Palisades Fire Starter?

10/8/25 CNN:

"Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, is facing a federal charge of destruction of property by means of fire in connection with the Palisades Fire, according to Bill Essayli, the acting US attorney for Southern California.

"The suspect, who used to work as an Uber driver and lived in the Pacific Palisades at the time, did not enter a plea at a federal court appearance on Wednesday in Orlando.

"Authorities painted a picture of a man singularly focused on a city going up in flames at a news conference Wednesday, saying the suspect repeatedly watched a rap video that included “objects being lit on fire” in the days before allegedly setting the fire.

"The suspect also allegedly prompted ChatGPT to generate a “dystopian painting showing in part a burning forest and a crowd fleeing from it,” in the months before the fire started, Essayli said."

It would be tempting to blame social media or rap.  AI use is more symptom I think of an underlying pyromania.

The appropriate answer, of course, is match control. "If it saves one life..."

End Mills Without a Flat Spot Solved

 The 1/8" end mills seem to lack a flat spot.  On the shank of end mills there is usually a flat spot so that the set screw that holds the end mill in its holder can gets a solid purchase.  I have been struggling with the set screws failing to hold down on the perfectly round and very smooth shanks.  As feed rates increased, vibration was loosening the end mills.

 After reading discussions on this online, I used my grinder to cut a little notch in an appropriate place on the shank.  It seems to have solved that problem.

At Least He Admits It Was a Mistake

 Progressives love "harm reduction" which usually means "We will not prohibit drug abuse."  10/7/25 National Post:

Barely a year after B.C. Premier David Eby was still fiercely defending drug decriminalization as a critical means to save lives, he told a Vancouver crowd last week that the endeavour was a mistake.

“I was wrong … it was not the right policy,” Eby told a luncheon organized by the Urban Development Institute.

Following Eby’s swearing-in as premier in November 2022, one of his first major acts was to oversee the province’s decriminalization of personal-use possession of illicit drugs.
Starting on Jan. 31, 2023, drug users in B.C. no longer faced arrest or criminal consequences if they were carrying less than 2.5 grams of heroin, fentanyl, meth or any of the other illicit drugs covered by the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
Police were not even allowed to seize the drugs of anybody injecting or smoking illicit drugs in a public place. Rather, law enforcement was to present them with “available health and social supports, as well as local treatment and recovery options.”

At the time, Eby’s government framed the measure as a means to remove the “shame and stigma” of drug use, and encourage users to consume drugs in communal or public areas where overdoses could be more easily attended to. “Given the increasingly toxic drug supply — using alone can be fatal,” Jennifer Whiteside, the province’s minister of mental health and addictions, said in a statement at the time. 

How Sad That Most Who See This Will Never Know Who is in the Picture

 Greta Thunberg is using a picture of a starving Palestinian to make the case for Palestine.  The picture is of Evyatar David, a hostage held by Hamas.  You can see the picture and his identification at 8/4/25 BBC.  It isn't like legacy media will expose Greta Thunberg's dishonesty.

Fort Sumter is Coming, I Fear

10/6/25 Chicago Mayor press release:

"CHICAGO – Today, Mayor Brandon Johnson signed the “ICE Free Zone” executive order, which creates clear mechanisms to prohibit federal immigration agents from using any City-owned property in their ongoing operations in Chicago. The order expands upon Mayor Johnson’s Protecting Chicago initiative, inviting local businesses and community organizations to join the citywide effort to safeguard our communities, while advancing measures to rein in the reckless behavior of federal immigration agents.   

“We will not tolerate ICE agents violating our residents’ constitutional rights nor will we allow the federal government to disregard our local authority. ICE agents are detaining elected officials, tear-gassing protestors, children, and Chicago police officers, and abusing Chicago residents. We will not stand for that in our city,” said Mayor Brandon Johnson. “With this Executive Order, Chicago stands firm in protecting the Constitutional rights of our residents and immigrant communities and upholding our democracy.”"

We have been through this before.   Local Democratic government decides that their authority exceeds the national government: Fort Sumter, segregation of public schools, segregation of public accommodations. They should consider how that worked out last time. I see no way this can survive any court challenges. 

There is already a problem with local police refusing to enforce local laws against insurrectionists.  From the Federalist:

"An angry crowd gathered around ICE agents and instead of offering back up assistance, Chicago Police offers on the scene left, according to DHS, and those on the way were instructed to stage blocks away, leaving ICE on its own, according to reporting from FOX News."

What Sort of People Support Gun Bans?

 10/6/25 Fox News:

A Democratic candidate, who is in hot water over texts revealing his desire to shoot a GOP lawmaker, previously received the endorsement and a hefty donation from one of the most prominent gun control groups in the country. 

Virginia attorney general candidate Jay Jones, running alongside gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger, received $200,000 from Everytown for Gun Safety in August, campaign finance records reviewed by Fox News Digital show.

Jones has been facing calls to drop out of the race after a National Review report exposed text messages in 2022 where Jones compared one of his Republican colleagues, former Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert, to Hitler and Pol Pot and said that if he was given two bullets, he would use both against the GOP lawmaker.

Over the years, I have noticed an interesting feature (or is it a bug?) of gun control activists: a lack of personal self-control that they project on to others.  There was a DC gun ban activist who police arrested in possession of a MAC-10 that they believed she intended to use on the criminal accused of killing her son.  There was a New Jersey gun banner who claimed he supported restrictive gun laws because his brother was killed with a gun.  (Deeper examination found the brother was shot to death by New Jersey police after a traffic stop.)

Mayors Against Illegal Guns has a long history of members being arrested or convicted of felonies including, "false imprisonment, unlawful restraint, reckless endangerment, serving alcohol to a minor and other crimes, and he also allegedly used more than one gun in this incident, in which at least one shot was fired."

Projection is a fundamental characteristic of progressive politics.

Car Manuals

 Oddly enough, the interior lights in my wife's Hyundai Tucson do not come on automatically when opening any of the doors.  This is odd.  At one time, police cars did this same thing to prevent the lighting from outlining an officer to a criminal as they were getting out of the car at night.

The manual showed an icon for a switch that controls this feature.  But it did not identify where this switch was located.  A Hyundai video showed me where this switch was located in the overhead lighting panel.