The advertising above is just a source of revenue. If the ads get offensive enough, I may drop them.
Clayton Cramer's BLOG |
|
|
Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page).
PayPal members: to make a contribution
Email me at blogmail at claytoncramer dot com. Sorry to be so indirect, but all spambots must die! But they haven't died yet! Include the word spamIamnot in your subject line to make sure that my spam blocker lets you through. |
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Nebraska Adopts Non-Discretionary Concealed Carry Law Last week, it was Kansas, where the legislature overrode Governor Sibelius's veto. Yesterday, the Nebraska legislature passed a non-discretionary concealed carry permit law, and sent it to the governor, who announced that he will sign it: "It's just been a long haul," she said. "A majority of Nebraska has spoken. It's time to move on to the other important issues we have."Okay, it's not perfect. But as Dave Kopel points out, Pennsylvania's first non-discretionary permit law allowed Philadelphia to continue its wicked ways. Eventually, when it became apparent that the rest of the state wasn't going beserk with legally carried concealed weapons, the Pennsylvania legislature told Philadelphia that they were going to have to get with the program. Now, this isn't quite the same situation. Omaha doesn't just have a discretionary permit system, but a complete ban. At least if you lived in civilized Pennsylvania, you could get a carry permit and go into Philly. Omaha's ban will stand, and according to these news accounts, permits issued elsewhere won't be recognized there. But like Pennsylvania, I suspect that Omaha--the place where a concealed weapon is most needed--isn't going to be able to keep this situation forever. Eventually, the decent people of Omaha are going to figure out that the reason Omaha city government doesn't trust its people to carry guns--and the rest of Nebraska does--is because the rest of Nebraska is extremely white--and Omaha is not. Omaha's population is 13.3% black--which doesn't sound like much, but compared to the rest of the state (which including Omaha's blacks, is only 4% black), it is dark enough to scare the city government witless. Happy Customers I've had one or two returns from the ScopeRoller business in the last year (and one customer who was legitimately irritated about some machining that I did as my old lathe gave up the ghost who I mollified with a partial refund), but overall, I either never hear from customers after delivery, or I get comments like these, which I have just added to the ScopeRoller web site. What Are Customers Saying? Friday, March 31, 2006
Keep Your Tools Sharp That's the lesson from using any machine tool. I sell a caster set for the Losmandy GM-8, which has square legs that are 1.00" x 1.00" inside dimensions. That's current production. Some years back, Losmandy's GM-8 tripod legs were 1.00" x 1.15" inside. For a couple of customers with the older tripods, I've custom made the inserts that slide inside. Two nights ago, I was asking myself, "Why is this taking so long? I'm not charging enough for these!" I was milling the inserts on a Sherline vertical mill, and using the flycutter (which looks like an instrument for beheading large number of flies, all stuck in a large circle) it was producing only a so-so finish, and it was taking forever! Then I switched to using a end mill, which produced a much nicer finish, but because an end mill only cuts a small circle (in this case, about 3/8" in diameter), it was again taking forever. I sharpened the metal insert that goes into the flycutter--and wow, what a difference! It produced a very fine surface, one that I could not just say was good, but downright beautiful--and it was cutting through the Delrin very quickly--and without having to take thin little slices a few thousandths of an inch in diameter. I had to turn down a customer last Saturday because I found the process of facing UHMW polyethylene cylinders just too laborious--I was having to take very thin cuts, and producing a surface that I am not willing to ship to a customer (been there once, done that, I have the emotional scars to prove it), so I asked if I could produce his parts in a harder, but more machinable material like Delrin. He couldn't wait that long. Well, today I sharpened up the cutting tool on the lathe, and while the UHMW is still not as machinable or as pleasant to work with as Delrin, with a sharp tool, it at least cuts quickly, and produces an acceptable surface. Amusing Example of Google Advertising That Didn't Work Google ads run based on keywords in the associated web page--and sometimes the results are amusing. Having written some scathing blog entries about homosexuality, Google ads made some assumptions (remember: ASSUME really means to make an ASS of U and ME), and put gay dating site ads up as a result. Well, my son gets a phone call from some photojournalism school in Santa Barbara, trying to interest him in coming there. I search a little, and find that there's something called the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara. I don't if this is the institution that called my son, but in my searching for the answer to the question, "Who are they accredited by?" I found this letter in the Ventura County Star from a counselor at Ventura College, explaining that Brooks is not accredited by the WASC, and accusing them of misleading their students about future earnings potential, transferability of credit, and future accreditation. (This article from the New York Times reports that California's Attorney-General has gone after Brooks for misleading practices.) So what ads did Google's clever keyword matching scheme put on the right side of the page? Why, three ads for the Brooks Institute of Photography! You have to wonder a bit about the intelligence of anyone who reads tha letter, and then clicks through those ads! UPDATE: Here's a more detailed account of Brooks Institute's legal problems from Inside Higher Ed--and the comments by current and former students are devastating. Some are reasonably happy, but I notice that these are generally the students who are still in school--not the ones now out looking for jobs. It sounds like they provide (or at least did provide) a high quality education--but there are few jobs for their graduates, and they have set unrealistically high expectations for salary and employment after graduation from a very expensive school. Hint To Idaho Concealed Weapon Permit Holders My Idaho permit expires tomorrow, so I ran down to the Ada County Sheriff's Department to renew--assuming that this would be a simple and quick operation. It was--but this only gets the renewal background check started. It could be as much as 30 days until this completes, and they issue me a renewed permit. In the meantime, however, I do not have a valid Idaho permit. Fortunately, I have permits from a number of other states that Idaho recognizes--but if you don't happen to have a stack of concealed weapon permits from other states, you should be aware of this potential time lag, and go down and start the renewal process 30 days before your permit expires. This Seems To Be A Real Product... But the specifications sound like a joke--especially the ability to convert records to modern formats (for you young ones--they were round, flat, black plastic--all the rage when I was young). It is rather like the ultimate Swiss Army knife for entertainment: # 2000 Gigabytes of storageHey, if you buy one of these, I've got stacks of records that need to be transferred! The Book Contract Is In My Hot Little Hands For Signature! It arrived yesterday for my signature, and it goes out today UPS 2nd Day Air back to my agent! This has taken a bit longer than I expected, partly because the publisher's contract attorney was in the hospital for some weeks. Thursday, March 30, 2006
Alternative Energy Regular readers of my blog know that I am interested in alternative energy sources--although I am not such an enthusiast as to buy economically irrational technologies, nor do I think the government should be subsidizing them. Still, there's a place for many of these alternatives, especially if less expensive traditional sources aren't available. Those solar powered night lights that charge a battery in the daytime, then glow for several hours to illuminate a pathway? We're going to use those to mark the edges of our new driveway. Photovoltaics don't seem to make sense for your new house, because winter has too few hours of illumination this far north--even if the clouds aren't in the way. But I must confess, when I look at the wind we get across our ridge, especially in winter, I find myself wondering if a wind turbine to supplement photovoltaics in winter, and the LP gas fired backup generator, might provide a realistic solution that lets us make minimal use of Idaho Power. I'll have to see how consistent the wind is in spring and summer. My father was quite fascinated by these same sort of alternative energy sources. I can remember standing on Santa Monica Pier with him, when I was perhaps ten or so, and he pointed to one of the floating docks that was rising and falling with the waves. He pointed out that the dock easily weighed half a ton, and it was moving up and down three feet every few seconds--and that this was an enormous amount of free power--if you could convert it to electricity. I was talking to my sister who lives on the Oregon coast, and she mentioned that a neighbor has a six foot windmill, recently obtained at an estate sale. The windmill is turning almost constantly, because this part of the Oregon coast has a very steady wind. Another neighbor, who has lived in the area for seventy years, says that this six foot windmill was an advertising model for a brand that was manufactured and sold in the area back in the early 1930s. He tells my sister that most farms, not having electricity available from a utility, used these windmills to generate electricity for well pumps and to run a light bulb or two in farmhouses and barns. It wasn't completely reliable, but it worked well enough, at least for Oregon. I've mentioned before that I've read that Day & Night Manufacturing in Southern California has that name because they were originally in the solar water heater business--back at the start of the twentieth century--and that federal regulation of natural gas prices, by keeping prices artificially low, discouraged continued maintenance and manufacturing of such systems. It occurs to me that the New Deal effort to get electricity to every farm, through the Rural Electrification Administration, might have inadvertently injured these regional, decentralized, alternative energy manufacturers. Why invest the money in a windmill (which was necessarily intermittent) when you could get reliable electricity from a utility company? There may be other reasons why these alternatives went away besides the REA, but it would be an interesting issue for an economic historian to examine. The Importance of Real Science Classes For all the screeching from some circles about not allowing "pseudo-science" (by which they mean Intelligent Design critiques of evolutionary theory), you would think this sort of political indoctrination in a science class would generate a bit more controversy: So my son in junior high got the following choices for a school project:This isn't even "pseudo-science." It's political indoctrination in place of science. Hey, a serious discussion of the irreducible complexity problem of the flagellum would at least teach the kids something about the complexity of cell mechanisms. Labels: intelligent design Anniversary Dinner Last Night Well, as my former boss put it, Boise's nice restaurants are a little short on views. The Cottonwood Grill apparently has a nice view of the Boise River, but it is a bit pricey, and my wife is feeling a little guilty about the amount of money we spent on our trip to visit the daughter and son-in-law over the weekend. We went to Asiago's on Cole. No view, but the interior atmosphere is pretty nice. I didn't feel silly wearing a suit (no matter how silly I look in one). The quality of the ingredients really showed--but I confess, as good as the dish was that I had, it wasn't enough better than Johnny Carino's to justify the price. (The minestrone, however, was a bit insipid.) We typically spend about $35-$40 for two at Johnny Carino's; Asiago's came to $57. Much like my experience with John Ash in Sonoma County (which is a small step up from Asiago's in quality, pretense, and a big step up in price), Asiago's is better than Johnny Carino's, but not that much better. It occurred to me that if someone had been willing to cater the meal, our new house has a view that beats the pants off just about any restaurant in the Boise area. I do think that some restauranteur could do very nicely building a John Ash or Asiago's level of dining establishment on one of the local hillsides, either overlooking Horseshoe Bend, or looking down on Boise from the Bogus Basin road. Hollywood Morals At Work Actress Sharon Stone, AIDS activist, and all around feminist role model, is approaching other people's daughters in stores and telling them to submit to rape in the safest way possible. The language is a little rawer than I am prepared to quote, but she describes how she approached a teenaged girl in a store when the mother was suggesting that the clothes she was picking out were a bit too revealing, and encouraged her to think of oral sex as a safer alternative when what she was wearing made sex unavoidable. Yes, I suppose in some worst case scenario, this is safer, but fundamentally, Sharon Stone has bought into the whole leftist mindset that girls are sexual objects for men, and they better get used to it. How repulsive. Thanks again to Different River for finding this Coney Island whitefish in the cesspool of popular culture. Something Too Depraved For San Francisco Yup! There are sicknesses, depravities, and evils so severe that even San Francisco won't countenance them! More than 25,000 evangelical Christian youth landed Friday in San Francisco for a two-day rally at AT&T Park against "the virtue terrorism" of popular culture, and they were greeted by an official city condemnation and a clutch of protesters who said their event amounted to a "fascist mega-pep rally."I'm looking forward to using Mark Leno's statement the next time homosexuals decide to hold a gay pride parade in Boise. Thanks to Different River for bringing this to my attention. Cluelessness: Flying The Mexican Flag At A Texas High School Here's another example of a clueless person pandering to illegals--and demonstrating the importance of assimilating immigrants into America: Reagan High School Principal Robert Pambello was ordered to remove a Mexican flag Wednesday morning that he had hoisted below the U.S. and Texas flags that typically fly in front of his school — a symbol he agreed to fly to show support for his predominantly Hispanic student body.No, they should carry the Mexican flag--back to Mexico. I understand the problem that the illegals have. Mexico has a joke of a government, and has long relied on the U.S. as a pressure release valve. Mexico exports many of its hardest working people (along with more than a few criminals and crazies) to the U.S. rather than confront the serious economic problems that prevent its development. I think perhaps we are reaching the point where we need to force Mexico to face its problems--and end the corrupt and incompetent system that the Institutional Revolutionary Party created in 1929. Unfortunately, President Fox's National Action Party has turned out to be far less effective at fixing Mexico's problems than many of us had hoped. I don't think that illegal immigration has been an overwhelmingly bad or overwhelmingly good for the U.S. as a whole--but it has injured low-skill workers who are U.S. citiens or permanent residents for the benefit of middle and upper class Americans. Middle class Americans benefit from cheap American produce, cheap gardeners, and cheap restaurants. Upper class Americans benefit from cheap maids. Americans with limited job skills, especially teenagers, are competing for the entry level jobs, and that competition makes the wages lower than they would otherwise be. Particular regions of the U.S. are certainly injured by illegal immigration, as hospital emergency rooms end up treating the uninsured, who are overwhelmingly illegals in some urban areas. Their employers get cheap and docile labor; the government gets stuck with the health care bills, and the non-trivial costs of locking up and trying the large number of criminals who are part of the illegal flood. In the long run, the worst aspect of this flood of cheap and docile labor is that it discourages mechanization and robotic innovation. There's no intrinsic reason that we can't be building robotic fruit pickers, and mechanizing the busboy function in restaurants. I'm sure that someone, somewhere, is interested in making and marketing a robotic lawnmower which is the equivalent of a Roomba--but with Mexican gardeners so cheap, why bother? At Least Borders Is Honest About Why They Won't Carry This Issue No pretense that the cartoons in this issue of Free Inquiry are inappropriate--they are just scared of being attacked: Borders Books and Music, one of the country's largest bookstore chains, has refused to stock the latest edition of Free Inquiry magazine because the issue includes controversial cartoons that spurred violent and sometimes deadly protests in parts of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.The left has chosen to identify with Islam ever since 9/11--I guess on the theory that an enemy of my enemy is my friend--and the left has allowed the most violent and intolerant variant of Islam to define the faith for them. This makes McCarthyism seem positively benign. The blacklists of the 1950s operated through the combination of economic interest and studio fear of boycott; Borders is openly operating based on fear of direct criminal violence against their stores, employees, and customers. Wednesday, March 29, 2006
A Great Day For Up! This Bull Market Will Never Stop! When you start hearing this on a regular basis, it is time to sell stocks, and buy bonds. We haven't reached that point yet, but the NASDAQ composite average hit a five year high today. The 30 year Treasury yield closed at 4.842%--and the yield curve was effectively flat, with the 6 month Treasury yield at 4.817%. Some years ago, when the market was flying high in late 1999, there were people who should have known better screeching about the Dow Jones Industrial index was going to 20,000. Someone I know who had made himself some money in startups received an email query from a friend along the lines of, "I have $500 saved up! What stock should I buy to double my money in a month?" And this was a serious question. We have not reached that point of irrational exuberance, but when you reach the point where stock market pessimists cease to be audible, that's the point where you need to sell. Keep your eyes open--when everywhere you read and hear stock market analysts talking about the return of the good old days of the tech boom, start figuring out which stocks and stock funds to sell. Comparing Post-War Iraq & Germany Ilya Somin, who is guest-blogging over at Volokh Conspiracy, has some good points about the comparison between post-war Iraq and post-World War II Germany: Many critics of efforts to promote democracy in the Muslim world claim that the successful occupation of Germany after WWII is not a relevant precedent because postwar Germans, unlike modern Arabs and Afghanis, supposedly had a strong cultural affinity for liberal democracy. As one of my commenters put it, Germany was "the land of Kant" and therefore (it is implied) highly receptive to liberalism and democracy. This claim is largely a myth.The usual flaming fruitbat lawyers who usually comment on Professor Volokh's entries seem to have missed this thread, and there are some very thoughtful and informative comments as a result, such as this one: Let us recall the National Socialists were elected to power fair and square, and without substantially deceiving people about their aims, and enjoyed broad general support thereafter, not only up to and through the war but, as the surveys in the post show, for years afterward. That is to say, the Nazi government was in essence (if not in all particulars of its "institutions") a popular government, reflecting -- with notable exceptions (e.g. Treblinka, we hope) -- the general attitudes and wishes of the governed. It bears little comparison to the oligarchy of Saddam Hussein and his Tikriti tribemates.And this one: It's worth remembering, though, that the allies, well aware that many Germans were none too friendly toward democratic life (even if they weren't Nazi supporters) controlled the democratic process. Parties couldn't just "start up" and contest elections - they had to be certified by the occupying authorities and that meant they had to be within certain political limits. No commies, no nazis, etc. Illegal Immigration Michelle Malkin has some pictures that you aren't going to see anywhere else of the massive Hispanic protests against proposals to toughen our immigration laws. Let me emphasize: legal immigration is perfectly reasonable. I'm sure that most of the illegal immigrants to the United States are decent and hard-working people--but there are plenty of illegal immigrants who come here because they are criminals at home, and they don't suddenly start to fly right in America. Ramon Salcido, who murdered his wife, two of his three daughters, and his in-laws, just two miles from my home, is one example. Another is a guy who murdered the daughter of a co-worker because she was breaking up with him. Another is the guy that murdered a couple I met in Lamaze class--because his girlfriend (also an illlegal immigrant) falsely told him that the father was forcing her to have sex with him to keep her job. There are genuine national security issues involved with this vast swarm of illegal immigrants, because it is too easy for terrorists to cross our borders hidden inside this vast stream. This isn't a hypothetical; we know of at least one al-Qaeda operative who entered the U.S. illegally, across the Rio Grande. There are serious economic consequences as well. The talk of "jobs that Americans don't want" is nonsense. As Thomas Sowell has pointed out, The argument that immigrants "take jobs that other Americans don't want" leaves out the crucial factor of pay. If legal or illegal immigrants came here and worked as journalists or college professors at half the pay that American journalists or college professors receive, the intelligentsia would probably have no trouble seeing the fallacy in what they are saying.Reduce the supply of cheap labor that is afraid of INS, and wages for those jobs "Americans don't want" will rise. I guarantee it. It is disgraceful but perhaps unsurprising that much of the Republican Party doesn't care about the miserable wages earned by people doing the horrible jobs at the bottom of the society--it is both disgraceful and astonishing that the Democrats are more concerned about illegal immigrants than about blue collar workers who have a legal right to be here. This isn't just about improving working conditions for U.S. citizens and legal residents. It is about ending an absurd situation where employers pay illegals low wages that preclude them paying for health insurance, or even the most basic medical care, knowing that the rest of the economy will end up subsidizing emergency rooms. Most Americans are rightfully upset about this, and the poll numbers show an enormous level of agreement--one that cuts across political boundaries--but separates Americans from their representatives in a most impressive way: The concern cuts across demographics. A Quinnipiac University Polling Institute survey of 1,892 registered voters released March 3 found that 88 percent think illegal immigration is a serious problem; 83 percent of respondents identified as children or grandchildren of immigrants agreed. The margin of error was two percentage points.I wish that there was a realistic alternative to the Democratic and Republican Parties. There really isn't. (You Libertarians--note the word "realistic"--and remember that the LP is on the wrong side of this issue to get into office.) Unfortunately, the corrupting influence of Big Business, who wants cheap and docile labor, and the multiculturalst America-haters have found common cause in wanting--and getting--what are effectively open borders. Long-Lived Animals I've mentioned previously that Winston Churchill's parrot still lives. Now, it appears, that another pet of an important British Empire figure has recently died at an advanced age: KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - A giant aldabra tortoise thought to be around 250 years old has died in the Kolkata zoo of liver failure, Indian authorities said on Thursday. Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Wanted: Romantic Boise Area Restaurant With A View It is our 26th wedding anniversary tomorrow, and ordinarily we go out of town for this, but we were in Moscow for the weekend. Suggestions? Just Returned From Moscow Moscow, Idaho, that is, visiting my daughter and son-in-law--hence the quiet the last few days. The drive up Saturday was snow flurries and intense rain--with seriously frightening hydroplaning on U.S. 95 near Grangeville. The return trip was quite a bit better--but I am hoping that my daughter and son-in-law decide to work on their MSWs at Boise State--I am getting quite tired of the drive to the University of Idaho. We stayed at the La Quinta Inn in Moscow--a very nice place, quiet, only a few years old, although both my wife and I found the beds just a little too soft. I may have some pictures to show you in the next day or two. Moscow is a very scenic area, as is most of the places between Moscow and Boise. There's just a limit to the number of times that I can make that drive without getting just a bit bored by it. My wife calls her Equinox the Pigquinox, because of how it costs to fill it up, but really, it does okay for an all-wheel drive that will very comfortably seat four six foot adults and gobs of luggage. On the drive up, it returned 22 miles per gallon, and even though I was using the cruise control, it was generally set at or slightly above the speed limit--so that's pretty respectable. Of course, it gets up and goes when it needs to, and then my wife called it the Javelinanox, for the fierce and fast javelina of the southwest! UPDATE: The term "town and gown" refers to the divide between professors, staff, and students on one hand, and those people that live in a college town with no academic affiliation. Sometimes the gap is quite large and acrimonious. The film Breaking Away, one of my all time favorite "little" movies, does a nice job of portraying that. A sign with spelling like this one certainly suggests on which side of the divide the proprietor of this business sits:  Click to enlarge Signs like these at a bar just outside of Moscow, however, are a somewhat more difficult to categorize with any certainty:  Click to enlarge  Click to enlarge Northeast of Moscow is Moscow Mountain--where the wheatfields of the Palouse transition to pine forest.  Click to enlarge Yes, that building that looks like an overgrown Quonset hut is the Kibbie Dome, the indoor stadium for the University of Idaho. Some of the houses up there show signs of excessive creativity, like this one:  Click to enlarge Others look like props from The X-Files--and even though the purpose was to have a place to mount traffic reflectors, I still find this quite disturbing:  Click to enlarge The road back from Moscow had stretches that remind you that not everyone gets the message about the arrival of spring at the same time:  Click to enlarge |
