Charlie Kirk: A Vigil at Capitol in Boise Tonight at 7:45

See you there.  No life should go unnoticed or uncelebrated.  That savages are celebrating his murder is all the more reason to remember him.

Last night's vigil turned violent.   9/11/25 KIVI:

"While Wilson was being arrested, officers say they discovered a firearm and marijuana in his possession. He is charged with disturbing the peace, carrying a concealed weapon while under the influence, and possession of marijuana, all misdemeanors. Wilson was taken to a local hospital for treatment before being booked into Ada County Jail.

"Wilson was previously arrested for vandalizing the Seated Lincoln statue in Julia Davis Park in 2021. According to BPD, Wilson placed paint, feces, and makeshift signs on the statue. The City of Boise Parks and Recreation crews were tasked with cleaning up the vandalism.

"At the time, Wilson was ordered to serve 32 hours of public service in lieu of jail time and pay the City of Boise $91.96 in restitution."

Not mentioned in this article was that Wilson was a BLM activist and BSU adjunct faculty.  I expect continued attempts at provoking a reaction, so go armed but aware that they will try to provoke an over-reaction.  "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words never cross the line into lawful deadly force."  If you cannot keep this under control, do not come armed.  Leave long guns at home.  If armed, concealed them.

So Much Crazy Going On

9/11/25 Fox News channel 4:

"Arrest Affidavit

New Information:

According to the arrest affidavit, on Sept. 10 at 9:26 a.m., Yordanis Cobos-Martinez was involved in a verbal argument with 50-year-old Chandra Mouli Nagamallaiah at the motel.

"A witness said she and Cobos-Martinez worked at the motel and were cleaning room 108 together when Nagamallaiah approached and was telling Cobos-Martinez to not use the washing machine that was broken. The witness said Cobos-Martinez was upset that Nagamallaiah was speaking to the witness to translate communication instead of speaking directly to him.

"Video shows the suspect then left the room and got a machete "from his person" and started hacking Nagamallaiah multiple times. "

And then thevstory gets gruesomely dark.   Cobos-Martinez is an illegal and the Biden Administration released him in January in spite of criminal convictions because they saw no way to send him home.

Studying Here is a Privilege Not a Right

9/10/25 Department of Justice:

"DETROIT – Chengxuan HAN, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), was sentenced today to time served (3 months) after having pleaded guilty to three smuggling charges and to making false statements to U.S. Custom and Border Protection Officers, announced United States Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon, Jr....

"In 2024 and 2025, Han sent multiple packages to the United States from the PRC containing concealed biological material. These packages were addressed to individuals associated with a laboratory at the University of Michigan. On June 8, 2025, Han arrived at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport on a J1 visa. Customs and Border Protection officers conducted an inspection of Han, during which Han made false statements about the packages and the biological materials she had previously shipped to the United States. CBP officers also found that the content of Han’s electronic device had been deleted three days prior to her arrival in the United States. At the conclusion of the border inspection, Han was interviewed by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and ICE HSI. During this interview, Han admitted to sending the packages, admitted that the packages contained biological material related to round worms, and admitted to making false statements to the CBP officers during her inspection."

How Clueless Do You Need to Be?

9/11/25 Idaho Statesman:

"The West Ada School District has fired a Meridian High School employee after she posted a video on social media that “shocked and saddened” district officials....

"A video circulating on social media Thursday shows a woman in a Meridian Warriors T-shirt celebrating the shooting of Charlie Kirk, a 31-year-old conservative activist who was killed Wednesday at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah."

There is now a Trophy Case on X of people gloating at Kirk's death and the consequences for them (fired or suspended).  In mentored, being classless and rude had the minor risk of a bloody nose.  Social media eliminated that risk.  Job loss means no more funding of fascism. Full consequences for depravity.

Liquid Diet Stage

I was still allowed Cream of Wheat for breakfast.   Now it is only liquids.  So far, pulp-free orange juice and orange Jello.  I am waiting for the lemon Jello to set.

After colonoscopy in AM, Eggs Benedict. 

I Guessed Right

9/11/25 New York Post:

"A rifle recovered in the hunt for conservative influencer Charlie Kirk’s assassin contained ammo engraved with “transgender and anti-fascist ideology,” according to preliminary reports from law enforcement sources.

"The weapon — an imported .30-06-caliber Mauser bolt-action rifle — was discovered wrapped in a towel by investigators in a wooded area following the killing of the conservative leading light, who was shot once while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, according to the memo."

Engraved?  I suspect marked.  Engraving seems a bit severe for ammunition.  Transgender?  Call me startled. 

Inappropriate Reactions

There is a lot of rage about both Charlie Kirk's assassination and the leftist chortling and excusemaking.  I see MSNBC has already fired one of their journalists.  In blog comments (fortunately not from my civilized readers talk of petty revenge: keying cars with Harris stickers, sugar in the gas tank.

No.  Not every Harris voter supports assasinating dissenters from the One True Faith.  Many rely on PBSNPRCBSABCNBC for their knowledge of the world.  All they know is Orange Man Bad.  Abusing them, assuming they figure out why they were targeted will just enhance their sense of moral superiority. 

Treat your enemies with as much decency as circumstances allow.  In many cases, leftists will be utterly befuddled.

"The Only Way to Stop Discrimination is to Stop Discriminating"

 9/11/25 Inside Higher Education:

The U.S. Department of Education plans to end discretionary grant programs for a slew of minority-serving institutions, officials announced Wednesday—after Congress had already appropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars to those programs. The move stunned MSI advocates, who argue the department doesn’t have the authority to nix them.

The Education Department asserted that these programs amount to “discrimination” and are “unconstitutional” because they require colleges to enroll a certain percentage of students from a particular racial or ethnic background to qualify. For example, HSIs must enroll at least a quarter Hispanic students, among other requirements, to earn the federal designation.

“Discrimination based upon race or ethnicity has no place in the United States,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in the announcement. “To further our commitment to ending discrimination in all forms across federally supported programs, the Department will no longer award Minority-Serving Institution grants that discriminate by restricting eligibility to institutions that meet government-mandated racial quotas.”

When our government started actively supporting HBCUs, it was in the aftermath of slavery.  You can argue, I think legitimately, that subsequent efforts, not entirely in the South, sought to keep blacks uneducated and unskilled. 

Those days are long over.  The legal obstacles have been gone for at least two generations.  Hispanics were never subject to these legal obstacles.  They were in the eyes of the law white.  A friend graduated from University of Texas in 1948.  That institution was still requiring blacks to attend an inferior, all-black law school in 1950.  While looking through her graduation program, I was struck with how many Spanish names there were.

The only defense progressives have left is that this is still a profoundly racist society.  In 1930. Charlotte Democrats would have lynched to accused.  The double standard for justice argues that if there remains widespread discrimination, it is in favor of black criminals, largely to the detriment of black victims.

Someone Was Just Fired for Epstein Friendship

Not someone i was expecting.  9/11/25 Politico.eu:

"LONDON — Peter Mandelson was sacked as Britain’s ambassador to Washington on Thursday amid fresh revelations about his friendship with disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein."

Lots of people were Epstein’s friend at some point. What was different?

"Emails published by the Sun newspaper this week revealed Mandelson urged Epstein to “fight for early release” when he was facing charges in June 2008 over soliciting a minor. “Your friends stay with you and love you,” he wrote.

“I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened. I can still barely understand it,” Mandelson also said."

24 Years Ago

I had just reached work.  It seemed so utterly impossible.  Even bin Laden was apparently surprised by how effective the attack was.  I suspect he was hoping for hundreds or thousands killed by ramming jets into upper floors of buildings.   The pancaking of the Towers would have seemed unlikely. 

Things we have learned:

1. Islam is not suited to liberal democracy.  At best, you get Islamic democracy which is only slightly more humane than Islamic theocracy  

2. All the resources we have cannot defeat fanatics half a world away.   At best, you destroy the existing evil government and tell the rest, "Don't make us come back."

What we did not learn: allowing people with fundamentally different religious traditions to immigrate creates a community with whom we will always be at war 

Do not forget Falling Man and the fear that would cause you to jump.  Do not forget United 93 and the courage to fight back. 

One Shot Only

I have seen a video that shows a suspicious bump on top of one of the overlooking buildings that would be a plausible sniper.  I suspect if the shooter had an AW he would have shot multiple people near Kirk, both to remove dedicated conservatives on Kirk's staff and to make it a mass murder requiring more laws.

Watching Leftists Respond to the Kirk Assassination is Amazing

Some are still insisting this might not be a leftist.  Like who else would kill him?  Conservatives?

There is a long tradition of leftists assasinating politicians and activists.

John Kennedy shot by member of Fair Play for Cuba Committee.  Robert Kennedy shot by a Palestinian upset that RFK supported Israel.  Dr. King by a racist.   George Wallace by a guy with no identifiable politics.  (I am disappointed he was released from prison )  Rep. Leo Ryan assassinated in 1978 by members of a cult led by a prominent socialist who bequeathed the cult's property to the Soviet Union (which they did not get).

Reagan by a nut job with no identifiable politics.  Bernie Bro Hodgkinson who shot GOP Congressmen at a baseball game.  The first Trump assasin who had contributed to ACT-BLUE.  Second assassin unclear as to politics.  

Oh, and we can go back to the Puerto Rican Nationalists who opened fire on Congress in 1954.

Charlie Kirk Was Over Target

9/10/25 AP:

"OREM, Utah (AP) — Charlie Kirk, the CEO and co-founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, was shot Wednesday at an event at a Utah college, Turning Point said.

“We are confirming that he was shot and we are praying for Charlie,” said Aubrey Laitsch, public relations manager for Turning Point USA."

Receiving flak means over target.  Some report that I cannot immediately find says police took into custody a "white-haired man."   There are still a lot of boomers who feel like they may missed their chance to be "relevant" in 1969.

I am hearing rumors that he died.  The very graphic video i saw of him falling over as blood gushed from his neck makes this very plausible.  A single shot almost from a rifle (200 yards).  The downside of rifles as defense against tyranny is that tools of tyrants can also use them as seems sensible to them.  Never speak at a public event where anyone can easily get to you.  Stay in halls where your security team can do a proper search.

Yes, news coverage is reporting his death.  Hitler launched Krystallnacht over someone less important and curiously a member of the resistance to Hitler. If you take the left seriously the entire cast of MSNOW will be in camps tomorrow. 

"What a Drag It Is Getting Old"

No, this is not about Mother's Little Helper or the absurdity of how the Stones were when they wrote that song.  Friday is Colonoscopy Day.

You should be doing these regularly starting at 45.  I started after a good friend received stage 4 notification.   He had never had one.  

Get it done promptly.  Watching him die of something preventable was very sad.  It was also expensive.   Fortunately for his widow, he had a gun and ammo hoarding problem.  In the year or so it took to first find all the guns in the house and aircraft hangar, she amassed enough to pay all the bills.

Antique Computer Nerding

I need a program to produce gCode for cutting rectangles starting at xstart,ystart and cutting to far side xend,yend.  I have a program that does that but the more parameters on the line in the Makefile, the easier is to make a mistake.  It would be nice to specify these as -1.56,0 and 0,2.4 instead of -1.56 0 0 2.4.  So I revised the program from:

  float xStart=atof(argv[1]);
  float yStart=atof(argv[2]);  
  float xEnd=atof(argv[3]);  
  float yEnd=atof(argv[4]); 

to:

int parsePair(char* pairString, float* x, float *y)
{
  return(sscanf(pairString, "%f,%f", x, y));
}

...

 float xStart, yStart;
  if(parsePair(argv[1], &xStart, &yStart) != 2)
    {
      printf("unable to parse %s\n", argv[1]);
      displayValidArgs();
      exit(2);
    }
  float xEnd, yEnd;
  if(parsePair(argv[2], &xEnd, &yEnd) != 2)
    {
      printf("unable to parse %s\n", argv[1]);
      displayValidArgs();
      exit(2);
    }

The Makefile command goes from:

    ./mkrectangle -1.593 0 0 2.2179 -.2 -.01 -.6 3 3 .125 rectangle.ngc -a

to:

    ./mkrectpair -1.593,0 0,2.2179 -.2 -.01 -.5 3 3 .125 rectpair.ngc -a 

A minor improvement but I may create something more complex with n pairs as vertices.

Charges Dismissed in Michigan Electors Case

 9/9/25 Michigan Bridge:

LANSING — Michigan’s so-called false electors case is over and defendants will not stand trial after prosecutors failed to prove 15 Republicans knowingly committed a crime by signing a document incorrectly claiming President Donald Trump won the state’s 2020 presidential election, a judge ruled Tuesday. 

“This is a fraud case, and (you) have to prove intent,” Lansing 54-A District Court Judge Kristen Simmons told a packed courtroom, “and I don’t believe that there’s evidence sufficient to prove intent.”

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel had charged the defendants — including former Republican National Committee member Kathy Berden and former Michigan GOP Chair Meshawn Maddock — with eight felony counts, including forgery charges Simmons said pertained more to property crimes than the facts of the case.

The question of whether Biden actually won Michigan was a legitimate question.  There were so many irregularities in the COVID election (mail-in ballots of questionable origin, implausible numbers of 110+ old Pennsylvania voters requesting absentee ballots, clear evidence of ballot harvestimg, some clear-cut fraud involving a California friend's non-citizen wife shown as voting by mail, whose votes were counted the day after the election when she did not vote) that a person could genuinely believe the election results were as trustworthy as Biden's autopen pardons.  Providing an alternate set of electors in case Congress decided to investigate these iregularities seems a legitimate action.  If not for the J6ers idiocy, I think it possible that Congress might have at least asked questions much as the contested 1876 election involved challenges to the results from several states.  (Thanks J6ers for guaranteeing President Autopen and likely the Ukraine War.)

Promoting Violent Crime

9/8/25 Fox News:

"GoFundMe said that it removed multiple fundraising campaigns created on behalf of Decarlos Brown Jr., the ex-convict accused of stabbing and killing Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska aboard a Charlotte, North Carolina, light-rail train."

1. He is not going into this without counsel.  He will have a public defender.

2  Any public defender will get him off as not guilty by reason of insanity.  At best, he will be off the street for a few months.

3. Anyone who contributed to this legal defense fund should look in the mirror and ask why they think this guy needs any help on this.  Video of him committing an unprovoked attack is about as persuasive as it gets.

4. His defenders need to consider how their actions promote racial divisions.   His own mother was afraid of him!

Not Exactly a Happy Ending, but Better Than It Might Have Been

9/18/25 Shaw Local:

"A Chicago man on parole from prison who had burglary convictions in Will County was the suspect who broke into a Joliet home and was fatally shot by a woman who had been hiding in a closet with her child, according to authorities."

A happy ending would have been if he was put under house arrest in Illinois Gov. Pritzker's home.

Releasing Terrorist in Britain

8/1/25 New York Post:

"A terrorist who bragged about helping Osama bin Laden mastermind the 9/11 attacks could be freed from a UK prison within days — despite officials declaring him a “risk to national security.”

"Haroon Aswat — who previously set up an al-Qaeda training camp in the US —  is set to be released from a secure psychiatric hospital unit where he’s currently locked up in the UK after he completes mental health treatment, The Sun reported."

The people of Britain want a compassionate government.  They are going to get it good and hard.

The Murder in Charlotte

It's an X post by a WSOC reporter but what the alleged killer's mother says is the story of thousands of murders every year.

"Today we heard from Decarlos Brown's mom. She spoke to @Hunt_Saenz. She is not making excuses for her son....

"When Brown was released from prison, Brown's mom says "he started saying weird things." 

"She says she got Brown evaluated but his behavior became aggressive so she got an involuntary commitment order from the courts. He was placed under psychiatric monitoring for two weeks and diagnosed with schizophrenia. But after he was released she says Brown became so aggressive she had to kick him out. He became homeless. 

"In January, Brown was arrested for misusing the 911 system. Police say he called from the hospital and claimed someone gave him "man made material" that controlled when he "ate, walked and talked." Despite his criminal past and homelessness, Magistrate Teresa Stokes allowed him to be released from jail on a written promise to appear. In court last month on this charge, his public defender questioned Brown's mental capacity."

Mental illness and refusal to hold people who are severely and obviously crazy combined with a criminal justice system that is not even trying anymore makes tragedies like this inevitable.

As another Xer points out:

"Here’s a list of all the news networks who have NOT covered the Charlotte NC story:  

- NYTimes 

- CNN 

- Washington Post 

- MSNBC 

- NPR 

- USA Today 

- Reuters 

- Axios 

- ABC News

- PBS

Every single one of them wrote stories on Daniel Penny... "

Progressives believe black lives matter.  White lives not so much.   If there was no video, it might explain the lack of interest.  In addition, progressives seem not to care about homeless mentally ill people unless they can use them to attack GOP.

9/8/25 Daily Mail chronicles alleged murderer's criminal history. 

Why Does Anyone Need More Than 10 Rounds?

 I wish I could insert the video here.  Jewelery store, mob smashes in front of store with a truck, a 30 round magazine mob rushes in.  9/7/25 San Francisco Chronicle reports on it.  Sadly, search in news.google.com for "smash-and-grab" and there are a lot of stories.

USS Indianapolis

Movie starring Nicholas Cage made i fo not know when.  Interesting, well-written.  If you do not what this ship was: it was a eavy cruiser that traveled without escort to deliver Fat Man to Tinian for delivery to Hiroshima.   On the way home, a Japanese submarine sank it, causing enormous loss of life.  Sharks.  Lots of them. 

I knew a little about it, partly because of Jaws and partly because an uncle served on a ship that sank during WW2.  Most of his fellow sailors were either eaten, or killed my Japanese sailors also from sunk ships doing their best to keep killing Americans.

Startling Change in Church Attendance

9/2/25 Barna Reports:

"The headline: Millennials and Gen Z Christians are attending church more frequently than before and much more often than are older generations. The typical Gen Z churchgoer now attends 1.9 weekends per month, while Millennial churchgoers average 1.8 times—a steady upward shift since the lows seen during the pandemic."

As much as some people want to see America collapsing into atheism or nihilism the data suggests otherwise.   As one of my sisters observed some years ago, college is where Christian kids go wild, and wild kids go Christian.   Obviously, like most generalizations, there are lots of kids who do not fit either stereotype.  

I do think that kids growing up in agnodtic/atheist and broken homes are more likely to seek meaning in spiritual ways.

Shipping Guns

I mentioned a couple days ago my need to plan shipping guns and telescopes (both of which are typically much longer than wide). It turns out that interstate shipping is easier than I thought.  I checked with ATF:

"

May a nonlicensee ship firearms interstate for his or her use in hunting or other lawful activity?

 Español

Yes. A person may ship a firearm to him or herself in care of another person in the state where he or she intends to hunt or engage in any other lawful activity. The package should be addressed to the owner “in the care of” the out–of–state resident. Upon reaching its destination, persons other than the owner may not open the package or take possession of the firearm."

The abusecl potential is obvious.   But it means that i can ship our guns to my daughter when she arrives and take custody when we arrive.  Our son has graciously offered to drive our SUV with deranged puppies cross-country.  We will fly.

Ammunition is easy.  Much of it is in the boxes used to ship it to me. The rest I can box and UPS it all.

Telescopes remain an issue.   There are long boxes to fit the 5" refractor.   The 8" reflector is too big.  I may remove the mirror and all external hardware, then wrap it in bubble wrap to protect it.  For Big Bertha, I can remove the upper cage, andxmirror,  wrap the truss tubes, upper cage and lower cage in bubble wrap and put mirror in its shipping box.  This becomes several small packages.

UPDATE: A friend in California was just given custody of his children and is moving to Idaho.   This simplifies getting his arms and ammo free from the hassle of moving.

What If Your Furnace and Electricity Go Out?

This guy shows how to make a lamp/heater using a Mason jar and copper pipe that can both give basic illumination and heat.  He recommends using denatured alcohol but demonstrates that 70% isopropyl (rubbing alcohol) works just fine.

You could make these in advance but you can also make these once disaster hits if you still have a working cordless drill, a Mason jar, some pipe, and a way to cut the pipe. 

Your Chance to Do Deep Geology Nerding

Why is there so much gold on Nevada?  By a guy working on his Ph.D. in Economics Geology at University of Nevada.  History of Gold Mining back to the Big Bang.

Definitely Not on My Bingo Card for 2025: "A ‘Roomba for the forest’ could be SoCal’s next wildfire weapon"

9/5/25 Los Angeles Times:

"The giant, remote-controlled vehicle — somewhere between a tractor trailer, a tank and a Zamboni in appearance — slowly rolled across the dry, brittle grass growing between the tangle of freeways making up the 101 and 23 interchange in Thousand Oaks.

"Inside the beast, fire churned. And as it rolled over the land, that fire incinerated any brush it encountered, leaving only a thin smoke cloud billowing from the top of the machine, some flashes of orange and red from behind its metal skirt and, in its wake, a desolate, smoldering black line.

"BurnBot isn’t the fastest way to rid a landscape of dangerously flammable vegetation (it tops out at around 0.5 mph) but it can do something that traditional vegetation management techniques cannot: with almost surgical precision, it can kill the flammable brush sitting within feet of homes and highways on even the hottest and driest days and with virtually no safety risks or disruptions to daily life."

One of the local golf courses has a robotic golf ball fetcher.

Where Progressive Thought Takes You

9/3/25 Telegraph article on Yahoo News lists some of now ten of thousands of arrests for free speech in Britain.  There are one or two that do indeed seem perilosly close to incitement to riot but most are just a reminder that when you define everyone on a hierarchy of victimhood, free speech dies.

Volleyball

Recently I attended my granddaughter's varsity volleyball game.  There are no sports besides volleyball that I enjoy watching.   Perhaps this is because there are no other sports thst i enjoy playing. 

I first played volleyball in the most quintessential place: Santa Monica Beach.  On sand.   This matters a lot because you take risks diving on sand that make no sense on concrete.  At USC, I joined pickup games with the engineering students.  At an employer in Mountain View, my co-workers and I played volleyball behind our building on the edge of the swamps that adjoin San Francisco Bay.  We had great fun, sometimes chasing balls into the water.

At a couple of the startups where I worked in Telecom Valley, we had organized volleyball leagues of the various companies in our business park.  These are very happy memories of the happiest time of my life.  We were again on sand. 

Watching teenagers play volleyball as it should be played (receive, set, spike) is a real thrill with saves that often involve rolls across the floor is great fun.

I hope to drop enough more weight to resume playing volleyball.   Perhaps there is an an old fogeys league here.

Planning for a Move

This will not happen until summer next year, but moving telescopes and guns is complicated by odd shapes.  The 5" refractor will need a 6"x6"x60" box.  The 8" reflector will need a 12"x12"x70" box.

Yes all of these came in boxes many years ago.  If I cannot buy boxes this size I may have to make them of plywood.

I was planning to ship my car to avoid spending most of each day driving.  If I can find someone to split the driving, I could load the guns and the 5" refractor in the Cadillac.   My wife will be chauffeuring the dogs in her car.

U.S. Citizenship Can Be Removed

9/3/25 Department of Justice:

"         WASHINGTON – Hachikosela Muchimba, 45, a former letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service and resident of the District of Columbia, was stripped of his U.S. citizenship and sentenced to 66 months in federal prison today in connection with mail theft and bank fraud scheme that illegally netted him $1.6 million, announced U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro.

          " A federal jury found Muchimba guilty on March 14, 2025, of conspiracy to commit theft of mail and bank fraud; theft of mail; bank fraud; engaging in a monetary transaction in property derived from specified unlawful activity, and unlawful procurement of citizenship or naturalization."

Following paragraph reports this as a 66 year sentence which I think is a typo:

"     In addition to the 66-year prison sentence, U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras ordered Muchimbato to pay $651,068.35 in restitution to victims and to forfeit his ill-gotten gains of $1,273,403.36. Muchimba also will be subject to deportation.

          "Muchimba, originally of the Republic of Zambia, was naturalized as an American citizen on May 26, 2022. The mail theft and bank fraud scheme ran from December 2020 until March 2023. On his application for citizenship he falsely claimed to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services that he had not previously committed any criminal activity, all the while he was actively conducting his theft of mail and scheme to defraud. Because it was unlawfully procured, the Court revoked Muchimba’s citizenship."

Star Trek Continues

I have started episode 2.  It is so astonishing how well they have recreated the original series, right down to the Orion slave girl in episode 2 dressed as though she stepped right out of the episode in ST: TOS where an Orion slave girl tempts Kirk.

The first episode featured actor Michael Forest reprising his role as Apollo from "Who Mourns Adonis?" which I consider one of TOS' most touching episodes.  It was nice to see this reuse of an actor who played Adonis.  His portrayal of an alien who pretended to be a god to ancient Greek peasants was quite impressive.  

Episode 1, like TOS, is awash in 1960s thought patterns unlike the ST: TNG which is very modern in its themes.  Slavery gets a very 1960s condemnation still relevant at a time when Islamic slavery still existed.  You can extrapolate it to human trafficking today and it still works.

Swamp Creatures

9/4/25 Department of Justice:

"A U.S. Department of State (DOS) employee was sentenced today to 48 months in prison for conspiring to collect and transmit national defense information to individuals he believed to be working for the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)."

48 months?  I hope it was not anything serious. Any guesses on his party registration?

FBI Agent Misconduct

The Biden connection is unsurprising.   9/4/25 New York Times:

"A senior F.B.I. official once tipped off Chinese executives to pending arrests, compromising a major criminal investigation, according to a watchdog report that added damaging new detail to the extent of the official’s misconduct at the bureau as he oversaw its counterintelligence work in New York....

"The Chinese executives seemed unsure of whether to trust the tip. In November, James Biden, the brother of Joseph R. Biden Jr., who was out of office at the time, hired a retired Secret Service agent to determine whether the U.S. authorities, in fact, planned to arrest Mr. Ho if he came to the United States.

"The retired Secret Service agent told investigators that James Biden told him that “we have information from China that Ho may be arrested,” and that Mr. Ho still wanted to travel to the United States, but was concerned about the outcome."

This Cold is The Worst I Can Remember

I cannot remember the last time I was so miserable that did not start with a nurse putting in an IV.

.

I hear that others are getting this, too.  I am fatigued, headachey, producing mucus, sneezing.   My throat is dry and just a little bit sore.

There are things that I want to do both gun rights related and in the shop but I do not feel like doing anything.  If you know someone complaining about a bad cold, stay well away. 

Rhonda was tested for COVID when we were in Tennessee  

Victory in Delaware

 A case in which I participated.  Birney v. Delaware Department of Homeland Security (Del.Sup. 2025).  I do not immediately have a link.  This is a very involved, even convoluted decision primarily decided on the Delaware Const. RKBA provision.

Defendants draw a distinction between the ban effectuated by HB 451 and the

one struck down in Heller, by asserting some difference between banning handguns

for everyone and banning handguns only for a “class of people.”199 Defendants posit

18-to-20-year-olds are “not included in persons protected under Article I, Section 20

of the Delaware Constitution.”200 Defendants, in stating, “18-to 20-year-olds [sic]

are not part of ‘the people’ in the Second Amendment or ‘a person’ in the Delaware

Constitution,” appear to advance the idea that 18-to-20-year-olds are not entitled to

constitutional protections.201 This argument fails because Defendants apply

historical practices of exclusion from rights rather than a modern view of who

qualifies as a “person....

Defendants next posit that HB 451 does not burden the fundamental right to

bear arms more than reasonably necessary because it “does not prohibit those under

the age of 21 years from using a firearm for recreation, like hunting or a sporting

activity under the supervision of someone 21 years or older.”214 Section 20 explicitly

protects the right to “keep and bear arms” for hunting and recreational use. ...

Defendants assert that HB 451 permits 18-to-20-year-olds “to possession [sic]

shotguns without qualifications.”219 Defendants argue this caveat contributes to HB

451 not burdening Section 20 “more than is reasonably necessary.”220 Curiously,

Defendants make this assertion immediately after discussing how the handgun ban

in Heller qualified as “a complete prohibition.”221

Heller explained that handguns are “overwhelmingly chosen by American

Society” for self-defense.222 The challenged law in Heller permitted the possession

of other firearms.223

It looks to me as though Delaware shot their own argument to death.  The ban on possession of firearms by 18-21-year-olds is dead.

Bad News, Good News

I picked up the bad cold that sent my wife to Urgent Care in Johnson City.  (Like Boise used to be, there was only a few minute wait.)  

We had speculated that the heaviness in our lungs was the high humidity or allergic reaction.  I now think it was just the incipient cold 

I Think Eastern Tennessee is My Future Home

I would not have picked it myself but when my daughter moves, we will likely follow.  Rush minute is nothing there.  It has much the same feeling as Idaho when we first moved here in 2001: no traffic, friendly people, very little homeless population (it is not Knoxville or Nashville).  It is also prettier: lots of trees and hills.

Housing is cheap.  This 4 bedroom 3 bath 2932 sq. ft., 1.32 acre house is $519,900.  By the time we are ready to move, it will be gone but many similar houses are there.  Housing is so cheap that we can buy cash, pay for movers, pay to have a big dog run for the girls, and maybe build an observatory.

Idaho Wants Robotic Executioner

9/2/25 CBS Channel 2:

"BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) — The Idaho Statesman first reported that as Idaho works toward making the firing squad the primary form of execution, the State is also looking for a way to mechanize the actual firing of the gun."

I am not surprised.   Throughout history, executioner have been well-paid because it exactly a toll on those doing it.  Even when done at the active encouragement of the government and often executing pretty despicable people, it is a heavy burden to kill another person.  If you read Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men about the reserve policemen assigned to carry out the genocide in Eastern Europe during World War Ii, you realize how destructive it was.  This is why the National Socialists set up death camps to reduce the sense of responsibility that ordinary men feel when taking lives.

Liquid Paper Trivia

Over at Chicago Boyz:

"Long before word processors and printers came along there were typewriters. And typing mistakes. In 1956 a secretary named Bette Nesmith Graham (yes, Michael Nesmith’s mom) came up with a solution to that problem, a white paint of sorts suitable enough to use on paper and to cover up typed print."

I knew the story but not the Monkees' connection. 

The Dancer From Atlantis

I am not sure when Poul Anderson wrote this novel. I am using a airline WiFi that behaves as though I have Internet service but the browser refuses to search.  Internal evidence suggests 1970. (UPDATE: Published in 1971.)

It is a novel that seems designed to appeal to someone as unique as me.  It is a time travel historical fiction set in late Minoan times as Thera prepares to erupt.  The protagonists are an American architect, a Dark Ages Hun, and medieval Russian (okay more precisely Kievan) and a bull dancer from Crete.

A malfunctioning time machine snatches them up from various times and places and dumps them with dying pilots on the North African coast.  (If you are old enough to remember the regrettable 1960s series It's About Time,  feel free to start singing the theme song, the only part of the show that showed any cleverness.)

Can Duncan get home?  Can he save his future and past girlfriend's Minoan civilization of Atlantis?  The plot is complex.  It shows an imaginative although not impossible interpretation of why Linear B replaced Linear A script on Crete.  It also does present an interesting way of resolving the known problems of explaining Minoan collapse not matching Thera destruction. 

Great fun.  Make sure you can click words in Kindle. Anderson stretched my vocabulary as usual. 

East Tennessee Looks Good

We ended up on Rush Minute near Johnson City.  It reminds me of Boise traffic jams in 2001.  Admittedly, it was Labor Day weekend but there was no traffic, no crowds.  

We stopped for lunch in Knoxville which is roughly equivalent to Boise in traffic density and fancy restaurants.  Homeless people everywhere.   At the offramp one guy having ferocious fistfights with invisible enemies. 

What a Surprise

8/31/25 CNN:

"Billings, Montana

AP — 

A man suspected of killing four people at a Montana bar and evading capture for a week while hundreds of law enforcement officers searched for him in the nearby mountains faces four counts of murder, according to court records....

"Authorities have not commented on a potential motive for the 45-year-old former soldier. His niece has said Brown long struggled with mental illness."

U.S. v. Harrison (10th Cir. 2025)

Upheld ban on marijuana users (ever used) possession of firearms overturning district court. Cited article by me and Don Kates. 

They used Test Acts passed nearly contemporaneous to state RKBA provisions as evidence that persons potentially dangerous could be disarmed. What they neglected is that all these Test Acts were repealed almost immediately after the war. Some, such as Pennsylvania, only disarmed non-Associators to arm militia. North Carolina did not disarm of pistols and provided for disarming of anyone if arms were needed by militia. 

More Tennessee

July and August are hot and humid.  Not hot by Boise standards but both together are not so pleasant.   Of course in summer in Boise, I am uncomfortable outside except in the morning or after sunset.  This is no different.   I do feel like I am breathing cotton, perhaps because of allergic reaction.   Others in my family group are having similar reactions. This may be something my body learns to handle or become dependent on antihistamines. 

Bristol in the far northeastern tip of Tennessee is a nice little town with a cut late 19th century downtown.  There would seem to be nothing to create sky glow here.  Houses are much cheaper than not only Boise but even Johnson City.  This is in danger of being, "Buy two; they're cheap."

People are friendly in Bristol.  We walked across the street into Bristol, Virginia for barbecue and it was very good and not terribly expensive. 

Eastern Tennessee

Beautifully green.  No traffic.   People generally friendly.  Houses are far less expensive than Boise area.  I have some misgivings still about dark skies.  We have a quarter Moon tight now so I really have no idea how dark the sky is.

Lots of cute little towns with gobs of history and charm like Elizabethton.

Jonesborough is the oldest city in Tennessee.   Washington County courthouse. 

Once you subtract the murders and population of Tennessee's big cities (Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and a couple of others), Tennessee's murder rate is only about 50% higher than Idaho. Rape, burglary, and aggravated assault rates are similarly higher.  Gun laws are generally similar to Idaho, so moving here will just mean carrying more consistently.

Gasoline is definitely cheaper: $2.44/gallon is typical.  Meals out are cheaper and obviously so.  Electricity is no cheaper. 

CO2 Storage in Permafrost

More precisely, the evidence shows thst permafrost assists in storing carbon in plants in less.  8/30/25 Phys.org:

"Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere vary naturally between ice ages and interglacial periods. A new study by researchers at the University of Gothenburg shows that an unexpectedly large proportion of carbon dioxide emissions after the ice age may have come from thawing permafrost."

If you look at long-term graphs of CO2 and global temperature, you often see temperatures rise before CO2 increases.  So CO2 may be the symptom not the cause. 

Nashville Honky Tonk Row

We walked down Nashville Honky Tonk Row.  I could only think of the Pottersville segment of It's a Wonderful Life.  Worldly, unhappy, and even more depraved.   Lots of police and security guards at 4:00 PM.  Every bar/restaurant blaring country music at high volume, overwhelming each other in a cacophony. 

A fair number of homeless/mental ill people.   A number of beggars, some with signs so vulgar that I can only euphemize them.  Carnal pleasure purchase "ain't cheap." 

I cannot imagine bringing your children there.

Made a Wrong Turn

Nice Hotel. Weird Logo.

Quiet.  Bed was too soft for me but I like a firm mattress so probably okay for most people.  Friendly, attentive staff.  I am used to small motels being largely East Indian staff.  At a four story Best Western this was a surprise.

I Have Always Known Such Cults Existed

It is nice to see them crushed.  8/27/25 Austin American-Statesman:

"Two people have been indicted for 10 charges by a federal grand jury for their alleged connection to a "forced labor and money laundering conspiracy" that involved victims in Texas and three other states, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.

"David Taylor, 53, and Michelle Brannon, 56, were arrested in North Carolina and Florida on Wednesday for their roles in what authorities are calling a "forced labor organization." The crimes victimized individuals in Texas, Michigan, Florida and Missouri."

It was a vaguely Christian cult enslaving workers and sexually abusing members.

All Orange Man Bad's Fault

8/28/25 CNN:

"Washington

 — 

The US economy’s rebound in the second quarter was stronger than previously reported, thanks to consumers who stepped up their spending despite jitters over President Donald Trump’s trade war.

"Gross domestic product, which measures all the goods and services produced in the economy, registered an annualized rate of 3.3% from April through June, the Commerce Department said in its second estimate released Thursday. That’s up from the 3% rate in the first estimate."

Rising GDP does not necessarily mean increased federal revenues, but it seems a good bet.  Budgeting based on presumed Laffer Curve results is not wise, but Trump’s audacious gamble may work.

The bad news keeps coming.  8/28/25 AP:

" WASHINGTON (AP) — Fewer Americans sought unemployment benefits last week as employers appear to be holding onto their workers even as the economy has slowed.

"Applications for unemployment benefits for the week ending Aug. 23 dropped 5,000 to 229,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday."

Yes, We Cannot Risk Return Fire

8/27/25 BBC News discussion of murderer's online presence:

"In some of the notes analysed by BBC Verify, the writer weighs options of when and where it might be best to carry out an attack on “a large group of kids”.

"The writer expresses a desire to “catch a big assembly on the first day of school” and the intention to avoid parents as they may be armed."

Be armed wherever you go.  Mass murderers are afraid of victims returning fire.

On Top of the Rest of the Tragedy...

This just makes me want to cry.  From 8/28/25 Hindustan Times:

"Part of what [murderer name redwcted]

 wrote in his manifesto in Cyrillic, which was translated by the New York Post, read, "I don't want to dress girly all the time but I guess sometimes I really like it. I know I am not a woman but I definitely don't feel like a man … I really like my outfit.”

"I look pretty, smart and modest. I think I want to wear something like this for my shooting," added the 23-year-old, who identified as a transgender woman. "I hate my face. I hate when I can see it. I don't want to be seen.""

I think the word they wanted was transliterated, not translated.  Someone needed to be steered away from this confusion a lot earlier. 

CBS News Analyzes DC Crime Changes

8/27/25 CBS News:

"In the nearly three weeks since President Trump deployed federal troops and law enforcement agents throughout Washington, D.C., a CBS News analysis of crime data shows violent crime is down in Washington by almost half when compared to the same 19 days in 2024.

"The analysis, reviewing every crime incident reported to the District of Columbia's Metropolitan Police Department from Aug. 7 through Aug. 25, also shows violent crime is down in comparison to the five-year average for the same dates... "

I am guessing this must be pretty persuasive evidence for CBS News to admit that Orange Man Bad did something right.

Hotel Esthetics Are Always... Unique

Many years ago, Rhonda and I stayed in a Las Vegas hotel whose walls were all painted black.  She got up in the middle of the night and walked into a wall.

I will have to share the thin oil film carpet pattern in the morning but these designs were startling:

And the bathroom sink made me think egg cup for dinosaur eggs.  Is that a 3 hour soft boiled egg?  Or 3 days?

UPDATE: Rhonda calls this the Exxon Valdez carpet:

This is Becoming a Pattern

8/27/25 NBC News:

"The shooter has been identified as Robin Westman, 23. FBI Director Kash Patel identified them as a male. Documents requesting a name change for Westman say they identify as a female."

Does anyone besides me think there is nothing about a person cannot tell what sex they are perhaps indicates crazy?  Does anyone want to make any wagers on how Robin voted?

Sadly, Not Babylon Bee

3/24/25 Times of London:

"A controversial LGBT youth charity trained volunteers to advise self-harming children to use “clean razor blades” instead of discouraging them from cutting themselves, a whistleblower has claimed.

'LGBT Youth Scotland was reported to the Scottish charity regulator by someone who wanted to become a volunteer but was then given “shocking and callous” instructions around how to deal with young people who were intentionally injuring themselves.

"It is alleged that managers said if a child was hurting themselves as a “coping mechanism”, then it would be wrong to “take that away from them” and instead they were told “we have to ask them if they are using clean razor blades”.

"Whistleblower claims

The volunteer said that when they challenged the policy in October 2023 they were “dismissed” by managers who “didn’t see the issue” and defended self-harm as children “might not have any other ways of coping”."

If this is not the strongest sign that there is something deeply broken in a group reduced to this level of derangement...

I Am Feeling Very Blesed

I am about to go on a short vacation.   Part of what allows back to back vacations is wealth.   Especially if you are under 40, these instructions on becoming wealthy are likely to be helpful.

Amazing Fan Fiction

Perhaps my expectations for fan fiction are too low.  A reader informed me about Star Trek Continues.  It is as if the original series had remained on the air after 1968.  They have the props, the 1960s theme music, the well-intentioned female roles that now seem slightly misogynistic and backward, and actors doing as good a job as the originals.   The Japanese-American from Mythbusters plays Sulu.  James Doohan's son plays Scotty.

The only concessions to the later series, which I hated, is the prototype of the holodeck at the opening of the first episode. 

Why So Many False Mass Shooting Events?

8/25/25 College Fix discusses the sudden burst of false mass shooting reports at universities over a few days.  Commenter over there suggest that seems coordinated.  Why?

Scared college students into fear of mass shootings as a strategy for gun bans.  Make universities see reports skeptically, slowing down response to real incidents.   For whatever reason, whoever is doing it needs severe punishment.   If there is an NGO behind it, destroy it.

Democrats In Full Seppuku Mode

Video of a speaker at a DNC event telling audience not to get trapped discussing crime because "migrant crime and carjackings don't matter to many Americans."

I suspect even most Democrats think carjackings matter.

It Is True: YouTube Has Videos for Everything

A guy picks a random coordinate and drives there.

TurboTax Accuracy Guarantee is Worthless (UPDATE: Refund on the way!)

 Rather than use the TurboTax software in 2022 and 2023, wed hired one of their "experts."  For 2024, we went back to using TurboTax Desktop.  Their "expert" misfiled both years.  We oweed Idaho about $3000 in taxes, interest, and penalties.  

I complained about paying hundreds of dollars to have their "experts" do it wrong and asked them to refund those fees and the interest and penalties.  After several not entirely useful exchanges of emails, they needed to talk to me on the phone.  This should have been a warning.

Their tax expert essentially started listing defects in the return their "experts" screwed up.  Among them was that a PTP (publicly-traded partnership) has income in many states besides Idaho.  I need to file state income tax returns in all 40-something states.  The income in each state is below $400.  It seemed unlikely that these states really cared.  He was insistent that New York and California required a filing even for $1 of income by a nonresident,  So I looked up the New York State webpage on this:

If you are a New York State nonresident you must file Form IT-203, Nonresident and Part-Year Resident Income Tax Return, if you meet any of the following conditions:

• You are a nonresident with New York source income and your New York adjusted gross income Federal amount column (Form IT-203, line 31) exceeds your New York standard deduction.
• You want to claim a refund of any New York State, New York City, or Yonkers income taxes withheld from your pay.
• You want to claim any of the refundable or carryover credits available.
• You had a net operating loss for New York State personal income tax purposes for the tax year, without having a similar net operating loss for federal income tax purposes.

The standard deduction:

2024 standard deductions

Standard deductions

Filing status		Standard deduction amount
①	Single (and can be claimed as a dependent on another taxpayer's federal return)	$3,100
①	Single (and cannot be claimed as a dependent on another taxpayer's federal return)	$8,000
②	Married filing joint return	$16,050
③	Married filing separate return	$8,000
④	Head of household (with qualifying person)	$11,200
⑤	Qualifying surviving spouse	$16,050

When I pointed this out to him, he insisted that he was an expert on this.  Of course, their "experts" have already shown themselves not experts at all.  The goal of this guy was to waste my time and intimidate me into abandoning a claim for less than $1000.

UPDATE: Refund on the way.

Thermocouple Power Generation

One of my biggest concerns about relying on photovoltaic panels as backup power is that the Big Dog of backup power needs involves EMP, which fries electronics real well.  I have found conflicting statements about how vulnerable PV panels are to EMP.  Of course, even if the panels survive, the inverter is not likely to survive.  

I am reading Stern and Grinspoon's Chaoosing New Horizons about the mission to Pluto.  Because I worked on Voyager, I was already familiar with the use of radio isotope thermal generators (PV is a lost cause that far out).  RTGs use radioactive materials to heat a thermocouple producing electricity. 

Thermocouple aren't terribly effective sources of DC current.  They have two advantages:

1. They are not at risk of EMP destruction of chips.

2. They are utterly simple to make.  Two dissimilar metals joined together.  Apply heat at the junction: DC power output.  You still need an inverter but you keep that in a Faraday cage until needed.

.

The output voltage is tiny.  You couple thzijc em together in series to produce a thermopile, analogous to multiple cells summing to a battery.

I have a temptation to use my scrap copper and zinc for experiment. 

Not on my Bingo Card

8/24/25 Guardian:

""Australia’s gun lobby says it’s ‘winning’ the fight against firearm control as numbers surge

There are now more than 4m guns in the community – almost double the number recorded in the years after the Port Arthur massacre that prompted a national crackdown"

Curious Behavior From ChatGPT

I am using ChatGPT to find laws that I have found in the past but neglected to save a link.  What is frustrating is that in many cases I have the title but OCR quality on some scans is not good, so searching for text finds nothing.  In some cases I have partial citations. 

Do I asked ChatGPT to find laws with particular text and it did a good job finding links to the law in the official printed volumes.   I needed to find a 1752 New Jersey law that banned transfers to Indians.  It started showing me volume title and chapter number.  Then it erased the text and told me it could not do that.  

I asked why.  It gave me the absurd answer that this might violate copyright law.  On a volume published in 1752?  I was not asking for text, just a link.   When I asked for racially discriminatory laws in colonial New Jersey, it worked.  I am not sure if they rule is "no guns" or "no racially discriminatory gun laws."  Bizarre 

Retired Missile Silos

I have always thought a retired ICBM silo would make a neat home: quiet, well -insulated, and earthquake-proof. (Oh, and safe from anything but a very near atomic bomb explosion.  Not that most of us worry about that.) This video conveys how much was required to render one useable after the Air Force decommissioned an Atlas base.  It looks profoundly cool.

Alternative Explanations

 8/25/25 Federalist discusses evidence of fraud in both Obamacare programs and Medicaid:

The first data point came via the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which released data from exchange insurers’ risk adjustment submissions. The spreadsheet contains enough numbers to make one’s head spin, but two sets of numbers — lines 4 and 7 of the spreadsheet — stand out. Those two lines show that the percentage of enrollees in Bronze and heavily subsidized Silver plans without claims rose from roughly one-quarter (29 percent and 23 percent, respectively) in 2019 to 40 percent last year.

To some, that change may not seem like a big deal — after all, isn’t it a good thing when people don’t make claims on their health coverage? But it suggests that, after four years of Biden administration policies, a growing number of individuals were being auto-enrolled (and/or automatically reenrolled) into taxpayer-funded “free” health coverage that they did not want, need, or use.

Indeed, the spreadsheet shows that 39% of enrollees made no claims in 2024.  There is another explanation.  The deductibles on these plans are enormous.  The weighted average for 2024 was about $2700.  If you are a typical young person, you might well have such a small need for medical care that you decide to not make a claim unless you expect to meet the deductible; you may also take advantage of lower costs from self-pay.  Indeed, one of the reasons that ACA mandated insurance for all was that young people would not enroll, because of a perceived lack of need.  This would make insurance for older people even more prohibitive than it is.

Another part of the article is more concerning:

According to the auditor’s report, from February 2019 through this March, Louisiana paid at least $9.6 million providing Medicaid coverage to 1,072 beneficiaries after their date of death. Because Louisiana, like most states, runs its Medicaid program through managed care organizations, those insurers get paid per month for every enrollee, whether the enrollee sees the doctor or not. If the state Medicaid agency does not properly report a beneficiary’s death, the insurer will get paid in perpetuity for “covering” that dead enrollee.

That’s exactly what happened in Louisiana. For the cases examined, insurers were paid a median of 418 days — that’s nearly 14 months — after the beneficiary had died. For the 168 deceased beneficiaries the auditor identified via the Social Security Death Master File, insurers had been receiving payments for a median of 799 days — more than two years.

Victory in Tennessee

 Hughes v. Lee (Tenn.Ch. 2025).  (Since I expect to move there next year, this is slightly more interesting._  This is a bit odd.  Chancery courts are an odd medieval leftover.  Most states no longer have chancery courts, having merged them with their regular courts of law.  I am unclear why this is before a chancery court, which normally deals with probate questions.  The question in this case was whether Tennessee law prohibiting carry in parks and another ban on "going armed" in public places violated the Second Amendment.  Do parks qualify as "sensitive places"?

Accordingly, this Court holds that the Going Armed Statute violates the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and therefore also violates Article I, Section 26 of the Tennessee Constitution. With respect to the Going Armed Statute, Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment is hereby GRANTED, and Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment is hereby DENIED....

Accordingly, we conclude the Parks Statute violates the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution and therefore also violates Article I, Section 26 of the Tennessee Constitution. Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment is hereby GRANTED with respect to the Parks Statute, and Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment is consequently DENIED.

I cannot find this decision online yet. Chancery court makes me wonder if some clerk is trying to figure out how to translate it from Norman French. /sarc

 

A Good Tragedy Makes Every Criminal Rich

The COVID-19 panic created all sorts of fraud opportunities.   This 8/22/25 Department of Justice release tells of a guilty plea:

'A California man pleaded guilty yesterday for his role in a scheme to defraud the Small Business Administration (SBA) out of $15.9 million in loans through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) programs."

How many were not caught?

Tariffs and the National Debt

8/22/25 Congressional Budget Office estimates effect of tariff changes:

"We project that increases in tariffs implemented during the period from January 6, 2025, to August 19 will decrease primary deficits (which exclude net outlays for interest) by $3.3 trillion if the higher tariffs persist for the 2025‒2035 period. By reducing the need for federal borrowing, those tariff collections will also reduce federal outlays for interest by an additional $0.7 trillion. As a result, the changes in tariffs will reduce total deficits by $4.0 trillion altogether."

As deficits fall, so will interest rates 

Another Victory

Florida Commissioner of Agriculture v. Attorney General of the United States 11th Cir. 2025)  ruled that someone with a medical marijuana card may not be prohibited from firearms possession.

I am putting together a declaration for a case before the 1st Circuit involving a couple with medical marijuana cards who are being criminally prosecuted for possession of firearms.  

There is no historical tradition of disarming people for addiction or possession of controlled substances in the period before 1868.  Even laws regulating possession of arms while intoxicated do nor appear before 1861.  At least in part to understand this, read Rorabaugh's The Alcoholic Republic.  In addition, there is no shortage of contemporary accounts establishing that "drunken" and "militia muster" are phrases that go together like "biscuits and gravy."

Intoxication and arms go together as well as "Intoxication and power tools" or ladders, cars, and dozens of other items but the historical tradition does not support the government's position.   The combination of ever a user of intoxicants and arms as prohibited is as silly as banning firearms for anyone who has ever drunk beer.  I want to construct a clever variant on, "Lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine," but I am not that clever right now