• The big news of the week is, of course, that somebody got close enough to Trump to make a real attempt to kill him.

    This has opened up a floodgate of horrible responses from people on the rightleft. Listening to Allyson drop people from her friends list on social media has been almost terrifying in its intensity.

    Libs Of TikTok has made it a personal mission to expose many of the people who are calling for the assassination of Trump.

    I think the most vile thing I’ve seen are “Hopes and Prayers for the shooter and his family.”

    Allyson is dealing with a massive shift in politics. I’ve described it as she was standing in the ocean near the shore. Suddenly, the waters just swept out, leaving her standing on shore with all the rest of the right.

    It is frightening to her. I’m not so sure of how much she has changed, though she has, but how much the left has just lost it.

    I’m trying to figure out this X thing. I want to have each post automaticity go to X but the autopost isn’t working for scheduled posts and when it does post, it is a pretty sad-looking post.

    Thank you to every one of you that is here reading our ramblings.

    If you would like to contribute to the blog, please send your article to me, and I’ll see if it fits and can be published.

    I’m attempting to tone back my case analysis postings to be more readable to humans. Please let me know if the tone is about right for you.

    Finally, we will be opening a web store soon. We will be selling Allyson’s books, signed. If anybody is interested in the wooden bowls, I’ll put some of those up for sale as well.

    Anybody who is in the NH, MA, VT area that wants to meet at the Fort at #4, reach out to me, and we’ll make it happen.

    Have a wonderful weekend.

            
  • headshot of Allyson
    Allyson, sans glasses, in a silly hat

    Allyson walks to the podium at the head of the crowded room and looks at everyone. She straightens her tank top unnecessarily, shuffles her feet a bit, and then leans against the podium and adjusts the microphone. 

    Hi. My name is Allyson, and I’m a new Conservative.

    Hi, Allyson!

    The past few days have really changed my mind on a number of subjects. I’m still not a huge Trump fan, but after watching what happened on Saturday, many of my previous concerns have waned. I’ve been reading and educating myself, listening to others, and generally trying to get a better grip on the whole political situation going on. I’ve taken another step to the Right, and while I still consider myself a “small L libertarian,” I think that by society’s standards, I’m now a Conservative.

    This is going to be a real ramble of a blog entry, so bear with me. Please.

    That puts me in a weird place. I feel like I can’t tell my friends. I haven’t been able to talk politics with them in ages, but it’s been a relatively comfortable silence on both parts. But this? I can’t tell them I’m “on the Trump train.” I’d be ostracized. And yes, I know how that sounds, and yes, that’s part of why I took the step to the Right.

    I’m going to say this now, because I have to. I have watched the videos of the assassination attempt a good 40 or 50 times. I’ve looked at different angles, read experts’ opinions, and done my best to do due diligence. The timing and way this played out FEELS too convenient and too well done, and I am absolutely terrified that this was a fake out by Trump and/or his team. My thinking brain tells me that no one, not even the most brash person ever, would have a live bullet come that close to their head on purpose. But my lizard brain is still concerned that somehow, this was just a fake out.

    A lot of people have changed their mind about Trump because of Saturday’s attempt on his life. I desperately hope that everything I saw was real (not that I wanted an attempt on his life, but just that the situation as presented is real). If it turns out to be some kind of fake out, I suspect I’ll just walk away entirely and stop dealing with politics. I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it.

    (more…)

            

  • I grew up in an innocent age of TV and movies. The heroes were the guys in the blue uniforms and the white hats. The lawyers were evil men working for evil criminals, or they were good men doing good deeds. The press was there to expose the truth, to give us the facts.

    The whole truth and nothing but the truth.

    What I learned about the court system was that everything happened in the courtroom. It was where all the excitement was. Paying attention because some lawyer was going to expose the truth at the last minute to make their case.

    Even modern legal dramas suffer from the same tropes.

    As I have been reading and listening, I’ve found that most of the hard work comes long before the jury is sworn in. The excitement is buried in hundreds of words and page after page of motions.

    (more…)

            

  • I’m not sure I can really report “from behind enemy lines” anymore. I will continue to give a more Left perspective on things (because many of my friends are Left), but personally I’ve made another step to the Right.

    I want to talk about what I’m hearing from my friends online today, after the attempt to kill Trump. They seem to fall into two rather neat categories, quite honestly, with very little middle ground. My friends, the people I personally know, have met and hung out with face to face, and who I would invite over for dinner, are appalled that anyone would try to kill Trump. They are distraught, apologetic, sending thoughts and prayers (in a very not sarcastic way). They are honest. Some of them are feeling a bit raw right now, because they seem to firmly believe that someone from “their side” did this, and it’s making them look at themselves.

    The ones who are merely acquaintances, the people who met me once at an author gig, or who know me from reenacting and friended me on FB because of it, those people who are highly unlikely to get dinner invitations, are making the most vile commentary. “Too bad he missed,” seems to be the general theme. I’ve also heard, “Oh, it was faked,” and “This was planned by Trump,” and “It’s payback from the Project 2025 people!” I didn’t bother to try and reason with the people who said these things; I deleted them as friends, removed their name and number from my phone. Those people are not people I will interact with, other than as required at work.

    I’m rather horrified at the number of people making the horrid comments. I knew they’d come on public spaces like TikTok, but among those I’d admitted (however little) into my own personal space? I did not expect that. What I also didn’t expect was the civil, polite, and at least seemingly heartfelt words from Left leaders around the country. I’m confused over those few who seemed to think that someone sniping at Trump would equal the Right demanding gun laws be enacted. Oy.

    (more…)

            

  • Alec Baldwin’s case was dismissed with prejudice.

    What does this mean, IANAL view point

    Alec Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter after he shot and killed his cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins.

    The relevant facts: Alec Baldwin was holding a real gun. Alec Baldwin pointed the gun at a person. Alec Baldwin cocked the gun (pulled the hammer back and set it on the sear). Alec Baldwin then pressed the trigger, causing the gun to fire, killing Halyna Hutchins.

    Irrelevant facts: Somebody told Alec Baldwin that the gun was unloaded (Treat every gun as if it is loaded). Somebody said they loaded dummy rounds into the gun (Treat every gun as if it is loaded). He says he did not pull the trigger, (Never point your gun at something you are not willing to destroy/kill.). In addition, he injured the director(?) (Be sure of your target and what is beyond it).

    Other irrelevant facts: Baldwin is just a trained monkey. He can’t be expected to know the safety rules. Baldwin is so stupid that he should never have been handed a real gun. It was somebody else’s responsibility to make sure that the gun was “safe”.

    Things went wrong on that set. Some of it appears to be Baldwin’s responsibility. Including rushing the safety crew, disregarding safety “suggestions” and overall shitty safety.

    (more…)

            

  • There were several cases GVRed at the end of June. This is one of the methods the Supreme Court uses to communicate with the inferior courts.

    What they are doing is telling the inferior courts, all of them, that this opinion we issued, applies to these sorts of cases.

    The Loper Bright case was the death of Chevron. Chevron was the horrible opinion out of the Supreme Court that said, if the agency administrating a law thinks it is ambiguous, then it is ambiguous. If it is ambiguous, the courts must use the agency’s interpretation of the law.

    Since the Chevron opinion, the Supreme Court has been attempting to “fix it”. The problem was that they needed the inferior courts to do rational, reasonable things. Too many of the inferior courts did not do reasonable, rational things.

    Chevron became a catch-all for any power hungry agency.

    The Loper Bright opinion told the inferior courts, “Stop avoiding your job. You are the final arbitrator on questions of law, not any party. Get out there and read the law and do the right thing.”

    Judge Aileen M. Cannon did exactly this.

    Trump’s team had filed a motion to dismiss his case based on the theory that Jack Smith did not have the authority to bring charges.

    While everybody has been calling Jack Smith “The Special Counsel”, that is a position that must exist.

    The Trump motion points out that the Constitution defines how “Officers of the United States” are appointed. Those officers are separated into “inferior” or “principal” officers.

    Principal officers must be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

    Jack Smith argues that he is an inferior officer.

    While inferior officers can be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in Heads of Departments. — U.S. Constitution

    The state, through Jack Smith, argued that his appointment was lawful because it was done under an ambiguous law. Since it is an ambiguous law, the DoJ was able to say, under Chevron that of course they got it right.

    But with Chevron dead, the Court looked at the law and determined that the DoJ did not have the authority to create the position. Since they could not create the position, Jack Smith had no special standing. I.e., his authority was no more than yours or mine.

    This is another win for us. And this case was decided without a need for looking at Presidential Immunity for official acts.

            

  • When the sniper in the Texas Clock Tower started shooting men stopped and grabbed rifles from their trucks and returned fire.

    Today, it is the odd of us that carry a truck gun.

            

  • Back in May, I decided to attempt a new recipe while out in the field, cooking over a fire at a Renaissance Faire. I do this a couple of times a year, when I know I have time to play with new things. Not all fairs allow me the time to pay attention to details, and so quite a lot of the time I stick with a standard rotation of recipes. But this was a new fair, and one which I had no other responsibilities at. I was just there to cook and talk about history, and maybe sell a few cookbooks. So I picked a new one, and ran with it.

    The result was incredibly delicious. I had people trying to steal pieces off of each other’s plates. They scraped the bottom of my dutch oven with bits of bread, to be certain they’d eaten every last drop. It was an impressive sight, to say the least. It seems to me, this makes a wonderful first recipe for my weekly recipe post.

    To make Alloes of beef

    Take lene beef and cut hym in thyn pecys and lay hit on A borde then take sewet of motton or of beef and herbys and onyons hackyd small to gether then straw thy leshes of beef with powder of pepur and a lytell salt and strew on thy sewet and the herbys. And rolle them up ther yn put them on a broche and roste them and serue them up hote. — Transcription of original receipt (Source: MS Pepys 1047)

     

    (more…)

            

  • I like to learn new things. My goal is to be able to fix anything at The Fort At #4. A large part of that is learning how to turn wood.

    This is not as difficult as it could be because I have experience with a metal lathe. The concepts are similar, but very different.

    In metal working, we look at the type of metal, the amount of metal we want to remove, and the speed at which we wish to do it. This informs us of the type of tool to use.

    Steel likes larger nose radius than aluminum. The chip breakers are different, the rake is different. The cutter shape defines speeds and feeds. What tool I pick is dependent on what I am doing.

    In wood turning, there are two major types, “spindle” and “bowl”. A spindle is a long, round thing. Think of round legs on chairs, or the spindles in the back of a chair. Round chair rungs. All of those are spindle turnings.

    Bowl turning is just about would it sounds like. You are carving out wood from the center of a round, thick piece of wood. The difference is grain orientation.

    In spindle turning, the grain is oriented end to end. In bowl turning, it is side to side.

    When cutting the outside of a spindle, you are always cutting away the along the grain. The easy way. In bowl turning, you are cutting side grain, then end grain, then back again.

    The tools are different. A bowl gouge and a spindle gouge have different shapes and different sturdiness.

    (more…)
            

  • Having watched the video of Trump being shot, my first thoughts were of “Thank God he survived the attempt.”

    My third though was of grief for the person in the audience who was killed and the other that was injured. This asshole, shooting at Trump, didn’t give a shit who was hit by his shots. In his zeal to kill Trump, he killed a Trump supporter, and likely considered that “good.”

    My second thought was, “Why would I give up my guns now? You evil assholes.”

    There are many more. It is always the same, “Now that it happened to YOU, you will ban guns, right?”

    This is just as revolting as the idiots that post “Now that “People of Color” are buying guns, Republicans will be willing to ban them.”

    There isn’t a single drop of blood these vultures won’t use against us.