For the last week or more, I’ve been watching Paris burn, and with it, France.
This is portrayed as “the far-right” vs. the “left-wing”. Which begs the question, what does it take to be “far-left”?
Right-wing and Left-wing come from where the different parties sat in the German parliament. The communists sat on the left, the Nazi, and socialists and everybody else sat on the right.
So to say that Nazi’s are right wing only refers to them being further right than communists. Which wasn’t very far.
The “right” in these United States are conservatives, not Nazi’s or other socialist scumbags.
Following the Alex Baldwin saga is frustrating. This is a man who claims that he bears no responsibility for killing another person because somebody else should have made sure his gun was safe to shoot at people.
The gist of the case: Alec Baldwin was an actor producer on a low-budget western called “Rust”. As the STAR, he demanded the biggest, baddest gun. He was a jackass during safety briefings. He failed to follow the safety briefings.
There is evidence that he engaged in horseplay with the revolver while making videos during his firearms training while using full load blanks, displayed reckless behavior as it related to the use of a firearm, such as pointing it and firing a blank round at a crew member while using that crew member as a line of sight as his perceived target.”
He then, again, failed to follow the four rules. He pointed a gun at a person, cocked the hammer, and pulled the trigger. Killing the cinematographer.
He claimed he never pulled the trigger. The FBI tested the gun to destruction, and was unable to get the gun to fire without the trigger being pulled.
In other words, it looks like he is a lying sack of bull dung.
Now, the state is introducing new evidence:
After October 21, 2021 [he] was insistent that he not be required to follow safety recommendations made by film set safety experts on the continuation of the filming of Rust in Montana.
The “continuation of the filming” means after he shot and killed a person, the asshole was still disregarding his safety briefings and the safety rules.
The process for an appeal is to request that a case be heard. When the superior court Grants that appeal, the case is moved to a final opinion. One of the possible outcomes is that the inferior court’s opinion is Vacated.
When an inferior court’s opinion is vacated, the superior court has an option to Remand the case back to the inferior court for a do-over.
When the superior court does this without hearing anything from the parties outside the request to be heard, it is called “GVR”.
If the superior court were to just “GVR” a case, it wouldn’t be helpful to the inferior court. Nobody learns from “You are mistaken, do it over.” There needs to be some level of feedback.
On July 2nd, 2024, the Supreme Court issued their final orders of the 2023 term.
The Fort has been trying to recover from the lack of visitors during covid. It is also working with volunteers that know much about their area of interest, but not so much about other parts.
Consider power transmission. We have been working with power transmission since ancient Roman times. What is power transmission? It is how you transmit movement from one place to another.
In the modern era, we will convert running water, high heat or a dozen other things into electricity. That electricity is then transmitted over wires to a motor. At the motor, the power is converted back to motion.
Another part of the transmission of power, is the simpler physical transmission. Consider a water wheel. The wheel rides on an axle. The axle sits in bearings. When the wheel turns, the shaft turns. Anything attached to that shaft will also turn, doing work.
We are a society of instant gratification. You go to Amazon, click two buttons, and the next day that thing arrives at your door.
Your kid sends you a written message from a different continent, three times a day. You snap a picture of your cat, develop it, do some touch up, decide you can do better, reshoot the photo, edit, and share it with your 42 followers.
When I was doing photography, I stared developing my own film and processing my prints. That way, I could see what I shot within a day of shooting.
The courts are not instant gratification. Not even close.
The State of Illinois enacted a law that makes it a felony to possess what Illinois branded “assault weapons,” a term defined to include AR–15s. See Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 720, §5/24–1.9(a)(1)(J)(ii)(II) (West 2023). “The AR–15 is the most popular semi-automatic rifle” in America and is therefore undeniably “in common use today.” Heller v. District of Columbia, 670 F. 3d 1244, 1287 (CADC 2011) (KAVANAUGH, J., dissenting); see also Garland v. Cargill, 602 U. S. 406, 430–431 (2024) (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting) (describing “semiautomatic rifles” such as the AR–15 as “commonly available”). Petitioners sought a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of the law, arguing that the law violates their Second Amendment right to “keep and bear Arms.” The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rejected petitioners’ request for a preliminary injunction, concluding “that the AR–15 … is not protected by the Second Amendment.” Bevis v. Naperville, 85 F. 4th 1175, 1197 (2023). According to the Seventh Circuit, the rifle selected by millions of Americans for self-defense and other lawful purposes does not even fall within the scope of the Arms referred to by the Second Amendment.Ibid. This Court is rightly wary of taking cases in an interlocutory posture. But, I hope we will consider the important issues presented by these petitions after the cases reach final judgment.
—Harrel v. Raoul, Denial of Cert, 603 U.S. ____ (2024) Statement of Justice Thomas
We knew that Sotomayor wasn’t the sharpest crayon in the box, I love how Justice Thomas cites to her opinion saying that AR-15s are in common use.
…does not even fall within the scope of …: That should have Easterbrook and Woods looking for a rock to crawl under. That is a strong rebuke, coming from the Supreme Court.
I am attempting to learn a new skill. Wood turning.
This is a Craigslist find. The cost was good enough. The motor and lathe chuck are worth more than I paid for it. So I wasn’t concerned about it working.
The lovely people we bought if from were ready when we arrived, s
Tuesday, I spent a few hours turning a log into a shaped spindle thing. It isn’t for anything, it is just practice.
Yes, I pulled that piece of wood out of the wood pile. Biggest issue? When I spun it up for the first time, the bark came off at speed. I wasn’t anywhere near the line of flight
I played with a bowl blank, was ok with what I was getting, decided I wanted to do something a bit better. Watched a half dozen YouTube videos.
That is my new bowl blank. It is two big, by far.
This morning, it was a fallen tree, the sort that kills kids. It was up high enough that kids will walk under it, it wasn’t stable. That is why it became a donor for the wood project.
Instead of my normal 20″ logs, I cut one thin. Or at least I thought it was thin. When I got the disk up to the shop, it turns out that it was a little to big to spin up.
The bandsaw did a good enough job cutting it down to a size I could mount.
Once mounted, I started roughing it to round. That was fun. The entire lathe was vibrating like mad. The roughing gouge peeled off chunks of wood.
It was fun watching the chips go flying. Well, until I turned around and saw that I had wood chips to the back wall, 20 feet away.
Once it was mostly round, the vibrations died out, and I started making it smooth and round. It looked like ribbons of wood flowing down a sluice gate.
The bowl like shape that I have there is smooth. I did an ok job. As they say, a grinder and paint make me the wielder I ain’t. In this case, a decorative cove and some sandpaper.
Unfortunately, it is too deep to turn unsupported. I’m going to cut part of off to make a top, then try again.
It is a learning curve. I’ll be up at the Fort at #4 on Saturday, I hope to use some of the skills I’m learning to make some spindles to repair some broken artifacts.
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR has thoroughly addressed the Court’s flawed reasoning and conclusion as a matter of history, tradition, law, and logic. I agree with every word of her powerful dissent. I write separately to explain, as succinctly as I can, the theoretical nuts and bolts of what, exactly, the majority has done today to alter the paradigm of accountability for Presidents of the United States. I also address what that paradigm shift means for our Nation moving forward.
—Harrel v. Raoul, Denial of Cert, 603 U.S. ____ (2024) Justice Jackson, dissenting.
I remember taking some classes back in the olden times, where they described the Republican form of government that was created for these United States. I seem to remember that the federal government was made up of three branches, the legislative branch tasked with creating laws, the executive branch, tasked with implementing those laws and has veto powers over laws passed by the legislative branch, and the judicial branch, tasked with resolving disputes about the meaning of the laws.
If the President decides that a bill that has passed congress is unacceptable, he can veto that bill. If congress strongly disagrees with his opinion, they can override that veto.
Once the bill has become law, the President, as head of the executive branch, implements the law.
If there are any disputes about the law, that goes before the judiciary for their opinion.
