I’m a prepper. The term “prepper” means different things to different people. For some, it evokes images of old underground bunkers filled with canned goods and wall mounted, folding beds. For others, it’s more akin to what grandma did when she put away the harvest from her kitchen garden. Still other folks consider it to be stockpiling firearms to raid the rest of us. I’m sure there are a hundred or more points in between my three, as well.
So what exactly is prepping? It’s a short form term for “preparing for emergencies” or “preparing for the apocalypse.” There are at least as many ways to prep as there are people on the planet, and maybe more. No one way is definitively right or wrong. As an example, the Mormons are required to be always prepared for the end of times, which they are told will last just under two years. Therefore, their church insists they always have two years of food on hand, along with anything else they need to survive until the end times are over. While I may not be invested in their end times prophecies, the principle is a good one.
I tend to prepare for 18 months of emergency. I try to be fairly flexible in my preps, because I don’t know if TEOTWAWKI will happen like Nagasaki, or more like the recent pandemic. I have a little bit of many things, designed to cover the most important bases for my family. Your preps probably are (and should be) different from mine, because your family will need different things, and more importantly, has different skills than my own.
There was a reason that the DoJ wanted Rahimi before the Supreme Court. The facts in his case were bad facts. Bad facts lead to bad law.
The first thing to note about the Rahimi opinion, is that it is an “as applied”. This means the opinion only counts for Rahimi. The decision does not directly affect anybody else.
Rahimi claimed that §922(g)(8) was unconstitutional on its face. This requires that there are no circumstances where it could be constitutional. This is an extremely high bar to meet.
This is where the bad facts start. Rahimi was subject to a domestic violence temporary restraining order. This requires that certain requirements be met. As stated in other articles, the law, as written, does not require that the accused receive notification, only that the notification was sent. It does not require that the accused appear at the hearing, only that they have an opportunity to attend.
Rahimi received his notification, appeared in court. This means that the first two, of three requirements are met.
The third requirement, is that the accused be found to be a credible threat.
Rahimi admitted, and the court found, that he was a credible threat.
I talk with AWA a lot about some pretty esoteric topics. Lately, talk has surrounded some of the 2A cases he’s been following, Rahimi in particular. It has really gotten me to thinking.
I believe originally (and this is opinion, as I really don’t know and I haven’t looked it up) jails were meant to be a place to stick someone when they did a bad thing. It was a punishment, a grown up version of time out. The greater the bad thing, the longer the jail time. Somewhere along the line, the goal became to rehabilitate prisoners into better people who wouldn’t be going out and committing more crimes. In general, I tend to agree with that idea, though I’m not certain it should be done while a prisoner is actually IN jail. But regardless, there are always going to be those people who simply cannot be rehabilitated. They will always pose an ongoing threat to free people. The Mansons of the world, as it were, should never be allowed out.
When it comes to the scary “big” criminals like Dahmer, Manson, Berkowitz, etc… it’s easy to look and say, “Yep, lock ’em up and throw away the key.” It’s also very easy to prove that they will never be able to safely walk among other human beings. Rahimi isn’t a Dahmer, though. He’s an average dirtbag. There’s no question he’s guilty of the crimes he committed. He’s trash. But the crimes he’s committed will likely land him somewhere between 2 and 20 years. Reading about the cases he’s accused of, it’s looking more like the lower number than the higher one. Regardless, it means he’ll be out on the street while still relatively young and vital. Yet, looking at his record, what assurance do We the People have that Mr. Rahimi won’t go out and shoot up another Whatsaburger, or cave in the head of his next girlfriend?
There was a remark about the lathe flywheel I recently worked on. Something about the precision of previous eras.
They had more precision than you might think.
Today, one of the tools we use to measure accurately is a micrometer.
This magic device allows use to measure down to 0.0001, all because of a screw.
Inside the thimble is a threaded rod. It is 40 TPI on an imperial micrometer. When you turn the thimble one full revolution, the spindle advances 0.025 inches.
The thimble is marked with 25 evenly spaced marks. With just those, we can measure to 0.001″
But what about those 1/10,000s? That is done with another piece of old tech, the vernier.
If you take and mark the sleeve with 10 marks, with 9 spaces between them, such that the 10th mark aligns with the 11th mark (10 spaces) on the thimble, we have a vernier scale.
The lines of the vernier align with the lines on the thimble at exactly 0.0001 increments.
You can use this method in larger things as well. If I have a stick with 101 marks and I place that against a stick with 100 marks, I’ve created an ability to subdivide that stick by 100. It is pretty remarkable.
The Wheel
The wheel is laminated to create a width of 3 inches. The wood is a hardwood that does not expand or contract. One laminate is about 2 inches thick, and the other is 1 inch thick.
If we were to remake the wheel, we would likely do it with two layers, 1.5 inches thick.
The jointers create wheel layers by jointing two or more planks of equal thickness together to make a single plank, 44+ inches wide in both directions.
To hold the laminates together, holes are drilled in each plank, about a foot apart. The holes are then transferred to the other layer. The other layer then has the hole drilled slightly offset. When the wooden pegs are driven into the holes, that offset pulls the planks together to make everything tight.
A piece of cordage or a beam compass can be used to draw the perimeter of the wheel. This would be at 44+ inches.
The laminate would be trimmed close to the line but not touching.
A hole would be drilled at the center point, and then made square with chisels.
The entire thing would then be mounted on a spindle to drive it. That could be as simple as two benches with a groove to hold the spindle. The wheel would then be spun up to speed.
A tool rest, would be brought in, the craftsman would then use his lathe chisels to make the wheel completely round. This is an easy, but time-consuming process.
It is easy because the task is to slowly move the chisel from one edge to the other. The speed of that movement requires that the cutting chisel be in contact with the work for one complete revolution.
Since the wheel is turning slowly, 40 to 60 RPM, it means that you can only move a 1/16th of an inch per revolution, or so.
After the wheel is turned true (completely round), the crown is put in via the same method.
A reasonable person turning a wheel like that can expect to get a 44-inch wheel running true within 1/32 of an inch, without having to work at it. It is easy.
There are entire volumes written about making things flat or straight. If you can make something flat or straight, you can make right angles. It is not difficult. If you can make right angles, you can make many other angles.
While the micrometer is a new invention, a simpler tool was used before, it was just a straight stick that was fairly long. It was placed on a pivot, near the nose of the stick. The other end moved across some sort of scale. As the nose moves, the tail moves more. If the distance from the pivot to the nose point is 0.5 inches, and the distance from the pivot to the tail point is 12 inches, every movement of the nose is amplified 24 times.
While you might not be able to see a movement of 0.001 in the nose, you can see the movement of 0.024 in the tail.
We can have precision with simple, old tools. It just takes a bit of work to get there.
The Harrel v. Raoul case is one of the many challenges to the Illinois PICA act. It is grouped with other PICA challenges.
For the last 6 Fridays, the case has been distributed for Conference. On the following Monday, the Supreme Court issues their orders. For 6 weeks, the case has been redistributed for Conference the following Friday.
Today’s order list is out. They did not grant nor did they deny cert.
They also did not Distribute for Conference on 2024-06-28. That could just be normal holiday behavior, but something different happened.
If you’re coming here from GFZ, you may already know me. Over there, I used the nickname Hagar, because I was very unsure about posting when AWA first asked me to do so. I’m certainly farther left than most people reading this blog, but I’m definitely not “Left.” I’m not “Right” either, though I do seem to be drifting that way on many issues. I spent a lot of time over on GFZ looking into how the Left perceived things, and tried to explain it to everyone here, to foster communication and learning. I will continue to do that here on Vine of Liberty.
But… I’m also many more things. I’m a re-enactor, specializing in the late 14th century England, and 18th century America. I’m an author, with several books and many articles under my belt. I’m a cook, which is reflected in both my re-enacting and my writing. I’m an interfaith minister. I suspect that, now I’m openly myself, I’ll write more about all of those things here on the blog. If there’s a topic you’d like to know about, let me know and I’ll see if I or someone I know has information. If you want information from the Left, I’m happy to provide, if I can.
I love to start conversations about tough topics, and so I tend to read and respond to replies relatively quickly. I have a long-standing personal rule that I don’t interact with certain types of replies, though. People who do name-calling, fat shaming, or are generally dicks, I simply don’t respond to. If something goes over the top, I might let AWA know about it, but most of the time I just don’t respond to it. You’re welcome to your thoughts, and I’m welcome to ignore them. 😉 As an example, I don’t respond to posts about “Obumma” or “tRump” or other bastardizations of presidents’ names. A long time ago, someone explained to me that people who use such rhetoric are generally doing so because they lack the intellectual oomph to go head to head, and so I don’t embarrass those who do it by engaging them. Just my little bit of community service.
On the other hand, politely challenging my viewpoints will almost always get a response out of me. I love to learn, and so if you’re giving me an honest challenge, I will do my best to rise to it and educate myself. I won’t always agree with others, and certainly don’t expect people to agree with me all the time. But I work very hard to present factual information, with opinions being clearly labeled as such.
I’m a staunch 2A gal. I’m a staunch “separation of religion and state” gal as well. Religious freedom is a big one for me. Because I spent my childhood in Canada, I know the woes of socialist healthcare, and so I definitely am not a fan of Obamacare. I am very much a sincere and devout convert to my new home country, and I love America very much. I’m part of this blog, and was part of GFZ, because I see the harm that the “great divide” between Left and Right has caused and is causing, and I want to do what I can to help heal it. I realize the writings of a random woman on a small blog in the middle of New England really isn’t going to do much for the country as a whole, but it’s what I can do, and so I do.
You will probably see a lot of posts about myself and the Fort at No. 4, because it is an important part of my life. I love teaching history to people, especially in a setting where those who come through can touch and taste and interact with that history like they do at the Fort. I believe making history come alive is the secret to making it interesting for kids, and so I patiently churn butter and make fried bread and teach the school groups about building fires in the beehive oven. I try to make it fun, which automatically makes it interesting.
Another thing you’ll probably see from me, if people are at all interested, is stuff about prepping. I tend to look at prepping as more “how to live comfortably without internet, electricity, running water, and central heating” than “bunkers and MREs.” That’s reflected in my hobbies and my interests. I have many subjects to touch on, from making lye from wood ash (which I’ll actually be doing at the fort, at some point this fall) to washing clothes by hand. Again, if there’s something in particular that interests you, let me know and I’ll either write about it, or find someone who does!
So there you have it. I’m me, Allyson, and I was Hagar. Nice to meet you all. I’m kind of happy to get out from under the shroud.
I’ve been enjoying visiting the Fort. Hagar is a volunteer interpreter there.
The first time I visited the Fort, Hagar showed me around. As we moved from room to room, I noticed that some artifacts were damaged or missing parts.
One of the artifacts I noticed was missing some spindles and toppers. This is not an issue if you have a wood turning lathe.
They did have a treadle lathe. I received permission to use it from Bill. Once I had his permission, he told me that the belt wasn’t hooked up.
I told him I knew and then proceeded to get it belted up. He sat and watched. I now know that the belt hasn’t been on the lathe in years.
Then I found out why, as soon as I started trying to treadle, the belt came off the big wheel in the joists. In addition to not staying on, the wheel had massive wobble from side to side.
Bill explained that it was unlikely to work because the driven wheel, on the lathe, wasn’t flat. I explained to him that it was crowned on purpose and that the reason the belt comes off the drive wheel/fly wheel is because it wasn’t crowned.
After talking to the acting director and Bill some more, I received permission to take the wheel home to work on it.
I was intending to pick it up a week ago last Friday, when I took Hagar to the fort. They didn’t have it down, so I couldn’t take it home.
When I asked to pick up the wheel this last Friday, they told me that the really didn’t want it gone during the upcoming High Land games. When I explained I wanted to pick it up on Friday, so I could bring it back on Sunday, things moved.
They had the wheel down and ready for pickup on Wed. I picked it up on Friday and brought it home.
It took some work, but by that night I was able to get the wheel mounted on the back side of my lathe.
This involved squaring the end of a one-inch piece of round stock. I messed up the first attempt, but got it right the second time.
The Blue Haired Fairie helped me get it onto the lathe. It isn’t that it is just heavy, it is awkward as well. 44 inches in one diameter.
Once it was up and running, I moved on to crowning the wheel.
The belt sander wasn’t where I wanted it to be, so I used an angle grinder with a flapping disk. This worked, but not well. It bounced so it was making rippling waves on the surface of the wheel.
In addition, the wheel was out of round about a 1/4 inch, maybe more. Not happy making.
I called it a night.
On Saturday, I decided to turn it round and then to crown it. Except I don’t have a single spindle turning tool. I’ve got metal working tools, I don’t have wood turning tools.
I got my best chisel. A mortising chisel, or it might be a registration chisel. It is for squaring up the corners of pockets.
I created a make shift freestanding tool rest. Spun the wheel up to 40 RPM and started cutting. It was slow-going. I was learning how to cut. Sometimes it was working ok, sometimes it was not. I was experimenting with angles and other possibilities.
The problem was that the tool rest was not rigid enough. Every time the chisel took a bite, the tool rest would flex out of the way. I could not move the chisel smoothly from side to side.
With the RPM being so slow, every move had to be slow, to allow the wheel to spin all the way around.
At the end of about 4 hours, I called it a day. The wheel was “good enough, maybe”.
Overnight, I had a different idea, instead of using the out feed table directly, I was going to clamp a piece of metal to the out feed table to act as the physical rest.
This still kept me close enough to center line, and the new tool rest allowed me to more easily move the chisel from side to side.
I also ran the lathe up to 135 RPM. This took me to 1500 SFM. A better cutting speed than 460 Feet Per Minute.
In short order, I had sawdust and shavings coming off everywhere. I am pleased to report that the wheel is mostly true now. It also has a 5-degree crown.
When I arrived, they let me in to unload. Then got the truck out of there as there were still patrons going around.
When I got back to the joiners shop, Bill was talking to a group. We waited for them to leave. I showed Bill how the drive crank should only go into the hub in one orientation. I drove the wedge in on the “free” side, checked the wiggle. There was none.
We discussed how to get the wheel back in the rafters, he made the sage decision to get help.
He was soon back with Tom to give us an assist.
So there are three old men, about to lift 100+ pounds, into the rafters to hang. That thing is awkward.
The first attempt failed. The belt didn’t stay in place. We reset.
On the second lift, we got it up and the crank side was resting in the axle support. I quickly moved the offside axle support into place, screwed on the wood adjustment nut, and we had the wheel up.
We had to do a little manipulation to get it to seat properly, but that was easy.
With the wheel up, we worked together to guide the belt up and over. The belt was now on the drive flywheel.
I putt the driven wheel in place, and we carefully moved the belt onto the driven wheel.
With that done, I started checking the tracking. It wasn’t looking good, the belt would rapidly move to the edge and start to come off.
I adjusted the tracking and in a few minutes, we had the belt tracking.
With that, it was time to attach the treadle.
Bill connected the drive rod to the crank. I attached the drive rod to the treadle.
We were ready to go.
Yes, it spun! It took a little bit, and it didn’t want to keep spinning, but it is spinning.
With a bit of work, we got the workpiece in place, as well as the tail stock and tool rest.
While Bill was working on attaching the treadle rod to the crank, I had sharpened the chisel I had found.
With Bill in charge of motive power, I started making chips.
IT WORKS!
I knew it should work, but this was the first time I have crowned a pulley. In addition to having added the crown, cutting the wheel round and attaching the crank correctly solved the issue of the wheel wobble and the horrible sounds the drive system was making.
I’ve noticed that she likes to write her own little pieces. Almost as if she wanted the attention.
One of my favorite Jackson statements was something similar to “that would make it too hard for the government.”
This case tests our Second Amendment jurisprudence as shaped in particular by New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U. S. 1 (2022). I disagree with the methodology of that decision; I would have joined the dissent had I been a Member of the Court at that time. See generally id., at 83–133 (Breyer, J., dissenting). But Bruen is now binding law. Today’s decision fairly applies that precedent, so I join the opinion in full.
—Opinion, United States v. Rahimi, 602 S.Ct. ____ (U.S. 2024)
It is always nice when a Justice tells us they are biased. She thinks she is better than those that who sat for Bruen. Regardless, even she agrees that Bruen affirming Heller is binding law. No two-step shuffle anymore. No interest balancing. The weakest Justice on the court sees it, so to should inferior courts.
I write separately because we now have two years’ worth of post-Bruen cases under our belts, and the experiences of courts applying its history-and-tradition test should bear on our assessment of the workability of that legal standard. This case highlights the apparent difficulty faced by judges on the ground. Make no mistake: Today’s effort to clear up “misunderst[andings],” ante, at 7, is a tacit admission that lower courts are struggling. In my view, the blame may lie with us, not with them.
—id.
The apparent difficulty that she is seeing is inferior courts attempting to circumvent the clear instructions in Bruen. Is it an arm? Does somebody want to keep or bear it? The Second Amendment’s plain text is implicated. The burden shifts to the state.
This isn’t difficult. Any judge or lawyer that wasn’t result/agenda driven could see that.
“It’s too hard!” they scream. Yes, it is too difficult to infringe on The People and not sound like a pretzel maker.
They are struggling because they lost the game. The two-step shuffle of deciding how much she was raped, and then deciding if the rapist (state) had a good enough reason for raping. She wasn’t wearing a full-body sack, she forced that rapist to rape her. (more…)
You will probably see a lot of posts about myself and the