Apr 122023
 

As a non-user of mind-altering substances… good:

Federal Judge Tosses Gun Possession Case Against Drug Users

“In short, the historical tradition of disarming ‘unlawful’ individuals appears to mainly involve disarming those convicted of serious crimes after they have been afforded criminal process,” Judge Cardone wrote in her opinion. “Section 922(g)(3), in contrast, disarms those who engage in criminal conduct that would give rise to misdemeanor charges, without affording them the procedural protections enshrined in our criminal justice system.”

As with “red flag laws,” a case can be made for disarming someone. But that case requires the rule of law, the presumption of innocence, due process, the right of the accused to put up a defense. Just yeeting someones rights Because Reasons is unAmerican. And taking someones guns because they smoke dope is pretty stupid when we *don’t* take someones guns because they drink alcohol. I’ve seen drunks, and I’ve seen stoners… and I know which of the two I’d consider more chill, more likely to just sit there and gnaw on some Cheetos, and which group would be more likely to fly into an irrational rage.

 Posted by at 10:57 pm
Apr 122023
 

Security fears mount after top-secret Biden Belfast visit plan found in street

I gotta say, I’ve never come across top secret documents about ongoing Presidential security matters just flopping about on the road. The story is unclear, but this seems to be an Irish document rather than a White House document. Which, given this White House, is honestly a bit surprising.

 Posted by at 10:35 pm
Apr 112023
 

The Grim Truth: The War on Guns Is Lost

The author of this New Republic piece seems close to tears that:

  • Millions of Americans are exercising their basic rights
  • The Supreme Court recognizes their basic rights
  • Americans keep voting for enough politicians who understand the Constitution to keep the tyrants somewhat at bay.

This is one of those cases where reference to “liberal tears” is wholly legitimate. The author sees the idea of Americans being allowed to own standard firearms as a horrible tragedy, a failure of the police state she would prefer we lived in. The only hope she seems to have is in a “National Divorce.”

 

However, chances are quite good that the despair is performative. Take a look at the listing of the other New Republic pieces written by this author; they are all leftist black pills. Republicans either live rent free in her head, or she’s paying the rent by ginning up fear of Republicans.

Shrug.

 Posted by at 2:35 pm
Apr 082023
 

So there I am minding my own business when a text message comes in from my dad. Nothing unusual there. But the message is long, rambling, kinda stream-of-consciousness, seemingly part of a conversation I wasn’t a part of. I have received messages meant for other people before, but the format of the message, and the length of it, were quite unlike my dad’s normal type of messages. So I send him a “WTF” response. A few minutes later, clarification: the phone *listened* to my dad as he held a conversation with someone else, transcribed both sides of the conversation into a single kinda gibberishy paragraph, and then decided to send that transcript to me.

At no point in the process was my dad clued in to this; the phone did it itself.

So… who else gets these transcripts? The NSA? FBI? IRS? The Russians? And as seems most likely, the Chinese?

Something to keep in mind: if your phone, or Alexa, Siri, HAL, or any other modern device *can* hear you, it *does* hear you. And sometimes it does stuff with what it hears.

 

Now pardon me while I wrap my cell phone in a few layers of tinfoil.

 Posted by at 1:49 pm
Apr 062023
 

National Weather Service confirms a tornado touched down a few blocks from here. It was puny as such things go… EF-1, winds of 95 miles per hour. But it did raise a ruckus.

Destructive Winds, Very Large Hail & Tornadoes: April 4-5th, 2023

Date 04/04/2023
Time (Local) 09:41 AM – 09:43 AM
EF Rating EF-1
Est. Peak Winds 95 mph
Path Length 1.6 miles
Max Width 150 yards
Injuries/Deaths 0
Summary:

A brief tornado touched down in Rock Island, Illinois. The tornado knocked over and snapped large trees and produced minor damage to several roofs. Widespread damaging straight line winds up to 90 mph also caused significant damage across the city.

 

 Posted by at 11:45 pm
Apr 062023
 

In Colorado Springs:

Former D20 student accused of planning attacks on three campuses

“D20” here is “district 20.” The new trend isn’t “19-year-old tries to shoot up a middle school and some churches.” Guess what it is.

Go on, guess.

Here’s a subtle hint:

William Whitworth who identifies as “Lilly” has been charged with felony criminal attempt to commit murder …

Did you spot it?

That’s right: the mass shooter was arrested *before* the mass shooting.

Nothing else here is noteworthy. Nothing.

NOTHING.

 Posted by at 8:41 pm
Apr 052023
 

As I’ve previously mentioned, something holding back my return to cyanotyping is a sudden lack of availability of the transparent film required. Without that I can’t print off new negatives. Early on in this protracted process I managed to get a few prints from a local print shop; these prints were made at a distant affiliate and shipped in. But later efforts to get more printed not only failed, the local print shop *lied* to me about what was going on. This pissed me off, of course and now they are on my Do Not Do Business With list.

Another local print ship has been attempting for some months to procure a roll of the stuff. I will have to buy the whole roll, hundreds of dollars of it, because there are not other customers. Well, yesterday, just before the storm came in and took out electricity and communications, I received and email letting me know that, at long last, the roll had arrived. Woo! This morning, with the return of electricity and comms, I sent them a followup email asking if they were ready to proceed with printing new cyanotype-transparencies.

Answer: the storm took *them* out, they are still without power, and there were hints that equipment might have been damaged.

Sigh.

Well, at least there’s some measure of forward progress.

 Posted by at 11:11 pm