Canadian Politics

 I follow Canadian politics because:

1. They are closest ally, in spite of current posturing.  What affects them, affects us.

2. They are also closest ally geographically.  Unsurprisingly, they are culturally quite similar as much as many Canadians bristle at the idea.

3. They are a reminder where saying PBS(eh?) or NPR(eh?) destroys a nation's political senses.

4. In spite of Trump's needling them about becoming the 51st state, we would not want all of Canada.  Imagine California with more severe transphilia.  You think I exaggerate? 4/24/25 National Post:

Ontario’s top court has ruled the province must cover the cost of a penile-sparing vaginoplasty for a transgender resident who does not identify as exclusively female or male and who wishes to have both genitalia.

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In a unanimous decision released this week, a three-judge panel of the Ontario Court of Appeal confirmed a lower court’s ruling that the novel phallus-preserving surgery qualifies as an insured service under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan....

The legal battle between K.S., whose sex at birth was male, dates to 2022, when the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) refused her request to pay for the cost of surgery at a Texas clinic to construct a vagina while sparing the penis, a procedure this is not available in Ontario, or anywhere else in Canada.

Wow! This almost makes ordinary sex-reassignment seem normal by comparison.

You doubtless saw that the Liberals won the election a couple days ago.  More precisely, they have enough seats to form a minority government.  In a parliamentary system, if no party gets a majority, they can combine with other minority parties to form a majority coalition.  

Minority coalition governments are not terribly stable.  My favorite example was in 1933 Gemany, where one small minority party was convinced that could keep control over the leader of the bigger minority party, the guy with the brush moustache.  

The Liberals will either coalition with the New Democratic Party (NDP) which is even more insanely left than the Liberals, or Bloc Québécois (BQ), a left-of-center Quebec separatist party.  The net result is more the crap that made Biden so popular here, but magnified considerably.

The map:

Source: By Eric0892 - Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=157434617

The Conservative Party (think RINO with snow) did very well in parts of Ontario, all of Saskatchewan, much of Manitoba, and all of Alberta.  Surprisingly, many parts of British Columbia (the parts with more bears than people) also voted Conservative Party (CP).  If you did not learn the provinces' names and capitals in elementary school, I am sorry.  Time to learn.

Also interesting is that younger voters went CP and they had their largest growth in MPs in years.  Boomers are the LP voters.

The western provinces resent several things:

1. They have vast reserves of oil shale, which the Liberals intend to make unavailable through a net zero policy.

2. They are blocked from building pipelines to any seashore for sale abroad.

3. High tariffs will cause great damage to them for exports to America and the increased cost of American goods.  Look how close those provinces are to American states with similar geography and culture and how far away Ottawa is.

3. They are taxed very heavily to subsidize the poor Atlantic provinces and greedy Quebec (think the DC swamp speaking French).

4. Alberta strongly resents the Canadian Wheat Board which screws wheat farmers out of their profits.

5. To a lesser extent, the national gun laws.  My impression is that many of the westerners would find New York State gun laws as of 2022 acceptable but even that is too lax for the Liberals.

There has been an incipient separatist movement in some of the prairie provinces for some years.  The recent election is pumping energy into this.  Alberta Premier (roughly the same as a state governor) Danielle Smith has in some way that I do really understand (tabled means something different in British legislative language than it does here) arranged to lower the signature requirement for a referendum from 20% of voters to 10%.  This makes a referendum petition for separation much easier.

Strictly speaking, Canada is a confederation, and a vote of province at referendum is enough.  This threat may get the LP to treat the prairie provinces better.

There is talk of independent nationhood, perhaps in union with other breakaway provinces.  Some Albertans would like to add another star to our flag.  Lower taxes, no tariff barriers with the U.S., freedom from the Canadian Wheat Board.

I would welcome Alberta, Saskatchewan. and Manitoba, all of which would likely be pretty centrist additions.  We would become an even larger oil and natural gas producer, more wheat, more people that want to be left alone.

Misaligned Tailstock and Headstock

I have been having trouble getting a hole centered in the lathe.  The headstock and tailstock are misaligned which explains everything.   A bit of searching suggested cleaning the headstock mating assemblies (in this case the headstock and the spacer).  Problem solved!

Attempting to get the center on the mill should have been easy but it never quite worked.  Once I had marked with a center drill, I used a center finder in the mill to get 0,0, then used a 1/2" carbide endmill to get a perfectly centered hole!

Blessed Are the Peacemakers...

For they will be ignored because Orange Man Bad.  4/30/25 Foreign Policy has a negative view of how likely it will work bit at least Rubio is getting credit for the effort:

"U.S. Seeks to End Congo’s Conflict

"In a U.S.-brokered deal, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda agreed on Friday to draft a peace plan by May 2 to end the fighting that has engulfed eastern Congo in recent months. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio facilitated the talks in Washington."

This is Big News! Why is the MSM Not Covering It? Or Did I Miss It?

Remember the fuss about the alleged Venezuelan gang members that were deported over Judge Boasberg's objections?  Did you know the Court overturned his injunction April 7th?  Maybe I just am not paying enough attention  

How Much Has It Really Cost U.S. Taxpayers to Help Ukraine?

This YouTube video explains that much of the highly effective hardware we have provided Ukraine comes from obsolete stockpiles, or were weapons that had not ben upgraded to first line service.  In one case, we gave sent them M101 artillery first introduced in 1941.  Much of this stuff has been out of service since the 1980s and is still working well against Russia's not very good equipment. 

In addition,  decommissioning much of this stuff is not free.  Even with shipping costs, giving them this stuff might be a net win for taxpayers.

China Backs Down (At Least in Part)

4/29/25 Fox News Business:

"China waived a 125% tariff on ethane imports from the U.S. on Tuesday, according to a report from Reuters.

"China had initially imposed the tariff earlier this month as part of its retaliation against President Donald Trump's Liberation Day tariff campaign. China is responsible for purchasing roughly half of America's ethane exports each year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

"Chinese companies that rely on U.S. ethane include Satellite Chemical, SP Chemicals, Sinopec, Sanjiang Fine Chemical and Wanhua Chemical Group, while the key U.S. exporters are Enterprise Products Partners and Energy Transfer.

"Ethane joins a growing list of products that China has granted tariff exemptions for amid the ongoing trade war with Washington."

It appears that China is dangerously dependent on the U.S., not just us on them.

As PJMedia observed:

"China waived a 125% tariff on ethane imports from the U.S. on Tuesday, according to a report from Reuters.

China had initially imposed the tariff earlier this month as part of its retaliation against President Donald Trump's Liberation Day tariff campaign. China is responsible for purchasing roughly half of America's ethane exports each year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Chinese companies that rely on U.S. ethane include Satellite Chemical, SP Chemicals, Sinopec, Sanjiang Fine Chemical and Wanhua Chemical Group, while the key U.S. exporters are Enterprise Products Partners and Energy Transfer.

Ethane joins a growing list of products that China has granted tariff exemptions for amid the ongoing trade war with Washington."

Doing Their Best to Get on 20% Side

Trump is winning by being on the side with 80% of Americans.   Democrats in California remain firmly on the 20% side. 4/28/25 KCRA:

" SACRAMENTO, Calif. —

California lawmakers in the Assembly Public Safety Committee are blocking a proposal that would make it a felony to purchase 16 and 17-year-old children for sex.

"Assemblyman Nick Shultz, the Democratic chairman of the committee, confirmed AB 379, a bill to crack down on the consumers of the child sex trafficking industry, will move forward on Tuesday, but without the proposed felony charge."

Last year, they made selling someone under 18 for sex a felony, but not buying someone for sex.

Expanding Pharmaceutical Manufacturing in America

4/29/25  Legal Insurrection has an article about companies investing in U.S. production of pharmaceuticals.   They remind us how dependent we are on China for many of the medicines we use.  Quoting the Washington Times:

"

"China, the newsletter reported Tuesday, “accounted for 95% of U.S. imports of ibuprofen, 91% of U.S. imports of hydrocortisone, 70% of U.S. imports of acetaminophen, 40% to 45% of U.S. imports of penicillin and 40% of U.S. imports of heparin, according to Commerce Department data. In all, 80% of the US supply of antibiotics are made” in China."

There are so many websites about which I knew nothing and whose focus is unsurprising albeit unknown to me.

Links in the article include a page from Health Economics about Johnson & Johnson investing $55 billion in U.S. production plants because of the tariffs.

Another surprise was FiercePharma.  Also PharmaceuticalCommerce.

Will all these companies be producing in time to replace China before tariffs or retaliatory shutoff?  I am not sure.  Weaning yourself off a drug can be difficult.   I suspect there are less adversarial nations that can produce these in the meantime. 

Speaking of which, I have been going through China tooling withdrawal for some months.  In some cases, there seem to be no U.S. equivalents or at prices that are so high that I suspect they need some U.S. competition.  But even in an area where I would expect Chinese dominance -- end mills -- there are some excellent other sources such as Taiwan's SpeedTiger.  Depending on the size, I am buying German and U.S. made carbide end mills at prices that were already competitive before the tariff war started.  MSC Direct has lots of U.S. made end mills.

Always Start From Stock as Close as Possible to Target Dimensions

The 7/8" OD Delrin arrived yesterday.   It was short enough to part into three pieces on the mill, then turn on the lathe to get a more perfect square and length.

The target length was 1".  It is not really all demanding on length.  Two of them ended up .953" and .957" long; the third .935".  If I really needed to do do, getting them all exactly 1.00" would have just been a time investment.   Machining involves asymptotically increasing investments of time for every decimal point you go to the right.

Remember When Trump Blamed the Crash on DEI?

He may have been right, in part.  There are a number of factors that played a role, but this excerpt from 4/27/25 New York Times does not look good:

"The helicopter crew appeared to have made more than one mistake. Not only was the Black Hawk flying too high, but in the final seconds before the crash, its pilot failed to heed a directive from her co-pilot, an Army flight instructor, to change course."

Maybe a straight male or straight female would not have felt the need to ignore her flight instructor to prove superiority.  With nothing to prove, taking instruction would not have been an issue.

It Is Always Better to Buy Material Close to the Finished Size

I discovered after first attempt that I really needed less than 1" diameter Delrin for this slip clutch.  I started with 1 62" diameter rod.  You can turn that down on the mill but it takes longer than it should.  Worse it is all manually done.

So I looked for a way to have a robot do it for me.  I put the workpiece in a chuck on the rotary table on the tilting table on the mill table .

I wrote some code to drop the endmill at the right spot, then rotate the table 360 degrees.  Perhaps I do not understand it adequately,  but turning from 0 to 360 should make it realize that it is back around to 0.  It needed advancing to 720 for another rotation.  So I rewrote the code to cut one direction, go down .01" then go back to 0 degrees.

This is mostly an experiment.   I have some 7/8" Delrin arriving soon.

"We Love Death .."

4/26/25 Telegraph reports about BBC reporter's social media posts:

"Elzaenen has also appeared to call for a repeat of the Holocaust, stating on Facebook in May 2011: “My message to the Zionist Jews: We are going to take our land back, we love death for Allah’s sake the same way you love life. We shall burn you as Hitler did, but this time we won’t have a single one of you left.”'

If you had any doubts.

If Only Judges Took Federal Law Seriously...

4/26/25 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that DOJ has charged a state court judge "with two felonies on allegations of trying to help an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest after he appeared in her courtroom."

if Only Federal Judges Took Gun Control Laws Seriously...

4/25/25 Cowboy State Daily:

"CHEYENNE — Already facing serious federal charges for allegedly carrying 18,000 rounds of ammunition through Wyoming, Ricardo Paez-Quinones, 35, dug himself into an even deeper hole on Friday.

"Paez-Quinones was a no-show for his bond hearing on Friday morning in U.S. District Court, leading Judge Alan Johnson to put out a bench warrant for his arrest.

"Johnson suspected that the topic of his bond was what led Paez-Quinones to avoid coming to court, leading him to engage “in some form of self-help.”

“We can receive an explanation for that at a later time,” Johnson remarked.

"Paez-Quinones is an illegal immigrant from Mexico whose fingerprints match an individual already deported from America in 2012 and 2014."

Illegal immigrant in possession of firearms or ammunition is a felony.  Unlawful re-entry after deportation is also a crime.  Watch Democrats,  who would support imprisoning a citizen possessing that much ammunition at home (even though legal) make excuses. 

I Saw This Linked in Several Blogs

Part of why only some parts of Canada would be appropriate new states.  Ontario is not one of them.   This demand and the decision are utterly absurd.  4/24/25 National Post:

"Ontario’s top court has ruled the province must cover the cost of a penile-sparing vaginoplasty for a transgender resident who does not identify as exclusively female or male and who wishes to have both genitalia."

In a unanimous decision released this week, a three-judge panel of the Ontario Court of Appeal confirmed a lower court’s ruling that the novel phallus-preserving surgery qualifies as an insured service under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan."

Does No One on the Left Have a Clue?

4/25/25 KARE:

"MINNEAPOLIS — Starting Monday, prosecutors in Hennepin County will be required to consider race when offering plea deals, according to a new policy from County Attorney Mary Moriarty."

D ut,

Their defense  hwill be that once upon a time, race was overtly considered relevant (although I am not sure much in Minnesota in the last 50 years).  It was wrong then and it is no less wrong now.

Who will be the big lovers from this?  The victims of black criminals, who are usually black.  White liberal guilt is such a powerful tool for alleviating white privileged guilt while injuring black people. 

I Would Not Have Guessed This

4/25/25 San Francisco Chronicle:

"According to the American Lung Association’s most recent “State of the Air” report — which includes data from 2021, 2022 and 2023 — the Bay Area has some of the worst air quality in the country when it comes two big factors: ozone, also known as smog, and fine particles, also known as soot. The details vary largely county by county, however."

I only had a two year sentence to Santa Clara County which is bad.  I lived for many years in Sonoma County which ranked well in the Bay Area for air pollution. 

These Prosecutions are From Biden Era

A-G Bondi is just making sure we know that stealing is a criminal offense.  4/24/25 Department of Justice press release:

"LOS ANGELES – A former resident of Orange County was sentenced today to 84 months in federal prison for soliciting and receiving nearly $500,000 in illegal kickbacks from corrupt sober living homes in exchange for finding them new patients in a process known as “body brokering” and for firearms trafficking.

"Darius Moore, 31, formerly of Santa Ana but most recently of North Carolina, was sentenced by United States District Judge Josephine L. Staton.

"Moore pleaded guilty in November 2021 to one count of conspiracy to pay or receive illegal remunerations for referrals to clinical treatment facilities and one count of soliciting or receiving illegal remunerations for referrals to clinical treatment facilities."

Why Did No One Check if These Businesses Existed?

4/24/25 Department of Justice press release:

"LOS ANGELES – A Kern County man and three of his sisters were sentenced today to federal prison terms for participating in a scheme in which they created nonexistent businesses and then claiming more than $1.1 million in unemployment benefits for purported employees of those fake businesses."

California did not verify that these businesses existed before paying unemployment to former employees.   How hard would it have been to verify that these employers had paid unemployment insurance to California?

For Those Trying to Mount the Sherline CNC Rotary Table on Mill Table

This was a source of considerable frustration a few minutes ago.  The motor assembly protrudes far enough below the rest of the assembly that you cannot seemingly use it in many positions,  especially the ones that I need.  This is weird because Sherline shows it mounted to their tilting table for making cuts at a 90 degree angle from the table.

I think the solution is to mount the rotary table on the tilting table with the table at 0 degrees.  The tilting table adds a couple inches of elevation from the mill table.  This should give enough clearance. 

I have not tried this yet because I need to take breaks every hour from intellectual efforts to avoid exhausting my brain.

UPDATE: Yes, that solves it.  It is a booger to mount rotating table on tilting table and tilting table on mill table, but it works.

After Epstein, Who Knows?

4/25/25 BBC:

"Virginia Giuffre, Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein accuser, dies...

.

"Relatives said in a statement on Friday that she had been a "fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse", and that the "toll of abuse... became unbearable".

'"She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking," a statement from her family said."

Victims of abuse have disproportionately high suicide rates and this is not surprise.  I will be curious to know the circumstances.

Even I Know Jello Shots Are Not For Kids

4/25/25 NBC News:

"A Texas mother who officials say took alcoholic Jell-O shots to her child’s elementary school Christmas party has been arrested."

I am so hopelessly out of touch with popular culture that I barely know what they are, but I do know they are alcoholic. 

Sad, But Unsurprising Fruit of Progressive Thinking

4/25/25 New York Post:

"The radicalized son of a CIA director was killed last year while allegedly fighting for Russia in Ukraine, according to a new investigation."

Huh?  I know CIA officials lean towards hating America but there is a bit more to the story:

"His death was confirmed by The Post Friday by his father, Larry Gloss, who said his son suffered from mental illness and had a fixation on water purification.

"“One of the manifestations of his mental illness was grandiosity,” Larry Gloss explained. “He always cared about the environment. He always wanted to take care of those disadvantaged, less able."

"“In Michael’s thinking, which I now conclude largely as a function of some text exchange he’s had with comrades before his demise, he thought the best way of realizing his dreams of water purification would be as a citizen of Russia. And the quickest way to get there, the quickest way to Russian citizenship would be through serving.”"

Someone Needs to Learn About the Past

4/23/25 Hollywood Reporter asks Andor creator why the new season has a rape scene:

"“I mean, let’s be honest, man: The history of civilization, there’s a huge arterial component of it that’s rape. All of us who are here — we are all the product of rape. I mean armies and power throughout history [have committed rape]."

True that armies have committed rape throughout history.  I have read that DNA analysis of England shows a very large part of the modern population has a small number of male ancestors.   (I am guessing Vikings, Angles, Saxons, Danes, and Normans.  Even then, many might be the results of consensual relationships between wealthy landowners and hungry peasant women.)  But most children are not the products of rape.   Certainly not in the last few centuries.   Perhaps this guy had confused his parents' relationship with the rest of us.

Historical Ignorance and Racism

10/24/25 Seattle Times:

"The case centers on the Covenant Homeownership Program, which state lawmakers approved last year in an effort to address the lasting effects of racist housing policies from the early 1900s. Among them are racially restrictive covenants that often limited properties to only white buyers and are present in the records of tens of thousands of properties across the state."

Racially restrictive covenants have not been lawfully enforceable since Shelley v. Kramer (1948).  It has been 77 years.  There are likely no more than dozen people in the U.S. who suffered any direct injury by these CC&Rs, even though many deeds still have these unenforceable clauses in them.  At most there are some people who grew up in homes purchased by parents who were excluded from what used to be called "exclusive neighborhoods," before this became realtorese for "nice places to live."

For the same reason that Shelley struck down these covenants,  this law that provides 0% mortgages and $120K down payments with no obligation to repay is a violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Watch the DEI crowd argue that racial discrimination is not only permissible but mandatory to achieve racial justice.

Even better,  these deed restrictions often applied to Jews as well.  You will notice Jews are not eligible for this giveaway. 

Twain's Quote Comes to Mind

"There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress."

4/25/25 National Review:

"Disgraced former Representative George Santos (R., N.Y.) was sentenced Friday to 87 months in federal prison for wire fraud and identity theft, completing his remarkable rise and fall from a newly elected swing-seat congressman to widely ridiculed conman whose colleagues expelled him from the House."

Let us not be too cynical:

"He was the sixth lawmaker ever expelled from the House and only the third since the civil war."

I am sure many were not caught.   Senators, such as Menendez,  get expelled 

DEI In Hiring

The National Association of Scholars has a new report examining the requirements for DEI statements in employment at public universities and Ivy League schools.

The biggest surprise for me is there are still faculty positions that do not in writing require applicants to swear a loyalty oath to DEI.  Even states that have prohibited such still have tax-funded institutions explicitly violating the law.

Imagine if any university had an explicit requirement for applicants to state support for discrimination against black people.   They would lose both federal funding and tax-exempt status in hours or days.

Reducing Vibration in the EQ1 Mount

I previously mentioned that when I used the EQ1 mount last time, it was so sensitive to vibration thst adjustment of focus started it quivering for about ten seconds.   If you are patient,  this is okay.

A couple tricks for reducing vibration on this cheap mount are to collapse the legs to minimum length and the tiny screws that hold the legs to the base on the mount.

So I did so.   Big improvement.   Vibration is less than three seconds.  I also get to observe from a chair.   This is really useful for public astronomy where you have small children.  Also, I can pick up and carry the mount with the legs collapsed fairly easily and then put the Televue-85 on it. The CFC mount should be even easier. 

The next step of improvement is adding a hanging weight to damp vibration.   The mount tracks well.

Jupiter is a bit low and viewing conditions were less than ideal.  108x was no more detail than 90x--multiple cloud bands.  It is still amazing for such a tiny scope.  

Newsome is Definitely Running for President

4/23/25 Daily Mail:

Governor Gavin Newsom has agreed with collaborate with ICE and hand over an illegal immigrant convicted of vehicular manslaughter after widespread fury about his impending release from prison.

Oscar Eduardo Ortega-Anguiano was driving drunk, under the influence of drugs, and at speed when he crashed into a car being driven by 19-year-old sweethearts Anya Varfolomeev and Nicholay Osokin in November 2021.

The couple both burned to death in the fiery wreckage. 

The 43-year-old had been deported from the United States twice prior to the incident but had illegally crossed the border again. 

Days after the crash, Immigrants and Customs Enforcement authorities issued a detainer with the Orange County Jail in an effort to keep track of his whereabouts. 

It has since emerged that a court recently granted Ortega-Anguiano parole and he was due to walk free in July - having served just 3.5 years of his sentence.

More Deceptive Headlines

 4/22/25 Yahoo:

Coca-Cola under fire after bombshell report exposes ties to controversial industry: 'The cost is irreversible damage to our children's health'

Children's health?  I was assuming proof that sugar drinks are bad for you.  There is some evidence that sugary drinks increase cancer risk but even pure fruit juices apparently have that risk.

No.  

Euronews reported that Stand.earth found over 25 well-known consumer brands linked to fracking operations in the Permian Basin of Texas, one of the world's biggest "carbon bombs" because of its massive contribution to planet-warming pollution.

Fracking involves breaking apart shale rock below the earth's surface to extract natural gas and oil, which is achieved by using a high-pressure mix of water, sand, and chemicals blasted at the rock.

A byproduct is ethane, which is used to fuel the plastic industry. The Stand.earth investigation uncovered that much of the ethane from Texas is shipped overseas for plastic production.

Stand.earth observed that some of the brands linked to Permian Basin fracking include Coca-Cola, Unilever, Nestlé, and Procter & Gamble. P&G is the parent company of countless household brands, such as Gillette, Olay, and Always.

 Mother Earth has a fever!  Our children will all die!

 

 

Speaking Trurh to Power

4/22/25 The College Fix:

"University of Louisville has agreed to pay almost $1.6 million in damages and attorneys’ fees to settle a six-year-old lawsuit filed by its former chief of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology.

'Dr. Allan Josephson was essentially terminated after he criticized transgender ideology, and filed a lawsuit in April 2019 to fight the decision."

One of the most depressing aspects of our elites as how easily they bent over for clearly absurd claims about trans.  You would expect just on the basis of suspicion on amazing claims contrary to all previous science that Dr. Josephson was not be alone.  The power of clearly unscientific ideas on academics shows how little value comes from elite institutions. 

When the Delrin Melts on to the End Mill

You really cannot belt sand it away very

 easily 

what I have done is the past is melt it off with this lens which was surpluses from some DoD project many years.  (A parent with a DoD contractor whose name I have forgotten handed it off to me in the 1970s.)

It works well.  It is about 6 inches diameter and I can hand focus those 10 square inches of sunlight to a circles a fraction of an inch in diameter.   It melts it off very nicely,  at least on days with no cloud cover.

How much energy is that?  In Mr. Burkhardt's physics class in 12th grade, he sent us outside to measure actual received energy by measuring how quickly a plate of aluminum warmed up.  My group eventually reported a bit more than 1000 watts/square meter.  There is a lot of power there if you can apply it usefully. 

UPDATE: Another technique that worked was putting it in a vise and crushing the delrin until it snaps off.  I would never do this with a carbide endmill because they are so brittle.