Carrying on Public Transit

Certain governments seek to maximize terror and murders. One strategy is to prohibit concealed carry licensees from carrying on public transit systems.  Angelo v. District of Columbia challenged this ban. The district court denied that these licensees had standing to challenge the district's law. The D.C. Court of Appeals reversed that decision:

Otherwise, because the pistol owners have alleged a pocketbook injury that is caused by their compliance with an allegedly unconstitutional criminal statute, we reverse and remand the case for additional proceedings.

Most of this decision is about decisions concerning whether the economic injuries suffered by the ban qualify them to sue. At district court, the plaintiffs also need to raise a Second Amendment challenge. In the Framing Era "sensitive places" did not include either public transit (there was none) or private transit. In various cases in which I have worked, their side has attempted to argue that post-Civil War railroads prohibited private possession of firearms. Their evidence has been either weak or non-existent. Railroads often required long guns to be checked. (People were going west to hunt.)

Memories of Being a Cool Kid

Remember these?

All the cool kids listened to these after 8-track went the way of the buffalo.  There were pre-recorded ones made very cheaply and short-lived. Or if you had the most minimal of technical know-how, you recorded from your turntable onto a cassette tape deck for your car. 

I had one of the highly hyped Pioneer AM/FM/Cassette decks in several of my silly cars as a young adult: 1977 Chevy Nova; 1978 Camaro Z28; 1979 Pontiac Grand Am.

The case was 1970s cool also:

Making a 1970s period piece? Let me know or in the trash it goes.

When They Are Not Banging the Drum for Fascism, The Old Gray Lady Can Do Journalism

 7/8/26 New York Times (behind a paywall; use Open in Private Window):

They told him that he was “the guy.”

Last July, in a small town in coastal Maine, a couple of progressive, self-styled recruiters of economic populists showed up at the blue-shingled house of Graham Platner, a little-known oyster farmer and Marine veteran who lived largely off government benefits.

They knew his name from local labor organizers and activists, and they had watched a video on the internet of him talking about oysters. Struck by his left-leaning ideology, his working-class affect and his gravelly voice, they became convinced that he could win a Senate seat in Maine — and quickly persuaded Mr. Platner of the same.

The initial headhunters, Dan Moraff and Leanne Fan, and then a third out-of-state operative they called up to Maine — Morris Katz — told Mr. Platner he was “the one,” a “hero of the movement,” “a historical figure” who could be “leading a revolution,” according to half a dozen people with knowledge of their conversations.

But a clutch of people who cared about Mr. Platner were telling him something else. They worried about his mental health, amid his ongoing efforts to heal from post-traumatic stress disorder after tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. They feared this trio of out-of-state operatives was a dangerous combination of inexperienced and overconfident. The worst-case scenario, they thought, wasn’t running for Senate and losing — it was destroying the life he worked hard to build.

It is a very detailed, pull-no-punches account of the left picked and then stood by a Nazi-tattooed, misogynist, kinky (discussing how he would rape an intruder in a dominant, "not gay sort of way"), alleged rapist when any rational political party would have backed away and insisted that he was a Republican dirty trick.

Packing Ourselves

Trying to find a company to pack our stuff in a professional manner was too hard. We have enough time to pack ourselves. I have started on the telescopes. The 17.5"v Dobsonian looks impossible but is a half-Serrurier truss design so it can be broken down to four 24x24 boxes.

My wife is helping me get everything bubble wrapped for safe transit.

Arizona Hot Tomorrow

 It will be 113 Thursday. Un like 1994 when Lake Havasu had 128.

Cute

On an SUV:

Emotional Support Vehicle 

Court Grants Cert on Assault Weapons Cases

6/30/26 Guardian:

The US supreme court will consider whether bans on AR-15 rifles and similar semiautomatic firearms are constitutional.

The justices said on Tuesday they will hear appeals challenging bans in Connecticut and the Chicago area in the next term.

There have been enough statements by both pro- and anti-gun justices to expect these laws to collapse.

"We Fought a War for This?"

Our dogs are losing their sanity from the fireworks." In the closing years of the 19th century, cynics begin to make fun of the solemn speeches associated with the Fourth. I would like more of that and less of this.

Watching John Adams With My Wife

Really well done. Yes, I have to make little corrections because I have read Adams' defense of the Boston Massacre soldiers and see how the screenplay oversimplified it and left out the RKBA lines, but hey, being married to an historian is hard.

Moving is So Much Fun

We were going to use UPack to get our stuff cross-country.  We are not inclined to pack and load ourselves but UPack has an affiliated business that provides local pack and load services. 

I made a reservation with them. They do not bring or supply boxes, tape, or moving blankets to protect your furniture. So how many boxes will I need? I really do not want to buy 100 boxes and they only use 80. This is not something that I would expect professional movers to do, and yet this is a local moving company. 

SuperGrok thinks the full service movers can do it for about $15,000 (no appliances, 300 pound gun safe, not heavy but oddly shaped telescopes). I am getting estimates this next week. If it comes into that price range, it is only a few thousand more than UPack and whatever the local pack and load service would cost. 

Frustrations

The initial burst of showings of our Caldwell house had trickled down. I hope this is because of 4th of July.

That the first offer fell through because they were not really looking to buy a house was odd, but several realtors now have told of people who finally admitted (in one case after wasting 18 months of her time) that they could not buy a home. They just liked shopping.

Record Heat!

 Actually, no. This is the data on record high temperatures by state and in which year. I am trying to do what should be simple: plot a map showing year and maximum temperature by state. It is harder than it looks. Can any of you tell me how to do this?

State,Record High (°F),Year,Date,Location

Alabama,112,1925,"September 6, 1925",Centreville

Alaska,100,1915,"June 27, 1915",Fort Yukon

Arizona,128,1994,"June 29, 1994",Lake Havasu City

Arkansas,120,1936,"August 10, 1936",Ozark

California,134,1913,"July 10, 1913",Greenland Ranch (Death Valley)

Colorado,115,2019,"July 20, 2019",John Martin Reservoir

Connecticut,106,1995,"July 15, 1995",Danbury

Delaware,110,1930,"July 21, 1930",Millsboro

District of Columbia,106,1930,"July 20, 1930",Washington

Florida,109,1931,"June 29, 1931",Monticello

Georgia,112,1983,"August 20, 1983",Greenville

Hawaii,100,1931,"April 27, 1931",Pahala

Idaho,118,1934,"July 28, 1934",Orofino

Illinois,117,1954,"July 14, 1954",East Saint Louis

Indiana,116,1936,"July 14, 1936",Collegeville

Iowa,118,1934,"July 20, 1934",Keokuk

Kansas,121,1936,"July 24, 1936",Alton

Kentucky,116,1930,"July 28, 1930",Louisville

Louisiana,114,1936,"August 10, 1936",Plain Dealing

Maine,105,1911,"July 10, 1911",North Bridgton

Maryland,109,1988,"June 21, 1988",Conowingo Dam & Darlington

Massachusetts,107,1975,"August 2, 1975",New Bedford

Michigan,112,1936,"July 13, 1936",Mio

Minnesota,115,1917,"July 29, 1917",Beardsley

Mississippi,115,1930,"July 29, 1930",Holly Springs

Missouri,118,1954,"July 14, 1954",Warsaw

Montana,117,1937,"July 5, 1937",Medicine Lake

Nebraska,118,1936,"July 24, 1936",Minden

Nevada,125,1994,"June 29, 1994",Laughlin

New Hampshire,106,1911,"July 4, 1911",Nashua

New Jersey,110,1936,"July 10, 1936",Runyon

New Mexico,122,1994,"June 27, 1994",Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

New York,108,1926,"July 22, 1926",Troy

North Carolina,110,1983,"August 21, 1983",Fayetteville

North Dakota,121,1936,"July 6, 1936",Steele

Ohio,113,1934,"July 21, 1934",Gallipolis

Oklahoma,120,1994,"June 27, 1994",Tipton

Oregon,119,2021,"June 29, 2021",Pelton Dam

Pennsylvania,111,1936,"July 10, 1936",Phoenixville

Rhode Island,104,1975,"August 2, 1975",Providence

South Carolina,113,2012,"June 29, 2012",Columbia

South Dakota,120,2006,"July 15, 2006",Fort Pierre

Tennessee,113,1930,"August 9, 1930",Perryville

Texas,120,1994,"June 28, 1994",Monahans

Utah,117,2021,"July 10, 2021",St. George

Vermont,105,1911,"July 4, 1911",Vernon

Virginia,110,1954,"July 15, 1954",Balcony Falls

Washington,120,2021,"June 29, 2021",Hanford Site

West Virginia,112,1936,"July 10, 1936",Martinsburg

Wisconsin,114,1936,"July 13, 1936",Wisconsin Dells

Wyoming,115,1988,"July 15, 1988",Diversion Dam

Germany: Mass Murder

 6/29/26 DW:

A shooting in the northern German city of Stade left several people dead on Monday, according to local police.

Police initially reported a death toll of five adults, but later on Monday said it has risen to six. Five people died at the scene, while the sixth died in the hospital due to injuries sustained during the shooting, police said in a statement.

.

Balancing Checkbooks

After my stroke in 2014, I was in the hospital for three months, so I was not balancing the checkbook. My wife took over that disagreeable task. I just focus on large scale finance now.

Those of you too young to remember dial phones, or even corded phones, may not know what a pain balancing checkbooks was. You had no way to go online and see which checks had recently cleared. You got a monthly statement showing which checks had cleared as of several week ago, and which deposits you had made. Then you marked in your checkbook register which checks and deposits were on the statement. Then take the balance from the statement, add any deposits not yet cleared, subtract outstanding checks and see if you were lucky enough to have it match what your register claimed.  If not, check every arithmetic operstion in the register, verify that you recorded the amounts correctly, and you did not fsil to record a check.  If the register went from check 2948 to check 2950, hmmm...

This was before ATMs and similar paperless transactions. You have no idea how impressed a young lady in my car was about 1978 when I said, "Let me get some cash out of the bank," at 7:30 PM. 

Yea, a rare date.  I was adequately good looking, well-paid and too polite (or clueless) to recognize an opportunity.  I had a young lady out to dinner. She invited me to her place where she changed into "something more comfortable" a not very sexy nightgown.  She had me lay down on her waterbed to see what it was like and she hovered over me and in retrospect waited for me to take the hint. 

I was not a bad boy who mistreated women by treating them as casual sex objects, so I was pretty much free of second dates until I met my wife at a Bible study 

A girlfriend (yes, mentally ill, hence a second date, the result of a double blind date: blind date arranged by a blind girl).  She had a checking account that always had overdrafts and not for the reason satirized in a bumper sticker of the time: "I can't be overdrawn.  I still have checks left." Many (most? all?) checking accounts of the time charged a per check transaction fee. Hers was $0.35 per check.  She did not know this. 

Once enough of the charges accumulated to take her to 0, every check, no matter how small, caused another overdraft. Once I explained this mystery, her problems, at least her accounting problems, were solved. 

So, how do young people balance checkbooks? (My son does not even have a checking account; possession of a checking account used to be a sign of adulthood.) Nothing like the old days I am sure. My wife balances the old-fashioned zway with the advantage that she can see which checks have recently cleared rather than rely on a three week old statement. It strikes me that there must be a way to do this that is less cumbersome.

I envision what I call the top-off method for very rich people.  You put $100,000 in checking; when your current balance gets below $20,000 you transfer money to get it back to $100,000. 

Advantage: no need to balance checkbook or keep a register. Disadvantages: you have no idea if someone has figured out how to loot your account except regularly reading the transaction history; the difference in interest rate on checking and your investments means you are forgoing some income. But once you have 3-4 million dollars, the difference is less than $50,000 per month.

Can anyone think of a more clever name than top-off checking?

Not Like He Did Something Bad

7/1/26 BBC News:

 Government ministers have said officials are "exploring every option" to have the leader of a Rochdale grooming gang deported.

Shabir Ahmed was jailed for 22 years in August 2012, but his victims were this week told he was set to be released from prison on licence today.

They were also informed, despite earlier promises, that a 55-year-old law barred the government from deporting him.

The good news is that this guy is such an embarrassment to the groomer gang/Islamophile Industrial Complex that he needs to go, and Parliament is looking for some way to do so. 

Remember What Party Hates Trump More Than Child Rapers

7/2/26 Daily Mail:

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has pardoned an illegal immigrant who was convicted of raping a ten-year-old child to stop him from being deported. 

The Democrat was part of a three-person panel that granted clemency to Tou Lue Vang, 42, who was set to be sent back to Laos due to his horrific child sex crimes. 

Vang admitted to repeatedly sexually abusing the child for four years when he pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct in 2006, and at the time he justified his actions by claiming it is a 'cultural thing' to 'marry and have sex with girls as young as 12.' 

His plea deal allowed him to avoid jail time but face deportation, a fate he has now been spared by Walz and the other two members of the panel, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Minnesota's Chief Supreme Court Justice, Natalie Hudson.

This is the party that with no evidence claims Trump is a pedophile but helps keep a guy who makes excuses for raping a 10-year-old in the U.S  You also notice that justifying raping a child got him no jail time in 2006.

Our Caldwell House is Under Contract

Our realtor managed to sell our daughter's house in six days and our house in six days, and on the seventh day, Danielle rested. 

UPDATE: The buyers withdrew. Apparently this is a recurring pattern. There is a period of time after signing contract to put down earnest money and they reached that point. A couple realtors that I know have a problem with people who spend lots of time looking at houses they have either ability or interest buying because it is so much fun! Shopping for houses for me is better than filling a cavity but not by much 

House Hunting

The first day was a mixture of houses that were sad (enough unrepaired water damage to show that someone had stopped repairing the obvious problems; to make you wonder about the subtle problems) or reminders that a 1960s houae needs renovation of fixtures to not look like it is looking for a place in James Lilek's Interior Desecrations.

 Some houses were beautiful but failed to meet our needs: 2 car garage with no way to easily build a detached garage (for shop and telescope storage) slopes so severe that building a dog run would be hard. Houses with pools and no other yard.

My First Thought Was: Wiccan Store?

After analysis, this is even more disturbing. 

That seems to be a demonic hot dog.

Someone Had Way Too Much Fun Writing This Label

Reparations

6/29/26 Tilting at Windmills discusses the current demands by Africa for slave reparations from Europe and America. The transatlantic slave trade is "the greatest crime against humanity" unlike the longer and larger transondian slave trade.

As most of you know, slaves were usually sold by Africans to Arabs and Europeans. This had severe bad effects on Africa. Largely agricultural societies were militarized to take prisoners of war for sale.  Much of this wealth was spent on repeating the process and buying alcohol, tools, and cloth. At the end, African slave traders exported several generations of workers in prime working years and failed to sensibly invest the capital. 

In England, some of the wealth from the slave trade was sensibly invested. Thomas Sowell says the role this had in capitalizing the Indistrial Revolution had been greatly exaggerated.  Over the years, I have seen many docum5 about Georgian building by slave owners that absurd vanity project:  capital wasted. It made England no better off.

In America, much of the wealth was sensibly invested. Lots of that invested capital was destroyed during the Civil War. Is that unfortunate? Yes but that wealth that Africa wants is just as gone as that which the slave traders wasted.

Stop whining and ask why a continent awash in natural resources remains poor today.

I Promise to Get Back to Current Events and History Soon (Fireflies As Light Pollution)

This relocation is just burning up all my time and energy. We have an offer on the house in Idaho. While not as much as we had originally hoped, it is sufficient to pay for the Tennessee house, the staircase rebuilds, adding a small staircase for the dogs from back porch to back yard, and a split A/C for the shop.

We drove up there last night about 11 PM to do s sky survey. Adding to the difficulty was a Full Moon and some high cirrys clouds. While not as dark as the house we had in Horseshoe Bend, it is better than what i have now. Beta and Gamma Lyrae, both magnitude 3 5 stars, were easy to see and Delta Lyrae, magnitude 4, was visible with averted vision. Polsris, magnitude 2, of course was plainly visible. I expect without the planet's most annoying nightlight I will see magnitude 4 and 5 stars easily. 

There are streetlights in the area but they are at least 100 feet below us and hidden by our front forest. The biggest light pollution problem seems to be fireflies. This is somewhat magical to us, still.