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VINDICATED – mostly
February 27, 2025 at 5:43 pm (Science)
About 19 years ago, I blogged about Diet Sodas, and how the ‘sweet’ may trick the body. Today, I read about how artificial sweeteners ‘trick’ the body & cause an insulin spike. https://12ft.io/https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/popular-artificial-sweetener-may-impact-heart-health-research-shows-5811637
That’s not exactly ground-breaking, as the insulin spike has been noted before in mice – https://www.scimex.org/newsfeed/common-artificial-sweetener-can-damage-the-hearts-of-mice
Now I’m not claiming to have ANYTHING to do with any of this research. I am just kindof gloating that my gut instinct was right (on this at least).
Condescending Mid-wits
September 20, 2021 at 5:12 pm (Uncategorized)
An Arkansas hospital is requiring employees to sign a form to request religious exemption from the Covid vaccine. Not that there is anything wrong with that per-se. But the form the hospital is using is both condescending and untrue.
The condescending I can understand, as the only acceptable Christian ‘faith’ is ‘be nice and don’t judge.’ It used to bother me that ‘new age’ religions & others don’t get treated that way, but I got over it. We’re approaching the end-times, and it’s only going to get worse from here.
The article, and form are at https://archive.ph/cuTrVArkansas. And the LIE? It’s not even a good one. Fetal cells were ONLY used in the development viral vaccines from the late 60s, and approved for use in 1970 in Europe and 1979 in the US. And of the list of medications (and duplicates), these were produced PRIOR to fetal cell use:
Aspirin in 1899, Pepto-Bismol in 1901, Ex-Lax (Senokot) in 1906, Sudafed in the 1920s, Tums in 1928, Preparation-H in 1935, Sufedrine in 1938, Benadryl (Diphenhydramine) in 1940, Maalox in 1949, Tylenol (acetaminophen) in 1952, Motrin (ibuprofen) in 1962, and Albuterol in 1972.
Also, isn’t including both the brand name as well as the generic name the kind of trick a middle-school student would use to pad the length of a report – before they have figured out that increasing the font size and margins lengthens a paper too? To me, it sounds like it was written by a humanities mid-wit trying to sound important and ‘educate’ the stupid Christians.
So the LIE in the document are that a significant portion of the listed drugs did not use ‘fetal cells in their development.’
So if you are confronted with one of these forms, ask how accurate the information on these drugs is. Get them to sign it if you can.
And if you’re interested, there is a ‘feedback’ page at https://www.conwayregional.org/patients-visitors/patients/give-feedback
Red Flags, Rights, & Suggestions
August 11, 2019 at 7:37 pm (Guns, Politics)
Red flag laws Lets think about this for a minute. Here’s the BEST case scenario:
- A report is made of an unstable, dangerous person to police
- Police show up, and remove all of their firearms without incident
- The positive result of this is that a dangerous person no longer has access to firearms.
- The negative result of this is that a dangerous individual is alerted to the police suspicions, given extra motivation for action, and an accelerated timeframe for acting. They only need to find new tools, like knives (as were used in 9/11), or fertilizer (like the OK city bombing), or a truck (like Nice, France). Maybe they’ll get creative and find a new way that we haven’t seen yet.
In a BAD scenario:
- A false report is made. The individual isn’t dangerous.
- Police show up in the wee hours of the morning, ‘dynamically’ enter their house, kill their dogs, and terrorize the family.
- After a suitable investigation, the firearms are returned.
In the WORST scenario:
- A false report is made. The individual isn’t dangerous.
- Police show up in the wee hours of the morning, ‘dynamically’ enter their house, kill their dogs, and terrorize the family, injuring or killing a family member. That causes enough stress that the individual now IS dangerous.
- An investigation finds nothing in the past behavior of the individual, and the firearms are returned.
Rights Unfortunately, I am not an artist. I can’t draw. If I could, this section would be a picture instead of a wall of text. The left of the picture would be of the press & politicians standing on a pile of dead bodies demanding gun control. The right of the picture would be of the ‘Work makes you free’ gate at Auschwitz, with a crowd being herded through and a thought bubble over their heads saying ‘I wish I had a gun’. Below that, a similar crowd below a Soviet flag over 60 million bodies with a thought bubble saying ‘I wish I had a gun’. Below that, a Chinese flag over 75 million bodies with a thought bubble saying ‘I wish I had a gun’. Below that, a Cambodian flag over 3 million bodies with a thought bubble saying ‘I wish I had a gun’. Below that, a picture from the protests in Hong Kong with the sign saying that they need a 2nd amendment. The idea that I would strive to convey with that image is that disarmed populations are often victimized by their governments. And when they are, the numbers absolutely dwarf any firearm crime we have. The individual right to keep and bear arms is what prevents those atrocities from taking place in America. Unfortunately it also allows shootings & murders to occur way too frequently. Given the choice, the current shootings are MUCH better than the genocidal alternative. Does that mean that we have to tolerate mass shootings to prevent genocide? To some extent, yes. But there are some things that we could do. If we could magically have a ‘good guy with a gun’ everywhere, the number would decrease and the ones that did still happen would be less severe. Suggestions Since we can’t have cops everywhere, we do have another option. People with concealed carry permits are actually shown to be MORE law abiding than cops. Several shootings have been interrupted by civilians with permits. Other incidents have had people with permits present, who decided to remove themselves from the are for their own safety. So how could we convince someone to expose themselves to risk to potentially save lives? First, allow them to carry everywhere by eliminating gun-free zones, and holding the individual creators strictly liable for any shooting that takes place there. I would also apply it to state/city/county politicians who vote against or block the repeal of laws creating gun-free zones. Repeal or invalidate ANY ‘duty to retreat’ law Indemnify any individual who is attempting to stop an ‘active shooter’ Retrain cops to recognize that not all guns are threats to them. The incident at Louie’s Grill & Bar in Oklahoma City shows that it is possible, if not easy, to differentiate between a threat and someone engaging that threat.
F-150 rear door latch repair
June 4, 2019 at 8:29 pm (Family Life, Uncategorized)
I’ve patched the rear doors in my F-150 twice now, and it was finally time to fix it ‘right’. The problem is that the mechanism connects to the upper and lower latches using sheathed cable (like bike brake cables), and connects to the endpoints with rubber boots. After years of heat inside the door, the rubber degrades and doesn’t hold the sheath in position any longer. Fortunately you can get aluminum replacement boots on Amazon for bout $10. The process is: Read the rest of this entry »
Making prop rapiers
April 22, 2018 at 3:19 pm (Theater)
For an upcoming play, I made some prop rapiers for about $5 each.
You will need
- Fiberglass poles – either driveway markers, or bike flag poles
- Drill & bit the size of the poles
- 2×2 lumber – cheap is fine
- Plastic bowls
- Aluminum tape – the kind without writing
The plastic bowls I got came 4 in a pack for $1 ad DollarTree
Using 2×2 lumber, cut several inches longer than you will need, and drill a hole 5 or 6 inches deep. The exact depth doesn’t matter. I’m drilling on my lathe, but you can just as easily drill by hand.
Shape the hilt. Again, I’m using my lathe, but use what you have. Make sure to keep the end with the hole flat.
Drill a hole in your bowls. If they’re brittle like mine, then you may want to melt the hole instead of drilling.
Paint the bowls, and the hilts
Cut the fiberglass poles to length. Make sure you measure the finished length after putting on the hilt.
Apply the aluminum tape to the fiberglass poles. The trick to this is to use double-stick tape, or a circle of masking tape to hold the aluminum tape face down. Peel the adhesive from the back of the aluminum tape and then carefully roll the pole across the tape. Make sure to cut the tape length so that the part of the pole in the hilt is not covered.
Epoxy the pole and bowl into the hilt, and let it dry.
Complete!
If you want to make them look older, dry-brush on some light brown or rust colored paint.
Sitting at home on a Sunday
April 22, 2018 at 9:30 am (Religion)
I’m sitting at home on Sunday, as I have for the last five Sundays after I had to leave my Church.
The decision was hard, but a long time coming. I’ve seen the church heading in the wrong direction for over 2 years now, and the final straw was their decision to show the ‘Jesus Chainsaw Massacre‘. This was just the last in a long line of decisions that demonstrate to me poor discernment.
Easter:
For several years, the Good Friday service had a large cross at the front of the sanctuary. Everyone would put their name on an index card, walk to the front, and nail it to the cross. All the cards and nails were removed for the Easter Sunday service. This was the most powerful imagery I’ve ever witnessed showing that Jesus took our sins upon Himself, and released us from them by His resurrection. This was replaced with ‘stations’ with the torture implements similar to what would have been used for Crucifixion. The message detailed each of the implements, described how it was used, and the damage it would inflict. While technically accurate, the focus shift from spiritual to physical matters is disturbing.
Applause:
At one point, a few people started applauding after the special music or soloist. While not ‘wrong’ per se, the music is to glorify God and aid the congregation in worship and reverence. The appropriate Baptist response is ‘Amen’ or similar. Applause shifts the focus to the performer and performance. (John 12:43). Someone obviously mentioned something to the pastor about it. The next Sunday, during the service from the pulpit, he spent some time explaining how applause was some people’s way of showing approval, and that especially if those people weren’t from our Church they may not know any different. Three weeks later, there were no ‘Amen’s’, just applause.
Music:
I have some very firm views on congregational singing. It should be doctrinally correct and relatable to all. Standard hymns *usually* meet the criteria, modern music not so much. An example of an appropriate modern song would be ‘Redeemed’ by Big Daddy Weave. The content is most definitely biblical and any adult Christian can easily relate.
An unusual example of a song that may be appropriate depending on the congregation would be ‘The Heart of Worship’. It is a song of confession and repentance for turning worship into a performance. Probably not appropriate for a congregation where the majority wouldn’t be guilty of that offense..
At the opposite end of the spectrum, is ‘Days of Elijah’, which is doctrinally wrong. David wanted to build a temple, but God refused (1 Chronicles 22:8). Moses brought the Law (condemnation), not righteousness (Romans 3:19).
Or also ‘My God’s Not Dead (like a lion)’. While Jesus is called the ‘Lion of the tribe of Judah’, he doesn’t roar (Rev 5:5). We are warned about a ‘roaring lion’, the devil (1 Peter 5:8).
In the middle, is mostly just ‘cotton-candy’ songs. They have a sweet flavor for a short time, but provides nothing lasting. Many of these are just ‘word salad’ using a concordance. A musical example of ‘modern literature‘, where the words themselves aren’t important and the reader (or singer in this case) invests them with whatever meaning they like. That’s why the new-agey ‘one’ replaces references to God or Jesus. Often these songs will include a line or two from one of the old hymns. If I’m being charitable, the purpose of that plagiarism is to seed the feeling for the rest of the song.
Again, someone must have mentioned something about the music to the pastor, because the 3rd Sunday that we sang ‘Days of Elijah’ he diverged onto repetition in songs (Days of Elija has a passage that repeats ‘There is no God like Jehova’ 16 times in a row), how many times phrases are repeated in Psalms, and how that wasn’t what Matthew 6:7 is about.
Discipline:
Our church, like many others, is VERY pro-life. We support a local crisis-pregnancy center, have an annual ‘baby bottle’ drive, etc. When one of the church members posted online about the wonderful time they had at a pro-choice women’s march, nothing was done. One of our teens would regularly post racially divisive material, also without consequence. Either of these would be less troubling if those individuals also didn’t link to the church website.
Focus:
As with Easter, there was a changing focus in the messages as well. The focus became more ‘be welcoming and non-judgmental’. While true, Church is for feeding the flock, and Evangelism is for winning the lost. You can’t win the lost without first showing them how God views their sin. The ‘Love the sinner, but hate the sin’ is OK as far as it goes, but the goal is to show the sinner his sin and need for a savior. Failing to do that is just enabling their behavior.
Other messages put a very strong emphasis on unity, and how all Christians should be united with each other. How, why, and under what circumstances wasn’t specific, just unity
The invitations (altar calls) became less frequent, then non-existant. The carpeted stairs at the front were covered with a stage extension, removing the ‘altar’ completely.
Bible:
Over the last several years, the church has been shifting away from the King James bible. See my other posts on my thoughts on that. It started in the Sunday school and youth groups, finally progressing to the readings during the service (but not the sermon itself). When I mentioned it to the assistant pastor, I was aggressively accused of believing in ‘progressive revelation’. I responded with my issue with the source documents. Nothing was resolved, and it wasn’t mentioned again.
Dialogue:
Or more specifically the lack thereof. Someone mentioned the applause to the pastor, but there was never a discussion. A proclamation from the pulpit during service killed any discussion. Someone mentioned the music to the pastor, and again no discussion. Another proclamation from the pulpit, again no discussion.
As a Baptist church, the congregation typically votes on larger issues, budget, missionaries, etc. That also changed over the last several years. The deacons or financial officer would give a report (also increasingly infrequently), but there was again no discussion or vote.
Overall, the feeling that I got was that the church was changing, the decision had been made, and any attempt at discussion was viewed as a hindrance.
Rather than spread dissention, I talked to the pastor, which resulted in me leaving the church. My concerns were called ‘petty’, and my view of Divine Preservation (which SHOULD be a Baptist doctrine) was called a ‘cult’.
Setting up Xbox Live to work with FreeBSD, PF & Verizon FIOS
April 20, 2015 at 3:47 pm (Computers)
It took me a bit of digging across several sites, but I now have our Xbox connected to XboxLive properly.
My network is a little more complicated than most, as I have a DMZ zone between my ‘inside’ network and the internet. Basically, inside devices connect through my FreeBSD gateway/firewall to the DMZ side of the FIOS router, and then out to the internet. All internet traffic prior was routed through from a single internal address to a single DMZ address on the firewall, then out to the internet through the FIOS router.
The steps that I took are:
- Set the FIOS router’s DHCP addressing to a narrower range than the default (0-254) – I used 100-254. This will allow you to assign static IPs below 100.
- Pick an address for the Xbox on the DMZ side, and set it as static on the FIOS router – XboX_DMZ
- Add the XboX port forwarding rules to the XboX_DMZ address.
- Add a second IP address to the DMZ interface on the FreeBSD gateway (in the rc.conf file)
- ifconfig_xl0_alias0=”inet 10.0.0.2 netmask 0xffffffff”
- Note that you have to use the “netmask 0xffffffff”, it won’t work with 255.255.255.255
- ifconfig_xl0_alias0=”inet 10.0.0.2 netmask 0xffffffff”
- Add a line to the PF rules file – the first sets the internal and external addresses, the second sets a bi-directional one-to-one NAT mapping for the Xbox
- Xbox360 = “192.168.0.245” # Internal Xbox Address
Xbox360_ext = “10.0.0.2” # External Xbox address for bi-nat - binat on $ext_if from $Xbox360 to any -> $Xbox360_ext
- Xbox360 = “192.168.0.245” # Internal Xbox Address
You may need to configure some additional PF rules, depending on how strict your packet filtering is. The Xbox needs to use TCP port 3074 and UDP ports 88 and 3074.
Resources that I used to figure this out, and may be helpful for you are:
- https://calomel.org/pf_config.html – uses PF anchors, which was more difficult than I wanted
- https://forums.freebsd.org/forums/firewalls.44/ – FreeBSD Firewalls forum
- https://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/ – OpenBSD’s packet filter FAQ
Why I Won’t Join A Union
July 31, 2009 at 2:36 pm (Family Life, Politics)
I was recently invited (again) to join the union at work. When I declined, I was asked why. Since my answers were so intelligent and well articulated (yeah, right), the union member asked if I would mind putting it in writing. Here’s what I gave them:
I will not join the guild for the following reasons.
Principles:
The ‘service’ that the union provides is a monopoly. A monopoly is a bad thing, when applied to the provider of goods (Standard Oil), and services (AT&T), but it is equally bad when applied to collective bargaining.The advantages provided by a union are an inverted bell curve, with the unskilled at one end and the obsolete at the other. Both are afforded protections that are disproportionate to their value.
Dues for membership are based on salary, with members that earn more paying a larger share. The lowest paid employees are charged the least, while they enjoy benefits that are significantly more than they could expect doing the same work for a non-union shop. The membership dues should be a flat fee regardless of salary. Or to be completely fair, inverse to salary, charging more to those who benefit the most.
In the name of ‘fairness’, the wages of less valuable employees are artificially inflated, while simultaneously lowering the pay of more valuable employees. It is immediately recognized as wasteful and wrong when the company pays more for an item from one vendor, when the same item is available for less from a different one. The same principle applies to salaries.
The ‘fairness’ of the wages also tends to drive the most skilled (and most valuable) employees out. It wouldn’t be ‘fair’ for some employees to receive merit pay or bonuses while others didn’t, so people who are highly skilled can get more somewhere else.
Experiences:
My first experience with the union at <company> was during the orientation. While I oppose unions on principle, I attended with an open mind. That was short lived, because I had a few questions and wanted to see how a guild meeting worked. The short answer was that the meetings were open to members only, and that I could go if I joined. If I didn’t like what I saw at the meeting, I was still a dues paying member until the opt-out period next year. I believe the exact words I used at that time were ‘pig in a poke’.Twice, I have seen employees leave <company> for greener pastures simply because their salaries could not exceed the union-agreed scale. I have been personally told by my manager that I would have received a merit pay bonus because of my performance during the virus crisis in 04, but that they did not give them out any more because the union had filed grievances every time one was put forward. I was given a few days off with pay instead.
I had some experience with AFSCME prior to coming to <company>, and my experience with AFSCME was no better. On several occasions, I saw first hand how damaging unions can be. When dealing with people, there will always be an occasional ‘bad apple‘. Most people are conscientious workers and respectful co-workers. In a non-union shop, the ‘bad apples’ are quickly removed. When one of the ‘bad apples‘ turns up in a union shop, it is usually difficult to remove them. The process varies, but it inevitably wastes the time of everyone involved, and pushes more work onto the coworkers of the ‘bad apple’ while they exhaust their levels of arbitration. If the arbitration is successful in keeping the employees job, morale in their unit will suffer. After all, if THEY can get away with it, why can’t everyone? One of the extreme examples of that occurred at <company>. Our unit (bargaining unit employees only, btw) had a ‘good riddance’ party when he was finally paid enough to leave. The cake was bitter-sweet, because that was money that could easily have been put to better use in profit sharing.
One fo the frequent reasons given for why we need to be part of the collective (union) is that employees would be mistreated if they didn’t. They claim that weekends, sick leave and vacations, as well as bathrooms are all a product of union efforts. While that may be true in the strictly literal sense, much more has been gained by the skill of individual workers. There were examples of this during the dot-com boom, where companies that couldn’t afford the extreme salaries demanded got creative with their benefits. Movie nights in company conference rooms, guaranteed work-from-home, game rooms, and gourmet cafeterias were not uncommon. While most of those companies failed in the crash, some survived – as did their benefits. The Google campus is a prime example.
A skilled worker will ALWAYS be able to negotiate a benefits package that better suits them than the ‘one size fits none’ type that the unions negotiate.
There Ought to be a Law
June 11, 2009 at 2:50 pm (Guns)
A reportedly insane (by his sister) 88 year old man shot and killed a security guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC this afternoon.
Maybe a law to keep people from having loaded rifles would have helped – or not.
Or maybe if a convicted felon (he once tried to kidnap the Federal Reserve board) were prohibited from owning guns – but wait, they are.
Is there any way to prevent this kind of incident?
Sure, but that’s not a price I’m willing to pay. All that would be required would be to find all the crazy, hateful people, and lock them up (or dispose of them in other ways). The Chinese have occasional success with it, and the Nazi’s that he idolized were quite good at it as well. That’s a case of the cure being worse than the disease.
So, what does this unfortunate incident show?
Crazy people, especially hateful ones, will do crazy and hateful things – up to and including killing people. Laws to prevent them from doing so just aren’t effective, since they aren’t interested in following them.
In this case, the best possible thing happened. An armed man at the scene prevented him from injuring or killing a whole lot more people. It is obvious that his intention was to cause as much death & destruction as possible. This differs from other ‘active shooter’ incidents in that the gun used to stop him was already at the scene. If it hadn’t been, the police would have taken at least minutes to respond. It’s uncomfortable to think about the amount of damage that he could have done in those minutes as the only armed person among thousands of unarmed people. There is an appropriate quote at the Holocaust Museum’s website, ‘At that time, a gun and a million dollars, the gun was worth more than a million dollars.’
All you need to do is compare the outcome of the Virginia Tech and the Binghamton Immigrant Center with the ones at New Life Church and the Holocaust Museum. The difference is clear.
What if he had picked a different place, one without armed guards?
Some place like a shopping center, school, library, swimming pool, or mall? We’ve already seen examples of those. The shooter will kill and continue to do so until they are confronted. If the gun used to confront him has to be brought from somewhere else by a police officer, then the casualty list is long. If it’s already there, then the list is shorter.
But why were all the other people unarmed? Because THEY aren’t crazy, and followed the law. So the effect of the laws exclusively keep NON-CRIMINALS disarmed.
Why didn’t the laws work?
But they did. And do, just not the way they were intended. The laws were 100% effective at keeping HONEST, LAW ABIDING people from breaking the laws. In short, people that weren’t inclined to be violent were prevented from having defensive tools, while the violent, crazy man didn’t bother obeying the law.
What can be done?
If we aren’t going to eliminate or isolate all the violent crazy people, including potential ones, then incidents like these will continue. You can’t legislate sanity. The only practical thing is to minimize the damage caused by them. And the best way to do that is to make sure that as many non-crazy people as possible have the means to stop an attack as soon as it starts. Since it isn’t possible for everyone to have an armed escort, the next best thing would be to be your own armed escort. Remember that the guard that stopped the Holocaust Memorial shooter wasn’t a cop, but an employee of a private security firm. The Holocaust Memorial delegated the job of protecting them to the security firm. Each indivicual has the right to defend themselves, and hiring a bodyguard for that purpose is merely delegating that job to someone else. It’s a common misconception that the police are there for that purpose, but numerous court rulings, including one from the Supreme Court show otherwise. The police have a general responsibility to the public as a whole, not to any individual.
Your safety is entirely your responsibility. I’d suggest that you act accordingly.
Analysis of 20/20’s ‘If You Only Had A Gun’
April 14, 2009 at 9:07 pm (Guns)
20/20 recently aired a show called ‘If You Only Had A Gun’. If you’re interested in watching it, it is available in two parts on Youtube. Part 1, and Part 2.
The segment shows the predictable results of what ‘would’ happen if a minimally trained student were in posession of a gun when a mass shooter stormed into their classroom. Underwhelming, to say the least.
The ‘armed’ students were supplied with a firearm and holster that they were completely unfamiliar with. The segment didn’t say, but I would be surprised if they actually drew their handgun from the holster more than three times.
It is my opinion that this ‘test’ was specifically configured to yield the results that it did for the following reasons:
- The ‘cover’ garment supplied, an extra-long t-shirt was specifically chosen to make the firearm more difficult to remove from the holster.
- The student was equipped with necessary, but restrictive safety gear – helmet, neck guard, and most importantly, cumbersome gloves. At least two of the students appeared to be having trouble deploying their firearm because of their gloves.
- The ‘armed’ student was always placed in the same seat in the room. The shooter shot the instructor, then immediately turned on the armed student, regardless of if they had presented the firearm or not. Historically, active shooters shot the people closest to them first.
While this type of ‘scenario’ will be used to show that the ‘best’ response is to run or hide, they failed to take several things into account.
- The 20/20 scenario ONLY has any meaning if it occurs in the first classroom where a shooting occurs. Many VA Tech students had enough time to try to barricade their classrooms. In that situation, the results would be very different.
- The shooter doesn’t know where an armed student will be sitting, or even if there is an armed student at all. The armed student, given the extra second or two that the chaos in the room would provide, would have had much better results.
- No mention is made that even by unsuccessfully engaging the shooter, the armed student would have enabled several other students to escape uninjured.
My offer to 20/20, give me those students for ONE hour, let them choose their own seat, and have the shooter engage all the students in the room. I’ll guarantee significantly better results. Especially compared to a trial where there are NO armed students.
For anyone interested in practicing for ‘real life’ situations, IDPA or USPSA matches are a great way to do it.
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