• Hey all, I’ve been considering a variety of topics for the next few weeks. With spring rapidly coming, I could talk about gardening, and explain how to start seeds indoors, and all the stuff that goes along with making a functioning garden that will provide actual food. I could write about raising chickens (and/or other livestock, though I have less experience with non-chicken livestock) and what that takes. I could go into how one makes staples, like bread, cheese, butter, and the like. I could talk about mending and making clothing, blankets, and such.

    What do you all want to hear about? My gut says go with gardening, but I also want to write what is of interest and useful to y’all.

            

  • At the speed of light?

    The State of New York files a suit to stop DOGE from doing its job at 2100 on a Friday night. By 0100 Saturday, a judge has issued a TRO stopping the President from performing his duties as defined by the Constitution.

    The DoJ files suit in New York to stop the state from tipping off illegal aliens when their DMV records are accessed. The court schedules the initial conference for May 14th, 90 days.

    NY v. Trump

    The state is now claiming that the state’s bank account numbers and other sensitive financial information was disclosed to members of DOGE in violation of numerous laws and regulations

    Never mind that “members of DOGE” are employees of the United States of America. Just like any other government agency.

    The state claims this these DOGE members are “unauthorized”.

    There is no proof that they are “unauthorized.” They are just outsiders.

    Why Do You Make It So Hard? Qt ORM

    The current magic term for designing applications is Model/View/Control, or MVC. With an MVC design, you have three different aspects to any object. The model of the data. The view of the data. And how the data should be manipulated.

    Consider an order for an item. The order has header information, line information, and meta information. The header information is in the “order” table. Each line is in the “order_line” table. The order_line table contains a unique id, the order_id, the product_id, the number of items, and the cost per item.

    The View of the order would show the line number, the product name, the SKU for the product, the count, the cost per, and the extended cost.

    The logic would make sure that we don’t attempt to send out more items than we have, and other things of that sort.

    The control works on the data, it doesn’t worry about how to display it.

    So what is an ORM? An ORM is an object relation model. It is how you describe the database, how you access the database, how you relate different parts of the database.

    Qt doesn’t have an ORM. Instead, it has a database API. All table creation. All data access is done by constructing and executing SQL queries. Not difficult, but not an ORM.

    And for goodness sake, please give me a method of defining tables such that when I alter that table definition, it alters the database to match. GRRR, I want my Django ORM.

    Why do they make it so difficult? Link’s in views

    I have a simple need. When the user clicks on a link in the text display, a signal is emitted with the href. What do I have now? I can’t even get the dang widget to size itself properly. And my events are limited to “Cell x, y was clicked.”

    This frustration has existed for a bit.

    Tick Tock, it keeps running

    Pretty graphs aside, it is fun to see “accurate” times showing.

    I have two issues. The first is that I do not know how accurate the PPS is, and the second is I don’t know what the fudge fact for the KPPS processing should be. I can get the delay from the chip to the GPIO pin. What I do not know is how long it takes from the pin being activated and the interrupt being processed.

    This would require me to spend more time than I want to get the hardware specifications for interrupt processing. Then I would need to figure out the time it takes to process the interrupt. My mind keeps going in circles over this.

    The biggest issue I have is that I want it to be more accurate. I’m not sure if I can do that with this equipment.

    SCOTUS

    The Court is still granting cert. Our cases have been silent. We aren’t going to have an opinion before 2026.

    Question of the Week

    What do you think the NPCs will pivot to after “constitutional crisis?” We had “destroying democracy” and now “constitutional crisis.” What is next?

            

  • You might have heard that the DoJ is suing Hochul and James. This is not quite true. They are being sued in their official capacity. So the Governor, Attorney General, and head of the DMV of New York state are being sued.

    What is the suit about?

    New York will give a license to illegal aliens. I am not sure how that works, but they do.

    The license indicates that the person is an illegal alien. As an illegal alien, they have extra rights under New York law.

    In particular, the “Green Light” law requires the DMV to inform the illegal alien anytime the feds request information about them from the DMV.

    In 2019, New York amended its Vehicle and Traffic Law to include a provision known as the “Green Light Law.”
    See N.Y. Veh. & Traf. § 201.12. The Green Light Law generally bars the sharing of New York State Department of Motor Vehicles (“DMV”) records or information (e.g., addresses, vehicle registrations, identification photos) with federal immigration agencies. See id. § 201.12(a). And it requires New York’s DMV Commissioner to promptly tip off any illegal alien when a federal immigration agency has requested his or her information. See § 201.12(b). As its supporters and sponsors made clear, the Green Light Law was passed to directly impair the enforcement of the federal immigration laws in New York. And those lawmakers have achieved their objective.

    Things are happening.

            

  • The past couple of weeks have been an absolute whirlwind. So much so that I really don’t have anything specific to write about. Part of the problem I’m having is that when I write the night before (like I am now), it might be out of date by morning. That’s what happened last Wednesday. I don’t like it when that happens.

    Let’s see. First, I’ve been very happy to see what’s going on with DOGE. I have long held the opinion that “smaller government is better government” and DOGE seems to be doing just that. I’m confused as all get out over people weeping about “the poor federal workers who got canned” when those “poor” federal workers got 8 months of salary to play on. Most of them will have jobs by the end of the month, and that 8 months of salary is theirs to keep for holiday or Christmas or whatever. There’s nothing poor about them. I never got 8 months (or even 8 days) of salary when getting fired.

    NH had a bill, HB 283, put forward. If you’d like to look at it yourself, you can find it (and lots of commentary from pundits) here. Basically, as I read it, it says that NH schools will (if the bill passes) no longer require world languages, arts and music, engineering and tech, computer science, and personal financial literacy in order to graduate. The number of credits remains the same. What I read, when I looked at the bill, was that NH wanted to focus on having students who could read, write, and do ‘rythmatic, first and foremost, and so those were made most important and required. I see that schools that are struggling to put out kids who can do those very basic things can now focus on just those basic things. What the bill does NOT say is that those other subjects are being removed from the school.

    However, the NEA and other Dem groups are basically telling their folks that the Republicans want to take all those subjects out of schools. They have ads on Facebook and other places. I keep going onto them and asking people, have you actually read the bill? Most of them very obviously have not, and are simply taking their talking points and moving on. The pearl clutching is horrifying.

    I am less irritated by those who did read the bill and have constructive commentary to make about it. It’s been suggested by a friend that less requirements means people will not bother taking courses on art and engineering and such. I find that unlikely. Every high school kid I know (and I know lots of them, because my own kids are just barely out of high school) takes subjects that are not required. They take art, or “language arts in comic books” (a surprisingly robust and very good English course, I might add), or whatever other equivalent to “underwater basket weaving” there is. Art and music aren’t leaving the schools, anymore than the football team is. There’s a ton of opposition to the bill, so I am guessing it won’t pass, but I don’t see it as the major threat that the Left obviously does.

    (more…)

            

  • Never attribute to malice, that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake., Your enemy is not stupid.

    In 2016, I was listening to Ben Shapiro, he had a hate on for Trump. He would often say something to the effect, “The people who think Trump is playing 4D chess are wrong.”

    I think I liked his analysis better when he was anti-Trump. He is all in this time around.

    I do think that Trump was attempting to play chess during his first term. Unfortunately, people kept taking his pieces and knocking over the board. He lost.

    Trump 2.0 is moving fast. He is moving so fast that the left can’t keep up. We can’t keep up. I wake up, go on X and look for what happened in the last 8 hours. And I’m often surprised.

    As Second Amendment activists, we know exactly how the game will be played. We know that states that are anti-gun are going to pass regulations to infringe on The People. We know that the rogue lower courts will rule in favor of the state. We know that any relief will be blocked. We know that it will take years to get even one case decided.

    Since June 2022, we have not seen a single 2A win. Every win in the lower courts has been halted at the circuit level. Every “temporary restraining order” has been upheld against us. Every preliminary injunction has been stayed, against us.

    We have not won a single battle yet.

    That doesn’t mean we aren’t winning. It means that this is a war, not a battle. We have to fight. We shall go to the end. We shall fight in the Ninth, we shall fight in the Seventh and Second, we shall fight in the Forth, we shall fight to the Supreme Court. We shall never surrender. With apologies to Winston Churchill.

    Trump 2.0 came into office with a bang. The left was working hard to show a “peaceful transfer of power”, so they could club the right with the events of J6th.

    But Donald hit the ground running. I believe he signed over 200 Executive Orders on his first day. Held multiple press conferences and attended a ball. I’m tired just thinking about his day.

    There were surprises in those Executive Orders. The biggest for me was that everything was done right. When he announced the formation of DOGE, I was skeptical.

    I “knew” that it would be challenged and DOGE would be devolved because it didn’t come through Congress.

    I was wrong. He out played me as I looked over his shoulder. He didn’t create DOGE out of thin air. He renamed an existing agency. He then told the new agency to go do their job, with Elon leading it.

    The promises he made, I expected to take months to accomplish. He was keeping promises within minutes of taking office. And not in ceremonial ways.

    He issued an Executive Order giving the US AG 30 days to report what to do about the anti-2A situation within the Federal government. Last month, I would have considered this to be a shot fired over the bow of the enemy. I would have expected results sometime in late 2026.

    Today, I expect the report to hit his desk in 20 some days. I expect actions to happen the same day. This is the speed that Trump is moving at.

    As I said, in the Second Amendment advocacy space, we know what is going to happen. How do we know? We’ve seen it too many times in the past.

    Trump 2.0 is out playing the left in so many areas. Why should I assume he messed up with these court cases?

    When the state is fighting The People, they want things to move as slowly as possible.

    The case in New York was filed at 9pm on Friday. The TRO was in place by 1AM Saturday morning. The TRO was modified by 5PM Monday.

    Having set out the limits, the Trump administration has provided documentation to the court by 4PM on Tuesday to make sure that DOGE people will still have access. They have taken the “loophole” opening and driven a train through it.

    They are obeying the letter of the TRO while doing what needs to be done. They are preparing to take this to the next level.

    I believe they will attempt to combine multiple cases from rogue courts, headed by political provocateurs. These combined cases will be taken straight to the Supreme Court.

    To put a since of speed on this, the case I’m following is averaging 10 new docket entries per day. At this pace, I should be tired of this case in the next 2 days.

            

  • If you watched the DOGE commercials on Sunday, you might have been exposed to a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner.

    Here is a slightly better version:

            

  • This is the case out of New York’s Southern District, under the Second Circuit. The Second Circuit is anti-gun and anti-“The People”. The Southern District translates to New York City.

    If you can find a pro-gun or pro constitution judge in the Southern District of New York, you are doing better than most people.

    The Lawfare team filed a case on Friday. The case was originally assigned to judge Paul A. Engelmayer for “part 1”. This seems to mean that he is the judge handling “emergencies”.

    This is the judge that would handle the cops needing a federal warrant, right now. Or requiring a TRO to stop an ongoing situation with irreparable harm. Lady has just had the shit beat out of her and wants a TRO. The abuse TRO is a state issue, not federal, but I’m trying to explain.

    As far as I can tell, they waited until they knew this particular judge was on duty and for it to be Friday night. In general, nothing happens in the courts over the weekend.

    This particular judge issued a TRO around 0100 on Saturday. Go find some YouTube lawyers to explain how bad this judge did. It was bad.

    To put perspective on the timing of this, the TRO was entered into the docket before the complaint was.

    The Trump attorneys weren’t even on the case until Sunday. That appears to have been intentional for the plaintiffs (Bad guys)

    The original judge put the case on a “fast track” that had hearings taking place later this week. The judge who is sitting on the merits of the case is having nothing of it.

    She ordered the parties to meet and work something out Monday morning. They did, in part. Still not enough.

    The plaintiffs waited until the last minute to file their memorandum of law (A statement of the laws they think Trump is breaking and why they believe he is breaking those laws.)

    The Defendant, Trump, had their replied filed by 2200.

    This stuff is moving rapidly. I expect to see movement on the case by the time you are finished your second coffee.

            

  • I made this last week. It was rich, delicious, filling, and just the right thing after a long day of moving snow.

    Ingredients:

    • 3 lbs beef, cut into 1” cubes
    • salt
    • black pepper
    • 1 tbsp oil
    • 1 pkg bacon, cut into small pieces
    • 2 large carrots, peeled, sliced on bias into large chunks
    • 1 large onion, chopped
    • 4 cloves garlic, minced
    • 2 tbsp tomato paste
    • 2 cups dry red wine
    • 2 cups beef broth
    • 2 bay leaves
    • 1 tsp dried thyme
    • 1/2 lb pearl onions
    • 8 oz mushrooms, quartered
    • cornstarch mixed with cold beef broth, for thickening

    Preheat oven to 350°. Season beef with salt and pepper.

    In an oven proof pot, heat a little oil over medium heat. Add the bacon and cook until it’s crispy, stirring occasionally. This will take about six minutes. Pull the bacon out of the pot with a slotted spoon and put it on a paper towel lined plate to drain.

    Increase the heat to medium high, and then add in the beef chunks in a single layer. Don’t crowd the pot, as the beef needs to be able to move around freely. Do it in batches, removing properly seared beef and adding it to the pile of bacon.

    Once all the beef is seared, remove all but a tablespoon or two of the bacon fat in the pot. Lower the heat to medium, and stir in the carrot and onion. Cook until the onions are wilted and the carrots begin to soften, which should take about five minutes. Stir in the garlic and tomato paste, and cook until fragrant. Add a splash of red wine to the pot and deglaze it, making sure to scrape any “stuff” off the bottom of the pot and incorporate it into the onion mixture.

    Add in the beef and bacon, the rest of the wine, broth to cover the meat and veggies entirely, spices, onions, and mushrooms. Stir gently to incorporate, and then cover the pot with a tight fitting lid. Put the pot in the oven and cook until the beef is fork tender and the sauce is slightly thickened. This will take about an hour and a half to two hours.

    Remove the pot from the oven, and set it on top of the stove. On a medium high heat, bring the liquid to a low boil. Slowly pour in a tablespoon or so of cornstarch mixed in with some beef broth, and stir the stew well. Continue to add a tablespoon or so of the cornstarch slurry until you reach the desired thickness.

    Serve your Beef Bourguignon over mashed potatoes, and with a side of your favorite vegetable.

    Notes:

    I tend to buy larger cans of tomato paste. When I open a new can, I measure out two tablespoon “plops” onto parchment paper, and put it in the freezer. Once it’s frozen, I stick the plops into a baggie, which I can then pull from whenever I need tomato paste. If you’re using frozen tomato paste, let it simmer until it dissolves into the onion mixture before moving onto the next step.

    You can thicken the liquid with a roux if you prefer, but the silkiness of a sauce made with cornstarch is hard to beat. Because cornstarch is entirely starch, you need half or less of the amount you’d need of flour, in order to get the same level of thickness. A roux of flour will tend to make a thick gravy that is dark and heavy, while a roux (or “slurry”) of cornstarch will be lighter both in color and texture. There are places for both, but I prefer the cornstarch in this recipe.

    If your family are not big mushroom or onion fans, you can cook those separately in a pan and add them as a topping in each bowl, instead of cooking them in the stew. Again, this is a matter of preference.

            

  • Every piece of information the government or military processes has a classification level assigned to it.

    Currently, the federal government lists four levels of clearances that are associated with classification levels.

    The other level is “No Clearance”.

    Information that is classified as “Confidential” could cause damage to national security if disclosed. Note the weasel word “could”. The definition will often add “without authorization”.

    This is the “lowest” classification. There are really two other levels below this.

    There is For Official Use Only (FOUO) which is sometimes called Sensitive Unclassified.

    This is information that anybody working at a government site might be exposed to. It may not carry any markings. So if you were to see a list of SSN, you don’t have to be told that those are Sensitive Unclassified or FOUO.

    This is the same in the health care industry or data processing industry. By this, I mean that there are laws in place that protect people from sharing my personal information. My doctor can’t share my health information. I can’t share your name or email information, if I collect it via a credit card payment.

    This doesn’t mean that people aren’t stupid. At one government installation I used to work at, they had a recycling program for paper. You could take used printer paper home to use for projects and stuff. Think of using it in the bottom of a bird cage.

    The head of the installation put an end to it when he picked up something at a local shop, wrapped in used paper. The paper was from the installation and had SSN plus wages printed on it.

    By the time I got to the installation, we had industrial shredders. Every piece of paper that would have gone in the garbage was fed through the shredders.

    What does this mean in terms of the DOGE team? If they are properly employed and tasked to do the work they are doing, they have all the clearances they need to see FOUO and Sensitive, Unclassified material. They don’t need a clearance to see and work with that data.

    As soon as we move to information that is classified, certain things become true. First, it is supposed to be marked.

    This is one of the issues with the Hilary emails. She had information on her private server that had no markings, which came from classified sources. Those classified sources were marked.

    In addition, she was informed that the source of that information was classified, and the information was classified, regardless of markings.

    In other words, if I observe a weapons test and I see something that I know is or will be classified, I must treat it as classified. Even if it is not “marked”.

    So information is classified. It is classified by level. Just because you have a clearance, it doesn’t mean that you have access to the information.

    You must also have a need to know.

    I, personally, got racked over the coals by one Army Officer and then got to watch our security officer rake him over the coals. The difference being that the Army Officer could have had lots worse happen to him.

    He was in an area that implied he had a clearance. I knew he had a clearance. I even knew what level he had. It was higher than mine, at the time. He asked to see some classified information and I refused.

    For this, I was raked over the coals by this officer. I told him that I had to have confirmation from my security officer that he had a need to know.

    He stormed out, came back with my security officer. He explained. The security dude asked if the officer had it right. I said “yep.” The security dude then ripped the officer a new one.

    The army officer had to have a need to know. He did. But I don’t get to make that determination. Only authorized people can do that. One such authorized person was my security officer.

    Above Confidential is Secret, above that is Top Secret, and above that is Top Secret, Sensitive Compartmented Information.

    To be granted any clearance, you need to be vetted. That requires you to fill out several invasive forms. These are then used to start a background check. How through these background checks are depends on the level of clearance being requested.

    Your clearance doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to the entity that wants you to have a clearance. That entity must have a clearance. The entity requests that you be granted a clearance. Your entity then gets the paperwork from you which is then handed over to the investigators.

    When you are granted your clearance, your entity will be informed. Your entity will have a security officer at the least and may have an entire office dedicated to handling clearances.

    My entity was Cray Research. Once their security office was informed I had received my clearance, they informed the security office where I was employed. At that point, I had a clearance. And nobody would have given me a bit of classified information.

    The people I worked directly with were told I had a clearance by their security office. The people I worked indirectly with I told. They then verified with their security office.

    When I left that government installation, my clearance still existed. It was “owned” by Cray Research. My clearance didn’t mean anything because I wasn’t at a government installation.

    When I went to different government locations, where I had a need to know, my security people sent the proper security magic to the locations where I was going. This allowed me to see what I had a need to see.

    When I left Cray Research, my clearance still existed. Cray Research no longer owned it. Somebody in the government had control over it.

    When I joined a different company, they put in a request for my clearance, and it was granted because it already existed.

    Ok. Done with me.

    What this means is that the people that DOGE is using could have had clearances because of other projects they had worked. When they started working for DOGE, their clearances were either transferred to DOGE or their entity informed DOGE of what clearances they had.

    So this nice young man of 20 or so wants to inspect a computer system at CFPB. The administration says, “Hell no, you don’t have the clearances to see our systems because you might see our data.”

    The young man calls his security office and has them transmit the clearances to CFPB security. “Call your security office, they will verify that I have the clearances to access the systems and the data.”

    The administrator, having lost the first battle, says, “You don’t have a need to know.”

    The young man presents the orders he has been given him by the boss of CFPB and that is satisfied, after verification.

    That’s how clearances work.

    Now, the current NPC talking point is that this young man is unelected, reports to Elon, and as such will access data he shouldn’t and then use it or leak it.

    When you hear this, you should translate it to: “Are you saying the FBI and other agencies can’t do a background check? That this young man with clearances shouldn’t have them? What agency or person are you accusing of granting a clearance to somebody that can’t be trusted?”

    Yeah, I’ve about had it with Democratic(NPC) talking points.

            

  • If you have had the misfortune of listening to the democrats rant about “constitutional crisis” or “illegal actions”, it is time to take a long hard look at what Donald Trump is actually doing.

    I believe that one of the problems that Trump 1.0 had was that he came into office thinking it was another corporate takeover. Something he had done multiple times. He brought his lawyers with him.

    Those lawyers were not prepared for the conflict, the war that was going to be waged against Trump.

    Having spent the last few years reading court cases, listening to lawyers pontificate about cases, I have learned that there are different types of lawyers. Some are good at one thing and horrible at others.

    Trump 1.0’s people were not ready to take on the swamp.

    Trump 2.0 has hit the ground running. And he is trolling his opposition like the master he is.

    So consider this, as a state lawyer, Trump has no power to fire Letitia James. She is not within the chain of command.

    On the other hand, for her to do her job, she needs access to federal resources.

    Trump revoked her security clearances. He has also banned her from all Federal buildings.

    Her fangs have just been pulled.

    He is yanking clearances left and right. This is a good thing. The less access these people have, the less damage they can do to our country.

    Consider these two posts:

    If you read the comments, you can see exactly how I feel. This is what we voted for.

    Here is the same information, posted by a democrat.