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Labels: economics, politicians behaving badly Labels: machining Labels: gun rights Labels: homosexuality Labels: Csharp Labels: machining I heard screaming sirens followed by shrieking motor cycles when Ahmadinejad himself entered, accompanied by a phalanx of Iranian secret service, all of whom were larger than he. He was indeed a small man, almost diminutive, and marched straight across the lobby in what seemed at the time like a goose step a few feet away from me, staring directly at me while waving and smiling in my direction. I did not wave or smile back. I couldn’t. Indeed, I was frozen. I felt suddenly breathless and nauseated, as if I had been kicked brutally in the stomach. I was also dizzy. I wanted to throw up. But no one had touched me and I hadn’t eaten anything for hours. It was then, I think, that I found, or noticed, or understood, religion personally for a moment. Here’s what I mean. For most of my life I had rationalized the existence of bad people – or, more specifically, placed them in therapeutic categories. They were aberrant personalities, psychologically disturbed. It wasn’t that I thought better economic conditions or psychoanalysis or medication or whatever could fix everyone. I was long over that. Some people… serial killers, etc…. had to be locked away forever. They would never get better. But they were simply insane. That’s what they were. Still… I had seen whacked murderers like Charles Manson, late OJ Simpson, up close and this wasn’t the same. This was more than the mental illness model. Far more. For one thing, I had never before had this intense physical sensation when confronted with another human being. Nor had I wanted to vomit. Not for Manson. Not for anyone. This was different. It was almost unreal, like being in a movie, in a certain way. I know comparisons to Hitler are invidious, in fact usually absurd, but I was feeling the way I imagined I would have felt opposite Hitler. I was in the presence of pure Evil. Now that’s a big word and I have spent my life reluctant to use it. But there it was – popping up out of my mouth within seconds of the Iranian leaders disappearance into the hotel elevator. For once, “psychopath” or “sociopath” did not feel remotely appropriate. Only the E-word would suffice. A friend used to work at a prison in Alaska. There were inmates there for all sorts of violent and horrifying crimes (murder, rape, child molestation)–but there were a very few that he described as “bent” with rather similar sensations–people that were just evil. I never took her feelings or my friend’s feelings completely seriously–but when someone with a very secular worldview like Roger Simon comes to that same weird feeling, it’s rather interesting, isn’t it? Eight people were arrested following the incident at Sundridge Park Golf Course on Sunday. Two youths, aged 17 and 13 were also taken to south London hospitals with head injuries. The 17-year-old is in stable condition in hospital while the 13-year-old was later discharged and subsequently arrested. According to reports, the players were about to tee off on the fourth hole of the course in Bromley, Kent, when they were confronted by a group of teenagers brandishing planks of wood. Despite the group threatening to attack them if they did not hand over their golfing equipment, the golfers apparently fought back. An eyewitness, who did not wish to be named, said: "Everyone had a weapon and they were just trading blows. "The golfers stood their ground, though. "I guess because they had their clubs as protection." As well as the 13-year-old, two other teenagers were arrested, including a 15-year-old boy from Downham and a 16-year-old boy from St Mary Cray on suspicion of affray. A 33-year-old woman, from Downham, and a 49-year-old man, from Plaistow, have been arrested on the affray charges. Officers also arrested a 53-year-old man, from Hayes, on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm and a 48-year-old man, from Keston, on suspicion of causing GBH, while a 39-year-old man, from Plaistow, was arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct. The email itself is brand new but is burning up the anti-gun control sites. When MOAA received the email, we went to the Army’s Office of the Chief of Public Affairs for comment. At first we received a message that they had not heard about the issue, but after contacting Ft. Campbell it was revealed that this message was ’stopped for the better part of the month’. The official release from Fort Campbell is below. The following was relayed to MOAA via LTC Chris Garver, USA (OCPA) Fort Campbell requires anyone bringing a privately owned weapon onto the installation to properly register it with the Provost Marshall Office and physical security. As a response to a number of negligent discharges of privately owned weapons, the command decided to explore how to implement a training program for Soldiers with privately owned weapons. Their goal is to identify Soldiers with firearms and provide additional safety training to them, much like our motorcycle and driver safety classes. Our Soldiers train and operate in combat with M-4 carbines and various other military weapons, but not all who purchase their own weapons are properly trained to handle them. Determining which Soldiers possess weapons will allow the command to identify the Soldiers who may require additional training on them. Unit level efforts to identify these Soldiers have been suspended pending a full review of the proposed training program. The command is constantly working to ensure the safety of our Soldiers. The memo was from a subordinate unit commander who, at the time, believed he was acting within his authority; when discovered he was not, requiring the information was stopped. Labels: gun rights Marcos Jaramillo, 12, of Homedale died at 11:48 p.m. Monday at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, the Ada County coroner said Tuesday. The boy was shot in the head by a 14-year-old girl at about 2 p.m. Sunday at a home in Marsing as he was watching TV with a friend, according to the Owyhee County Sheriff's Office. The girl found the .25-caliber semi-automatic pistol in the closet of a residence she was visiting. She brought the pistol into the living room, where she accidentally fired one round. The boy was hit in the right side of the head. Senate leaders are considering new federal taxes on soda and other sugary drinks to help pay for an overhaul of the nation's health-care system. The taxes would pay for only a fraction of the cost to expand health-insurance coverage to all Americans and would face strong opposition from the beverage industry. They also could spark a backlash from consumers who would have to pay several cents more for a soft drink. On Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee is set to hear proposals from about a dozen experts about how to pay for the comprehensive health-care overhaul that President Barack Obama wants to enact this year. Early estimates put the cost of the plan at around $1.2 trillion. The administration has so far only earmarked funds for about half of that amount. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based watchdog group that pressures food companies to make healthier products, plans to propose a federal excise tax on soda, certain fruit drinks, energy drinks, sports drinks and ready-to-drink teas. It would not include most diet beverages. Excise taxes are levied on goods and manufacturers typically pass them on to consumers. Labels: health care Labels: humor Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865 To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson Sir: I got your letter and was glad to find you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Col. Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville hospital, but one of the neighbors told me Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance. I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here; I get $25 a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy (the folks here call her Mrs. Anderson), and the children, Milly, Jane and Grundy, go to school and are learning well; the teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday School, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated; sometimes we overhear others saying, As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost Marshal General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you are sincerely disposed to treat us justly and kindly—and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years and Mandy twenty years. At $25 a month for me, and $2 a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to $11,680. Add to this the interest for the time our wages has been kept back and deduct what you paid for our clothing and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams Express, in care of V. Winters, esq, Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night, but in Tennessee there was never any pay day for the Negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire. In answering this letter please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die if it comes to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits. Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me. From your old servant, Jourdon Anderson Labels: history Labels: freedom of speech, Idaho politics Labels: humor Labels: machining
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).
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Michael Williams -- Master of None
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A Group Blog By Iraqis
THE MESOPOTAMIAN: TO BRING ONE MORE IRAQI VOICE OF THE SILENT MAJORITY TO THE ATTENTION OF THE WORLD
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Impearls: a blog as electic and interesting as mine
Proving that the United States military does more than kill people and break things.
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Maggie's Farm: Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
A blog dedicated to "Documenting Saddam Hussein's support of Terrorism"
The blog of one of my fellow bloggers on the Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog
J. Norman Heath's Blog--a circus rigger and Second Amendment scholar (really!)
Buckeye Firearms Association, for you Ohio gun owners and activists
Click here for a FREE NEWSLETTER on Ohio Gun Rights from Buckeye Firearms Association!
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Neocon Blues
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Intimidation By Members of Congress
What would you call it if members of Congress sitting on a committee regulating your industry told you to change your position, or face regulatory changes designed to cause your business trouble?
I'm not sure of the exact legal status of a threat like this (and what might be implied to qualify as a threat), but what distinguishes this from the extortion that the Mafia does, except that the Mafia's actions are a bit more direct? You will also notice that a number of the Democrats who played significant roles in creating the housing crisis signed this letter.
UPDATE: Here's Frey's very thoughtful response. I'm not sure that I understand some of his suggestions, much less agree with them, but it really does show the intellectual and classiness gap between Congresscritters-as-Mafioso and Mr. Frey.
Truing The Mill Vise
I've mentioned my efforts to turn a cheap Chinese drill press vise into a mill vise for my Sherline. More of the saga.
One of the reasons that mill vises have a crisp edge at the bottom is so that you can align it with the mill table. The jaws of the mill vise, and the base of the mill vise, are very precisely parallel, so that when you move the mill table side to side, the workpiece only moves side to side, in the X-axis, not the Z-axis. And yes, I can (and I'm sure that you can) feel a discrepancy of .002" or .003" between two edges, so if the mill vise base and the table feel parallel, there is less (sometimes much less) than .003" difference.
So the first step was to figure out how to get this drill press vise's jaws and base parallel. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to clamp the drill press vise in a position that would allow me to mill an even line on the base. Eventually, this was my strategy:
The piece of bar aluminum in the mill vise is 1.007" thick (+- .001"--I measured it, and I was impressed at the accuracy). The drill press vise is clamped onto the bar aluminum. (It wouldn't clamp in the mill vise and still have the drill press vise base exposed to the end mill.) There's obviously a problem here of accumulating tolerances, but even assuming .002" at the mill vise base, .001" from the mill vise jaw, .001" from the aluminum bar, and perhaps .005" from the drill press vise itself, that's less than .010" total--and the next step makes even this discrepancy go away.
So now I made a series of passes with the end mill (a four flute roughing mill intended for steel) until I had a consistent edge on the drill press vise base. It looks terrible, but when I clamped it to the mill table, I had a repeatable line.
Now I used the end mill on the fixed jaw of the drill press vise to make it parallel to the base. It took a couple of passes for the original manufacturing marks to go away--and now, because I was moving the fixed jaw parallel to the base, because the base is parallel to the table, the fixed jaw is as parallel to the base as the intrinsic accuracy of the vertical mill.
I'm sure that this is still not as accurate as a proper mill vise--but for larger workpieces, it is sufficient--and it holds workpieces--even that slippery Delrin--far more solidly than the mill vise that I already had.
BATF Seems To Have Learned Nothing From Waco
This is a disturbing May 15, 2009 news story from a Connecticut newspaper, the Record-Journal:WALLINGFORD - A usually quiet mobile home park was shaken Friday morning when about 15 officers from the U.S. bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and local police descended on one of their neighbor's homes with force.
Now, there is a somewhat legitimate basis for BATF to show up and ask some questions (which isn't the same as bashing in a door and putting a gun to the head of someone who isn't resisting):
"They had their guns drawn and were surrounding the house," said Jennifer Monroe of Hosford Bridge Road. "These weren't small guns, they were machine guns. It wasn't normal."
Lynne Boynton, of 15 Hosford Bridge Road, went to her husband's truck for coffee money at about 6 a.m. and was pushed to the driveway and handcuffed with an officer's knee in her back and a gun to her head.
ATF officers surrounded her father-in-law's home at Western Sands Mobile Home Park and used a battering ram to enter the unlocked home in the rear, Boynton said.
"They were pouring out of there like crazy," said Monroe, who can easily see the front door. "They had Lynne in handcuffs. We were like 'What are they looking for?' "
Once inside, officers pulled Gilman Boynton and Paul Boynton out of bed, the men said. Paul Boynton said three or four officers threw him to the floor and put a gun to his head. Gilman Boynton, 76, who suffers from a heart condition, was made to sit in the living room, he said.The family was told by ATF officers that the agency received a tip six weeks ago that a convicted felon was living at the home and had access to guns, Lynne Boynton said. Paul Boynton was arrested 34 years ago at the age of 17 with a friend who had forged a check. He hasn't been arrested since, he said.
Indeed, if Paul Boynton's felony conviction was the basis for the raid, then especially a handgun would seem like the most logical weapon to confiscate, until his living arrangements were resolved. But taking only the rifles?
Gilman Boynton is a gun collector, who keeps his rifles in a locked case on the wall, and a Beretta pistol in a safe. On Friday, ATF officers confiscated 14 rifles from the gun case and took his permits, he said. After breaking the safe, the ATF officers left the Beretta with a magazine cartridge still in the safe in Boynton's dresser.
"If they are so worried about guns, why did they leave a pistol in the safe and the holster?" Lynne Boynton said. "It was humiliating; I've never been handcuffed in my life."
Even if we accept the validity of a lifelong prohibition on gun possession for any felony conviction, there is simply no basis for this level of force. If Paul Boynton had a history of violent crimes, this might be slightly plausible. But a non-violent felony conviction more than three decades in the past justifies this level of brutality? There's either a lot more to this story, or BATF hasn't learned anything from past misbehavior--and you can be sure that Obama's boys aren't going to reprimand them.'
Thanks to A Goy And His Blog for bringing this to my attention. (Clever pun on that awful 1970s movie, A Boy And His Dog.)
For Those Who Think In Terms Of Gay Genes
Even the American Psychological Association, which is very pro-gay, is admitting that the gay gene claim isn't flying:There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles; most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation.
By the way, I don't argue with the "little or no sense of choice." As a gay, politically conservative, competition shooter observed to me some years ago, "Why would anyone choose to be gay?"
A Majority Now Call Themselves Pro-Life
A new Gallup poll finds, for the first time since they start asking this question in 1995, that a majority of Americans describe themselves as pro-life. It's a slim majority: 51% pro-life, and 42% pro-choice.
I've always found surveys like this a bit misleading. When you look at how Americans respond to very specific questions, you find that while a majority want restrictions on abortion, relatively few want abortion completely illegal--and I suspect that even the 22% in this survey that want abortion illegal under all circumstances probably would consider it acceptable to save the life of the mother (which is the position of the Catholic Church, and just about all evangelical Christians with whom I have ever spoken). There is a similarly tiny percentage--23%--that wants abortion legal under all circumstances. The majority--53%--want abortion legal under some circumstances. By the standards of the most militant pro-lifers, that majority are "babykillers." But wanting restrictions on abortion means that they are hardly "pro-choice."
I am quite sure, however, that large numbers of Americans who are adamantly opposed to abortion under all circumstances, or who want restrictions on abortion, voted for the most vigorously pro-abortion President we have had in many years.
BackgroundWorker In .NET
I'm putting this here because I spent a lot more time visiting a lot more sites than I thought that I should to find out what I needed to invoke a thread using the BackgroundWorker class in .NET. In case you have the same need, here it is.
If a user interface function in .NET wants to perform some operation that is going to take a long time, you need to do something to make sure that the user interface still gets a chance to run. While Windows is a pre-emptive scheduler (meaning that you don't have to give up control to make sure that other tasks run), it appears that the main Windows message processing loop may not get a chance to run in compute intensive operations, preventing update of the user interface.
So, there's two ways around the problem:
1. Call Application.DoEvents periodically, to make sure that the Windows UI gets a chance to process message traffic. Ugly, especially if there is no obvious way to figure out how often to call this.
2. Use the BackgroundWorker class. (This is the preferred approach.)
BackgroundWorker class is a method for starting a thread, and receiving messages when that thread completes, or makes progress. Remember that even though the code is all present in one file (even in one class, if you choose), there are actually two separate threads that execute in parallel. The UI does the following sequence to set up a thread:// Creates a background task control object.
BackgroundWorker backgroundTask = new BackgroundWorker();
// Adds an event handler that will start the background task. The
// backgroundTaskStart is part of the background thread.
backgroundTask.DoWork += DoWorkEventHandler(backgroundTaskStart);
// Adds an event handler that will be called when the background task
// completes. The backgroundTaskCompleted is part of the UI thread.
backgroundTask.RunWorkerCompleted += RunWorkerCompletedEventHandler(backgroundTaskCompleted);
// You need to set WorkerReportsProgress true if you want the UI thread to
// be informed when the background task updates the progress information.
backgroundTask.WorkerReportsProgress = true;
// Set up the event handler that gets called when the background task wants
// to report progress to the UI. Remember that backgroundTaskProgress is in
// the UI thread.
backgroundTask.ProgressChanged += ProgressChangedEventHandler(backgroundTaskProgress);
// Tell the backgroundTask object to pass a parameter to the background thread,
// and get it running. There has to be some way to pass more than one parameter
// to the background thread, but I found that it was simpler to put all the
// other information in class level members of the UI thread; the background task
// has access to this information.
backgroundTask.RunWorkerAsync(oneParameter);
// This method executes your background task, and returns whatever return code
// (if any) you want sent back to the UI task, stored in e.result.
private void backgroundTaskStart(Object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
e.Result = backgroundTask();
}
// This method is called when the background task completes. Because it is
// within the UI thread, it can do operation such as updating a status bar.
private void tableExporterCompleted(Object sender, RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs e)
{
// update status bar, re-enable buttons that you may have disabled
// before starting the background thread.
}
// Here's where I ran into some lack of information. Ordinarily, a background
// thread informs the UI of what percent progress it has made. I didn't want to
// pass a number, but a series of messages showing, for example, how many
// records had been processed out of the total number, or various stages
// along the way. So I had the background thread update a string, progressMsg,
// and the update event handler merely informs the UI that there is a fresh
// message waiting to be displayed in the status bar.
private string progressMsg;
// This method gets called by the background thread periodically, with a
/ string that I want displayed on the status bar.
private void progress(string msg)
{
progressMsg = msg;
// Ordinarily, the parameter passed to ReportProgress is a percent complete.
// In this case, it's a dummy; ReportProgress sends a message to the
// progress event handler in the UI thread.
backgroundTask.ReportProgress(0);
}
// The BackgroundWorker object, when it gets a ReportProgress invocation, sends
// the event that executes this method, which updates the UI with the string
// most recently stored in progressMsg by the background thread.
private void backgroundTaskProgress(Object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e)
{
// Update the status bar in the form.
logToStatusBar(progressMsg);
}
Remember The Obnoxious EPA Bureaucrat in Ghostbusters?
Well, he obviously changed agencies. Read this letter from the FDA to General Mills, telling them that Cheerios is now classed as a drug!
Yes, as Snowflakes in Hell admits, technically, the FDA is correct about this. But this letter tells me that someone at FDA doesn't have enough to do. The letter doesn't claim that the cholesterol reducing benefits aren't true; but the way that this information is included on the packaging does not conform to FDA's rather demanding standards.
The Difference The Right Vise Makes
I mentioned a few days back that I was machining a cheap drill press vise to make it more precise for use on the Sherline vertical mill--and what a difference it makes! I filled a ScopeRoller order last night where I could have left these three rectangles the size that they came out of the chopsaw--but there was enough variation that it would have looked bad, and besides, when you mill the edges, it looks so much nicer!
Anyway, this drill press vise has a lot more clamping force, and I was able to lock all three 1/2" thick pieces of Delrin in position at once. Because it clamped them so solidly, I found that the fly cutter was happy even doing .025" deep cuts across all three chunks, even turning the lead screw as fast as I could. What a difference! My vertical mill is now a source of joy, not frustration. Even machining big pieces of aluminum works well now.
Sensing Evil
Roger L. Simon has a piece at PajamasMedia today that is quite interesting, about how a face to face encounter with evil caused him to reconsider his lifelong agnosticism. (There's an interesting article by me at PajamasMedia today as well.) His encounter with the President of Iran at a conference was apparently his first such experience:
I've never had this experience. Like Simon, I've met some pretty screwed up people over the years, who have done an enormous amount of damage and inflicted a lot of pain on others--but I never had this sensation. My wife has a couple of times met people who she describes in this way–not mentally ill, or damaged, or confused, but exuding evil in a way that was scary–and in one case, before she could even see the person. And these weren't people that anyone had ever heard of, either.
Another Reminder That Britain Has Been Taken Over By Idiots
What happens when you are minding your own business playing golf--and defend yourself from hoodlums? In Britain, you get arrested for self-defense. From the May 12, 2009 Telegraph:Golfers arrested after fighting off gang attempting to steal clubs
A group of golfers have been arrested on assault charges after allegedly fighting off a gang who attempted to steal their clubs.
Rumor Control
If you are like me, you have probably received an email that starts out:
Random emails without some verifiable source I tend to ignore.
There are all sorts of outlandish claims that get circulated by email, and when you have been paying attention as long as I have, you see the same silly claims mutating over time. The two million bed concentration camp outside of Fairbanks that the Obama Administration is building to lock up Christians (Republicans, conservatives, pick one)? The first time I saw that, the Bush Administration was building it to lock up liberal political activists.
If you spend even a couple of minutes thinking about this two million bed concentration camp in Alaska, you start to see serious problems.
1. You couldn't hide something that large from satellite imaging.
2. Why would you build a concentration camp larger than the whole population of Alaska so far from the population that you are going to lock up? The costs of flying two million prisoners to Alaska is insane, and transport by rail through Canada presents a host of problems. Our government is inefficient, and sometimes evil, but they aren't that stupid. If there was such an absurdly large concentration camp being built, it would be in Nevada, or Utah--maybe the Dakotas. Not Alaska.
I was told recently that the federal government is building a big concentration camp in East Boise. My response was, "Show me some pictures of it." East Boise isn't that far away. Drive over there, take some pictures, and we'll find out what it is. That's the last I heard of this claim.
Let me emphasize: this isn't a right/left thing. It's a gullible vs. skeptical thing. The left was awash in all sorts of absurd rumors: Jews didn't go to work at the Twin Towers on 9/11 because the Mossad had warned them (as the Poet Laureate of New Jersey claimed); the buildings were imploded by elaborate sets of charges installed in the buildings the week before; the planes were remotely piloted; the Pentagon was hit by a missile, not an airliner; it was an inside job; Bush was going to call off the 2008 elections so that he could become dictator.
The more astonishing or disturbing the claim--and especially if it is a claim that fits into what you already believe--the more you should demand serious evidence before you believe it. An email from an anonymous person isn't evidence; a website set up to promote a particular point of view isn't evidence unless it can point you to a trustworthy site that isn't promoting that point of view.
Anyway, back to Fort Campbell gun control. It appears that the email has a nugget of truth buried deep within it. This article over at the Military Officers Association blog shows how it got started:
Origins
Official Response from Ft. Campbell
This is not an effort to infringe on Soldiers’ rights to own firearms.
This makes perfect sense. Until someone can provide clear evidence otherwise, you should regard that email as miscommunication.
Your Tax Dollars At Work
If I told you that the federal government is about to spend $2.6 million on a research study "to develop, implement, and evaluate a venue-based alcohol use and HIV risk reduction intervention focusing on both environmental and individual factors among venue-based" prostitutes, your reaction might be, "Hmmm. Wouldn't it make more sense to encourage them to get out a dangerous business?"
Now, what I tell you that our government is going to spend this money overseas?(CNSNews.com) -- The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will pay $2.6 million in U.S. tax dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly on the job.
Our government is even outsourcing stuff like this!
Dr. Xiaoming Li, the researcher conducting the program, is director of the Prevention Research Center at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit.
The grant, made last November, refers to prostitutes as "female sex workers"--or FSW--and their handlers as "gatekeepers."
"Previous studies in Asia and Africa and our own data from FSWs [female sex workers] in China suggest that the social norms and institutional policy within commercial sex venues as well as agents overseeing the FSWs (i.e., the 'gatekeepers', defined as persons who manage the establishments and/or sex workers) are potentially of great importance in influencing alcohol use and sexual behavior among establishment-based FSWs," says the NIH grant abstract submitted by Dr. Li.
"Therefore, in this application, we propose to develop, implement, and evaluate a venue-based alcohol use and HIV risk reduction intervention focusing on both environmental and individual factors among venue-based FSWs in China," says the abstract.
The research will take place in the southern Chinese province of Guangxi.
One Of Those Sobering News Stories
Don't be stupid. Leaving a gun unsecured in your home is just looking for trouble. Maybe your kids are sensible enough to be trusted (although even sensible kids can turn into complete strangers when the puberty fairy comes through and turns them temporarily insane); but maybe not their friends. And you don't want to arm a burglar--especially if you walk in while they are still in the house. From the May 12, 2009 Idaho Statesman:
It's For Our Own Good, Of Course
From the May 12, 2009 Wall Street Journal:
Can a tax on red meat be far behind? There's absolutely no question that excessive red meat in your diet is a health problem. Are we going to see a tax on K-Y jelly, Glide, and Vaseline to cover the costs of AIDS next? No, because that's a special group.
More Global Warming Humor
Over at Ursi's Blog. Trust me: you'll never find penguins and polar bears within 20,000 miles of each, much less this close!
A Weird Dream
Maybe all this talk about Obama being Carter II caused it. I had this weird dream last night where the economic malaise of the 1970s never ended, my wife and I were never able to afford to go back to school and get our bachelor's and master's degrees, and she was working as a clerk at a Petaluma grocery store. And what really added to the weirdness was the alien tourists: half insect, half reptilian, and we had to be really polite to them, because Earth needed the tourist income.
Brilliantly Funny Letter From a Former Slave
If this letter hadn't been published in an 1869 book (at p. 265), I would find it just a bit too good to be true. I suspect that the guy who put this letter up on his website and I wouldn't have much else to agree upon, except that slavery was evil, and this letter is quite appropriate. It is from a former slave, responding to a letter from his former master, asking him to come back and work for him:
Big Spring, TennesseeThem colored people were slaves down in Tennessee.
The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks, but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Col. Anderson. Many darkies would have been proud, as I used to was, to call you master. Now, if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.
Chris Pentico's Sentencing
I showed up at the courthouse--and found a sign on the second floor, where Judge Swain's courtroom is, announcing that the Chris Pentico sentencing had been moved to courtroom 504. I suspect that they moved the sentencing because of the anticipated crowd--and it was a crowd. There wasn't a seat free, and the aisles were filled with folding chairs and standing people. I noticed Dan Popkey of the Idaho Statesman present, taking notes.
Rep. Pete Nielsen (R-ID) testified in mitigation of the sentence. (Essentially, arguing why the sentence should be light.) One of the claims made by the prosecution was that the governor's staff had asked to have Pentico banned. Nielsen testified that when he first heard about this ban, he contacted both Captain Rogers, of the capitol security detail of the state police, and Clete Edmondsen of the governor's office. Rogers at first didn't know who gave the order, and Edmondsen claimed to know nothing of it. (I believe that Nielsen passed this word back to Pentico at some point, which would at least give Pentico reason to be unsure if he was banned or not.) Later, Captain Rogers got back to Nielsen, and told Nielsen that Edmondsen had ordered Pentico's ban.
Nielsen also testified that in the almost four years that he had known Pentico, through Elmore County Republican Party activities, and at the legislature, he had never known Pentico to be anything but honest and polite in his dealings with others. Nielsen also turned over a letter to the judge to this effect signed by a number of other members of the legislature. (And remember: one of the original reasons for banning Pentico was that he made members of the legislature "nervous.") I don't know how many other members signed that letter, but I don't get the impression that it was more than a couple.
The prosecutor claimed that the reason Pentico was banned was that had repeatedly harassed staff in the Board of Education offices, and requested that Pentico be given a $500 fine ($300 suspended), 90 days in jail (85 days suspended), and a no-contact order with the governor's office, Idaho department of education, and a couple of other branches of the government, for some significant period of time. (I don't have the period in my notes, but I think it might have been two years.)
Pentico's attorney, Derr, is pretty old--beginning to get the shakes associated with Parkinson's. His statement wasn't spectacularly well delivered, and at one point, he called a witness out of the crowd, Wayne Hoffman of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, who had apparently worked at the Board of Education during the time Pentico was supposedly harassing staff (although he was never arrested or ordered to leave the premises during that period). After a few words between them, Derr changed his mind. Derr should have talked to Hoffman first before calling him as a witness, I think.
Where Derr did best was point out that the statute prohibiting trespass requires you to be told to leave and not return--and when Officer Pattis claims that he told Pentico that there were places that he was not welcome, and was not to return, these were not places that he had been at that day, and was not at them at the time of notice. More importantly and more eloquently, Derr asked if any officer could tell any citizen they can only exercise their First Amendment rights in writing, or with a police escort to and from a government office? There's an obvious chilling effect when you have to give 48 hours notice to the police that you wish to deliver a complaint to a government official. (This was the circumstances under which Officer Pattis says he told Pentico that he could hand deliver complaints to the governor's office.)
Judge Swain argued that the statute under which Pentico was convicted is defective, in that it treats both public and private property the same, but that he was obligated to "apply the laws to the facts." He also acknowledged that there was a First Amendment conflict in a situation like this--which suggests to me that he didn't read the Korsen decision as carefully (or perhaps as broadly) as I did. He did acknowledge that Pentico's conduct, assuming all the facts that he obviously believed to convict him, constituted a de minimis violation of the statute. Because of "the unusual facts of the case," such as Pentico's community standing, lack of criminal history, indeed, lack of any evidence of dangerousness, "no jail time" "no fine" "no court costs" and "no no-contact order." All of this was a withheld judgment for thirty days. If Pentico can stay out of trouble for that period of time, the conviction disappears.
I don't know if Judge Swain was influenced by the large crowd of well behaved people that showed up to make sure that justice was done. In one sense, I would hope that Swain was not influenced. Justice shouldn't be determined by popular sentiment. On the other hand, if there's something fishy about a case, and a defendant has this much of the public concerned about it, maybe it should influence a judge to rethink his position.
Clearly, Judge Swain was putting it back on the legislature to fix what he acknowledged was a defective statute. I approached Rep. Nielsen after adjournment, and indicated that he needs to introduce a bill next session to fix this. He agreed, and asked me to suggest some language. I told him I would think about it for a few days, and do so.
Pretty clearly, there are circumstances where it is appropriate to exclude someone from governmental offices. But those circumstances need to be pretty extreme--not just to make government officials and their employees comfortable. I would suggest that requiring a judge to issue a restraining order should be the first step, or perhaps the second step--something that provides for due process, and an impartial observer to decide whether a citizen's legitimate reason to enter public parts of government offices is exceeded by the legitimate needs of government to operate without intimidation or physical danger. Any ideas that you have: let me know.
UPDATE: Dan Popkey's article about the sentencing hearing was mostly correct, but what was left out is no surprise, consider Popkey's political leanings. The comments by the liberals that dominate the Idaho Statesman's comment board are unsurprising: lots of personal insults to Pentico, and general contempt for the First Amendment right of free speech and right to petition government officials for redress of grievances. If you aren't engaged in nude dancing, Idaho liberals aren't big on those protections.
Global Warming Humor
It's rather like that other item floating around, that shows that the declining content of women's underwear is causing global warming--strictly intended as humor. Members of the global warming cult are wrong (or at least, not clearly correct), but at least the real scientists do actually use multivariate correlation analysis--not stupid bivariate correlations.
My Vise Problem
Yes, that's "vise" with an "s" not a "c".
I mentioned a while back that the mill vise that comes with the Sherline vertical mill just doesn't hold objects tightly enough (especially if they are made of Delrin, or are very tall relative to their width) to machine well. There are a number of other mill vises out there, but you pay quite a bit to get just bit more capacity.
I found a solution, lying around the shop. I have a 4" drill press vise--one of these cast iron things that Harbor Freight sells. Okay, they aren't going to spectacularly accurate, but for the bigger items that I need to mill, I can settle for coarse machining, then use the mill vise to remove the last ten or twenty thousandths of an inch more accurately.
And was I mistaken. I discovered that the flanges of the drill press vise, where you bolt them to a drill press table, were exactly the right height for the Sherline mill vise hold down clamps to grab. And then I took six 1/4" thick pieces of Delrin that I use for the ScopeRoller 11 units, and decided to get them all the same width. I had cut these on a chop saw, and they were pretty close to the same width and length--but I could immediately feel that they were at least .010" difference in dimensions, sometimes considerably more than that. I figured that using the drill press vise wouldn't be thousandths of an inch accurate, but at least better.
So I put them in with a spacer to take care of a dip at the edge of the vise's bed, and ran a flycutter across all four edges at once. And wow. When I was done, all six pieces were square within .002". And five of them were within .002" of the others on dimensions. (The sixth one, closest to the dip at the edge of the vise's bed, was about .007" different dimension from the other five.) This cheap Chinese stuff is made more parallel and square than I would have guessed.
So the next step is to square the drill press vise. I put the flycutter in the mill, and ran it across the bottom of the vise bed--so it is as parallel to its base as the mill is capable of cutting. The next step will be to use an end mill to make the opposing jaws as parallel as I can. Then I will square the outer dimensions of the drill press vise to make it a bit smaller on the outside, and easier to square against the vertical mill table.
