9500 Steps Today

I went to the College of Idaho (what used to be Albertson's College of Idaho until too many asked how fresh their produce was) to check citations in a secondary source.  Surprise, surprise, the secondary source did provide the claimed information).  It is really not that big a campus but I picked I think the wrong parking lot to get to the library.  My wife and I went for a bit of a walk this evening as well.

Handles

I mentioned a few days ago my hope to make handles for the new rotating rings from Parallax Instruments for the 8" reflector.  

The 5" refractor rings (which do not rotate) have similar 1/4"-20 threaded holes.  Wildly enough I did not need an adapter plate to interface the handles to those holes.  There is about .01" difference in distance between the handle screw holes and the holes in the rings.  That is close enough that by turning in one screw a short distance then the other one, they lock down very solidly.  This refractor is light enough for me to carry just by itself but with the handles, I believe that I can remove and reinstall it by myself.

I had used the holes on the front ring to make a camera carrier but never used it for that purpose.

In retrospect, the black finish version might have gone better with the rings.  What was described as silver finish is closer to gray.

i have confidence in these rings.  Depending on who you believe a 1/4"-20 stainless steel bolt (made in Taiwan) has a shear strength between 1100 (a table I found by Google) and 3750 pounds (60,000 ksi x area (.25" x .25").  The tensile strength is less but nothing should even begin to overwhelm even one of the four bolts.

The handles bolted right on the rotating rings as well.

Tiring Day

Writing expert declarations for New York's red flag law.  Their "expert" is insisting that the Statute of Northampton is the equivalent pre-1791 law.  Bruen specifically rejected the relevance of that law.  But just to be really thorough I am demonstrating not only is he trying to get a district judge to overrule the Supreme Court but his other citations are misrepresentations.  Finding obscure sources and quoting them in full is interesting but tiring.

Cloudy Night

SuperMoon Harvest Moon.  Super because we it is at perigee so closest to Earth.  Harvest Moon because traditional farmers relied on its brightness for fall harvesting.

Still sore from the telescope reinstallation on the mount. There has to be a better way that does not scare me about dropping it.

Something like an engine hoist that can lift 50 pounds or so from about four feet to about six feet that does not need ceiling attachment.  A freestanding hoist like an engine hoist but with a bit more lift and less weight capacity.  Found it: game hoist.

Trump's Superhuman Strength

Remember when we were told that Trump grabbed the steering wheel of the presidential limo (you know, through the bulletproof glass between driver and passenger).  The person who made that claim is now admitting it was a lie.  12/22/22 Business Insider:

"Cassidy Hutchinson says she initially lied to the January 6 committee about a claim that Trump grabbed the steering wheel of his SUV and lunged at a Secret Service agent"

Trump is going to be old at the end of his second term but if the only way to break the left' s power is to Grover Cleveland him, what is the choice?

I Had an Alligator As a Pet

My sister bought two baby alligators in Florida and brought them back to California one for me.

But there are limits.9/28/23 WVLT:

"Fan who tried to bring emotional support alligator denied entry into Phillies game"

Ableism at its worst.  What about my emotional support yersina pestis?

Could You Start Fires With Starlight?

/9/28/23 SciTechDaily reports on the Great Magellan Telescope nearing completion in Arizona:

"Once assembled, all seven mirrors will work in concert as one monolithic 25.4-meter mirror—a diameter equal to the length of a full-grown blue whale—resulting in up to 200 times the sensitivity and four times the image resolution of today’s most advanced space telescopes."

That is a 1000 inch diameter mirror.  Palomar Observatory was for decades the largest telescope on Earth at 200 inches.  This new one gathers 25x the light.  1000 inches is 25 million times the light-gathering of a proper dark-adapted adult eye.

Sitting by the Star Riverwalk

A mile or two from our house is a wildlife sanctuary (blue herons). Along this little river is the Star Riverwalk.  

My wife and I came down here to walk and I was getting winded keeping up with my wife, so I am sitting here waiting for her to return.  It is so nice to be caught up on declarations although I have some Red Flag law declarations to do next for a New York State case.

Rotating Rings (And Sore I Am)

I finally got far enough ahead of the expert declaration storm to put the rotating rings on the 8" f/7 reflector.  The slightly larger interior rings are no longer a press fit, but slid over the mirror cell screws which are usually a barrier that requires removal and replacement.  (The first try at installing the rings at least gave me an excuse to clean a mirror with many years of dust. At least no cobwebs.)

The OTA weighs about 26 pounds; the rings add about 12 pounds.  My wife and are trying to slide the mounting plate into the dovetail saddle about five feet in the air.  In my 40s and 50s this was not so hard by myself.  But pretty much my entire upper body is saying "What did you do to me?"

The OTA in the rings rotate very nicely.  I will have to adjust the tension screws to get exactly the right pressure to rotate the OTA without turning into an amusement park ride.

The clouds did not leave so nothing to do tonight.

Woke Does Not Pay the Bills

9/26/23 SFGate:

"Target announced Tuesday it will permanently close a San Francisco store, blaming organized retail crime and unsuccessful anti-theft measures."

All your trans pride does not solve the problem of hoodlums ripping off your stores.  I doubt they can deduct these losses as "early slave reparations."

Reducing Muffintop

Not me but on loaves of bread.  

The last couple of loaves have risen to the edge of pan and only last minute shoving back down with a spatula has prevented overflow with the inevitable burned bread smell as the excess dough did a leap off the edge.

This time I made 3/4 of the recipe and everyone stayed in bounds.

A Million Miles Away

This is a really heartwarming story of a migrant farmworker in California with a teacher who can see how far he can go and persuades his parents that stability for his education is more important than following the harvest.  Eventually he goes up on STS-122.  

There are lots of bright kids out there coming from suboptimal homes.  The Social Darwinists liked to imagine the poor were that way because they were genetically inferior, unlike the aristocrats.

A point that I make when anyone notes that there are IQ differences between races and ethnic groups is that there are always a fair number of people two sigmas above the average for group A who are smarter than the average for group B.  Every individual deserves to be evaluated as an individual, not as a member of A or B.  There are plenty of As smart enough to compete with the average B.  

Even real differences in averages may only explain average differences in outcomes.  Those differences may be the result of inherited differences in ability or a history of social abuse.  (Example: until 1948, Southern blacks received 2/3 the hours of education per year of school as whites.)

I Grew Up on Jack-in-the-Box

For my family, this was for many years, as close as we could get to going out to dinner.  ("When I was young, we were so poor...."). I have always like it more than McDonald's.  Look down your noses all you want 

YouTube video: "Brits try Jack In The Boz for the first time". It is an eye-opening experience.

As one described it "Guilty pleasure eating."

Interesting Linux Discovery Over the Weekend

Yeah, I know, I am not the cool kid cause I use Windows 11 for almost everything.  But I do run the CNC version of Linux (based on what Linux?  I am not sure).  For some weeks now, it seemed as though my WiFi had stopped working.

The CNC machine is in the garage.  Range?  My cell phone can see it.  The icon shows bars but fast.com says that the servers cannot be reached.  I pulled the USB WiFi device, plugged it back in, rebooted, and in general took the obvious steps.

The other day, I tried Google and I received a date problem.  The PC thinks it is 2009, and Google disagreed.  After a few minutes reacquainting myself with the date command, everything runs again.

I had seen a message during boot about the system battery failed.  This is what keeps the system clock up to date when the machine is off.  At boot, the OS interrogates the system clock.  Linux and likely Windows then use NNTP (or NTP?  too long since I had to read RFCs for employment) to get a more accurate time to store in the system clock.  If that battery somewhere on the motherboard has failed the system clock defaults to its birthdate at the next boot.

Those of you who remember having to set the date and time each time you rebooted your PC appreciate this little complexity.

There is no urgency.  I do not reboot that PC very often.  I just need to pick a morning to find out where and what that battery is for this HP Optiplex and open it up.

Star Party

The Boise Astronomical Society did a star party for Payette Public Library last night so I hauled my 5" f/9 refractor out to share.  I was at first concerned that all I would have to show was the Moon, but Saturn appeared about 8:30.  There was still too much twilight and Moon glow to get a decent image but at 90x the rings were visible.  It is still nothing like using the 17.5" reflector but still satisfying for the general public.

Unfortunately, I neglected to aim the polar axis true north so tracking was horrible.  I misread the direction of the compass in Google Maps so I was aimed south.  That it tracked as well as it did is somewhat amazing.

I had some mechanical problems.  The diagonal that holds the eyepiece kept rotating clockwise. After some examination, I realized that the ring that holds the retaining screw had works its way loose.  Turning it counterclockwise and tightening solved the problem.

Some months back, I machined a ring bracket set to hold the finderscope.  The original cracked.  Unfortunately, what I made was from several individual pieces screwed together to simplify machining.  While I used two screws to hold the ring assembly to the base, it was not as tight as it should have been.  Even a little play means the very slippery acetal moves, which prevents a consistent alignment of finderscope and main scope.

I originally made this myself because the base slides into a weird dovetail base which I thought was proprietary to Photon Instruments. No, it is a Vixen finder standard so I ordered one for $35.  Made in Canada!

When I got home and reassembled the mount, the locking bolt that holds the counterweight to the shaft broke.  At least the plastic head broke.  This Losmandy GM8 is at least 30 years old so I cannot complain.  I ordered a new one from Losmandy that is solid steel.

This is embarrassing.  I want to thank Miguel for a good suggestion, but reply is no longer working; it says sign in to Google.  But I am.

Major Victory

9/22/23 San Diego Union-Tribune:

"California cannot ban gun owners from having detachable magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, a federal judge ruled Friday.

"The decision from U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez won’t take effect immediately. Democratic U.S. Attorney General Rob Bonta has already promised to appeal the ruling. The ban is likely to remain in effect while the case is still pending."

Bonta of course is California Attorney-General.

"Benitez ruled “there is no American tradition of limiting ammunition capacity.” He said detachable magazines “solved a problem with historic firearms: running out of ammunition and having to slowly reload a gun.”

“There have been, and there will be, times where many more than 10 rounds are needed to stop attackers,” Benitez wrote. “Yet, under this statute, the State says ‘too bad.’”"

And yes, this is a case on which I have worked as an expert witness.  I am feeling pretty good.

Decision Duncan v. Bonta here.

And I am cited on p. 57. And two other citations.  Too tired to fill in those other page numbers right now.

Good News

9/21/23 Portland Oregonian:

"On Day 4 of the trial in Harney County Circuit Court to determine whether Oregon’s Measure 114 gun restrictions pass muster under the state constitution, testimony took an unexpected turn.

"After allowing a volunteer campaign coordinator for the voter-approved measure to take the stand, the Harney County judge overseeing the closely watched trial questioned the coordinator directly, throwing out several hypothetical scenarios concerning the possible effects of the measure on pastors or rabbis of different races."

The state made the mistake of calling this guy for reasons that make little sense and the judge asked him hypothetical questions that showed how the law was likely to be abused in racial ways.

I think the judge is sympathetic.

Woof!

9/19/23 New York Post:

"A pack of dog-identifying humans has prompted calls for “animal control” after footage of their Berlin meet-up went viral.

"An estimated 1,000 people who prefer to be recognized as not humans, but canines, organized a gathering at the Berlin Potsamer Platz railroad station in Germany, communicating only by howling or barking at one another."

As long as they don't insist on using our fire hydrants.

Windedness Decreasing

After installing stents, it can weeks for them to get fully integrated and cardiovascular capacity to come back to where it should be.  Exercise helps.  The death march along Star Riverwalk is getting easier.

I still have to face an open-heart procedure to replace the aortic valve, probably in summer 

Hold Down Clamps for Harbor Freight Drill Press

I needed to clamp down a piece of aluminum on the drill press table.  (It was too big to fit in the drill press vise.). The drill press vise is held in place by a careless (or thoughtless?) combination of bolt two washers and a nut at the bottom.  These slide into what I would call the world's most sloppy T-slot.  Maybe this has a different name in this application.  Putting two of these in place holds the drill press vise in position just fine.  But these really do not work for holding a 5/16" aluminum plate.  

The slots are 1.09" wide where the threaded T-nut should go and .5" deep.  I cannot find anything that fits this description or associated with Harbor Freight. 

Because the measurements are a bit difficult inside a T-slot, making my own T-nuts for this  makes a lot of sense.  If they turn out too wide or too high to slide, I can just machine them a bit narrower or shorter.  I need to make them of steel.  They should be much easier to install than the current expedient solution.  By attaching a sheet of steel under the top of bolt, I should be able to clamp stuff to the drill press table.

I am blogging this because I have a bit too much to do on the gun rights front right now, and if I write down these dimensions I am guaranteed to lose the paper by the time I am ready to machine these.

The Younger Generation May Not Be As Brainwashed As We Thought

9/19/23 New York Post:

"Hundreds of students from Pennsylvania’s Perkiomen Valley School District walked out of class Friday after the local school board failed to enact a policy requiring transgender students to use the restroom corresponding with their biological sex.

“Kids were upset. Girls… we wanted to protect them. They were upset. They didn’t want men in their bathroom,” John Ott, who organized the walkout, told FOX News on Monday."

"We wanted to protect them." Someone is learning to be a man.  Women should be able to protect themselves but for thousands of generations humans have bred the idea that Ogg protects the females.  Most cultures, even if they do it imperfectly, also teach this important lesson.  The stronger should protect the weaker.  Throughout human development that has usually been the man protecting his mate and their children.

Soviet Union Was So Long Ago... Coming Soon: Famine in Chicago

9/18/23 National Review article about how Chicago officials are looking into creating a city owned grocery store chain.  They do not need to make a profit so they will be cheaper and most of you know about the outrageous profit margins of grocery stores.

You may recall the YouTube video a few weeks back where a black lady was explaining why WalMart was leaving Chicago and with unfortunately good reasons.

The comments at Instapundit are as usual a riot:

"A worker standing in a food store line says: “I have had enough, save my

place, I am going to shoot Mayor Johnson.” Two hours later he returns to
claim his place in line. His friends ask, “Did you get him?” “No, the
line there was even longer than the line here.”

Some Comments Are So Good That They Want Wider Distribution

Over at Instapundit they are discussing how Jan Wenner, founder of Rolling Stone is being cancelled off the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame board for insufficient diversity in a recent collection of interviews that Little, Brown and Co. published.

Some reproduced the RRHOF diversity statement and the comment was "Autotune met English and won."

When Did NAACP Turn Right-Wing?

A few weeks old but still startling.  7/29/23 KTVU:

"OAKLAND, Calif. - The Oakland NAACP has called on city leaders to declare a state of emergency due to rising crime, calling the situation a "crisis," and has urged residents across the city to speak out against it. 

"The group, alongside Bishop Bob Jackson of the Acts Full Gospel Church, issued the statement on Thursday, blasting both city and county officials, as well as social justice movements. 

"Failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police, our District Attorney’s unwillingness to charge and prosecute people who murder and commit life-threatening serious crimes, and the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric have created a heyday for Oakland criminals," the letter states."

Defunding police has always injured blacks most because they are primary victims of crime

Remember that much of "systemic racism" screeching is people gaming the system as paid experts appealing to guilt-ridden whites.

Put Your Google-Fu Skills to a Good Cause

Several years back, I read a book in books.google.com that discussed the origins of Pennsylvania's prison system.  For the first few years, when convicts were deemed rehabilitated, they received a full pardon.  Their record was wiped clean.

I searched for Pennsylvania prison pardon governor with no matches.  If you can search and find it, it would do great good on a current project.

Removing Antiquated Ideas

9/13/23 CBC:

"Books published in 2008 or earlier removed from school library amid confusion around new equity-based process"

Positively Soviet.  Theoretically, some books from before 2008 will pass muster but I confess skepticism.

They need room for "Heather Has Two Mommies" and "Heather's Dad is Also Zir Granddad."

I Knew This Intellectually

If you are cutting too deep or too fast, or the mill is too high speed rotation, the symptom is chatter and the vibration eventually pulls workpiece out of clamps.  But recognizing that this was the problem took a while.

Even at .01" per minute, cutting 3/16" aluminum is a bit much so I wrote some gCode to cut in .05" passes.

Texas Doing It Right

9/12/23 Fox News:

"Texas lawmakers quietly passed a sweeping mandate for school safety measures, including a requirement to post an armed security officer at every school and provide mental health training for certain district employees."

This is not a perfect solution.  Not that there is one.  But since no one wants to solve the mental health problem, this is better than hoping that no crazy person goes on a rampage.

My wife taught at a charter school until recently and it was gratifying to have a former Marine, former deputy sheriff as campus security.  We talked guns a bit one evening and I felt good having her there to protect my wife and grandkids.

Cutting Very Slowly

I have my mill cutting a 1.2" wide piece of aluminum off a 7" wide piece.  So that I do not need to supervise it, it is cutting at .01" per minute.  This lets me do other things instead while it chugs along.  Yes another six or so hours to go.

Coolest Video I Have Seen

A company called Icon is 3D printing houses.  Yes, big printers using a proprietary product called Lavacrete.  Excellent strength, insulation, and fire resistance with most of the internal components either printed in place or gaps for putting in housings for electrical and plumbing.  This example, they are printing 100 houses.

They are not entirely LavaCrete.  They use wood for trusses to hold the roof in place, but the trusses are mounted to huge threaded rods that are in the foundation.

When I was young (6th grade?) I was obsessed with the idea of building houses with sintered metal as a way and low labor way to build structures.  Wow!

Away on a Comet!

It is a Jules Verne novel and quite different from his other work, not just because it is impossible scientifically by modern standards (or even those of the 19th century), but because it ends in a way that satisfies the needs of the novel but also provides a way to write off the entire impossible story as a shared delusion.  Fun, in a weird sort of way.  

An asteroid of that size could carry an Earth-like atmosphere for a couple years, especially at the outer reaches of its orbit, although not very plausible at its perihelion.  The physics and astronomy are pretty good for the period.  I am not sure when the concept of low gravity on small mass bodies was first suggested but it certainly is by this time.

The 14th Amendment and Donald Trump

 I was researching the case law associated with Amendment 14's section 3, which you all know by heart, right?

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

It is an article of faith that Trump engaged in insurrection on January 6th.  The only case law in Congress' comprehensive analysis of the 14th Amendment section 3 is United States v. Powell, 27 F. Cas. 605, 65 N. C. 709 (1871), which answers the question of what is a rebellion?

We are of opinion, gentlemen, that the word ‘'engage” implies, and was intended to imply, a voluntary effort to assist the Insurrection or Rebellion, and to bring it to a successful termination.

 

Help!

 I need to check a couple of secondary sources to see if they are being misrepresented.  If they are near you, and you can copy the identified pages for me, and whatever endnotes go with those pages, it would be a great help for California gun owners.  Click the link to see which libraries near you have it.

Mark A. Graber, Punish Treason, Reward Loyalty: The Forgotten Goals of Constitutional Reform after the Civil War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2023), 111-30.

Jonathan Truman Dorris, Pardon and Amnesty under Lincoln and Johnson: The Restoration of the Confederates to Their Rights and Privileges, 1861-1898 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), 319-25.

Someone got me Dorris' pages and I ordered Graber's book.

Never Forget

As Pearl Harbor was for a generation before us, we will never forget how the left responded with "chickens coming home to roost" while most liberals, at least temporarily, took America's side.  Never forget falling man.

Gov. Faubus Lives

 9/8/23 Associated Press:

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Friday issued an emergency order suspending the right to carry firearms in public across Albuquerque and the surrounding county for at least 30 days in response to a spate of gun violence.

The Democratic governor said she expects legal challenges but was compelled to act because of recent shootings, including the death of an 11-year-old boy outside a minor league baseball stadium this week.

Lujan Grisham said state police would be responsible for enforcing what amount to civil violations. Albuquerque police Chief Harold Medina said he won’t enforce it, and Bernalillo County Sheriff John Allen said he’s uneasy about it because it raises too many questions about constitutional rights.

The firearms suspension, classified as an emergency public health order, applies to open and concealed carry in most public places, from city sidewalks to urban recreational parks. The restriction is tied to a threshold for violent crime rates currently only met by the metropolitan Albuquerque. Police and licensed security guards are exempt from the temporary ban.

This is not only contrary to Bruen but also directly contrary to the New Mexico Constitution's RKBA clause which struck down a ban on open carry in a police station lobby. 

When Arkansas Gov. Faubus decided to ignore Brown v. Board of Education (1954), President Eisenhower enforced federal law by sending the Army to enforce Brown. Our current president?  Not likely.  I am glad to see local police chief and sheriff refusing to obey an unconstitutional order.

OneDrive

 I verified that OneDrive had synced all my files when I left the house this morning.  One rather important subfolder is not even present much less the files that I needed.

A Minor Victory

 The first case on which I did expert declarations: Baird v. Bonta.  The judge rejected preliminary injunction.  The 9th Circuit's response:

The panel held that the district court abused its discretion by applying an incorrect legal standard to deny Appellants’ motion for a preliminary injunction. Instead of analyzing the first factor set forth in Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7 (2008)—whether Appellants were likely to succeed on the merits of their claim—the district court erroneously determined that because the public interest and balance of harms disfavored the issuance of a preliminary injunction, it was not necessary to assess Appellants’ likelihood of success on the merits.

I Feel Sorry For Her But She Seems to Be Learning

9/7/23 PowerlineBlog reports a "defunding the police" Minneapolis progressive who just had a nasty contact with reality.  Broken leg, cuts, bruises, lacerations, traumatized kids who saw "youths" attack her and steal her car.

It makes AWFLs feel good by saying that blacks are victims of an oppressive society but the reality is that a small number of black young men cause a lot of racism along with a lot of suffering among their black neighbors.

Do you want to reduce racism and suffering in the ghetto?  Send thugs like this to prison.  That will likely do more to help black Americans than all the anti racism programs imposed by employers.

I am not sure how much hatred of black people there is, but I know that there is a lot of fear because of a small number of sociopaths.

If You Watched the Movie "Smoke Signals" This Should be No Surprise

9/7/23 Fox News:

"Native American women taking up firearms classes for self defense: 'Refusing to be victims'"

For a variety of reasons that are still being argued about, Indians on reservations have very high rates of alcoholism and this should be no surprise, so are domestic violence rates.  It would help to solve the underlying alcoholism problem, but in the meantime, a lot of Indian women have a more immediate problem.  Solution: be prepared to protect yourself from a domestic partner too wasted to stop. 

I Have Been Watching a YouTube Video About Dying Maine Towns

In this case, Houlton, Maine.  Do you have effectively no income but want a place where you can buy a house with what many Californians consider pocket change or a mortgage payment smaller than the average Californian's minimum monthly payment on their Discover Card?

5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2620 sq. ft. for $79,900.

Using a Vertical Mill as a Chopsaw

A couple weeks back I mentioned the problem of cutting a small slice of an already too small piece of acetal on which to get a safe grip on the chopsaw.  This time, it was a piece of aluminum.  I simplified the process by using the clamps that typically hold the mill vise in place.  (Yes, they are a bit ugly. I made them myself and if I ever need to make another set, they will be prettier.). Fortunately, the piece that I need to hold down is 3/16" thick aluminum.

I aligned the edge of the sheet to the back of the mill table to get it square.  If that edge was not really as square as it should have been, I will fix that in the following step, where I expect to have at least one square edge.

Unlike last time where I was cutting in the Y-axis and had trouble holding it down securely, here I am using T-slot clamps on both sides and cutting on the X-axis where I have more space to move.  The X-axis has more travel than the Y-axis.  (I should have thought about that two weeks ago.)

I am using the smallest end mill that I have confidence (or at least hope) will not break as it cuts.  (5/16"?). I am cutting a .05" deep slice on each pass at .05 inches/minute.  I could perhaps go faster but I feel comfortable letting my robot run unattended at this rate.  It will obviously take several passes to get all the way through a 3/16" sheet of aluminum.

A little too optimistic.  At .005 inches/minute it still had enough resistance to pull the workpiece out of the clamps.  Trying again at .002 ipm.

I just went back to cutting at z=0.  Yes it is more of a scratch than a cut, but it goes .10 ipm.  It might take a lot of passes to do this.  Perhaps a better clamping approach might be a better solution.

Several of My Friends Have Taken His Class and Share My Recommendation

 Link to register for class on NRA Training Website ( NO pay portal there -  just register )

https://www.nrainstructors.org/CourseDetails.aspx?Courseid=787983

NEXT CLASS: Saturday September 16th

NRA

Personal Protection Handgun Course

Idaho ENHANCED Concealed Weapon License

12 hour course 8am – 6pm Classroom & Range ( 9 hours +/- )

Legal Section will be conducted on the following Friday 6pm - 9pm

NRA Personal Protection in the Home Course exceeds Idaho 18-3302K

ENHANCED Concealed Weapon License requirement, certificate recognized by all states as firearms training (Though NOT for certain states' CCW , see list below)

$199 Course Fee includes NRA handbook, fliers & NRA Course Completion & Idaho State Police Training Certificate. ( mail check to name & address on back by Tuesday Sept. 12th, or just bring cash to class )

Classes are small (5 at most). 

PAID advance registration is required to reserve your seat. 

Class is open to Instructor-approved citizens who have no felonies or other legal gun-possession disabilities. Liability Release form signature required.

Course consists of approximately 5 Hours Classroom, 4 Hours on the Shooting Range, 1 hour written test.  2+ Hours Legal Instruction to be on following Friday.

Includes Basic Handgun Safety, Familiarization, Hands-on Firearms Handling, Shooting Skills & Instruction. Personal security & avoiding violent confrontations will be covered in depth. Safety & Awareness are critical issues covered at length.

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

BRING: warm jacket & hat (it gets windy at the desert shooting range) and a button up shirt or blouse so no hot brass goes down your shirt to painfully ‘brand’ you and make you momentarily unsafe, Eye and Hearing protection, your handgun (Don't have a handgun or eye/ear protection? let me know I have a few loaners & can help you select the best one that suits your particular needs) and

at least 2 boxes of 50 rounds of factory ammunition ( Idaho law requires 98 rounds ), also remember a lunch, snacks, drinks. Pen & pencil and a notepad.

Important Note on contacting me: Anti-gun / anti self-defense powers that beand internet service providers and internet censors have affected firearms instructors, myself among them.

If you are interested in taking any of these courses, please call me first, then send me an email that I will reply to with the current class schedule or other requested information. Please reply that you have received that email, and do so for each that you get. I often reply quickly, never hear from the recipient and later they ask why I never replied. PLEASE BE SURE TO CHECK YOUR SPAM or JUNKMAIL folder for emails from me before you empty the folder. Apparently the A.I. Censor looks for key words like gun, firearm, shooting, concealed weapon etc and so toss them into your spam folder.

So if you contact me – stay in touch by replying to every email, check spam folder, and should you take a class elsewhere or the wife simply won't allow you to take a class, just email me and ask to be taken off the email class schedule update emails list, it won't offend me, I understand that there are many reasons folks change their minds. Just let me know.

If I do not hear from you after 4 months, I will delete you from the list after sending one last email asking if you wish to remain on the list.

T. ALLEN HOOVER

NRA Certified Instructor                 NRA Training Counselor

          (208) 631 3003                               PO Box 6232 Boise ID 83707

NRAinstructor@TALLENHOOVER.com

THE IDAHO ENHANCED CONCEALED WEAPONS LICENSE IS VALID IN: IDAHO ( & Idaho public colleges) ALASKA ARIZONA COLORADO  DELAWARE NEVADA NEW MEXICO PENNSYLVANIA SOUTH CAROLINA VIRGINIA? LOUISIANA MINNESOTA  WASHINGTON WISCONSIN as well as states that accept the Basic License: ALABAMA ARKANSAS FLORIDA GEORGIA INDIANA IOWA KANSAS KENTUCKY MAINE MICHIGAN MISSISSIPPI MISSOURI MONTANA NEBRASKA NEW HAMPSHIRE NORTH CAROLINA NORTH DAKOTA OHIO OKLAHOMA SOUTH DAKOTA TENNESSEE TEXAS UTAH WEST VIRGINIA WYOMING. VERMONT (no lisc reqd) Oregon non-reisdent licenses easy to obtain with Idaho ECCW. Total WAS 39 states allow CCW w/ID ECCW. note: List per Idaho State Police 9/2022 - states laws change constantly, this list may not reflect current status.  Current political events :  I believe we have lost VA & PA due to politics within those states, subject to change.

Yellowstone National Park honors Idaho Enhanced CCWs that are valid in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming see  Federal Park Service website indicates that which CCW holders may carry in Yellowstone park (but not into buildings of any kind) Shooting, even is self defense is prohibited, so don't unless you are being eaten, and then prepare for possible legal repercussions due to scorn from Grizzly lovers.

NRA Basic-Level Courses: Home Firearms Safety Pistol Personal Protection outside the home Basic Rifle Range Safety Officer

Become an NRA Certified Instructor:

INSTRUCTOR-Level courses, CALL for information:

NRA BIT Basic Instructor Training course $125 (the first class required) Offered weekday evenings by arrangement.

NRA Basic Pistol Shooting Course Instructor course $399 (includes both Basic & Instructor courses)

NRA Personal Protection (in the home) Instructor course $399 (BIT&Pistol are prerequisites)

NRA Personal Protection Outside the Home Instructor course $399 (BIT&Pistol & PPith are prerequisites)

NRA RSO Range Safety Officer $150

NRA CRSO CHIEF Range Safety Officer $175 (BIT & RSO are prerequisites)

NRA Basic Rifle Shooting Course Instructor course $399

Group & Individual classes available upon request. Liability Release form signature required. A written test will be administered (it is possible to fail this course). Instructor reserves the right to dismiss anyone, anytime, without refund. All rights reserved. No Warranties are Expressed or Implied. Copyright 2023 Hoover Police Supply

Need a Castle?

9/5/23 New York Post article about a house a couple doors down from a friend.  It is an 8000 sq. ft. castle with turrets and everything.   Marked down to $4.5 million.  Why?  Empty-nester whose kids all went on crusade?

Today's Interesting Conversation

Several people were lining up for flu vaccine today (including me).  One woman said she was told after the last COVID booster to not get any more.  Her heart stopped for two seconds.

AI Mushroom Foraging (Admit it: You Were Not Expecting That Combination)

 9/4/23 Breitbart:

A surge in AI-generated mushroom foraging books on Amazon has raised alarms among experts, who warn that such guides, filled with misinformation about poisonous mushrooms, could pose life-threatening risks to consumers.

404 Media reports that The New York Mycological Society has raised an alarm over the increasing number of AI-generated mushroom foraging books appearing on Amazon. According to the society, these books could pose serious risks to public health. “These AI-generated foraging books could actually kill people if they eat the wrong mushroom because a guidebook written by an AI prompt said it was safe,” the NYMS stated on social media.

Sigrid Jakob, president of the New York Mycological Society, elaborated on the risks involved in using AI-generated foraging guides. “There are hundreds of poisonous fungi in North America and several that are deadly,” Jakob said. “They can look similar to popular edible species. A poor description in a book can mislead someone to eat a poisonous mushroom.”

Text detection tools have indicated that many of these books are predominantly written by AI, with some showing more than 85 percent AI-generated content. Despite this, these books are often marketed as if they were written by humans, making it challenging for consumers to identify their true origin.

My wife and I were discussing how many species of toxic mushrooms there when we were on the Star River Walk yesterday.  Considering the risks, I am no sure that I be very trusting of a human-written book on the subject.

The Progressive's Favorite Entrepreneur and Advocate for Social Justice

9/4/23 Daily Hodl:

"Sam Bankman-Fried Collected $905,768,503 in Cash Payments From FTX Months Prior To Collapse: Court Filing"

And they wonder why we do not trust them with more of our money?

Why We May Be Winning The Assault Weapons Ban War

I am reading Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. He discussed how the understanding of human thinking has changed over the last century or so:

"More important, Zajonc was able to make people like any word or image more by just showing it to them several times.  The brain tags familiar things as good things.  Zajonc called this the 'mere exposure effect,' and it is a basic principle of advertising."

People respond at the rational level by thinking something through but the emotional reaction often takes immediate precedence.

Think about this a bit.  The rational brain may overcome this if the image is rationally horrible (a human being torn apart by a wild animal) but think about pornography or violent entertainment.  I suspect all the pictures of AR-15s may not be desensitizing people but creating a positive exposure effect just like the Coke trademark or a Corvette (although the latter appeals to the rational brain as well; yes I want a post-2019).

Selling Treasuries

9/2/23 Daily Hodl:

"New numbers from the Treasury Department show that China trimmed its US treasury holdings from $938.8 billion in June 2022 to $835.4 billion in June 2023 – a decrease of about $103.4 billion in just 12 months."

And you may ask, what does this mean?  Selling bonds usually drives down the price and therefore increases interest rates.  (This unobvious connection is explained in a number of places, including my explanation of how to get wealthy.) They may be selling because they need money for paying debts, buying stuff they need, or are losing confidence in the long-term stability of our banana republic's currency.

The good news is that other developing nations are still buying Treasury bonds.

There is a saying: "If you owe a bank a million dollars you have a problem. If you owe a bank a billion dollars, they have a problem.".  Perhaps China is trying to injure our economy, which is silly, because we have President Biden doing that job.

Only in S.F. Would This Be News

9/1/23 KRON:

"San Francisco Police Department officers arrested 450 alleged drug users under public intoxication laws for openly consuming drugs and being under the influence in public.

"In an operation aimed at dismantling drug trafficking networks, police officers, sheriff’s deputies, California Highway Patrol officers, and California National Guard members arrested 300 suspected narcotics dealers and 123 wanted fugitives. Officers also seized 103 kilos of narcotics, including 56 kilos of fentanyl."

Wow!  Maybe the comparisons to the Third World are having an impact on the rich progressives.

Those Rotating Rings Carry An Unexpected Benefit

Before my 2014 stroke, I used to be able to remove that telescope from the mount and reinstall it myself.  I can still pick it up but it is awkward and I fear dropping a precision instrument that has associated with it many memories of my father who played the primary role in putting it together.  

The telescope is mounted to a dovetail plate that slides into the mount saddle.  It is easiest to turn the mount to where the scope pointing a few degrees below horizontal, loosen the dovetail clamps, and slide it down and out.  Now, if it had handles, it would be much easier to control, especially by myself.

The new rotating ring assemblies have a 1/4"-20 hole in the top.  The obvious solution: handles that screw into those holes.  I spent a bit of time figuring out how to machine something to put my hands through and my wife asked a question that every machinist must remember: "Never machine something you can buy." It almost never cheaper to make it yourself.

The handles are here.  I just need to machine a base to which this handle attaches that has a slot slightly wider than the top of the ring assembly so it does not rotate once I have secured it to the rotating ring assembly with a 1/4"-20 bolt.  (I will only use these when removing the telescope from the mount.)

The handles turn out to be made in China but of good quality.  That is a little harsh.  The problem with the PRC is the CCP.  Chinese companies used to turn out products of varying quality.  Most of what I have seen recently is pretty good.  I just want to see their profits used to attack Taiwan and start World War III.

I needed some 1.5" long 10-24 thumbscrews.  U.S. made on Amazon.

"Measure Thrice; Mark Twice; Cut Once"

I think this comes out of carpentry but it is valuable in every craft.

I have been wanting rotating rings for my 8" reflector for some time. On an equatorial mount they make it easier to get the eyepiece in a more comfortable position.  I had a set made by Cave Optical which I used with this scope on a Cave Optical mount, which was a fine mount when designed in the 1950s.  Unfortunately it added a lot of weight where the telescope was already a little heavy for the mount (vibrations took too long to end).  The rings held the tube with a bunch of screws through the tube into nuts on the inside; way more than needed.  They were also far inside the 64" tube that getting to them tells me my arms were much longer 25 years ago than they are now.

I ordered a rotating ring assembly from Parallax Instruments.  These are about $640.  They hold the tube in place with 1/4"-20 plastic thumbscrews. If these do not give enough grip, I can use steel versions that just cut a slight depression in the fiberglass.

Of course, you need a pretty precise measurement of the OD of the tube.  I measured ONCE (this is called foreshadowing in literature) the OD as 9 11/16". 

Not thinking carefully because the first ring seemed to sort of slide onto the bottom of the tube, I did not bother measuring the ring ID or tube OD. 

I have repaired the fiberglass tube in the past.  Once because my daughter was just learning to drive and misjudged where the Mitsubishi's bumper ended relatively to the telescope and repairing various holes when I need to relocate the mirror cell a few inches forward to get a focal point inside an SLR (film, not digital).  Also repairing all the holes from the Cave Optical rotating rings fiasco.

The results of those repairs were functional, but not pretty.  Tube diameter was not consistent because I did not sand the surfaces adequately after each repair.  So I just sanded off lumps, while tapping the rings up the tube with a plastic-headed hammer.  An interference fit this should not have been.

After a hour moving an inch or two a minute, I slowly removed the ring.  The ID of the ring was 9 3/4" and the OD of the tube had miraculously grown to 9 3/4".  Yes an interference fit.

Fortunately Parallax Instruments seems to have caring amateur astronomers working there.  They offered to turn the inside rings to a size that should allow the thumbscrews no interference fit to hold the tube in place. My lsthe is too small to turn a ring this size.  No charge.

While removing the inner rings from the outer rings in which the inner rings turn, I was a bit surprised at the cleverness of the design.  I should not have expected needle bearings.  The outer ring has a raceway in which the inner ring turns.  Six bolts hold the inner ring in the raceway, pressing down on Teflon bushings, and what seems like lithium grease.  You tighten these bolts to adjust how easily the rings turn.  There is also a locking thumbscrew to prevent rotation. 

Just a few parts needed and a small amount of machining to make an awesome product.  I am looking forward to putting these in place in a week or two.

How NOT To Make Friends and Influence People

The has been some coverage of a guy in Montana who lives next to a school and takes his rifle into his yard adjoining the school.  Federal charges have been filed for violating the Safe Schools Act.  

Obvious oppression?  8/23/23 New York Post report indicates local police responded several times and it appears they politely suggested that this was a bad idea although completely legal.

The federal Safe School Zones Act was originally aimed at gang members bringing guns to school.  (See text of hearings here.  Perhaps some ulterior motive was hiding behind it, but you will never prove it.)  It was not intended for this purpose.  Nonetheless, this is a really bad idea.  Think about the consequences of your actions for gun rights.  Being legally right does little good if we lose the war for hearts and minds.

The Volume of Materials to Review

8/31/23 Forbes reports on the progressive's favorite fraudster:

"Sam Bankman-Fried has until Friday to request a postponement of his October 3 trial, a federal judge said after the jailed FTX founder's lawyers complained about his inability to “adequately prepare” for it....

"However, he rejected the defense’s request to bar prosecutors from using 4 million pages of evidence that surfaced in recent weeks due to “late production,” pointing out that Bankman-Fried had “unfettered access” to the materials from his parents’ home in California until he was detained on August 11."

Yes, I could review 4 million pages of material for my defense in a criminal case.  Let's see, I can read about 100 pages per hour if it is not too technical, so 40,000 hours.  No problem.

It is hard to imagine that they need this many documents to make their case.

Threads (1984)

This was a British equivalent to The Day After (1983) intended to persuade us Better Red Than Dead.  Who would have guessed the choice turned out to be even weirder than that?  Unlike The Day After, which had an interesting family subplot that it follows, this starts with an interesting subplot of a family that evacuates to a farm out of town and somehow the writers lost what could have been an interesting and hopeful subplot conclusion.  

The beginning of Threads is a plausible and well constructed story about rising tensions leading to thermonuclear war with a realistic portrayal of the consequences for Sheffield.  

The harsh reality is that Britain is way too dense to survive a nuclear war without near total devastation.  Even most of the Northeast of the U.S. is in a similar boat.  Much of the West, because of how sparsely populated it is, could come out just severely damaged with some possibility of eventual return to a First World nation.  (San Francisco woukd likely never even get back to its current Third World status.)

Even worse, Threads soon turns into a lecturing piece about nuclear war, emphasizing the nuclear winter that Sagan cooked up to scare us into submission.  It loses its value as drama so thoroughly that I stopped about 3/4 through.

The good news is that the Reagan Administration managed to start negotiating a climb down from an absolutely insane number of nuclear weapons to a level sufficient to bring the First World briefly to Third World status followed by a likely painful recovery.  (Many other nations would likely destroy each other in the craziness: India, Pakistan, China, Taiwan, Japan, the Korean )

Burning Man Festival Always Seemed Like a Quintessentially Bay Area Event

I am trying to feel sorry and I do a little but 9/2/23 USA Today:

"Burning Man 'shelter in place': Mud closes roads; thousands told to conserve water, food"

Comments over at Instapundit are sharp and incisive:

"What you get when you cross Woodstock with Donner Party."

Nebraska Goes Constitutional Carry

8/29/23 WOWT:

"OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - Starting on Saturday, anyone who is legally able to purchase and own a handgun in the state of Nebraska, will be able to conceal it in their clothing or their car without a permit, and without a safety training course."

The usual concerns from law enforcement officials about the lack of safety training requirements.  I understand their concerns but it has not been a problem elsewhere.  People smart enough to safely drive a car can usually carry a gun safely.  (I confess recent Boise-area traffic is giving me some misgivings about the latter.)

A friend recently moved up from the Bay Area, as we sat in traffic at 3:00 PM said, "I am having San Jose PTSD "

Florida & Shakespeare

Florida is banning Shakespeare?  No.  One or two districts were concerned that some of the plays are a bit racy for high schoolers.  I rather doubt that but some kids are still growing up in pretty traditional homes so I can see why they might be a bit nervous.

8/8/23 Tallahassee Democrat:

"After weeks of wildly-varying interpretations, Florida has finally let school districts know that it doesn't think William Shakespeare's works should be removed from classrooms.

With Gov. Ron DeSantis' signature of approval, Florida's latest book challenge law took effect on July 1. Soon after, media specialists across the state, including in Leon County, said the law could mean Shakespeare's works would have to be put on the chopping block.

Count on This Being Misrepresented

8/31/23 NBC News:

"The homeowner who fatally shot a 20-year-old University of South Carolina student who tried to enter the wrong home on the street he lived on Saturday morning will not face charges because the incident was deemed "a justifiable homicide" under state law, Columbia police announced Wednesday....

"While the woman was on the phone with police, Donofrio broke a glass window on the front door "and reached inside to manipulate the doorknob," at which point the male resident fired the shot through the broken window that struck Donofrio in his upper body, according to police."

I have seen this before.  Some years back, there was a similar incident in Ukiah, California, where a drunk walked six miles north to his home.  Unfortunately, he needed to walk six miles south.  The house into which he forced entry was not his.  The resident shot him with a hunting rifle.  He lost his arm.

Tragic, but I would be surprised if this kid at University of South Carolina was sober.

Aortic Valve

I went to see another cardiac surgeon today.  He confirmed that trans catheter replacement (TAVR) is not possible with the equine valve and that it will likely require open heart surgery.  There is no immediate need which is good because I need to wait at least three months and ideally at least six months after the stents put in last month to reduce the risk.  I will remain slightly winded until summer.

I have classes to teach and expert declarations to write 

It Hurts to Ignore the Second Amendment

8/28/23 Washington Post:

"D.C. will pay $5.1 million as part of a class-action settlement with gun owners who were arrested under laws that have since been found to violate the Second Amendment, according to the settlement agreement."

My first concern was: gang members? No various non-residents who passed through D.C. apparently unaware of the severity of D.C. laws who told police officers of having a gun secured in the car when asked.

Yes, taxpayers will get the bill but if they elect fascists, there are costs.