We are a power hungry country. We use so much power and we are not even aware of it. The numbers can tell us exactly how power hungry we are.

The computer I’m using right now has a 1000W power supply, that’s because the original 500W supply wasn’t big enough. That doesn’t count the other computers that are part of the overall system, just this one computer. Let’s assume we are only using 750W of power.

This is 1HP. My knee mill uses a 1HP motor. My lathe uses a 1HP motor. My recut bandsaw uses a 1HP engine. These are big metal monsters. My computer is a 1HP computer. This should be mind boggling.

Our home has a 100A feed, it is rather old. Many new homes have 200A feeds. My grandparents home had 4 circuits and a 40A feed.

Our power consumption keeps going up.

And all that power has to come from somewhere. And it has to get to us.

The power grid does that. When politicians push electric vehicles they are adding to that pull on the grid. There isn’t enough power in the grid to charge the EVs that they want us to use. There aren’t enough transformers on the poles or big enough transformers on the poles for that sort of power pull.

But there is another part of the power grid that is sort of amazing. During times of lower demand they push less power into the grid. During the night people use less power and thus there is less need to push that much power into the grid. As people get up in the morning and start their morning routines they start to use more power and the power plants start to push more power into the grid.

Which brings us to this article:

Smart thermostats, which the paper said were present in around 40 percent of US homes in 2021, are programmed by default to have different night and day modes. In hundreds of thousands of homes across the US that means a sudden jump in electricity use right before residents wake up – if people aren’t changing default settings, which the paper suggests is the case.

Those hundreds and thousands of smart thermostats, typically configured to switch to day mode around 6am, “can cause load synchronization during recovery from nightly setpoint setbacks, increasing the daily peak heating electrical demand,” the paper said.
— Smart thermostat swarms are straining the US grid

Yep, all those smart thermostats have clocks that are often very accurate and they all want to start at the same time. Thousands and thousands of homes all kicking in at exactly the same time.

But curiously enough, no one ever seems to consider, much less interrogate, the neon thread woven through it all. Meaning that pronoun, “he.” Always, “he.” We take it for granted. It hardly even registers. But maybe it should. In a government- funded study of 172 mass shootings since 1966 — defined as a shooting in a public place where four or more people were killed — The Violence Project, a nonpartisan and nonprofit anti-violence think tank, found that just four of the shooters were female. That’s a little more than 2%.
— Trib Live Leonard Pitts Jr.: What is wrong with American men?

According to Leonard Pitts the reason there is so much violence in America and so many mass shootings is because of men. He obsesses with the issue of gun violence being a man issue. And more than that, American Men. “Other countries have men — and for that matter, private gun ownership. Yet they don’t have the random gun violence this country does.”

At issue is the cherry picking of data, of manipulating the data, of ignoring data. We see this in his use of the term “gun violence”. This term is used by gun rights infringers to conflate actual violence committed with firearms with suicides and justifiable homicide.

These United States have an intentional murder rate of 6.2/100,000 This is 59th in the world. This isn’t great but it does include all of the Democratic controlled murder nexuses in cities.

But for Leonard it is American Men? Why?

The first thing we see is the changing culture. While he talks of “Men” he doesn’t talk of the environment these men come from. They come from single parent homes.

When we look at the violence in the cities we find a culture of fatherless children. The term use to be “latch key children.” The children that came home from school and had their own key to the house as there was nobody else home.

It takes good role models to create good people. Watch the following video and decide what sort of role models these young children have:

Toddler cussing out and hitting the police in Minnesota pic.twitter.com/EjqmiWdbXR

— Dennis Bonace (@Fugger58) July 12, 2022

Men aren’t the problem nor are women. The problem is a culture. A culture of victimhood. A culture of irresponsibility. A culture of refusing refusing to work for rewards but instead expect them to be given.

A culture where participation awards are the standard. Where “keeping score” is forbidden.

If Leonard Pitts wants to find a cause for the evil that grows in our society he might find it looking out from his mirror.

Senator Steve Daines(R-MT) has introduced S.4501 which is a national reciprocity bill. It is highly unlikely that it will go anywhere but with the midterms coming up and lots and lots of people upset with the gun bans, this might get some legs.

S.4501 – A bill to amend title 18, United States Code, to provide a means by which nonresidents of a state whose residents may carry concealed firearms may also do so in the State

If the text is not yet available at congress.gov, here it is on the Senator’s page:
Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act

While the state of New York decided to give the Supreme Court the finger and congress and the president did the same, there does appear to be some good news coming out of Hawaii.

This week, S[Hawaii’s Attorney General Holly] Shikada sent out updated guidelines that said police chiefs should not restrict concealed and open carry licenses only to those who can show that their lives are in danger.

However, at the same time, Shikada made it clear that permits also shouldn’t be issued to just anyone who asks. For example, police chiefs may decide against issuing a license to someone considered dangerous to the public.

The governor also acknowledged Bruen.

I’m very troubled by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision and asked the Attorney General for a formal opinion on how the Court’s decision will impact the State of Hawaii. It’s important for people to know that both concealed and open carry gun licenses are not automatically granted. … Public safety is important to us here in Hawaii, and we will continue to enforce our firearms laws, consistent with federal constitutional requirements, to help keep our community safe.

As J.Kb reported regarding Maryland, may issue states are being flooded with permit applications. Things are happening.

NYS will stop issuing CCW entirely on the first of September. They have given guidance that says any applications in progress need to be updated to the new requirements. In September the training requirement goes into effect. The draft of the training requirements won’t be available until 2023 (April?) at which point it goes through a revision process. All of which is bad.

— Attorney general issues new guidance for state to ease gun permit laws in wake of SCOTUS ruling

The US government is broken into three equal branches. Those are Legislative, the Executive and the Judicial branches.

The task of the Legislative branch is to create laws and budgets.

The task of the Executive branch is to provide a stop on legislative efforts via the veto and to execute the will of the legislative branch.

The task of the Judicial branch is to provide a fair trial before an [unbiased] and competent judge. Federal courts have the power to interpret the law and determine the constitutionality of the law and to apply it to individual cases. Above the federal courts is the Supreme Court of these United States. They have the final word on the constitutionality of the law and the power to apply it to individual cases.

Federal courts enjoy the sole power to interpret the law, determine the constitutionality of the law, and apply it to individual cases. The courts, like Congress, can compel the production of evidence and testimony through the use of a subpoena. The inferior courts are constrained by the decisions of the Supreme Court — once the Supreme Court interprets a law, inferior courts must apply the Supreme Court’s interpretation to the facts of a particular case.
— The Judicial Branch

What the courts do not have is the power to enforce any decision they make. That comes from the executive branch.

Within the lower courts there are local employees that provide security and there is local law enforcement. Law enforcement doesn’t answer to the courts while they might be instructed to follow the directions of the court they answer to a different chain of command.

Thus the deputy that brings in the prisoner does not answer to the judge but instead answers to the Sheriff. The Sheriff has ordered the deputy to transport the prisoner at the request of the judge.

So what happens if somebody decides to ignore the orders of a judge in a lower court?

In the simplest case the Judge tells law enforcement within his court to enforce his orders. “Clear the court.”, “Arrest that person.”, “Remove that person from the court.” Because the law enforcement personal within the court have been ordered to follow the instructions of the Judge by their superior, they follow those orders.

But what happens if a member of law enforcement decides to ignore the orders of the judge. In general the other officers will then enforce the orders of the Judge. The Judge is then likely to give orders in respect to the officer in question.

This is the short of it at the lower levels of the court. There is normally nothing so big that outside politics really get involved.

But at the higher levels, such as the Circuit Court levels, the judgement could also be ignore by the government.

Fortunately there is a safety valve for this, they appeal process. In general, when the government chooses to ignore a decision by the lower court they immediately (for government speeds) appeal. In general this will result in a “stay”. A stay is when a courts decision is put on hold waiting for a higher court to rule on the decision.

This continues upwards until the Supreme Court issues their opinion. At this point the Executive branch is tasked with upholding that opinion.

What if the states ignore the decision?

This is what we are seeing right now in states like MA, NY, NJ, HI and CA. They all read the courts opinion on Bruen and immediately set about ignoring the ruling by trying to limit the meaning or clinging to some small part of the opinion as an excuse.

The court said there are sensitive places, thus we can define sensitive places however we want and ban guns there.

The court said that a person can’t be force to show good cause but that permitting schemes are allowed, thus we can base approval on determining the good moral character of a person.

The court said that tradition counts so if this law has been on the books for a long time (greater than 10 minutes?) that it is tradition.

The court didn’t say anything about a bunch of other things, so we can pass laws such as that encourage lawfair. Such as the law in California where an FFL is charged with making a personal judgement on the character of the purchaser. If the purchaser then uses that firearm the FFL can be sued.

At this point in the past, the executive branch marched into the state with soldiers (Nation Guard) and forced the state to follow the law.

But what if the executive branch ignores the decision?

When this happens we end up where we are now. Lawsuits are filed on an almost daily basis challenging the new laws. The courts are involved again. Some officials agree and enforce the new rules. Others disagree and ignore the new rules. Yeah, that can be read both ways.

This will result in years in court. What we are actually looking for is a series of Supreme Court GVRs (Grant, Vacate, Remand). These can happen very rapidly. These are orders from the court that state “We already decided this, you didn’t follow our decision, fix it”.

If we see these flowing rapidly then this will happen.

In the meantime we continue to do what we have been doing. We flood these states with permit applications. We support those organizations that file these lawsuits.

we hope and pray that this is enough.

Because without the Rule of Law, the people will become judge, jury and executioner.

EDITED: Correct the spelling of Sheriff.

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In response to the landmark case of NYR&PA v. Bruen we in the guns right community celebrated. This was an amazing win for the Constitution and for Americans.

For years we have been fighting the concept of the “living document” as our Constitution. “The Constitution of the United States was not made to fit us like a strait jacket. In its elasticity lies its chief greatness.” — Woodrow Wilson.

This is true, but not as the left sees it. The elasticity lies in our ability to amend the Constitution. We, as a nation, have seen fit to do this 18 times. The first time was when the Bill of Rights was added and the other 17 times added a single amendment. The latest in 1992. The 27th amendment to the US Constitution only took 200+ years.

Our Constitution is not a straight jacket that binds us from change. It is a document that is hard to change. It takes work. In addition it requires the only polling that actually matters, in the voting booth. Everything else is just noise. It is only in the polling booth that we learn what the people actually want.

This is why there is so much effort put into creating confusion in ballet questions. This is why there is so much effort put into controlling the count of votes. This is why there is so much effort put into ways of injecting votes into the system that are questionable.

Today we are seeing the temper tantrums of the left when the Court stated that the constitution should be read as it was written. That we don’t get to redefine words. We don’t get to twist words to mean what we want them to mean now. Just consider how the left has twisted “well regulated” from its original meaning of “functioning well” to “having lots of regulations”

Having lost the gun control battle the left with its gun rights infringers had a mental break. Having been told that “good cause” is unacceptable many gun rights unfriendly states immediately went with “good moral character”. Congress passed a gun control bill that flies in the face of Bruen.

And Biden got up to talk about how wonderful this bill was but that it was just a start.

Ignoring Bruen he immediately went to “We need an assault weapons ban” and by assault weapon he means all centerfired semi-auto rifles. And once that is done, there is just one more.

Just one more until there is nothing left…

There is a story from the Civil War that the commander of the a Union Army did not want his troops to devastated the country side. Orders were passed that the troops were only allowed to take ONE rail from the split rail fences of the area. And that is what happened.

The troops would take the top rail, enough to feed their fire. Anybody that saw them take that rail would move to the next section and take the top rail. After they left another group of troops would come by and take the new top rail. In just a short period of time the split rail fence was reduced to almost nothing. And nobody took more than just the top rail.

Just one more law. Just one more rule. Just one more restriction. There is no fence.
— Biden renews push for assault weapons ban — and calls for safe storage law

A judge’s duty is to apply the law as written. They are not there to judge the impact of the law but to apply it.

In the zombie movies the rule is “If I become infected, kill me.” And in most zombie movies a loved one becomes infected and instead of destroying them then and there a judgement is made as to the impact. “It will hurt me to much to lose my child/wife/husband so I’ll ignore the law.”

It almost always ends badly.

In the opinion, the three liberal justices repeatedly warn of the devastating impact of the end of Roe, while emphasizing that the majority’s ruling breaks with core tenets of court procedure.

We’ve been having discussions about the impact of Row v. Wade for years. How many women will be affected by restricted access to abortions vs. the number of babies killed by abortion?

The Dobbs opinion ignores the impact and instead focuses on what the law actually says. What was written, the Rule of Law.

This is the difference between progressives and conservatives. A conservative can be very unhappy over an opinion but will judge that opinion by the Rule of Law. We’ve lost cases because the law wasn’t in our favor. And when those rulings go against us, we attempt to modify the law through legislative means.

A progressive judges everything by its impact. As part of that they apply modifiers based on who is arguing. Thus they can argue the states should have the right to pass laws in one breath and the next argue that the federal government should make the controlling laws. They feel no conflict because they judge based on the impact, not the Rule of Law.

Paul Schiff Berman, a professor at George Washington University Law School, said dissenting opinions help foster “a culture of argument” around America’s laws.
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“It reflects the idea that law is not just a set of rules but is an argument about how to put society together,” Berman said. “Even a view that is not going to be the law of the land at a particular moment in history nevertheless gets articulated in the public arena, so people can see that there is a debate going on that they can be part of and that these things change over time.”

The progressives want the court to be another legislature. The goal is to create an opinion that achieves the outcome the left wants. It is not the rule of law but “how to put society together.” It isn’t about careful, critical analysis of the issue at hand but in writing for the masses with what they want to hear.

The descent of the liberal judges always have emotional foundations. The arguments are seldom about why the conservative opinion is wrong on a legal stand point but rather how it is wrong on an emotional or pseudo moral basis.

— The Guardian What the liberal justices’ scorching dissent reveals about the US supreme court

Growing up we didn’t have a TV until I was in the 3rd grade. And then it was a small black and white. We were only allowed to watch TV for an certain number of hours per week. My brother and I would go through the TV guide trying to decide what we would watch.

But what was unlimited was music. All sorts of music. Some music is just a joy to listen to. You can close your eyes and be transported. My parents had an amazing collection of music.

On a weekend I would head over to the stereo, put on the good Sony head phones, cue up my favorite music and just listen.

Some of the songs told stories. Stories of conflict, stories of love, stories of sacrifice and of success.

Over time, I learned that some of the songs were of real events. Of history. Other songs were not of any particular event, but instead of a series of events that were historically accurate.

Sort of like this painting from 1846, George Caleb Bingham’s The Jolly Flatboatmen (1846). This is a “photoshoped” image. The artist had sketches of all these events but at no time did this event take place with these people at this location.

Songs could be like that too.

Here is one of the first songs I remember that caused me to go learn more:

There are movies and books about this battle.

We all know the veterans that spent their time in the military behind a desk. They only time they touched their weapon was when they were in boot camp or when they had to qualify. The vets that never deployed but have a strong opinions.

We see them when a former general says “fully semi-automatic” when describing an AR-15. Or the vet that says “I know what the AR-15 can do, no civilian should own an AR-15”. They lay claim to an authority of opinion that they have not earned and do not deserve.

This image came from my Lady. She was laughing because this proved that the poster really wasn’t a vet.

Yeah, the forward assist is not a selector switch. Nor is “armored infantry for the Coast Guard”.

Except context matters. This was a troll posting. War Path is a name I’ve seen before and not as a wannabe. So yeah Trolling.

This tweet was in response to this one:

When I was in the Army, we kept our M-16’s locked up in the armory. The only time we brought them out was for guard duty — or when we trained for war.

— Lakota Man (@LakotaMan1) July 6, 2022

And Lakota Man responded, you can see it in the image above “Exactly. Thank You.”

Trolling accomplished.

Context matters.