Interesting Documentary About the American Redoubt

It was put together by the Times of London. I suspect most conservatives would find the beginning inoffensive and even fairly positive about why conservatives are moving to the American Redoubt.  The people interviewed are pretty level headed.  One is a realtor who responds to the reporter's question about whether peppers are looking forward to TEOTWAWKI (or whatever that acronym is) and directly says that he knows no one who does because living off the grid and growing your own food is hard work.

There is an interview with faculty at one of the colleges who claims the idea that colleges are engaged in leftist propaganda is laughable.  I am prepared to admit that there are departments at some colleges where this is possibly correct.  A small number of faculty in a few departments are the source of much of the dangerously ignorant crap  

The end of the report interviewed the Spokane County Sheriff, who while making all the correct noises about extremism and some of the Bundyites that seem to have made themselves leaders of what might be considered a political movement, also observed that the real risk of violence will be if anyone goes after the Second Amendment and that there would be a nationwide response of violence.  He also reminded the reporter that the American Revolution started in response to an attempt to seize an armory.  My guess is that this sheriff is not a gun-grabber: he is subtly warning that gun banners might well shatter the peace on a national scale.

I confess that this Redoubt leader named Shea comes across as a potential cult leader who might not be a good choice for Governor of Greater Idaho.

They do mention the Aryan Nations crowd but make it clear they are old news and gone and no one comes across as sympathetic to them.

Victims!

I am reading Mary Roach's Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal.  (Yes I javelin become a fan.)  On p.55, she mentions a claim made by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (yes a Nader spinoff):

I am so surprised that such a heart-wrenching story of inner city victimization by the white patriarchal hetero capitalist oppressors turns out to have no apparent source.

More Gems Unearthed by Watts Up With That

 It is about Iceland's Climate:

A wealth of new research in glacier and sea ice extent show modern Iceland is 2-4°C colder than all of the last 8000 years except for a slightly colder late 19th century. Even the 1700s were warmer with less ice than today in and around Iceland.

A new study (Geirsdóttir et al., 2020) now affirms peak Holocene warmth at  least “∼3–4 °C above modern in Iceland” prevailed throughout much of the last 8000 years. Data from tree growth, glacier-induced soil erosion, algae productivity, sea ice biomarker proxies (IP25), and other climate indices affirm these conclusions.

The paper itself, ÁslaugGeirsdóttiraDavid J.HarningbGifford H.MillerbcJohn T.AndrewsbYafangZhongdChrisCaseldinee , "Holocene history of landscape instability in Iceland: Can we deconvolve the impacts of climate, volcanism and human activity?"

Landscape sensitivity to climate further intensified at ∼1.5 ka BP as identified by regime shift analysis. Hence, widespread and irreversible soil erosion began several centuries before the acknowledged settlement of Iceland, with a second acceleration ∼1250 CE. 

Something that cannot be blamed on those funloving Vikings, 

Let Us Hope These Fully Vaccinated Cases Are Less Severe

 Ontario Province website:

My, that's impressive efficacy.

The Leftist AMA Gone a Rampage Against Racial Differences in Medical Care

 12/29/21 UPI:

Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Black men with prostate cancer appear to respond better than White men to radiation therapy for the disease, an analysis published Wednesday by JAMA Network Open found.

Based on data from seven clinical trials, Black men with the disease who are treated with radiation therapy were 12% less likely to experience cancer recurrence and 28% less likely to their tumors metastasize, or spread, to distant organs compared with White men, the data showed.

In addition, Black men who received radiation therapy were 28% less likely to die from prostate cancer than White men given the treatment.

This is despite the fact the Black men seemed to have more aggressive disease when they enrolled in clinical trials of radiation, according to the researchers.

We should not overstate possible differences.  We are all similar enough to produce an astonishing rainbow of colors, hair types, facial features, etc.  But pretending that there are never any biochemical differences that might influence medical care is so wrong that only a progressive could believe it. 

I Am Glad Watts Up With That Has Time to Read the Journals

 They linked to "The Holocene dynamics of Ryder Glacier and ice tongue in north Greenland".

The northern sector of the Greenland Ice Sheet is considered to be particularly susceptible to ice mass loss arising from increased glacier discharge in the coming decades. However, the past extent and dynamics of outlet glaciers in this region, and hence their vulnerability to climate change, are poorly documented. In the summer of 2019, the Swedish icebreaker Oden entered the previously unchartered waters of Sherard Osborn Fjord, where Ryder Glacier drains approximately 2 % of Greenland's ice sheet into the Lincoln Sea. Here we reconstruct the Holocene dynamics of Ryder Glacier and its ice tongue by combining radiocarbon dating with sedimentary facies analyses along a 45 km transect of marine sediment cores collected between the modern ice tongue margin and the mouth of the fjord. The results illustrate that Ryder Glacier retreated from a grounded position at the fjord mouth during the Early Holocene (> 10.7±0.4 ka cal BP) and receded more than 120 km to the end of Sherard Osborn Fjord by the Middle Holocene (6.3±0.3 ka cal BP), likely becoming completely land-based. A re-advance of Ryder Glacier occurred in the Late Holocene, becoming marine-based around 3.9±0.4 ka cal BP. An ice tongue, similar in extent to its current position was established in the Late Holocene (between 3.6±0.4 and 2.9±0.4 ka cal BP) and extended to its maximum historical position near the fjord mouth around 0.9±0.3 ka cal BP.

So this glacier only reached its current peak 900 years ago. 

If You Wanted to Kill Off BIPOCs Faster and Leave the Living in Greater Fear, What Would You Do Different?

 Washington State HB 1692:

Promoting racial equity in the criminal legal system by eliminating drive-by shooting as a basis for elevating murder in the first degree to aggravated murder in the first degree.

It is not white neighborhoods that are at high risk of drive-by shootings.  It is not white mothers putting their kids to bed in tubs to provide protection from stray bullets.

Televue-85 Finally Arrived

I have rejoined the Televue cult.  Some years back, I owned a Televue Ranger, a semiapochromat that was expensive for a 70mm refractor and wildly outperformed similar sized and more typically priced refractors.

I always regret that I sold it as part of an even then, no longer current view of myself as that poor kid from almost the wrong side of the tracks in Santa Monica.  (It was not quite as fancy back then as it is now.)

The TV-85 is fully apochromatic.   The dual speed focuser is butter smooth at both speeds.  The mounting ring is clever in how it locks the tube while still providing ease of loosening to move the OTA for balance.  Conditions for use were poor, but even the house way off in the distance demonstrated the quality of the optics.  

Everything about this scope is top notch and it weighs eight pounds.  Made in the USA, using Japanese glass.  Another nice touch: ordinary telescopes use a press fit plastic dust cap.  This uses an aluminum dust cap that screws in place.

Will the TV-85 outperform my 5" f/9 refractor?  I doubt it.  The 5" has 49% better resolution (this increases linearly with objective diameter) and more than twice the light gathering power (square of objective diameter). It is also 30% of the weight and far easier to manage.  

It is intended to be a grab-and-go scope: something that goes on a very light mount that you can just pick up and carry outside, or take to star parties without assistance and advance planning.  (This only became an issue after  2014 stroke.  I used to take the 5" refractor and mount by myself to star parties in the Corvette.)

The Explore Scientific Twilight 1 alt-azimuth mount turns out also to be a winner.  Made it China, but try to find a similar mount with slow-motion controls made elsewhere.

UPDATE: As I suspected, looking again at a neighbor's house some distance away with more light, 300x is moving into the fuzzy area although 150x is still pretty darn sharp.  If you have any typical commercial refractor, these numbers for a 3 4" aperture are going to sound absurd.  Astronomical use may tolerate 300x because the contrast of Saturn on a black sky is exquisite and powerful. 

This, Amazingly Enough, Was Not a Surprise

The IRS defines income you must report:

Illegal activities.

Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), line 8z, or on Schedule C (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity....

Bribes.

 If you receive a bribe, include it in your income.

 Stolen property.

 If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless you return it to its rightful owner in the same year.

This surprises me not at all.  Some years back, IRS and California Franchise Tax Board treated illegal income differently.  IRS allowed criminals to deduct business expenses for their illegal businesses.  California required reporting the income but did not allow deducting the business expenses.

Progress

I am feeling better.  Not completely well, but enough so that I have not canceled my carotid artery and nuclear medicine tests for Wednesday and Thursday. 

They Must Wear Masks and Stay Six Feet Away

The six feet away part will be easy.  12/23/21 MedicalXpress:

Scientists have detected infection by at least three variants of the virus that causes COVID-19 in free-ranging white-tailed deer in six northeast Ohio locations, the research team has reported.

Previous research led by the U.S. Department of Agriculture had shown evidence of antibodies in wild deer. This study, published today (Dec. 23, 2021) in Nature, details the first report of active COVID-19 infection in white-tailed deer supported by the growth of viral isolates in the lab, indicating researchers had recovered viable samples of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and not only its genetic traces.

Based on genomic sequencing of the samples collected between January and March 2021, researchers determined that variants infecting wild deer matched strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that had been prevalent in Ohio COVID-19 patients at the time. Sample collection occurred before the Delta variant was widespread, and that variant was not detected in these deer. The team is testing more samples to check for new variants as well as older variants, whose continued presence would suggest the virus can set up shop and survive in this species.

Okay, confess!  Which of you hunters has failed to social distance during your unsuccessful hunt? 

Sore From Coughing

My lungs are trying to remove mucus by coughing and as you might expect a lot of shoulder, chest; and back muscles are screaming "no more!"  I have always felt so sorry for cats coughing up hairballs.

Bad Thing About Bad Cold

Taste of NyQuil.

San Francisco is Becoming Johannesburg

My son went to California to visit in-laws.  The car rental agencies are now offering broken windows/theft of contents coverage for S.F.  The left has achieved their goal: Third World status.

When B&H Photo Charges Extra for 1 Day Delivery...

 It means slower than Free delivery.  I placed two orders on Dec. 22.  I paid $32.54 for 1 Day Delivery.  A little later the same day, I placed another order with Free shipping.  The Free shipping order arrived Dec. 24.  1 Day Delivery is scheduled for Dec. 27.  Attempts to get a refund for the not 1 Day Delivery get a useless response, not a refund.

They just refunded the 1 Day charge.  Of course that FedEx is now showing an expected delivery last night while the telescope is still in Memphis...

Who is Bill Gates Trying to Kill With COVID-19?

An interesting article from Psychology Today explains Informational Learned Helplessness:

"

• Learned helplessness can explain why some people become depressed; when we don’t perceive we have an effect on our own lives, we can give up.
• Informational learned helplessness expands this concept to our online lives, explaining why we may become overwhelmed by a quest for truth.
• Better practices by media organizations might make it easier for us to discern truth from fiction and reduce our cognitive exhaustion."

Along with some important ways to improve news coverage, what is fascinating is that where some conspiracy buffs imagine that Gates created COVID-19 to kill the white population of the U S. to replace us with Chinese, in Russia Gates is trying to kill Russians and Chinese.  

I get it!  He is killing all of us to replace us with lizard people!

Patent 269,766

 Do I need to tell you the patentholder was from Texas?

I am reading Mary Roach's Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law.  It is a hilarious examination of animal pest problems.

Why California is May-Issue

12/24/21 Daily Mail shows a woman shoplifting while carrying a pickaxe.

I disagree.  It is not shoplifting while carrying a deadly weapon and making threats.  It is armed robbery.  Angelenos are clearly okay with this.

A Little Too Obviously Automated

 An email offering:

Hi,

I am a software developer from India, I can make any kind of website or web/mobile App.

Do you need any such work done?

Christina

UNSUBSCRIBE

As far as that goes, I cannot fault someone seeking work, but the subject line:

 {Spam?} I want to work for Narragansett Stalking Horse: The English Role in the Pequot War

That is the title of a paper that I wrote some years back that is no longer on my webpage. 

Pleasant Surprises

I received a copy of Johnson, Kopel, McCrary, Wallace, and Kilmer's Firearms Law and the Second Amendment: Regulation, Rights, and Policy (3rd ed.).  This is the book that law professors and lawyers would consult on the subject.  My wife immediately turned to the Table of Authorities to see how many articles were by me.  To my surprised pleasure, I found a law review article by Dave Kopel and myself that I did not realize had been published in Howard Law Journal about mental health and public safety.  Dave might have informed me in an email lost in a spam folder.  Time to update my C.V.

And while I was not looking a bunch more federal courts of appeal cited my work:

State v. Roundtree, 952 NW 2d 765, 786 (Wisc. 2021) citing "Second Amendment Limitations and Criminological Considerations."

State v. Christen, 2021 Wisc. 39 (Wisc. 2021) citing "Second Amendment Limitations and Criminological Considerations."

Hirschfeld v. BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, FIREARMS, TOBACCO, 5 F. 4th 407, 426 n.15, 420 n.27, 429 n.29, 437. n.49 (4th Cir. 2021) citing "Second Amendment Limitations and Criminological Considerations."

Young v. State, 992 F. 3d 765, 840 (9th Cir. 2021) citing "The Racist Roots of Gun Control"

Wow! Clear Evidence of Political Bias, Suggestion of Entrapment and the End of His FBI Career

 12/19/21 WOOD-TV:

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (WOOD) — One of the lead FBI agents on the federal kidnapping case involving Michigan’s governor didn’t just betray the badge off-duty, he also showed questionable judgment online by posting an obscenity-laden, anti-Trump tirade.

“If you still support our piece of s–t president you can f–k off,” began the 2020 post on Richard Trask’s personal Facebook page.

As Trask, 40, prepares to enter a plea Monday on charges he beat and choked his wife at their Kalamazoo County home, Target 8 investigators are revealing the contents of a vitriolic, Trump-bashing post on Trask’s personal Facebook page.  

Target 8 has also obtained police body camera video of Trask’s July 18, 2021, arrest for allegedly assaulting his wife after they attended a swinger’s party at a Kalamazoo-area hotel.  

Trask’s Facebook declaration blasting then-President Donald Trump was dated March 28, 2020.

At the time, the FBI was in the early stages of its investigation into the alleged plot to abduct Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat.

Trask played a central role in the case, which has since become one of the most politicized in Michigan’s history, with defense attorneys claiming the FBI orchestrated the abduction plan itself through its direction of confidential informants. 

Fiercely anti-Trump FBI agent involved in effort that smells like entrapment.  And the conviction for domestic violence is a federal firearms disqualifier.  There goes his FBI career. 

Sore Scratchy Throat

 This is atypical for me but is typical for omicron.  I will get in for testing this morning.  I am hoping that I do not have to cancel next week's cardiac tests.

Also muscle pain but that might be the rotator cuff injury.

Now cough.

Quick antigen test negative.  More precise PCR test will be a couple days. 

I now think it may be a cold.  I have not had one in years.  My wife gets infectious diseases; I get heart attacks and strokes.

PCR test also negative.

Non-Chinese Astrophotography Kit

 I am doing my best to buy stuff not made in China.  US made is nice (the Losmandy mount; the Televue TV-85 I just bought); but countries that are either on our side (Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Australia) or no threat to us (my last dress shirt purchase was Ethiopian made).  

Some things seem to be hard to buy from companies not in enemy nations.  At the moment I am searching for a 2" eyepiece projection adapter; here is an example that I am sure is PRC.  There will be a premium price; I can afford it.  

Or do I need to find a machinist to make something like this and encourage him to try and sell them?  The parts are a bit beyond my skill level.  There is an outer tube 2.00" ID  threaded at one end M48x0.75 female; a thumb screw (ideally compressing a brass compression ring to hold the eyepiece in place). and an inner tube 2.00" OD that slides into the eyepiece focuser.  The whole assembly needs to be anodized matte black.  The threading is the area that I cannot do.

I just cannot believe that there is not someone in Poland or Czechia who cannot make these.  I am sure that they would sell for $100 to people who do not want to buy Chinese.

As I was tossing and turning last night, I realized that I can make every part but the M48x0.75 internal thread.  I can probably find a machinist to do that last part.  Cutting those threads, then ending it all out for black anodizing might not be too expensive if I make 10 of them.  I might even find buyers for the other 9.

Not Entirely a False Flag

12/18/21 Revolver amasses a large body of evidence that several agent provocateurs incited otherwise peaceful protestors into the January 6th riot:

 Out of all of the thousands of January 6’s protesters, and the thousands of hours of publicly available footage from that fateful day, Ray Epps has turned out to be perhaps the only person nailed dead to rights confessing on camera to plotting a pre-planned attack on the Capitol. On both January 5 and January 6, Epps announced multiple times, at multiple locations, his upcoming plot to breach the US Capitol. He then spent hours attempting to recruit hundreds of others to join him. On top of it all, Epps was seen leading key people and managing key aspects of the initial breach of the Capitol grounds himself.

It would be one thing if Epps’s repeated calls on January 5 to “go into the Capitol” had simply amounted to bluster. But Epps followed through on his stated mission to shepherd others inside. In clips 4-6 of the above compilation, we see Epps actively orchestrate elements of the very first breach of the Capitol barricades at 12:50 p.m, while Trump still had 20 minutes left in his rally speech.

It is noteworthy that this Ray Epps breach occurs just one minute after Capitol Police began responding to reports of two “pipe bombs” located at DNC and GOP headquarters, respectively. Rather conveniently, the already-handicapped Capitol Police thus had still-fewer resources with which to respond to the barricade breach in question.

While the “pipe bombs” turned out to be a dud, the Ray Epps breach proved fateful. Today, the official stories told by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the US Justice Department all depict the apparent Ray Epps-orchestrated 12:50 p.m. initial breach of metal barricades as the “Big Bang” event of January 6.

Two possible explanations: government agents; various lunatic fringe Trump supporters who thought this would be a good idea. They would be right up there with Marinus van Lubbe's convenient arson attempt at the Reichstag, giving Hitler reason to demand emergency powers.

Pallet Seeks Boise Area Fireplace to Consume Me With Firey Passion

My new telescope ladder has arrived.  The pallet on which it arrived is a bit past its prime as a pallet, but would make a fine addition to a fireplace or firepit.

The ladder made in Mexico by Louisville Ladder far exceeds my expectations.  I have submitted a detailed review to cloudynights.com.  If they publish it, I will post a link; if not, it will appear here.

Conspiracy Theory As Spoiler Alert

 COVID pass under your skin? Swedes implant chips with vaccination certificate

“In case your phone runs out of battery, it’s always accessible to you. So of course, that’s how we use this technology today, next year we are going to use it for something else,” added Sjoblad.

People convinced that this is all "Mark of the Beast" giving each other high fives!

Things You Find in Sewage

 12/16/21 ABC News:

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Even though there have been practically no cases of clinical infection, wastewater samples show that the new omicron variant is now the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the Florida county that is home to the nation's largest theme park resorts, officials said this week.

The omicron variant has quickly surpassed the delta variant in collections taken from wastewater sampling sites in Orange County, officials said.

A sampling this week showed that omicron represented almost 100% of the strains in the samples from the wastewater facilities, Orange County Utilities spokesperson Sarah Lux said in an email.

It's a different story when it comes to people seeking treatment for COVID-19, officials said.

“Those who are hospitalized are being primarily infected by the delta variant,” Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said Wednesday at a news conference held at the Orlando International Airport.

Early reports from South Africa indicated that it was highly contagious but not terribly severe.  This is consistent with that model.  It is the overwhelming fraction of COVID-19 in that county, but the hospitals are not seeing a bunch of omicron patients. 

I think this may be good news.  We may have moved to the "bad news like flu" stage.  It is awful to get, but unless you are at high risk, as with flu, you are unlikely to go to the hospital or the morgue.

Yet Another Reason You Cannot Assume That Unknown Callers Are Spammers

 The local freight forwarder has been trying to arrange delivery of a ladder.  The number is unfamiliar and the voicemail they left was incomprehensible.

There Are News Stories So Amazing That I Check the URL First

 12/17/21 WTHR:

Rowland told Blackfoot Police Chief Scott Gay that he had "really screwed up" during the Nov. 9 confrontation, which happened after a youth group came to his door.

According to a probable cause affidavit, the seven girls, ages 12 to 16, were delivering paper "thankful turkeys" to people around the neighborhood as part of a youth group activity. 

The girls would deliver the turkey thank-you notes by taping them to a recipient's door, ringing the doorbell, and running away before the person inside could see who had left the note.

Rowland told investigators that at about 8 p.m., his Yorkie began to bark so he went outside and saw two people running away from his house.

According to the affidavit, the girls returned to their youth leader's car giggling, and told her they had tried to leave the turkey, but had nearly been caught by Craig Rowland so had been unable to deliver it. The group delivered another "thankful turkey" to a house nearby, then returned to the sheriff's home to try again. 

Rowland told police that a few minutes after he had seen people running away from his house, his Ring doorbell activated and he heard his front door rattle.

The sheriff said he got his gun, and stepped outside wearing long johns and socks. ...

The youth group leader stopped and opened her car door, illuminating the inside of the car where the seven girls were sitting, and told Rowland that they had just been dropping something off for his wife.

She said Rowland looked into the car, pointed his gun at her, then pointed it at two girls sitting in the front passenger seat. The sheriff then aimed the gun back at her, the woman said, and told her to "get the f-- out of the car," the woman reported. 

As she moved to put the vehicle in park, the woman said, Rowland grabbed her by the hair, yanked her from the car, and aimed his gun at her face, holding it just inches from her forehead. 

Multiple girls inside the car reported hearing the sheriff ask the woman who she was and say "I will f----shoot you," according to investigators.

The youth group leader, who grew up in the house next to Rowland and considered him a family friend, said she told Rowland her name and that she was his neighbor, but added that the words did not seem to register. 

"That's when I really got scared because the gun was still at my head and he didn‘t know who was," she said, according to the affidavit. 

Rowland told police that he did not recognize the woman but she was "terrified," and that he ultimately told her to "get the f--- out of here."

The sheriff admitted to investigators that he had pulled the woman out of her car by the hair and pointed a gun at her, demonstrating aiming it at her head or neck, according to the affidavit. 

Rowland said he had had one alcoholic drink earlier in the night, but was not drunk or impaired....

Rowland told investigators that the recent time change had "really messed me up" and said he was on edge because of interactions he and his wife previously had with members of the community.

"I have been doing this job for 36 years. I've had drunk Indians drive down my cul-de-sac. I've had drunk Indians come to my door," he said. "I live just off the reservation, we have a lot of reservation people around us who are not good people."

Perhaps he was not impaired by alcohol, but he was clearly impaired by something: stupidity perhaps.  I have generally regarded the claims of widespread remaining racism with great skepticism.  This guy just flushed that belief.  That he would say what he did about Indians shows both racism and severe impairment as well.

Another Huge Mass Murder--But Congress Will Not Take Action!

 12/17/21 ABC News:

OSAKA, Japan -- A fire that spread from a fourth-floor mental clinic in an eight-story building in downtown Osaka in western Japan on Friday left 24 dead in what police were investigating as a possible case of arson and murder.

Police were searching for a man in his 50s to 60s who witnesses saw carrying a paper bag from which an unidentified liquid was dripping. He may have been among the 24 dead, or is one of the three people who were resuscitated and remain in serious conditions, or may have fled, a police investigator said on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media.

Fire officials who reached the building in the major business, shopping and entertainment area of Kitashinchi in Osaka found 27 people in a state of cardiac arrest, said Osaka fire department official Akira Kishimoto.

One woman was conscious and brought down by an aerial ladder from a window on the sixth floor and was being treated in a hospital, he said. Later Friday, 24 people were pronounced dead, the fire department said.

And Another

 HP Photosmart C6280.  Works perfectly, but as-is.  I replaced it with a very high-end Canon large format printer.  It has USB, and Ethernet connectors.  All-in-one: scanner, copier, printer.  Warning: original HP cartridges are no longer available.  The remanufactured cartridges for this seldom get the colors exactly right.  Unless you are a very picky photographer, you will never know the difference.  Except for magenta, these are all HP ink cartridges.  I will be shipping it in an oversize box to protect it and because the Canon printer came in a very large, very solid box.  

On eBay

When preparing the ad, I was surprised and pleased to find on the manufacturing label "Made in Malaysia."

Useful Gadget I No Longer Need

 Lenovo USB 3.0 Dock.  USB cable from PC; two DVI output connectors, five USB 3.0 connectors, and one audio output (3.5mm jack).  I used this to add external monitors to my Lenovo x140e.  I do not think it is Lenovo-specific; it likely works with any PC.

I have listed it on eBay.  Starting bid $10.

I Love This Guy

 He is not costing the scammer any money, but he is wasting his time really well.

More Shocks at Amazon

 I ordered a waffle iron as a Christmas gift and it appears to be made in that most Chinese of cities, Montreal.

Today's Glorious Number

198.2 pounds.  I seem to be holding below 200 now.  I have long promoted and mostly lived financial self-discipline as the path to wealth, and it is truth for health as well: the self-discipline to enjoy a couple slices of pizza and then STOP.  My excuse is that I was sometimes hungry as a child, but I was also poor as a child and I learned to fix that.

Frontiers in Pharmacology

Peer reviewed randomized clinical trial:

Results: Patients with mild, moderate, and severe symptoms who received curcumin/piperine treatment showed early symptomatic recovery (fever, cough, sore throat, and breathlessness), less deterioration, fewer red flag signs, better ability to maintain oxygen saturation above 94% on room air, and better clinical outcomes compared to patients of the control group. Furthermore, curcumin/piperine treatment appeared to reduce the duration of hospitalization in patients with moderate to severe symptoms, and fewer deaths were observed in the curcumin/piperine treatment group.

It Makes Me Wish That I Was Still Young

 

I Do Not Think That I Have Shared This

 

I Am Shocked!

12/14/21 San Jose Mercury-News:

The jury dropped its bombshell Tuesday, filing an official declaration in Superior Court accusing Smith of seven corruption-related acts. Six involve ongoing criminal indictments alleging Smith engaged in political favoritism and traded favors by leveraging her control over issuing concealed-carry weapons permits.

That's An Awfully Personal Question...

 Dear Clayton,

Because you are a key contributor to 23andMe’s research mission, you will occasionally be asked to answer a question like this one.

Do you like folk music?

Sleazy Tricks

 Guys have been trying to get single young ladies into bed forever, but this is the most elaborate form of which I have ever heard.

New Salem, Ky. (1932)

01/19/1932: Two feuding families opened fire on each other in New Salem churchyard, after one member of one family arranged a sham wedding to a 17-year-old of the other family that “she thought was legally solemnized.”  Her family believed that he “wronged” her.  He was the only survivor of the gun battle, in which five men died.

Category: public

Suicide: no

Cause: revenge

Weapon: firearms[1]

---

[1] "Fifth Person Dies After Gun Battle In Kentucky Feud," Bismarck Tribune, Jan. 20, 1932, 1.

I suspect that he did more than "wrong" her.

Weapon Availability As A Factor in Mass Murders

 It is easy to assume (as the gun banners do) that the widespread use of axes, hatchets, and blunt objects in these crimes until very recently was because guns were not available.  But many of these incidents show otherwise.  A father beat to death almost his entire family.  His wife and one daughter were in critical condition.  But he committed suicide with a shotgun.  This is something that I see quite frequently; there was a gun available to the murderer and he used it only on himself.

I am just starting 1932.  It is already very grim, and January is not complete.

Sometimes Conspiracy Theories Are Actually "Spoiler Alerts"

 12/13/21 Tom Knighton points to something that has long curioused my brain.  (Yes, it's a verb now.)  

In this day and age, if you want to dismiss anyone’s concern, you just call it a conspiracy theory. If you do, then you’ll completely dismiss the argument without even having to argue against it.

That’s the state of our nation right now, I’m afraid.

One of the companies most behind this was CNN. The “news” network opted to refer to talk of pedophilia by the elites as nothing more than conspiracy theories as well as outright lies.

Now, I’ve always tried to be cautious about accusing someone of lying. After all, if they believe it, it’s not a lie, even if it’s false. Being wrong isn’t be dishonest, after all. Lots of honest people say wrong stuff all the time. It doesn’t make them dishonest.

But CNN didn’t blink about calling a whole lot of people liars.

However, it seems that CNN might well have been hoping no one would look too deeply at their own dirty laundry.

He then points out how the bizarre Pizzagate conspiracy theory of political elites molesting children at a pizza place in DC suddenly cause head scratching when you look at the indictment of a CNN producer for sexual abuse of little girls for purposes that should have feminists doxxing him and seeking summary castration, if they actually believed their own often inflamed rhetoric, and the CIA employee pedophiles report, most of whom were not prosecuted.

Over the past 14 years, the Central Intelligence Agency has secretly amassed credible evidence that at least 10 of its employees and contractors committed sexual crimes involving children.

Though most of these cases were referred to US attorneys for prosecution, only one of the individuals was ever charged with a crime. Prosecutors sent the rest of the cases back to the CIA to handle internally, meaning few faced any consequences beyond the possible loss of their jobs and security clearances.

Oh, and the essential non-coverage of the Ghislane Maxwell trial.  

I have been intermittently working on a novel whose backstory involves the dissolution of Canada and the USA and the formation of the Confederation of Northwest North America caused by the revelation that the political elites keep themselves in power to enjoy the benefits of, and to keep secret their abuse of children.  From the time of Tiberius (if you believe Suetonius), this has been one of the "Why would you?" perqs of being a tyrant.

A Fascinating Examination of Frequent Flyer Miles

 I watched this on YouTube and it is fascinating:

Forgive My Skepticism

 Hype from Lawrence Technological University:

“Lawrence Tech is the creative and innovative university of the future,” said Sobh. “We are the preeminent technological university that prepares students for job titles that do not even exist yet! LTU makes a difference in the lives of our students and our community. I look forward to continuing this important work in my new role.”

Just think, majors in ??? 

You May Know About the McNamara Brothers Bombing the Los Angeles Times in 1911 As Part of a Strike

Here is one that is new to me, from 10/17/1931 Washington Evening Star:

More Courage

 Scottish police will now officially identify rapists as women if they choose to identify as such.  J.K. Rowling has had enough of this counter-reality garbage:

The hopelessly "woke" went after her.  Remember, the feelings of rapists matter.

She is rich enough to do this without risk.  But as Matt Walsh observes:

Rowling has a zillion dollars and so you might say she risks nothing by speaking out so loudly on this issue. But you could just as well say she has nothing at all personally to gain from it, and she doesn't. It takes real courage. Almost no one else of her stature is doing this.

Remember when Democrats insisted that they were "the reality-based party" unlike those "faith-based" Republicans. Oh yeah and the "party of science."

If you have not already done so, buy a Rowling book to show solidarity.