• Divination is the art of predicting the future or reading a person using some type of indicator.

    Most people can do a cold read of a person and get it mostly right. Others do a much better job.

    My personal example was being on a date with a young lady while at university. We had had a nice dinner and were sitting in the rose garden on campus, watching and listening to the water of the river.

    I wasn’t pushing, being mostly stupid about females at the time, I was just talking and listening.

    I stopped, and said, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you had been raped here.” The “guess” was right. I was able to observe her discomfort, and divine what was causing it. Was it magic? No. It was simply a logical result of analyzing the situation and her no verbal cues.

    One of the methods that “readers” use to do divination is “reading the tea leaves.” Tea is poured into a teacup with loose tea. The person drinks the tea, leaving the leaves behind. The reader then looks into the cup and divines something about the person, often predicting what will happen to that person.

    They read the non-verbal cues to do this, frequently without even understanding the cues they are reading.

    The Supreme Court is mystical in how they decide what cases to hear. It is difficult to predict how they will decide given the questioning during oral arguments. Yet, we insist on trying to predict what they will do.

    The information we have to work with is typically very limited. In this case, we are attempting to predict if they will grant certiorari in a Second Amendment case.

    We have access to the case histories, we have access to the opinion pieces written by others, we have the briefs filed by the parties. We know what other cases are seeking certiorari. And we know cases that will be seeking certiorari.

    And we have the orders issued by the Court.

    The case which is furthest along appears to be Snope v Brown. It has been fully briefed, it was scheduled to be discussed yesterday.

    Snope is an “assault weapon” ban.

    Another Second Amendment case is Ocean State Tactical v. Rhode Island. It has been fully briefed, it was scheduled to be discussed yesterday.

    Ocean State Tactical is a “large capacity magazine” ban.

    Then there is the case of Gray v. Jennings. This is one of the interesting cases because it doesn’t ask the Court to decide a Second Amendment issue directly, instead, it asks how the inferior courts should address motions for a preliminary injunction.

    In September 2024, the petitioner (good guys) filed a petition for writ of certiorari. They are asking the Court to clarify a Winter factor.

    Winter factors are the four questions that must be answered before a preliminary injunction is granted, or a stay is granted.

    The first question is, “Is the party likelihood of success on the merits of the case?” In other words, is the party requesting the injunction or stay likely to have the winning argument.

    The second question is, “Is the party likely to suffer irreparable harm without the injunction/stay?” Losing money is not irreparable harm. Losing your life is. Losing your business? That might be something that can be fixed with lots of money.

    The third question is, “Does the balance of equities and hardships tip in favor of the party seeking the injunction/stay?” If the hardship is trivial, then it does not justify an injunction or stay.

    The fourth question is, “What is in the best interest of the public?”

    In the past, the state has often won injunction’s and stays by getting the courts to modify the order of the factors. They claim it is in the public’s best interest, the court agrees, so never looks at the likelihood of success. Or the court finds that the party is likely to win on the merits, but no harm and no hardship is happening.

    The Supreme Court not only set forth the “Winter Factors” but they later ordered that the factors be done in order. Success on the merits must always be done first.

    In most civil rights cases, if the party is likely to succeed on the merits of the case, they are granted the preliminary injunction or stay. Having your constitutionally protected rights infringed is always irreparable harm. You will never again be able to speak at that moment.

    The balance of equities always favors the protection of The People’s rights.

    The public has no interest in enforcing unconstitutional laws.

    The exception, of course, has always been Second Amendment cases. Many courts believe that there is no harm in denying The People their constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.

    Gray asks, “Is the infringement of Second Amendment [protected] rights per se irreparable injury?”

    The Reading

    Snope and Ocean State Tactical were both conferenced for December 13th. The state declined to respond to the petition in September/October by Gray. The case was scheduled for conference on November 8.

    Five days after it was scheduled, the Court issued a demand for the state to respond.

    This is tea leave one. If the Supreme Court is “requesting” a response, it means that they are looking at the case seriously. You get your response in.

    The state delayed in responding, then asked for an extension. The extension was granted. The date for the state to respond was fixed at December 12th.

    The response is the normal anti-gun garbage. They first claim that there is no circuit split. This is not a requirement, it is just an assumption. The Court will often let an issue simmer until there is a good case. The one place where they are more likely to step in, is if the interpretation of the law is different in different parts of the country.

    Their second argument is that the plaintiffs (good guys) should have presented evidence that being unable to purchase guns and magazines was actual irreparable harm.

    Finally, they argue that the Circuit court not only rejected their appeal regarding the denial of preliminary injunction on winter factor two, but on factors three and four.

    Because the petitioners (good guys) are only challenging the second Winter factor, if it is a Second Amendment challenge, then it is irreparable harm. The reason is that the other two factors also favor the plaintiff, per current case law.

    Conclusion

    The Supreme Court likely wants to discuss all three of these cases in the same conference. When we see these three cases distributed for conference on the same day, that will be a strong indication.

    The Supreme Court can decide to combine the three cases, combine two and leave the third separate, or hear all three.

    Of course, they could decide to hear none of them, this is highly unlikely.

            

  • Okay, today’s post is a bit of a cheat, but what can I say. I like to window shop, even when the window is Amazon. LOL!

    There are a ton of items out there that would make excellent gifts for the Prepper in your life. I hope you find some of these to be of use.

    It’s just a little list. It’s one I think is worthwhile looking into. Create your own. If you have young ‘uns or teens, give them a Get Home bag for part of their stocking. Plan out your garden for next year and get all the seeds as stocking stuffers. Heck, get seeds you can start indoors now, and plant outside when it gets warmer.

    There are some items that are “always buy” in my opinion, like the zip ties and thermal blankets. No matter how many you have, more is always a good thing. Also in that list would be paracord on the roll, small first aid kits, rain ponchos that fit in a purse… There are so many ideas.

    Happy holidays, folks. No matter what you celebrate, this is a month full of holy days, and may each of you find something soul comforting over this month.

            

  • Networking, still

    Major reconfigurations took place. Ceph is now running over OVN/OpenVSwitch. The choice was to determine how to have 5 different networks for the cluster network, or to make just one.

    One method would have been to make the cluster network a larger network and then have each of the room networks a subnet of those. This would require some magic that I didn’t want to figure out.

    The switch I purchased turned out to be a dud, for me. It only supports MTUs up to 1550 bytes. That is not going to work.

    It also turns out that I’m becoming a Cisco router person. Seems that all of these routers I’ve been working with use the Cisco CLI and methods. Yeah.

    IPsec

    I’ve been using virtual private tunnels for a while now. I’ve been using OpenVPN for the most part. I’ve done a couple of other tunnels. Now I am learning VTI and XFRM tunneling over secure IP. It will be interesting.

    Daniel Penny, found not Guilty

    After deliberating for multiple days, the jury was hung on the charge of second degree manslaughter.

    When the judge allowed the prosecution to drop that charge, leaving criminally negligent homicide, most people expected a guilty plea. That is the norm.

    In a shocking turn of events, the jury returned a Not Guilty verdict after only a short deliberation. It appears that the jury was not happy with the judge nor with the event as a whole.

    Snope (Bianchi) v. Brown (Frosh) rescheduled

    Cases that are seeking a writ of certiorari go through different stages. One path is the emergency docket, the other is the regular docket. This case is on its third petition for writ of certiorari. The first was granted, the lower court’s opinion was vacated, and the case was remanded for further work in light of Bruen

    The second time. The case was denied certiorari because the case was in an interlocutory state.

    This case is in its final form. It is ready to be heard by the Supreme Court.

    The Supreme Court was originally scheduled to discuss this case today. It has been rescheduled.

    Those people who spend their lives reading the tea leaves of the Supreme Court all agree. They all agree they have different opinions and the other guys are all wrong.

    I am withholding my opinion until I find out when the case is rescheduled.

    Question of the Week

    Given all the gun laws on the books, both at a federal and state level. What changes that are pro-Second Amendment and achievable would you like to see in the next year?

    By achievable, I mean that “total repeal of all gun laws” is not an achievable goal for 2025.

            

  • This might be the most important case regarding the Second Amendment since Heller.

    Kolbe v. Hogan

    This case started when the Fourth Circuit Court issued their opinion in Kolbe v. Hogan. Fourteen judges sat, en banc to hear a challenge to Maryland’s “assault weapon ban”. Only four of the judges found that the Second Amendment protected the right of The People to acquire, posses, and use “assault weapons”.

    Judge King wrote the opinion of the majority. They start with story telling.

    You can always tell that an opinion will be a great legal work when the opinion starts with stories of events taking place, outside the legal system. In this case, they decide that the most professional way to start an opinion is by telling their version of the evil Bushmaster AR-15 type rifle that killed so many children at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

    The entire reference to human autonomy is “a gunman” Everything else is the action of those evil “assault weapons”.

    They go on to list other mass shootings, all done by evil black rifles.

    Using the standard tap dance of the time, the lower court found that the law implicated the Second Amendment and then decided the government should win, so selected “intermediate scrutiny.”

    A three judge merits panel of the Fourth Circuit split for The People, vacating the lower court’s rulings and telling them to “do it over, using strict scrutiny.”

    The Fourth Circuit could let this stand, so the en banc vacated the merit panel’s opinion and heard the case.

    The en banc Fourth Circuit then decided that the proper position wasn’t strict scrutiny, nor even intermediate scrutiny. No, they decided that “large capacity magazines” and “assault weapons” don’t even implicate the Second Amendment because they are “like” “M-16 rifles.”

    Bianchi v. Frosh

    This Second Amendment Challenge was started as one of the many cases attempting to get another Second Amendment case before the supreme court. It was a direct challenge to Kolbe.

    As such, the case barely paused for a rubber stamp at the district level. The district court, correctly, ruled that they had to follow the superior court, the fourth circuit, and found for the defendants (bad guys).

    The gist of the court’s opinion was: This question has been asked and answered by the circuit court. You lose.

    The plaintiffs filed an appeal, as planned.

    This went before a three judge merits panel. That panel did the same thing the district court did. “The en banc has been asked this question and they answered. You lose.”

    On December 20, 2021, the plaintiffs filed a petition for a writ of certiorari. At that point, this became one of a half dozen Second Amendment cases waiting for a writ of certiorari.

    In the end, the Supreme Court chose to hear New York Pistol and Rifle Association v. Bruen.

    Justice Thomas wrote the opinion in Bruen and it was powerful.

    On Aug 1st, 2022, certiorari was granted in Bianchi. The Supreme Court vacated the opinion of the Fourth Circuit and remanded the case to “do it right”.

    Moving at lighting speed, the Fourth Circuit merit’s panel scheduled and heard the case on Dec. 6th, 2022.

    And then nothing. For over a year, nothing.

    Then on January 12th, 2024, the Fourth Circuit granted a rehearing en banc. Nobody had requested a rehearing, the Fourth just decided to yank it from the merits panel’s hands before they could issue their opinion.

    Reading between the lines and often on the lines, it was clear that the merits panel was going to issue an opinion favorable to The People. The dissenting judge refused to provide the dissenting opinion, keeping the opinion from being published.

    The en banc Fourth Circuit heard oral arguments on March 20th, 2024.

    The plaintiffs filed another petition for writ of certiorari, but it was denied because the case was still in an interlocutory state.

    In a surprising move, the Fourth Circuit published their opinion in only 5 months. It was as bad as we expected.

    The majority opinion with respectful consideration and benefit of Bruen” upheld their original judgement. They found that they had done it right in Kolbe and that “assault weapons” are outside the ambit of protection of the Second Amendment.

    After the Supreme Court decided New York State Rifle and Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), it remanded this case for us to determine whether Maryland’s “assault weapons” ban violates the Second Amendment. Yet before the panel could issue its opinion, our court voted to take the case en banc. Now, the majority decides that Maryland’s ban is perfectly consistent with the Second Amendment. But the majority’s rationale disregards the Second Amendment and controlling precedent. Rather than considering the Amendment’s plain text, the majority sidesteps it altogether and concocts a threshold inquiry divorced from the right’s historic scope. To make matters worse, it then misconstrues the nature of the banned weapons to demean their lawful functions and exaggerate their unlawful uses. Finally, to top it all off, the majority cherry-picks various regulations from the historical record and pigeonholes them into its preferred—yet implausible—reading of our Nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation.
    —No. 114 Dominic Bianchi v. Anthony Brown, No. 21-1255, slip op. at 85 (4th Cir.) Judge Richardson, dissenting

    Snope v. Brown

    This case has been going on for so long that the AG of Maryland has changed, and might change again before this case is heard. The original lead plaintiff has left the state of Maryland, making David Snope the lead plaintiff.

    The petition for writ of certiorari was filed August 21st, 2024.

    The state, waited to the last minute, then filed a motion to extend the time to respond. This should have been a no-brainer. They knew this case was going to be appealed. This is just the state intentionally stalling.

    By September 23rd, all the plaintiff and amicus curiae supporting the plaintiff had been filed. Not a single filing by the state.

    On October 9th, the state requested another 30 days. This was limited to just two extra weeks. This is a big win for The People.

    The Supreme Court is now in the 2024 term. This runs from August 2024 through June 2025. All briefings and arguments need to be completed in time for the court to come to a decision and write their opinions before the end of the term.

    This means that any case that will be heard in the 2024 term must be granted cert. before the end of January. With final briefings filed by November 12th, the case is conferenced for December 13th. If the state had gotten a 30-day extension, the case might not have been conferenced until mid-January, pushing oral arguments into the 2025 Term.

    Remember, this was before the election. The state was hoping that they could push the case into the next presidential term and hope for a more favorable to the state Supreme Court.

    In every case before the Supreme Court, the most important part is making sure the question presented is representative and will focus the opinion correctly.

    Here is how the state put the question:

    Should this Court decline to grant certiorari to consider the constitutionality of Maryland’s assault weapons ban where (1) that ban is consistent with this Court’s recognition in District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), that jurisdictions may ban “weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like”; (2) the Fourth Circuit faithfully applied New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), to conclude that Maryland’s law is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of “regulating those weapons that were invented for offensive purposes and were ultimately proven to pose exceptional dangers to innocent civilians,” Pet. App. 69a; and (3) there is no need to resolve a conflict among the lower courts?

    Wow, that is difficult to parse. I think it might be a question, there is a question mark at the end of the paragraph.

    Translation:

    1. Is Maryland’s assault weapon ban consistent with Heller?
    2. Did the Fourth Circuit faithfully apply Bruen?
    3. Is there a need to resolve a conflict among the lower courts?

    I was once a teaching assistant for a computer science professor. His examines were horrible. He thought I was there to proctor the exam. Instead, I took the exam. Scored my answers against the answer sheet outside in the hall. Then told him which questions he would be throwing out as bad questions.

    He loved to add negatives to his questions. I can’t even write a question the way he did. It wasn’t uncommon for one of his multiple choice questions to have four or more negatives in it. I taught the students to count the number of negatives. If it was an odd number, then it is a true negative. If it was an even number, then it was a positive.

    This increased the grades of all the students significantly.

    As normal, the next lecture was students challenging questions on the exam. After the second challenge, he took my list, read it to the class stating, “These are the questions that Chris said to remove. I’m going to remove them.”

    He gained 75% of the lecture time back. After the next exam, he didn’t even let the challenges start. He read the list of questions that were being tossed.

    This “question” reminds me of attempting to decode Dr. Reed’s exam questions.

    Compare the state’s convoluted “question” with the plaintiff’s question:

    Whether the Constitution permits the State of Maryland to ban semiautomatic rifles that are in common use for lawful purposes, including the most popular rifle in America.

    Hmm, that is much easier to parse.

    Conclusion

    We should know by mid-January if this case is granted cert. If it is, you can expect all the usual suspects to jump in with amici curiae briefs. Some will be fun reading, most will be emotional blackmail.

            

  • The subject of vaccinations is of importance to me because I strongly believe in childhood vaccines. Robert F. Kennedy has plans for vaccines, and the Left is in a tizzy over it, so I wanted to discuss it a bit. But first…

    A bit of background on me. My first daughter was born in the 90s, and as a dutiful parent, I took her in for her first set of shots when I was told to. She got her shot, and about 30 minutes after she got it, she started screaming. Not crying, but screaming, that sound that causes parents to run to the ER. I thought at first it was just a bit of lingering pain from the shot, so I did warm washcloths at the vaccination site, baby Tylenol, snuggles, breastfeeding, all that stuff. The screaming continued. She barely breathed. It was just a continuous scream, like the sound out of a piece of machinery. I called my doctor, and in the middle of that call, she stopped. Other than the fact that she was exhausted from screaming for a couple of hours, it was like nothing happened. She was bubbly, happy, eating again… My doctor suggested that we wait until she was older to get any further vaccinations, because that was definitely Not Normal.

    I ended up not getting any of her childhood vaccines. I was too afraid that she would end up screaming and in pain again. By the time my daughter was about 3 or 4, Dr. Andrew Wakefield published a study that made claims he had proven that vaccines caused autism. I skimmed his study, but at the time I was not a good researcher, nor was I an experienced adult. I assumed that Dr. Wakefield wouldn’t have been published if his study wasn’t good. I decreed that my child would never be vaccinated again.

    Of course, that didn’t happen. To get my kid into school, I had to get her vaccinated. I didn’t live in the States at the time, and my option was to lie and say I was a member of a religion that didn’t allow vaccinations. That was the only exception allowed. I didn’t lie, and my kid got vaccinated, in a truncated schedule that allowed her to enter kindergarten with her peers. She was fine, and she’s not autistic.

    We now know, of course, that Dr. Wakefield’s study(1) was critically flawed, and that vaccines do not cause autism. In fact, not only is there no causation, there’s not even any correlation. His study and one other made some extremely bad jumps in (lack of) logic and the scare of the late 90s and early 2000s was enacted. I was caught up in that. I did not want my later children to be vaccinated, because my memory of my first child’s experience, along with my emotional reaction to the study, put me into a froth. My partner explained that the study was wrong, and sent me off to learn more about it.

    That led to one of my first true research deep dives. I had to educate myself in order to understand a lot of what I was reading. I didn’t want to depend on experts, because it was an “expert” who had misled me the first time. By the time I was done, I was not only willing to get the kids vaccinated, I was demanding we do so.

    (more…)

            

  • In 2017, Mr. Wilson was arrested for trespass. When searched, it was discovered he had a firearm on him. He did not have a license to carry.

    His case was heard in the lower courts of Hawaii, later it was appealed to the Supreme Court of Hawaii.

    There, the court found that because he had not attempted to get a carry license, he could not claim a Second Amendment defense. They then took multiple nasty shots at the Supreme Court of the United States and in the Bruen opinion.

    Mr. Wilson then filed a petition for writ of certiorari. On the 9th of December, that petition was denied.

    Justice Thomas wrote respecting the denial of certiorari. Justice Alito joined him. Justice Gorsuch also wrote a statement.

    No justice wrote to say they would have granted cert. Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch all agreed that cert. should be denied.

    In New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U. S. 1 (2022), we singled out Hawaii’s firearms-licensing regime as “analog[ous]” to the New York regime we held unconstitutional. Id., at 15. We explained that States cannot condition an individual’s exercise of his Second Amendment rights on a showing of “special need.” Id., at 70–71. Yet, the Hawaii Supreme Court ignored our holding in the decision below. See 154 Haw. 8, 543 P. 3d 440 (2024). It instead stated that petitioner Christopher Wilson could not invoke the Hawaii regime’s unconstitutionality as a defense in his criminal proceedings because he had never applied for a license. That conclusion contravenes the settled principle that Americans need not engage in empty formalities before they can invoke their constitutional rights, and it wrongly reduces the Second Amendment to a “second-class right.” McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 780 (2010) (plurality opinion). Although the interlocutory posture of the petition weighs against correcting this error now, I would grant certiorari in an appropriate case to reaffirm that the Second Amendment warrants the same respect as any other constitutional right.
    —No. 114 Dominic Bianchi v. Anthony Brown, No. 21-1255, slip op. at 85 (4th Cir.)

    Oh my, the Hawaii Supreme Court was spanked, hard.

    The Second Amendment litigators were also chastised. Thomas et al. have stated clearly, “We are not going to grant certiorari on cases that are still in an interlocutory posture.”

    As a Second Amendment litigator, stop appealing during the interlocutory phase. If you win, great. You can find in the appeals. If you are going to lose, lose as quickly as possible, then appeal.

    Appealing TROs and preliminary injunctions just delays getting a win. I’m not even sure it is worth asking for TROs and preliminary injunctions. Again, it is just a delay.

    In the jurisdictions where these battles are being fought, the appeals courts are not on our side. If you request a TRO and it is not granted, the appeal to the circuit court will lose, but it will add months of time to the process, and it increases the costs as well.

    If you request a TRO, and it is granted, the state is going to appeal. Having appealed, the circuit court will stay the TRO, the case then will be scheduled for oral arguments months later.

    We are much better off moving to final judgement as quickly as possible.

            

  • For your Christmas pleasure:

    Originally from Neptune’s Daughter.

            

  • I adore sausage gravy and biscuits. They’re the ultimate comfort food. The biscuits are a wee bit sweet, and the sausage gravy is a bit spicy and savory and creamy, all at once. I always make mine with an egg, though you can do what you want with yours.

    Ingredients for the sausage gravy:

    • 1 lb ground sausage meat (Jones or Jimmy Dean work well)
    • 1 onion, diced
    • 1 to 2 cloves garlic, minced
    • 2 tbsp all purpose flour
    • 1 to 2 cups of milk (regular, cream, or non-dairy is fine)

    In a large pan, brown your ground sausage meat over a medium heat. You want it to be thoroughly cooked, but not crispy or burned. Drain off the fat, and reserve it (pro tip: add a lining of tin foil to a bowl and strain your fat into it… after, use what you want by spooning it out, then discard the rest, wrapped up in the foil). Remove the sausage and set aside.

    Add 2 tablespoons of the fat back into your pan and add in the onion. Saute over a medium heat until the onion until becomes soft and opaque. Add in the garlic and stir continuously for about 30 seconds to a minute. You want the garlic to be fragrant, but not brown or crisp. Add extra fat if necessary.

    Sprinkle the onion mixture with the flour, and stir with a wooden spoon until it’s incorporated and clumpy. If it’s very loose and saucy, you may need a bit more flour. If it’s all white and not mixing into the onion, you may need a bit more fat. The idea is to make a roux.

    Lower your heat to just below medium. Pour in your milk very slowly, about a quarter cup at a time, and stir gently and constantly with a wooden spoon. Work on getting rid of any lumps or bits of unincorporated flour to ensure your gravy comes out smooth. Continue to add your milk until the gravy is a good consistency for you. You want to end up with a smooth, fairly thick gravy that is easy to stir and has no lumps.

    If your gravy “breaks,” meaning it separates into lumpy bits and oily liquid, you can fix it. Add warm water a tablespoon at a time and whisk vigorously in between. This should allow your gravy to emulsify again, and get creamy. The water must be warm, not hot or cold, for this to work.

    Once your gravy is how you like it, add the sausage back in and stir to mix it well. Set aside until your biscuits are done!

    Now it’s time to make the biscuits!

    (more…)

            

  • My first fiber switch turned out to be a L3 managed “switch”. Way cool. But I purchased a cheap switch and found that it completely undocumented.

    It has taken me a while to figure things out.

    The configuration GUI is an What You See Is All You Get type. There is enough there that you can get the switch up and running, but not enough to fully configure the L3 Switch.

    To accomplish that, you need to use the CLI. Not a problem, I like CLI’s.

    Of course, there is no documentation but for tab completion and very limited help screens.

    I get it mostly working.

    After playing with the Free Range Routing Suite (FRR) for a while and getting OSPF working on all of my hosts and the primary router, I was feeling pretty confident.

    It seems that FRR took their configuration model almost directly from Cisco’s CLI. The number of times I used a Cisco help page to determine how to configure an OSPF setting is remarkable.

    The new L3 switch turns out to have a Cisco like configuration language. And what isn’t Cisco like, is FRR like. Neither Cisco nor FRR, but close.

    Today I had a tremendous success, I moved a ceph host from the physical network to the OVN network.

    This included moving that segment of the network to a new subnet. And everything sort of worked.

    The issue turned out to be a routing issue.

    The correct answer is to turn on OSPF within the new physical router. It does support it, after all.

    Having played with the damn thing for a few hours, breaking my network multiple times, I was about to give up when I happened to notice a strange value for a setting.

    That setting? MTU, of course.

    Even though every interface shows an MTU of 9000. Even though jumbo frames are turned on and using a 9000 byte frame.

    Even though an MTU of 9000 is very much supported, the MTU of the “VLAN” was set to 1500.

    Now, Cisco VLANs are not the same as a tagged VLAN. A tagged VLAN acts like a separate physical network. They are where you place interface settings. These VLANs can then be assigned to a physical port.

    The physical port’s MTU overrides the VLAN MTU. This means my jumbo packets from host to host work.

    The problem is that the VLAN MTU is maxed out at 2000 bytes. This seems to only affect the OSPF traffic and not the physical interface. But I’m dead in the water or I need to figure out how to do this differently.

    Still, I didn’t pay an arm plus a leg for this physical router. I’ll get it to work.

            

  • In general, people are idiots. In groups, they have a combined IQ of less than 70 and the common sense of a three year old.

    Daniel Penny is a US Marine who stepped up and protected the people on the subway. He held a homeless, violent, man until the man could be arrested.

    He was then interrogated for hours without a lawyer because the police interrogating him established a relationship, by being an ex-marine.

    It is often said that there is no such thing as an ex-marine or a former marine. You are a marine for life. There are exceptions, the cop who interrogated Daniel Penny is an ex-marine.

    Having charged and arrested this hero, they are now trying to screw him over, yet again.

    Prosecutors have wide latitude in what they charge. One of the standard tricks is to bring multiple charges for the same crime, over charging at least one.

    Humans like to think they are being fair and reasonable. One of the oldest and most famous instances of this is when a man was taken before a Roman Governor to be “sentenced” for claiming to be a king above Caesar.

    The Governor refused to kill the man, instead sentencing him to be whipped. Even though I’ve found nothing wrong with him, he still had the man flogged. When the mob insisted he be put to death, the Governor replied, I told you — he’s not guilty! I find no reason to condemn him..

    The complete tale can be found in John 19:1-25.

    In other words, to appease people, an innocent man was flogged.

    Prosecutors overcharge in expectations that the jury will often find the accused not guilty of the most serious charge, but to appease the prosecutor, will find the accused guilty of the lesser charge.

    They can go home, secure in the knowledge that they didn’t sentence a man to 20-life but only 5 to 10. (made up numbers).

    Not really internalizing that 5 to 10 is still too much for an innocent person.

    The Jury deadlocked. Some members of the jury found that Daniel was not guilty of second-degree manslaughter, some insisting that he was. When they reported a deadlock, the judge charged them to work harder.

    The prosecutor then did Daniel a dirty. He requested that the second-degree manslaughter charge be dismissed.

    Why is this dirty pool?

    If the Judge accepts the motion to dismiss the second-degree manslaughter charge, then the deadlock goes away. If the deadlock goes away, then the jury will have to deliberate over the second charge of criminally negligent homicide.

    Human nature will make it easier for the jury to return a guilty verdict on the lessor charge.

    The judge should have declared a mistrial. Instead, he accepted the motion to dismiss. He released the jury until Monday.

    On Monday, they will start deliberation on the second charge.

    I hope that they deadlock on the second charge as well.