California Doom...

Here's the text of California Assembly Bill 1266, passed along by friend, reader, and Idaho real estate mogul Doug S. (I think he enjoys laughing at the sufferings of the denizens of his former abode).  The bill has already passed in the Assembly and is currently awaiting action in the Senate.  The key bit is in Section 1, amending Section 221.5 of the education code to include:

(f) A pupil shall be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.

So...a high school boy who claims identification as female must be allowed to join a girl's sports team, must be allowed to use the girl's locker room, and must be allowed to use the girl's restrooms.

What could possibly go wrong with that?

Doom.  Doom.  Doom.  The sounds of the drums beat ever closer...

Stick Your Head in a Paint Blender...

The reason for this recommended behavior is here...

Javapocalypse...

Basic Economics Lesson...

While standing on one foot :)  Via reader and friend Simon M.:

B-36...

The B-36 “Peacemaker” bomber was an enormous post-WWII strategic bomber – the first designed to carry nuclear weapons.  The design of the B-36 eventually evolved into a configuration with 6 huge radial piston engines and 4 jet engines – 10 engines in all. 

The flight engineer's station on B-36 was an awesomely complex collection of switches, dials, indicators, and controls.  Here's a terrific virtual tour of that flight engineer's station, that lets you look all around.

Via reader Simi L...

No Free Pass...

The lines have clearly been crossed, Mr. Obama.  So far, I see nothing but free passes.  When are we going to see some consequences for the violations of our basic civil liberties?

Junk the Whole System...

The conclusion from a post by Megan McArdle:

When government has power, it will be abused. Sometimes that's the unavoidable side effect of something we need to do. But this isn't. It's time to junk the entire elaborate system.

She's talking about corporate income taxes and charitable deductions.  I'd extend those same thoughts to the rest of the personal income tax system as well.  It's time to start over...

Great Illusion...

First stare at the top image for 30 seconds or so, then look at the bottom image (Van Gogh's Starry Night):

The Big Tell...

The Daily Show
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I Sense a Pattern...

Some elements of the pattern:

For decades, American businesses have been held liable for the reasonably foreseeable (and sometimes not so foreseeable) criminal behavior of their employees.  So American businesses did the obvious thing: they started making criminal background checks before they hired people.  People with an alarming criminal history would be rejected.  Now the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is suing two American companies (just the beginning, I'm sure) to prevent them from making pre-employment criminal background checks.  Why?  Because blacks fail these background checks more than others, so therefore the background checks are discriminatory.  Why do blacks fail these background checks more often?  Because they're convicted of crime more often!

Scottsdale, Arizona had (until recently) a thriving pedicab community.  Recently the city passed legislation requiring pedicab operators to carry million dollar liability insurance policies.  This was provoked by a drunk driver striking a pedicab.  These insurance policies cost at least $250 a month – far more expensive than a pedicab business can support.  A Scottsdale policeman expressed surprise about the steep decline in the number of pedicabs.  Similar things have happened in the other major cities of the area.  Never underestimate the ability of government to completely screw small business, and government bureaucracy's cluelessness about business...

A British immigrant to the U.S., here for eight years, says: 'I’m a U.K. citizen hoping soon to become a U.S. citizen, a lifelong admirer of the American project and its founding principles. But after living here for eight years, I’ve started to wince when I hear the expression, “It’s a free country.”'

Senator Lindsay Graham – a Republican – says: 'If I thought censoring the mail was necessary, I would suggest it, but I don't think it is.'  Censor our mail to protect us against terrorism?  Why do I suspect that censorship would not include Senator Graham's mail?

A guy with a large Twitter following is very critical of Obama.  He is careful never to actually threaten him, but the fact that he despises Obama is abundantly clear if you read his Twitter feed.  This is America, and we have freedom of speech; there's nothing wrong (or illegal) about his behavior.  So why am I noting this?  Because this Twitterer was visited in his home by the Secret Service – and they were there only because of his legal, Constitutionally-protected free speech.

So I examine the elements of this pattern, and the result is a single word:

Doom...

Quote of the Day...

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, explaining why he told Congress (in sworn testimony) two months ago that the NSA didn't intentionally collect any kind of information on millions of Americans:

I gave the 'least untruthful' answer.

Shades of 1984 and doublespeak...

I'm beginning to thing that our national leaders think of us, the American citizenry, as the enemy...

On a related note, here's Bruce Schneier, writing in the New York Times:

And we need to determine how we treat whistle-blowers in this country. We have whistle-blower protection laws that apply in some cases, particularly when exposing fraud, and other illegal behavior. N.S.A. officials have repeatedly lied about the existence, and details, of these programs to Congress.

Only after all of these legal issues have been resolved should any prosecution of Snowden move forward. Because only then will we know the full extent of what he did, and how much of it is justified.

I believe that history will hail Snowden as a hero -- his whistle-blowing exposed a surveillance state and a secrecy machine run amok. I'm less optimistic of how the present day will treat him, and hope that the debate right now is less about the man and more about the government he exposed.

Yes.

Don't Mess With This Girl!

Escherian Stairwell...

Via reader and friend Simon M.  Watch this video first:


Then for an explanation, watch this:

Oh, Noz!

Who would ever have thought that TV broadcasters would be allowed to show inaccurate cartoons?  Next thing you know, we'll find out that the Internet isn't truthful, either!

Metallic Snow...

Really!

Department of War Math...

The fascinating story of how a group of mathematicians helped the Allies win WWII.  It also tells the tale of the surprisingly efficient process implemented to get battlefield problems in front of the right group of scientists.  The urgent needs of the war successfully overrode the natural stifling of large bureaucracies.  The Manhattan Project (the atomic bomb) was another great example of this...

Somehow This Resonates More Today...

This clip from the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting somehow resonates more today than it did back then:

Trust Us...

People email me stuff.  This one's from Larry E., and I'm quoting it in its entirety:

They won't keep your data secret. There is a long track record of abuses already. Its seems that even low level employees, whether at the IRS, the Passport office, the DMV, the Hospital or wherever, can improperly look at your data and often do even if for their own amusement. The more data they have and the less segmented it is, the less secure it will be. This means they can look up everything they have about you, from your shopping habits, your gun purchases, your travel, who you know where your girlfriends are.

And I'm sure you know from being in the Software industry, that despite the best intentions about keeping customer databases secure, they get copied and accessed by multiple people for multiple reasons. Usually good, but that means that lots and lots of people get access to sensitive data. Sometimes account numbers, SSNs, addresses. A lot of stuff.

We can all be targeted at any point should we come under the scrutiny or run afoul or annoy some public employee or official.

At any point, because there are millions of laws and regulations on the books and thousands more every year. Despite our own best efforts we are all scofflaws of one sort or another.

And possibly more importantly is that this means that political opponents can be targeted subverting the entire free election process.

All it takes is for a “high government official” to decide they have reason to believe you are a terrorist and you can be disappeared. Without a trial. Without evidence. Nothing. Because this trustworthy official has decided.

Think about that. Your only safety is trying to keep your head down and not get noticed. Decidedly the opposite of free speech in a free society.

Trust us. We are doing this for your own good.

Trust us. It’s for national security.

Trust us. Those people we killed without a trial, they were terrorists.

Trust us. We can’t show you the evidence, its secret.

Trust us. We have determined that our own actions are legal.

Trust us from a government that is caught lying continually.

Trust us from a government that has proven itself incompetent at every level.

Trust us from a government that invokes executive privilege over matters they claim they had no involvement of.

Trust us from a government that hides behind state secrets at every turn.

Trust us from a government that despite all of the intelligence gathering, secrecy, destruction of liberty has show they still cannot keep us safe. Yet all of these abuses continue.

The Great Farm Bill Rip-Off...

An excellent primer (from Reason magazine) on just what's wrong with the farm subsidy bill currently moving through Congress...

FJ Cruiser: Platform Details...

Well, I've got two coats of orange paint on the platform parts, but they're not dry enough yet to work with.  That means I can't yet install the structural parts into the FJ, and I can't put the rubberized deck coating on the horizontal parts.  To (hopefully!) speed up the drying process, I've placed all the parts on a “rack” (sawhorses and beams) in the middle of our front yard, where they can bake nicely in the sun.  We'll see how dry they are after today, which is forecast to be hot and dry...

Meanwhile, in between dog emergencies (Race got a sudden case of the hives; we're still working out why and he's got a vet appointment today) I spent the rest of the day fabricating a couple of power distribution blocks.  I need these inside the platform to distribute up to about 200 amps of 12 volt power, to (especially) the 2KW inverter, the refrigerator outlet, and the air compressor.  I also want some room for adding devices in the future.

Power distribution blocks are common commercial devices, but I couldn't find one that could handle 0 gauge wire and small wire that was of nice quality.  Plus they were outrageously expensive.  So I decided to make mine, starting with 12" of 3/4" square brass stock.  That story is told in the photos below, but the bottom line is that they came out great!

The photos:

Platform parts baking in the sun...

Clamping rig for boring into the end of the brass stock (these are the big holes for the 0 gauge wire).  The limited travel of my drill press, plus the fact that the table can't rotate more than 40°, made this a little awkward.  A nice, square piece of oak 2x2 solved the problem nicely...

Boring a 7/16" hole into 3/4" inch stock doesn't leave much room for error...

After boring brass for a while, the shavings under the drill press were kind of pretty and sparkly in the bright sunlight...

Boring some of the smaller holes.  There were a total of 16 holes in each of the two distribution blocks that I needed to drill.  Nine of these holes needed to be threaded (for 7 set screws and two mounting screws).  That's a lot of holes to bore!  The holes for the wires and the holes for the matching set screws had to match up exactly, so precision was important here...

The finished result.  The left-hand one shows the top, with all the set screws ready to clamp down on the wires (the wires go in from the sides and ends).  The right-hand one shows a side view, with one of the 0 gauge holes showing on the end, and three of the 8 gauge holes showing on the side.  You can also see the nylon mounting screws (nylon so that the +12V isn't exposed on the mounting screw).

A slightly different view, showing the 0 gauge hole and the set screw poking into it (right-hand unit).  The 8 gauge holes were where the most precision was needed - if the wire hole and set screw holes were offset by more than about 1/32", things wouldn't have worked out well.  They all matched perfectly, with the set screws going right through the middle of the wire holes...