Where is PETA?

2/6/25 House Oversight Committee:

"WASHINGTON—The Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation held a hearing titled, “Transgender Lab Rats and Poisoned Puppies: Oversight of Taxpayer Funded Animal Cruelty.” Subcommittee members discussed how the federal government wastes millions of dollars on cruel and unnecessary animal research."

Yes.  Gender reassignment on animals to study the effects.  The horror never ends from craziness.   $241 million a year at least:

"Rep. Crane: “Wow…Mr. Goodman did you also say that it was your estimation that $241 million dollars has been spent on transgender animal testing?”

"Mr. Goodman: “Yes and I would say that is the floor, not the ceiling because the information on federal databases is pretty incomplete.”"

They are not just wasting money.   They are torturing animals.   They could just look at humans, I think. 

The Joys of Old

Dental appointment today.  The dentist said periodontal disease has reached the deep cleaning stage, where they numb one side of your mouth while they dig deep below the gum line to remove plaque.   I did not sign up for dental coverage this year and I wish I had: $1200.

Bad but both of my parents were wearing dentures much younger than I am.  My mother was completely toothless by 50 and my father only had some lower teeth left. 

And three 20th century fillings need replacement. 

A Morbid Tool

Asteroid launcher let's you toy with Asteroid size, speed, and impact point.

0.500" is Too Small, 0.505" is Too Large

The carbon fiber axis is .494" OD.  So I asked the mills to cut a .497" hole in the center of the bearing block.  Still too tight.  .500" still too tight.  .505" slides on to easily.  .502" needed a little polish with 320 sandpaper to press fit.  The final step was .5025".  This presses on just fine. (And yes, a CNC mill can make a hole .0005" larger with great precision.)

I suspect after a few hundred rotations, the axis will polish a nice smooth bearing in the acetal.

I have now started the easy part; putting four 6-32 holes in each of what were going to be bearing blocks, but are now bearings as well.  I just position the .1065" drill bit above the right face and drill both sides in one cut. 

Drilled and tapped.

I Anxiously Await the Pious Reaction

 

Homosexuality, Transidentity, and Islam

A Study of Scripture Confronting the Politics of Gender and Sexuality

From Amsterdam University Press.

One More Thing That I Am Gaga Over

The radar/weather display. 

Fountain of Youth

Musk has posted a age bucket distribution of those who have Social Security Numbers and are still listed as alive.  The 448 above 190 are suspicious. 

This may just be bad data.  My first job at Idsho Corrections was auditing the Date of Birth fields in our prisoner data base.  Many were clearly invalid.  

Some were fields swapped.  Month 30, day 11, year 1955.  Some were default values 1/1/1900.  A few were incomprehensible: 155/255/1867.  Yes, the data entry form was undemanding.

By the time I was done,  I had used a regular expression approach to fix most of the 15,000 DOBs that had a plausible value.   A few hundred were flagged for human intervention. 

I do wonder how many dead people are still collecting Social Security.   They was a serial killer in Sacramento some years ago who was killing and burying her elderly tenants and cashing their checks.

You can see why Democrats are so upset with Musk.

I Have the Weirdest Dreams

The dream involved talking to a recent college graduate and somehow we started taking about our junior high and high school teachers.   The ones that I had,  Brophy, Emch,  and a few others were still teaching.   A a very sad song starts playing.   All that I can remember is this refrain:

"Let's face it.

The time has come, 

Your job is done."

This applies in multiple sad ways:

1. You are obsolete in your work.

2. There are younger people who expect lower pay to do your job. 

3. All we are is dust in the wind.

4. Empty nest.

None are happy.  All are inevitable. 

I Think the Cartels Are in Trouble

Why this is not bigger news has to do, I suspect,  fear that it makes Trump look effective:

"A handful of U.S. Army Green Berets are in Mexico, helping to train the country’s Naval Infantry Marines. The U.S. Special Forces soldiers are there at the request of Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum. The action was also unanimously approved by a Senate commission in Mexico, according to Border Report."

Breaking the Cartels is in our interests and Mexico's.  I suspect they were overjoyed to get top notch Spanish-speaking SOCOM help.

Bearings

A piece of 1/2" black acetal arrived today.   (It is amazing how reasonably priced leftover blocks j is acetal are k on eBay.   Everyone has a chunk leftover from a project.   I have sold some myself there.)  It is about the same density as carbon fiber composite and because these blocks are also the bearings,  I do not need the steel needle bearings inside them.   It is not a stiff or strong as carbon fiber,  but these are not high load or high rpm uses, so it does not matter. 

Acetal cuts with much less effort than carbon fiber.   I cut two blocks with little drama.  I also increased feed rate for the second two blocks.   

When these are done,  I will cut a .494" hole in the center for the polar axis.   I want a press fit,  because the axis over time should grind a bearing into the2 2 acetal,  which is nowhere near as hard a acetal.

Then drill and tap 6-32 holes on each side.   Unlike carbon fiber,  acetal taps nicely and is very strong.  Again,  the load is not much.   The .13" long 6-32 screws should perfectly hold them in the axis housings.  I could go longer but there is no need. 

Remember How Making Pot Legal Would Raise Revenue?

2/17/25 San Francisco Chronicle:

"California’s legal cannabis market has hit another grim milestone: There are now 10,828 inactive and surrendered pot licenses in the state and only 8,514 active ones, meaning dead pot licenses now outnumber active ones, according to the Department of Cannabis Control’s data dashboard. 

"This inversion comes seven years after the legal cannabis market opened. While it’s not clear exactly when the threshold was crossed, because the state does not release historical licensing information, California’s legal market has been struggling for years, with thousands of companies going out of business."

The core issue is that taxing it made the illegal growers competitive on price and California has shown little enthusiasm for going after the unlicensed growers.   I am reminded of how the American Association Against the Prohibition Amendment sold repeal on the dramatic revenue that taxing alcohol again would raise,  based on the illegal price. 

I Do Not Want to Gloat

2/16/25 DailyMaul:

"Home prices in Washington, DC, have plummeted since the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency began discussing layoffs.

'Since Donald Trump took office, Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has fired thousands of federal workers in a push to reduce spending.

"In the wake of those layoffs, droves of former federal employees have packed up their bags and put their homes on the market, causing the average listing price to sink, The Kobeissi Letter (TKL) reported.

"In November, the median home in the nation's capital was worth $699,000, according to Redfin. 

"By February, the median home value dropped 20 percent, bringing the price down to $560,000."

I had a backup mortgage of $720K while getting my old house sold, so I know that making house payments of this size without at least one extraordinary paycheck (and likely two) would really hurt. Still, how well are these people paid to make a $4000/month mortgage payment?

Perhaps more interesting:

"There has also been a surge in new listings of homes over $1 million. According to TKL, there are 525 listings worth $1 million and 44 listings worth $5 million, suggesting DOGE layoffs could affect people in high-profile jobs."

Who are these people?  Government employees or NGO employees who realize the game is over?

Amazingly Fair NY Times Article

2/16/25 New York Times article about the dramatic change in new gun owners: black, Hispanic,  Asian, Jewish, leftist, transgender and how what started as a perceived need has become fun.

Teflon Does Not Machine Well

It melts too easily instead of cutting.   Holding it the lathe chuck requires sandpaper around the workpiece.   I will use acetal instead. 

Why Do I Not Buy an Electric Car

Most are fast.  But articles like this from Ars Technica are persuasive:

"In November 2019, I was overjoyed to drive a new Jaguar I-Pace off the dealer's lot. Five years later, I'm waiting for Jaguar to drive the car away.

"After two recalls for software updates, the car's range is now permanently restricted to 80 percent of what it was new. And along with owners of over 2,700 2019 I-Paces, I'm waiting for Jaguar to buy the car back. That's because the company has decided that purchasing the cars is cheaper—and likely easier—than identifying and replacing defective battery packs. It's a frustrating situation to be in, and not just because I can no longer drive a car I have grown to like."

This guy remains an EVhead.

So Bay Area

 2/13/25 San Francisco Chronicle:

A sprawling web of violence across America, which has left at least six dead, has been linked to a fringe group of radical Berkeley pseudo-intellectuals known as the Zizians. Investigators across the country are piecing together connections between the double homicide of a wealthy married couple in Pennsylvania, a deadly shootout in Vermont and two brutal knife attacks on a landlord in Vallejo. Four people who are allegedly Zizian cult members are in custody facing homicide charges, despite multiple escape attempts. Three members of the fringe group are missing and wanted, including the leader, Jack “Ziz” LaSota, who faked their death in the San Francisco Bay.

Around a dozen individuals appear to have in-person links to Ziz, some of whom worked at NASA and Google before the arrests began. Many of them advocate for veganism and identify as transgender. Some met through the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, a Berkeley nonprofit buoyed by Peter Thiel and Sam Bankman-Fried and associated with the rationalist movement; MIRI warns about the dangers of AI and studies the “mathematical underpinnings of intelligent behavior.”

I guess they are only psedo because they murder people individually instead of using a government.  Of course, the article uses their preferred pronouns. 

Weapopnization of Government

The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is the website although it is labeled Fox News:

The panel is touting its work, saying its oversight has "had a real effect in expanding the First Amendment." 

"In a Supreme Court dissent, three justices noted how the Select Subcommittee’s investigation revealed that ‘valuable speech was suppressed,’" the report states. 

And in a letter to the subcommittee, Facebook and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that the Biden-Harris administration "pressured" Facebook to censor Americans. ...

The committee also celebrated a "big win" in October after it prevented the creation of a new "GARM," an advertising association that engaged in censorship and boycotts of conservative media companies. The committee revealed, before it was disbanded, that GARM had been discussing ways to ensure conservative news outlets and platforms could not receive advertising dollars and were engaged in boycotts of conservative voices and Twitter once it became "X" under the ownership of Elon Musk. 

Meanwhile, the subcommittee also investigated the alleged weaponization of federal law enforcement resources. 

In speaking with a number of whistleblowers, the subcommittee learned of waste, fraud and abuse at the FBI. 

"When these whistleblowers came forward, the bureau brutally retaliated against many of them for breaking ranks—suspending them without pay, preventing them from seeking outside employment, and even purging suspected disloyal employees," the report states, noting that the subcommittee revealed that the FBI "abused its security clearance adjudication process to target whistleblowers." 

The report references the FBI’s response, in which the bureau admitted its "error" and reinstated the security clearance of one decorated FBI employee. 

They kept yelling "fascist" and "Hitler" while standing in front of a mirror and thought it was a window. 

When Democrats Lose Their Minds

This is something even Puritans did not attempt to regulate.  2/10/25 Newsweek:

"Abill proposed to the Ohio statehouse will make male ejaculation without intent to have a baby, a fineable offense of up to $10,000.

"The bill has been proposed by State Representatives Anita Somani and Tristan Rader, who wrote it to point out what they see as the absurdity of rules that control women's bodies but do not control men's. It has not been formally introduced to the House Floor yet.

"Per Somani and Rader, men would face a $1,000 first offense, $5,000 second offense, and $10,000 subsequent offense fine to "discharge semen or genetic material without intent to fertilize an embryo.""

Unless Democrats think semen are capable of birth,  the analogy to abortion is insane.   How will they enforce this?  Cameras in every room?  

Democrats are just insane.

News Stories That Make You Laugh -- And Not for the Right Reasons

2/14/25 New York Post:

"On Monday, Disney shut down its “Reimagine Tomorrow” program, which was used to highlight stories and talent from underrepresented communities. The initiative promised 50% of regular and recurring characters across the Disney universe would come from “underrepresented groups.”

"It also quietly rolled back other DEI programs this week.

"The Reimagine Tomorrow program sparked outrage in 2022 when a company-wide Zoom call was leaked on social media.

"At the time, one Disney executive touted her “not at all secret gay agenda,” while another boasted that the company was scrubbing the words “ladies, gentlemen, boys, and girls” at its theme parks to avoid alienating transgender children."

But alienating the 99%+ of people who are not trans makes business sense.   Even Americans who think genital mutilation is cool is not going to dramatically change the equation.   Even many ordinary Democrats think this is at least silly.

How about picking stories that are interesting or at least fit into the Disney story model.  Person with disadvantages rises up against impossible odds to become successful.   

Oddly enough, the Horatio Alger stories fit that model, although without magic wands or Fairy Godmothers.  Fortunately,  some of us have lived Horatio Alger stories because in America,  you can go as far and as fast as your wits and ambition can carry you 

I Am Sure This is a Coincidence

2/14/25 New York Post:

"After Trump’s election victory in November, the US Army announced it shattered previous recruiting records when the service said it enlisted nearly 350 soldiers per day in December 2024, the most productive December in 15 years.

"The surge in recruitment comes after two consecutive years of missing recruitment targets."

I am pretty sure that this was because young people respect what Trump ran on with respect to strength and not getting into unnecessary wars.  

Compared to the Wesponization of FBI, This May Seem Trivial

But playing games with the official stats is often a tool of propagandists and I think that is the point.  2/14/25 Federalist:

"The ability to manipulate and distort crime data allows those distorting the data to control the political debate.

"I’ve seen many cases of politicized data. Until January 2021, I worked in the U.S. Department of Justice as the senior advisor for research and statistics in the Office of Justice Programs, and part of my job was to evaluate the FBI’s active shooting reports. During my time with the DOJ, I discovered that the FBI either missed or misidentified many cases of civilians using guns to stop attacks. For instance, the FBI continues to report that armed citizens stopped only 14 of the 350 active shooter cases identified between 2014 to 2023.

"The Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), which I run, has found many more missed cases and is keeping an updated list. As such, the CPRC numbers tell a much different story: Out of 515 active shooter incidents from 2014 to 2023, armed citizens stopped 180, saving countless innocent lives. Our numbers even excluded 27 cases where a law-abiding citizen with a gun stopped an attacker before he could fire a shot."

Devastating Analysis of Elite Data

An economist compares the economic data used by Democrats to pat themselves on the back in 2024 and reassure themselves that the people would elect Harris with more realistic measures that explain why Trump won:

"But the CPI also perceives reality through a very rosy looking glass. Those with modest incomes purchase only a fraction of the 80,000 goods the CPI tracks, spending a much greater share of their earnings on basics like groceries, health care and rent. And that, of course, affects the overall figure: If prices for eggs, insurance premiums and studio apartment leases rise at a faster clip than those of luxury goods and second homes, the CPI underestimates the impact of inflation on the bulk of Americans. That, of course, is exactly what has happened.

"My colleagues and I have modeled an alternative indicator, one that excludes many of the items that only the well-off tend to purchase — and tend to have more stable prices over time — and focuses on the measurements of prices charged for basic necessities, the goods and services that lower- and middle-income families typically can’t avoid. Here again, the results reveal how the challenges facing those with more modest incomes are obscured by the numbers. Our alternative indicator reveals that, since 2001, the cost of living for Americans with modest incomes has risen 35 percent faster than the CPI. Put another way: The resources required simply to maintain the same working-class lifestyle over the last two decades have risen much more dramatically than we’ve been led to believe."

And this appeared in the Democrat house organ,  Politico.

People v. Brown (Ill.2d 2025)

Illinois judge ruled that the Illinois law that requires you to have a Firearms Owner ID card (FOID) to possess a firearm in your home violates the Second Amendment. 

The license fee for the FOID is unconstitutional because it requires you to pay a fee to exercise your right to self-defense in your own home.

Doing the Jobs Americans Won't Do

And notice the news source.   2/11/25 NPR:

"The burglars often use sophisticated strategies to overcome security measures so they can pilfer jewelry, watches and luxury goods from mansions. The FBI calls them South American Theft Groups; many of the suspects arrested so far (including in Burrow's case) are from Chile....

""The groups usually consist of foreign nationals from South America who either enter the country illegally or overstay on visas to continue committing their crimes," Bauder wrote. "SATG's often travel using rental vehicles and will carry false identifications and documents," he said, adding that the groups routinely activate and de-activate cellphones, sometimes in less than a month."

Not every illegal alien is a burglar.  This is why finding and deporting illegal aliens matters.   There is enough trash in the crowd that proper vetting is essential. 

In Case You Think Musk is Blowing Smoke

2/10/25 Norwegian Refugee Council:

"The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) regrets to inform that we, for the first time in our history, will have to suspend ongoing and urgent US-funded humanitarian work in nearly 20 countries affected by wars, disasters, and displacement. This will impact hundreds of thousands of people. These dramatic measures come in response to the stop, partial suspension, or lack of reimbursement of United States funding for our global humanitarian operations."

If we are funding this work, why are we not doing this through a U.S. agency?  Norway gets the positive feelz for what Americans are paying.  Norway is not a poor nation.

The Left Has Gone Completely Bonkers

They are no longer comparing him to Hitler.   They are saying he is inferior to Hitler.  2/10/25 American Prospect:

"What Trump Could Learn From Hitler on NIH Funding

"Even the Führer knew to support German science, and not just for war. Why is Trump trying to destroy America’s great research universities?"

The fear is causing them to lose what little of their minds they had left.

Tapping Teflon

As an experiment I tapped a 6-32 hole in Teflon.  I went about 1/2".  When I screwed in a screw, it was pretty well held. I would not rely on to hold much load but 1/2" depth and I could not pull it out. 

At 1/8" I could easily pull it out.  Is that just a cumulative hold of a bunch more threads and did I not get the first few threads exactly square.  These should have been the squares.  I turned the tap in a drill press chuck with the Teflon in a vise.  The rest of the threads I made with the tap in a power screwdriver.   

I am inclined to use acetal instead for places where I need low friction.   Acetal threads are rock solid.  I can also order black acetal,  which will go well with the overall appearance of a black carbon fiber composite mount.

A Very Disturbing Article

All anonymous sources,  but as Musk is finding,  almost anything outrageous seems to be happening in our government, so this is not at all implausible. 

"Veteran law enforcement officials—both active and retired—from the United States and Canada have come forward with explosive allegations suggesting that Canada’s federal government may have systematically obstructed investigations into the highest levels of Asian organized crime. According to these sources, American agencies, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, have grown so alarmed by suspected corruption and legal loopholes in Canada that they have effectively sidelined Canadian law enforcement from sensitive investigations and intelligence-sharing."

Tonight's Uh-Oh

I noticed this Friday night but moreso this evening because the church youth group was over for the SuperBowl and I thought this would be opportunity to sneak some science in there.

The clock drive was not tracking in any consistent way even though I had tested it before reassembly.  

Also, there were odd motions that suggested something was not properly attached.   Then, I remembered. 

The day I completed reassembly, the cord from the garage opener that disconnects the chain from the motor grabbed the top cage of the scope.  (I parked it too close to the door.)  This disconnected the chain and stopped the motor.  But I think it exerted enough upwards force to lift the scope and its base off the slightly convoluted interface to the equatorial platform.  This may something that I can fix without disassembling everything. 

Looking ujder it, I can see what happened.  The garage door hoist picked it up just enough to misplace the upper part of the platform off the various wheels that allow the motor to move it.  This should be a quick fix once a strong person comes over to help me lift it off.  I am wondering if a hoist in the garage might be useful.  Something like you would use to lift a large game animal several feeet in the air for gutting.

This hoist seems especially appropriate.  The demonstration video shows a guy using it in his garage to lift and lower his punching bag.  

I might counterbalance it to reduce lift effort.  A couple houses back, we needed a snow plow to get out in winter, so I used my knowledge of medieval cathedral building to create a 5 pound effort lift.  I put hooks in the ceiling with pullies.  Then I put cans of ammuniition one end of the rope and the blade on the other end.  The net weight duifference was 5 pounds so it was nearly effort free to lift it off the TrailBlazer's carrier and back on again later.

Good

Behind a pay wall, so all I see is Trump is going to cut billions from defense budget.

Good.  Money wasted is not available for defense.  Thus should befuddle the Left good.

Here's  2/9/25 Al-Jazeera coverage of it.

The DOD budget is a trillion dollars.  Even a 5% improvement would be 50 billion dollars.

Teflon as Bearing

I need to make a frame to hold a worm spur gear.   I suspect finding bearings the size that I will need may be difficult.   But what about turning bearings out of Teflon.  This spur gear will turn about 1/12th rpm, so this should not be a demanding application.  I already have a 1" cylinder of Teflon so this will be easy.  Teflon is not a corrosion problem with carbon fiber.  I almost wonder if i should have used these instead of bearings for the axes.   I could have skipped the whole use of threaded inserts.   I could have tapped the blocks instead.   These axes will typically move at 1 rev/day, with higher rates for a few seconds at a time.  It might still be worth doing that.

There are other places where I had considered using bearings which were not strictly necessary.   The ears that hold the polar axis support to the mount base might have used bearings.   Teflon is not only easier but this is a situation where Teflon's tendency of stiction (it turns but only if given some push) is actually an advantage.   That support needs to move in the ears, but not real easily.  

Teflon is 2.2 g/cm3 so at the high end of carbon fiber composite but still lighter then stainless steel bearings. 

Acetal is apparently not much worse on friction and it taps more easily.  Teflon's softness means that it tends to flow back after tapping. 

I Am So Glad Democrats Are Not Part of the Rich

2/8/25 Los Angeles Times reports on Los Angeles recovery:

"Recovery czar Steve Soboroff will be paid $500,000 over three months, with funding coming from charitable groups."

Gee.  $2 million per year.  He must be very good at what he does. 

When Your Drug Problem is Severe

2/6/25 Law & Crime:

"Florida man ‘barking like a dog’ for more than an hour at an auto-parts store is arrested when police find the obvious"

This Does Not Even Make Babylon Bee Level of Sense

 2/7/25 London Times:

A nuclear power station was blocked after officials raised concerns over the impact it would have on the Welsh language.

As Sir Keir Starmer seeks to launch a generation of mini nuclear plants, senior figures in the industry figures vented their frustration at existing barriers to building.

In one case government planning inspectors rejected a multibillion-pound project on Anglesey on grounds including the negative “socio-economic” impact on the local community.

They said it could put pressure on housing, forcing locals to relocate. “In turn, given the number of Welsh-speaking residents, this could adversely affect Welsh language and culture,” the five planning inspectors said in their report, published in 2021.

Time to Nerd Out

 Do you need a small disposable jet engine for your weaponized done if we get POresident Harris in 2028?  This video is just amazing.  He builds a small turbojet engine starting with a Coke can and hand tools.

I douibt it will last very long, but it isd amazing to consider what you could do with a lathe and vertical mill.

What An Absurd Piece of Political Theater

 2/6/25 Fox News:

A Michigan Democratic state lawmaker said Wednesday she sterilized herself to prevent getting pregnant during President Donald Trump’s term in office.

"Just under two weeks ago, I underwent surgery to ensure that I would never have to navigate a pregnancy in Donald Trump’s America," Michigan State Rep. Laurie Pohutsky said.

The lawmaker made the eye-popping remarks outside the Michigan State Capitol to a group of protesters gathered as part of the so-called 50501 movement, which held demonstrations across the country to voice their opposition to the Trump administration. The number 50501 refers to the group’s stated goal of holding 50 protests in 50 states on 1 day. 

There are less permanent and less risky methods.  Does she not have a relationship strong enough with her partner to use any of the many highly effective contraceptive merhods available to her?  She is removing herself from the gene pool.  This is perhaps for the best.

Free Speech Can Be Nasty and Ugly

That is why the First Amendment protects it.   2/5/25 WLWT:

"A group of nearly a dozen people was seen displaying swastika flags on an Interstate 75 overpass near Evendale and Lincoln Heights on Friday....

""Where was the arrests?" Kachara Talbert said. "They just let these people drive off and disrespect us and our heritage.""

To paraphrase Jefferson about religion.  "Nasty ideas neither break my leg,  nor pick my pocket."  If your heritage is so weak that you need to arrest them, you are weak indeed. 

Whatever point these idiots were trying to make eludes me.  If they were trying to provoke a violent reaction by what they doubtless regard as an inferior race, they failed.  Maybe not so inferior as they think.

A Funeral Today

Or as the Salvation Army calls it, "promotion to Glory."

A woman in our church who was 95 died after a short too terribly unpleasant illness.  Much better than agonizing deaths over a period of years...  I have had a few friends in that category. 

She has lived here since the 1950s with enormous social engagement.   Unsurprisingly,  we prepared for 900 attendees.  Snow storm last night and that she lived about 30 miles away knocked attendance down to about 450.  She was a Rodeo Mom and Grandmom, so cowboy hats were everywhere. 

The number of people sharing positive memories was high, and from my limited interactions with her,  I am not surprised.  The number of people that come to your funeral says a lot about the positive impacts you have made on those around you. 

She only stopped working last year and was still driving.   Keep your mind active and senility need not be your last companion. 

Jig

No, not a dance.   I mentioned using 6-32 screws to hold the threaded inserts in the bearing blocks while the glue set.   

I was not happy with how that worked because one ended up a bit askew.  So I machined a jig for that purpose.   I excavated a 1.12" x 1.12" x .25" hole in a piece of acetal, then four .15" x .125" slots corresponding to the screws.  I do not expect to do this setup more than a few times, so I used a piece of scrap acetal. 

Now I can insert the bearing block with the screws and inserts down and the slots hold the inserts about right.  I let the glue start to cure then wiggle them to about square. 

This was before I went back to wiggle them to square.

Major Decision by an Obama Appointee

USA v. Brown (S.D.Miss. 2025).  Brown was indicted for possession of a machine gun.  He was not a felon.  The judge (an Obama appointee) ruled that Bruen pretty destroyed the precedents on which the government made its case.   Machine guns are dangerous but not unusual.  The judge also recognized that the 1986 ban on new manufacture creates a difficult position for the government.  It seems the judge does not like what Bruen requires but recognizes that it does so.

The USAID Payments to News Media

We're they bribes to get leftist reporting?  Or rewards for literary tongue bathing?

The first suggests that they really are presstitutes.  The second is not much better.  It gave economic advantages to those who shared Democrat values.  Could they have survived in competition with media not specially rewarded?

When the CIA Did Its Job...

The results could make us proud.   A YouTube video How the CIA Stole a Soviet Spacecraft describes how they grabbed and thoroughly examined a traveling exhibition spacecraft with the Soviets never knowing.  The official report "The Kidnapping of the Lunik" is here.

Good Guy Gets Rewarded

Daniel Penny,  who was prosecuted for restraining a scary mentally ill guy in a New York subway, was found innocent but as the saying goes,  "The process is the punishment."  After all the crap the N.Y. DA out him through, someone is rewarding him.   2/5/25 Fortune:

"Famed Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has a new deal partner: Daniel Penny, the former Marine who was acquitted on a charge of criminally negligent homicide in December after fatally choking another passenger on a New York City subway.

"The a16z team Penny was hired to join is called “American Dynamism,” which, per the company website, invests in those that support American interests: aerospace, defense, public safety, education, housing, supply chain, industrials, and manufacturing. A photo of Penny appears in its “Team” gallery."

To be honest,  it sounds more like a sinecure than a job, but he may do something with this opportunity.  At least he will have a good job for a year or two.   Saving up his money from a likely six-figure job for a year or two should take some of the pain away from being a victim of Bragg’s absurd prosecution. 

Use a Bigger Hammer

My repaired clock drive arrived yesterday.  Part way through reinstalling it, it stopped supplying voltage to the motor.  The power switch and rheostat assembly is one of the chunkier aspects of a very nice piece of work.  When putting it into a barely wide enough window into the aluminum frame I must have knocked something loose.   So I took it out,  tested every contact to contact connection for continuit, checked everywhere that should have 5.11V.  Everything worked.   This time I slid it back in very carefully,  verified voltage at every connector before the motor.  The motor terminals showed 5.11V and the motor started purring.  Once I get all the screws back in, I will start it running without the telescope on it.   Putting it back on the platform and then taking it off again is a lot of work!

The motor spur gear that was being recalcitrant was not close enough to the driving spur gear to engage.  Easy to fix everything works well now.

I Thought Mass Murders Were Because of the NRA

2/5/25 Reuters :

"OREBRO, Sweden (Reuters) -Survivors of Sweden's worst mass shooting on Wednesday recalled trying to save the lives of their comrades at a school for adults in Orebro, a day after a gunman killed 11 people on what the prime minister called a "dark day" in the country's history."

It Is Always Good to Question Sources With Which You Agree

The inability to check those,  leads to ask sorts of errors.   The Federalist refers to New Jersey Billl 1669.  Their version of what it does:

"America, is having trouble reading and doing math. Your state offers a corrective. See if you can guess which: 

"Option No. 1: The state will hire teachers who excel in language arts and math.

"Option No. 2: The state will hire teachers who underachieve in language arts and math.

"If you’re in New Jersey, your political leaders just chose Option No. 2."

The link goes to a missing MSN story.  So I looked up the bill on the New Jersey website:

"Notwithstanding P.L.2021, c.420 (C.18A:26-34), or any other law, rule, or regulation to the contrary, the State Board of Education shall not require a candidate seeking any instructional certificate, except in the case of a limited certificate of eligibility or a limited certificate of eligibility with advanced standing established pursuant to P.L. 2021, c. 224 (C.18A:26-2b et seq.), to complete a Commissioner of Education-approved test of basic reading, writing, and mathematics skills including, but not limited to, the Praxis Core Academic Skills for Educators test, in order to obtain an instructional certificate." [Emphasis added]

Yes,  "basic reading,  writing,  and mathematics skills..."  Any guesses why?  Like that LA assistant fire chief,  poorly performing students probably need teachers just as weak as they are at these subjects,  as long as they look like them. 

DEI: Didn't Earn It 

I Never Knew Godzilla Could Go Into Swamps

Musk and his team (Godzilla to Democrats) are digging deep through Agency for International Development and the results are startling.   Musk thinks we can balance the budget by stopping corrupt grants and spending.   See here for a few details.

"$1.2bn to undisclosed recipients "

The dividends from pushing one of Musk's children to go trans are likely to be enormous.   Tragedy for his son, however. 

I look forward to Godzilla examining the Department of Defense budget.  It is HUGE.  It is likely that there is similar questionable spending over there, blowing up the budget and reducing money for genuine defense.

Breitbart quotes the New York Times:

The Biden administration wasted $236 billion in improper payments throughout 71 federal programs in 2023, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The improper payments underscore President Donald Trump’s vow to clean up the administrative state and his support of DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) and of Elon Musk’s audit of the federal government to cut waste, fraud, and abuse.

The massive sum — three-quarters of which was reportedly overpayments – was just a portion of the federal deficit ($1.8 trillion) under the Biden administration.

The New York Times reported the Government Accountability Office’s analysis:

Mr. Musk has told administration officials that he thinks they could balance the budget if they eliminate the fraudulent payments leaving the system, according to an official who discussed the matter with him. It is unclear what he is basing that statement on. The federal deficit for 2024 was $1.8 trillion. The Government Accountability Office estimated in a report that the government made $236 billion in improper payments — three-quarters of which were overpayments — across 71 federal programs during the 2023 fiscal year.

The massive waste will likely encourage the Trump administration to clamp down on government outflows.

The New York Times article is behind a paywall.  If you are a subscriber to what is at times a real home of journalists, can you verify the accuracy of the quote? 

When Set Screws Go Bad

I am reinstalling the clock drive on Big Bertha.  While disassembling it for shipping,  I went one step more then I needed,  and removed a spur gear from the motor.   Like most such schemes,  the spur gear is held by a set screw to a flat part of the motor shaft.   The problem is that the gap between bottom of gear and flat part of shaft is very small.  The set screw will not fully engage in the threads in the gear while still allowing the gear to slide on to the shaft.  This was not enough flat shaft.

My immediate plan is to put the motor in the freezer at -8 and the gear at 200 so the contraction and expansion give a bit more play to slide the gear on the shaft while the set screw is still engaged, then tighten it down. 

Cold and heat did not do the job.  I put the motor in the mill and applied almost no pressure to hold it in place and milled of a few thousandths of an inch on the flat.  The set screw was now able to engage threads while still sliding into the shaft,  then I could tighten it down hard enough.

Now I see why I removed the set screw; to remove a motor mounting plate.   I took the gear off again and overtightened the set screw which is steel stripping the threads in the brass gear.   Now I need to find a replacement gear.  Maybe a brass set screw as well.  No, I tried again and it is tight.

The First Article Was a Learning One but Still Adequate

The release agent on the 6-32 screws used to position the threaded inserts was sufficient.   They unscrewed from the inserts easily.   I then put in the .130" long socket head 6-32 screws.  These lock down the outer race of the bearing and leave enough slack to lock this all down to the axis housing.   

You will notice one screw is not quite square to the block.   I will be more careful about positioning on the other three blocks.   Three screws are sufficient to hold the bearing in place in the block.   All four will hold the bearing block in the axis housing. 

More Reasons to Believe DeepSeek is Really DeepFake

1/3/25 TechSpot:

"China's DeepSeek threw the multi-billion-dollar AI industry into chaos recently with the release of its R1 model, which is said to compete with OpenAI's o1 despite being trained on 2,048 Nvidia H800s and at a cost of $5.576 million. However, a new report claims that the true costs incurred by the firm were $1.6 billion, and that DeepSeek has access to around 50,000 Hopper GPUs."

She Looks At Me With Such Love...

Or was it the scraps of turkey from my sandwich?

Waited for a 3/16" EndMill Holder

I needed 3/16" holes in these carbon fiber bearing blocks.  I ordered 3/16" carbide end mills and 3/16" endmill holder.  Endmill holders need to hold an endmill of a specified shank diameter very exactly in the center.  The end mills arrives, made in Taiwan. 

The Sherline 3/16" endmill holder arrived and it was not centering the end mill.  Why?  It was .235" ID.  This was a Sherline endmill holder.  I verified the label and the packing list.  I was disappointed. 

I looked through my collection and found a 3/8" shank 3/16" end mill.  I cut at very low feed rate and it did a good job.  The helicoil that I will epoxy into the holes measured close enough diameter that I screwed it onto a 6-32 screw (which is the internal thread of the helicoil) and it just slides into the hole.   I will put some release agent on the screws, turn the helicoils onto the screws,  dip the helicoils in epoxy, then put the bearing block flat and slide each screw helicoil assembly just inside the hole and let it all cure.  If not for the smell I would bring then inside and bake them.  Somewhere I think I had a heat gun, but where?

Tariff Deal

2/3/25 New York Times explains how both Mexico and Canada have received a delay on increases tariffs while correcting border issues involving illegal aliens and fentanyl smuggling:

"President Trump and the leaders of Mexico and Canada struck last-minute deals on Monday to postpone the imposition of hefty tariffs on goods exported to the United States, averting at least temporarily a damaging trade war that would roil North America and the global economy.

"Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, after speaking twice by telephone with Mr. Trump, said U.S. tariffs on his country’s goods would be postponed by 30 days as negotiations on a border deal took place. That announcement came hours after Mexico negotiated a similar delay, agreeing to send thousands of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border."

The tariff threat has caused serious stock market damage, so it appears this may alleviate it.

It Appears We Do Not Need to Invade the Panama Canal

The President of Panama met with Sec. of State Rubio and he gave us what Trump wanted. 

Trump is a rough sometimes buffoonish character but he gets things done. 

How to Persuade Americans to Deport

2/2/25 CBS Los Angeles:

"A large crowd gathered in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday in response to the recent increase in ICE raids and deportations.

"The protest initially began on Olvera Street, but grew to a few thousand people who marched to City Hall before walking onto the 101 Freeway. 

"Some protesters sat down in lanes, while many others held Mexican flags and signs that read phrases like, "Nobody is illegal," and "Viva Mexico," as they marched along the busy thoroughfare while being closely watched by law enforcement. 

"The California Highway Patrol's Transportation Management Center reported that some protesters were blocking some lanes, though the CHP has not confirmed any closures."

Viva Mexico.   Okay, go home.  Love it, then leave. 

Spur Gears: Cheap Perhaps Scrap Source?

I am looking at the slow motion declination axis control.   This could be a worm gear or two spur gears.  The exact reduction ratio is not terribly important.   A slow motion control is used by an astronomer to make small changes, fractions of a degree at a time.   A worm gear is nice but worm gears with a .5" bore diameter are shockingly expensive.   A couple spur gears could do the job.  There are devices out there likely scrap that have slow gears galore in them.   Buy what sort of devices?

I Blogged About This Last Year

We do not know if the controllers at DCA were  hired under this DEI program but it is insane that these criteria existed instead of hiring based on merit. This is the archived FAA page:

"The FAA meets the goals of the PWD Program through a variety of practices:

"Targeted Disabilities
"Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring. They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism.

"On-the-Spot Hiring
"A non-competitive hiring method for filling vacancies with Veterans and/or individuals with disabilities. Managers can choose to fill an open position through the On-the-Spot hiring process given they provide the required documentation for doing so."

Cheap Housing

 I have a sister who is about to inherit enough money to lose her Section 8 HUD rent subsidy.  She was hoping to use the inheritance as a down payment on a home (perhaps a mobile home?) in the boondocks somewhere.  Her Social Security income is such that it would have to be under $80,000.  She no longer drives, so it has to be in walking distance of whatever town has medical srvices.

This may be a impossible situation.  There are actually houses in California below $80,000 such as Alturas, Susanville, and Weed.   California or Oregon beause of their generous healh insurance.  Any suggestions?