Am I Missing Something Here?

Or when I read this affadavit by Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard C. Williams do I smell that someone knows that he did something seriously wrong?  It appears that in a criminal case against a gun dealer named Reese remotely involved in Fast & Furious, a Border Patrol agent testified against Reese -- and that the agent was under criminal investigation at the time seems to have slipped everyone's knowledge on the prosecution side.

Here's a bit more from the March 4, 2013 Las Cruces Sun-News:

LAS CRUCES —Weeks after a federal judge reversed their convictions and ordered a new trial, members of a Deming family targeted in a gun smuggling investigation have requested their case be dismissed.

In a motion filed Feb. 20 in U.S. District Court, attorneys for Rick Reese, his wife Terri Reese and their son Ryin Reese asked that the four remaining charges against them be tossed because federal prosecutors failed to disclose information favorable to the Reeses, a family that owned and operated gun stores in Deming and Las Cruces.

Reese family attorneys argue in the motion that the New Mexico U.S. Attorney's Office has shown a "pattern" of "intentional or reckless ignorance of their constitutional obligations" to those accused of crimes.

It appears that the U.S. Attorney responsible for this fiasco wants to be a federal judge -- and with this contempt for law and justice, I can easily see Obama putting him on the bench.

Recommendations on CAD/CAM Open Source Software?

The more I look at the 3D printers, the more it makes sense to invest about the same money in the Sherline CNC vertical mill.  I have read the details of how G-code turns into actions on a CNC mill, but the real solution is one of the programs that lets you layout a part, and then converts it into G-code.  I see many of these available that are open source, for both Linux and Windows, but I would love to hear preferences and recommendations from my readers.

What I don't need is something sophisticated and hard to use.  I will be likely using a CNC mill to perform repetitive motions on an object that is fixed in place, and with a single tool.  (I don't think the Sherline CNC mill gives you the ability to change cutting tools programatically.)  But even this would be a big win: there are some parts that if I could carve them out of a single aluminum block or cylinder, I would, simply because it would be more professional looking and reduce the labor for fasteners.  (And aluminum chips I would recycle.)

Idaho Weapons Laws In Progress

H0192, which provides for issuance of an enhanced carry permit (more hours of instruction, so far more states will recognize it) has passed the House and is now in the State Senate.

H0223, which makes knives up to four inches long legal to carry without a license (along with Tasers, stun guns, and pepper spray) is in the House State Affairs Committee.  I have heard that State Senator Nielsen's son was pulled for a traffic ticket, and was then busted for having a 4" knife under the seat of his car, and that this is the reason for the bill.

H0219, the bill to criminalize efforts to enforce any new gun or magazine prohibitions, is out of the House State Affairs Committee with a "do pass" recommendation.

H0229, which is likely to fail any legal defense we make of it (in spite of being actually correct), declares any firearm or accessory manufactured in Idaho that has not traveled in interstate commerce to be out of federal authority to regulate.  This is also out of the House State Affairs Committee with a "do pass" recommendation.

S1099, is to protect the public health and safety of Idahoans (we're concerned about protecting everyone's hearing), by declaring firearms silencers not subject to federal regulation.  This is currently in the State Senate State Affairs Committee.

Say what you will about Idaho: we are not giving into the storm surge of gun control hysteria.

Another Bill Moving Through the Idaho Legislature

Idaho has a serious shortage of psychiatric beds, but at least our statute with respect to mental illness involuntary commitment isn't absurdly difficult.  Except in one curious area: mental health professionals can make a decision to do an emergency commitment of an adult if they believe that there is an imminent danger, but not a minor!  There is a bill to correct this moving through the legislature now.  From the February 28, 2013 San Francisco Chronicle:

Physicians and nurse practitioners soon may have the authority to order juveniles who are suicidal, severely mentally ill or pose a threat to others into temporary custody at a hospital or some other health care facility.

A bill approved Thursday by the House Health and Welfare Committee sets out to fix a void in Idaho law and streamline a process that now requires law enforcement involvement.

Idaho Medical Association lobbyist Ken McClure said the bill is modeled after existing law that gives doctors permission to hold severely mentally ill or dangerous adults for up to 24 hours. But state statute currently offers nothing specific for detaining with dangerous juveniles, forcing doctors to default to rules requiring consent by law enforcement before juveniles can be placed into short-term custody.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/House-approves-teen-mental-health-custody-bill-4317191.php#ixzz2MchpcrH6

Now, let me emphasize: a judge will still have to approve holding someone (either adult or minor) for more than 24 hours.  But there are times when a decision has to be made quickly, more for the benefit of the minor than for the benefit of the public.

There were some Republicans who voted against this bill, because they wanted parental consent for this.  I can understand their concerns -- they may not realize that there are times when parents would prefer not having a minor with serious problems hospitalized, for fear that the minor may reveal secrets that the parents would prefer be kept secret.

The bill is H0189.

Sounds Like Real Fascism...

Not "that's not progressive enough for us in the mainstream media to promote." The March 3, 2013 American Thinker has a piece about a comedian leading a political party in Italy who now has 24% of the vote:

In the economic crisis of 2013, Beppe Grillo received 24% of the vote (see last week's analysis of Grillo's political beliefs). This week he blocked a government from forming. Grillo now controls the Senate, but he is going for a majority in both houses in the upcoming vote in June....

In Italy Beppe Grillo ran as a sly comedian, spinning off conspiracy theories about 'chemtrails" (jet contrails) that poison the Italian people, the Rockefellers, Rothschilds and Illuminati who run the world to oppress the poor, and all the usual paranoid fantasies. But he also attacked massive corruption (which is true) and self-serving politicians (also true), and the euro currency that killed Italian exports (also true). Grillo voiced criticisms that other politicians avoided. Everybody knows about massive corruption, for example. Grillo said it.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/03/how_euro-socialism_set_off_a_fascist_bomb.html#ixzz2MUdaZC2c
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This article from the February 28, 2013 Algeminer is a bit worrisome:

In the past he has said “all that in Europe we know about Israel and Palestine is filtered by an international agency called MEMRI. And behind MEMRI, there is a former Mossad agent. I have the evidence: Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London, has used Arabic texts with independent translations and he discovered a completely different reality.” Then, according to Meotti, Grillo alluded specifically to a “Jewish conspiracy” and the need to “check” all information on the Middle East.

 The list of insults continues. During one of his shows, Grillo once declared: “There is a saying that ‘where Attila has passed through, no grass will grow.’ We can say ‘where the Israelis have passed, no Palestinian will grow.’”...

 When not launching insults at Israel and Jews, Grillo tends to defend those who do. Of Mel Gibson he has said: “Israel is scary, her behavior is irresponsible.I said it. And I’m not drunk. I’m just scared for my children. Israel is behind the United States or the United States is behind Israel, which is the cause and which the effect?”

It appears that along with blaming the Jews for Italy's problems, Grillo has connections to Iran.  What a surprise!  Astonishingly (or perhaps not) the mainstream media are generally ignoring these little problems.  Simon at Classical Values pointed me to the American Thinker article.

More Evidence That Idiots Have Taken Over Some Public Schools

And I don't mean the students.  From March 1, 2013 WFTX Channel 4 Fort Myers, Florida:

FORT MYERS, Fla. - A 16-year-old Cypress Lake High School student, who wrestled a loaded revolver away from a teen threatening to shoot, is being punished.

The student grappled the gun away from the 15-year-old suspect on the bus ride home Tuesday after witnesses say he aimed the weapon point blank at another student and threatened to shoot him.

The student, who Fox 4 has agreed not to identify because he fears for his safety, says there's "no doubt" he saved a life by disarming the gunman. And for that he was suspended for three days.

It appears that the student was suspended by the principal for being involved in an incident involving a weapon. This actually fits rather well with the progressive notion that everyone is morally equal: the person who uses force to save a life is just as culpable as the person who uses force to take a life; the rapist is no different from the rape victim; the robber is just as much a victim of society as the robbery victim.

Perhaps It Is Time...

I have been intrigued by these 3D printers, and amused to watch them start making not just high capacity magazines, but even an AR-15 lower receiver that held together for more than 600 rounds.  A friend in Nevada tells me that he is beginning to see these receivers, and even complete AR-15s built on them, at gun shows.

My business interest is a bit less scary to the left: instead of making the parts for ScopeRoller that I make now from aluminum, perhaps I could make them out of the ABS plastic as the AR-15 lower receiver?  Instead of the multiple steps that I now use (cutting aluminum tube to size, cutting a piece of acetal, drilling and tapping the acetal piece, drilling holes and putting it all together) I could print a single assembly, then tap the four holes required in each piece?

Advantages include: I can make a part that is exactly what I need (which means a single unit); less waste, because I won't have any scrap left over after manufacturing; far less labor, because I can have the machine make exactly what I need while I am doing other things.

Disadvantages: I suspect that the materials cost will be higher than aluminum (although probably not much higher than the part that I make out of acetal); I need to make a capital investment of about $1600 in such a machine; I have to figure out how to describe the shape of the object in STL format.  I suppose the next step is to find a vendor with one of these machines so that I can see how fast they work, and how solid the ABS output is.

UPDATE: It looks like ABS would not be a good choice, because it is brittle, and tapped holes are not likely to last.  Nylon might be a better choice, but it is somewhat flexible, so I would need to make some of these parts thicker and larger.  And the plastic raw material is expensive -- like $79 per kilogram from one vendor, $54.50 per kilogram from another.  Perhaps I should look at upgrading my vertical mill to CNC instead, and have the robot machine stuff out of a block of aluminum.  That's less capital-intensive than the various 3D printers, and the materials costs are far lower.  There's still the learning curve, however.

Here's a vendor that sells a small 3D printer for $899. It seems to be limited to 120mm x 120mm x 120mm -- just a little small for some of the items that I ship.