rep. Russ Fulcher's newsletter tells me:

The Treasury issued ~$1.4 Billion in Economic Impact Payments  to deceased people, citing lack of access to Social Security’s deceased records. I’m joining Rep. John Curtis’s common-sense bill requiring the Treasury to review the Social Security Death Master File before dispersing payments. 

I know: if they were not receiving those checks, they would not rise from the grave to vote in Chicago. 

These Mass Email Actions By Pressure Are Not Terribly Effective

But it is only a minute or so to add your voice.  Why not?  Democrats are trying to get a "red flag" law for military personnel, with all the due process problems of the state level laws of which ex parte hearings are the worst.  No advance warning to the person to be disarmed, so no opportunity to defend yourself from what might be just revenge, and no opportunity to cross-examine witnesses.

BLM Protest Meets Resistance

SmallDeadAnimals has video of BLM demonstrators (this being Springfield, Oregon, young white radicals) being confronted by the villagers and demanding police protection. 

Making Excuses for Failure?

Breitbart is reporting that Hispanic organizers for Biden in Florida are complaining about a toxic work culture.  These are Democrats so we can expect racial insensitivity to go along with their race-baiting. 

I wonder also if finding stronger Trump support among Hispanics is encouraging these organizers to look for an excuse when they lose the Hispanic vote in Florida,  a place where Cuban-Americans have traditionally voted Republican  

Are You Old Enough to Remember Miami Vice?

It was widely hyped when it started.  My wife and I were newlyweds, and it charmed us from the pilot.  Dark but very realistic portrayal of the savagery of drug dealing and interdiction with spectacular use of cameras and music.  I just watched the pilot again on NBC.com, where it is free with a few annoying ads.  It still overwhelms me with its artistry.

Flying to Idaho for COVID19 Test

7/19/20 KABC reports on a Marin Co. man who flew to Idaho to get a COVID19 test because it was faster to fly to Boise to get a test than get one in California.  Idaho is doing something right.

Where Hatred of Police Takes You

HotAir links to this 7/29/20 New York Times article: 

Two months after the police killing of George Floyd, the four-block area of South Minneapolis where he gasped his last breaths remains a sacred space, a no-go zone for officers. There is a neatly trimmed garden, anchored by a sculpture of a raised fist. There are colorful murals and the words “I can’t breathe” painted across the pavement, as well as the names of dozens of other Black people killed by the police.

At night, though, the space is increasingly a battleground, with shootings and drug overdoses. The area has had an uptick in gun violence similar to what other cities have seen in the wake of protests. 

At all times, the neighborhood brims with emotion. In its totality, it feels like the raw center of America’s reckoning with racial injustice. 

The chaos at night has presented city officials with the challenge of how to reassert control of the space without setting off new waves of anger, all while maintaining it as a solemn place to honor Mr. Floyd. In Ferguson, Mo., where the police killing of Michael Brown set off protests in 2014, tensions were reignited when officers moved to clear out a memorial.

Police serve a necessary function, especially in poor black neighborhoods.  Not for the white suburbs where crime is rare, but for the black people who live in these hellholes of social dysfunction.  I just heard my first direct statement of anti-black racism, a couple days ago, and as much as some people want to blame racism and police, stories like this are reminders that the biggest enemies of poor blacks are the predators in their own communities, not neo-Nazis or Klansmen or those rich liberals bleating about their own "white privilege."

Remember When the Weathermen Blew Up a Brownstone in New York City?

I have heard the bomb maker broke the first rule of bomb making: Do not smoke while assembling bombs.

Electrical

My HVAC guy confirmed what the home inspector suspected: all the wiring is able to safely handle a 20A breaker, so he replaced it.  Awesome, I can cut aluminum with my chop saw and run the mill at the same time!

Far Too Much Time Went Into This

I have been working on relocating the 0x finder for Big Bertha, but it is finally complete.

Two pieces that clamp to the upper ring.  One is flat, the other has a channel .6" deep.  They are held together by 6-32 screws.  The top is through holes; the bottom is tapped. They were supposed to be identical in thickness, width, and length; but I only managed within .01", which was good enough for this application.

Another piece of acetal is perpendicular, held to the to clamp by 6-32 screws; again through holes on top, tapped holes underneath.  The base for the finder is held to that piece with 6=32 screws into tapped holes.  The ugly mistakes (wrong position holes and counterbores) are hidden under the finder base.

Why 6-32?  Those taps are easy to break, and I broke one while doing so, but the finder base holes were that size, and there is no load carried by any of them.

Downside: adds a few ounces to front of scope, affecting balance slightly.  I have a easy, sleazy way to add weight on other side of altitude bearing, but I am looking for a way to do it that provides more precise adjustment.

Another WTF News Story

7/27/20 Daily Mail:

Women across the country are reporting a rise in 'aggressive eye contact' since the introduction of face coverings in some public places.

New laws introduced over the weekend force customers to wear face masks in all shops, stations, banks and post offices, while it is also mandatory to wear coverings on public transport.

But many women have been sharing stories online of 'aggressive eye contact' and 'hard staring' from men wearing masks, with one tweeting: 'Grown men staring at you with a mask on is worse than when they don't have a mask.'

Another explanation: Do I know this woman, but do not recognize her with the mask? 

Today, a Heartwarming Story From 1910

It was next to an ax mass murder.

Oh, the Horror

The Johns Hopkins University of Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center has a chart showing new cases /100,000 per day.  Most states are leveled off or declining, especially in the West, including Idaho.

What will the news media and Fakebookers panic about?

Issues & Insights observes:

So what characteristic do all of the reports share? They are all false.

It is not true that 173 people died from COVID-19 “in a day” in Florida. Nor did 134, or 156 on previous days.

It is also untrue than 2,013 had died in July when that story was published. 

All of these scary headlines are based on the number of deaths reported by the state on any given day. This is not the same as the number of deaths that occurred on those days.

The difference might seem trivial. But it’s crucial because the press is using the timing of Florida’s death reports to whip up a frenzy about COVID-19 running riot in the state....

In fact, as of Sunday, the biggest one-day death toll so far in the state happened back on July 16, when 114 are known to have died. And when the press was claiming that 2,013 had died in July, the actual number of known deaths was 1,847.

As we noted in this space last week, this distortion is being repeated by the media in state after state that has seen a recent spike in coronavirus cases. While deaths attributed to coronavirus have increased, the “surge” is a fiction because many of those deaths happened earlier.

But almost no news outlet explains this difference clearly to readers. The Miami Herald is one exception.

In a recent story, it noted — after shouting about hitting a new record for daily deaths — that “the 173 deaths …. does not necessarily mean that every person died in the past 24 hours. In Florida, the deaths announced on a given day could be from several days earlier because the state information does not include the exact date of death.”

D-Day Ended an Intense Peace

ABC News tweets:

Protesters, not rioters.  A "peaceful demonstration intensified."  Did it become more peaceful, or more demonstrative.  What happens when journalism is taken over by ignorant people with a limited grasp of English.

Why Many People Doubt the Authorities About COVID

7/25/20 Florida Sun-Sentinel:

An error by the Florida Department of Health produced a COVID-19 positivity rate for children of nearly one-third, a stunning figure that played into the debate over whether schools should reopen.


A week after issuing that statistic, the department took it back without explanation. The next weekly report on children and COVID-19 showed the rate had plunged to 13.4%.

The department blamed a “computer programming error” for the mistake, in response to questions from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Experts said the change and the failure to explain it to the public calls into question the state’s data at a time when accurate and trustworthy information is crucial to a society grappling with an unprecedented health crisis.

So are they updating the software this frequently?  I would think this a pretty simple piece of code.  I suspect this was a mistake, not intentional fraud.  But there are so many examples of inflating the death counts that you can see why so many people tell the joke that ends with, "I'm from the government, and I am here to help you."

Did Gov. Newsom Just Go Full Nazi?

Our pastor said that John MacArthur's church, which had said that they were going to disobey Newsom's order to not meet, was stopped by shut off of power to the church.  Capstone Report quotes their Twitter feed:

Phil Johnson

@Phil_Johnson_

The local authorities say their plan is to shut off power to the church.

This is certainly better optics than sending the CHP in to arrest a whole church (which for that church, would likely exceed jail capacity for the entire county) but is clearly a violation of the "free exercise" clause of the First Amendment, especially because casinos remain open.

So did this actually happen?

Relative References in Word

I have links to a spreadsheet from Word.  By default, those links are a full path to the Excel file: 

C:\\Users\\clayton\\Documents\\WRITING\\MassMurder\\MassMurderIntermediary.xlsx

I need this set of files to be portable (allowing me to send the Word, Excel, and Access files to someone else.)  I tried 

.\\MassMurderIntermediary.xlsx

and 

MassMurderIntermediary.xlsx

In both cases, Error! Not a valid link

Suggestions?

Using a Milling Machine as a Bandsaw

For my current project, I found myself wishing for a bandsaw to cut some acetal to roughly 1" x 2.3" x 2.75".  (I sold my bandsaw when we moved off the hill, and I was never able to get decent straight cuts with it, anyway.)  A chopsaw has its limitations because it is hard to hold and cut thin pieces without more complex clamping than I can easily figure out.  But edge milling makes an adequate substitute once you get the raw stock to a size that goes in your mill vise.  The only down side of using an end mill to remove an inch of acetal, is that if you have a 4" thick piece of acetal, a 3" cutting length end mill requires two passes and you are limited also by the overall length of the end mill.  Finding 4" long end mills is pretty easy; 4" cutting lengths are rare because you do not want to try to mill steel or aluminum with something that is going to flex.  Yes, you can accomplish the same result with face milling, but on a Sherline mill, that takes a long time.

Portland City Government is Accomplishing Something Amazing!

7/24/20 New York Post:

Last month, Wheeler disbanded the Gun Violence Reduction Unit, claiming it unfairly targeted blacks. In the weeks since, there has been a 380 percent increase in shootings compared with the same time frame last year.

Is there anyone besides me who hears a Klansmen's idea there?  "Gun violence is a black thing."

Good Planning

7/25/20 USA Today continues to call the rioters "protesters" but this made me chuckle:

As the night carried on protesters vigorously shook the fence surrounding the courthouse, shot fireworks towards the building and threw glass bottles. Many times these actions were met by federal agents using tear gas and flash bangs. 

The flow of tear gas caused protesters to disperse, some becoming sick as others remained towards the front of the courthouse with leaf blowers directing the gas back to the courthouse. Federal agents had leaf blowers of their own to counteract.

For your relatives who federal LEOs Gestapo or stormtroopers, remind them that instead of charging the arrested with federal crimes, the Gestapo would have just disappeared them.  Stormtroopers would have used MP40s to mow them down. 

Time to Step Up

You may not like Trump (he is a bit of an arrogant buffoon, when he isn't driving the Left mad), but defeating BLM and Antifa can only be achieved by peaceful means if we re-elect Trump.  I think he has it in the bag, but I do not want to wake up the day after the election to President-Elect Biden.  (Does anyone, besides Vice-President Elect Kamala Harris?)  So I just made a contribution to the Trump campaign.  Do your part.

Imagine It Is 2010

Because of the economic chaos of the housing crunch, a neo-Nazi group called White Lives Matter started protesting murder and rape of whites (even though these crimes are overwhelmingly white-on-white), encouraging similarly disaffected criminals and ne'er-do-wells to Burn, Loot and Murder, killing other whites and police.  

Then they occupy part of Yellowstone and declare it an Aryan-American Autonomous Zone, where only White Gentiles could enter, and no longer part of the U.S.  They form their own security force of meth'ed out losers.  They attack park headquarters as part of their struggle against the Jew-controlled national government.  (Just like the excuses made by New Jersey Democrats for the mass murder earlier this year at a Yeshiva; it is always the Jews' fault.)

Cowed (ignorantly) into believing these idiots represented a major voting block, the Wyoming governor insists that this is just extreme camping, and calls the Obama Administration's use of federal law enforcement officers fascism.  Would the news media be giving the AAAZ the kid glove treatment?

I Am Looking Forward to the Day That Pro-Gun States Threaten BATF Agents

7/23/20 WBBF:

BALTIMORE (WBFF) - Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby is warning that if the Trump administration sends federal agents to Baltimore and Philadelphia to "engage in the same illegal vigilante activities" as in Portland, they "will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

Mosby, along with the district attorney for Philadelphia, wrote a column in The Washington Post today calling out the federal agents who have been sent to Portland, Oregon.

"We strongly believe that the actions in Oregon are illegal. Should the president proceed with his plan in our cities, his agents will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," Mosby and Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner write in the column.

They call the federal agents an "Orwellian sight" and warn: "Should Trump send federal agents who engage in the same illegal vigilante activities, unlawfully assaulting and kidnapping people, they will face criminal charges from our offices. The authority of city officials to prosecute federal law enforcement officials is clear. While 28 U.S. Code 1442 provides that federal law enforcement officers may remove such charges to federal court in limited circumstances, it does not stop the local prosecution. We do not believe that the agents in Portland came close to meeting the standard required to prevent local prosecution, and officers exhibiting such behavior in our cities are similarly unlikely to meet this threshold."

Inching closer and closer to Fort Sumter. 

A Great Day

My wife and I paid off the mortgage on the new house (we are again debt-free); had lunch at Fiesta Guadalajara; went to Natural Foot Spa for a massage that made us both rubber chickens. 

Trump Not Masked Up!

Here is Dr. Fauci masked up to throw the first pitch, then unmasked when he thought he wasn't being photographed.

Nice Bar Graph Showing COVID Deaths/100,000 By State

Idaho is very near the bottom.

Those progressive states that look down on Idaho as the Mississippi of the West (New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts) are the four top death rates.  Still a serious matter, but panic is uncalled for.

What Defunding Police Means

The jackass in question is Minnesota Attorney-General Ellison.  Because 7/21/20 The Federalist provided only a short segment, I went to find the entire interview and it is not any better in context.  7/16/20 PBS starting at 27:44.

Yes, better to send a social worker than a police officer in response to a rape.

Of course, in his culture, Islam, rape convictions require four male eyewitnesses.

What Causes Paranoia

7/23/20 Newsweek article by HARVEY A. RISCH, MD, PHD , PROFESSOR OF EPIDEMIOLOGY, YALE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH:

As professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health, I have authored over 300 peer-reviewed publications and currently hold senior positions on the editorial boards of several leading journals. I am usually accustomed to advocating for positions within the mainstream of medicine, so have been flummoxed to find that, in the midst of a crisis, I am fighting for a treatment that the data fully support but which, for reasons having nothing to do with a correct understanding of the science, has been pushed to the sidelines. As a result, tens of thousands of patients with COVID-19 are dying unnecessarily. Fortunately, the situation can be reversed easily and quickly.

I am referring, of course, to the medication hydroxychloroquine. When this inexpensive oral medication is given very early in the course of illness, before the virus has had time to multiply beyond control, it has shown to be highly effective, especially when given in combination with the antibiotics azithromycin or doxycycline and the nutritional supplement zinc.

On May 27, I published an article in the American Journal of Epidemiology (AJE) entitled, "Early Outpatient Treatment of Symptomatic, High-Risk COVID-19 Patients that Should be Ramped-Up Immediately as Key to the Pandemic Crisis." That article, published in the world's leading epidemiology journal, analyzed five studies, demonstrating clear-cut and significant benefits to treated patients, plus other very large studies that showed the medication safety.

Physicians who have been using these medications in the face of widespread skepticism have been truly heroic. They have done what the science shows is best for their patients, often at great personal risk. I myself know of two doctors who have saved the lives of hundreds of patients with these medications, but are now fighting state medical boards to save their licenses and reputations. The cases against them are completely without scientific merit.

Yes, there is no question in my mind that the public health establishment would gladly kill millions to remove Trump. 

Drudge Report Has Become Lamestream Media

I have read that Drudge sold it a while back, and it shows.

A Fort Sumter Moment?

7/22/20 New York Post:

Portland protesters barricade courthouse with federal officers inside, then try to set it on fire

Arson is a crime that justifies deadly force in every state of which I am aware.

Is Black Felons Matter Funded by a White Supremacist?

This picture appeared on social media:

The thug was almost immediately arrested for probation violation (lengthy criminal record).  7/22/20 WHIO reports he has been charged for this:

Deputies said an investigation was launched Tuesday after they were made aware of the photo, which shows a man with his knee on the back of a child’s neck. The child appears to be crying in the photo while a second person holds the child’s hands behind their back. The photo’s caption read “Blm now.”

Investigators made contact with the child, their mother, and Jackson. The child was transported to an area hospital for examination, however they did not suffer any injuries from the incident deputies said.

“Subsequent interview with the mother revealed that she was unaware of the photo having been taken, or its contents, until she had been informed by other parties,” Shultz said.

The father has apparently been given custody.  I have never understood why felons are so attractive to many women.

The left seems intent on provoking race war; often by reinforcing racial prejudices that most people will only find in history books.

And a special ed teacher criticizes him for not doing it right: "until death."  Facebook brings out the inner Satan in many people.

With the exception of Newsweek, there is no national news media coverage.

An Early School Mass Murder

In Germany.  Six revolvers.  No need for semiauto or big magazines.

You Say You Want a Revolution

They are quite prepared to see people die to shut them up.  They won't like what happens.  Neither will we.  These idiots are playing with fire, unaware that we have more and better matches.

Red Zone States

Local media are reporting that Idaho is listed in a yet unpublished report on dangerous increases in infections.  This claim comes from the Center for Public Integrity.  The Wikipedia page indicates big leftist funding.  Leadership also comes from mainstream media and public radio, so this is a Democratic pressure group.  That does not preclude the accuracy of the claim that these states reopened too quickly, but the complete list of states include:

Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, South Carolina, Texas and Washington.

So California and Washington reopened?   It does seem as though avoiding unnecessary exposure remains a good idea.  A neighbor was walking by yesterday and insisted that sunlight kills the virus so no need to be worried.

Some news organizations have their own conspiracy theories.  7/17/20 CBS Iowa:

Report kept from public view labels Iowa a COVID-19 "red zone"

Liz Essley Whyte is a reporter with the Center for Public Integrity. A source provided her with the report that, as of Friday, had not been made public by the Trump Administration.

"The CDC is really being sidelined, marginalized, pushed aside and in a number of ways." Whyte says. "It’s every communication, it's being tracked and in some cases criticized by the White House.”

7/18/20 Fox Atlanta headline:

Red Zone states recommendations from the White House

Actually from an advocacy group's claim about a report to the White House. 

 So news organizations are reporting on what an advocacy group says is in a report that no one else has seen?  Double hearsay.  And the left wonders why many Americans assume the news media are not trustworthy? 

Imagine if the Heritage Foundation said that there is a secret indictment that shows Biden was one of Epstein's party buddies.  Would the news media take it seriously without seeing the indictment?

Remember the purpose of "news" organizations is to sell advertising space and elect Democrats.  (I am not sure of the priority.)

Police Abolitionist Story Was False

7/21/20 The Federalist:

“We called 911 for almost everything except snitching” reads the first line of an Atlantic article, “How I Became a Police Abolitionist,” by social justice activist and lawyer Derecka Purnell. Her deeply personal essay, first published July 6 in the Ideas section, tells of her childhood in a polluted neighborhood surrounded by violence and beset by fear, using one particularly disturbing memory of a police officer shooting their cousin, just a “boy,” in the arm for skipping the basketball sign-in sheet in front of Purnell and her sister, who had been playing basketball but were forced to hide “in the locker room for hours afterward.”

“When people dismiss abolitionists for not caring about victims or safety,” she writes, “they tend to forget that we are those victims, those survivors of violence.”

“This story means everything to me,” Purnell wrote on Facebook later that day. “I cried a lot while writing it.”

An investigation by The Federalist encompassing newspaper archives, police department records, questions to The Atlantic, the police union, and the office of the mayor, however, called the story — including facts about the neighborhood, the timeline of the incident, and if the incident described even happened at all — into question.

Four days, six comment requests, and one follow-up story later, The Atlantic issued a series of major corrections that confirmed The Federalist’s investigation — and gutted the Purnell’s story of the police violence that made her “a police abolitionist,” rendering it a story about a private security guard shooting his adult cousin. Although the updated story no longer involves personally motivated and barely punished police violence against children, it now includes mention of a police investigation. Additionally, a contemporary news article uncovered by The Federalist using the updated timeline details pending police charges against the shooter.

The left has, as usual, an integrity problem. 

Undercover Boss -- 1909 Edition

The few times that I have watched Undercover Boss, I have been charmed.  So imagine my surprise at this article:

Comet NEOWISE

Just drove to a slightly darker road.  It was easily visible by 11:00 in the NW about 1/3 way to the bottom of the Big Dipper.  Even the smaller of binoculars will help a great deal.  Much better than Halley's in 1986.

Is School a Covid Risk?

5/18/20 Guardian:

The reopening of schools in 22 European countries has not led to any significant increase in coronavirus infections among children, parents or staff, a videoconference meeting of education ministers from around the EU has heard.

With a debate raging in the UK over the risks of allowing children back into the classroom, some member states are planning summer lessons to aid pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Of the 22 countries where schools have reopened in waves over the last month, 17 have only allowed children to return to kindergarten settings, primary schools and final years of secondary level as part of a tentative lifting of the lockdowns imposed to tackle the coronavirus pandemic....

The vast majority of the reopened schools have been open for just a fortnight, however, prompting Blaženka Divjak, the minister for education in Croatia, which holds the EU’s rolling presidency, to suggest that the positive results need to be treated with some caution.

Denmark became the first European country to tentatively reopen its nurseries, kindergartens and primary schools on 15 April after a month-long closure despite significant resistance from parents who accused the government of treating their children as “guinea pigs”.

Divjak, speaking in a press conference at the end of the meeting of ministers, said the lack of significant increase in cases or any other negative impact should also be seen in the context of the special measures taken to make schools as safe as possible.

Better immune systems, perhaps?

100W Equivalent LED Bulbs Insufficient

The only useful spam that I have ever received was for this LED light fixture that plugs into a standard socket and gives you 10,000 lumens of sunlight white.  Over the mill now; my wife says we are now ready to perform autopsies.  Far easier and cheaper than installing one of those linear shop LED fixtures.  Just unscrew your current bulb and screw this in.

The Importance of Power

No, not political power.   Milling power.

I have been machining an adapter to hold my 0x finder on my big telescope.   All the dimensions are right (after a number of math errors but all the extra holes are hidden) but even made of acetal,  the extra weight at the top of the telescope creates a balance problem, so I decided to fenestrate the bigger parts.   But running an end mill through 2" of acetal with the power of a Sherline mill is very slow.  So I am having it mark the holes by cutting .2" deep, then I will use the drill press with the 7/16" end mill to cut through.

At some point I will build a shop so that I can get a more powerful (and certainly) larger CNC mill.

Downside of more power: for the first time in years, the acetal melted around the Forstner bit, requiring me to mill the plastic away from the bit to break it loose.  This is a pretty delicate operation.  But I figured out how to make a lighter part to do the same function.  No need to fenestrate.

Other than gasping for air once freed from its acetaliferous grave, the Forstner bit came out unscathed.  The 7/16" smoothing mill, however, has gobs of metal acetal.  I was reluctant to try and clean it out with a file or sandpaper so I pulled out a small magnifier and tried to burn it off. In spite of being a hydrocarbom, acetal does not burn.  /it melts and drips.  The magnifier is so small that it would take forever.  A cigarette lighter worked although evem slower.  Somewhere I have a 5" Sherlock Holmes size magnifying glass.  I will find it and finish melting the acetal off.

UPDATE: Acetal does burn; you need an overhead Sun, and more glass.  In this case a 6" diameter 34" F.L. lens that I received as part of a collection of throwaway parts from an aerospace company.  Yes, it burns very well with a much larger focused burning disc.  But I can't stand under that direct Sun very long, so this will be in several steps.  The good news is that don't need to hold both lens and end mill at the same time.  I put the end mill on a glass table and stood above it.  I wonder if I could put the end mill under the table and lens on top?

Is Not Wearing a Mask "Patriotic"?

There seem to be people who think not wearing a mask is patriotic.  Huh?  They are a nuisance to wear (hot, glasses steaming up, remembering to grab them as you leave the car).  On the other hand, when I sneeze, car paint jobs are at risk.

There has been some question as to whether masks do any good for either wearer or others, but if they are even slightly effective, and they reduce deaths or illnesses for yourself or others, wear them.  There is nothing patriotic about putting others at risk.  

At Bible study Monday night, I argued to the pastor (who indicated that he would discuss it with the elders) in favor of strongly encouraging waering of masks to church.  We have a number of elderly members who have been reluctant to come out of fear of infection.  Masking up is simply good manners to those at enhanced risk.

Why Are People Paranoid About the Emergency?

7/17/20 Fox channel 35:

ORLANDO, Fla. - A person who died in a motorcycle accident was added to Florida’s COVID-19 death count, according to a state health official.

FOX 35 News found this out after asking Orange County Health Officer Dr. Raul Pino whether two coronavirus victims who were in their 20s had any underlying conditions. One of his answers surprised us.

The first one didn’t have any. He died in a motorcycle accident,” Pino said.

Dr. Pino was asked if the man’s data was removed.

"I don’t think so. I have to double-check,” Pino said. “We were arguing, discussing, or trying to argue with the state. Not because of the numbers -- it’s 100…it doesn’t make any difference if it's 99 -- but the fact that the individual didn’t die from COVID-19…died in the crash. But you could actually argue that it could have been the COVID-19 that caused him to crash. I don’t know the conclusion of that one.”

There are still two people in their 20s on Orange County’s data list for coronavirus deaths.

4/21/20 New York Times:

N.Y.C. Death Toll Soars Past 10,000 in Revised Virus Count

The city has added more than 3,700 additional people who were presumed to have died of the coronavirus but had never tested positive.

There are enough of these misreported COVID deaths to make one wonder how much inflation is happening.  Some for political reasons; some because I believe the federal government is reimbursing all COVID costs.  This is a strong incentive.

Trump Enforces the Laws that Portland Won't

7/17/20 Newsweek:

Political leaders in Oregon have accused President Donald Trump of interfering in Portland's handling of widespread protests and riots in the wake of George Floyd's death as a political stunt to rally his base ahead of the November election.

Despite repeated calls from Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler for federal authorities to remove their officers from the city's streets, the Trump administration has remained adamant on maintaining a law enforcement presence in Portland.

 The recent incident of a protester getting shot in the head with an impact munition, as well as videos of unidentifiable federal agents in tactical gear arresting protesters on the streets and forcing them into unmarked vehicles have raised alarm, however, about federal law enforcement's tactics.

You mean arresting rioters is a problem?  And why?  It would be best to leave this to local law enforcement, nut when Portlandia's government is refusing to do so....  This is for the elk!

Why Trump's Polling Numbers Are So Bad?

7/15/20 Boise channel 2:

Boise couple finds home vandalized over Trump flag

BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) — When Robert and Janet Tatilian came home on Sunday night, they weren't prepared for what they saw.

Mustard and cheese spray smeared all over their property. All because they decided to fly a Trump Flag.

"I'm first-generation American citizen, and I'm not going to be silent," Janet said. "When they talk about the silent majority, people are afraid to voice their opinion. Even putting flags on their own home."

If someone called me and asked who I was voting for in November, I would not answer.  It might be the local Democratic Party deciding which house needs vandalizing, or break and entering re-education.  These idiots want a civil war.  They are not going to like the results.  None of us will. 

Interesting item at Breitbart:

However, the majority of voters in the Keystone State believe in the underlying presence of “secret Trump voters” within their communities — voters who largely refrain from making their preference known, for a variety of reasons, but will cast their ballot in support of the president.

Fifty-seven percent of voters “believe there are a number of so-called secret voters in their communities who support Trump but won’t tell anyone about it.” Of those, 27 percent believe there are “many” secret Trump voters, while 17 percent said there are “only a few.” The remaining 13 percent said they were not sure how many “secret” voters are out there.

On the flip side, only 27 percent of respondents believe there are “secret” Biden voters.

No surprise.  Friends in L.A. tell me that bumper stickers showing support for Republican presidential nominees in previous elections led to cars being keyed.  Why wouldn't you be a secret Trump voter?  I suspect this was part of the great surprise in 2016: lots of Trump voters were either afraid of retaliation or were embarrassed by his carefully crafted buffoonery.  This year will likely be similar.

Why the Left is Inciting Race War

The National Museum of African-American History & Culture (part of the Smithsonian) informs us about white culture:

Note the discussion of family structure.  This might have been true in 1950 or 1960, but no longer.  And the "Emphasis on Scientific Method"?  "Objective, rational, linear thinking":  Did the Klan write this?  White people believe in science.  Others, not so much.  "Future orientation":  Yes, I gladly acknowledge that as part of my values.  And it pays off in happiness and economic stability.  Again, by implication, blacks lack this.  "Present orientation" is a characteristic of poor people.  Did the Klan write this as a glorification of whiteness and a denigration of being black?

It just struck me that the idiots responsible for this are trying to upvote ghetto culture; this is a list of where poor blacks (unlike middle and upper class blacks) have failed to accept healthy values which are hardly white.  The alternative is to look at three possible explanations for why a minority of blacks are a constant disaster:

1. There is something that was broken by the perverse incentives of the Great Society.

2. The public education system that does an especially bad job in the ghettos might need reform or demolition.

3. Individuals making bad choices (present orientation).

More Evidence That Hydroxychloriquinone Saves Lives

7/13/20 Francesoir:

The Lancet study will have caused great harm to patients since it was followed by immediate effects such as the suspension of prescription and dispensing authorizations for hydroxychloroquine. The World Health Organization (WHO)  decided to suspend the trials or to simply ban the drug from being dispensed. Switzerland did the same around the 27th of May, 2020.

The fraudulent study was withdrawn from the 4th of June, but Swiss patients remained deprived of this treatment until the 11th of June, "The OFSP decided to lift the measures put in place for its prescription and dispensing. The Plaquenil® and Zentiva® Hydroxychloroquine can be re-ordered directly from the wholesaler. ” According to the critics of hydroxychloroquine, these 15 days of prohibition should have had no impact on patient survival, but this is not the case: it is enough to look at the evolution over time of the proportion of deaths among newly resolved cases, only to find that hydroxychloroquine, the only molecule banned within this time, works.

Hydroxychloroquine saves lives.

It was enough the collaboration of three internet users to solve this enigma (see the article “story of a discovery”): the discovery of a strict temporary suspension of the HCQ in Switzerland, the nrCFR * efficiency index of treatments, the observation of a “bump” of ~ 2 weeks in this index for Switzerland, the link with the suspension, and finally the analysis concluding with the statistical significance of this correlation with a very high degree of certainty ( > 99%). All analyzes were made from international data “global time series” “Deaths” and “Recovered” from Johns Hopkins University updated every night....

Looking at the evolution curve of this index for Switzerland, we note a “wave of excess lethality” of two weeks from June 9th to 22nd, with a lag of a dozen days compared to the period of suspension of the use of hydroxychloroquine by WHO. This demonstrates, without possible rebuttal, the effect of stopping the delivery and use of this drug in Switzerland (country which follows the recommendations of the WHO, based in Geneva). During the weeks preceding the ban, the nrCFR index fluctuated between 3% and 5%. Some 13 days after the start of the prohibition, the nrCFR index increases considerably to be between 10 and 15% for 2 weeks. Some 12 days after the end of the prohibition, the lethality falls back to a lower level.

Trump touted it, so the medical establishment and the elites pooh-poohed it.  And you wonder why no one takes them seriously, even when they are right? And the graph:

Panic by Incompetence

7/14/20 WTSP:

Over the weekend, Florida made international headlines when it reported a shocking number of positive COVID-19 test results: More than 15,000 in a single day.

But it turns out that report contained numbers gathered over several days by a single laboratory.

More than 7,000 of the 15,000 positive cases reported have been traced to GENETWORx in Richmond, Virginia. The company, which is Florida’s fourth-largest processor of tests, said in a statement it looks like the Florida Department of Health reported in a single day, lab results that had been collected over the course of four to five days.

Why do so many people distrust the severity of COVID? Because so many reports like this.

I am going to miss this

More Easily Offended Activists

Valley News reports:

SOUTH ROYALTON — Vermont Law School plans to paint over a mural in its student center that highlights Vermont’s role in the Underground Railroad and the abolitionist movement after members of the law school community objected to its depictions of African Americans and said it made some people uncomfortable.

VLS President and Dean Thomas McHenry said in a schoolwide email this week that students and alumni had raised concerns about the mural in the Chase Community Center, which was painted by Vermont-based artist Sam Kerson in 1993 with the school’s blessing, even winning recognition from The Christian Science Monitor at the time.

I find it artistically offensive but heaven forbid we portray a proud moment of blacks and whites working together to remove a dark stain from our history.

Globus Sensation

This has been a recurring nuisance since a bihemispheric stroke in 2015.  If you are familiar with it, it feels like a ball in your throat that makes talking difficult and uncomfortable.  It makes me very nervous in public speaking.

While I consider acupuncture and Chinese medicine a bit too spooky and irrational to take seriously, this article sounds like a good reason to try.

Abstract

Background: Acupuncture points are commonly used by Traditional Chinese Medicine to treat throat discomfort. Transcutaneous electroacupuncture (TEA) is a new therapy combining transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation with meridian theory. The efficacy and mechanism of Transcutaneous electroacupuncture for globus pharyngeus has not been reported. The aim of our study was to explore the effect and possible mechanisms of TEA at CV22/LI3/LU11/ST36 for patients with globus.

Methods: A total of 80 patients with globus pharyngeus were randomly allocated into eight groups. The intervention order in Groups A1/B1/C1/D1 was firstly TEA at CV22/LI3/LU11/ST36 during the first period and sham-TEA in the second period. For participants in Groups A2/B2/C2/D2, the intervention order was the reverse. Before the test, the participants were asked to complete the Glasgow Edinburgh Throat Scale (GETS), visual analog scale (VAS), and the Hamilton Rating Scale Anxiety/Depression and were then asked to test and measure the heart rate variability and serum hormone levels of SP and NPY. At the end of the second period, these tests were manipulated again.

Results: D-values of GETS and VAS following stimulation at CV22/LU11 were significantly higher than those of sham-stimulating (CV22: 13.5 ± 13.09 vs. 1 ± 9.68, P <0.002; LU11: 17 ± 10.31 vs. 9 ± 9.68, P = 0.011). Heart rate variability, SP, and NPY were showed a significant difference in LU11 stimulation compared to other acupuncture points (P all <0.05).

Conclusion: Stimulation at CV22/LU11 significantly improved symptoms of globus. The results indicated that symptoms may be improved by stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system and secreting SP and NPY when stimulating at LU11. For CV22, it may improve symptoms by direct action on the throat. Stimulating at CV22/LU11 may be a potential therapy for treating globus.

It certainly seems less risky than Stanford's experimental stem cell treatment which involves drilling a hole in your head.

Another Hydroquinone Success

7/2/20 Indian Express https://indianexpress.com/article/india/vadodara-administration-drive-hcq-helping-in-containing-covid-19-cases-say-docs-as-analysis-begins-6486049/ reports success as a prophylactic. But Trump promoted it, so American media will continue hostility because Orange Man Bad 

Gun Rights Favor

This page is a comprehensive list and text of peace-bond statutes in America before and during the 14th Amendment period.  Their side claims these laws show that open carry has never been lawful in America, based on these peace-bond laws.  This is not the permanent location for this page.  It will migrate to a law school soon.  I would appreciate you looking it over for typos and broken links.

Added a table of contents to the front.  If things have seemed a bit odd the last couple hours, this may explain it.

I also separated the Peace-Bond Statutes page from the Statutes of Northampton page.

Voter Registrations

7/11/20 New York Post:

In at least five battleground states, Democrats appear to have borne the brunt of the damage during the COVID-shutdown period.

In Maine, for example, 59 percent of new voters registered as Dems pre-coronavirus — but only 40 percent have done so in the months since.

Dem declines were also seen in Colorado, Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, TargetSmart found.

Additionally, in the swing state of Iowa, the new voters helped the GOP retake the statewide lead in voter registrations last month, Politico reported.

The new voters who did manage to send in applications were older and whiter than those who had been recruited before the pandemic hit. Voters in those demographic groups are expected to break for President Trump, rather than for Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden, in November.

I also find myself wondering how much the disproportionate deaths of African-Americans from COVID will impact Democratic vote totals, assuming that Democrats let them stop voting.  Oh, 7/10/20 New York Post on the replacement voters:

Look what the postman dragged in.

An Atlanta family was shocked to find a voter registration form arrive in the mail — for a pet cat that died 12 years ago.

The application that showed up Wednesday at the home of Ron and Carol Tims was pre-printed with the name of “Cody Tims,” according to a photo posted online by Fox5 Atlanta.

“How did this happen? It’s not reality, he’s a cat and he’s been dead for a long time,” Carol told the station.

Carol described the late feline — whose ashes are kept in a green container — as a “great cat, indoor and outdoor, loved his family, loved his neighborhood.”

“He was 18 and a half when he passed away,” she said.

The suspicious mailer also has the family wondering what other critters are receiving applications to vote ahead of November’s hotly contested election between President Trump and presumptive Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

“There’s a huge push but if they’re trying to register cats, I’m not sure who else they’re trying to register,” Carol said.

“I’m not sure if they’re trying to register dogs, mice, snakes.”...

Officials also said that if alive, Cody — who Carol said was a “Democat” — would never have been allowed to vote, because he was never issued a license or state ID card, Fox5 said.

But I am sure someone would have voted in his place.  And speciesism.

White People Need Not Apply

7/13/20 Daily Mail:

Hollywood's identity crisis: Actors, writers and producers warn of 'reverse racism' in the film industry which has created a 'toxic' climate for anyone who is a white, middle-age man

The first sign came with one of the most powerful black directors in Hollywood, Oscar-winning Jordan Peele – the man behind box office hits such as Get Out and Us – stated in public that he did not want to hire a leading man who was white. 

'I don't see myself casting a white dude as the lead in my movie,' Peele said. 'Not that I don't like white dudes. But I've seen that movie before.'

As one studio executive responded privately: 'If a white director said that about hiring a black actor, their career would be over in a heartbeat.' Few doubt it.

Strictly speaking, this violates both federal and state laws.  It is a shame neither jurisdiction allows private persons to bring a criminal case.

That Flagpole Was so Racist!

7/9/20 Fox channel 10:

WASHINGTONVILLE, N.Y. - Police in New York have launched an investigation after a flagpole at a memorial honoring five firefighters who died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was cut down by vandals.

The damage at the patriotic display in Washingtonville, north of New York City, was discovered early Wednesday, according to the Times-Herald Record.

Police are refusing to say what the slogan was painted on it.

I Am Heartbroken

Debka (which is rumored to have ties to Israeli intelligence) has a picture of Iran's centrifuge manufacturing facility, somewhat the worse for wear.  Darn!  No easy way to concentrate U-235.

More Evidence That Racism Must Be In Short Supply

4/13/20 Newsweek describes a series of racist threats and attacks at the University of La Verne:

All the cases remained unsolved—until March 9, 2020. After nearly a year of investigations involving multiple agencies, the LVPD said at a press conference that Dominguez Peña, 25, had faked the threats against herself and others in ten total separate "incidents." The same day, she was arrested on felony charges of making criminal threats and perjury, as well as seven misdemeanors related to electronic impersonation and filing false police reports.

Racism: Is It Worse Among Younger People?

I keep hearing that racism is much more common among young people than it was when I was young.  My wife and I are old enough to think of racism as a stupid and backward thing, but I keep hearing that it is getting worse among younger people.  A student a semester or so back who worked in a call center here in the Boise area told me that people she was talking to were insistent on only talking to a white person.  Has 30 years of the left running K-12 and higher education failed to educate against racism?  (And yes, this requires education; prejudice is the default human setting: see below.)  Have they failed to teach racial equality for the same reason they have failed to teach the 3 "R"s?  Or is this perhaps a reaction to heavy-handed leftist teaching about race?

When my wife and I were attending Sonoma State University, as a grad student she was teaching in an English class about Samuel Johnson's "A Brief to Free a Slave."  One student argued that the morality of slavery was culturally dependent.  At first she thought he was parodying the widely held liberal belief that there is no absolute right and wrong and thus laws against homosexuality are wrong.  (This liberal belief either went away or was forgotten with divesting from South Africa, requiring states to recognize gay marriage, and adding sexual orientation to anti-discrimination laws.)  No, he had successfully internalized the "no right or wrong" belief in which SSU tried to drown anyone with a moral absolutist belief.

I find myself wondering if the continual hammering of moral relativism hybridized with "racism is wrong" to create a rebellious racist tendency among those educated after 1990.

Why Prejudice is the Default Setting for People

When I say default, I do not mean good, but a value that must be educated away.  You are a member of group A.  If someone that is also group A does something bad to you, even traumatic, you identify enough with him or her that you don't think of all members of group A as bad; that would make you bad.  If someone from group B, who is clearly different (sex, color, national origin) does something bad to you, you might on the first experience say, "That's one bad person."  But as Ian Fleming's Goldfinger observed, "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.”  It does not take too many robberies, threats, or sexual assaults by a member of group B for a group A member to start saying, "Group B is a bunch of thugs." 

This is utterly unfair to nearly all members of group B, who really are not so different from you; those thugs are probably victimizing them as well.  But once bitten, twice shy.  If you see a member of group B, the similarity to previous attackers will cause you to make the decision to take no unneeded risks.  Some years back, Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader and specialist in extorting money from corporations observed, "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then (I) look around and see someone white and feel relieved."  You may even be able to rationally discuss this subject with group A victim, but at a deeply injured level, this rational knowledge does not matter.  The risk of trusting unknown members of group B is likely higher than the benefits.

Let me give you an example.  Many years ago, I worked for an employment agency in Los Angeles.  One of my co-workers lived in Venice.  One night, his wife and him had come home from a night out.  They had their front door open, and the screen door closed.  Before they knew it, three black guys smashed through the door threatened them with a gun, tied him up, and forced him to watch while they gang-raped his wife.  They stole not only everything of value, but even their wedding pictures.  (Were they going to fence them?)  LAPD had fingerprints galore; they never ran them; he was informed that this was just not that important a crime.  (In the late 1970s, L.A. was one massive wave of crime and destruction.) 

A few months later, our boss hired three young black men to work out of our Inglewood office.  They came into our office one day, and my co-worker starting shaking uncontrollably.  He knew these black men were not the monsters who forced their way into his home, but the terror was still tied to members of group B.  I have no idea if he ever worked his way past his terror and what had developed into a pretty frank racism.

Were They Running?

7/10/20 KIRO:

Couple threw power saws from car during chase with police, officials say

During the pursuit Matthew McNutt, a passenger in the vehicle, started throwing items including a gas tank, a table saw and two other saws out of the window, investigators said.

Seattle: Glad It Is Shall-Issue in Washington

7/9/20 KIRO:

SEATTLE — The majority of Seattle City Council is now backing proposals to defund Seattle’s police department by 50%, despite concerns from the mayor’s office and Seattle’s police chief that council members are moving too quickly and without enough widespread community engagement.

A coalition called Decriminalize Seattle presented a plan to the budget committee to redirect millions from the city budget to community organizations.

“The status quo is no longer acceptable,” Council President Lorena Gonzalez said Thursday, adding that while she previously believed in police reform, she now believes in rebuilding. “We have to take away the things that no longer and should have never belonged to law enforcement in the first place,” she said.

I am guessing that she is not going to take gun bans away from the police, right?

Our Old House Closes July 16

Like every house that I have owned, there are a lot of good memories associated with it.  Unlike previous houses, I have no strongly negative memories.  Some bad things happened while I lived there (two heart attacks, a stroke, and the layoff by HP), but none of those were associated with the house.  I am going to miss it.  But sometime in late July, after the money ends up in checking, we will have a housewarming/mortgage burning party.

Funds not available until the 22nd.  The buyer's has a VA loan.