Chris Johnson

SCOTUS: 2025 Term

First, a huge shoutout to CourtListener.com. These guys are doing an impressive job of exposing the inner workings of the legal system.

They haven’t hit the state-level courts yet, but at the federal level, they really can’t be beat.

They are a part of the Free Law Project. FLP has managed to get contracts and access to many court filings. They have created software to scrub court filings and collect them in one place. They have created a good search engine that just works.

Recently they announced a new feature: voice-to-text transcription of circuit court oral arguments.

In general, it is much faster for me to read a transcript than to listen to it. Plus, knowing who is speaking makes a difference in understanding what is happening.

With this new feature, I expect to be paying more attention to oral arguments at the appellate level.

I am biased towards them; I contributed a small bit of coding a while ago. They have just gotten better since I found them.

Supreme Court Terms

The Supreme Court term runs from July 1st to July 1st. The old term ends on June 30th, and the new term starts on July 1st with the court starting business in October.

In practical terms, this means that the case numbers change on July 1st. We are now seeing cases with a “25-” prefix, indicating the case was filed in the 2025 term. We won’t see anything really happen until October.

During a term, motions are filed on the docket and the emergency docket. These motions request certain actions of the court. The one we are most familiar with is a motion for a writ of certiorari.

Normally these are filed on the main docket. If a stay or injunction is requested, that will normally be done through the emergency docket.

Occasionally a motion for a stay or injunction will turn into a motion for a writ of certiorari.

Over the course of the term, the Court will hear oral arguments on 60 to 70 cases. These cases encompass all areas of law. Constitutional issues, business law, property law, criminal law, and all the other areas that I don’t know anything about.

The case that overturned Chevron was an administrative case. It just happened to be incredibly important to dismantling the administrative state.

Because of the breadth of types of cases, SCOTUS does not like to take on repetitive cases nor too many cases in the same area. They would rather pick one to three cases that address issues significant to the Nation.

We can expect two or three Second Amendment cases to be heard in a term. The cases chosen will address large issues that advance jurisprudence in Second Amendment law.

Will there be an assault weapons ban case? At this point, I believe the court has indicated that it will not. The refusal to grant cert to Snope (Bianchi) is a strong indicator.

Snope has been an ongoing case since 2017. It was one of the cases looking for cert before cert was granted in Bruen.

The case was brought in the Fourth Circuit to get a favorable ruling to reverse Kolbe v. Hogan.

Bianchi made it to the Supreme Court. Was granted cert after Bruen. The opinion of the Fourth Circuit Court was vacated. The case was remanded to the Fourth Circuit for a “do-over” in light of Bruen.

Two years later, the en banc Fourth Circuit decided they had gotten it right the first time around.

A motion for cert was made to the Supreme Court. That motion was denied.

Why Didn’t The Supreme Court Take These Second Amendment Cases?

Because they are a do-over.

Bruen was a licensing case. The question asked was does the Second Amendment-protected right to keep and bear arms extend outside the home? The resounding answer was “YES!” The right to keep and bear arms does exist outside the home. All states are now must-issue states.

The rest of the opinion is dicta. In that dicta, the Court explained how to evaluate Second Amendment challenges. They stated that when there is a constitutional challenge, the first step is to determine if the plain text is implicated. If the plain text is implicated, then it becomes the government’s burden to prove a history and tradition of that type of regulation.

Note, this is for all constitutional challenges. This is the basis of originalism in jurisprudence.

Because the question asked had to do with the right to keep and bear arms outside the home, it was not a repeat of Heller. The Heller methodology was and always has been: is the plain text of the Second Amendment implicated? If yes, then the burden shifts to the government to prove a historical tradition of matching firearms regulations.

Bruen did not change that in the least. It affirmed the Heller methodology.

Heller‘s dicta talks about how to find matching historical firearm regulations. It also discusses every word of the operative clause of the Second Amendment and why the operative clause is controlling and not “well regulated militia.”

In their research into the historical laws of this Nation, the Supreme Court could not find any regulations banning firearms that were in common use. Because there are no matching regulations, there is no history nor tradition of banning firearms in common use, such as the pistols at issue in Heller.

The opinion held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. The specific question allowed the gun-grabbers to limit that to “in the home”.

The gun haters then created a two-step shuffle where they would first decide on the level of scrutiny required to balance away any practical Second Amendment-protected rights in the anti-gun states.

Bruen extend those protections outside the home and explained that the two-step shuffle was not allowed.

So what is Snope? The question asked in Snope is can the state ban a firearm in common use?

This is the same as Heller. The observed fact that the lower courts are not applying Heller correctly does not make the case significant to The Court.

Misbehaving inferior courts can be slapped down via other means.

Types of Second Amendment Cases

I believe there are a few types of cases that are making their way up the court system that will interest The Court.

The first is “sensitive places.” While SCOTUS gave examples of “sensitive places” and examples of what were not “sensitive places”, the states have decided on their definition.

The state’s definition of sensitive place is any place they don’t want armed people.

The second type of case is a definition of “The People.” There have been several cases where 18-20 year-olds have challenged laws restricting their right to keep and bear arms. There is a clear circuit split.

This case would allow The Court to clarify that “The People” means all the people. They might choose to extend that definition to people under the age of 18 as well as legal residents of the United States.

The more important part of that decision will be the dicta. That is where The Court will, again, tell the inferior courts how to do it right.

Finally, I believe we are going to see a case on the NFA. It won’t address machine guns; it will address infringements when there is no justification.

Remember, the reason that you can’t buy a short-barreled rifle with a 4473 is because the federal government has to collect a tax on the transfer of that firearm.

All the requirements, extra background checks, fingerprinting, and chief law enforcement officer approval exist to make sure that you pay your transfer fee and that you can prove that you have paid, on demand.

And nobody is stopping you from buying a machine gun if you are willing to meet the requirements and pay your $200 tax. The closing of the NFA to new machine guns isn’t stopping you from buying existing (pre-1986) machine guns.

In a few years, we might see something challenging the right to acquire machine guns. Acquiring would include making them.

If it ever becomes possible to add new machine guns to the NFA, I can see a booming business for drill guide jigs.

Conclusion

There are big things coming from the Supreme Court in the Second Amendment area. I’m sure it will be good.

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Why is it so slow?

I wish I knew. There is a fast server running nothing but Ceph and MariaDB. It is connected via 10 Gigabit to the backbone. It is running on NVMe.

That’s not a bottleneck.

The container is running on a nice fast computer with plenty of memory, 10 Gigabit networking, and multiple CPUs running at 98% idle.

That’s not a bottleneck.

I’m done. I know you are done too. We’re moving to a different server in a different data center. You won’t notice the downtime because the server is so slow today.

I’m spoiled

I can go to Amazon and order something; it will be here the next day with free shipping. I order from some place apart from Amazon, and they want me to pay shipping.

If something goes wrong with an Amazon shipment, they have it fixed in a few minutes.

Powdered Paint

With the way my woodworking is going, I expect to need to put a finish on some items shortly.

Earlier this week, I used a 1-pound cut of shellac with a Tried and True beeswax and boiled linseed oil finish. That came out very nice.

On Wednesday I tested out a dark 2-pound cut of shellac on pine. Oh my, that is beautiful. I’m going to make some beeswax, carnauba, and olive oil paste polish over the top. I just have to make it.

But the fun thing that arrived Thursday was milk paint.

This has very period colors. I’ve used it in the past. That was a product by General (I think) which I applied with an HVLP sprayer. It did a fantastic job of covering with a dull finish.

Those shelves have stood up to abuse above the washer and dryer. The remarkable feature is that the paint never gets tacky, unlike latex paint.

The new paint comes in powder format. You mix it at a one-to-one ratio. Unfortunately, the person who wrote the instructions didn’t specify if it was 1-to-1 by volume or by weight.

I’m going with volume because the instructions have far too much “until it looks good” and “semi-melted milkshake consistency.”

The colors look very period. Next week will be a test week for painting.

Shellac or paint first?

Research and still more research.

Unfortunately, the seller is happy with “just use my product.” I’m not a fan of putting paint straight on softwoods directly.

So what comes first, a few coats of shellac to create a smoother surface or paint only, or paint then shellac to seal it, followed by wax?

The good news is that almost any finish will work over de-waxed shellac.

SCOTUS: One Little Phrase

In Rush v. U.S. Jamond Rush was found to be in possession of an unregistered short-barreled rifle. He is making a facial Second Amendment challenge to 18 U.S.C. §§ 5841, 5845(a)(3), 5861(d).

A petition for writ of certiorari was filed June 6, 2025. On June 13th, the government said they would not be responding.

This is “OK” for the new DoJ. They aren’t fighting the petition, nor are they attempting to get the case heard.

SCOTUS has distributed the case for conference on 9/29/2025.

Yesterday, The Court added this short phrase to the docket: Response Requested. (Due September 2, 2025)

This is a big deal. It means that the Supreme Court is asking the Trump Administration if the Trump Administration wants them to hear the case.

Given what we have been seeing out of the Trump DoJ, this is likely a very good thing.

With the OBBB having passed and the reason for SBS, SBR, AOW, and Supressors being on the NFA gone, this could be the end of the NFA for these types of items, or for the NFA as a whole.

We will keep watching.

Question of the week

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. — William Shakespeare, Macbeth.

The one thing that keeps disappointing me with this administration is the lack of arrests and criminal cases being filed.

I have held DoD clearances. I had to take yearly classes on how to handle classified material. I know that Hillary Clinton broke the law in her handling of classified material. She should have been charged, arrested, prosecuted, found guilty, and then spent time in prison.

The fact that she is still walking around without any consequences upsets me.

I was hoping that we would see several high-level people being perp-walked over the Epstein files. It hasn’t happened (yet?)

Now there is another dump of data exposing criminal actions on the part of multiple players.

Q: Do you think anybody will be going to trial over any of these criminal actions? Do you think anybody will see any prison time for their criminal acts?

Vinyl records in a row. One record is standing in front. On the record label there is some copy space.

Tunes

Olivia Newton-John was one of the women of my teen years. I remember listening to “Physical” many times. Of course I was naive at the time. And I didn’t watch MTV, so this is the first time I’ve seen the music video for her song.

Brings new meaning to the words.

(How naive? I really liked the song “Dancing in the Streets” in the Footloose sound track and didn’t understand why she was so embarrassed that her dad caught her listening to it.)


It is in the low 80s as I write this. The sun has gone down, and it is starting to cool.

I have just finished my third or fourth “exercise” of the day. This was a crosscut, and then planing a 31×11 piece of pine flat. With a dull smoothing plane.

I feel like I spent an hour on the treadmill.

On the previous outing, I ripped a 5-foot length of 4 quarters pine. The fact that I did that by hand impressed me. The fact that it only took a few minutes even more so. I really don’t get it. A few weeks ago I was bitching that my saws were not cutting. Today my crosscut saw and my rip saw both were doing 3/4s of in inch or more with each stroke.

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Getting Healthy

A few years ago, Miggy told us the tale of getting fit. He changed his diet, he added exercise, he did more, he ate less, and he weighed less.

At the time he was going through this, I was feeling pretty fat. Being fat made it difficult to want to do many things. I was fighting depression.

As part of the process of getting fit, I went to a local Zumba studio to use their treadmill. I started walking. Then I started walking rapidly. After a few months, I was actually jogging.

Unfortunately, my knee started to give me trouble. My doctor gave me a choice: jog and get a knee replacement or find something else to do.

I settled on a recumbent exercise bike. It helped. Then the panic hit. Things got bad.

Just as my doctor told me to stop jogging, my weight had plateaued at 285.

At my last doctor’s visit, the office scale read 312. This included full gear minus my EDC pistol. So spare magazines… Never , I’m making excuses for that very high number.

My morning weigh-in for the same day was 303.

Monday morning, my weight was 295. My weight loss for the week was 4 pounds, but I’m averaging about a pound a week.

For exercise I still have the exercise bike, but spending 2 or 3 hours using handsaws and hand planes to make things seems to be exercise as well.

I’m in this for the long run. In 1976 I was pleased to celebrate the 200th birthday of my country. I intend to celebrate the 300th as well.

Vintage magnifying glass with antique books. Concept for learn history, investigation, find artifacts.

Honest History

In a post from Sunday, I’m Very Disappointed in You abc123 used a term I’ve not heard or maybe not noticed before, “Honest History.”

It is a term that I am going to add to my standard vocabulary. Phrases such as “inferior courts,” “Second Amendment protected,” and “criminal illegal alien.” All of these terms, in my opinion, create a truer representation of the situation than some word games being played by the media.

What is “honest history?” It is a statement of what happened to the best of our knowledge. There is nothing left out, nothing hidden, and no lies.

Was there slavery in the United States? Honest history requires us to say “yes.” We need to go on to report that it was horrific, immoral, and evil.

Honest history then requires us to fill out that picture. That not all white men were slave owners. That some slave owners were black. That the primarily white northerners spilled wealth and blood to free the slaves.

There were northern states that did not repeal their slavery laws until after the 13th Amendment was ratified.

Or how about the honest history of the trade triangle? Yankee ships left Boston with holds full of rum. They sailed to Africa, where the rum was traded for slaves. Slaves captured by blacks. The slaves were then transported to Caribbean islands, where they were traded for molasses. That molasses was transported to Boston to be turned into rum.

At every stop, the traders made a profit. Triangle trade routes are more profitable than bidirectional trade routes.

Honest history includes telling the history of women and underlings that contributed to great inventions. There is evidence, I don’t know how strong, that the cotton gin was created by Eli Whitney’s wife.

Today, there are too many people who can’t give us honest history. Compare the pure drivel of Howard Zinn in A People’s History of the United States. His telling of history is dishonest. It is told to hide the truth. There are more books debunking his drivel than Zinn wrote.

The 1619 Project is another example of dishonest history. Are parts of those histories true and correct? Likely. Do people come away from reading those books with an honest understanding and view of history? Unlikely.

I enjoy studying history. There is something I learned over time: different viewpoints make for different stories.

When I read stories about Vietnam, the story was often told from the viewpoint of a single soldier. I remember one book where a recon team was marching through the jungle. One of the soldiers had to switch to his glasses because his contacts were bothering him too much. Another had a bad case of diarrhea. This caused him to cut the bottom out of his pants so he could just squat over the side of the trail and let it all come out.

These were personal stories. They may or may not have been entirely fictional, but they allowed me to hike through jungles in my mind’s eye. They felt honest.

But there are other books that big picture. Oh my goodness, Winston Churchill’s The Second World War is a godawful read. Not because he was a poor author, but because his story is at such a high level you need notes and maps to follow along.

It is full of dates, names, and places. The names are generals and political leaders. The places could be as big as a country or as small as a town. Troop movements were often expressed in terms of corps being moved. I think the smallest unit I remember was a division.

Unless you know the geography much better than I do, it requires a map to follow.

Churchill’s histories are honest with an honest statement of his point of view.

Today, we are much more likely to be told what to feel and think rather than an honest history.

Who? What? Where? When? Why? are the questions that should be asked and answered.

These questions might never be answered in a “news” story. But you will walk away knowing who you should hate. Who is the villain. Who is the victim.

Take the time to read any headline, and you can spot the biases and likely lies without even reading the rest of the story.

Lawyer challenging business woman in suit or lawyer working on documents Legal advice and justice Female lawyer working at law firm and squatting with court scales

The Authors Guild v. National Endowment for the Humanities, 1:25-cv-03923, (S.D.N.Y.)

On June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court issued their opinion in Trump v. CASA which found that the courts do not have the authority to grant universal injunctions.

This put the left in a tailspin. If they can’t get universal injunctions, they can’t stop the Trump Administration in the courts. The current battle plan of the deep state, leftist *bleep*, is to delay, delay, delay.

During Trump’s first term, they neutered him by cutting him off from his trusted associates and then throwing up roadblocks at every occasion. The goal was to delay his actions until he was removed from office.

This time around, they are using the courts because Trump v2.0 is better, faster, and better equipped to deal with their games. He issues executive orders that explicitly state that he wants the law to be followed. He doesn’t zero a budget; he reduces it to the required minimum. He doesn’t close an agency; he just folds all their duties into other agencies and guts the workforce.

The Supreme Court left open an avenue for nationwide injunctions to take place. That path is a “class action.”

This requires a class certification. The court must determine if a group of individuals has similar claims that can be grouped together.

The investigation and filing process normally takes a few months to a year to complete. My understanding is that the average is closer to 12 months than 2 months.

After the investigation, the request for class certification is filed, and the court decides. This takes from 6 months to 2 years.

Our timeline, June 27, 2025, no more universal injunctions. On June 27th, the court orders the parties to file how Trump v CASA impacts this case by July 2nd. On July 2nd, the plaintiffs (bad guys) said that this is really a class action suit. On July 25, the court says that they are treating this as a certified class and grants an injunction.

We are about 10 days from reading another SCOTUS opinion and order telling this court to knock it the F___ off.

Note, the Washington Post is reporting this as a TRO. It is not. It is a preliminary injunction which can be appealed.

Maybe we’ll see the Second Circuit Court do the right thing. I doubt it, but the D.C. Circuit Court did.

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A Tool Made

It isn’t perfect, but it is better than it was.

Tools To Make Tools

I finished my tool toot Friday. Yesterday I started work on another tool, a shooting board.

The tools I’ve made so far:

  • Workbench – Functional, needs more bracing
  • Winding Sticks – Used to visualize twist in a board
  • Crotch board – A V notch in a flat board used to hold a board on edge for planing.
  • A round-head mallet — used for hitting things
  • A tooltote — to carry tools more easily

The tooltote is an exercise in barely good enough. There are so many mistakes made, and yet it still works. Not only is it functional, but I want to use it.

Once I clear space on the workbench, this will reside at the back of the workbench to organize the tools I need. The front section is large enough to hold a #4 plane, a block plane, and a #5 jack plane. The back section is a bit narrower. It currently holds my chisels. Marking and measuring tools and a rasp.

I will remove the rasp to make the tote more useful for other things, such as a marking knife, try square, and straight edge.

I need more Planes

I will start the search for a ‘fore’ plane in the near future. A ‘fore’ plane is the plane you use before all the others. This plane is used to remove lots of material rapidly. It is used in a way similar to a scrub plane.

I already have my #4 smoothing plane. I’m still tuning it. The bed isn’t flat enough yet which causes the corners to dig in a bit too much. My #5 jack plane needs some work on the iron to finish bringing it back to life. It is a joy to use. My #7 requires much work on the flats of the iron. Mostly because of rust issues.

Part of the care and feeding of these tools is to keep the soles and plates lightly oiled so they don’t stick to the wood. I’m working towards that.

This leads me to “specialty” planes. There are three specialty planes that are required for general work. The first is a router plane. This plane is used for smoothing the bottom of a hand-cut dado or other pockets in the face of a board. Think of mortising a hinge.

I found a mini version; I’m going to make a wooden version of a more normal size.

The next plane needed is something for smoothing shoulders or making rabbets. I might have found a cheap used version. If so, this will be a huge improvement in my game. In the same vein, there are rabbet planes that are designed to cut right to a shoulder.

When I’m next at the Fort at No. 4, I’m going to see if I can borrow one of the molding planes. A simple roundover or a fancier edging tool is what I’m looking for.

Cheating

If I buy a piece of 1×6 pine from the lumberyard, it will be smooth. It won’t be flat. It is likely to have twist. This means that if I’m lucky, after preparing the board I’ll have something around 5/8 thick, not 3/4.

My sawmill is providing me 4/4 rough-sawn lumber that is not smooth, but it is nearly flat and has almost no twist. Because of his quality, after preparing both faces, I will have a board 15/16 thick.

Because my target thickness is 3/4 (12/16), I have to remove nearly 1/4 of the wood. Turning wood into shavings is fun but requires time and effort.

So I cheat. I resaw my boards from 15/16 down to 13/16s. This reduces the handwork greatly.

Before I sharpened my handsaw into a rip saw I used the band saw to rip a board I used in my workbench.

Pre-drilling and countersinks

While it is unlikely that an #8 screw will split soft pine, it is always better to drill a pilot hole. The all-in-one version I’ve tried using isn’t working for me.

The nice thing about the all-in-one drill is that the drill bit is tapered, leading to a hole that is big enough to not grip the screw in one board but small enough to grip the wood on the far side, allowing the screw to pull the two pieces of wood together. The builtin counter sink acts like a depth stop and does leave a counter sink for the screw.

And it does a horrible job. I will be switching to doing this in three steps. First, drill the pilot hole, then drill the clearance hole in the outside board, and finally countersink the outside hole. If I do it this way, I know that all parts will be done correctly. Fewer stripped holes.

Screw Lengths

You’re doing it wrong! Yeah, that’s what I keep hearing in my head.

There are two types of screwed connections in normal woodworking. I.e., ignoring pocket screw construction. You can screw two pieces of wood together face-to-face, or you can screw face-to-edge.

When screwing face-to-face, it looks like the proper length should be the total thickness minus 1/4″. This gives the maximum hold without poking through the other board.

For attaching through a face into end grain, I should be using 2 1/2″ or 3″ screws. I didn’t know.

Nails

Period-correct nails are still available today. I picked up a pound of artsy-fartsy wrought iron rose-head nails to use on the 6-board box. But with what I just learned about screw length, I think I will pick up some two or three inch cut nails.

The only issue I know of when using cut nails is that you have to pre-drill to avoid cracking the boards. But you want the hole to be as small as possible to increase the grip of the nails.

Conclusion

Today I should finish the shooting board. This means I’ll be able to start my first 6-board box soon.

Trump v. Boyle 606 U.S. ____ (2025) 25A11

We are into the 2025 term. The Justices are on vacation, yet they are still issuing opinions relating to orders almost weekly.

This is another win for Trump. So far every case to reach the Supreme Court has been a win for the Trump Administration.

The left is having hissy fits.

The application for stay presented to THE CHIEF JUSTICE and by him referred to the Court is granted. The application is squarely controlled by Trump v. Wilcox, 605 U. S. ___ (2025). Although our interim orders are not conclusive as to the merits, they inform how a court should exercise its equitable discretion in like cases. The stay we issued in Wilcox reflected “our judgment that the Government faces greater risk of harm from an order allowing a removed officer to continue exercising the executive power than a wrongfully removed officer faces from being unable to perform her statutory duty.” Ibid. (slip op., at 1). The same is true on the facts presented here, where the Consumer Product Safety Commission exercises executive power in a similar manner as the National Labor Relations Board, and the case does not otherwise differ from Wilcox in any pertinent respect.
— Trump v. Boyle

The frustration in the Court’s opinion is highlighted here. “…squarely controlled…” is court speak for “We told you ungrateful incompetent rogue judges how to do this already! Don’t you make me stop this car!” The following does not differ in any pertinent respect: telling those same self-important, agenda-driven hacks that they were told how to do exactly this type of case.

Justice Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion. His opinion is that the Court should just grant certiorari and issue a full opinion.

The inferior courts continue to play games to get what they want. It is just stupid.

They keep losing, but it makes for great headlines.

So tomorrow we will hear about the great Justice Kagan and how she brought the heat down on the conservatives of the Court.

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DoJ is Pro 2A?

In a strange twist of events, the federal DoJ has filed multiple briefs with the Supreme Court supporting the Second Amendment-protected rights of The People. Amazing!

They have also done things at the circuit court level to close out future attacks on the Second Amendment.

It is a great time to be alive.

Sharp Yesterday Means Dull Today

My progress as a woodworker has been frustrated many times. The most common frustration? The tool is no longer sharp.

Yesterday, I was fitting the bottom to my tool tote. I’m sweating like a pig. It is dripping onto my glasses, making me even more misirable.

When I came in for a break, I told Ally that this is the first time I wished I was using my power tools. With very little effort, I could have set up the table saw and fitted the bottom in just a few minutes. Planing the ends flat and with the correct angle was painful.

Then, for grins, I pulled the blade out of the plane, did a hand touch-up, and then put the iron back in the plane. What had been a fine sawdust became end-grain shavings. Not more than 10 minutes later I had a great fit.

What Do You Mean Rip Cut Saws Rip Boards Better?

There is a scary moment when you first modify a tool to “fix” it or make it work for you. I think my first time was when I cut the shank of 3/4″ to JT-3 from 3″ to 1.5″. It worked perfectly, but cutting a piece off my new adapter? That was scary.

Modern handsaws are basically shit. Most people don’t know how to use them. Most people won’t even bother to learn how to use them. Most people would consider it too much work.

Older saws can be had for a reasonable price, but they are not ready to use.

The reason that new saws are so bad is that they are designed to do everything and to leave the best edge possible.

You can find old saws with 4 Teeth Per Inch (TPI). It was seldom that you found an old saw with more than 10 TPI, with a few being 15 TPI.

There is a good reason for that: the coarser the pitch, the faster the saw cuts.

Saw teeth have several parameters to them. The TPI, the angle of the tooth, the set, and the shape of the tooth.

When you crosscut , you want to sever the fibers. This requires a knife-like action. This is accomplished by putting a cutting edge on the saw tooth, alternating teeth. This cuts the wood fiber before removing the waste.

When you are rip cutting, you do not need that knife-like action. What you want is a chisel-like action. This is accomplished by having a 90° angle of attack that shears the fibers under the blade.

Modern saws are marketed to do both. They have a crosscut grind to the teeth, and they have a high TPI count. They do not do either type of cutting “well.” They do both adequately.

Thursday I took a new saw blade and “sharpened” it. That is to say I reshaped the shape of the each tooth to be that chisel profile. Then I tested it.

In soft pine, a full stroke was cutting somewhere between an inch and a half and two inches. Three or four times as well as it was cutting before the reshaping.

Obama Fights Back

The Obama sycophants, on command from the holy one, have stood up and screamed that the referral that Tulsi Gabbard made to the DoJ is just a distraction.

The argument is something like Trump is in the Epstein files. He doesn’t want you to know what we all know, that he is a kiddy diddler and a rapist. This referral is just to distract the MAGAots.

How do we know? Because Trump said he wasn’t in the files. He is lying.

How do we know he is lying? Because he was lying in his first term.

How do we know he was lying in his first term? The media told us so.

How did the media know he was lying? Because Trump always lies.

You can’t make this shit up.

Epstein

The world turns; now the Democrats are demanding the files be released.

There is a huge issue with the files, and every Democrat who is listed in the files will scream it to the skies.

The chain of custody has been broken because untrusted agents could have modified the content.

The files have been in the Biden DoJ for 3 or 4 years. Who had access, who could have modified the content, and who could have added or removed content? None of that can be trusted today.

For the Democrat caught with his pants down the same will be said. They will claim that the Trump Administration modified the content.

Obama Has Immunity!

Did he order these things done as part of his duties as the President of the United States?

No? Then he doesn’t have immunity.

Question of the week

Are you going to keep your Sig P320? Sell it? Buy them as they flood the market?

Concept illustrating the increase of tariffs. Three dices with 10 %, 25 % and 50 $. Focus is made on 25 %, the rest is purposely blurred

OMG! Tariffs are causing HUGE inflation!

The Trump Administration has announced numbers for tariffs collected. The number is huge, something like $77 billion. Of course the panic vendors are now screaming that this means that Americans paid $77 billion in taxes. They also claim that the tariffs are causing the price of everything to skyrocket.

Let’s take the case of a lowly woodworker making a stool. The stool is made from two pieces of 2×4 by 8 ft.

Because the woodworker wants to up his game, he decides to use a different wood; he chooses Canadian maple.

A quick check on wood prices shows that hard maple is running $6 per board foot. The amount of lumber needed is 2*4*8/12 = 5.33 bf.

Or, 2*4*96 / 144 = 5.33 bf

At a cost of $6 per board foot, this means the cost of the lumber will be $32.

The woodworker uses a $25/hour labor rate. It will take him 3 hours to build the stool using hand tools and rough-cut lumber. That is $75 in labor.

There is another cost for the finish and time for finishing. We are ignoring that part of the equation. He also adds a 20% profit for the business.

Putting it all together, we get $32 for the wood, $75 for the labor, and $21.40 for profit, for a total sale price of $128.40.

Now say that there is a 25% tariff put on importing that wood from Canada. This would be $8 that needs to be paid to the US government.

From a bit of insider knowledge, I know that the $8 can be paid by the company shipping the wood, making the 25% come out of their profit. They might split the cost 50/50, or they can pass the entire cost on to the buyer, our woodworker.

Assuming our woodworker gets the entire $8 passed on to them, let’s see what that does to the cost of our stool.

$40 for the wood, $75 for labor, and $23 for profit, giving a total price for the stool of $138. With a 25% tariff on the cost of the materials, we see a $9.60 increase in the price. That is a 7.5% increase in the price of the stool.

The truth of the matter is that many products only use pennies of tariffed materials in their goods. Hershey increased the price of their chocolate recently. While the left is screaming “Tariffs!” the fact is that cocoa costs went up. The tariffs are a small part of the increase in costs.

The more value added in the US, the more the profit margin is the less impact tariffs have on your costs.

I do know people who are having a difficult time because of the tariffs. Their product uses a gizmo they import from China. That gizmo is not made in the US because there was no profit in making that gizmo here.

Until there is a US competitor for those gizmos, she is going to have to pay the tariffs on those gizmos. She has announced a very modest increase in the price of her goods to cover her increased costs. She feels miserable for doing so.

Regardless, our economy seems to be doing much better in 2025 than it was in 2024.