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January 5, 2023 – Happy New Years… You Deserve What You Get

January 5, 2023 /

These 20 new Oregon laws are going into effect in 2023 (msn.com)

I don’t know why I get suckered into paying attention to this stuff. It doesn’t change the water temperature in my pool. On the other hand, it is really revealing and annoying the things that our government finds important and spends our money on. Here is a summary of the nonsense.

LawGrade (-/0/+)Analysis
Newborn Home Visits to be Reimbursed–Forces insurers to include up to three home visits in plans. Read: Spend more of other’s money
Lower the cost of one day fishing license0I am all for making fishing more accessible but that money goes for conservation.
Restitution payments to victims first +Victims are paid before court costs. Sounds like the intent of restitution
Department of Education composition matches state demographics–Like all affirmative action, I am not in favor quotas. Let’s focus on feeling better rather than results.
Workers compensation cannot be suspended without prior notification0Seems fair. I am sure most of this was used on people that probably milked the system
School board members must provide any conflict of interest, source of income, etc.–I am all for transparency, when equally applied. Why are we picking on one group specifically? What about all politicians?
Red light tickets can be issued by a clerk, not just an officer–I don’t believe in cameras. I don’t believe in lowering standards.
Department of Education will use standardized testing to develop future plans and measure effectiveness–So, they weren’t doing this already? And what have they been doing?
Dental coverage offed to members of COFA and do not qualify for the Oregon Health plan–These are non-US citizens that are earning less than 138% of the US poverty rate. What the…?
Evidence collected in a sexual assault investigation must contain a medical examination form0So, we were collecting samples without any associated information? Seems like we shouldn’t but a law was necessary?
The word Alien is now replaced with non-citizen0I guess this is so we can tell the difference of intent between space aliens and non-citizens if future law.
New position of Child Support Referee created. Can have adjudication powers0I don’t know enough about this or the system to know if this is good or bad. Presumably this adjust the judicial system burden.
Unlicensed real estate agent fines increase–I am not in favor of enforcing cartels. From my experience real estate agents don’t deserve what they get and there is no legal requirement to use one.
Voter registration can use Social Security Cards to verify identity–What a great idea. Let’s add more uncertainty into the process. Do you know how many people I know that have had their identity stolen?
Defines benefit year as Jan 1 with 52 contiguous weeks0Fine. We need to have common definitions for all of our entitlements.
Employers will require five days notice to force employees to work overtime–It is a wonder that there are any employers in this state.
Expands the list of occupational diseases for firefighters+This includes volunteer firefighters. I think first responders deserve some respect. It would be better to not have a list at all.
Restricts the amount of regulation local government can place on alarm systems and electric fences+Finally, something that actually restricts government.
Expands workers comp beneficiary list0In these days of gender/identity crisis, why not. My man servant deserves to be taken care of if I depart this earth. If we are going to sanctify this nonsense, we need to support it.

Generally speaking, there is really nothing that is actually important here. I suppose legal clarity reduces loopholes and things but it is really amazing how many people really don’t understand the phrase ‘shall not be infringed’. For some reason, they interpret that to mean shall not be infringed in gerrymandered set of parameters like except if it is fully automatic or has a magazine that can hold more than 10 rounds or it is black or whatever.

My point is we can say something is that we can make a law that the sky is blue but then we will still have people that want to argue all of the fringe elements. Like, well it is actually black at night or gray when it rains or red at sunset. It is a never ending series of definition/loophole/denial or whatever process happens. So, while I ranked all clarification laws as neutral, they really should get a futile ranking.

There is something about incompetent’s ‘fixing their mistakes’. Have you ever observed this in real time? I have. The first thing is that they don’t actually understand the problem(s). But, like the Dutch Boy plugging the leaks, once they stick their finger in the hole, the other hand is high fiving anyone who walks by. The people walking by have spent the last hour staring at their phone and only look up to see our hero has plugged the leak while there are twenty five leaks behind them and a hundred ahead. After the high five, they go back to their phones and walk right through the mess.

End Your Programming Routine: I have to apologize. I think I got triggered when I read the list of laws that were going into effect. I shouldn’t be surprised or upset that idiots do idiotic things, it is their nature. I should have never looked at the list, but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to know what new fun I was in store for. And now you do too.

January 4, 2023 – Take Your Saw Blades To the Dentist

January 4, 2023 /

You know, I suppose that I am lucky. I go to the dentist twice a year. One time I was talking to my dentist and he said that some people have teeth so bad that they have to come in once a month for cleaning. Whatever the chemistry or the diet or the personal habits are, there is enough build-up necessary to have a cleaning session.

A lot of times, your saw blades have the same problem. The quality of the cut is not necessarily the sharpness of the blade, but the build-up of the sap/pitch/crud on the teeth. Not only does that build-up effect the quality of the cut but it also effects the quality of the blade. Meaning, the harder the metal has to work the more heat build-up there is and the more likely dullness and or damage will occur.

Just like the dentist, I brush my teeth, then I scrape them using something like an X-acto knife and then I brush them again. My picture above is after brushing them once. First, I spray on some simple green. I have the blade in a very cheap automotive fluids pan to contain everything and let them soak for 15 minutes. Then I use a bronze bristle brush like you would find in the gun cleaning section of the store.

When to to this is usually visually apparent. You can see the build-up on the saw blade. Now, I am as lazy as anyone else. I don’t like doing this and it takes away from my productive shop time. So, I make the decision on a task by task basis. If I am cutting construction lumber, then I don’t really care so much about cut quality, but on my woodworking projects, I do care about the finish cuts.

All that being said, I would also be more diligent depending on the quality of the blade. The one pictured is a $40 blade today ($30 at the time I bought it). I suppose that this is nothing to sneeze at but there are much more expensive blades. It is a decent quality blade and cut, but in the end these are consumables.

And with all of that, I am not manic about it. I spend thirty minutes doing the major cleaning and maintenance and then I move on. It doesn’t look like it came out of the box but it works much better than before I cleaned it.

Before I scare anyone off, the frequency of cleaning has a lot to do with what you are cutting. I tend to cut mostly fir, hemlock, cedar and spruce. These are high resin woods where the buildup happens immediately. Working with the American hardwoods like oak, maple, walnut and others the pitch buildup will be significantly less. My air dried fir has hidden pitch pockets that are still liquid so it doesn’t take long to coat everything in pitch (including my fingers).

Up until this point I have been referring to circular saw blades. Band saw blades are effected even more from buildup. When I am re-sawing boards, it is nearly impossible to get a straight cut when the blade is not clean. I do the same process, I just leave the blade on the saw when I do it.

There is probably a lot more to say on the topic of saw blades in general but I wanted to focus on cleaning them today. There are specific products for this job on the market, but Simple Green (or generic substitute) works just fine for me. That being said, I have never tried them so they may work better than what I am doing. There are other products that are meant prevent the problem in the first place. Think of it like Pam for your tools. I worry about that stuff effecting the finish that I eventually put on the wood.

End Your Programming Routine: If you are struggling with quality cuts, take a look at your blade. You might be amazed at what a difference a cleaning will make on the final outcome. You also might need a more appropriate blade for your task, so try cleaning first, then replace if results are not desirable.

January 3, 2023 – HTGR 2023

January 3, 2023 /

And… welcome to 2023. We are starting the year off by going back to basics by talking about planning. Not to mention, we are almost back to a normal schedule with a podcast on Tuesday. Listen today to learn how I plan to hit the ground running in the new year.

End Your Programming Routine: I have a cloud of tags when I am writing that show my top ten most commonly used tags in my blog. Planning makes that list. Despite that, I don’t remember the last time I wrote or talked about it. The new year is the perfect time to plan but so is any other time of year. The most important thing is to do it and then check up from time to time to see how you are doing.

January 2, 2023 – One More Day

January 2, 2023 /

I wanted to wish you Happy New Year. Hopefully 2023 is a year filled with prosperity.

I am taking one more day off from a difficult and busy holiday season. I have a real need to recharge my batteries and I am hoping that these spot days off help with that. I will be back tomorrow.

December 30, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 3:6

December 30, 2022 /

I think that it is fitting that we end the calendar year on Atlas Shrugged. This has been a monumental review series for me. There has been so much good and relevant content that seems to be evergreen even though it was written in the 1950s. This chapter is no exception.

Hank Reardon’s family tries to backtrack on their relationship with him. They try to apologize to him because the state has seized all of Reardon’s assets and he has no more liquid cash to keep paying them. Reardon’s family wants him to start clearing assets so that he has cash flow to keep supporting them which Hank refuses to do.

The meeting with the government proceeded the meeting with his family. Essentially they were also backtracking because they were afraid that he was going to quit. They were offering what they called an equitable deal by combining all of the profits and dispensing them out by proportional furnace count. This plan was to be administered via the Steel Unification Board just like the railroad. The fact that Reardon had fifty percent more output with a third the amount of furnaces did not sit well and Hank refuses to take the deal.

As Reardon left the meeting he found a riot in front of the gate to the steel factory. The riot was labeled as union driven but was apparently incited by the government reps, specifically Tinky Holloway who was slated to be the head of the Steel Unification Board. I will spare all the intimate details so that you can read the book and all of the twists and turns. Suffice to say, I want to talk about the riots.

There is a term that is called ‘Astroturfing‘. It means that there is something that appears to be organic or natural but really isn’t. In context, it is generally used to describe events such as protests that are often heavily funded or staffed by outsiders. This is what we have with the steel mill riots. where the rioters are not even workers or union members but paid rabble rousers.

Practices like this are used for the optics of the situation. When some event is dubbed the ‘Million Mom March‘ then there darn well be at least one million moms attending or the cause will be deemed illegitimate. You can read the link if you like, I am going to talk about it next.

Wikipedia states that the million mom march organization said that there was 500-750,000 people in attendance. National Park Service estimates 150,000 but the organization’s numbers included 70 satellite gatherings in their numbers as well. If you remember the media coverage, special camera angles were used to make the gathering appear as full as possible and therefore how could it not be one million moms.

This event was a re-branding of Handgun Control Incorporated (which incidentally has been named two other things and is now Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence). So I ask you, what sounds more benign, Handgun Control Inc or the Million Mom March? And what were they really marching for? Were they loving, caring moms or were they trying to impose their political and moral beliefs on others?

Brady has been around since the 1980s and will likely be around forever more. But, their new name sounds a lot like some other organizations like Moms Demand Action; really, not really. If I look at the summary statement when I search the group, I read ‘a grass roots organization’ but on the very same page I see that the parent organization is Everytown for Gun Safety and their actual name is Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

Let us just look a little further. When I search Everytown for Gun Safety, I find that the founder of the organization in Michael Bloomberg. I am not going to say that a billionaire cannot be the founder of some sort of organization, but I am going to have a hard time swallowing the ‘grass roots’ definition.

Grass roots means that it starts with you and me. I seemed to have misplaced my 75 billion extra dollars, so I think I am one of the people. What I am getting at here is that every time we see some sort of national political/equity movement, look a little deeper into the origin story like this one sponsoring Black Lives Matter (Tides Foundation).

Just wait until the next chapter, we are going to learn all about ‘shared prosperity’. I am equally enamored by the self titled definition of ‘charity’.

End Your Programming Routine: I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this but I am all for equality. My definition of equality is just that, equal. If you remember my analysis of Rights in the American Dream Series then you will remember that Rights are actually subjective. This my friends is getting to where it is at. The fact that Rand laid all of this at our feet seventy years ago and we are too stupid to recognize same game different players is our own fault. More on that as we progress. See you in 2023 for the finale.

December 29, 2022 – AltF4.co Year In Review

December 29, 2022 /

It’s that time again. We need to celebrate our success and condemn our failures. I talk about the things that I think are the highlights, places that didn’t go the way I expected and plans for next year.

End Your Programming Routine: I am a big believer in checking in the rear view mirror. You cant drive forward that way but you can sure see what you have run over. I suppose the goal for every content creator is to do more of what worked better, try hard to do what you plan or say and figure out what you are going to do next. That is what this is all about

December 28, 2023 – Black Eyed Peas and New Years

December 28, 2022 /

If you have ever lived in the south, then this very well may be a nothing burger. The first time we celebrated New Years Day in South Carolina, I found out that it was some kind of tradition. Imagine me, a doe eyed west coaster talking with our strongly southern accented friends asking if we have black eyed peas for New Years.

First of all, I don’t know if I had ever eaten black eyed peas. Secondly, we certainly didn’t have any sort of tradition like eating them on New Years. And more so than that, who puts a dime in the bean pot?

That’s right, the person that gets the dime in their serving gets and extra helping of luck throughout the year. At least that is the superstition. Doing some quick research, it seems like this tradition is very strong in the Carolinas because so much of the low land was strongly Gullah/Geechee west African descendants. As such, black eyed peas, field peas and rice hold a common culinary base for cultural cooking.

These beans can be served bland like any dry and boiled bean or they can be a full meal. Soak the beans overnight, drain the liquid in the morning and go crazy. I like a mirepoix, bacon/fatback, broth and a lot of collard greens, particularly the stems seasoned with some cajun or creole seasoning. You can serve that with some cornbread. It is easy peasy, just have your planning in place.

Today’s nanny state says not to put a dime in the beans. You are going to choke on it and die. Then your estate will sue the host and we will have another blood feud. So much for extra luck. I’ve never done it because I don’t believe in extra luck, but would say just warn people to be on the lookout for something non-edible.

I went down a total rabbit hole when I was looking at traditions for New Years day. What I learned is that there is no real standardization on when a new years should be. Ancient Rome was March 1, India is Diwali (October), China and Islam use a lunar calendar (late winter). A different topic for a different day so, I guess we will stick to the USA. Fireworks at midnight, the Rose parade or black eyed peas. It used to be college football bowl games until the playoff system screwed it all up.

End Your Programming Routine: New Year Day is one of those rare holidays that doesn’t seem to hold much in terms of expectations. At only one week from Christmas, it is so close that I feel like it doesn’t get much attention, traditions aside. I always feel like it is here and gone. So, why not fire up a pot of beans and serve a hearty and hot meal as a new tradition.

December 27, 2022 – Test Post From Rumble

December 27, 2022 /

I got a chuckle out of this… very creative. I thought that I would see if I could embed this for fun. So I did and it works. I also like the fact that it plays natively in my feed rather than moving to another site.

December 26-27, 2022 – Merry Christmas [Break]

December 26, 2022 /

I said it on my podcast on Thursday but I am announcing that I am taking the next two days off. Of course, this is hitting after the actual holiday, but I don’t want to commit myself to getting content up so close to the holiday. The rest of the week is already scheduled to be posted to last out the week beginning on Wednesday.

As I have said many times, I stub out and do a lot of prep before the day that the post actually publishes. I have lots of ideas in the queue but there is so much dependency on getting things in the right sequence that we just have to wait and let things unwind a little bit before I can start writing new stuff. I am not trying to be cryptic but I am talking about Atlas Shrugged. But I am also full up on Christmas activities at the moment and don’t really have the time to do the necessary pre-work. That being said, I will need to spend my uptime this week preparing for another holiday and that is New Years (next week).

I didn’t mention it but we did pass a milestone last week. This is something that I look forward to each year and that is Winter Solstice. This means that we are on the upside of daylight increasing each day. Of course, we wont notice it until February but it is something to be optimistic about because it just feels better to be on the upswing.

End Your Programming Routine: With that, it seems like a perfect time to just take a couple days off. You can spend your time playing with your new Christmas toys and enjoying time with your family, watching movies or sports or even drinking yourself senseless instead of checking in with me.

December 23, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 3:5

December 23, 2022 /

This was a long one at fifty pages. The good news is that while there are a lot of words, not that much was really important. A lot of back story and setup was going on. That kind of reminds me of year end. There is a lot going on but none of it is important. We spend a lot of time reflecting on the year that was but all those things already happened.

Shortages begin. Jim gloats to Dabny about his acquisition of d’Anconia Copper but all of the sudden the mines are blown up, presumably Djanneskjold. Emma Chalmers (aka Kip’s Ma) is promoting Soy Beans over the traditional grain crop of wheat. For that reason, the rail schedule is being manipulated by Cuffy Meigs to favor getting soy beans to market rather than wheat. Trains are not staged and the wheat crop is ruined.

This series of events begins an entire chapter of civil unrest. Murder, succession, riots and all the things that go along with shortage of basic food stuffs and supplies. There are multiple incidents of mechanical failure which are the triggers to such events and it is implied that the cause is the shortage of copper wire.

Sometimes a national diet is the result of a necessity and sometimes it is a result of a decision that someone else makes. Take for instance ancient China. Diets consisted of vegetables, local protein and rice in the more southern region. Cultures that grew to a large population had a large agrarian component for obvious reasons. A society needed a huge amount of calories to sustain growth. Those calories largely came as a result of carbohydrates.

Contrast these relatively huge population numbers in Asia against protein oriented cultures such as Mongols, Germanic barbarians or prairie native Americans. Those populations were tiny in comparison. Part of the reason is that animals contain a large number of calories compared to carbohydrates by the acre but they also have a degree of chance related to procuring food. It was not practically possible for these societies to grow to such a large size given their efforts to survive.

Something quite transformational happens when a society becomes agrarian. They also become docile and weak. No longer is freedom valued over security. The individualistic characteristic starts to become an identity of a collective. This is not an exhaustive treatise on the types of societies or their diets per se but an argument with the generalities of such.

It is sort of ironic that the American stereotype of a farmer is a hard scrabble, protagonist of sorts. When in reality, they have silently become the serf in the collective machine. They are the foundation of big food which is the fuel tank of the imperialistic regime. Not only do they feed the world but they are the first advocates of the patriotic propaganda. Talk about the slaves proud of their chains.

Lest you think that I am picking on farmers, I am simply saying that they are the enablers to the agrarian society. It’s not that I don’t think they work hard, they sure do. If I had a choice to hang out with the red, white and blue crowd or the high earning liberals you can guess who I would choose. The real problem for me is that I don’t belong to either.

So, where does this leave us? I believe that the soy bean reference is an homage to the versatility of the legume as a food source and the Asian origin a hotbed of communism in the 1950s. At least the classical definition of communism contained a 100% planned economy and society which included a diet steeped in classical diet. I don’t know for sure, but I would be willing to guess that North Koreans have limited choices when planning meals.

It is the sociopath that want’s to rule others. And by ruling others doesn’t just mean creating the laws from a legal standpoint but also how big their house has to be, how much rent is too much rent to charge, how fast you can drive, what is too big to fail and let us not forget what to not eat. The way the new world order is going, meat is on the out just like surcharging portion size. We literally have the ‘food plate’ to guide us on a diet that leads straight to obesity and diabetes.

I am speaking off the cuff and I should do the research rather than speak in speculation but I don’t have the time at the moment. Soy has been linked to phytoestrogen and the feminization of America. We colloquially call them ‘man boobs’ but it is much more than that. An increase in allergies and obesity and heart disease for a high soy diet which ironically we have with a highly processed diet.

Here is one to whet the appetite because I felt bad about just speaking in platitudes.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soybean-fertility-hormone-isoflavones-genistein/

All that being said, I am relatively sure that if you ate soy beans every day there would be no real consequences. But that is not how we use them in our diet. More on that another day.

End Your Programming Routine: Dangerous speech filtration is now protecting us from seeing the truth or even lies. While we can still read whatever books we want, we are a society that is becoming too lazy to bother. On my recent flight to Indianapolis, not a single reading light was on, including mine which was broken. Maybe they all were but I estimate one in thirty lights on a typical flight. Everyone is on a device or built in screen on the plane. The longer we live with portable electronics, the less reading lights are on during flights.

Reading is not the solution, but the indicator of critical thinking. TV is called programing for a reason. It is entertainment not stimulation. I think fiction is a healthy part of being well rounded but too much fiction becomes fantasy. And, when we live in fantasy, we forget to question whether a soy based diet is the right choice or even a proper choice.