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Clayton Cramer's BLOG |
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Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page). Relocating to Boise? Use my realtor, neighbor, and friend, Cindy Smith csmith@1realtyone.com.
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Saturday, June 17, 2006
Gang Milling No, that's not what happens when gang members wander around in a confused manner. I was making up some prototypes for a caster set for a manufacturer (I'm about to hit the big time with ScopeRoller, I think), and I suddenly realized that there was a solution to a problem staring me in the face. I wanted to make several rectangles of Delrin that were dimensionally identical--and I wanted to do it pretty quickly. Yes, a vertical mill makes it possible to exactly reproduce dimensions, but you have to work it a bit, checking dimensions each time you put in a piece to mill. In this case, the pieces are 1/2" thick, and my mill vise will handle up to a 2" thick item, so I just put three pieces in the vise at a time--and milled them all at once. By running the fly cutter across all three pieces at once, I cut them all to exactly the same height. It isn't quite as quick as doing just one piece, because the center workpiece isn't clamped quite as tightly as the two directly facing the vise faces, and so there's a tendency for the center workpiece to move a bit. It is still faster than cutting each piece individually. I also spent part of the day making a prototype for the Celestron CPC-800 mount for a customer in Utah. Unfortunately, the leg inserts are 1.30" diameter--and I didn't have any stock that small. I did have some parts in the scrap bin that were about 2.35" diameter, and I thought that I could just turn those scrap parts down. It is amazing how slow a process this is--slow enough that I now wonder if I might have done better to wait until Monday, and order up some 1.5" UHMW for this. Words We Can't Say Anymore Professor Volokh blogs about Governor Ehrlich of Maryland who fired an appointee to the Metro transit board for calling gay people "sexual deviants." I presume that Professor Volokh is right to say that there is no constitutional issue here--the governor may fire appointees for saying almost anything. What's interesting is that the phrase "sexual deviant" was, when I was young, the Politically Correct, non-judgemental alternative to the term "pervert." "Perversion" implied that someone wasn't just different, but sick. "Deviant" simply means out of the mainstream. Or is not okay anymore to admit that homosexuals are (in the strict denotative sense) "not normal"? House Project: Back In The Tank! Okay, I mentioned a few days ago that we had engaged in algae genocide using lots of bleach--and it worked. But then, during a very heavy rainstorm a couple of days later, the water suddenly turned brown! Huh? So I went up to the water tank, and I found myself wondering if the lid wasn't properly tightened on it, and perhaps some water had sneaked in under the lid. This is worrisome, not only because the color is unappetizing, but also because cattle have grazed on this hillside in the last couple of years, and who knows what charming bacteria might be sneaking in with the color. So we decided it was time to make another expedition into the water tank. In the meantime, I mentioned my concerns to the builder, who just casually mentioned, "You know, the gasket for the water tank lid is hanging in the garage." Sure enough, this is a big chunk of rubber tubing that is supposed to make a really tight seal. Why didn't the builder put in place six months ago? I wonder how much of our dirty water problem was related to this? One more reminder that our builder got a big chunk of money for doing a haphazard job--and dropping the ball on important stuff. So, yesterday about noon, we started draining the water tank. I couldn't quite remember how we did it last time, but this time, I started draining the frost-free faucet (which is a direct gravity feed from the tank). When it stopped draining, I expected to just siphon the remaining water out of the tank with a garden hose, like we did last time. We could not get the siphon going. After a lot of suffering, I concluded that the problem was that last time, we started the siphon with a full tank of water. So we refilled the water tank (which only took about 45 minutes to move hundreds of gallons from the well), and tried again! Success! The siphon, plus running all the faucets in the house, emptied it down to a few inches of muddy water at the bottom of the tank. Down again I went into the tank, using a couple of buckets to get it empty enough for the shopvac to not be a modern analogy to emptying the ocean with a eyedropper. The shopvac did a decent job of pulling up mud and silt--and there was a lot of it. I'm glad to report that there was no algae, however. Rather than use bleach in a spray bottle (several thoughtful readers thought that might be a bit too hazardous in a confined space), I used Clorox disinfectant wipes--and discovered that they weren't so useful. The last thing I needed was more liquid. Regular paper towels did a nice job of cleaning the tank to a smooth shiny white surface. Unlike algae, mud wipes up well. After exiting the tank, we poured in two bottles of bleach (perhaps three gallons total), wiped down the lid and the gasket with bleach, and then refilled the tank. There was still a bit of brown to the water for the first few hours, but it all seems to have worked its way out. Having the gasket in place when putting the lid back on the tank made quite a difference. I now have confidence that nothing is going to get back in around that lid. I had mentioned to my builder that I was planning to write a book about this experience. "Just don't mention my name." I'm glad that he is aware that wouldn't want his name mentioned. I just wish it provoked him to do his job a bit better. Last house project entry. Labels: house project Friday, June 16, 2006
Do I Believe This Tale of New York City? WARNING: Slightly vulgar in a couple of places. If you don't find Saturday Night Live offensive, or think South Park is just fine, then this won't bother you. Not really, but a friend relayed it too me, and it's just too funny not to pass on: A friend of a friend lives in NYC and participates in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism). He's stereotypical Viking, 6'7" tall, LONG blonde hair, about 350 - 400 lbs of solid muscle, and looks every bit of it. Bizarre Turnabout Alphecca blogs about the rather interesting gifts that President Bush has received from foreign heads of state: Perhaps in a martial mood, Jordanian King Abdullah II gave Bush 11 collectible handguns worth a total of 12,000 dollars as well as a black Dakota Arms sniper's rifle with scope worth 10,000 dollars.Nothing terribly surprising--but I enjoyed quite a laugh from one of the comments on Alphecca's discussion: A sniper rifle? Well, that's a switch: a President sitting on the Grassy Knoll, lying in wait for moody loners... Beauty & Politics: Your Chance To Participate Niclas Berggren, Professor of Economics at the Ratio Institute in Stockholm, Dr. Henrik Jordahl (Uppsala University) and Professor Panu Poutvaara (University of Helsinki), are looking for people to take an online survey as part of a study. Several studies document that beauty plays a role in the labor market: beautiful people earn more than others. Three economists are conducting a study to see whether there is a beauty premium in politics as well, such that beautiful candidates have greater electoral success.You can participate--and be entered in a lottery for 100 Euros--by clicking here. At one point, there's a chance to identify where you heard about the survey. "Please write CRAMER when asked about where you heard about the study." Thursday, June 15, 2006
House Project: Aren't Towel Racks Normally Screwed Into Studs? My daughter is visiting, grabbed the towel, and pulled the towel rack right out of the wall. She's not exactly a female version of Governor Schwarzenegger. It appears that the towel rack is mounted to the drywall using a rather large type of plastic screw. I'm very disappointed, and I've emailed that disappointment to the builder. Last house project entry. Labels: house project A Gruesome Post-Accident Discovery We don't have a high murder rate here, but as I mentioned with the scalping incident last year, when we do have a serious violent crime, it is often quite shocking: A Nampa man told police at the scene of an accident on Franklin Road in Boise, which killed a woman and her child this morning, that he was involved in a homicide in Nampa earlier.And this, sadly, is no surprise at all: Records show Time married Theresa Zing in December 2005. The house on Lotus Ponds Court in Nampa is registered in both of their names. I Couldn't Make This One Up It wouldn't be believable as fiction, because it would require a society whose criminal justice system has just given up on violent crimes. As my friend Dave Hardy points out, Britain has recently made commercial burglary, as well as "arson through vandalism to sex with underage girls," into non-arrestable offenses--but this pair are getting prison time for possession of ammunition: A mother-of-one has been jailed after a stash of ammunition was uncovered in her home during a police raid.Now, I presume that the search warrant came about because of some belief that there was a gun associated with someone involved. It might well be that Ramell Jones is a bad guy, and that this pair was helping Jones by storing ammunition in preparation for some criminal actions. But they won't even arrest people for arson, and yet this deserves prison time? Al-Qaeda Recognizes It Is Losing Iraq? There's some question about exactly when these documents were recovered--before al-Zarqawi's death or as a result of it, but assuming that this is an accurate picture of al-Qaeda in Iraq's thinking, this is good news--and reminder of how hard the left is working to make sure al-Qaeda wins there: BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A blueprint for trying to start a war between the United States and Iran was among a "huge treasure" of documents found in the hideout of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraqi officials said Thursday. The document, purporting to reflect al-Qaida policy and its cooperation with groups loyal to ousted President Saddam Hussein, also appear to show that the insurgency in Iraq was weakening. Wednesday, June 14, 2006
House Project: Jetted Tub Problem Was Just a Matter of Instructions I mentioned a few days ago that some of the jets on the jetted tub weren't working. After a bit of discussion, the problem turned out to be that while the little dials around the top of the tub control the total flow of water through these jets, pushing in on the jets turns off the flow completely, and pulling out on them turns on the flow. This is a binary decision: flow, or no flow. This also explains why one of the jets that had been working, stopped working--presumably because I ran into it, and pushed it in. Anyway, I happy to report that everything is working. My wife, who at first thought this was something of an extravagance, reports that the jets do wonders for her aching hip muscles. Men: be glad that you don't have babies. Last house project entry. Labels: house project Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Ways To Drive Your Cat Crazy I'm working from home today, and I have been getting quite a laugh watching my cat. I've mentioned previously how he responds to seeing birds flying around the back yard of the old house. But here, he has huge sliding glass windows to sit in front of--while ground dwelling birds such as quail walk around less than thirty feet away. Oh, the inhumanity of it all! Inspiring D-Day Story Okay, it's a little late, but I'm slow working through my emails: Because of my own family history, I have always felt that D-Day was a great day to honor the spirit and tenacity of the people of Great Britain, as well as the courage and determination of the multinational invasion forces. The citizens of England, Scotland and Wales had endured over five years of hunger, hardship, and psychological and physical warfare leading up to D-Day. Their cities, towns, and factories were being bombed and rocketed on a daily basis, the men between the ages of 16 and 50 were fighting across the seas and around the world, and women, older folks, and boys and girls were pressed into service day and night to keep the allied war machine running and their island nation from a Nazi invasion. The Amway of Bile Over at Maggie's Farm, there's an amusing description of Daily Kos, which is the most popular political blog. I don't quite buy the analogy to Multilevel Marketing, but the description of Daily Kos's political philosophy is spot on: For those of you lucky enough not to know what the dailykos is, it's the exemplar of a stripe of endless vitriol masquerading as political action that infests the blogosphere at the far left hand margin of the internet world. What do they think? Democrats are too Republican for them, is the short answer, if there is an answer; their message generally is encapsulated by Brando's dopey answer to "What are you rebelling against?" in The Wild One. "Whaddya got?" asked Brando in return, never answering the question, but nonetheless saying a lot.If you think this is an unfair description--think about it. For six years now, this form of rabid leftism has been telling us that President Bush is too stupid to be President--and yet his handlers are so insanely clever that the Democrats can't defeat him. Huh? Latest Knuckle Dragging Yahoo To Claim Science Shows God's Handiwork The director of the National Human Genome Research Institute: THE scientist who led the team that cracked the human genome is to publish a book explaining why he now believes in the existence of God and is convinced that miracles are real. Court Throws Out San Francisco Handgun Ban I've written before about this absurdly written handgun ban--which also bans all sales of ammunition and long guns in the city, and also here. The good news is that a judge has correctly recognized that the law is contrary to state law: PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- An initiative that San Francisco voters approved last November banning residents from owning handguns violated state law, a Superior Court judge ruled today.Fine so far--but this next part just makes me laugh: If the city were allowed to ban handguns within its borders, he said, nearby counties could be flooded by handguns no longer allowed in San Francisco. Such a possibility illustrates the need for gun ownership to be regulated on a state level, Warren said.Uh, no. The 1982 decision wasn't concerned about San Francisco's refugee handguns flooding adjacent counties. The state legislature passed a law that limits the authority of local governments to regulate gun ownership as a way of preventing local governments from disarming law-abiding adults. You know the phrase, "Success has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan"? I received emails about this victory from both Second Amendment Foundation and the Golden Gate NRA Members Council with the subject lines: "SAF Wins San Francisco Lawsuit" and "NRA WINS SAN FRANCISCO LAWSUIT." Hey, it's still a victory. Labels: gun rights House Project: The Washing Machine's Problem I had mentioned previously that the washing machine was trying to move north to Canada. GE's warranty guy came out this morning, and discovered that when the builder installed the washing machine, he neglected to remove the shipping rods and a big chunk of Styrofoam that protect the machine from damage in shipping. The shipping rods prevent the drum from moving up and down on its suspension, thus transferring vibration from the drum to the frame, and then to the floor--hence the walking. There was no damage caused to the washing machine by this failure to properly install it, but it is rather frustrating to see such a minor detail missed. Last house project entry. Labels: house project Monday, June 12, 2006
House Project: Fun With Bleach I have mentioned previously that the water tank wasn't properly cleaned before putting it into service, and after removing gobs of mud and a bit of algae, the water looked much better. At the time, I ran out of paper towels while cleaning the interior of the tank, so the last 1/4 of the tank still had a slight greenish tinge to the walls--but I thought, "Good enough." Well, no. The water was beginning to get a little green again--enough so that my wife wasn't keen on using the bathtub. Looking in the water tank was grim. So after leaving a whining message for my builder, I searched the web and found out that the correct solution to algae is bleach--about 1/6 of an cup for every ten gallons of water (at the Clorox standard of 5.25% sodium hypochlorite). Well, this worked. We found an industrial strength version of Clorox at Lowe's (but not at Home Depot), and we poured in about 15 gallons of the stuff. Then, on Sunday afternoon, we started emptying the tank through the frost-free spigot, to avoid unnecessarily running dead algae through the filters. (The frost-free spigot feeds directly from the water tank, gravity fed, and no filtration.) By the time we came back a few hours later, the combination of genocide against algae and draining the water tank had substantially cleared up the water coming out of the taps. Of course, it now smelled strongly of bleach, so we just kept draining. By Monday evening, the water from the taps smells fine. It still isn't quite as clear as I would like--and a little green frog jumped into the water tank before I started pouring the Clorox in-- but I think the solution is to repeat the cleaning operation--and not run out of paper towels this time. I believe the solution is Saturday morning: 1. Drain the water tank. 2. A few hours later, climb inside and vacuum it out. 3. Spray the interior with Clorox. 4. Wipe down the interior with paper towels. 5. Refill the tank. Last house project entry. Labels: house project The Da Vinci Code Some remarks of mine from a recent event at Cloverdale Church of God: Back when I was working on my master’s degree in history, I would occasionally run into people who would start gushing about how much they loved history—and fairly often, I would discover that they love reading historical fiction. If a novelist is careful in researching the history that they are using as the backdrop for a novel, I don’t have any complaints. Historical fiction can make history more interesting and accessible to the masses—and that’s a good thing. How Hated Are You? While wandering around the FBI's web site, I ran into the 2004 Hate Crimes report--one that a Democratic Congress mandated some years ago, presumably because they wanted to document all the crimes committed against blacks, women, and homosexuals because of the fierce prejudice that Republicans (who are all straight white males--you knew that) hold. Well, it's an interesting report: Law enforcement agencies reported 4,863 offenses within single-bias incidents that were motivated by the offender’s racial bias. Among those offenses, 67.5 percent resulted from an anti-black bias, and 20.5 percent were due to an anti-white bias.At first glance, the high number of crimes that "resulted from an anti-black bias" suggests that racism against blacks is a bigger problem than racism against whites. But spend a little time thinking about these numbers. In 2004, blacks were 12.8% of the population; whites were 80.4% of the population. Unless some of these hate crimes against blacks were being done by blacks (which seems rather unlikely), this means that the hate criminals came from the 87.2% of the population that are non-black, and these hate criminals committed the 67.5% of the racially based bias crimes that were designated as anti-black. Similarly, the white haters must have come from the 19.6% of the population that are non-white Americans, and these criminals committed the 20.5% of the anti-white racial bias crimes. Non-whites are thus more likely to commit anti-white crimes than non-blacks are to likely to commit anti-black crimes. This suggests that anti-white hate crimes are disproportionately present. Not quite what you were expecting, is it? Let's define a ratio of "potential sources of hate crimes" to "percentages of hate crimes" and you get what I call the "How Hated Are You?" Ratio. Divide 67.5% by 87.2%, and you discover that blacks are the victims of racial bias crimes only 77.4% of the amount that you would expect if racial hate crimes was evenly distributed. On the other hand, 20.5% divided by 19.6% gives 105%--whites are slightly more likely to be victims of a racially based hate crime than you would expect for their numbers. In short, the HHAY percentage, if it is below 100, indicates that you are victims of a hate crime less than you might expect, relative to the percentage of the population that isn't a member of your group. If your group's HHAY percentage is above 100, then your group is receiving more hate crimes than you would expect. Now, I recognize that these numbers aren't perfect. They measure, for example, crimes committed because of perceived membership in a group. If a straight guy has too much fashion sense, or has effeminate mannerisms, he may well be the victim of an anti-homosexual bias crime because an attacker has misread his orientation. This is true for other group memberships as well. I was quite startled some years to be standing in a hotel lobby in Spanish Fork, Utah, all dressed up for a job interview--and an elderly woman with a quite noticeable New York accent approached me from the rear with, "Rabbi?" (I would blame my convert ancestors for this mistake, but my coloring and features seem to have a lot more to do with my Italian ancestors than my German-Jewish ones.) It is also possible that the data is defective because hate crimes against some groups are underreported, or overreported. Of course, if this is really a systemic problem, it calls into the question the value of the Hate Crimes reporting system, doesn't it? Of the 1,480 reported offenses within single-bias incidents that were motivated by the offender’s religious bias, 67.8 percent were anti-Jewish, 13.0 percent were anti-Islamic, 3.9 percent were anti-Catholic, 2.9 percent were anti-Protestant, and 0.5 percent were anti-Atheism or Agnosticism.I guess after 9/11, I'm not too terribly surprised by the anti-Islamic hate crimes. I'm disappointed, but not surprised. For 2001, Jews were about 2.2% of the U.S. population; thus the 67.8% of religious bias crimes that are anti-Jewish come from 97.8% of the population. The "How Hated Are You?" ratio for Jews is 69.3%. There seem to be no good numbers for the percentage of Muslims in the U.S., but "less than three percent" appears in this article, and seems plausible. That would mean that non-Muslims make up more than 97% of the population--and yet from that 97% come only 13% of religiously based hate crimes against Muslims. The HHAY ratio for Muslims is 13.4% -- so Muslims are less hated than Jews. I couldn't find a clear percentage for Catholics and Protestants in the U.S., but all self-identified Christians (which would include a few Russian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox Christians) combined were 76.5% of the U.S. population in 2000--so the 23.5% of the U.S. population that is non-Christian produces 6.8% of the religiously biased anti-Christian hate crimes. Again, this is a group that doesn't seem to be especially hated: the HHAY percentage is only 28.9%. Atheists and agnostics were about 0.9% of the U.S. population in 2000, so 99.1% of the population would be the source for the 0.5% of hate crimes motivated by bias against atheists and agnostics, or an HHAY percentage of 0.5%. Of course, this low level of targeting may simply be that it is rather difficult to find atheists or agnostics against whom to commit such crimes. What are described as, "Bias against other (unspecified) religions accounted for 9.5 percent of the hate crime offenses...." But I can't quite figure out which groups this includes, so I am reluctant to try and calculate an HHAY ratio. In 2004, bias against a particular sexual orientation accounted for 1,406 offenses within single-bias hate crime incidents. Law enforcement agencies reported that 60.8 percent of these offenses resulted from an anti-male homosexual bias, 21.1 percent from an anti-homosexual bias, 14.3 percent from an anti-female homosexual bias, 2.5 percent from an anti-heterosexual bias, and 1.3 percent from an anti-bisexual bias.You didn't know that there are people who hate straights? Sure enough! This breakdown into four categories ("anti-male homosexual", "anti-female homosexual", "anti-homosexual" and "anti-bisexual") means that we have to lump these together, giving 97.5% of sexual orientation hate crimes are directed at homosexuals. Homosexual and bisexual men are about 4% of the U.S. male population, so about 2% of the total population. Homosexual and bisexual women are no more than 2% of the U.S. female population, so no more than 1% of the total population. The combination means that 97% of the population is not gay, lesbian, or bisexual, and the HHAY ratio for these groups is 100.5%--just barely above the level that you would relative to their fraction of the population. Similarly, about 3% of the population is gay or bisexual, so the 2.5% of sexual orientation hate crimes based on being straight means an HHAY ratio of 83.3%--lower than the HHAY ratio for homosexuals and bisexuals, but not dramatically so. The net result of looking at these HHAY ratios suggests that the left's notion of who is victimized by hate crimes doesn't match reality that well. The groups with HHAY ratios above 100% are whites, homosexuals (although just barely), and perhaps members of the really obscure religions--not Jews or Muslims, and contrary to what some conservatives might want to think, not Christians, either. UPDATE: A reader points out: It seems to me your "How hated are you" statistic does a poor job of measuring the actual problems caused by hate crimes for different groups. For example, using the figures you give, 67.5% of 4863, or 2164 crimes were motivated by anti black prejudice and only 20.5%, or 997 were motivated by anti-white prejudice. But 12.8% of the population (let's call the US population 250 million, though that's a bit out of date) is black, or 32 million people, while 80.4 %, or 200 million, is white. So a black person has a probability of 2164/32000000=0.000068 of being a hate crime victim in a given year -- 17 times the odds of 0.000004 that a white person does. It seems to me reasonable to say that hate crimes are 17 times as significant a problem for black people as for white people.I had a sneaking suspicion that there was something a little peculiar about this HHAY ratio, and I think that while my reader is right, the data does show that the hate crime numbers suggest a somewhat more complex situation that the traditional interpretation of bias crimes. Labels: homosexuality Uniform Crime Reports I heard this morning that the preliminary 2005 Uniform Crime Reports was out, and that murder had increased almost 5% from last year. I was hoping to find some information on the type of weapons used, because I expect to see the anti-gunners claim that the expiration of the federal assault weapon law made the difference. But the preliminary report doesn't have a breakdown by weapon type. I guess we'll have to wait a few months to see if the increase in murders was evenly distributed across weapon types or not. In the 1990s, murder rates fell dramatically--and yet the reduction for gun murders and non-gun murders was equivalent, suggesting that gun control laws weren't the cause--or you would have seen gun murders fall faster than non-gun murders. UPDATE: Sure enough! Michael Williams found the anti-gunner blaming the NRA for the rising crime rate! |
