I asked my wife for a recommendation for today. She mentioned “Grand Old Flag” and I really wanted to put it here. Unfortunately all of the YouTube videos (and videos searches in general) kept popping up kids versions. Not what I wanted.

But in the midst of all that chaff there was a kernel.

My flag means so much to me.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.
And to the republic, for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

I’ve said these words all my life. I stand up when the flag goes past. I take my hat off and put my hand over my heart.

It isn’t the colorful fabric moving slowly up the street, carried by veterans or Boy Scouts, or the High School Marching Band, that pull on my emotions.

It is what that flag represents to me. It is a nation founded on natural rights. A nation with equality for all. A nation where there is justice for all, equally.

It is a country where the rule of law is always the goal.

There are times when I hate the people in power for the disrespect they show my country and myself.

There are times when I see somebody being disrespectful of the flag, because they know it shows disrespect for my country.

“My country, right or wrong.” and “I disagree with you but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” are phrases I grew up with.

I cried when I saw people burning the flag of my country. Of hating it so much. Of hating everything that I love about my country.

And this expresses it:

Words have meaning “House Democrats introduce measure to lower voting age to 16”

Hmmm, so not a bill. Just a measure.

The bill, House Resolution 16, would establish that “the right of citizens of the United States, who are sixteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.”

So which is it? Is it a “bill” or is it a “resolution”? This doesn’t make any sense.

The policy would repeal the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which establishes the national voting age as 18. 

What? This policy would repeal an amendment to the Constitution? Did they miss every Schoolhouse Rock episode?

Pelosi, of course, supports lowering the voting age to 16 so this isn’t just random new representative submitting this thin.

“I think it’s really important to capture kids when they’re in high school when they’re interested in all of this when they’re learning about government to be able to vote,” she told the Daily Caller in 2019.

Yep, it is important to capture kids that are still in the whine for mommy or daddy to give them things. For kids that still haven’t figured out what to do with their lives to vote.

But remember, 18 is to young to buy a pistol because they aren’t mature enough.

So that’s the end of the hyperbole. The article was written by somebody that didn’t actually pay attention to what was said and is trying to get an emotional response.

What was done was a “Joint Resolution” was introduced in the House of Representatives calling for an amendment to the constitution of the United States. It is short, unusually so:

1. The twenty-sixth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
2. The right of citizens of the United States, who are sixteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.
3. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The resolution clearly states that for this to happen the amendment needs to be ratified by 3/4 of the states before it becomes valid.

This is just pandering to the Democrat base. It is not really going anywhere. It is a good sound bite and nothing more.

House Democrats introduce measure to lower voting age to 16
H.J.RES. 16

H/T to Dive Medic

TL;DR; I’m a home owner. I had to replace the sump pump after my basement flooded. It was cold yucky and things went wrong before the went right.

I’m very lucky. We own our home. I grew up in a family that moved from place to place but my parents always owned, where ever they lived.

When I left University I dreamed of owning my own home. After a few years I bought my first home. And lost it when I got divorced and all of my income went to lawyers, child support and living in a shit place to stay near my children.

I blame it on the divorce, but it was my fault.

Years later my wife and I worked with another couple and we bought a beautiful farm. House, barn, detached garage. 125 acres with about 100 of that in forest. It was my dream home.

When the other couple decided that I had to go we were bought out for pennies on the dollar. Seems that all the money that we were contributing went to “household expenses” while all of the, significantly less, money that they brought in went to paying down the principal on the mortgage. So according to the books they had all the equity.

We bought this house. I love our house. It needs work. It always needs work.

We bought it from the bank at about half the assessed value just as the housing bubble burst. One of the first things we had to do was replace the hot water heater and furnace and much of the copper piping.

Luckily for us, most of the copper was in exposed areas so easy to get to and replace. For those areas that were not accessible the pipes passed pressure tests. They were good.

Seems that when the bank took ownership of the house the first thing they did was turn off the water and power.

They didn’t winterize the house. This caused the water to freeze and burst pipes.

While our house sits on the top of a hill, when it was built they built it with a sump pump design. This means that water is routed around the foundation to a single opening in the foundation. From there the water flows in to the sump from which it is then pumped out of the sump.

When the bank turned off the power, they turned of the power to the sump pump.

About a month later a neighbor called the realtor and told them water was coming out of the basement windows.

The water lines in our basement are at the bottom of the windows. The basement flooded.

The bank took care of the sump and getting the water out and making sure it didn’t flood again.

But that pump was old. And when we moved in it failed. We would check for water and I’d go get that pump running.

It would run fine for a year or so until the wife would move the discharge pipe because it was in the way or knock something into the sump and not fish it out.

Last summer it died and I replaced it.

The new pump was cheap. Amazon purchase. I got it installed and it was amazing. Kept the basement dry. Noisy as hell though.

It was cheap chinesium. It didn’t like to pump water to begin with, but always did in the end. Sometimes it wouldn’t shut off. But it worked. I was happier.

But because it wasn’t right I bought a much better replacement pump.

Friday was a not fun night.

My lady and daughter were reporting a “burning plastic smell” which they could not identify. They checked every outlet in the house and couldn’t find anything.

I through they checked the basement as well.

It was date night so I took wife out for some very good Indian food.

When we got home the smell was obvious. I started checking upstairs and sent the kids to check if they could find the smell in the basement.

Smells are sometimes and issue in our house. It is a rural type area and we have had more than a few mice die and we find out when they start to smell and we have to find and remove the rotting bodies.

So the kids head down to the basement. Access is via a set of outside storm doors. I hear them open the door and start laughing.

Daughter comes up and tells me there is water in the basement.

Which is my cue.

I take of my socks. Put on my shoes and head out and down to the basement. I roll up my pants legs to over my knees and walk down the steps into the basement and water.

Somewhere between 8 and 12 inches of very very cold water. This is water from melted snow that has flowed off the roof and yard and into the basement through that damn opening.

I make my way through the floating storage boxes to the sump. I get there and plunge my hand into that icy water, find the float and wiggle it.

The pump turns on. A few minutes later it sounds like it is ejecting water.

It took about an hour or two to drain the basement but then the pump didn’t turn off.

Back I went. Pulled the pump up to check it.

The float will not dip far enough to turn off the sump nor is it coming up enough to turn on the sump pump.

The float is attached to the pump by a plastic tube that carries the wires to the float valve. In the float valve there are two contact points, one on the bottom and one on the top. When the float is hanging down it makes contact with a solid click and the pump stops. If the float is high enough the the contact swings/rolls/moves to contact the switch at the top which turns on the pump. Easy stuff.

You adjust when the pump turns off or on by adjusting the length of the arm attached to the float.

When we installed the pump it was warm. Everything worked wonderfully.

But that plastic tube becomes stiff when the temperature goes down. Like sitting in a sump filled with snow runoff.

When it is stiff, it doesn’t move up and down so the sump doesn’t turn on or off.

This was the root cause.

I stayed down there to make sure it turned back on. It didn’t want to. I did the magic to make it work. Made plans to replace it today.

Once the sump was empty I wiggled the pump and it turned off. I went upstairs to get ready for the night, knowing that I would awake up to a flooded basement, again.

Well I didn’t. The pump turned on but refused to turn off. I decided I would rather the damn thing burn itself out over night than to come down to a flooded basement.

So today’s fun was the replacement of that pump.

First thing is that NONE of the fittings from the old pump(s) fit. In addition, I had to disconnect two barb fittings. And they would not come apart.

The issue was that the black plastic pipe doesn’t deform worth shit when it is cold. Which it was.

I ended up cutting the pipe to get everything out. Then once I had all the fittings apart I could figure out what I needed.

And while I’m doing this, the sump is filling.

Off to the hardware store. They have all the parts I need plus they are willing to sell me a four foot length of 1″ black plastic piping to replace the piping I cut. I didn’t have to buy an entire roll. Thank goodness.

I get some water to boiling and by dunking the pipe end into the boiling water I made it soft enough to push in the barb. Things are going better.

Back into the basement to get things put together with the new pump.

And the fittings don’t match. So I take the copper riser pipe and its nasty crusty pipe out to the shop where I can use some serious persuasion. I get the fittings off the pipe. I go to put the new fittings back on and realize that the iron coupler needs some work.

I put it in the lathe and get it cleaned up to reuse.

Back to the basement to put everything together.

And my son has misunderstood his task. He’s pulled the exhaust pipe out of the wall, including breaking the bracketts holding it inplace.

GRRRRRRRR.

And he hasn’t accomplished what I actually needed him to do.

He is retasked and daughter and I start putting the new pump in place. Water is out of the sump and about 1″ deep at the sump. Most of the basement is still damp from the night before but not yet flooded.

We get everything done but son is still not done. Send daughter up to check on him. He’s messed it up. He decided that he couldn’t get the elbow into the pot of boiling water. So instead he just poured the boiling water over the elbow and onto the ground. Which half did the job but now he doesn’t have any more boiling water.

Daughter takes care of that by getting more boiling water and showing him that he can pour the water over the elbow into another pot and back again until the pipe is soft enough to take apart.

So after 30 minutes of letting him work the problem with his sisters assistance, They finally bring the piping back to me.

Water is now about 1.5 inches deep at the sump. I quickly get my pipes into the boiling water that daughter has brought down. With the black pipe soft I’m able to get the elbow in place. All of the hose clamps have been snugged down and the pump goes into the sump.

I plug it in.

No sounds. I can almost feel a slight hum from under my feets.

I send son out to check for water coming out the exhaust pipe.

He reports back that there is water flowing well.

The new pump is faster and very quiet. It just works. The difference between a $79 cheap but it works and a $300 cast iron 15 year plus warranty pump.

Basement is drying. Daughter took care of the few items that were water damaged. Been here, done this. We are slow learners but we do. Everything that is stored in the basement is in Rubbermaid bins that are water tight.

I’ve heard/felt the pump do its thing a couple of times. It is right under my offce.

Oh, yes, we have water sensors in the basement.

My wife didn’t know what they were so moved them up and out of the way so they wouldn’t get wet if the basement started to flood again.

Often when we see a bill being argued we analyze the bill and discuss how it is intended to be used and how it is likely to be used. WHen things happen that the bills originators did not intend we call that “The Law of Unintended Consequences.”

My favorite example of this was G.W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” program. My wife is a teacher. As she explained it to me, the program meant that they could no longer fail a student, “hold back” as they now call it. Every child, no matter how far behind, no matter how many sigmas below mean they might be had to be passed to the next grade.

This was the start of the great push to get everybody through high school. It didn’t matter if the student had earned a high school degree, they were going to graduate.

The harm this did to so many children is propagating through out our current society. Kids that couldn’t read, couldn’t do math, that were ignorant of just about all of history are no adults that are functionally illiterate, incapable of adding two numbers and getting the same answer twice in a row, and are pontificating on subjects where they don’t know what happened 10 years ago much less 100 or 500 years ago.

Ignorant by design.

And all because the teachers unions wanted G.W. Bush’s program to fail. This was my introduction to hating teachers unions. Prior to this, it was only a mild dislike.

In 1993, in response to the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan, by a crazy person, the gun grabbers (Chuck Schumer) got the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 passed and signed into law. This established the NICS check program.

Under the Brady Act an FFL was required to run a background check prior to transferring a firearm.

5 business days (meaning days on which State offices are open) have elapsed from the date the transferor furnished notice of the contents of the statement to the chief law enforcement officer, during which period the transferor has not received information from the chief law enforcement officer that receipt or possession of the handgun by the transferee would be in violation of Federal, State, or local law; or

This is language, in the “Interim Provision” is there to light a fire under government bureaucrats. The FFL had one day to file for the background check with the chief law enforcement officer. The chief LEO had 5 days to get a response back to the FFL or the transfer could proceed.

The bill gave the Attorney General 6 months to identify the system they were going to build and a total of 60 months from time of passage to have a NICS system in place. This is because everybody on the gun grabber side KNEW that it would take longer than five days to do the checks that they wanted done.

The actual thought by the infringers was that the NICS system would stop people from buying firearms. It didn’t.

Oh, notice the language “Handgun”. It quickly morphed in include all firearms that are not also NFA items.

There is more language in the bill to allow the states to do their own thing as long as they did the check. And it still required the ability for the FFL to proceed if they had no response within those 5 days.

But now we are seeing a spat of bills showing up that are designed to circumvent this fail safe. The infringers argue that the default should be to NOT transfer the firearm. Just to make sure no bad person gets a gun from an FFL.

But we know what will actually happen. We have the proof already. NFA transfers and approvals take months if not years to be approved. And paperwork gets sent back for minor errors that require the application to be resubmitted.

Every location that had a permit to purchase scheme in place started slow walking applications when the panic began. South Carolina is experience huge backlogs in permits for CCWs.

If we let them add “we were busy” as a reason to delay a transfer you can darn well bet that we are going to see staffing reduced in those places. No need to be efficient or rapid. So what if it takes 6 months to approve a firearm transfer. They should just be happy they are allowed to purchase a firearm at all.

And it would not surprise me if we started to see lubricant being presented to government officials to fast track applications.

Measure 114 out of Oregon already does this. They changed a “no response” to be “wait until we allow you to proceed”. This isn’t an unintended consequence. This is intentional.

Post Bruen the states that are anti-freedom are doing their best to stop people from exercising their right to keep and bear arms.

Watch for more of this “delays should not proceed” legislation in the near future.

Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act

The American public no longer believes the Supreme Court is impartial

“Never in recent history, perhaps, have so many Americans viewed the Supreme Court as fundamentally partisan.”

Ummm, I’d guess the author of this rant never talked to anybody from the right in “recent history”. We had Sotomayor and Kagan appointed to the Supreme Court with some of the worse credentials and court history. We saw Kagan(?) refuse to recuse herself when ruling on ObamaCare when the state brought the arguments she wrote to the court.

We had the “notorious RGB” how was freaking awesome at finding a reason to go with her political choices in almost every major ruling.

For decades the question was never “Which leftist justice will side with the conservatives?” it was always “Which ‘conservative’ justice will cave this time?”

The number of decisions made by the Supreme Court while under leftist control that were unmoored from the constitution is absolutely amazing to consider.

Yes, many Americans view the Supreme Court as partisan, they have for decades, the difference is that it is now the left that is feeling it rather than rejoicing in it.

“In one recent poll, a majority of Americans opined that Supreme Court justices let partisan views influence major rulings.”

A true statement, I do believe that the leftist justices let their partisan views influence them. While I might not like some of the rulings that come out because they didn’t give me the results I want, I respect those conservative judges that follow the law, rather than their partisan views.

“But Democrats’ support has plummeted to 13 percent,…”

Of course, because they weren’t getting their way. Leftist love to cry when the lose, hoping mommy will come save them. For years “mommy” was SCOTUS.

Just look at the number of times that they run to the courts to overturn some conservative law, regulation or order. Yet they are always upset if a conservative asks for the same.

“Public support for the high court sank swiftly last summer in response to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a landmark ruling that revoked a constitutional right to abortion. The decision delighted many conservatives but defied a large majority of Americans who believe abortion should be legal.”

Oh my, look at how they twist the language. “revoked a constitutional right” is their way of saying “abortion is a states issue”. As a conservative I approve of this. It didn’t outright ban abortion nor did it make abortion legal in all 50 states. It said that the states get to say.

This is because our country was designed to allow the different states to experiment within the bounds of the constitution. The people can then vote with their feet if it gets bad.

The big kicker is that they are conflating “abortion should be legal” with “should have a federally protected ability to legally get an abortion”. And the results are in the details. There are a number of conservatives that believe that all elective abortions should be illegal. There are others that have some other limit on when elective abortions should be illegal.

This means that “large majority” includes all those shadings of “should be legal”.

“Yet, partisan anger runs deeper than Dobbs. Liberals are fuming about a confluence of lucky timing and political maneuvering that enabled a Republican-controlled Senate to approve three conservative justices in four years, knocking the panel out of synch with the American public.”

It shouldn’t matter if the court, not panel, is “out of sync” with the American public. That is something for the legislature. The court is suppose to be honoring the Constitution by applying it faithfully as it was written, within the history and tradition of the Constitution.

The court is not suppose to be about winning popularity contests.

The term now being used is “legitimacy”.

“James L. Gibson, a political scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, defines it[legitimacy] as ‘loyalty to the institution. It is willingness to support the institution even when it’s doing things with which you disagree.’”

Ok. That’s a reasonable definition. Not sure what Webster has to say, but I can work with this.

“But then, with Dobbs, the high court suffered ‘the largest decline in legitimacy that’s ever been registered, through dozens and dozens of surveys using the same indicators,’ Gibson said. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’”

Wait a moment, is legitimacy being loyal to the institution or is it something you get by polling? The court didn’t suffer a decline in legitimacy, it suffered an attack by the left questioning the Justice’s loyalty to the institution which the left defined as loyal to the laws, regulations, and rules they wanted to see upheld.

This is always the same game played by the left. Something is illegal for years and years and years. They finally get ONE decision to go their way. From that time forward it is evil to question that decision. From that point forward is the status quo and nobody should question it.

“‘The idea that you have the spouse of a Supreme Court justice advocating for overthrowing the government — sui generis, I think,’ said Caroline Fredrickson, a visiting law professor at Georgetown University, invoking the Latin term for ‘unique.’”

Except this is a lie. Ginni Thomas didn’t advocate for the overthrowing the government. Nobody did. And what difference does it make what Ginni does? She’s not a Supreme Court Justice. Just listen to the left screaming that there is no conflict of interest when there are spouses in the media of Democrats in the White House.

“‘[Roberts]’s the justice who twice saved Obamacare,” Malcolm said. Roberts joined the court’s liberals in rejecting legal challenges to health care reform by a popular president.”

Did Roberts save it by finding the law as written was Constitutional? Nope, he had to redefine a penalty as a tax. He gave the government the ability to tax people for not doing something. That’s a new tax for sure.

Roberts is the darling of the left right now because he can’t be trusted to follow the Constitution. He is much more likely to be swayed by political concerns.

“In its first term with a six-person conservative bloc, the high court overturned Roe, posited a Second Amendment right to carry guns in public and restricted the government’s role in combating climate change, among other rulings.  ”

Interesting word there “posited”. According to Oxford Languages it means “assume as fact; put forward as a basis of argument.” In other words it wasn’t that Bruen reaffirmed the guarantees of the second amendment belongs to the people for all lawful purposes, it was just “assumed” to be a fact, for argument’s sake.

This is all because the Supreme Court is no longer an extremist left-wing institution.

“In previous decades, by contrast, ‘the U.S. Supreme Court has rarely been out of step with the preferences of its constituents, the people,’ Gibson said. ‘Throughout history, the court has ratified the views of the majority, not opposed them.’”

Again we have this professor arguing that the court is suppose to be siding with the mob, not applying the law, as written.

“In the months to come, President Biden and congressional Democrats could restore the court’s ideological balance by packing it with liberals, or hobble it by narrowing its jurisdiction. But they probably won’t, legal observers say, because the Republicans could one day weaponize the same tools against the Democrats.”

It amazes me how often the left wants to change the rules when they win but don’t want the new rules to apply to them when the lose. Yes, Trump appointed 3 Justices. All of the noise about should or should not allowed a vote on Garland or Amy Coney Barrett was because the right was using the rules against the left. The left screamed for a do over or a change in rules. Something they would never do if the shoe was on the other foot.

Since they lost the battle of court packing, the left is now arguing for term limits for Supreme Court Justices. One has to ask “How would the left have responded to RBG being kicked off the court?”

From Rick The Bear:

Nice to see “assault weapons” can finally be freed from their social stigma so they can be above the hearth in every home (that wants one). 8>)

I had asked for a vertical gun stand. My lovely wife got me this nice wooden stand off Amazon. Took about 5 minutes to put up. Then her AR-15 went up on the wall.

Yes, I understand “Secure your Firearms!”

This hit the Supreme Court website about 1100 today.

The application to vacate the Second Circuit courts stay was denied. Sotomayor presented the case to the court and the court decided to leave things as is for the time being.

Alito joining put forth an opinion on the denial. IIRC it is uncommon for the Supreme Court to give opinions when they deny Cert. or other applications. Generally is is just “nope”. and that’s the end of it.

Alito wrote:

The application to vacate stay presented to JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR and by her referred to the Court is denied.

Statement of JUSTICE ALITO , with whom JUSTICE THOMAS joins, respecting the denial of the application to vacate stay.

The New York law at issue in this application presents novel and serious questions under both the First and the Second Amendments. The District Court found, in a thorough opinion, that the applicants were likely to succeed on a number of their claims, and it issued a preliminary injunction as to twelve provisions of the challenged law. With one exception, the Second Circuit issued a stay of the injunction in full, and in doing so did not provide any explanation for its ruling. App. to Emergency Application 2. In parallel cases presenting related issues, the Second Circuit has likewise issued unreasoned summary stay orders, but in those cases it has ordered expedited briefing. See, e.g., Order in Hardaway v. Nigrelli, No. 22–2933 (CA2, Dec. 7, 2022), ECF Doc. 53; Order in Christian v. Nigrelli, No. 22–2987 (CA2, Dec. 12, 2022), ECF Doc. 40.

I understand the Court’s denial today to reflect respect for the Second Circuit’s procedures in managing its own docket, rather than expressing any view on the merits of the case. Applicants should not be deterred by today’s order from again seeking relief if the Second Circuit does not, within a reasonable time, provide an explanation for its stay order or expedite consideration of the appeal.

This opinion is very good for us. It says “We understand that we need to let the Second Circuit do its thing, but if the Second Circuit doesn’t provide a full explanation for its stay or if it doesn’t grant expedited consideration, get your asses back here.”

This is a spanking of the Second Circuit, just not as hard as I wanted it to be.

We have seen a number of cases go into the court system and we keep getting wins. We recently had the entire “bump stock” ban be declared unconstitutional. Parts of the NJ kill carry bill were found unconstitutional. Parts of the NY CCIA have been ruled unconstitutional multiple times.

Lots of wins.

These wins come because the second amendment rights groups are bringing the fight to the government.

But not all the cases are currently wins.

Recently in King County, WA a judge granted a preliminary injunction against a gun store.

The Washington State version of the gestapo was sending in undercover agents to attempt to purchase standard capacity magazines. Four times they showed up and the guy behind the counter didn’t twig.

This means that the store is on the hook for $7500 for offering a standard capacity magazine for sale and another $7500 for each actual sale. So $15,000 for every magazine they sold.

The question that was asked by the plaintiffs (bad guys) was if the defendants(good guys) broke Washington State law in selling standard capacity magazines. Because that was the question asked, that is the question that the court will answer.

At trial, we can hope that the defendants make a Second Amendment case challenging the law. Because the state brought the suite this means that the defendants have standing.

This could be planned, it could just be somebody giving a F’you to the state and getting caught.
Let’s watch and see.

WA county judge orders gun shop to stop selling high-capacity magazines

I use to be an audiophile. My best friend introduced me to “professional” sound equipment. Crown D150 per speaker and something to drive it at class A quality.

Then my mentor introduced me to “studio quality” sound equipment. Made my thousands of dollars in stereo equipment sound like a cheap boom box.

I was over over at this place to listen to his stereo one evening. His turntable had a 200 pound granite base for vibration isolation. Infinity reference speakers.

He played Heart’s Magic Man which was his comparison song. Both on vinyl and on CD. And you could hear the difference. Later we did A-B testing with random co-workers on different quality of digital sound reproduction to see which was better.

Regardless, this lead to a long time interest in music. I love to listen to music. When I’m programming I’ll often have music in my headphones. I want to be able to hear the good music.

At night, before falling asleep I’ll put on 30 minutes of random music picked by Miss Google. She’s learned the sort of music I like.

My lady heard this song for the first time and broke out laughing. It is such a collection of rude objectification of women. Still it has a nice beat to it.

To help get that song out of her head I then pulled up this song for her.

Hope y’ll enjoyed both