We Are Living in The World of Tomorrow

I was thinking back to where my earliest memories start and how the technology of today would have seemed like an unimaginable tomorrow in 1965.

In the morning, I often use a microwave oven to reheat leftovers or cook breakfast.  Microwave ovens existed in 1965 but they were expensive.   Few ordinary people had one at home, much less two of them.

If I want something not incredibly exotic, I can pick up my phone and have it delivered usually next day.

Oh yes, that phone.  I can call anywhere in America as part of ordinary monthly phone service.  My first local phone service bill in the 1970s was i think about $30/month (inflation-adjusted about the same or less than my unlimited cell phone for the phones my wife and I carry).  I do not need to hunt for a phone booth anywhere.  

There are almost no places without cell service.  I have T-Mobile, so Stsrlink handles those. 

By the 1970s, almost everyone had answering machines.  On my phone I can check my email and receive text messages and check voicemail. Does anyone miss those clumsy beasts?

Oh yes, my wife is putting finishing touches on a novel that she has put together entirely at home and will soon be available for purchase worldwide.

Computers.  Internet.   I can search 16 million pages of newspapers covering several centuries and I have no idea how many pages of books from my home.  Even as late as the 1990s, the closest equivalent would involve going to a couple dozen university libraries and laboriously reading microfilm.

My first car was a 1964 Chevrolet Malibu station wagon.  I seldom saw better than 13 mpg.  0-60 was about 12 seconds.  If it pulled. .65g lateral acceleration, I would be surprised.  I have no idea what its top speed was but likely no more than 120 (assuming the bias ply tires did not fail before I got there).  It had an AM radio.

I now drive a car that regularly exceeds 20 mpg.  It does 0-60 in 5.1 seconds, corners at 1g lateral acceleration.   It has sensors and cameras that render most of that Malibu's high risk accidents unlikely.  Most of the features that were controlled by buttons on the Malibu are under voice control on my car.  I have more choices of vastly higher sound quality than any 1965 car anywhere.

Medical care?  Procedures that would have been high risk and often not even possible back then are almost routine (angioplasty, double bypass).

In 1965, I was a kid growing up in a barely middle class family.   My mother's goal was for all her kids to go to college (first generation)   i have an MA, my daughter has a doctorate and is a university professor.  My son has a BA.

I lived in a two bedroom apartment of perhaps 800 square feet with my mother and two sisters.  Now I own a 3100 square foot house on a forested acre.

I have not even touched travel.

We are living in 1965's Tomorrowland. 

 

UPDATE: Compare to this 1960s program The 21st Century narrated by Walter Cronkite.  I remember watching this series.

 

You Can Probably Hear Heads Exploding at Everytown

 9/30/25 U.S. Department of Justice:

The Civil Rights Division today filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department due to their pattern or practice of infringing the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens seeking concealed carry weapons (CCW) permits. This lawsuit is the first affirmative lawsuit in support of gun owners filed by the U.S. Department of Justice. On March 27, 2025, the Division initiated the first-of-its-kind Second Amendment investigation due to numerous complaints of unreasonable delays in CCW permitting decisions by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. After analysis of data and documents spanning over 8,000 CCW permit applications, the Division today filed suit seeking relief on behalf of law-abiding applicants.

“The Second Amendment protects the fundamental constitutional right of law-abiding citizens to bear arms,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “Los Angeles County may not like that right, but the Constitution does not allow them to infringe upon it. This Department of Justice will continue to fight for the Second Amendment.”

“The Second Amendment is not a second-class right,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “This lawsuit seeks to stop Los Angeles County’s egregious pattern and practice of delaying law-abiding citizens from exercising their right to bear arms.”

“Citizens living in high-crime areas cannot afford to wait to protect themselves with firearms while Los Angeles County dithers,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California. “The right to bear arms is among the founding principles of our nation. It can and must be upheld.”

If your progressive friends ask why the national government is sticking its nose in to this, ask them theis hypothetical.  It is 1957.  The Supreme Court has just ruled that racial segregation of public schools violates the civil rights of black kids.  Should DOJ file suit against discriminating public school districts?  Of course, the right to an equal education is important but not as immediately critical as self-defense. 

Clankerphobia

 9/30/25 Variety:

SAG-AFTRA has issued a statement condemning Tilly Norwood, the AI “actress” who has become a contentious subject in Hollywood after her creator, Eline Van der Velden, recently claimed that multiple talent agents were interested in signing the AI creation. The acting guild believes “creativity is, and should remain, human-centered” and “is opposed to the replacement of human performers by synthetics.”

“To be clear, ‘Tilly Norwood’ is not an actor, it’s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers — without permission or compensation,” SAG-AFTRA wrote in a statement. “It has no life experience to draw from, no emotion and, from what we’ve seen, audiences aren’t interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience. It doesn’t solve any ‘problem’ — it creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry.”

Hey, I understand.  If AI can replace humans why hire temperamental actors.   Especially ones that you cannot pull a Weinstein on?  I am a bit perplexed by the "no life experience to draw from" complaint.  Do 5-year-olds have the same life experience upon which to draw as Sean Connery?  I thought the skill of an actor was their ability to simulate emotions like a real person?

Disinformation

 9/29/25 Spiked:

It only took me a day after his death to start seeing the left-wing conspiracy theories on my social-media feed, with people sharing posts that claimed that MAGA activist Charlie Kirk was killed by someone on his own side. 

According to a recent survey carried out by YouGov, 33 per cent of Democrats say that Kirk’s killer was motivated by right-wing beliefs. Only 10 per cent of Democrats appear to accept what is thus far the most likely scenario: that the suspect saw Kirk as a political opponent.

It isn’t hard to see where this wanton ignorance is coming from. Indeed, ever since Kirk’s death there has been a concerted effort by prominent left-wing and mainstream media figures to obscure the political leanings of the suspect, Tyler Robinson.

Take Keith Edwards, a former Democratic spin doctor who has over 800,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel. On 12 September, two days after the shooting, Edwards made the following claim in a video that has more than 800,000 views:

‘It is looking more and more like this is someone who is far right, very online… Maybe what is called a Groyper… Groypers are a group of alt-right white nationalists and Christian-nationalist activists.’

 Edwards even claimed that some of the etchings on the suspect’s weapon were ‘symbols of far-right ideology’.

The Daily Beast, a prominent liberal outlet, also published a disturbingly dishonest piece on the same day, with a headline blaring: ‘Charlie Kirk’s suspect’s grandma says family all MAGA.’ The piece quoted Utah governor Spencer Cox as saying Robinson had ‘become more political in recent years’, leaving the reader to imply that his politics were conservative.

Had the reporter bothered to contact Cox, she would have discovered the opposite to be the case. Indeed, Cox was quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the day after the Daily Beast article was published, saying that he believed Robinson was ‘deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology’.

 Progressives are so deeply trapped in their bubble that they are completely unaware of what even the left of center legacy media are reporting.

Actual Fascism

 9/30/25 KIMA:

WASHINGTON (TNND) — Dozens of Americans who were either involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots or refused to comply with COVID-19 mask mandates amid the pandemic were placed on watch lists and no-fly lists, which are reserved for suspected terrorists, by the Transportation Security Administration under the Biden administration.

An internal investigation by the Transparent Security Administration and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, reported by Fox News Digital, revealed the Biden administration's efforts to target Americans "who posed no aviation security risk under the banner of political differences," according to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

Noem accused Biden and the TSA Administrator of "wildly" abusing their authority, and has referred the internal investigation to the Department of Justice and Congress.

"Biden’s TSA Administrator [David] Pekoske and his cronies abused their authority and weaponized the federal government against the very people they were charged with protecting," Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote on X. "President Trump promised to end the weaponization of government against the American people, and we are making good on that promise."

Deeper in the article, it gets worse:

A total of 19 Americans were placed on watchlists, with more than half of them added to the no-fly list as a result of "Operation Freedom to Breathe." At least eleven of the individuals remained on watchlists under the national mask mandate ended in April 2022.  ...

However, there are at least two individuals who were placed on the watchlist who weren't even present during the January 6 riots. Internal emails revealed that TSA relied on the George Washington University Program of Extremism academic database and social media instead of the FBI and police in determining who to put on watchlists. A federal air marshal's wife, who wasn't present at the Capitol that day, was added to a watch list, and a National Guardsman deployed to the Capitol for Biden's inauguration, also not present at the Capitol on Jan. 6, was placed on a no-fly list.

Too Stupid to Not Be Deported

 PJMedia points to this 9/30/25 Western Journal news story:

Federal authorities said four people were taken into custody after a laser pointer was aimed at a Department of Homeland Security helicopter in Portland — all illegal aliens.

The FBI Portland Division said the incident happened on Saturday evening.

Agents said a Customs and Border Protection helicopter was conducting law enforcement operations when it was struck by the laser.

Federal agents searched a residence associated with the alleged perpetrator.

The FBI said the person accused of pointing the laser and three others were inside the home.

“Agents made contact with the subject, as well as three other inhabitants who were at the residence. All four suspects are in the U.S. illegally, and were placed into the custody of @EROSeattle personnel,” the FBI Portland Division said.

The four were turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations.

Read the PJMedia wrapping story as well.  It has an amusing anecdote.

 

 

 

This Should Seem a Clear-Cut Decision, But I Am Sure Progressives Will Be Calling This a Rape Promoting Decision in 3...2...1

9/29/25 Volokh Conspiracy cites a recent decision that:

In October 2020, University of Maryland student Jane Roe … alleged that John Doe …, the plaintiff here, and another student had sexually assaulted her in separate incidents on the same morning. Following an investigation, the University concluded that Doe was not responsible for any wrongdoing. Nevertheless, Roe and others embarked on a months-long public campaign to brand Doe a rapist and to exclude him from campus activities. Doe now asserts that the University's failure to address this hostile, sex-based campaign violated Title IX….

[T]he persistent pattern of publicly identifying [Doe] as Roe's "rapist" which led to his removal from Club Lacrosse, constitutes harassment directed at his sex. "Sexual harassment" includes "sex-specific language that is aimed to humiliate, ridicule, or intimidate." Plainly, a reasonable juror could conclude that persistent public pronouncements that Doe is a "rapist," a "sexual predator" and "dangerous to girls on campus," is language aimed at his sex and his sexual conduct.

This will doubtless be a surprise to feminists but falsely accusing someone of being a rapist is a serious attack.

1. There are very serious Christian college men who would find this offensive because it accuses them of not remaining clean of improper premarital sexual behavior.

2.  Even those not so constrained would regard this as an accusation that they lack adequate salesmanship/begging skills.

I have posted in the past about false rape accusations destroying the career possibilities of young men, usually black young men, who seem to lack sufficient points in the current hierarchy of victimhood.  

If the university had no basis for holding an opinion about whether the accusation had merit, this would be a simple question of slander by other students.  But the University had investigated and found the accusation meritless.  Its failure (does the University have preferred pronouns?) to deal with what it knew to be false accusations seems to be part of the continuing war on men.  This doubtless plays a role in the increasingly absurd sex imbalance on college campuses.

This Is A Very 21st Century News Story

9/29/25 SFGate:

Police were left baffled last week after pulling over a car without anyone behind the wheel in San Bruno. Officers were taking part in DUI enforcement when they observed a Waymo car making an illegal U-turn right in front of them.


They pulled the car over, but since it had no human occupants, they were unable to issue a ticket. Driverless cars are unable to be cited for traffic violations unless there is a human safety driver in the vehicle.


San Bruno police wrote in a social media post Saturday they alerted Waymo to the “glitch” and that their citation books don’t have a box for “robot.”

And I do not want to imagine the cuffs they need for a clanker.

Places to Avoid

"On Nov.23, 2013, the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration detected gravitational waves from the most massive black hole merger yet.  Black holes 100 and 140 times the mass of out Sun combined into a 225-solar-mass black hole."  November 2025 Astronomy, p. 7.

20 Million Frames Per Second

Bullets leaving barrel.

Deep Impact Not Required

9/23/25 LiveScience discusses the hazard that 2024 YR4, while not likely to hit Earth, might be quite dangerous if it hits the Moon.  Apparently, scientists are beginning to discuss how to prevent that collision.  Even if it is not in danger of clobbering us from Moon ejected, having the capacity to do this to protect the Moon would also give us the capacity to deal with an Earth-collider.

No one should suggest that Trump get behind this or X and TikTok will be full of progressives arguing for the Sweet Meteor of Death. 

There Goes the Amazon

9/26/25 LiveScience:

Trees of all sizes across the Amazon rainforest are getting fatter due to climate change, a new study shows.

Rising carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations in the atmosphere have created a more resource-rich environment for plants in the Amazon, leading to an average 3.3% increase in the circumference of trees at their base every decade since the 1970s, researchers have found."

Of course, there is the obligatory "This may get worse" warning.  But really, this is no surprise.   Most systems show a strong preference for equilibrium.  If you put salt in water, it dissolves...until the point where as many molecules come out of solution as dissolve.  The trees are drawing down CO2 with gusto.  Oh, and imminent starvation?  Another plant is getting its share.  Wheat production increased from 592 million metric tons in 1990/91 to 793 million metric tons in 2024/25.  Some of that might be superior breeds of wheat or more fertilizer but wheat is not at risk.

Poul Anderson

I bought a Kondle collection of his novels and short stories: The Science Fiction of Poul Anderson (20+ Books).   When I am sitting in a doctor's office, it is nice to have something to entertain me.

Anderson's work is awash in historical themes.  Tiger by the Tail is, at first glance, a parallel to the decaying (I would use "decadent" but its original denotation as "decaying" as been connotated into "pleasurable": look for "decadent chocolate") Roman Empire confronting barbarian humanoids.   The story takes an unexpected twist as intelligence officer Landry destroys the barbarian alliance with careful manipulation.  The parallels to Roman/barbarian interaction are well done and historically accurate in the parallel; the Romans never developed faster than light spacecraft.

His short story "Duel on Syrtis" really captures the tragedy of the last of the off-reservation Indians in a future context. 

Santa Clara County Residents

Santa Clara Sheriff’s Department has a $2000 application fee for CCW.  Would you be interested in being a plaintiff in the suit challenging the absurdly high fee to exercise a constitutional right?  If you might be considered poor that would help.

ICE Not Playing Favorites

 9/27/25 CNN:

The superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools — Iowa’s largest school district – was detained Friday morning by immigration agents, according to the Department of Homeland Security, which said the educator was in the country illegally and had existing weapon possession charges.

Superintendent Ian Roberts – an educator with decades of experience who previously competed as an Olympic athlete for Guyana – was arrested as part of a “targeted enforcement operation” and fled after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers approached him, according to statements from DHS and the Iowa Department of Public Safety.

DHS said he was “in possession of a loaded handgun, $3,000 in cash and a fixed blade hunting knife” at the time of his arrest. It’s a violation of federal law to own a firearm and ammunition if an individual doesn’t have legal status in the US.

Any guess how long before the Democrats play the Second Amendment card?

Aim Higher: Basic Literacy Matters

9/25/25 The Argument:

This month, the Department of Education released its latest edition of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the standardized tests better known as the Nation’s Report Card. The results have left me blazing with rage.

In my home state of California, for instance, only 30% of public school fourth graders can read proficiently. Fully 41% cannot even read at a basic level — which is to say, they cannot really understand and interpret written text at all. Eighth graders, as you might expect, look almost as bad....

But scores are not slipping everywhere. In Mississippi, they have been rising year over year. The state recovered from a brief decline during COVID and has now surpassed its pre-COVID highs. Its fourth grade students outperform California’s on average, even though our state is richer, more educated, and spends about 50% more per pupil.

The difference is most pronounced if you look at the most disadvantaged students. In California, only 28% of Black fourth graders read at or above basic level, for instance, compared to 52% in Mississippi. But it’s not just that Mississippi has raised the floor. It has also raised the ceiling: The state is also one of the nation’s best performers when you look at students who are not “economically disadvantaged.”

The article goes on to explain how GOP governors have led the charge to improve reading skills.  These include phonics which progressives have fought for decades and among other things reading whole books rather than giving in to the Sesame Street attention span of cellphones.

Trump Should Announce That He Thinks Jumping Off Bridges is a Bad Idea

 This shows a pregnant woman identifying herself as Libercrat making a point of taking Tylenol to spite Trump. 

A Reminder That Free Speech is Becoming Peculiarly American

 Thompson Blog tells the story of a Swiss wind instrument repairer who had the nerve to point out of social media:

If you dig up LGBTQI people after 200 years, you’ll only find men and women based on their skeletons. Everything else is a mental illness promoted through the curriculum.

If you know how forensic anthropologists work, they can, with high certainty, determine the former sex of a skeleton.

So he was sentenced to either a "500 Swiss francs (approximately $580 USD), convertible to 10 days of imprisonment if unpaid." 

If you wonder why "progressive" is a sign of mental illness to most Americans, this is why.  Progressives hold odd ideas about the prevalence of racism, how to alleviate poverty, and dozens of other public policy questions.  The insistence that sex is not inborn and that this can be changed, as opposed to counterfeited is the one that takes them out of the realm of odd ideas and into the realm of science-deniers.

Tylenol & Risk-Taking

 A reader mentioned this and it made me wonder if pregnant women taking Tylenol might engage in riskier behavior.

. 2020 Sep 24;15(7):725-732.

doi: 10.1093/scan/nsaa108

Abstract

Acetaminophen, an analgesic and antipyretic available over-the-counter and used in over 600 medicines, is one of the most consumed drugs in the USA. Recent research has suggested that acetaminophen's effects extend to the blunting of negative as well as positive affect. Because affect is a determinant of risk perception and risk taking, we tested the hypothesis that acute acetaminophen consumption (1000 mg) could influence these important judgments and decisions. In three double-blind, placebo-controlled studies, healthy young adults completed a laboratory measure of risk taking (Balloon Analog Risk Task) and in Studies 1 and 2 completed self-report measures of risk perception. Across all studies (total n = 545), acetaminophen increased risk-taking behavior. On the more affectively stimulating risk perception measure used in Study 2, acetaminophen reduced self-reported perceived risk and this reduction statistically mediated increased risk-taking behavior. These results indicate that acetaminophen can increase risk taking, which may be due to reductions in risk perceptions, particularly those that are highly affect laden.

 

Once Again, "Conspiracy Theory" Turns Out to be "Spoiler Alert"

 9/26/25 Unherd:

The evidence on whether school closures were necessary during the pandemic was ignored, Barack Obama has claimed. He added that open conversation was shut down as the debate became overly politicised.

Speaking to British historian David Olusoga at the O2 Arena in London last night, the former US president said that “sometimes we weren’t looking at some of the evidence that said: ‘You know what, most kids really need school.’” He added that “it got politicised and became ideological and was viewed as a Left versus Right issue.”

On 30 January 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recorded the first instance of Covid-19 in the US, and by the end of March all states had closed schools until further notice. In mid-September 2020, about 60% of US schools were fully virtual and only 20% were operating a traditional in-person schedule, while around 20% were hybrid. Well into 2021, many schools — primarily in Democratic states — were operating on reduced timetables with mask mandates and social distancing rules.

In May 2020, Obama called the federal government’s response to the pandemic “an absolute chaotic disaster”. Speaking to college graduates in an online commencement address, he said: “More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing. A lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge.” Earlier that year, in March, the former president advocated for the cancellation of large gatherings so as to “slow the spread of the virus and save lives”. He added: “We have to look out for each other.”

Five years later, there is a wide consensus among experts that closing schools during the pandemic hampered children’s education and social development while failing to stop the spread of the disease. A report in the New York Times in March 2024 said that “today, there is broad acknowledgment among many public health and education experts that extended school closures did not significantly stop the spread of Covid, while the academic harms for children have been large and long-lasting.”

At the time, anyone who pointed out that the risk was concentrated among the elderly or immune-compromised was castigated as a science-denier.  Sweden had the sense to not shut everything down, concentrating on those at high risk.

A Reminder That Calling the FBI Because Local Police Are Not Following the Law May Not Be Wise

USA v. Metcalf (9th Circ. 2025) is an absurd case.  Metcalf lives in Billings, Montana.  Metcalf's mother took out a restraining order against a stalking neighbor.  The neighbor ignored the order and was eventually convicted of a felony,  Metcalf lived with his mother and because of this threatening neighbor started to do yard work and escorted his mother to work carrying a shotgun.   Some neighbors got upset and called police. Police confirmed that he was in compliance with state law but it sounds like they asked him to stop.  Metcalf called the FBI to complain about.

Metcalf lived across from an elementary school.  The FBI charged him violating Gun-Free Safe School Zones Act.  The problem is that this law exempt those with carry licenses.  So when indicted, Metcalf asked the trial judge to dismiss the indictment.  Of course, that did not happen.  The 9th Circuit told the trial judge to dismiss the indictment.  

The 2nd Amendment did not come into play.  Strictly speaking, courts are supposed to decide questions at the lowest level of solution.  He was in compliance with federal law and state law.

Pizzagate Was Probably Fever Swamp But There Are A Lot Of Creatures Who Demonstrate That Wealth Only Changes the Evil They Can Accomplish

 9/26/25 NBC News:

Retired New York financier Howard Rubin and his former personal assistant were charged in a federal indictment Friday with running a years-long sex trafficking ring that allegedly involved violence so severe that one woman required surgery, prosecutors said.

Joseph Nocella Jr., U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said Rubin used his "wealth to mislead and recruit women to engage in commercial sex acts, where Rubin then tortured women beyond their consent, causing lasting physical and/or psychological pain, and in some cases physical injuries."

A newly unsealed federal indictment charged Rubin, 70, and the assistant, Jennifer Powers, 45, with sex trafficking and transporting women in interstate commerce for sex acts....

Rubin was also charged with bank fraud after prosecutors alleged that he misrepresented information to banks while securing financing for Powers' mortgage, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release....

The indictment alleges that from 2009 to 2019, Rubin recruited dozens of women “to engage in commercial sex acts with him involving bondage, discipline, dominance, submission and sadomasochism,” known as BDSM. Prosecutors, however, said in the indictment that his conduct was “beyond the scope of the women’s consent.” 

Hey, I understand the desire for sex.  I do not understand the BDSM stuff at all.  I am a romantic.   

Can I claim to be surprised that this guy worked for George Soros?  9/26/25 Morningstar:

Howard Rubin was known on Wall Street for decades as a hard-charging bond trader who was portrayed in a best-selling book, and later as a fund manager for billionaire investor George Soros.

Will you be surprised to know that the Florida prosecutor from that last post was elected with Soros money? 

It gets more and more man-bites-dog.  9/26/25 CNBC:

A judge ordered Rubin detained without bail after prosecutors argued he was a flight risk and that he had discussed hiring a “hit man to target women who had filed a civil suit against him.”

 

There Are News Stories So Shocking That They Must Have Leaked Over From the Parallel Progressive Universe

 You know where the timeline did not break on election night 2024.  This letter to a county prosecutor boggles my mind.

 

More details including prosecutor defending her position here.

Making Electricity From Apocalyptic Scrap

I mentioned my desire to see how practical is was to make thermocouple for generating electricity.   So what scrap metals will i find in Mad Max world?

I started with a piece steel angle and a copper wire.  I stripped insulation from the end to get a pretty solid contract on the steel.  It does not need any insulation.   A copper bar in full contact with the steel works just fine.  Perhaps better with more opportunities for a solid connection. 

The copper strands are wrapped around the steel not very tightly.  I may try using a soldered connection next time.  The voltmeter lead is literally just lying on the steel and the other lead has the other end of the copper wire wrapped around it pretty securely. 

In shade, I was getting .1 millivolts. 

When I moved the junction into direct sunlight it went to .2 millivolts and stayed there.  Then I took a 5.5' lens leftover from a 1970s aerospace project that I have been lugging around for 50 years and focused the Sun on the junction point. A solid .3 millivolts. 

I tried this with the copper wire and a piece of aluminum rod.  This showed zero current in shade and only .1 millivolts in sunlight with magnifying lens.  I would expect the copper/aluminum junction to be more effective than copper and steel based on elextronegativity numbers for copper, iron, and aluminum.  Aluminum, however; produces a strong oxide coating as soon as it is exposed.   I may not be getting much of a voltage because of that.   I have ordered a small copper rod for further experiments. 

Okay you are going to need a lot of cells to produce a useful voltage for recharging, but while waiting for civilization to come back up you will have time.  Unlike PV panels, many of which I expect will be EMP fried, this is as simple as it gets.

Making Small Precise Parts is Demanding

 For the first time I machining parts to .005" accuracy.  It is much slower than +-.05".  Lots of rezeroing to the end od a piece, using a workpiece stop to get reproducible positions once zeroed, verifying that the mill vise is exactly square to the table.

Tylenol Again

 An email chain involving "director of epidemiology for Janssen, the pharmaceutical arm of Johnson & Johnson, in 2018" "The weight of the evidence is starting to feel heavy to me."  9/26/25 Daily Caller gives this important cautionary note:

To be sure, much of the highly-cited research on autism spectrum disorder emphasizes genetic rather than environmental drivers. The scientific community continues to debate its causes, with many scientists agreeing that multiple factors may be at play.

Again: Trump says it, it must be wrong.  The memes of blue-hairs chugging Tylenol amuse, but they are not far from the truth.  Remember when Kamala Harris refused a COVID vaccine because the Trump Administration because Trump said it was okay? I keep hoping sanity will be restored to the ivory tower but I am not holding my breath. 

Tylenol

 All the legacy media are insisting that either there is nothing to these concerns or that Trump is making big deal about something that remains unproven because there is causal explanation.  

Was there a causal explanation for cigarettes and cancer.  No.  There was a strong correlation.  That was enough.  I do not believe the thalidomide disaster required a causal relationship proved.  If something not made by Big Pharma had a similar worrisome correlation, all the usual crowd would be demanding immediate action to at least ban it.  Trump's FDA is only recommending care in prescribing it for pregnant women.  It is not just that Harvard School of Public Health meta study:

Maternal use of acetaminophen during pregnancy and neurobehavioral problems in offspring at 3 years: A prospective cohort study,

. 2022 Sep 28;17(9):e0272593. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0272593

 

There were 1,011 women (41.7%) who reported using acetaminophen during pregnancy. Children who were exposed to acetaminophen during pregnancy scored significantly higher on 3 of the 7 CBCL syndrome scales: withdrawn, sleep problems and attention problems. Scores on all 7 of the CBCL syndrome scales were significantly associated with prenatal stress. After adjustment for prenatal stress and other confounders, 2 syndrome scales remained significantly higher in children exposed to acetaminophen: sleep problems (aOR = 1.23, 95% CI = 1.01–1.51) and attention problems (aOR = 1.21, 95% CI = 1.01–1.45). 

Do Not Panic

The more the Left shoots quiet intellectuals and illegal immigrants the more clear it is that they know that they have lost the battle for the hearts and minds of the American people.

One danger would be if anyone on our side starts responding violently to their provocations.  Civil War war would be a disaster.  The Democrats lost the last one but at enormous cost to both winners and lovers.

Civil war would have consequences far beyond our borders.  North Korea would invade South Korea.  China would invade Taiwan, leading to war with Japan which might well go nuclear.   Russia would likely go to war with NATO.  I doubt this would go nuclear until Polish troops reached the outskirts of Moscow.

There are a lot of other ugly regional battles that would likely turn hot.  There would be an enormous loss of life and economic destruction. 

The border with Mexico would be open.  Tens of millions of illegals would come north.  I could see cartels exercising enough power to control California government.

We have this.  The progressives will continue the long line of political attacks because they have never made a persuasive argument for their ideas outside universities, Hollywood, and the legacy media.  There is no need to retaliate. Not every blue-haired, nose-ringed man who pretends he is a woman is a threat.

I Confess, This is Not First Story Like This That Makes Me Wonder if Organ Donor on License is Wise

9/23/25 Popular Mechanics:

In October 2021, 36-year-old Anthony “TJ” Hoover II was rushed to Baptist Health Richmond in Kentucky after a drug overdose. He went into cardiac arrest, and doctors found no reflexes or brain activity. They declared him brain dead.

Doctors followed the standard steps after a patient’s death: they notified Hoover’s family and prepared him—an organ donor—for a procedure to harvest his organs for a transplant. But about an hour into the procedure, surgeons came to a screeching halt.

That’s because Hoover wasn’t dead.

According to a whistleblower letter received by Congress, "Hoover started to “thrash” on the operating table multiple times. In an interview with NPR in 2024, an organ preservationist present in the operating room said Hoover seemed alive to her, and two doctors refused to go forward with the procedure. She even said Hoover appeared to have tears in his eyes."

I know doctors want to save lives but I worry that they may be in a hurry.   The Knife Man, a biography of Dr. John Hunter, a pioneering late 18th century surgeon, recounts how he taught anatomy with the corpses of criminals just cut down from the gallows.  On one occasion, the "dead man" took exception to the procedure.   In another case, he got the chest open and the heart was still beating 

What a Ph.D. is Good For

9/24/25 College Fix:

A federal judge sentenced a ‘scholar-activist” to almost 20 years in prison and ordered him to pay nearly $100,000 in fines for firebombing a University of California Berkeley police car and committing other acts of arson.

Judge Jeffrey White went further than even requested by the prosecution, who asked for 15 years in prison for Casey Goonan, who committed the crimes in June 2024.

Goonan, as detailed by the Department of Justice, “placed a bag containing six explosive devices commonly known as ‘Molotov cocktails’ underneath the fuel tank of a marked University of California Police Department (UCPD) patrol car parked near the UC Berkeley campus.  Goonan lit the bag on fire and fled, causing the patrol car to catch on fire.

The power of scholarship.

Best of all privileged: 

He lived at home with his parents in California in their $1.1 million house The San Francisco Standard previously reported. Reporting from The Daily Californian uses “they/them” pronouns, suggesting Goonan identifies as transgender.

Weird Little VBA Macro That Might Be Useful

Select a string in Word.  Run the macro.  It opens your default browser, put quotation marks around the string and searches.  If you are writing about something more serious than your favorite cat videos, that can speed up the process.

Sub SearchSelectedTextWithQuotes()

Dim selectedText As String

Dim searchQuery As String

Dim searchURL As String




' Get the selected text

selectedText = Trim(Selection.Text)




' Check if there's any text selected

If Len(selectedText) = 0 Then

MsgBox "Please select some text to search.", vbExclamation

Exit Sub

End If




' Wrap the text in quotes and encode for URL

searchQuery = Chr(34) & selectedText & Chr(34)

searchQuery = Replace(searchQuery, " ", "+")

searchQuery = Replace(searchQuery, Chr(34), "%22")




' Construct the search URL

searchURL = "https://www.google.com/search?q=" & searchQuery




' Open the default browser with the search URL

Shell "cmd /c start " & searchURL, vbHide

End Sub

 Getting that into your Normal.dotm template so it always appears may be some work.

Who Commits Political Murders

9/24/25 Federalist:

Not everyone agrees. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) countered with its latest annual report, claiming, “This is the third year in a row that right-wing extremists have been connected to all identified extremist-related killings.” According to the ADL, between 2022 and 2024, there were 34 so-called “right-wing extremist” murderers, with 23 of them (68 percent) white supremacists. They say their attacks took 61 lives.

Claiming all the extremist murders are by “right-wingers” sounds dramatic, and the ADL report got extensive uncritical news coverage in media outlets including CNN, The Economist, and PBS.

Of course, those 61 deaths make up only a tiny fraction of the 58,781 murders the FBI recorded over the same three years. Still, as Trump noted, a political murder is “an attack on our entire nation.” Yet, none of the cases listed by the ADL involve a right-winger murdering a political target."

Dr. Lott then goes down their list.  Many were trans, crazies murdering their wives, rape victims, nonbinaries shooting up LGBT clubs.  Hardly right-wingers.

If Everyone You Disagree With is Hitler, Then This Makes Perfect Sense

 9/24/25 Daily Caller:

The deceased shooter who killed at least two people at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility on Wednesday has reportedly been identified as 29-year-old Joshua Jahn.

The shooter was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the scene near the Dallas facility and left “anti-ICE” written on a bullet casing, officials previously said. NBC News and The New York Post reported the suspect’s name, citing law enforcement sources.

 9/24/25 Daily Mail:

Cruz continued: 'This is the third shooting in Texas directed at ICE or CBP. This must stop. 

'To every politician who is using rhetoric, demonizing ICE, and demonizing CBP. Stop. To every politician demanding that ICE agents be doxed and calling for people to go after their families. Stop. This has very real consequences. 

'Look, in America, we disagree. That's fine. That's the democratic process. But your political opponents are not Nazis. We need to learn to work together without demonizing each other, without attacking each other.'  

9/24/25 NBC News:

Two people are dead, and the third is in critical condition, according to DHS. No ICE officers were hurt in the shooting, Dallas police said in a news conference. 

Did Mr. Anti-ICE kill some "undocumented immigrants?"  Yes.  9/24/25 NBC DFW:

Three detainees were shot when a person "fired indiscriminately" at an ICE building and a van in the sallyport, the Department of Homeland Security says.

These Are Always Sad

 Going through newspaper accounts of mass murders is never fun.  Sometimes, there are details that just seem especially sad when you see what happened at the end of the tragedy.

Overton, Nev. (1967)

08/29/1967: After threatening to rob a store earlier in the day, a 23-year-old man robbed a bank, shooting to death three employees in the vault.  He died of diabetes in 1999.

Category: public

Suicide: no

Cause: robbery

Weapon: pistol[1]

---

[1] "3 Slain In Bank Robbery," [Columbus, Ind.] Republic, Aug. 30, 1967, 1; "Killer of three bank Employees In '67 Overton Robbery Dies," Overton, , Sep. 23, 1999.

 

Amazing How Many non-Trumps Are Getting Exposed for Ties to Epstein

 9/23/25 CNN:

Several charities said on Monday they had cut their links with Sarah Ferguson, Britain’s Duchess of York, after media reports that she had described the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as a “supreme friend” in an email.

According to the Sun on Sunday newspaper, Ferguson, 65, the ex-wife of King Charles’ brother, Prince Andrew, sent the message to Epstein in 2011, weeks after giving an interview in which she said she would never contact him again.

Epstein had pleaded guilty in 2008 to a state prostitution charge in Florida and agreed to register as a sex offender.

The Sun said Ferguson, often known by the nickname “Fergie,” had emailed the disgraced financier to apologize for her comments and say he had always been a steadfast friend to her and her family.

I find myself wondering what they had in common. 

Things I Do Not Think About--But Should

 9/23/25 Wired:

The recent discovery of a sprawling SIM farm operation in the New York City area has revealed how these facilities, typically used by cybercriminals to flood phones with spam calls and texts, have grown large enough that the US government is warning it could have been used not just for crime, but large-scale disruption of critical infrastructure.

On Tuesday morning, the US Secret Service revealed that it had found a collection of facilities across the “New York tristate area” holding more than 100,000 SIM cards housed in “SIM servers,” devices that allow them to be managed and operated simultaneously. Due to the sheer scale of the infrastructure of this single SIM farm—and the fact that it reportedly came onto the Secret Service’s radar after it was exploited in “swatting” attacks that targeted US members of Congress around Christmas of 2023—the agency has warned that the operation, which has been at least partially dismantled, posed a serious threat of a disruptive attack on cellular service.

Given the number of SIM cards all under the control of a single operation, it could have “disabled cell phone towers and essentially shut down the cell phone network in New York City,” according to Matt McCool, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service New York field office....

The source tells WIRED that the Secret Service has confirmed that the SIM farm was used by organized crime, nation-state threat actors, and other individuals known to law enforcement. [emphasis added]

Yes.  I get a lot of text spam.   The nation-state threat actors is concerning.  

I would think large purchases of SIM cards would be a red flag.  This might be done by lots of small purchases (10 at a time) then consolidated into big buyer.

Ultimate Manliness

An Altima went off a 300 foot cliff into the Snake River.  It did not quite reach the water.  A fisherman called 911.  They used Jaws of Life to get the driver out.  Now offroad recovery specialists are going to bring the two halves up and out.

Something Not a Vaccine

 Well-known right-wing conspiracy buff Harvard School of Public Health:

When children are exposed to acetaminophen—also known by the brand name Tylenol or as paracetamol—during pregnancy, they may be more likely to develop neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) including autism and ADHD, according to a new study.

The study was published August 14 in BMC Environmental Health. Andrea Baccarelli, dean of the faculty at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and professor of environmental health, was senior author. The study was led by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and also included co-authors from other institutions.

The researchers analyzed results from 46 previous studies worldwide that investigated the potential link between prenatal acetaminophen use and subsequent NDDs in children. The researchers used the Navigation Guide Systematic Review methodology—a gold-standard framework for synthesizing and evaluating environmental health data—which enabled them to conduct a rigorous, comprehensive analysis that supported evidence of an association between acetaminophen exposure during pregnancy and increased incidence of NDDs.

The dramatic rise in ADHD and autism suddenly has an explanation.

Sometimes You Wonder What is in the Water

 9/19/25 WILX:

Savitra Mcclurkin said her son is being punished after disarming and disassembling a classmate’s gun at Dwight Rich School of the Arts. He took the gun apart and threw away the bullets, but didn’t tell an adult until later.

Mcclurkin said she’s been trying to get in contact with the Lansing School District for quite some time, but isn’t getting any response.

In search for answers, she made an appearance at Thursday night’s Lansing School Board meeting.

“He’s 11 years old. Seventh grade. Never been in trouble before,” said Mcclurkin.

Mcclurkin said he was able to disarm and disassemble the gun because of his hunting background. She said in the moment, her son was scared, and thought he was helping the other students around him.

Apparently he is trouble for not informing an adult immediately and identifying from whom he confiscated the gun.  So they expelled him.  Let's focus on the positive, school district. 

Someone Turned Personal Tragedy into Something Good

9/22/25 KGO reports that one of the Sandy Hook parents set up a hotline for reporting suspected school shooters.  It worked.  A student saw clear evidence of intent on a fellow student's social media. Arrest, seizure of guns.

I suspect that there is nothing else on which would agree but she put her grief to a good purpose.

UPDATE: Like all things from Everytown For Dead People, this turned out to be false.  9/23/25 Almanac:

After local schools issued a secure campus order due to a potential threat, officials made it clear that there was no imminent risk of violence. Then the nonprofit that originally informed officials of the threat released a press release heralding the incident as the 19th school shooting they thwarted, a claim officials refute. 

On Sept. 10, several local schools were placed on secure campus orders after an anonymous report through Menlo-Atherton High School’s “See Something, Say Something” tip line. The hotline is operated by Sandy Hook Promise, a nonprofit dedicated to ending gun violence at schools, and flagged a former Menlo-Atherton student who posted “concerning content” about the school on social media.

Atherton police located the individual the same day and the secure campus orders were lifted. School instruction continued while the individual was located. The former Menlo-Atherton student, who is currently a student at another local school, was later placed in a medical facility for psychiatric treatment. 

But on Sept. 22, Sandy Hook Promise published a press release claiming the Sept. 10 incident was the 19th planned school shooting the organization has stopped through its tipline.

A California community prevented a school shooting after a student reported a threat via Sandy Hook Promise’s Say Something Anonymous Reporting System recently. The student recognized the warning signs among a peer’s Instagram posts, took them seriously, and acted immediately to report the threats,” the organization’s press release started. “This set off a swift chain of events that ultimately saved lives.”

The organization said the former Menlo-Atherton student posted “images of firearms, ammunition, and a mapped-out plan for attacking the school.” Sandy Hook Promise also claimed police recovered a firearm.

However, the Atherton Police Department claims there was no firearm in the Instagram post nor did it recover one. Additionally, the Sequoia Union High School District said in a message to parents that there was no detailed plan for any violence. 

“The individual making the threat included a map of M-A, but the threat did not express any sense of immediacy or an impending timeline,” Superintendent Crystal Leach said in her message to parents."

Finally Back in the Shop

 I spent a couple weeks writing rebuttals to 16 expert declarations for May v. Bonta.  A little background: California had no choice after Bruen but to go shall-issue on concealed weapon permits.  So, like other states in this conundrum, they declared a big part of the state "sensitive places," where CCWs would not be valid.  You have to pass a background check, a psychological test, and a firing test, but you cannot be trusted to not go crazy.

Bruen created this "sensitive places" test based on historic restrictions: courthouses, legislatures, and polling places.  What places did California claim fit this?  Places that serve alcohol, mass transit, schools (K-12 and universities), zoos, museums, parks, sporting events, and banks.  Mass transit like light rail, BART, city buses, Greyhound, where there are never crazy people with knives.

A common theme of these declarations is that "children might be present."  Yes, and so might mass murderers.  Children present means we put a big sign at the entrance: Vulnerable people here.

What makes this interesting is that the federal district court judge who first heard this case issued a preliminary injunction against enforcement.  This usually means she thinks it is likely to succeed on its merits at trial.  California, of course, appealed that.  The 9th Circuit Court of appeals upheld that injunction and sent it back for trial.  

That first stage is MPI (Motion for Preliminary Injunction).  They filed 14 expert declarations for that stage and in about two weeks I scrambled to write 14 rebuttals.  This was not as bad as it sounds because many cited not a single law to meet Bruen's requirement: for laws from before 1791 or at least before 1868 that regulated the activity that States want to regulate today.  These seem to have been quick money for professors who wanted to imagine that they were doing something for the cause of disarming deporables.

The State filed very slightly revised declarations by the same experts plus two more (one charging $1000/hour).  Slightly revised almost always meaning changes to their list of qualifications and accomplishments (which were often impressive, especially when scompared to their declarations).  Partly, this was because many were experts in fields far removed from weapons regulation and they seemed unfamiliar with the standards imposed by Bruen.  

Writing rebuttals to these was more laborious than challenging because most were identical except for paragraph numbers.  One exception: Patrick J. Charles had quoted a 1400  law banning any man carrying arms into churches.  My MPI rebuttal pointed out that law's title said, "No Welshman shall bear arms."  (Wales was in rebellion at the time.)  This time he left out that law.  There were still many other errors in his declaration to rebut.

H1B Visas

 9/21/25 NBC News:

The surprise order from the Trump administration imposing a new $100,000 fee on some visas set off a day of frantic travel as workers, companies and foreign governments scrambled to respond to Washington's latest immigration crackdown.

By the time the White House clarified that existing holders of the H-1B visas for skilled workers were not affected, the chaos had already been sewn: U.S. allies expressed concern and their nationals abandoned holidays, business trips and plans to see their families as they raced back to America before the new rules took effect Sunday.

President Donald Trump on Friday signed the proclamation requiring companies to pay the fee to obtain the visas, which major tech companies rely on to fill high-skilled jobs.

I have strong feelings on this.  Theoretically the H1B visa is for workers with skills not available from U.S. citizens and permanent residents.  Back in the 1980s,  I was attempting to hire software engineers.  The qualifications were not that high but after advertising in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles we received a small number of applicants, almost all of whom were unqualified or not citizens or residents.  The guy on the top of the "If we get desperate" stack was a South African with both EE and CS degrees.  We wanted to hire him.  The H1B process was slow and clumsy.  Proving that there was no qualified person already here required a lot of advertising.  Only one applicant was even close and he did not want to move to Silicon Valley.  

Silicon Valley was a lovely place to live.  Not yet expensive and with my friends when we went to Subway for lunch next to Computer Literacy bookstore and Fry's Electronics, we were in Nerd Valhalla.

Oh yes, that South African.  We did eventually hire him.  He was very skilled and became a good friend.

I later worked for a tech company that laid off hundreds of us while advertising for H1Bs with very ordinary job requirements.  When I pointed this out, I was informed the ad ran in error.  The hassle of H1B approval is greatly eased by high powered law firms who know how to work the system.

What's wrong with H1Bs?  Many are probably useful additions to our workforce.  They are generally working cheaper than Americans.  I recall in the 1990s seeing articles about Russian software engineers working for Google in  Silicon Valley for $1200/month, and living in cramped quarters like high-end illegal aliens.  More workers means lower wages for all.

If you are here on an H1B visa, you cannot just change jobs.  You are bound to that employer.  Theoretically, you can get changed over to another employer but it is not easy.  If your current employer lets you go, you need to exit almost immediately.  This makes H1B employees easy to exploit.

A friend from Northern Ireland went to work for Micron as an H1B. During the little collapse of 2008, Micron laid him off.  He had 10? or was it 90? days to leave America.  He had bought a house here, so he had to sell it when the housing market had collapsed.  He called this his "$100,000 American vacation."  Some of suggested he learn Spanish and insist his name was Jose.

I Am Pretty Sure This Should Be Evidence of Non Compos Mentis

 9/22/25 AP:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A man suspected of firing a gun into the ABC affiliate's office in California's capital had written notes in his car that were critical of Donald Trump's administration and a calendar reminder on his fridge to “do the next scary thing," prosecutors said Monday.

Nobody was hurt in the shooting Friday into the lobby of the studios of ABC10 near downtown Sacramento. Local authorities arrested Anibal Hernandez Santana, 64, on Friday on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and shooting into an occupied building. He was released hours later on $200,000 bail.

My mistake.  "Orange Man Bad made me do it!"