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I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win
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Fun With Band Saws; Happy Customers
I just finished making a set of casters for the Vixen HAL-110 tripod--by far the most challenging machining operation yet. This slides inside the tripod leg assembly, replacing the "foot" that ordinarily sits on the ground. 
What makes it difficult is that I wanted something that would slide into a fairly complex hole (far more complex than the insert's end, and far more complex than really needed for Vixen's purposes) without being loose. And that's what I achieved--precisely enough machined that it doesn't fall out, but also doesn't have to be pressed in hard. Of course, I use the M4-0.7 screws that hold the foot in place to hold this insert in position as well.
It doesn't look like it should be all that hard to make, but with the amount of time it took, I think I may charge a pretty premium price to make any more. Even using the band saw to hack the big chunks out, while it saved a lot of time, still doesn't make these fast to make. The problem is that even with a 1.5" long cutting surface on this end mill, the power limitations of the Sherline means that you are removing at most .020" of Delrin at a time. If you try to remove more, you get some nasty vibrations and accuracy suffers.
Do you notice the "waffle" pattern? This particular end mill was a roughing mill--meaning that it concentrates on speed, not finish quality. If you hold the final result in exactly the right position, it kinda looks like a Manhattan skyscraper.
The Sears 10 inch band saw has turned out to be the best $170 I've spent in a long time. It is reasonably consistent. I set the fence at 1 1/8", and the piece that came out was 1.03" wide, so about .09" short. I set the fence at 2 1/8", and it cut a piece 2.04" wide, so about .08" short. I tried moving the scale on the edge of the table to correct for this, but there's only a very small amount of adjustment potential. I'll just remember that the cut is going to be a little under 1/8" narrower than the fence position, and that's good enough.
The other thing about it that is nice is that I can see where the blade is while cutting. The chop saw that I have, as powerful and quick as it is, is just too dangerous to use for cutting anything small.
The blade that came with the band saw works well for Delrin and for 6061 aluminum. I tried to trim a small piece of steel, and it was clearly not going to do anything but dull the blade. This is a woodworking blade, however, so I am not surprised.
One aspect of the band saw that has me a little confused is that it produces a bit of a wavy cut in Delrin. It doesn't seem to do this in wood or aluminum--very odd. It isn't a problem, since the only band saw work I do in Delrin is just a first step towards machining, but I suspect that there's something that I don't know that might produce a smoother finish.
I made a caster set for the Celestron 93493 tripod (first time for this model). The customer is singing my praises in this thread. Now, if all the other users of that tripod would just go ahead and order.
Are Lunatics Running the Asylum at Immigration?
This news story just floors me. Our government drags its feet about identifying and deporting illegal aliens--but they deport a U.S. citizen?TIJUANA, Mexico - Clutching a photo of her son, Maria Carvajal walks Tijuana’s sweltering streets searching for the mentally disabled man she says was deported more than a month ago despite being a U.S. citizen and then disappeared in this chaotic border city.
Carvajal says she has searched hospitals, shelters and jails here looking for her 29-year-old son, Pedro Guzman of Lancaster, Calif., who was jailed for a misdemeanor trespassing violation, then sent to Mexico on May 11.
Guzman’s relatives sued the Department of Homeland Security and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department last week in federal court, claiming Guzman was a U.S. citizen and had been wrongfully deported and demanding that U.S. authorities help find him.
“I’m searching for him because he’s my son. But it should be (U.S. authorities) searching for him,” Carvajal, a 49-year-old fast-food restaurant worker from Lancaster, said Sunday in Tijuana. “They made the mistake. Not me.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed Guzman had been deported and said the agency had done so correctly. “ICE has no reason to believe that it improperly removed Pedro Guzman,” read a statement.
...
The lawsuit says Guzman was asked about his immigration status in jail and responded that he was born in California of Mexican parents.
Sometime after that, the Sheriff’s Department identified him as a non-citizen, obtained his signature for voluntary removal from the United States and turned him over to Customs and Immigration Enforcement, a division of the Homeland Security Department, for deportation.
ACLU: Birth certificate from L.A. county
The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which helped file the lawsuit, says it has Guzman’s birth certificate showing he was born at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.
It also says that Guzman had previously done jail time for drug possession, so he had a record that could have been cross-checked before a deportation decision was made.
The Sheriff’s Department has said it followed procedures correctly.
I've Never Been Much Impressed With WorldNetDaily
And I'm less impressed because of this article:If the Act passes in the Senate, it would provide grants so states can add the names of criminals to the NICS system, which would label them as unable to own firearms, but it also flags those with medical or psychological issues as unfit to possess a gun.
The plan allows names to be entered into the NICS system based solely on a physician's diagnosis or prescription of a medication: adults who have taken Ritalin and soldiers with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder would be classified as mentally ill and given the same opportunity to own firearms as convicted felons: None.
This is utterly wrong. From HR 2640: As used in this Act, the following definitions shall apply:
(1) COURT ORDER- The term `court order' includes a court order (as described in section 922(g)(8) of title 18, United States Code).
(2) MENTAL HEALTH TERMS- The terms `adjudicated as a mental defective', `committed to a mental institution', and related terms have the meanings given those terms in regulations implementing section 922(g)(4) of title 18, United States Code, as in effect on the date of the enactment of this Act.
(3) MISDEMEANOR CRIME OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE- The term `misdemeanor crime of domestic violence' has the meaning given the term in section 921(a)(33) of title 18, United States Code.
From 18 USC 922(g)(4) and (8):(g)
(4) who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has
been committed to a mental institution;
(8) who is subject to a court order that -
(A) was issued after a hearing of which such person received
actual notice, and at which such person had an opportunity to
participate;
(B) restrains such person from harassing, stalking, or
threatening an intimate partner of such person or child of such
intimate partner or person, or engaging in other conduct that
would place an intimate partner in reasonable fear of bodily
injury to the partner or child; and
(C)(i) includes a finding that such person represents a
credible threat to the physical safety of such intimate partner
or child; or
(ii) by its terms explicitly prohibits the use, attempted
use, or threatened use of physical force against such intimate
partner or child that would reasonably be expected to cause
bodily injury; or
Commitment (as opposed to a hold for observation) in the U.S. is not easy. In fact, it has become far too difficult. But the claim that a person can be denied gun ownership based on taking Ritalin or simply on the say-so of a doctor is false.
I'm The Winner of the Week!
My review of the Moonlite Telescopes CR2 dual speed focuser won the weekly contest over at Astromart.com.
Journalist Campaign Contributions
Mainstream journalists like to pretend that they are completely unbiased in their reporting. But when you look at how journalists lean on their campaign contributions, it does suggest that they see the world considerably to the left of the average American:Whether you sample your news feed from ABC or CBS (or, yes, even NBC and MSNBC), whether you prefer Fox News Channel or National Public Radio, The Wall Street Journal or The New Yorker, some of the journalists feeding you are also feeding cash to politicians, parties or political action committees.
As the sidebar article points out, this is a very incomplete list, because of what data is required in the federal campaign records.
MSNBC.com identified 144 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.There's a longstanding tradition that journalists don't cheer in the press box. They have opinions, like anyone else, but they are expected to keep those opinions out of their work. Because appearing to be fair is part of being fair, most mainstream news organizations discourage marching for causes, displaying political bumper stickers or giving cash to candidates.
I actually would prefer that journalists be allowed to make political donations; it at least puts it all out in the open where he stands. Preventing them from contributing to political causes doesn't make them unbiased; it just lets them pretends that they don't have any political preferences. Which does more good for a Democratic presidential candidate? A $2000 contribution from a reporter? Or a series of liberal leaning articles about global warming, minimum wage laws, and same-sex marriage?
Traditionally, many news organizations have applied the rules to only political reporters and editors. The ethic was summed up by Abe Rosenthal, the former New York Times editor, who is reported to have said, "I don't care if you sleep with elephants as long as you don't cover the circus."
But with polls showing the public losing faith in the ability of journalists to give the news straight up, some major newspapers and TV networks are clamping down. They now prohibit all political activity — aside from voting — no matter whether the journalist covers baseball or proofreads the obituaries. The Times in 2003 banned all donations, with editors scouring the FEC records regularly to watch for in-house donors. In 2005, The Chicago Tribune made its policy absolute. CBS did the same last fall. And The Atlantic Monthly, where a senior editor gave $500 to the Democratic Party in 2004, says it is considering banning all donations. After MSNBC.com contacted Salon.com about donations by a reporter and a former executive editor, this week Salon banned donations for all its staff.
Interesting Electrical System Failure on the Corvette
A couple of weeks back, and a couple of weeks after the dealer replaced the bad fuel gauge sending unit in the fuel tank, the Corvette started to act "funny." I had a dead battery one morning, even though the car had only sat idle for three days. But when I hooked up the charging unit in the garage--it started right up--which is odd, since it usually takes tens of minutes or more of trickle charging before it has enough power to get going.
Then, I was driving through one of Boise's many construction zones where they were repaving--and the road was very rough. Twice, when I went over especially rough sections, the car completely cut out for a fraction of a second, resetting all electronic counters (such as average fuel economy).
I checked the battery connections, and they seemed tight enough. Then I drove down to the mailbox on my fairly rough driveway and access road--and when I tried to restart the car--dead as a doornail. Then, miraculously, two minutes later, it started right up!
So now I have decided that there are gremlins in the electrical system. This is worrisome, because intermittent electrical problems on cars are notoriously hard to diagnose--and the extended warranty doesn't cover diagnosis time.
Anyway, I pull into the Chevy dealer, and Darrin Panda, who is the service advisor that I usually talk to, admitted that what I was describing sounded like a loose connection, and he admitted that it was not impossible that something didn't get hooked up right after the last repair.
So we pop the hood, and he finds that the battery terminal is loose--and even more interesting, he can see corrosion that has dripped out of that part of the battery. Since this is a sealed Delco battery, this is a sign that the battery has serious problems. They managed to get it all fixed for about $70 (because the battery was still under a pro rata warranty).
So Much For "Settled Science"
Interesting article in the Canadian Financial Post yesterday by "R. Timothy Patterson is professor and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University." What he has to say won't be a surprise to my regular readers:My interest in the current climate-change debate was triggered in 1998, when I was funded by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council strategic project grant to determine if there were regular cycles in West Coast fish productivity. As a result of wide swings in the populations of anchovies, herring and other commercially important West Coast fish stock, fisheries managers were having a very difficult time establishing appropriate fishing quotas. One season there would be abundant stock and broad harvesting would be acceptable; the very next year the fisheries would collapse. No one really knew why or how to predict the future health of this crucially important resource.
Oh, and there are politicians with some courage out there, like President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, whose article in the British Financial Times points out what is really driving the global warming propaganda war:
Although climate was suspected to play a significant role in marine productivity, only since the beginning of the 20th century have accurate fishing and temperature records been kept in this region of the northeast Pacific. We needed indicators of fish productivity over thousands of years to see whether there were recurring cycles in populations and what phenomena may be driving the changes.
My research team began to collect and analyze core samples from the bottom of deep Western Canadian fjords. The regions in which we chose to conduct our research, Effingham Inlet on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, and in 2001, sounds in the Belize-Seymour Inlet complex on the mainland coast of British Columbia, were perfect for this sort of work. The topography of these fjords is such that they contain deep basins that are subject to little water transfer from the open ocean and so water near the bottom is relatively stagnant and very low in oxygen content. As a consequence, the floors of these basins are mostly lifeless and sediment layers build up year after year, undisturbed over millennia.
Using various coring technologies, we have been able to collect more than 5,000 years' worth of mud in these basins, with the oldest layers coming from a depth of about 11 metres below the fjord floor. Clearly visible in our mud cores are annual changes that record the different seasons: corresponding to the cool, rainy winter seasons, we see dark layers composed mostly of dirt washed into the fjord from the land; in the warm summer months we see abundant fossilized fish scales and diatoms (the most common form of phytoplankton, or single-celled ocean plants) that have fallen to the fjord floor from nutrient-rich surface waters. In years when warm summers dominated climate in the region, we clearly see far thicker layers of diatoms and fish scales than we do in cooler years. Ours is one of the highest-quality climate records available anywhere today and in it we see obvious confirmation that natural climate change can be dramatic. For example, in the middle of a 62-year slice of the record at about 4,400 years ago, there was a shift in climate in only a couple of seasons from warm, dry and sunny conditions to one that was mostly cold and rainy for several decades.
Using computers to conduct what is referred to as a "time series analysis" on the colouration and thickness of the annual layers, we have discovered repeated cycles in marine productivity in this, a region larger than Europe. Specifically, we find a very strong and consistent 11-year cycle throughout the whole record in the sediments and diatom remains. This correlates closely to the well-known 11-year "Schwabe" sunspot cycle, during which the output of the sun varies by about 0.1%. Sunspots, violent storms on the surface of the sun, have the effect of increasing solar output, so, by counting the spots visible on the surface of our star, we have an indirect measure of its varying brightness. Such records have been kept for many centuries and match very well with the changes in marine productivity we are observing.
In the sediment, diatom and fish-scale records, we also see longer period cycles, all correlating closely with other well-known regular solar variations. In particular, we see marine productivity cycles that match well with the sun's 75-90-year "Gleissberg Cycle," the 200-500-year "Suess Cycle" and the 1,100-1,500-year "Bond Cycle." The strength of these cycles is seen to vary over time, fading in and out over the millennia. The variation in the sun's brightness over these longer cycles may be many times greater in magnitude than that measured over the short Schwabe cycle and so are seen to impact marine productivity even more significantly.
Our finding of a direct correlation between variations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate indicators (called "proxies") is not unique. Hundreds of other studies, using proxies from tree rings in Russia's Kola Peninsula to water levels of the Nile, show exactly the same thing: The sun appears to drive climate change.
However, there was a problem. Despite this clear and repeated correlation, the measured variations in incoming solar energy were, on their own, not sufficient to cause the climate changes we have observed in our proxies. In addition, even though the sun is brighter now than at any time in the past 8,000 years, the increase in direct solar input is not calculated to be sufficient to cause the past century's modest warming on its own. There had to be an amplifier of some sort for the sun to be a primary driver of climate change.
Indeed, that is precisely what has been discovered. In a series of groundbreaking scientific papers starting in 2002, Veizer, Shaviv, Carslaw, and most recently Svensmark et al., have collectively demonstrated that as the output of the sun varies, and with it, our star's protective solar wind, varying amounts of galactic cosmic rays from deep space are able to enter our solar system and penetrate the Earth's atmosphere. These cosmic rays enhance cloud formation which, overall, has a cooling effect on the planet. When the sun's energy output is greater, not only does the Earth warm slightly due to direct solar heating, but the stronger solar wind generated during these "high sun" periods blocks many of the cosmic rays from entering our atmosphere. Cloud cover decreases and the Earth warms still more.
The opposite occurs when the sun is less bright. More cosmic rays are able to get through to Earth's atmosphere, more clouds form, and the planet cools more than would otherwise be the case due to direct solar effects alone. This is precisely what happened from the middle of the 17th century into the early 18th century, when the solar energy input to our atmosphere, as indicated by the number of sunspots, was at a minimum and the planet was stuck in the Little Ice Age. These new findings suggest that changes in the output of the sun caused the most recent climate change. By comparison, CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales.
In some fields the science is indeed "settled." For example, plate tectonics, once highly controversial, is now so well-established that we rarely see papers on the subject at all. But the science of global climate change is still in its infancy, with many thousands of papers published every year. In a 2003 poll conducted by German environmental researchers Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch, two-thirds of more than 530 climate scientists from 27 countries surveyed did not believe that "the current state of scientific knowledge is developed well enough to allow for a reasonable assessment of the effects of greenhouse gases." About half of those polled stated that the science of climate change was not sufficiently settled to pass the issue over to policymakers at all.In the past year, Al Gore’s so-called “documentary” film was shown in cinemas worldwide, Britain’s – more or less Tony Blair’s – Stern report was published, the fourth report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was put together and the Group of Eight summit announced ambitions to do something about the weather. Rational and freedom-loving people have to respond. The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced.
For several generations, the left used "let's help the poor" as the rationale for governmental redistribution of wealth--and eventually, that argument wore out. There were several reasons why this argument stopped working:
The author Michael Crichton stated it clearly: “the greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda”. I feel the same way, because global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem. It requires courage to oppose the “established” truth, although a lot of people – including top-class scientists – see the issue of climate change entirely differently. They protest against the arrogance of those who advocate the global warming hypothesis and relate it to human activities.
As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.
The environmentalists ask for immediate political action because they do not believe in the long-term positive impact of economic growth and ignore both the technological progress that future generations will undoubtedly enjoy, and the proven fact that the higher the wealth of society, the higher is the quality of the environment. They are Malthusian pessimists.
The scientists should help us and take into consideration the political effects of their scientific opinions. They have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions and how much they have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence.
Does it make any sense to speak about warming of the Earth when we see it in the context of the evolution of our planet over hundreds of millions of years? Every child is taught at school about temperature variations, about the ice ages, about the much warmer climate in the Middle Ages. All of us have noticed that even during our life-time temperature changes occur (in both directions).
1. Compassion fatigue. There comes a certain point where people start saying, "I'm tired of giving half my income to help poor people." This is to me the least valid reason, but the one most likely at work over the 25 years, as conservative and libertarian ideas have taken the field.
2. If you pay people to be poor and dependent--it increases the number of poor and dependent people. This doesn't mean that every poor person--or even most poor people--are scamming the system. It does mean that if someone has two choices--be dependent or work a little harder to be independent--inertia means that some people who may have the option to get out of their poverty and dependency will stay that way.
3. If the left had actually engaged in wealth redistribution, it would not have generated the upset among the middle class. Instead, because the left is already wealthy, they have focused on income redistribution. The income tax isn't a tax on wealth (except indirectly); it's a tax on people who are trying to become wealthy.
4. While not directly associated with income redistribution, the left's baggage included mindless anti-capitalism, and a general hostility towards the values that the masses, especially in America hold dear: God, patriotism, duty, and honor. I try to imagine a leftist welfare state that wasn't actively hostile towards these values, and I imagine how differently things might have turned out. I have to imagine that, however, because it doesn't happen in the real world.
What's left as an excuse for taking control over people's lives? Global warming. "Give us all this money and power over your lives, or the icecaps will melt, flood all the cities, cause terrible hurricanes, drought, starvation!"
Electric Vehicles Are Slow, Right?
How about this electric motorcycle, doing the quarter mile in 8.168 seconds at 155.78 mph? There's video of it.
John Lott's Freedomnomics
I was hoping to sell this as a book review somewhere, but I can't find any magazines that will publish anything by me anymore except Shotgun News, so....
Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don’t. John R. Lott. Regnery Publishing, 2006. 275 pp.
The cover art shows a slice of apple pie—with stars and stripes and an explanation, “A Rebuttal to Freakonomics and More”—thus explaining the “half-baked” in the subtitle. If you weren’t paying attention a couple of years ago, Freakonomics was a very successful popular book on economics. Dr. Lott’s book is a defense of free markets aimed at much the same audience—-people in the middle who aren’t quite sure what to think about how well free markets work. I rather doubt that people who are either strongly supportive or strongly hostile to free markets are going to have their minds changed by Freedomnomics—-but almost everyone will find some of the examples that Lott gives entertaining or thought-provoking.
Lott articulates how and why the free market behaves the way that it does. While this behavior may sometimes frustrate us as consumers, it nonetheless provides useful benefits to the society as a whole. Lott explains why hurricane Katrina drove up gasoline prices before it hit, as oil companies raised prices to reduce demand and enlarge gasoline inventories. After Katrina damaged Gulf of Mexico well platforms, pipelines, petroleum terminals, and refineries, those enlarged inventories helped keep prices from rising higher than they otherwise might. Oil companies didn’t do this because they were looking out for the benefit of consumers, or because the government told them to do so—but because they were trying to maximize profit. As Adam Smith observed about butchers, brewers, and bakers, we don’t get gasoline because oil companies are concerned for our needs, “but from their regard to their own interest." We might not like it, but self-interest is a far more certain motivator than benevolence.
Many of the most surprising sections of the book concern topics where economists have done statistical analyses to try and test particular hypotheses. As much as anyone else, I assume that campaign contributions have some significant influence on how legislators vote, but Lott provides an ingenious example of how he tested this problem, by studying the voting record of members of Congress who retired in 1978, and did not go on to other government service or lobbying. In their last term, without the pressure of raising money, they presumably were now free to vote their consciences without fear of reprisal—-and astonishingly, it had no effect (pp. 50-53).
The real problem of campaign contributions isn’t usually quid pro quo corruption (although Lott acknowledges that this happens too) but that special interests contribute money to people that genuinely share their beliefs. As Lott points out, “Politicians from Kansas really do think that farmers are the backbone of America. Those from Detroit really do want to help the car industry.” (p. 56) This is no surprise; a Silicon Valley candidate who didn’t see electronics as a vital American industry would not be able to raise enough money to defeat a candidate more in line with the values of big campaign contributors.
While most of Freedomnomics examined statistical work concerning interesting social problems, Lott sometimes gives examples from his personal experience, such as what happened when he involved himself in a Montana tax limitation initiative campaign in 1986. He soon learned that while it was perfectly okay for professors to involve themselves in the campaign against the initiative, the economics department at Montana State University was threatened with a cut in funding if they could not get Lott to shut up in support of the measure. Lott was younger and more naïve back then, “but I was surprised by the vehemence with which people who receive their income from taxes fought to protect that largesse.” (pp. 7-11)
In light of Lott’s highly publicized research into crime rates (More Guns, Less Crime, for example), it is unsurprising that he devotes an entire chapter to economics and crime. In particular, he points to inconsistencies and factual errors in the work by economists Donohue and Levitt that claims that Roe v. Wade (1973), by legalizing abortion, caused a dramatic decline in crime rates in the 1990s. Lott instead presents evidence that suggests that legalizing abortion, by reducing incentives for men and women to be careful, increased the number of illegitimate births—-and points out that children of single mothers are actually at higher risk of becoming criminals. Lott says that the decline in crime rates in the 1990s was in spite of legalizing abortion, not because of it. While I am not sure that I find his argument persuasive, he does demonstrate that Donohue and Levitt’s opposing claim is not a slam-dunk.
Perhaps the most startling claim that Lott makes is that women’s suffrage caused a dramatic increase in the size of government, because the “gender gap” reflects a genuine difference in how men and women—-especially single or divorced women—-see the appropriate role of government with respect to income security and education. He points to how state government expenditures changed in states as the percentage of women voting increased—and how the varying years in which different states granted women the vote confirms that this was not a coincidence.
Even if you don’t find every argument convincing, Freedomnomics will make you think about issues that you have never even considered before. Best of all, Freedomnomics is entertaining, crisp, and free of the sometimes off-putting statistical lingo that scholarly papers concerning economics necessarily employ.
Muslims Are Supposed To Pray Towards Mecca Five Times a Day...
A friend worked on a jumbo jet refit for the Sultan of Brunei, and among other items on board was a "Mecca finder": something that was tied into the navigation system of the aircraft so that the gold-tipped pointer always pointed towards Mecca.
I don't know how long you are supposed to wait before getting down to pray, but this picture suggests that it is either not very long--or Mecca isn't the direction of adoration for this group.
Admitting The Goal is to Not Hire An American
Look, if you can't find an American to do a job, there's nothing wrong with hiring a foreigner. Many years ago, I was trying to hire software engineers in Silicon Valley, and I ended up hiring a South African through an H-1B visa, because we literally could not find an American. It wasn't even a matter of salary--there was just no one available.
To get Department of Labor approval to hire that South African, we had to run ads to demonstrate that we couldn't find an American. We weren't gaming the system; we did exactly what we were supposed to do, and if we had found even a minimally qualified U.S. citizen or permanent resident, we would have hired that applicant instead, because it would have been faster and less expensive. We tried; we failed. Like many people who come to America with nothing, within ten years he was independently wealthy.
Over here is a video showing an immigration lawyer explaining how to go through the process, and admitting that the goal of how and where they place ads is to not hire an American, but to hire a foreigner.
I am sympathetic to companies that are having trouble hiring people--but there's not a shortage of skilled workers in the U.S. Pretending otherwise is dishonest.
Adult Stem Cells
Unlike embryonic stem cells, research using adult stem cells produces no ethical concerns. As I have previously mentioned, adult stem cell research is actually further along towards producing successful treatments than embryonic stem cells. There's been more progress on reprogramming adult cells into stem cells, and even Instapundit, who has no ethical problems with embryonic stem cell research, is acknowledging that there's something coming down the pike here, pointing to this article:Only a few days ago an article in the leading journal Nature brought amazing news. A Japanese team at Kyoto University has discovered how to reprogram skin cells so that they "dedifferentiate" into the equivalent of an embryonic stem cell. From this they can be morphed, theoretically, into any cell in the body, a property called pluripotency. It could be the Holy Grail of stem cell science: a technique that is both feasible and unambiguously ethical.
"Neither eggs nor embryos are necessary. I've never worked with either," says Shinya Yamanaka. The first instalment of his research appeared a year ago -- and was greeted with polite scepticism by his colleagues. At the time they were mesmerised by dreams of cloning embryos and dissecting them for their stem cells.
The previous head of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, Lawrence S. B. Goldstein, had even dismissed reprogramming as quixotic. "If there are scientists who morally oppose [embryonic] stem cell research and want to devote their energies to uncovering alternatives, that's fine," said Goldstein. "But in no way, shape, or form should we ask the scientific community and patient community to wait to see if these new alternatives will work." Now, however, ten years after Dolly, not one scientist anywhere using a cloned human embryo has created a stem cell line. Not one. And a Japanese Don Quixote has.
This is mainstream research, not an eccentric theory from a Romanian naturopathy journal. Yamanaka's work has been confirmed by two other teams affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and the University of California, Los Angeles -- both of them headed by ardent supporters of embryonic stem cell research.
They say that the reprogrammed cells meet all the tests of pluripotent cells -- they form colonies, propagate continuously and form cancerous growths called teratomas, as well as producing chimaeras. "Its unbelievable, just amazing," says Hans Schöler, a German stem cell expert. "For me, it's like Dolly. It's that type of an accomplishment."
What Yamanaka did was to take a mouse skin cell and introduce into it four proteins which trigger the expression of other genes to make it pluripotent. "It's easy. There's no trick, no magic," he says. Now the race is on to apply the technique to human cells. "We are working very hard -- day and night," says Yamanaka.
Even the Australian doyen of therapeutic cloning, Alan Trounson, of Monash University, is enthusiastic. "It would change the way we see things quite dramatically," he says. He plans to start experiments "tomorrow".
Will this disruptive technology open up ethical avenues in the promising field of stem cell research, avenues which do not involve turning women into battery hens for their eggs and destroying embryos?
At the moment, the stem cell grandees, like all establishment figures, have no plans to change their tune. One of the stars of the Cairns conference, MIT's Rudolph Jaenisch, told Nature that therapeutic cloning remains "absolutely necessary."
Executives from embryonic stem cell companies were not optimistic about the new technique either. Because it involves tinkering with the genome, it could be dangerous, warned Thomas B. Okarma, of Geron, the leading private company in the field. Getting approval from regulatory authorities would therefore become far more complicated. What else could he say? No doubt manufacturers of vacuum tubes muttered about serious flaws in semiconductors when they first appeared on the market.
With an ethical solution looking quite plausible, the pressure will be on scientists to explain why therapeutic cloning deserves to be legalised and funded. Two years ago, Dr Janet D. Rowley, an Australian working in the US who is an implacable foe of the Bush Administration's policy, dismissed ethical solutions like Yamanaka's. "We have extremely limited research dollars, and to use them to study these alternatives is wrong," she declared. "That money should be available for actual research." But now stem cells derived from embryos are starting to look like dead-end "alternatives."
Don't expect supporters of embryonic stem cell research to respond rationally, not in the short term, at least. The other day, Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel told the US House of Representatives as he voted to overturn the Bush policy: "It is ironic that every time we vote on this legislation, all of a sudden there is a major scientific discovery that basically says, 'You don't have to do [embryonic] stem cell research.' "
Band Saws
I am thinking that perhaps what I need to do the rough cuts on the next Delrin project is a band saw. Not a big band saw--Sears has a 9" band saw for $119--but a band saw seems a bit more controllable than a router. Since everything that I need to cut is a rectangular solid, this has potential.
I need to see if my neighbor who does woodworking has one. I think I want to experiment a bit before I commit myself to one.
And yes, I know that band saws have another common use--by butchers. Even more than a drill press, one must exercise great care in using a band saw.
UPDATE: One of my neighbors has a band saw--a 12" Delta that looks ancient enough to have been made somewhere that at least they use a Roman alphabet, even if they don't speak English. This is definitely the way to do this. He didn't have a fence appropriate to my needs, but even free hand, I managed to do an adequate job of making a couple of rough cuts.
Not wanting to wear out my welcome, I stopped with two rough cuts, and didn't make the other two, much larger rough cuts--and regretted that decision for the next several hours, as I removed a .35" x 1.57" x 2.75" chunk of Delrin with an end mill. To my surprise, I found a monstrously big end mill--0.75" diameter and about 1.75" tall cutting surface--and so I was able to make make all my motions in the X and Y planes. But because of the height of the cutting face of the end mill, I was only taking off 20/1000ths of an inch on the forward pass, and 5/1000ths of an inch on the backward pass. (Trying to take off more than that caused it to chatter.)
In spite of, I thought, extraordinarily careful measurement, the final result would not quite fit into the leg, so I had to make a few cuts here and there. The good news is that the final version slides right in, and is actually more amenable to band saw work, with just a few minutes of precision work with the end mill.
My plan to use the Vixen leg as a template for positioning the holes in my piece worked perfectly, and it actually looks like something that might have come out of the Vixen factory! (Provided, of course, you don't look at the ugly surfaces that are now hidden inside the tripod leg. Production will be better.)
I also made a set of casters for a customer who sent me his leg (tripod leg, of course) because the Celestron 93493 tripod isn't exactly the same dimensions as other Celestron tripods that I have made for. This went very well; I received the leg today, measured it, picked out the stock to work from, and machined the parts in time that I will be shipping the leg and the caster set back tomorrow. Had I been thinking a bit farther ahead, I could have dropped them at the post office this afternoon.
Sorry For The Lack of Activity Here...
I have been extraordinarily busy for my employer, and my spare time has been spent this evening reading H. Richard Lamb, ed., the Homeless Mentally Ill: A Task Force Report of the American Psychiatric Association (1984). Surprisingly enough, while they criticized the method by which deinstitutionalization was implemented, and the reports contain some occasionally veiled references that show that they were holding their tongues a bit, they were reluctant to criticize the idea. But they essentially argued that yes, there were patients who benefited from deinstitutionalization, but there were others who very clearly were worse off as a result. (Surprise, surprise.)
A Unique Use for Fish and Chips
They won't let decent people have guns in Britain, so they are reduced to improvising their weapons:A chip shop worker faced with an armed robber scared him off by waving a fish slice dripping in hot fat.
"You can have my breaded cod when you pull it from my cold, malt vinegar soaked fingers!"
Malcolm Butters, 63, was closing up the Green Lane Fish Bar in Acomb, York, when he was confronted by a man carrying a gun and demanding money.
Mr Butters said: "I got my fish slice, dipped it in the hot fat and waved it at him, hoping the fat would come off and get him."
The hooded man then ran out of the shop empty-handed, Mr Butters said.
How Not to Measure Temperature
Over at Watts Up With That? is a collection of hilarious pictures of official U.S. Weather Service temperature monitoring stations, and after you look at some of them, you can see why the data that comes from them is showing global warming. A number of the thermometers are located within a few feet of air conditioning exhaust fans, another is sitting at the end of a jet runway--literally dozens of feet from jet exhausts. Here's one that is located next to a trash burning barrel! And my all-time favorite: First site is the Lodi Municipal Service Center, 38.11619N 121.29003W. FYI, Lodi runs their own municipal district, which is why they own a substation. Note the bank of fans on the big transformer. they are about 30 feet away. I wasn't about to get close enough to the transformers to measure for sure. The fans exhaust the waste heat the transformer produces. Note that when temperatures are at their highest, so is electrical energy use for air conditioning. And of course, our thermometer will track this trend.
Garbage in, garbage out.
I've mentioned before that there have long been concerns that the thermometers in urban areas are warming up because urban areas have lots of concrete (which turns sunlight into heat for hours afterwards), and because population growth in urban areas creates artificially warm microclimates. These examples are pretty persuasive that this is indeed a serious problem--and some of the graphs, such as the one for this station in Tahoe City, are so dramatic that you can pretty well guess when the trash burning barrel was placed five feet from the thermometer.
It's Not Often You See A V.P. of a Technology Company Running From a Violent Crime Charge
It doesn't seem to be getting any press in the U.S.:New Delhi: A non-resident Indian who allegedly raped his house help in Delhi last week has fled to the US, police said on Monday.
Gulati isn't just a "software professional", but a V.P. of Ciena. Here's a recent patent with his name on it.
Neeraj Gulati, who works as software professional in the US, allegedly raped the 18-year-old maid at his house in Naraina Vihar in southwest Delhi on February 15, police said. The accused had come to India on February 6.
The victim alleged that Gulati raped her on February 15 and threatened her with dire consequences if she revealed anything about the incident. But she told her uncle who took her to Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital for medical examination and informed the police on Sunday.
The victim was recruited by a placement agency, RK Tirki Replacement, two months ago for domestic chores at Gulati's house. The accused, however, managed to flee the country on Sunday. He took a flight for Atlanta, US, from the Mumbai airport, a senior official said.
UPDATE: According to Ciena, it's not the same Neeraj Gulati. Here's the Interpol flyer for the guy wanted in India; this appears to be the VP of Ciena by that name. They sure don't look like the same guy to me.
Improper Commitments
I mentioned a while back that I was having trouble finding evidence that the due process revolution that affected mental hospitals in the 1960s actually involved a widespread problem. Other than Bruce J. Ennis's Prisoners of Psychiatry (1972), which a little research suggested was too incomplete in its information to completely trust as evidence on this, I just wasn't finding evidence of widespread abuses.
I just finished reading a 1963 subcommittee report. To Protect the Constitutional Rights of the Mentally Ill, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate (88th Cong., 1st sess.) The title alone emphasizes how focused they were on the rights of the mentally ill. There is an enormous amount of discussion of the dangers of people being improperly committed, and why the mental health laws for the District of Columbia needed to make sure that this didn't happen--but what is really odd is that every witness who testified about this subject was confident that this had not been a problem in D.C., and was rare elsewhere in America.
One of the other issues that the bill raised was concerns about improper commitments—-or “railroading” a sane person, as several witnesses colorfully referred to it. But in spite of multiple witnesses who expressed concern that this could happen, and almost certainly, somewhere, did happen, there are no horror stories presented by any of the witnesses. Indeed, Judge Holtzoff admitted, “Such cases are rare….” Chief Judge of the D.C. District Court, Matthew H. McGuire went even further, and claimed that he was not aware of any cases where the existing D.C. law had led to such improper commitments. “We have had outstanding success here in the District of Columbia… and certainly the so-called railroading of an individual to a mental institution under its provisions is something that couldn’t possibly happen.” Many other witnesses, even those that one might expect to be concerned about this possibility generally discounted that this had been a problem.
Even the ACLU’s representative at the hearings, Elyce H. Zenoff, was careful not to claim that there was an existing problem. Referring to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, “There are many dedicated men and women on its staff who, we know, are solicitous of the legal rights of patients. However, there is no way of knowing whether those who may join the staff in the future will be equally solicitous.”
The one witness who was prepared to admit that some inmates might be hospitalized somewhere improperly or for too long, was Dr. Dale Cameron, superintendent of St. Elizabeth’s (D.C. mental hospital):
In short, the ACLU’s zealous concern about the fine details of due process—-for example, their insistence that the normal rules of evidence should apply to competency hearings, requiring those who filed written reports appear in person to be cross-examined-—seems far more focused on a problem that everyone at the hearings, even the ACLU, believed was not present in D.C.’s mental hospitals, and was rare elsewhere in the United States.
I question very seriously, and you have not suggested it, that many persons are “railroaded” into mental hospitals. But I do agree that they can be forgotten or lost sight of in a badly understaffed institution.
Even one person locked up in a mental hospital improperly is a tragedy to be avoided, of course, but any system that has people involved is going to make mistakes, and be subject to abuse of power. The only way to build a perfect system--one that never screws up and does X is to build a system that never does X.
