1. It shall be unlawful for any person-
      1. who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;
      2. who is a fugitive from justice;
      3. who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. §802));
      4. who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution;
      5. who, being an alien-
        1. is illegally or unlawfully in the United States; or
        2. (except as provided in subsection (y)(2), has been admitted to the United States under a nonimmigrant visa (as that term is defined in section 101(a)(26) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(26)));
      6. who has been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions;
      7. who, having been a citizen of the United States, has renounced his citizenship;
      8. who is subject to a court order that-
        1. was issued after a hearing of which such person received actual notice, and at which such person had an opportunity to participate;
        2. restrains such person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner of such person or child of such intimate partner or person, or engaging in other conduct that would place an intimate partner in reasonable fear of bodily injury to the partner or child; and
          1. includes a finding that such person represents a credible threat to the physical safety of such intimate partner or child; or
          2. by its terms explicitly prohibits the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against such intimate partner or child that would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury; or
      9. who has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence,

      to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.
      — 18 U.S.C. §922(g) 2025-03-14

    This is the current version of section §922(g). The word “felon” does not appear. All definitions are included within the list.

    As you read on, notice that we have gone from actually crossing state lines to “affecting commerce”. This is a huge power grab by the federal government. The Constitution authorizes them to regulate interstate commerce.

    The power grab is that they now claim the can regulate anything that might affect interstate commerce.
    This is not how it started.

    1. The term ‘indictment’ includes an indictment or an information in any court under which a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year may be prosecuted

    — §921 in 1968

    1. It shall be unlawful for any licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or licensed dealer to sell or deliver—
      1. any firearm to any individual who the licensee knows or has reasonable cause to believe is less than twenty-one years of age, if the firearm is other than a shotgun or rifle.
      2. any firearm to any person in any State where the purchase or possession by such person of such firearm would be in violation of any State law or any published ordinance applicable at the place of sale, delivery or other disposition, or in the locality in which such person resides unless the licensee knows or has reasonable cause to believe that the purchase or possession would not be in violation of such State law or such ordinance.
      3. any firearm to any person who the licensee knows or has reasonable cause to believe does not reside in (or if the person is a corporation or other business entity, does not maintain a place of business in) the State in which the licensee’s place of business is located; except that this paragraph shall not apply in the case of a shotgun or rifle.
      4. to any person any destructive device, machine gun (as defined in section 5848 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954), short-barreled shotgun, or short-barreled rifle, unless he has in his possession a sworn statement executed by the principal law enforcement officer of the locality wherein the purchaser or person to whom it is otherwise disposed of resides, attesting that there is no provision of law, regulation, or ordinance which would be violated by such person’s receipt or possession thereof, and that he is satisfied that it is intended by such person for lawful purposes; and such sworn statement shall be retained by the licensee as a part of the records required to be kept under the provisions of this chapter.
      5. any firearm to any person unless the licensee notes in his records required to be kept pursuant to section 923 of this chapter, the name, age, and place of residence of such person if the person is an individual, or the identity and principal and local places of business of such person if the person is a corporation or other business entity.

    — §922 as of 1968

    This does not seem to include as much as the current law does.

    In October 1968, the law changed

    1. The term ‘crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year’ shall not include (A) any Federal or State offenses pertaining to antitrust violations, unfair trade practices, restraints of trade, or other similar offenses relating to the regulation of business practices as the Secretary may by regulation designate, or (B) any State offense (other than one involving a firearm or explosive) classified by the laws of the State as a misdemeanor and punishable by a term of imprisonment of two years or less.

    — §921 — October 1968

    Here we see that they have explicitly excluded misdemeanors with possible imprisonment of less than two years. The old version was greater than one year.

    1. It shall be unlawful for any person—
      1. who is under indictment for, or who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;
      2. who is a fugitive from justice;
      3. who is an unlawful user of or addicted to marihuana or any depressant or stimulant drug (as defined in section 201 (v) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act) or narcotic drug (as defined in section 4731(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954); or
      4. who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution;

      to ship or transport any firearm or ammunition in interstate or foreign commerce.

    2. It shall be unlawful for any person—
      1. who is under indictment for, or who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;
      2. who is a fugitive from justice
      3. who is an unlawful user of or addicted to marihuana or any depressant or stimulant drug (as defined in section 201 (v) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act) or narcotic drug (as defined in section 4731 (a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954); or
      4. who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to any mental institution;

      to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.

    — §922 ­­— October 1968

    Read that last line carefully. In November 1968, a person who was a “prohibited person” could no receive any firearm or ammunition which had been shipped in interstate or foreign commerce. They could still keep and bear arms. They could not buy or be given guns that crossed state lines.

    This means that it was perfectly legal for a prohibited person to keep all the firearms they owned before becoming prohibited and they could manufacture firearms for their use. All legal.

    It also meant, that if they were to buy direct from a manufacturer, that would be legal. For example, if they lived in New Hampshire, they could go to the Sig Store and purchase a gun manufactured by Sig in NH.

    1. It shall be unlawful for any person—
      1. who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;
      2. who is a fugitive from justice;
      3. who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in §102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. §802)
      4. who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution;
      5. who, being an alien, is illegally or unlawfully in the United States;
      6. who has been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions; or
      7. who, having been a citizen of the United States, has renounced his citizenship

      to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce

    — §922 ­­— May 1986

    Section (h) was rewritten to reference section (g) for who was prohibited. We also see that it is no longer receiving a firearm that is a crime, it is in possessing.

    We still see that the limitation is on firearms that cross state lines. We see this in many federal laws. They will reference something crossing state lines being regulated. This is because that is all the Constitution authorizes the federal government to regulate.

    These changes were part of “Firearms Owners’ Protection Act”. I just love it when something that is about protecting my rights adds more limits on rights. Yeah, I know, bad people.

    In 1996, §§ 921-922 were amended to add definitions and text to prohibit who has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence..

    In 1998, in an “Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations” bill, they changed the definition of an illegal alien.

    Conclusion

    1) reading lawsuits is easy compared to reading “Public Laws”. They write bills like patch files. Instead of showing us the new version with strike through and underline to show removed and new text, they say things like (I) by inserting “transfer of a firearm to or” before “receipt”; and (II) by striking “(g) or (n)” and inserting “(d), (g), or (n) (as applicable)”.

    I read that stuff all the time, but I have tools that make it easy to see the changes.

    2) The law expands little by little, infringing more and more. What starts with something that feels reasonable ends with something that is totally unconstitutional.

            

  • I’m watching the snow melt outside. It’s SLOWER than watching paint dry. Ah well. It’ll be gone soon, and then I can get to work on outdoor stuff. For now, it’s time to plan the outdoor garden space, and decide which things are getting direct sowed. In other words, which things go right into the ground (or raised bed/outdoor container/plant tower/etc) versus those that get started indoors because they’re too delicate for the cooler weather?

    The first seeds that I’ll be direct sowing will be radishes, beets, carrots, peas, and spinach. These are all hardy crops, and they like the cold and damp that come along with early spring and late fall. They’re also staples around here. Well, not the beets so much. I like them, but most of the rest of the family doesn’t. That’s fine; more for me.

    You’ll note that the beets and carrots and radishes are all what we call “root crops.” This means the edible part is under the ground. Generally speaking, for early spring crops you want to look for ones that say, “Plant seed outdoors as soon as the soil can be worked.” This means that a late frost in the spring won’t destroy your plants, and that’s a very good thing when you live in the northern part of America, or any part of Canada. Most root crops can be planted early, but always check the seed packets (or online if you don’t have the packets).

    Before you can sow seeds directly into the soil outdoors (regardless of whether it’s in the ground, in a raised bed, or in a container of some kind), you have to prepare the garden bed. This takes several stages, and is best started as soon as you can get into your garden area. I can’t yet, because we still have snow deep enough to cause issues and I’m not shoveling out the garden. You can speed this up by covering your garden beds with black plastic each fall right before the snow flies. This keeps down on weeds, and also allows the beds to warm up earlier. Once your beds are defrosted and workable, you can begin planting. This is one of the main joys of any kind of raised bed.

    (more…)

            

  • Nerd Babble, the good

    git is a source code control system. It is the most powerful or one of the most powerful SCS’s I’ve used.

    Like all powerful things, you can break it in hundreds of different ways.

    One of its most powerful features is the concept of a remote repository. While other SCS were able to have remote repositories, git takes it a step further. A remote repository is just the bare part of a normal git repository.

    This meant that if you had access to a remote server, you could have a remote repository on that server. The issue came when you wanted to restrict what a user could do on that remote server.

    The answer came in the form of small applications that allowed you to configure remote access via a git repo. That access, in turn, allowed users to access other repos. By combining SSH keys with this simple software package, you could have multiple users accessing the remote repositories through a single “user” on the remote server.

    This simple tool grew into a monstrosity called gitlab. If you purchase a GitLab seat, you get all the tools and do not have to worry about the resources used. Unfortunately, this can be expensive if you have more than a few members of on your team.

    There was an option to self-host, but the self-hosted version was missing some very useful features as compared to the paid version. And the thing is a resource hog.

    GitHub went a slightly different route. It offers almost all the features of GitLab, maybe more. It has a free tier. But if you want private repos, again, you have to pay per seat.

    Enter gitea, as they say, “Git, with a cup of tea.” This thing is fast enough in a low resource environment. It has the remote repos. It allows forking and pull requests.

    It has organizations and teams, allow easy control of collaborations. It has everything we need for remote git repos.

    And then the extras. First, it has a good issue tracking system. It is not jira but it is good enough. It has projects with Kanban capabilities. It has a wiki.

    And it looks like all the “extras” are handled as repos. I’m very impressed.

    I feel like we won this round.

    Nerd Babble, the bad

    Computer motherboards are supposed to be standardized. Yes, some manufacturers make custom boards for their custom cases, but in general, standard is better.

    Over the last couple of years, I’ve discovered a small form factor motherboard that is small enough and light enough to attach to the back of a monitor. We have three of these at the house. Thank you to my son for discovering these.

    When looking for NAS enclosures, I discovered 4 bay NAS enclosures that were designed to hold a Mini-ITX motherboard.

    A Mini-ITX motherboard is 170×170 mm.

    This size allows for exactly one expansion slot to the right of the back i/o ports.

    Unfortunately, there is another motherboard that isn’t a Mini-ITX which gets sold as a Mini-ITX. It is 170x190mm. This gives enough space for 2 expansion slots.

    The NAS enclosures only accept the 170×170 motherboards.

    I now have a 170×190 MB that I will have to home.

    Snope and Ocean State Tactile

    My frustration with the Snope case knows no bounds. This case is old.

    It started as a challenge to Kolbe. Kolbe was a challenge to Maryland’s assault weapon ban. It went before the Fourth Circuit court where they assumed that assault weapons were arms under the Second Amendment, and then proceeded to say that they were not protected arms because of “interest balancing”.

    This was appealed and cert was denied.

    A few years later, Bianchi v. Frosh was started. This was a challenge to Kolbe. The district court followed the Fourth Circuit’s opinion in Kolbe and found for the state. The case was appealed. The three judge merits panel found for the state because they could not override an enbanc panel. A motion was made to have the case heard enbanc.

    Regardless, the Fourth found for the state and Bianchi filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court.

    Somewhere around that time, Frosh was replaced with Brown. Thus, the case became known as Bianchi v. Brown.

    The Supreme Court sat on the case until after Bruen.

    After Bruen the Supreme Court granted certiorari, vacated the Fourth Circuit’s finding, and remanded the case back down for a do-over. This is a GVR.

    The Fourth Circuit then had the case briefed in light of Bruen and then heard oral arguments before a three judge merits panel. They were the first circuit to hear a Second Amendment case after Bruen.

    The merits panel split 2-1 in favor of Bianchi. The sore loser refused to write and submit his dissent on the case. This kept the case in limbo for almost a year. At the end of the year, it looked like the merits panel was going to publish their pro-Second Amendment opinion without the dissent.

    At which point the Fourth Circuit decided to take the case enbanc. They required the parties to submit another set of briefs. They then held oral arguments again.

    Around this time, Mr. Bianchi left the state of Maryland. This would have mooted the case, but David Snope was also a plaintiff and thus the case was renamed Snope v. Brown. The Fourth circuit then found for the state, again.

    This case is now before the Supreme Court seeking certiorari, again.

    The court has discussed this case in conference six times. It was distributed for conference seven times, with the first conference being rescheduled.

    Which takes us to Ocean State Tactical. This is a magazine ban out of Rhode Island. It is in the same posture as Snope

    And now we have Antonyuk v. James. This is a sensitive places case. This case has been to the Supreme Court multiple times. Has been GVRed once. It was denied certiorari once, but with a statement by Thomas telling the inferior courts to do it right.

    With all three of these cases before the Supreme Court, seeking certiorari, we might get a trifecta. Here’s hoping.

    The Continuing Lawfare against Trump

    It is difficult to express just how fast these cases are moving. It is my opinion that the people engaging in lawfare had an expectation of stopping this administration dead in its tracks.

    Even when the administration appears to have lost, they are winning. The only case that I’ve noticed that is moving at “regular” speeds is the DoJ v. State of New York. Note, that is not the actual case name.

    We’ve had cases move from district court through the circuit courts to the Supreme Court and back down in a weeks time.

    In the case of Mahmoud, the administration moved so fast that the lawyers filed in the wrong court. Now they are arguing that it was the right court because at that instant of time, M.K. was in a particular location. This does not seem to be the case.

    The left is claiming that Trump is being forced to pay $2 billion dollars. He’s not. The new order says that they have to pay what is actually owed. Not “all billed”. This is another win. That judge was slapped down hard.

    Question of the Week

    Which of the lawfare cases is most concerning to you?

            

  • This is an interesting and challenging case, for me.

    This is a Constitutional challenge to Mahmoud being detained and then deported. His claim is that this is a violation of his First and Fifth Amendment protected rights. Because it is a violation of his rights, the court should grant him relief.

    Mahmoud is an Arab that claims to be a Palestinian. He entered the United States in December 2022 on a student visa to study for a Master’s degree at Columbia University in New York. He completed that degree in December 2024 and is going to graduate in May 2025. He married in November 2024 and got a green card.

    He was granted a green card because he was married to a US citizen. He is still an alien, just not illegal. He has not overstayed his visa, nor is he required to leave when his visa expires.

    His lawyer describes his actions in this way:

    As a Palestinian, M.K. has felt compelled to be an outspoken advocate for Palestinian human rights and more recently, to speak out against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the role of Columbia University in financing and in other ways facilitating the genocide. M.K. is committed to being a voice for his People, and calling on the rest of the world to stop providing weapons and support to enable the genocide in contravention with international law.

    This describes his actions as speech. Regardless of how reprehensible that speech might be, it is still protected. The First Amendment protects reprehensible speech, not just the words we want to hear. It is easy to believe in “free speech” if the only allowed speech is that which we agree with.

    This case is seeking the following relief:

    1. Assume jurisdiction over this matter
    2. Declare that the state violated Mahmoud’s First amendment and Fifth Amendment protected rights
    3. To keep Mahmoud in New York
    4. Release Mahmoud
    5. Pay Mahmoud’s legal fees

    Item 3 is mooted because Mahmoud was out of New York before the case was filed. In a later filing they requested that he be returned to New York.

    So we look at the Constitutional challenge. One of the things to note is that not all the Constitution applies to everyone. Some apply to Citizens and some apply to “the people”. The rights limited to citizens are called out by the term “citizen”. The rest of the time the founders use the terms “the people”, “person”, and “the accused.”

    The Supreme Court has issued many opinions that restrict “The People” to those with a strong connection to the community politic.

    With these in mind, it seems clear that Mahmoud is a member of the people. His rights are protected by most of the Constitution.

    Is he challenging a federal law prohibiting the free exercise of or abridgment of his speech? Not directly.

    Instead, he challenges the law as applied to him, His claim is that he can’t speak while detained and that the threat of detention has a chilling effect on his ability to speak freely.

    The state has not justified his detention in court documents — yet. Instead, they are fighting the most relevant parts first. Bluntly, I don’t care if this asshole is deported or rotting in a jail cell. He’s not out there intimidating the people of the United States.

    What the state did was they revoked his visa and his green card.

    When can a green card be revoked?

    5. Security-Related Reasons

    Green card holders who engage in activities deemed threatening to U.S. national security can lose their status. This includes involvement in terrorism, espionage, or other activities that undermine the safety of the United States.

    Examples of Security Violations

    • Membership in Terrorist Organizations: Being part of or assisting a terrorist group can lead to immediate revocation and deportation.
    • Espionage or Treason: Activities related to spying, intelligence gathering for foreign governments, or attempts to overthrow the government are considered severe violations.

    Consequences: In addition to deportation, individuals accused of such activities may face criminal prosecution and significant legal penalties.

    —How a Green Card Can Be Revoked – Rebecca Black Immigration Law, (last visited Mar. 12, 2025)

    What this means is that the state need only prove that Mahmoud was part of or assisting a terrorist group. Hamas is a designated terrorist group.

    Conclusion

    The left loves to talk about hate speech. They love it because it allows them to justify their violence. Hate speech is always in the eye of the offended.

    “Violent” speech is violence, according to the left.

    Violence can be countered with violence.

    Therefore, you saying something that they disagree with is hate speech, which in turn is violence, which means they can punch you.

    In the other direction, any real, physical violence they engage in is “just protests” and is “speech” protected by the Constitution.

    They are going to lose this one. I’ve seen to many good filings from this administration to believe they aren’t going to win. Maybe not at the district level with all the rogue inferior judges, but they will win higher up.

            

  • This case is distributed for Conference on 3/28/2025. This adds an interesting twist on our Second Amendment cases before the Supreme Court.

    Could this be combined with the Snope (assault weapon bans) and Ocean State Tactical (magazine bans)?

    This case is where New York State’s Bruen tantrum replaced “proper cause” with “good moral character” and then proceeded to make almost all of New York State a sensitive place.

    We are living in interesting times.

            

  • I’m going through some personal stuff right now, and it’s been rough. Some of the responses I’ve gotten to my last few posts have left me feeling raw and frustrated, and unsure of what to do and say going forward. After some long talks with Chris and others, I’m writing this to try and get some general thoughts out that I hope will help you guys and me.

    First and foremost, if something is labeled “From Behind Enemy Lines,” then I am doing just that – talking about the Left, FROM the Left. That is what I’ve been asked to do, when I’m posting under that banner. I’ve been asked to give a Left perspective, or at least a “more Left” perspective, so that you guys can learn and to be sure that Vine isn’t an “echo chamber.” I am going to be more obvious in it, adding FBEL at the top of posts that are “representative Left” or “explaining Left” so that they stand out.

    So my last post was about the memes I’d seen floating around, and in particular, about the Trump 2028 one. From where I’m standing, there are three groups of people. First, we have the far Left. They’re going to do what they’re going to do, and nothing you or I say is going to change it. I ignore them. Second is the group of “normal Left” or what I tend to call “thinking Left.” These are people who have chosen willfully to be Left of center, but are self-consistent, thinking, and reasoning. I might not LIKE their reasoning, and I may think it’s false in the grand scheme of things or missing important points, but they’ve shown me that they give actual thought and consideration to their position. I have many friends in this group.

    The third group consists of people like me. We were a little Left of Center, if you asked us. People on the Right just lumped us in with “The Left,” and the Left considered us oddities and “too far Right for comfort” but generally tolerated us. We are no longer “a little Left of Center.” We are deep state Right, at this point, because the Left has shifted so far Left that we’re not even close anymore. Some, like myself, have chosen to take the couple of steps Right to join the rest of you under the Conservative tent, albeit in our own little corner while we acclimate. Others are dithering out there on the sandbar, wondering where the hell the tide went and why it’s so fucking cold these days.

    (more…)

            

  • What does this have to do with the Second Amendment?

    It appears that Mel Gibson is a prohibited person.

    If you read §922(g) closely, you will find that prohibited person includes people who have not been convicted of a felony nor any of the things we might consider reason to prohibit.

    It gets better, under Rahimi, a person can only be prohibited temporarily and when found to be violent.

    This means that many of the cases challenging the §922(g) sections are likely to win on the merits. The Range case for example. A non-violent felon. He pleaded guilty to fraud. He did not claim income from his lawn care side hustle when he was asking for financial help.

    He served no time. It has been many years since Range pleaded guilty to this crime.

    Oh, it wasn’t a felony when he pleaded guilty.

    Over time, crimes that were not “felonies” under §922 have become felonies. I.e., if you can be jailed for the crime for more than a year, then it is a felony under §922, even if you serve no time.

    Mel Gibson pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault on his ex-girlfriend. He paid a $500 fine and put it behind him.

    Turns out that this misdemeanor assault actually triggers §922(g) and he is now a prohibited person.

    He has been attempting to get his Second Amendment protected rights back.

    Pam Bondi?

    A lawyer at the DoJ was fired. She ran to the New York Times to whimper about how unfair it was. About how she was the victim of the Evil Trump administration. She was doing the right thing.

    What was she claiming to be the “right thing”? She claimed that disobeying her superiors was the right thing. In particular, she “couldn’t sign off” on a DoJ’s working group working to get gun rights restored to The People.

    Yep. She mentioned that she was told to work to restore Mel Gibson’s rights and refused. She seems to feel that nobody should have gun rights, and that keeping as many people from having the right to keep and bear arms is the “right thing” to do.

            

  •         

  • One of the great things about following people on X is that you get news faster and from different points of view.

    One of the worst things about X is that you get idiot NPC talking points dumped into your feed constantly.

    For the last three weeks, every weekend, there is a spat of NPCs telling me that Trump has gone golfing. That he has gone golfing every weekend since he took office. That his golfing has cost some number of millions of dollars. The number is the same across every post.

    This week, the talking points included that Trump was golfing while there were fires on Long Island. How can he be so cruel. And he went golfing last weekend during the fires in North and South Carolina.

    Last weekend it was about how the fires in the Carolina’s were happening despite the claims of good forest management. Claims that there wasn’t water to fight the fires. While showing the same video of firefighters using water to fight the fires.

    The biggest NPC talking point has been on “Tax cuts for Billionaires.” The claim is that Trump is taking money away from veterans, the sick, and the elderly to give to his “billionaire friends”.

    If you open the curtain and peek behind it, you find that they are lying.

    So let’s do a little numbering.

    We are going to look at somebody making $12000/year, $50,000/year, $100,000/year, $500,000/year, and a million dollars per year.

    We use a progressive tax rate, so as your income goes up, so does your tax rate.

    Income Tax Rate Amount
    Paid
    $0 10% $0
    $11,601 12% $1,160.12
    $12,000 12% $1,208.00
    $47,151 22% $5,426.22
    $50,000 22% $6,053.00
    $100,000 22% $17,053.00
    $100,526 24% $17,168.74
    $191,951 32% $39,110.98
    $243,726 35% $55,679.06
    $500,000 35% $145,374.64
    $609,351 37% $183,647.49
    $1,000,000 37% $328,197.62

    Somebody with an income of $1,000,000 pays 328 thousand dollars in taxes. If everybody got a 1% tax cut, he would get to keep $3,281 of his money. The person making $50k per year would get to keep $500 of his money. Oh my goodness.

    So what are these huge tax cuts that “Trump gave his billionaire friends?” The Trump tax cuts apply to everybody. The NPCs claim that everybody getting tax cuts is not fair because a millionaire gets $3k back, but regular folk only get $500 back. This is so horrible, that they proposed an amendment that would have increased the tax rate of people making more than $999,999.

    This would have added another tax bracket. They are literally saying that if we don’t raise the taxes on those making more than $999,999 we are giving a tax cut.

    It doesn’t make sense to anybody except NPCs.

    This entire talking point also avoids the question of how billionaires make their money.

    If I was working a full-time job and pulling in a billion dollars per year, I would be charging $480,769.23/hour.

    It isn’t happening. A million dollars per year income is only $480/hour.

    Yes, there are some professions that charge at the $500 to $1000 per hour rate, but they are generally not taking it all home. Instead, that hourly rate goes into paying for many people.

    What a millionaire does is they make money by investing. Pretend you made $174,000 in 2024. After paying all your bills, you might take home $50 to $75 thousand for fun stuff.

    Now, supposed you took that $50k and invested it in a stock, like $TEM in January 2025 at $32/share. If you sold it at the end of February 2025 at $89.44 you would have made a profit of $89k. Not a bad return over the course of a month.

    This is a short-term capital gain which gets taxed at your as above, according to your tax bracket. On the other hand, if you hold that stock for a full 12 months and then sell it, you would only get taxed at 15%, not 24%. That is a 9% savings in taxes.

    If you were to have a taxable income of over $533k/year, then your rate would be 20% on that $89k, not 37%. That translates to savings of $15,140.

    Trump is not talking about cutting the capital gains taxes. He is talking about income tax changes.

    Representatives make $174k/year. $TEM was one of the purchases a representative made in February.

    This is the same language game that congress critters make every year. “We made cuts to the budget!” translation, “We aren’t going to spend as much as we wanted to. We are only spending $500,000 more, not the $3.3 million more we wanted”

    A cut is when the amount spent this year is less than the amount spent last year.

    I believe that I managed to lose some of my article. Still, it is just a rant.

            

  • Or “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

    The short of this is that I’ve been building PCs for years. They are LEGO blocks. You make sure the parts will fit together, and it all just works.

    As an example, I “knew” that LGA sockets were for Intel CPUs. Last night I learned that LGA just means the motherboard socket has the pins. PGA means the CPU holds the pins.

    How did I learn this? I was researching AMD CPU sockets and learned that the AM4 socket was of the PGA style, while the AM5 socket is of the LGA type.

    I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

    We run a local data center. It is still a work in progress. We have enough disk space, but not enough redundancy. We have some compute servers, but not enough.

    We try to do some upgrade every month, trying to improve things. The last improvement was another node in the Ceph Cluster.

    After spending weeks researching, I found a 4 bay NAS enclosure that took Mini-ITX motherboards. This felt just about perfect.

    It uses a flex style power supply, which is balanced for the actual load of 4 HDD and a motherboard. 350 Watts is what I went with. Thus, it draws less power than older machines.

    Finding a Mini-ITX board was another research hell. What I wanted was MB with 4 SATA 3.0 ports, 1 or more SFP+ ports, one gigabit Ethernet port, at least 16 GB of memory and NVMe support for 512 GB of storage.

    I couldn’t find one. I haven’t given up, but I haven’t found one yet.

    After searching, I found a Mini-ITX MB with an LGA 1155 socket, 4 SATA2.0 ports, a 10/100 Ethernet Port, 2 DDR3 slots (16 GB), and a PCIe slot.

    This might seem low end, but it meets our needs. HDDs only require 3 GB/s to keep up. We would need 3.0 if we were using SSDs.

    The 10/100 is useless for moving data, but meets our needs for a management port. All in all, a good choice.

    When all the parts arrived, I couldn’t get the MB installed. The fan was too tall. I got a better cooler that was a low profile style. When that came in, I installed the board. It was painfully tight getting everything in. Took me over an hour to get all the cables hooked up just right.

    Everything went well until I went to put the cover back on. At that point, I found the cover didn’t fit “because the case had the motherboard too close to the edge.”

    I fixed that in the machine shop. Grinders and cut off wheels to the rescue.

    Everything goes together.

    After everything is configured and running, I slap a drive into the case and it works. Wonderful. Final step? Install the SFP+ network card.

    It doesn’t line up. The damn thing doesn’t line up with the slot in the back.

    After mulling it over for way to long, I made the cut-out in the back wider and moved the standoffs. Machine shop to the rescue.

    Except I had a bad network card. Easily fixed via a replacement. No big deal.

    After over a month of fighting this thing, making massive changes to the case. Taking it entirely apart to get the motherboard in, the machine is now in production.

    Yesterday the motherboard for an upgrade arrived. The case I bought to hold it had the PCI slot moved over. This looks like it will all just work.

    Except that when I go to install the MB, I can’t get it to fit into the case. No big deal, I’ll take this case apart too.

    But the board doesn’t line up. It doesn’t line up with the standoffs. It doesn’t line up with the back slot. It doesn’t even line up with the onboard I/O baffle.

    At that point, I measured my Mini-ITX board. It should be 170mmx170mm. This board is not. It is 0.8 inches to wide. It isn’t a Micro-ITX nor is it a Mini-ITX. It is some none standard PoS.

    I’m spitting mad at this point. I’ll put everything back in boxes until the new MB arrives. When it does arrive, I’ll be able to retire an older box that has been holding this data center back.

    Everything now fits.

    It wasn’t the case that was the issue with the last build. It was the motherboard. Time to update the reviews I wrote.