Chris Johnson

There are people who blame their actions on “The ’tism’.

I had not heard this term until recently. My oldest son is “on the spectrum.” He barely functions, not from emotional out bursts, but because he just isn’t mature enough.

My youngest son is also “on the spectrum”, he is high function, going to collage, doing well. His issues tend to be socal in nature. In other words, he has not had much success in finding new friends.

My youngest is also on the spectrum. She is very high functioning. You would not suspect she is autistic when interacting with her. She is social and she makes friends.

I was born before the great “autism” hunt. I do not have an official diagnosis of autism. There are many indicators that I am autistic.

A side effect of this was I was able to teach some of my coping methods to my children, to help them.

What does this have to do with making friends?

It means it is hard. It takes an effort.

What you might consider to be a friend is unlikely to be a friend in my eyes.

Just because we are co-workers, and we are friendly with each other, does not mean we are friends.

Most people would have no difficulty in ticking off a dozen friends. Maybe even a dozen close friends.

I’ve had 4 true friends in my lifetime. Two of them were good friends. I say “were” because one is dead, and I am out of contact with the other.

Of the other two, one I have not seen since I left high school. The other is in prison because he is a kiddy diddler.

One I thought was a friend decided that anybody who supported the Supreme Court’s Dobbs’ opinion was no longer a friend to her. And later went as far as to say that anybody who voted for Trump was not a friend and could just fuck off.

Ally tells me that there are people attempting to be friends. I can almost see it, but I don’t feel it.

In 2008, Obama was running for office. It is the moment when I felt my country start to fracture. Friends were starting to turn on each other in ways I had not seen before.

I went to speak to a black co-worker. “Who are you voting for?” “Obama”, “Why?” “Because he’s black.”

Anybody who expressed any hesitation or discomfort about voting for a one—term senator from Illinois, who’s most common vote was “Present” was a “racist”.

It was that bad. Since I was working in a deep blue state at the time, I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t care who they were voting for. I wish they had better reasons than “He’s black.” It was their choice.

Oh, it wasn’t just the black co-workers, it was all the lefties.

How did I spot a lefty? Those were the ones openly talking politics, expressing their opinion about anyone who wasn’t voting for Obama.

From that moment on, I have been called racist, for my beliefs, constantly.

Look at Rep. Hunt. Now there is a black man. I like him. Why? Because he echos my beliefs. He stands up for America.

Now compare him to the half white Obama.

Obama’s mother was white, his father was black, he’s brown.

He ran as a black man. So what?

If every single person of color had voted for him and every single white voted against him, he would not have become the President of the United States. A majority of the people of the United States decided that he was a better man to be president than McCain.

For the next 8 years, I wasn’t allowed to say a negative thing about my President. To do so was to “prove I was racist.”

When Hillary ran for President, I suddenly became misogynistic. No change of my positions, just a different candidate by the Democrats.

And every lefty screamed at me that I was a bad person if I didn’t support every belief they held.

There was a TikTok sketch Ally showed to me. A woman says to her Republican friend that she is leaving the GOP.

Her friend responds with, “I’m sorry you feel you need to leave. We’ve been friends all our lives. You will continue to be my friend and are welcome here, anytime.”

The sketch then changes to a woman leaving the Democrat party. “I’m leaving the party. They just don’t match my core beliefs. You’ve been my friend all my life. You will still be my friend.”

The remaining Democrat woman turns to the first and, with a sneer on her face, “I’m not friends with Nazis”

That is what my life felt like during the Obama era. It was worse under Biden.

Our friendships became defined by our beliefs.

Going out in public, I would hear leftists yapping about how anybody who wasn’t like them was horrible, evil people. Nasty labels were everywhere.

I’ve seen “DemocRAT” from time to time. I’m “MAGAot”, a “fascist”, a “racist”, a “white supremest”, and every other nasty label you can think of.

Those people won’t speak with me. They can’t handle being asked for examples. They can’t handle being called on bullshit. They can’t be bothered to verify any of the narrative they spout with no evidence to back them.

I’m sorry for Ally.

She is a good person. We are good people. If you are in need, we will do our best to help you. When a “co-worker” had an emergency, she didn’t ask, “What are your politics? I only help good people.” No, she opened her pantry to them. She did it with no expectation of anything.

When they tried to repay her, she said, “Pay it forward.”

Well, they did pay it forward. Until they had to treat people by what they do instead of what they were told they do.

Make sure you keep your friends close. Make sure they know you are friends.

Stay strapped. Keep your head on a swivel. Don’t be in stupid places at stupid times.

The district courts have been attacking the Trump administration wherever possible. Many have overstepped their authority to intrude on the Article II executive.

A judge in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts decided that he was a final arbitrator of United States foreign policy. To that end, he issued a preliminary injunction stopping the deportation of criminal illegal aliens to third-party countries.

The criminal is detained in the United States. He is taken before an administrative judge, where he is given full due process. The judge can order the criminal released into our country with orders to report for further legal actions. He can decide that the person is not a criminal alien, and turn him loose or to other authorities. Or he can issue a deportation order.

At times, the criminal is not just here illegally, he has committed some other crime. In those cases, they are given a full trial. When they are found guilty, the judge can sentence them according to sentencing guidelines. After serving their sentence, they are then deported. The Article III judge will have ordered them deported, as part of their sentence.

In the alternative, the judge can just deport them. Make them someone else’s problem.

When we deport somebody, the rules say that they should be deported to the country of origin or to the last country they came through to reach the United States.

I’m not breaking it down. Some people hold multiple citizenships. Some people are citizens of their birth country and then move and become citizens in another country. Just assume that they are being sent to the correct country of origin.

Unfortunately, some of these criminal, illegal, aliens are nasty pieces of work. Many countries will refuse entry to people that they deem to be undesirable.

That includes many countries that feel that somebody convicted of murder is undesirable. Regardless of their citizenship.

My understanding is that under international law, a country is required to accept a deportee who is a citizen of their country.

As we well know, international law doesn’t really mean much. Countries have and do refuse entry to people that commit heinous crimes.

Having all of that in hand, let’s look at the facts of this case, according to Sotomayor.

The person being deported, O.C.G., had a removal order in place. He was being returned to his origin country, Guatemala.

When he learned of this, he begged an Immigration Judge to grant “withholding of removal to Guatemala”. Ok. This means that the next place he can be deported to is the last country he was in. Namely, Mexico.

Now, Sotomayor says that the Immigration Judge granted that withholding of removal to Guatemala and not to Guatemala and Mexico because there was no removal order to Mexico.

There is no record of why the Judge did this, only Sotomayor’s statement. The Judge knew that O.C.G. didn’t want to go to Mexico. He could have granted a withholding of removal to Mexico at the same time.

The judge did not.

Under the Trump administration, they looked at what they had. They had a legal removal order. It is legal to send him back to Mexico or Guatemala by statue, but he can’t be sent to Guatemala.

Bingo, he’s now on his way to Mexico.

When he arrived in Mexico, they said, “We don’t want your ass here.” and promptly deported him to Guatemala. It appears that there was no Immigration Judge in Mexico willing to grant a withholding of removal to Guatemala. Poor O.C.G.

From someplace in Guatemala, O.C.G. reached out to lawyers in the United States to start a class action suit to stop the administration from deporting criminal aliens to third-party countries.

Lacking in Sotomayor’s dissent is anything about O.C.G.’s criminal record. Nor was there was no evidence in the record that O.C.G. suffered any torture in Guatemala.

There is only O.C.G.’s claims.

The Immigration Judge who granted the withholding of removal found that O.C.G. was likely to suffer if deported to Guatemala. Therefore, the United States did not. The United States has no say on what Mexico does with its criminal illegal aliens.

This district judge feels that the United States is responsible for making sure nothing bad happens to these criminals after they are kicked out of our country.

The case is, DHS v. D.V.D. et al., No. 24A1153 606 U.S. ____ (2025).

Many years ago, I started to build a laminated wood workbench from hard maple. It was very slow-going. I think I have what I finished up in the rafters of the shop.

It is only 9 inches wide. It is not smooth, it is not flat. It is unlikely to be straight, and it is not square.

At the time, I did not have a place to use as a shop. We were living in a rental town house. All the work I did was done on saw horses in the kitchen with hand tools. I had purchased two very nice iron planes to use. But, I did not know how to tune them. I did not know how to use them.

In short, I lacked both skill and knowledge.

You can have something that is very smooth, but it might not be flat. You can have something be flat, but not smooth. You can have something that is flat and smooth, but not square. All three are needed to have a good face.

As a piece of wood comes off the saw, it has rough surfaces. The surfaces are mostly flat and square, but you can’t trust that until it is measured.

A piece of wood can also be cupped. This is when the center is higher than the edges. The board can also be twisted. All of these can be removed with a hand plane.

You start by examining the board and placing the cup up. This creates a stable surface. Looking down the board, you search for any high spots, end to end. These get your attention first.

Using a ‘fore plane, you remove those high spots. You then use a jack plane to make a flat surface that is also smooth.

Now that your board is flat and smooth, you use winding sticks to find any twist in the board. You plane that out.

Finally, you have a good face. Mark it, then move to an edge. Make it flat and smooth. Use a try square or a known good square to make sure your edge is square.

In the end, you will have two faces that are flat, smooth, and square to each other.

Moving on to the other sides becomes much easier.

Planes

I started with two planes from that failed project of years ago. One is a No 5 jack plane and the other is a joiner or try plane, I don’t remember which. I haven’t gotten tot hat stage yet.

What I didn’t have were smoothing or scrub planes.

Via YouTube recommendation, I found one that looked nice on e-bay, was a No 4 smoothing plane, and looked ready to go.

Friday, before I started work on the truck, I stopped in at the second hand store. I found four planes. One without any hardware or iron, one had an asking price of $175, and two that were only $6.

They followed me home.

Yesterday, I had the eBay one arrive. I went to test it, and it wasn’t ready to use.

Taking it apart, I realized the iron needed to be sharpened. About 30 minutes on the diamond plate and the back was mostly flat, again. The chip breaker also had its edge cleaned and straightened.

Then it was time to sharpen the iron. Using a 25° guide, I started working on it.

The bright was at the heel of the bevel. Looking at the bevel more closely, it was more of a half moon shape than flat.

This iron had been badly sharpened many times.

Today, I was able to get my slow speed grinder running with the correct jig for a plane iron. That iron now has a beautiful edge. It needs some hand work, but it is almost ready to go. Testing it shows reasonable shavings, before the hand work.

The first $6 plane needs to have the edge reworked. There is a chip out of it. I’ve not started that process yet. Nor have I looked at the iron of the other thrift shop plane.

Regardless, I will have my smoothing plane and scrub planes in the coming days. Good news for me!

A scrub plane is a smoothing plane with a rounded cutting edge. It is designed to remove bulk material rapidly.

This was a song that I played on the Yamaha CD player in my ’87 TransAm.

(Feature Image is Raymond M. DiGuiseppe, who argued the case before the Ninth Circuit merits panel)

This was a big case with all the big names involved. We had Chuck Michel and Anna Barvir from Michel & Associates PC. If there is a Second Amendment case happening in California, they are likely to be there. The NRA was there. Erin Murphy, Paul Clement, Matthew Rowen, and Nicholas Gallagher from Clement & Murphy. You should know their names, think Bruen.

Regardless, Raymond is the one that argued and ran this case.

This was a unanimous opinion by all three judges. This is great. It is a win for The People. The 1 gun per 30 days is currently enjoined. The people of The People’s Republic of California have one of the rights the rest of the citizens of these United States enjoy.

Is this judgment going to stand? I do not believe so. The People have had a few wins in the district courts of California, and we have had a few wins with merits panels of the Ninth Circuit. In every case, the Ninth Circuit has then agreed to hear the case en banc and reversed the merits panel.

According to one of the judges that sits on the Ninth Circuit, the Ninth Circuit is over 150 to 0 against The People in Second Amendment cases.

History

In 1999, the state of California enacted a one-gun-a-month law. The law banned the purchase of more than one “concealable handgun” per 30-day period. In 2019, the law was extended to “handgun, semiautomatic centerfire rifle, completed frame or receiver, or firearm precursor part”.

You just have to love that made up term “firearm precursor part”. Does that mean a billet of 6061? Does it mean a raw forging of aluminum? Does it mean an 80% lower? Yeah, when does it stop being a pipe from The Home Depot, and it becomes a firearm precursor part?

The plaintiffs in the district case became Appellees at the circuit level are the good guys. They wanted to buy more than one firearm per month. The case is a facial challenge to the law.

The judges looked at this case “de novo”, or as if it were new. Because the case was a facial challenge, they only considered the text of the statute. It is the burden of the plaintiffs (good guys) to establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the law would be valid.

The Analysis

This is correctly stated and a good summary. It is at this point where most of the rogue, inferior, courts go off the rails.

Teixeira was decided in 2017, against The People. Yet, it is quoted multiple times. Ezell v City of Chicago, in front of the Seventh Circuit court in 2011, was also a loss for The People. Both cases preceded Bruin and as such need to be reanalyzed in light of the Bruen analysis. In other words, they are likely bad law.

They did not cite to Minneapolis Star & Tribune C v. Minnesota. This is because that case is a Supreme Court opinion and was a much stronger indictment for not messing with The People’s rights via restricting ancillary actions. In that case, the state (bad guys) put a tax on the ink purchased by large newspapers.

The phrase “meaningful constraints” is where this opinion starts to go sideways. Because they are quoting case law from before Bruen they are sneaking in “interest balancing”. The state does not get to decide what is or is not a “meaningful constraint.”

They don’t get to because they always extend it to far. Is a $200 tax on a firearm accessory that much of a constraint? Is a requirement for government permission to purchase a firearm accessory? Or to ask for permission to move it across state lines?

According to the federal government, it is not a meaningful constraint. Nor does the state of California think it is a meaningful constraint.

This makes the statement erroneous. This is why I call foul on citing to bad case law to support current cases.

Making a Summary Because I’m tired

California argued that the Second Amendment doesn’t guarantee a right to possess multiple firearms, and even if it did, restricting the frequency of firearm purchases is not a meaningful constraint.

This panel swatted that one down. They point out that if the state was right and because things apart from firearms are arms. The state could argue that if a person owned a knife could be banned from purchasing a firearm.

They get the plain text section right.

Unfortunately, only in part. They claim that delays that serve presumptively valid purposes are constitutional but that in this particular case, the law purpose of the delay is the delay.

They found that there is no history or tradition of meter the exercise of a constitutional right.

Of course, the infringers use the “nuanced approach” argument. That phrase now makes me sick. It tells me the bad guys are about to lie through their teeth and expect me to smile.

Here the court reaches the correct conclusion but for the wrong reasons. This can be bad for the Second Amendment rights of the People.

The nuanced approach only applies to things that are not bans. This is a ban, a metering of rights. In Heller, the Supreme Court found that there was no history or tradition to support firearm bans. This means that a one-per-month ban is unconstitutional, period.

The merits panel then spends a half dozen pages of electrons to find other reasons to find no tradition.

Conclusion

It is a win. I’ll take it.

It is not good case law. They did not create a general understanding of “Plain text” and they did not do a correct history and tradition analysis.

This suggests, to me, that this opinion will be cited by the anti-gun people in the future, in negative ways.

Regardless, this opinion will not stand. It will get overturned by the en banc panel. The Supreme Court is unlikely to grant cert if they request cert.

I’m sure you all are tired of reading about my vehicle troubles. I’m sure this won’t be the last post about it.

Base problem, the truck is 15 years old. It was given a new frame, but it is starting to age out.

Major safety issues:

• Right front wheel bearing is bad
• Left front wheel bearing is going bad
• Right front caliber is likely bad or will go bad when pads are replaced.
• Left front caliber is likely bad or will go bad when pads are replaced.
• Front brake pads, both sides, are bad
• Front rotors, both sides, are bad. Wear pattern shows uneven application of force
• Right rear hard line to flex line at frame has bad crimp. It will fail soon
• Multiple other smaller, non-safety issues

The goal was to reduce my costs at the dealer as much as possible. His price on parts is reasonable, he puts a reasonable markup on those parts. He is willing to use customer supplied parts from me. I have told him that he can reject any parts I bring him if they are not up to his expectations.

The total cost of parts, from Rockauto was $514. Of that, only the brake calibers were the right parts. Everything else goes back for store credit, my choice.

Total cost of parts from local shop, over $500. This was ONE wheel bearing, pressed, instead of two, a pair of rotors and new brake pads. Moreover, there is the brake cleaner, brake fluid, two 12 in sections of brake line. I’m glad they know me. I wish they didn’t know me by name when I walk in.

I thought the right front went ok, after I stopped cursing about buying the wrong parts. It is verified that I made the mistake.

I will have my guy inspect my work and fix any errors I made.

The left front did not go as smoothly.

The wheel didn’t want to come off. The use of a long punch and a 5 pound hand sledge and my son’s help got that off.

The process of taking off the caliber is to first take off the flex hose to hard line bracket. This is a 12 MM (head) bolt.

That bolt head is now round and the bolt is still in place. I should have drilled it out with a left-hand drill and then used my other tools to remove it. My vice grips have gone on walk-about, so I couldn’t even use them.

I was able to break the line lose at the caliber and remove the caliber. The rotor gave way after jack bolts and banging.

It was getting late. The calibers did not want to line up. I finally got it installed, and the hard line would not go into place. I left it like that for the night.

Today started with a trip to the parts store for hard-line. Ally strongly suggested that having the part and not needing it was better than needing the part and not having it. Thank you, Ally.

After a bit of cussing, the hard line went into place. It would not hold pressure. It was time to try my hand at bending break line.

The hardest part of me was the fact that I had to stuff 12 inches of hard line where I should have been using a 6-inch length.

Moreover, did you know that the fittings will not slide around curves? They slide freely on the straight part. That was fun, straightening the line enough to get the fitting into place, then bending it back.

This was a painful process. Because there was no flex, I was bending the hardline with a mandrel in place. Think 2 foot long chuck of 1 inch diameter steel bar and a 1.5 inch diameter steel bar, 2 foot long. Yes, they are heavy. They get heavier the longer you have to hold them in place.

It got done. It was tightened to specification, see AVE’s earlier work. “Click”.

No leaks! I’m happy. I spend the time to find the right size for the bleeder valve. Wheel goes back on, the world is good.

It is time to bleed the brakes. The rear brakes go fine. When I go to bleed the right front, there is a puddle of brake fluid. It is leaking.

When I crawl under and review it, it is leaking where the hard line enters the calibers. At that point my daughter arrives home, I catch a ride with her to get another piece of brake line.

This goes a bit better as I could detach the bracket to get things into place.

So, going into the shop, they will replace the bad crimp, replace the left front wheel bearing, not the complete unit. They will check all the bits and pieces.

I did receive a few helpful comments. I do have an air powered impact gun/wrench. It does ok. I need to upgrade it, as it does not produce enough torque.

Because the gun is weak, I normally break the lug nuts loose before I lift the car. This makes it much easier after the car is up.

To access the axle nut, I need to remove the dust cover. To access the dust cover, I have to remove the wheel and rotor. To remove the rotor, I have to remove the caliber. To put the rotor and wheel back on and lower the car is more work than using a pry bar against the lug studs to keep the wheel hub from spinning.

This is filler as I’ve not looked at the news nor anything else on Friday.

As I’m writing this at 1830 on Friday, my hands are almost as grease covered as the worker’s hands in the image. I’ve been up since 0700 and have been at work on the Truck since 0930.

First stop, the auto supply store for cotter pins, brake cleaner, and brake fluid.

The first wheel comes off just fine.

Then it was time to take of the calibers. That is where I got my first surprise, these are big, and they do not float.

I’m used to calibers that are attached to the knuckle with two 14 mm headed screws. Torque specs are “yep, click”.

These bolts are normally greased and the calibers just float on the pin portion.

Not mine. They are attached with bolts torqued to 91 ft/lbs, and they are stuck. It took nearly 45 minutes to break them free using a 1″ black iron pipe as a cheater. The big issue was that there was not enough room to work the breaker bar with cheater. I got it done.

Once the caliber was off the truck, it was time to attack the rotor.

The rotor refuses to leave the truck. I whaled on it with a 5 pound hand sledge, it did not budge.

Second trip out, I sent my son to get some 6mx1.0 jack bolts. He returns with exactly what I needed. It only took three text messages. “What is grade 8?”, “do you want the type with the hex top?”, and “How long do they need to be.

Guess what? They don’t fit.

It is only then that I remembered that I have a nice thread gage checker. This is a steel cable with most thread sizes you would find in normal stuff. Each “key” (my son’s term for them), has an external threaded section on one side and an internal threaded section on the other.

In other words, you can screw one side into a hole, and you can screw bolts and screws into the other side.

Testing the jack boltholes I find they are 8m1.25 Off my son goes to get them.

With those in hand, the rotor comes off,

It is now time to attack the axle dust cap. This doesn’t want to come off, but a gentle (not really) attack with a cold chisel, and it gives me a gap for a pry bar to pry it off.

This revels the first clean metal I’ve seen, the axel, axel nut, and the lock for the axel nut.

With a bit of help from my son to keep the hub from rotating, I apply 300+ foot pounds with my foot. There is a load SNAP and all the tools let go. The bar being used to stop the hub from turning, the breaker bar, the 36 mm socket all went their directions.

We recovered all the pieces. I inspected the axel for damage, trying to figure out what snapped. The axle nut now spins off with just light finger pressure. Good news.

I then get the first “win” of the day. Driving the axel out of the sandpaper, err, bearing, was easy and just worked the way it was supposed to.

Driving the other side off? Not so much. After way too much effort, some stupids along the way, my son and I were able to drive the bearings off the knuckle.

The day is good!

After all that work, it is time to start reassembling the front right side. I picked up the “hub with pressed bearings” and compared it to the old part.

Not only does it not match the old part, I can’t make it work without someway to cut a spline in the damn thing.

I messed up. I wasn’t paying enough attention when I ordered front-wheel bearing assemblies. Yes, it had the 6 lugs, but it turns out that there was another version of the Tacoma which uses the heavy-duty brakes, calibers and all the rest, but it is RWD only.

I’m almost in tears. My son takes me to the parts store. They have it in stock. $195. Rockauto.com sells a better version for $106. OUCH! This is precisely what I was hoping to avoid.

It is too late to got back, I buy the parts and we go back.

With the correct part in hand, we can install the bearing assembly. I was just a question of tightening each bolt in sequence, the same amount.

I even have the right tools to torque the bolts. I’m a happy creature.

Time to install the new rotor.

This is where I started cussing to myself.

As I was checking out, I had the rotors, pads in the cart. The website suggested that I use a kit because it came with more hardware, and it was cheaper.

I went for it.

And missed that I had returned the 6 lug version and replaced it with a 5 lug version.

After a short crying jag, my son takes me back to the parts store. Yes, they have the parts in stock. 2 rotors and a set of pads. But because they only have premium in stock, $214.

The passenger side is completed. The bearing has been replaced, the rotor has been replaced, pads have been replaced, brake caliber has been replaced.

The only thing remaining is bleeding the brakes.

Starting work on the driver’s side. The damn wheel won’t come off the rotor! This required energetic use of that five pound sledge with a long punch to knock it off the rotor.

Jack bolts and a bit of hammering and the rotor came off. The brake caliber is stuck on and the head of the bolt holding the hard line on the hub side and the flex line on the frame side rounds over. I can’t get it off.

My son bounces on the breaker bar a few times before the bolts finally come loose. We managed to get the correct two bolts out, pay no attention to the extra bolt we took out.

We then got the hub ready for the new rotor. It took 30 minutes to get the rotor and caliber installed. It was then that I noticed that the hard line doesn’t line up. I take the top bolt out of the caliber and attempt to get the hard-line to attach.

That is when I called it. I was afraid I was cross threading the hard line to the caliber.

I’m tired, I’m grumpy, I don’t want to see the crap and noise that the leftist put out today.

I hope you are having a great weekend. I’m out there working on the truck. Only about 4 hours more of work.

Netting

2.5 nets completed. The first net will be used to practice repairs because I made a few mistakes. The fix? Cut the bad part out and tie in a new section. Easy.

The second net had no glaring errors. Mostly knots that did not get set perfectly and using a sheet-bend to tie on more line. The correct knot to use is a water knot. It has one section of whipped cord at the top for a handle. Future round nets will have a wooden handle, which I will turn.

The third net is a rectangular net. It is around 4 ft deep and is currently around 3 ft wide. The target size is 4 ft by 8 ft. I’ll turn it into a gill net by adding weights and floats. Then pictures and it will never be used in NH. Gill nets are not allowed in my area.

Django and Bootstrap

Refactoring is fun. Learning new stuff all the time. I am so glad I have an expert to help me with the bootstrap stuff.

Iran

Initially, I was concerned about getting sucked into a war with Iran. I no longer believe that will happen.

There is no need for boots on the ground. We can accomplish all that is needed by putting warheads on foreheads.

And, it looks like Israel will continue to be the point of the spear. Dropping those warheads.

If we do need to send the Boners in to deploy a few GPU-57s, that is still not boots on the ground.

The Market

We received the first part of our inheritance earlier this year. Some money went to fun stuff. Most of it went into the market. All of my kids’ money went into the market.

It turned out that the ‘savings’ account at my local bank was paying 0.01% APR. Not a way to make money.

I’m using one of the automated investment accounts. You tell it what your goals are. It buys the right things. If it decides it is time to get out of that security, it will sell. It will buy when it thinks it needs to.

Since I invested our money, we’ve had a 3.6% return on investment.

Last Thursday, Israel dropped warheads on foreheads. On Friday, the market responded. In the course of a day of trading, we lost about 40% of what we had made.

On Monday, there was a slight recovery.

Tuesday, saw another dip.

Wednesday saw more recovery.

I expect there to be more instability in the market over the coming weeks. War makes investors nervous.

Here’s the thing, I still have the same amount of cash available to me to use instantly.

I can convert the securities into cash and withdraw the money at any time.

Or I can just leave it the F. alone. Which is what I will continue to do.

When the market goes down, that’s when you should buy.

Car Parts are Here!

That cursing you hear is me working on the truck. All the parts arrived safely, yesterday. I have all the tools I need to do the installation.

My only concern will be knocking the wheel bearings off. Hopefully, that will not be too difficult.

I have decided to leave replacing the brake calipers to the shop. It isn’t that I can’t do it, it is that I hate bleeding brakes. This way, I end up with the best of all worlds.

The shop will have to pull the wheel and calipers. Disconnect the calipers and put in the new ones. They then get to bleed the brakes, but they have the brake fluid, they have the vacuum bleeding system. They have the multiple people ready to do the right thing.

This is low cost and sounds like the right path to me.

Question of the week

Which caliber have you taken up, bought gun and ammo and maybe reloading dies, which you later decided was a bad choice, and why?

Which caliber do you want to explore?

For me, the caliber that I have had second thoughts on is 7.62×39. I have one rifle in that caliber. I have limited ammunition in that caliber. And the gun would likely pass for “new” if I tried to sell it.

I’ve been thinking of something like .17HMR or one of the long-range calibers in the 30-06 class.

Ok, maybe something like the Savage Arms Revel Classic in .17HMR

Lumber has become expensive. A couple of 4x4s, some 2x4s and a 2×10, and I’m looking at painful amounts of money. Ouch.

Which brings us to working to a goal:

This cabinet will be knocked down and flat packed. We want this for events. All in all, it looks nice and will perform the functions we need.

I started looking at the materials required to make this. The costs for the lumber starts to get a little excessive. Mostly because of some wide boards that are required. In addition, we will be making more than one and some other pieces as well.

Which takes me to wood. Wood is what you find in trees and burn in your wood stove. Lumber is what you build from.

I have a lot of wood outback. I don’t even bother with all the pine that has fallen over the years because it is horrible for heating. And splitting it is painful.

In the best of all worlds, I would have some way to drag the wood out of the lot, load it into a wood mill, and then mill it to size. Base cost, about $3000. And I’m not sure if I can get the wood out. So add another $2k for the ability to move logs.

The next best thing would be to mill in place. This I’m willing to try. It requires a jib for my chainsaw and a willingness to mill. I expect to be able to pull some reasonable 4/4 lumber out this way. Beach, red oak, pine, elm and some other wood.

Ok, that tool comes first. Add a learning curve.

Now that I have that, I need to turn that 4/4 into useful lumber for building. There is nothing in that shelf unit that is beyond my skills. I’ve built furniture in the past. I expect to be able to build this.

Except I don’t have a place to build it. Which leads me to: I need a workbench:

This is an English Joiners workbench. It has a torsion box interior to stabilize the top, The apron is 2×10 to add stability. There is diagonal bracing which is firmly attached to the rear apron and rear legs to stop racking side to side. And cross bracing for the trestles to stop forward and back motion.

It is held together with screws and construction adhesive. This is where I want to end.

For work holding, a wooden leg vise will be available as well as planing stops, hold down holes, Batten stop and a crochet.

All of this will make it easy for me to work on the cabinets that I intend to make.

Except… The front apron needs to be flat and parallel on both major sides. This is no problem. I have the planes to do this. I have the knowledge of how to do it and some of the skills required.

All I need is a workbench with a planing stop.

What I require is a flat surface to use as a pseudo surface plate for woodworking. The only thing that might come close is the floor of my shop. Which is full and where it is not full, it is oily.

The answer is to build a workbench.

The workbench that I would make is a “low Roman workbench”. It would have a laminated top of 2x4s on edge. I don’t need to make the faces of the 2x4s “flat” I just need to make them flat enough for glue up. I can do this without a reference surface.

To make the surface of the low Roman workbench flat, I can just plain it flat. This can be done with the good plains I already have and some winding sticks.

In addition, the low Roman workbench is better suited for sawing.

For now, I’m stuck between making both workbenches or using my plainer to plain the front apron. If I use the plainer, I get to a workbench faster.

Well, my rubber ducks, thank you for that option.

I’ll use machine tools to get my joiners workbench up and running soonest. I might build the low Roman a bit later.

Now to have time and good weather to build this thing. It looks to be a three day build.

This bit of text is quoted in almost every case where the state is defending their blatant infringements.

They still use this citation, even post Bruen. After Bruen, they added a ⁣more nuanced approach.

What these two quotes have in common is that they are “dicta”.

Dicta is short for obiter dictum. It refers to statements made by a judge in a legal opinion which are not essential to the decision of the case.

What is essential is the holding.

Part of the problem is that the superior courts would rather not resolve the same issues over and over again. They want a one and done case.

The core holding in Heller was that the Second Amendment was an individual right. As such, any ban of a class of firearm, defacto or not, was unconstitutional.

That’s it. The entire discussion on dangerous and unusual, in common use for lawful purposes, and “this is how you perform Second Amendment jurisprudence” is dicta.

Because it is “just” dicta, the inferior courts can choose to ignore it. Or pick and choose which parts of dicta they wish to use.

The rogue inferior courts will use the “not unlimited” to search for the boundaries. Then they will find that the particular law is outside the boundaries of the Second Amendment.

The Bruen opinion introduced more dicta. These dicta were directed orders to the inferior courts. No more two-step shuffle. No more means balancing.

The inferior courts were told, clearly, that the process of picking a level of scrutiny, and then applying a balancing procedure was unacceptable.

They were told to first look at the plain text of the Constitution. The very same language the Court has been using for decades, if not centuries. These inferior courts have shown that they are perfectly capable of reading the plain text of every part of the Constitution, except the Second Amendment.

Once the conduct “touches fingers” with the Second Amendment, the burden shifts to the state to show that their regulation is a match for this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

In Rahimi, they said that a person can only be temporarily denied their Second Amendment protected rights. The inferior courts then proceeded to decide that a permanent loss of Second Amendment protected rights was Constitutional, when applied to anybody who could have been sentenced to more than a year in jail/prison.

This is also dicta. This paragraph was written by Justice Kagan. Justice Sotomayor wrote something similar in Rahimi, I believe. Where she also admitted that the AR-15 was in common use for legal purposes.

After S&W v. Mexico was decided, many of the plaintiffs (good guys) filed notices with their respective courts, pointing them to the opinion. The gist of many of these notifications were, “The plain text is implicated. The burden shifts to the government to prove their ban is justified by this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The Supreme Court stated that a firearm or class of firearms can only be banned if it is both dangerous and unusual. If a firearm or class of firearm is in common use, it is not unusual and cannot be banned. Justice Kagan said AR-15s are in common use.”

Well, the replies to those filings have started to come in. In a shocking turn of events, the infringers are now arguing that the Justice Kagan quote is “just dicta” and should be discarded. That it is just meaningless noise.

(But please remember that my dicta, “not unlimited”, cannot be discarded. It was put into a Supreme Court opinion.)