Author: Derek
Ward Manor Happenings
Kilt Fitting
The Wife’s nephew is getting married in a couple of months. After some discussion with the bride, it was agreed I could wear a kilt – as long as I did the whole formal kilt thing. So, after some emailing with the proprietor of Lothian Kilt Rentals, The Wife and I trekked up to Tarpon Springs for a fitting. Which was a good thing because the formal kilts are very different than my 5.11 kilts. Let’s just say it’s a good thing The Wife will be there to help me do up all the buckles. I do regret not getting a pic of me in the full gear, but I will make sure to post one from the wedding.
Nephew’s Birthday
We trekked over across the state for my nephew’s birthday shindig. One of the things he asked to do was a mini-tournament between Nephew, Rocket Engineer Brother, The Brother, and me. In L5R Empire Edition. With sealed deck boxes. I managed to put together a Unicorn deck, but damn am I out of practice. I went 1 and 1 with REB curbstomping me with his Lion deck, and me out-honoring my nephew against his Crab deck. My prize? A little trophy with a horse on it labeled “Not My First Rodeo.”
FPC Red Dot
When I bought my S&W FPC, I put a Sig Romeo red dot on it. I wasn’t really happy with how quick it drained the little battery, and it didn’t seem to hold very well. So, I swapped it out with a Vortex. I prefer the single bead red dots. Now I just need to get some BIUS, but those will have to wait until I get some more cash.
The Great Crusade +80
Eighty years ago, the Allied forces launched the largest amphibious operation in history.
And because it’s me, here’s the Sabaton History video.
Monday Links
Let’s start off with our normal slew of Reason links.
Obligatory article on Trump conviction. Do I think that anyone else but Trump would have been brought to trial on this flimsy of a legal theory? No. Do I think this demonstrates the abuse a prosecutor can do with his powers? Yes. Do I think this could have all been avoided if Trump just kept it in his pants and not cheated on his wife? Also yes.
Obligatory article on the unanimous Supreme Court decision in favor of the NRA. Again, give the government enough power, and officials will abuse it.
Oh look, Fauci was caught trying to evade FOIA. This happens way too often. And it only makes the news when it’s someone prominent.
Gorsuch rails against Florida’s use of six-person juries. This one I don’t understand. What does it matter if it’s six or twelve? But I’m willing to be convinced. Maybe a tiered system. Civil and misdemeanors use six, minor felonies use eight, and major felonies have twelve.
Jumping minimum wage up to $20/hr has bad effects. Shocked Pikachu face.
A couple of Ground News aggregations.
That deputy who shot an airman who answered the door with a gun? Yeah, he’s fired. Now to see if he’s prosecuted.
China convicted 14 pro-democracy Hong Kong protestors.
Now on to other news stories.
You think you know how SEO works for the Google algorithm? Probably not, according to some leaked documents.
An article on Exo-Squad. That was such a great cartoon.
Here’s an interview with one of the creators of Magic: The Gathering.
Good Night Dr. Watson
Almost eleven and a half years ago, The Brother and I adopted the two males out of a litter that were on Shootin’ Buddy’s back porch. The Brother named his long hair tan and white Dr. Watson. Because he was The Brother’s trusty companion. Watson was a very easy going cat, but clearly a single-person cat. I think it took months before Watson would let me pet him. This caused some frustration with The Wife who loves all cats and wants to show that.
The last six months have not been good for Watson. It finally caught up last weekend.
The family will miss Watson.
NRA Finally Starting to Heal?
Last week was the NRA Annual Meeting. The big news wasn’t the guns introduced – which I didn’t hear much about. It was how the leadership elections played out.
The best sources are John Richardson’s No Lawyers – Only Guns and Money blog and Stephen Gutowski’s The Reload. Both have the blow by blow of the elections and the fight over moving the headquarters from Virginia to Texas. (That one got spicy fast).
The TLDR. Although the establishment managed to elect Bob Barr as NRA President, the First and Second VP slots, as well as the EVP/CEO slot went to reformers. Moreover, the new EVP/CEO, Doug Hamlin has started shaking up things and reminding the NRA staff that they are there for the members. That they need to regain the members’ trust.
Those are very good first steps. The revelations of the previous regime’s shenanigans resulted in plunging membership (and revenues) as well as soaring legal bills. Extremely bad for an organization to continue being a going concern.
I am cautiously optimistic. I’m going to watch to see what Mr. Hamlin does over the next six months. If he continues to make these kinds of reforms, I’ll rejoin the NRA.
Monday Links
I hope everyone is having a good Memorial Day weekend. There will be a bit of tab clearing since we didn’t have a links post last week.
I’ve got a slew of Reason articles to start.
A look into how bad science is keeping bad regulations around nuclear power. We need more nuclear power. Because we need more power. Because we need to reduce our dependence on oil. Not just climate change, but because of the politics and other environmental hazards of oil.
A look at how zoning regulations empower the people we don’t want to have power.
Surprise, surprise, the real reason for self-checkout bans is not the stated reason of stopping theft. Incentives matter, and that doesn’t change once the issue becomes political.
No, Super Size Me was not a documentary. It was a bullshit publicity stunt that did nothing to address what it purported to address. Other than getting Mickey D’s to change it’s branding.
NYT says that looser gun laws caused the spike in homicides. Um, yeah. Keep thinking that.
This one about a New York man being convicted of building guns made the rounds of the gunblogs, but here’s Reason’s coverage. The judge telling the defense the Second Amendment doesn’t work here was surprisingly unsurprising.
Now on to other sources.
From Ground News, we have an aggregation of Uvalde parents suing Meta, Microsoft, and Daniel Defense because the bad guy was on Facebook, played Call of Duty, and used a DD rifle. I’m kinda glad the plaintiffs are pulling in Meta and Microsoft, as they can slap down those better than Daniel Defense.
From 404 Media – all those nifty northern lights that folks were able to see earlier this month? Yeah, that same coronal storm caused issues with tractors talking with GPS, which has resulted in issues with planting. Which will definitely have some downstream effects in the food supply chain.
Nature published an op-ed decrying climate scientists being climate activists. This has been one of the big problems with doing anything about climate change. The moment you step out of being a neutral dispenser of information to a partisan, whatever information you provide is degraded. Either because a swath of the population will no longer believe you, or your information becomes shaded. Because incentives matter.
Ars Technica has an article on a company that had its Google Cloud account completely wiped out. Including the backups. Fortunately, the company had backups other than Google, but it’s an interesting case study.
Via The Brother, here’s the transcript from a talk Bert Hubert delivered on Cyber Security and war.
From the local TV station, we have an article about a homeowner who killed an intruder, by stabbing him, after the intruder shot her in the face. In a fight for your life, don’t stop until you can’t fight anymore. Or the threat is stopped.