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Labels: history A similar result was reached in the case of U.S. v. Giardina.17 The defendant was seen by a psychiatrist at a mental health clinic who signed a physician's emergency certificate allowing the police to take the defendant to a mental hospital, where he was hospitalized for two weeks. The defendant was later charged with making false statements on firearms applications. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that admission by emergency certificate did not constitute a commitment for the purposes of the Gun Control Act, stating that "[t]emporary, emergency detentions for treatment of mental disorders or difficulties, which do not lead to formal commitments under state law, do not constitute the commitment envisioned" (Ref. 17, p 1337). It should be noted that the Hansel and Giardina decisions do not stand for the proposition that judicial authorization for an involuntary hospitalization is necessary for an individual to run afoul of the Gun Control Act. In U.S. v. Waters,18 a federal district court ruled that under New York law a two-physician certification procedure constitutes a formal commitment. Judicial review of the commitment was not a requirement. Labels: deinstitutionalization, gun rights Why do I keep thinking of the very funny 2004 campaign ad from Jerry Zucker (one of the writers of Airplane!) with the guy who keeps changing his mind--about which wire to cut on the bomb, which woman to marry--and especially the end, where Mr. Indecision starts to look at the clergyman who was about to perform the wedding with a lustful look in his eye? Labels: homosexuality, Idaho politics One of the challenges that geeks, inventors, hobbyists, hackers, burners, and artists who are trying to change the world face is finding a place to do their work. Ideally, it would have lots of equipment, supplies, and other geeks. Until the last year, they would have to set up their own workshop or beg for space at a machine shop. Now they can go and hang out at TechShop Jim Newton founded TechShop in the summer of 2006 because he needed a world-class workshop so he could work on his projects and inventions. After having access to full machine shops at both the College of San Mateo when he taught a BattleBots class and at the studio set of the Discovery Channel’s MythBusters TechShop provides its members with a huge variety of tools, machines, and equipment in a 15,000 square-foot workshop environment. The equipment at TechShop is not likely to appear in the hobbyist’s home workshop. The range of tools and equipment covers machining, sheet metal, welding, casting, laser cutters, rapid prototyping, CAD, CNC equipment, electronics, sewing, automotive, plastics, composites, and lots more. Membership is modeled after a fitness center, and several levels of membership are available. There are currently approximately 350 monthly, yearly, corporate, and lifetime members. The facility can handle around fifty members at a time, so TechShop have set the membership cap at 500 members so the shop and workspace does not get over-crowded. There are only about 150 membership slots available until membership is full. The hours of operation for TechShop are currently 9 AM to midnight, 7 days a week. Jim tells me that they plan to open 24x7 when they reach the membership cap of 500 in the next month or two. One of the guiding principles of TechShop is to make it affordable and accessible to everyone. Memberships are priced at $30 for a day pass, $100 for a month pass, or $1100 for an annual pass. Family and corporate memberships are also available. Lifetime memberships are not for sale, but are given only to TechShop’s angel lenders. Labels: globalization SALT LAKE CITY - Utah has stopped issuing concealed-gun permits to foreigners because of the rising number of applicants and the difficulty of conducting background checks. "Utah had become the state of choice for people who did not live in the United States but wanted to carry a gun in the country," said Richard Wyss, attorney at the Utah Bureau of Criminal Investigation. State authorities "became alarmed," he told lawmakers Tuesday. About 1,000 citizens of other countries have permits that allow them to carry a concealed gun in Utah and 30 states that have an agreement with Utah. Most are Canadians; others are from countries including Japan, Switzerland, Aruba, Mongolia, Mexico and the Republic of Congo. Since 1995, Utah has issued 92,000 permits, 30 percent to non-Utah residents. Applicants typically must show they attended a safety class. Even a blind North Dakota man has one. Background checks on foreigners were weak because Utah was denied access to records in other countries, but permits were issued if applicants met other requirements, authorities said. Utah now won't renew or issue the permits unless it can do a thorough background check. Labels: concealed carry, gun rights Labels: machining Some San Antonio apartment complexes are refusing to rent to people with tattoos and body piercings. News 4 WOAI Trouble Shooter Jaie Avila investigates the case of one couple who says that policy is unfair. Gilbert Carrillo thinks tattoos are an artform. He's been to tattoo conventions and one of his tattoos was featured in a magazine. "Ever since I was 18, to now, 25, bit by bit, covering up here, covering up there." But last month, Carrillo's tattoos kept him and his wife, Melissa, from moving into an apartment complex called the Villas at Medical Center. "We liked the apartment, we brought them a check for the deposit and a check for the application fee," says Melissa. Later, Gilbert went by to look at the apartment wearing a short sleeve shirt. The next day, the Carrillos were told they didn't qualify to live there, because the tattoos on Gilbert's arms violated the policy on personal appearance. "For them to be so judgmental on a person's appearance, and for them to judge someone based on them having a tattoo is just ridiculous, you know," says Melissa. The Carrillos were also upset that the manager refused to refund their full $70 application fee. But mostly, they feel the policy is discriminatory. PITTSBURG, Calif. (AP) - Three men have been charged with murdering a senior editor for PC World magazine in what police said was an attempt to steal marijuana that the victim's son grew in their home for medical use. Rex Farrance, 59, the San Francisco-based magazine's senior technical editor, was shot in the chest on Jan. 9 after masked men broke into his suburban home. Farrance's relatives believe the killers targeted the home after learning about the marijuana from a friend of the 19-year-old son. "Without regard to the legality of the extensive marijuana-growing operation that was taking place in the residence, we regard Mr. Farrance as an innocent victim in this case," said Contra Costa County prosecutor Harold Jewett. Farrance's wife, Lenore Vantosh-Farrance, was pistol-whipped during the robbery but managed to call 911. Labels: drug laws How many people, for instance, know that James Hansen, a man billed as a lonely "NASA whistleblower" standing up to the mighty U.S. government, was really funded by Soros' Open Society Institute , which gave him "legal and media advice"? That's right, Hansen was packaged for the media by Soros' flagship "philanthropy," by as much as $720,000, most likely under the OSI's "politicization of science" program. That may have meant that Hansen had media flacks help him get on the evening news to push his agenda and lawyers pressuring officials to let him spout his supposedly "censored" spiel for weeks in the name of advancing the global warming agenda. Hansen even succeeded, with public pressure from his nightly news performances, in forcing NASA to change its media policies to his advantage. Had Hansen's OSI-funding been known, the public might have viewed the whole production differently. The outcome could have been different. That's not the only case. Didn't the mainstream media report that 2006's vast immigration rallies across the country began as a spontaneous uprising of 2 million angry Mexican-flag waving illegal immigrants demanding U.S. citizenship in Los Angeles, egged on only by a local Spanish-language radio announcer? Turns out that wasn't what happened, either. Soros' OSI had money-muscle there, too, through its $17 million Justice Fund. The fund lists 19 projects in 2006. One was vaguely described involvement in the immigration rallies. Another project funded illegal immigrant activist groups for subsequent court cases. So what looked like a wildfire grassroots movement really was a manipulation from OSI's glassy Manhattan offices. The public had no way of knowing until the release of OSI's 2006 annual report. OSI also gave cash to other radicals who pressured the Transportation Security Administration to scrap a program called "Secure Flight," which matched flight passenger lists with terrorist names. It gave more cash to other left-wing lawyers who persuaded a Texas judge to block cell phone tracking of terrorists. They trumpeted this as a victory for civil liberties. Feel safer? It's all part of the $74 million OSI spent on "U.S. Programs" in 2006 to "shape policy." Who knows what revelations 2007's report will bring around events now in the news? OSI isn't the only secretive organization that Soros funds. OSI partners with the Tides Foundation, which funnels cash from wealthy donors who may not want it known that their cash goes to fringe groups engaged in "direct action" — also known as eco-terrorism. Soros' "shaping public policies," as OSI calls it, is not illegal. But it's a problem for democracy because it drives issues with cash and then only lets the public know about it after it's old news. That means the public makes decisions about issues without understanding the special agendas of groups behind them. Without more transparency, it amounts to political manipulation. This leads to cynicism. As word of these short-term covert ops gets out, the public grows to distrust what it hears and tunes out. The irony here is that Soros claims to be an advocate of an "open society." His OSI does just the legal minimum to disclose its activities. The public shouldn't have to wait until an annual report is out before the light is flipped on about the Open Society's political action. Labels: global warming, immigration, terrorism Labels: machining Labels: health care, politicians behaving badly Labels: history Labels: cars
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Hitler's Paganism
There is a tendency in some circles to portray Hitler and the Nazis as some perversion of Christianity. It is certainly the case that the Nazis took advantage of an existing, religious anti-Semitism that was present in Europe--and added a new Social Darwinist layer of racial anti-Semitism. Suddenly, it was not enough to be a convert to Christianity--the Nazis were obsessed about the corrupting effects of "Jewish blood."
It is also true that a fair number of Christians in Germany (both Protestant and Catholic) were seduced by the Nazi emphasis on family values, in opposition to the decadence of the Weimar Republic, which the Nazis characterized as the result of "Jewish cosmopolitanism." In private, the Nazis were hardly a family values bunch--and not just because of their propensity for violent attacks on their political enemies and on Jews. Ernst Roehm, head of the SA (Sturmabteilung) and most of his immediate subordinates in the SA were homosexuals.
Hitler resolved an internal power struggle between the SA and the German Army by arresting and killing Roehm and most of his top leadership. This became known as the Night of the Long Knives. Part of what made it so easy to get the SA leadership with little resistance is that many of them were caught in flagrante delicto with each other. Naked men having sex are generally not in the best position to defend themselves. Hitler pretended to be shocked and horrified by this--but I very much doubt that this was really a surprise.
There has been a long standing effort made to portray Hitler and the Nazis as devout Christians, for whom the Holocaust was simply a logical outgrowth of their Christian hatred of Jews. Yet most serious histories of the Third Reich acknowledge that Hitler held Christianity in considerable contempt, and that many of the SS leaders developed their own neopagan religion as an alternative to Christianity. I suspect that much of the misportrayal of Nazi religion comes from an effort to inoculate Jews in the United States from the longstanding and somewhat successful efforts to convert Jews to Christianity. As near as I can tell, my first ancestors in America named Cramer were converts from Judaism, as happened in large numbers in Germany in the nineteenth century.
Anyway, I am reading Saul Friedlaender's Nazi Germany and the Jews: 1939-1945, The Years of Extermination. There is a very interesting quote on page 17, discussing the first few months of World War II:"We touch again upon religions issues," Goebbels noted on December 29. "The Fuehrer is profoundly religion but totally antichristian. He considere Christianity as a symptom of decline. Rightly so. It is a deposit [Ablagerung] of the Jewish race. One also notices it in the similarity of religious rituals. Both have no relation to animals and this will destroy them in the end."
It appears that Ablagerung is a bit stronger than just "deposit":The process by which polluting material is precipitated from the atmosphere and accumulates in ecosystems.
The reference to animals had me a bit confused at first, but then I recalled Romans chapter 1, and wondered if this is what Goebbels meant:For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
ATVs
My remarks earlier today about the first snow on the mountain tops brings back the recurring problem that the Corvette can't reliably get up our driveway--can't even reliably get up the private road that leads to our driveway--when we get six inches or more of snow. My wife's Equinox does just fine--and I don't think it even switches from front wheel drive to all wheel drive as it does so. (Although it is nice to know that it could if it needed to do so.)
I've looked for several alternative strategies to giving up the Corvette. Yes, it's noisy, and the wife doesn't like to travel in for that reason. There are several all-wheel drive high performance sedans that, were I as rich as the billionaire Democrats who are trying to destroy America and capitalism, I would replace the Corvette with in a heartbeat.
The new 2008 Cadillac CTS all-wheel drive sedan is attractive--but with an MSRP above $38,000 for the all-wheel drive version--that's a lot of money for those of us who aren't Marxists. (But it says a lot about how far Cadillac has come that they build a car that I wouldn't disdainfully throw out of my garage.)
There is the MazdaSpeed 6, which has permanent four wheel drive to keep all that power sticking to dry pavement. The price is reasonable--a bit above $30,000, but there's no automatic available with it.
The Subaru Impreza WRX five door at least has an automatic available, and it looks like it would be slightly cheaper than the Mazda.
Still, I really don't want to give up the Corvette. When the top is off, and I'm driving down a two lane highway with the wind in my hair and sunlight filtering through the leaves, it is about as relaxing an experience as I can imagine. (And I am a hopeless cheapskate. You have no idea the internal struggle I went through to justify buying the Corvette.)
I have considered buying a used 4x4--but my wife is terrified of me buying an unreliable car that leaves me stranded at the side of state highway 55 in a winter snowstorm. At least here in Idaho, there is a pretty hefty premium that any 4x4 carries because of the demand for them--and anything that meets my wife's standards is going to be $12,000 and up.
So I have suddenly started toying with another idea. The state and county do a really good job of clearing Idaho 55 and the old highway that leads to the private road into our subdivision. I've never had a problem getting up either road in the Corvette. If we had conditions so severe that I couldn't get in or out on either road, most all-wheel drive sedans probably couldn't do it either. The problem is Sunburst Road and my driveway.
So maybe, once winter snows start to fall with any regularity, I could just park the Corvette at the junction of Sunburst Road and the old highway--and drive an ATV up to the house. It is only about half a mile. It's a nice walk when it isn't 15 degrees outside, with blowing snow. The entire distance is private roads, so I could legally drive an ATV the entire distance, and just leave it under a tarp at the junction.
New ATVs cost a bit of money--but used ones are surprisingly cheap. I don't need a very powerful one--I'm not going to exceed 15 mph on this road, and it just has to have enough power to climb the 15 degree driveway slope. Unlike a used 4x4 road vehicle, if a used ATV betrays me, the worst that happens is that I need to walk half a mile back to the house under unpleasant conditions.
My impression is that ATVs are basically motorcycles with all four wheels driven by the engine. I am also guessing that at least some ATVs are two wheel drive only. Anything else that I need to know?
First Snow
We had a bit of rain last night--but since we are now a week into fall, on top of Bogus Basin ski resort, it is snow! (Forgive the image quality--I am still getting used to the tools available under Linux.)
Click to enlarge
UPDATE: A few hours later--better sunlight, less clouds--but the snow is fading fast!
Click to enlarge
Mental Illness Commitment & Firearms Disability
What seems to be a very careful scholarly examination of mental illness commitment law with respect to firearms disability is Joseph R. Simpson,"Bad Risk? An Overview of Laws Prohibiting Possession of Firearms by Individuals With a History of Treatment for Mental Illness," Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry Law 35:3:330-338 (2007).
The abstract: For nearly 40 years, federal law has barred certain individuals with a history of mental health treatment from purchasing, receiving, or possessing firearms. State laws are a patchwork of different regulations, some much more inclusive than the federal statute, others that parallel it closely. In some states, such laws are nonexistent. For the past 20 years, it has been possible to petition for relief from the federal prohibition; however, this is not the case with all state laws. The mechanisms for relief under state laws, when present, vary significantly, and not all require the input of a mental health professional or even of any physician. This article provides an overview of federal and state laws, a discussion of implications of these laws for mental health clinicians and forensic practitioners, and suggestions of directions for future research.
He makes the claim:A front-page New York Times article in 2000 reported that of 75 so-called rampage killers (not all of whom had diagnosed or treated mental illnesses), 56 percent had made a fully legal purchase and another 16 percent had purchased the firearm by lying on their applications. Only 13 percent obtained the murder weapon by fully illegal means.2 However, beyond these anecdotal reports, there has been very little research in which the relationship between mental illness and risk of firearm-related violence, including suicide, was specifically examined.
Because he says "firearm-related violence" he is probably correct. There has been a bit of research, as I have previous mentioned, concerning the relationship between mental illness and violent crimes. But this research has not directly looked at firearm-related violence.
The article also discusses the case law related to firearms disability and mental illness commitment, pointing out what I have been saying regarding HR 2640--it takes a lote more (in New York State, just a bit more) than just a psychiatrist's say-so, or being given Ritalin as a child, to lose your right to own a gun under federal law:
I was a little surprised at how few persons have been prohibited from buying guns under the mental disability provision: In the first 12 months during which background checks mandated by the Brady Act were performed (November 1998 to November 1999), more than 4,400,000 background checks were performed. Of these, 81,006 (1.8% of the total) resulted in denial of applications to purchase firearms. The majority of these denials (56,554, or 69.8 percent) were due to felony indictments or convictions, and a further 9.9 percent were due to misdemeanor domestic violence convictions. Only 70 individuals (0.1% of the denials) were denied because of a history of mental illness. In comparison, there were 3,072 (3.8%) denials for drug addiction.10
And the reason seems to be what HR 2640 is trying to fix--lots of states won't supply the information.
The Hard Disk Idiocy Continues
HP is getting faster...at shipping the wrong unit. Today, I received another hard disk drive. A reader pointed out that the wrong hard disk I received yesterday is an IDE 48 pin ribbon interface--not the SATA interface that was in my notebook. And today, I received another IDE 48 pin ribbon interface disk drive, again with part number 430328-001 on it. And guess what! The bad disk drive has the same part number on it: 430328-001. This means that HP has two parts that are completely different and incompatible with the same part number.
He Was For It Before He Was Against It
I'm afraid that all this sleazy activity by Senator Happy Feet has caused him to contract Kerryism. You remember John Kerry's famous "I voted for the war before I voted against it" statement?
Let's see, Senator Happy Feet pleaded guilty to the disorderly conduct charge. Now he says that he did't do it, and wants to withdraw his plea.
First he said he was going to resign from the Senate effective September 30, 2007. Now, according to September 27, 2007 FoxNews:Craig's lawyers asked a Minnesota judge Wednesday to let the three-term senator withdraw his guilty plea in a sex sting at a Minneapolis airport restroom. Afterward, Craig issued a statement saying he will stay in office "for now."
The Machine Shop As Membership Club
Guy Kawasaki blogs about something that I would have found very useful a couple of years ago--and a co-worker and I actually discussed setting up a business like this:
I'm not sure if there is a big enough market here in the Boise area to make something like this practical, but I am sure that in any urban area with a million people, this would make a lot of sense. If you have ever gone to a machine shop and and tried to get something made, you know that:
in Menlo Park, California. show when he was the science advisor, he found himself without a place to work on his projects after these positions. He was surprised to find that there were not any places like TechShop already, so he decided that he would open one himself.
1. They charge you an arm and leg.
2. Machine shops are so busy that you may have a hard time getting them to even give you a quote.
I think this is a cool idea, and if there was a critical mass of others here in the Boise area who agreed with me, it might be an interesting business opportunity. I suspect that to make this work, you would need to offer classes as well as equipment availability. I am convinced that the level of instruction required to keep club members safe and prevent them from stupidly breaking the equipment would not be terribly much.
More About Those Hard Disk Problems
I mentioned several days ago that I had a hard disk failure on my HP Pavillion dv5220 notebook--and while waiting for the extended warranty process to solve my problem, I am using my Linux box.
Today, the replacement hard disk arrived--a day earlier than I expected. But there was a problem.
Here's the hard disk that was in the notebook:
Click to enlarge
And the replacement hard disk:
Click to enlarge
Hmmm. Do you see anything wrong? Well, I suppose if I used a hammer, I could smash the round pins on the replacement drive into the flat fingers of the connector, but I rather doubt that it would work very well.
So I called technical support, figuring that perhaps some dv5220 notebooks used one connector type, and others used another type. Nope! They looked it up in their database, and this is the only type of drive they used!
Perhaps there was some way to remove something from either drive that would be an adapter? Nope? Both drives had interfaces that were a part of the printed circuit board.
The technical support guy found a picture online of the model that they sent me--part 430328-001. It sure looks like the drive that was in my notebook--but nothing like the drive they sent me--which was not only in a box that said, "430328-001" but had a sticker on the drive that claimed it was a 430328-001. Pretty obviously, someone put the wrong sticker on the drive, and in the wrong box. So, I'm sending this drive back, and hope that they get lucky the next time.
Three things that have me very upset with HP customer support:
1. Their IT systems are obviously in a shambles. No two parts of the organization seem to have access to information that should be shared. I had to repeat my story, give them warranty information, product numbers, and serial numbers perhaps fifteen to twenty times over the last three days.
2. I know that India has cheap labor, and I also know that there is not a bright line that divides "speaks and understand English perfectly" and "utterly useless with English." But there needs to be some serious effort at identifying those people who can speak and understand English, and those for whom this is going to be a struggle. I speak with a California accent---not Southern, or Texan, or twangy Midwestern, or Bostonian, or even Wisconsin Cheesehead. This should be the least difficult version of American English for them to understand. And yet "four" and "seven" seem to be identical to many of the people I spoke to over the last few days. Some of them had so little accent that I was not at first sure if they were Indian or Canadian (who sound Canadian, but we still understood each other just fine), but most of the people on the phone required me to repeat myself, and vice versa. This is not pleasant, nor is it efficient.
3. I have not lost my temper or even reached the point of being short on the phone with anyone--in spite of strong temptations. Why? Because most of the people that I talked to seemed to be doing their best with completely inadequate IT systems. But at least two of the many people that I have spoken to in the last few days have been rude--and they started out the conversation that way. I know from talking to relatives who have spent far too much time on the phone to HP customer support that there area lot of rude people working for them. Why?
Some company could gain a big competitive advantage in the computer market by advertising, "All customer support is provided from Canada, the U.S., and Britain." I know that I would be willing to pay 10% more for a computer, knowing that I wasn't going to be exasperated after trying to get customer support.
UPDATE: A reader points out that someone has taken up the challenge. Gateway advertises:Now offering 100% North America-based telephone technical support.
I think that alone is enough reason to consider a Gateway next time I have to buy a computer. The reader who informed of this recently made the decision to buy Gateways for a business that he works for instead of Dell or HP for that reason.
Utah's Concealed Weapon Permit Process
According to this September 26, 2007 Associated Press article, Utah is no longer "shall-issue" for non-citizens:
I really can't say that I blame them. I rather suspect that the criminal background check system for Afghanistan is a little less thorough than for Wyoming. I would also worry a bit about terrorists entering the United States and using the deficiencies (or active assistance) of their home country's criminal justice system to allow them to carry concealed.
If the home country will provide adequate information, it appears that non-citizens can still get a Utah carry permit.
Machining the Regular Hexagon
Thanks to all my readers who found the problem with my previous geometry problem. Here's today's opportunity to exercise your brain.
I need to be able to machine a regular hexagon. I've already decided that even using a template doesn't produce a sufficiently perfect hexagon. I have a tilting table for my mill that lets me put a rectangle (length = 1.156 width) at a 60 degree angle. But when the table tilts the rectangle, where do I position the cutting edge?
The first diagram shows the rectangle as it is positioned in a mill vise on the tilt table in the 0 degree position. (The thickness of the tilt table turns out not to be relevant--only the distance from the pivot point to the edge of the rectangle.) It also shows the equations that I have persuaded myself identify the position of the first cut (C) relative to the pivot point.
The second diagram shows it in the 60 degree position.
Think Before Doing Something Irrevocable
A San Antonio apartment complex has a policy against renting to people with lots of body piercings and tattoos. Not surprisingly, a couple that has been refused an apartment is screaming discrimination. From September 25, 2007 WOAI:It's against the law for landlords to discriminate based on the color of a person's skin. But can they reject you because of what's on your skin?
Yup, it's discriminatory. And that's a problem because? "Discriminating" used to mean that you were somewhat demanding--that you didn't like everything, no matter how vulgar or repulsive. The evils of racial discrimination, and the campaign to end it, made the concept of "discriminating" suspect--even though almost everyone engages in discriminating behavior. I don't eat anything and everything that appears on supermarket shelves. I discriminate against animals because I don't treat the same way as people. I discriminate against rude and vulgar people because I find them irritating to be around. Democrats discriminate against Republicans at election time, and vice versa.
I will tell you that my first reaction to people who have tattoos, especially those who have them everywhere, is, "Short-term thinker, are we? Have you thought about how ugly those tattoos are going to be in 30 years? Have you thought about how that tattoo on your breasts is going to look in 20 years, when gravity changes the aspect ratio of that design? Have you considered that instead of looking 'cool' in 20 years, those tattoos are going to make it difficult to get a job?"
I am even more repulsed by a lot of the body modification stuff. I think the piercings everywhere are ridiculous, and mostly show that someone loves pain more than money, but what really repulses me are the "gauges"--when someone isn't content with an earring, but has to keep enlarging the hole until you can put a pencil through it. And then there are the extreme body modifications, with foreign objects under the skin, and the crowd that thinks that making themselves look at least somewhat like non-humans is so cool.
A lot of the tattoos and piercing crowd claim that they are just "expressing themselves." Fine. We're just expressing ourselves when we refuse to hire people or rent to people who want to look like a freak show, or a New Guinea native from a the 1950s National Geographic.
I have never known someone who went down the multiple piercings, tattoos all over path who felt good about themselves. It reminds me way too much of Michael Jackson's continual plastic surgery--an odyssey of pain for no purpose except to avoid confronting what is clearly a very damaged person.
Reality Check For George Soros
George Soros funded the California initiative (among others) that legalized marijuana for medicinal use. I voted for that initiative, because I thought that it wasn't such a big change--relatively few people would be so sick that marijuana would be the best choice. What has been surprising is how many people are now so sick that they need marijuana (snicker, snicker).
One of the traditional libertarian arguments for repealing drug laws is that making something legal reduces the violence associated with trafficking. On the downside, there is a significant violence problem associated with reduced inhibitions caused by many drugs (including alcohol).
California has, for practical purposes, made marijuana legal--but this September 26, 2007 Associated Press story shows that the trafficking-related violence is still going on:
"Extensive"? Mr. Farrance's son must have been extremely sick.
Transparency in Politics
One of the big issues for good government reformer sorts has always been transparency: that you should be able to see who is funding what political groups. This isn't enough to make a system honest and fair, but at least if someone is using obscene wealth to manipulate the system, you should at least be able to see it, even if you can't prevent it.
This editorial from the September 24, 2007 Investor's Business Daily points out that one of the biggest offenders on transparency is the hard left billionaire wing of the Democratic Party:
For a long time, left-wing Democrats have insisted that corporate interests have hijacked politics in America with vast quantities of money. This is beginning to look like projection on their part. I don't have much confidence that it is possible to remove the money from politics--but I do think that it is only fair that when the billionaire leftists fund projects, that we find out about it immediately.
The Space Aliens Are Sending Us A Message
At least, if this was any other pattern carved into a cornfield, only visible from the air, and especially if it was in Britain, every kook for 300 miles would be showing up to explain its cosmic significance. From September 24, 2007 NBC channel 10:Back behind the towering corn is a message that can only be seen from the air.
So, does it qualify as a hate message when almost no one knows that it was there? To recast this in medieval philosophy terms: "If a swastika falls in a cornfield, but there's no one there to be offended by it, does it mean anything?"
It is one of the most infamous symbols of hate -- a swastika -- cut into acres of cornfields in Washington Township, Mercer County.
A New Jersey State Police helicopter on a routine maintenance mission made the discovery Friday.
The swastika was located off of Hankins Road, near where similar swastikas were found in July 1998 and June 1999.
Hard Disk Problems
I'm glad that I bought the extended service plan on this refurbished HP notebook--the hard disk seems to be giving up the ghost. At least, when I boot it, I get a message that says, "SMART disk failure is imminent. Backup your files and replace the hard disk."
Fortunately, I have my Linux box run an incremental backup every night of My Documents on the notebook, and my wife's desktop.
Customer support is having me run the comprehensive disk diagnostic first. If it fails, they'll replace the hard disk. If it passes, they want me to do a restore operation (which really means that they think there's some virus in there that got past Norton).
As you might expect, I may be a little slower responding to emails because of this!
UPDATE: I am very disappointed with HP's customer support process. The guy I talked to last night indicated that they had no evidence that I had purchased the extended warranty. I was prepared to believe that perhaps I received the warranty paperwork, and failed to register it--but subsequent events suggest that HP's internal accounting processes are in bad shape. After a long conversation, last night's service tech passed me over to his boss (with spoke passable English and seemed to understand me), who managed to look up my extended warranty from the order number when I purchased it, and said that he was both registering the extended warranty for me. He told me that it would take four to 24 hours for this registration information to propagate throughout the system, but that he was explaining this in the case notes.
He had me do a destructive restore (reformats the hard disk)--just to make sure it wasn't a virus. The hard disk diagnostic passes--but it still won't boot. He also said that he would call back between 9:00 AM and 10:00 AM this morning to see if there was still a problem. This guy at least spoke clear English, and understood me.
Anyway, no call back. So I called HP service--and they had no record that the extended warranty had been purchased, and nothing in the case notes to indicate that last night's technician had found proof of extended warranty. Worse, the guy this morning indicated that they could not find the order number at all! It wasn't a valid order number--even though it is on an email invoice from HP. This makes me wonder if I actually forgot to register the extended warranty, or if HP just lost the information.
So I had to make some more calls--and fortunately, I found the extended warranty paperwork, so I had a certificate number. The department of HP that handles this seems to be stocked with Canadians, so they spoke English. Finally, they are sending out a replacement hard drive--although the guy in that department was almost incomprehensible, and it was apparent that he wasn't having any easier time understanding me. I don't think that seven and four sound anything alike.
Machining Lessons: Forstner Bits vs. Drill Bits
I've been using Forstner bits to hog out cylindrical holes in Delrin for some time. Usually I need a flat bottom hole that is 1.715" diameter and 2.05" deep. My 1 5/8" Forstner bit in the drill press makes a 1.620" diameter hole--and with a little care, the drill press is accurate enough on depth that if I making three pieces, I end up with one that is 2.049" deep, another that is 2.056", and the third might be 2.051".
Then I put the workpiece onto the lathe, and use a boring tool to expand the hole diameter from 1.620" to 1.715". A boring tool is a very slow but very precise method of accomplishing this end--you certainly wouldn't want to use a boring tool to make the entire hole!
One of the difficulties with using the drill press is that getting the Forstner bit exactly centered in the workpiece isn't easy. Consequently, I start out by putting the Forstner bit in the lathe to make a perfectly centered hole 3/10" deep. (A lathe is good for making perfectly centered holes; you have to work at it to make one that isn't perfectly centered.) Now, when I put the workpiece in the drill press, I just have to lower the Forstner bit into that hole, and adjust the mill vise to match.
Now, here's the learning part. It turns out that Forstner bits, while they make a very precise circular hole, do most of their cutting at the edges of the bit, and very little at the front of the bit. (There is some cutting going on, but the close you to get to the center, apparently, the less force the blade exerts.) When you are using Forstner bits on wood, it doesn't much matter, because nearly all woods are so soft that the bit just goes right through.
When you are using Forstner bits on Delrin, however, which is far, far harder than wood, you discover that a large diameter Forstner bit takes a long time to cut through a solid workpiece. On the drill press, I can make a 1 5/8" diameter by 2" deep hole in Delrin, but it takes several minutes. If I tried to do this on the lathe, where there is much less power, I am not even sure that I could do it.
The trick to using a large diameter Forstner bit on Delrin is to start with a much smaller diameter bit. If I start with a 1/2" Forstner bit, it cuts down through Delrin very quickly. Then you move up to a 7/8" Forstner bit. This is mostly cutting at the edge of the hole--but there's a 1/2" void under the part of the bit that isn't doing much cutting anyway. This gradual enlargement of the diameter with progressively larger Forstner bits works well--but it is definitely a bit slow!
So I started experimenting yesterday with using twist drills. (If you didn't know that there are different kinds of drill bits, a twist drill is probably the only kind of drill bit that you know about. To my surprise, the twist drill is very recent--patented in 1861.) Twist drills do effectively all their cutting on the front of the bit. Compared to a Forstner bit of the same diameter, a twist drill is much faster.
There are some downsides to twist drills. They tend to be a bit less precise in where the hole ends up in your workpiece. This is why you always start with a pilot hole produced with a center drill.
Because most twist drills are pointed, they don't produce a completely flat bottom--so you may want to follow them up with a Forstner bit.
On the plus side, I discovered that where the lathe, because of its lack of power, required me to start with a 1/2" Forstner bit to have any hope of cutting a hole in a reasonable time in Delrin, I could put an 11/16" twist drill in the lathe, and cut through in about the same time.
What this means is that in the future, instead of using Forstner bits sized 1/2", then 7/8", then 1 5/8" on the lathe, then use the 1 5/8" Forstner bit on the drill press, I will be able to use some of my twist drills so large that they look like props from the old TV series Land of the Giants on the drill press to hog out the hole, then switch to the 1 5/8" Forstner bit to finish the excavation.
Another Black Columnist About the Jena 6
Erik Rush's World Net Daily column about the Jena 6 points out the manipulation going on by what he calls the "poverty pimps":The facts
On Aug. 31, 2006, a black student at Jena High School sat in the shade of a tree frequented by white students at the school. Later, three nooses were found hanging from the tree.
Scott Windham, the school's principal, recommended expulsion of three white teens identified as the responsible parties, but was overruled by the school superintendent and board members, who (yes, idiotically) put the matter down as a "prank." The three students were given three-day suspensions.
Unsurprisingly, racial tensions flared at the school and in Jena that fall. On Nov. 30, 2006, part of the school was destroyed by a suspected arson fire. Other minor altercations and fistfights were reported; one black student was attacked at a party by white students.
On Dec. 4, 2006, a fight that broke out in the high school lunchroom between a white student, Justin Barker, and a black student. Barker was rendered unconscious, then kicked and stomped by a group of black students as he lay motionless. Five of the teens were later charged as adults with attempted second-degree murder. A sixth teen was charged as a juvenile.
Mychal Bell, one of the five, was convicted in June 2007 on a reduced charge: aggravated second-degree battery. He was to be sentenced this month, but on Sept. 14 an appeals court vacated the on the grounds that the charges should have been brought in juvenile court.
John Edwards' Two Americas
Last presidential election, Senator John Edwards spent a lot of time talking about the "two Americas":Today, under George W. Bush, there are two Americas, not one: One America that does the work, another America that reaps the reward. One America that pays the taxes, another America that gets the tax breaks. One America that will do anything to leave its children a better life, another America that never has to do a thing because its children are already set for life.
Yes, John Edwards would know a lot about the America "that reaps the reward... that never has to do a thing because its children are already set for life." From the January 26, 2007 Carolina Journal:RALEIGH — Presidential candidate John Edwards and his family recently moved into what county tax officials say is the most valuable home in Orange County. The house, which includes a recreational building attached to the main living quarters, also is probably the largest in the county.
Everyone needs a place to live. Unless you live in New York City, you need a car. I don't begrudge a person a nice place to live, if they can afford it. I also don't begrudge a person a nice car, if they can afford it. There is no clear dividing line between a necessary car and outrageous extravagance, or between an adequate house and a palace. But there are examples that are clearly the other side of that nebulous line--and when you spend much of your time delivering speeches about "Two Americas," while living like a Gilded Age robber baron, it is hard not to call John Edwards for what he is: a hypocrite.
“The Edwardses’ residential property will likely have the highest tax value in the county,” Orange County Tax Assessor John Smith told Carolina Journal. He estimated that the tax value will exceed $6 million when the facility is completed.
The rambling structure sits in the middle of a 102-acre estate on Old Greensboro Road west of Chapel Hill. The heavily wooded site and winding driveway ensure that the home is not visible from the road. “No Trespassing” signs discourage passersby from venturing past the gate.
...
Knight approved the building plans that showed the Edwards home totaling 28,200 square feet of connected space. The main house is 10,400 square feet and has two garages. The recreation building, a red, barn-like building containing 15,600 square feet, is connected to the house by a closed-in and roofed structure of varying widths and elevations that totals 2,200 square feet.
The main house is all on one level except for a 600-square-foot bedroom and bath area above the guest garage.
The recreation building contains a basketball court, a squash court, two stages, a bedroom, kitchen, bathrooms, swimming pool, a four-story tower, and a room designated “John’s Lounge.”
If, instead of a six million dollar house, Edwards had settled for a modest million dollar home, he could put that five million dollars into a scholarship fund. With even modest skill, it would generate $350,000 a year in income forever. That would pay for 70 college students to receive $5000 a year in financial aid--enough to allow at least 70 kids who might otherwise not be able to go to college, to do so. Or provide catastrophic health insurance for at least 72 people a year. As I pointed out a few weeks back, if 1000 of America's billionaire and multimillionaire progressives each put in $100 million (and many of them could do so without any serious injury to their lifestyle), we could get a good start on creating basic health insurance for those uninsured Americans who can't afford it.
I've said it before, and I'm saying it again: the reason that America's wealthiest people support Democrats (Warren Buffett, for example, maxing his contributions to both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama) is not because they are concerned about the poor, but are too cheap to spend the money from their own bulging pockets--but are quite prepared to raise taxes on those of us who have to still work for a living. All this faux populism by billionaires seems to fool some people, but it sure isn't fooling me.
Marxian Reductionism
Reductionism is what happens when a complex, multifactorial problem gets reduced to a single explanation. I mentioned a few weeks back Addicted to War, a ridiculous example of Marxian reductionism that, because it is so dishonest and inaccurate, is now a textbook in San Francisco public schools. Addicted to War is addicted to the reductionistic claim that every U.S. war was caused by capitalist greed.
You can find reductionism in many different forms, of course. Marxists aren't the only ones that suffer this defect. Intellectuals (or at least people that assume that because they professors, that makes them intellectuals) seem to be especially prone to reductionism, perhaps because they are in love with ideas. A single explanation for everything is a very attractive idea.
I went through a phase in my 20s and early 30s where libertarian reductionism was intellectually very satisfying. As I studied history more, I discovered that even when a particular libertarian explanation was generally right in explaining historical events, it was very, very seldom 100% right. (Maybe these claims were never 100% right, but I'm not sure of that, and I'm trying to avoid reductionistic thinking about reductionism.)
Hence, the socialist idea that wars are always fought about capitalist greed was very popular in some circles at the start of the twentieth century. There were doubtless wars fought for that reason. But once this idea had grabbed hold of the brains of the intellectuals, everything had to fit that model: hence, Addicted to War.
I'm reading Saul Friedlaender's Nazi Germany and the Jews: Volume I, The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939, and he makes an interesting claim about the rather famous January 30, 1939 Reichstag speech by Adolf Hitler. Most people know of it for Hitler's insistence that the suffering of the Jews in Germany wasn't Germany's fault--he was ready to let the Western democracies that were complaining have all of Germany's Jews--but the Western democracies didn't want any more refugees. You can find that section of the speech quoted all over the Internet.
Friedlaender's remark that caught my eye, however, was this:After referring to the American intervention against Germany during World War I, which, according to him, had been determined by purely capitalistic motives.... [p. 309]
This was a pretty widely held belief in some circles in America by the mid-1930s, especially after the Nye Committee's report blamed (with little evidence) U.S. intervention into World War I on American munition makers trying to protect their investments in loans to the British government. Too bad for Senator Nye (R-ND)--he moved from trying to blame U.S. involvement on munitions makers to trying to blame President Wilson (a Democrat) for misleading Congress about the reasons for the war--and as this February 10, 1936 Time magazine article points out, the Democratic majority eliminated the Nye Committee's funding. (This seems to be an executive summary of the Nye Committee report--not very persuasive.)
I've tried to find the exact language that Hitler used in that speech--but I can't seem to find the full text of it anywhere. It would be amusing (although perhaps not terribly useful or significant) to see the exact language that Hitler used, and see how similar it is to Addicted to War's claims.
Lube, Oil, Filter, and a Mouse, Please
I took the Corvette in for an oil change at Wal-Mart, dropped it off--and then picked it up a couple of hours later. The service writer informed that when they opened the hood, they had a little surprise waiting for them--a snake curled around the warmth of the engine. And yes, it was still alive, and no, they decided that checking all the vital fluids did not include removing the snake.
I can't claim that I'm surprised. There are enough field mice that our cat Tater catches in the garage that I am not surprised that a snake would scurry in there as well. Now that the weather has cooled off (from summer heat to surprisingly cool fall days right on the autumnal equinox), I suspect that my hitchhiker curled up in the nice warm engine compartment some evening after I pulled into the garage.
I told my wife, and she insisted that we go out and take a look for the snake under the hood. By then, several hours had elapsed. Perhaps he left in pursuit of a less terrifying warm place to sleep; perhaps fell off as I was driving home.
