ANCHORAGE, Alaska— A backpacker shot and killed a grizzly bear with his handgun in Alaska's Denali National Park, officials said.My first reaction is, "Why are you carrying a .45 caliber pistol in grizzly bear country? Did you want to upset the grizzly bear?" But it apparently worked, somewhat to my surprise.
A man and woman reported that they were hiking Friday evening when the bear emerged from trailside brush and charged the woman, park spokeswoman Kris Fister said in a statement.
The man fired nine rounds from his .45 caliber, semiautomatic pistol at the animal, which then stopped and walked into the brush.
Monday, May 31, 2010
This Guy Is Glad The Law Changed, I'm Sure
A backpacker in Denali National Park, Alaska, apparently took advantage of the change in federal law allowing the carrying of firearms in national parks. From May 31, 2010 Associated Press:
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Why Everyone Needs A Tap & Die Set
If you don't know what a tap & die set is (and there are many who do not): A tap is a hardened steel tool that cuts threads in a drilled hole. (A chart like this will tell you what size the hole should be into which you turn the tap to make various sizes of threads.) A die is a hardened steel tool that cuts threads onto an existing stem. The hexagonal things in this picture are dies. While you can use a die to thread a part that has never had threads, most consumers use a die to rethread a part whose threads have been damaged. (Usually a threaded part attached to something really, really hard to replace!)
Some years ago, my best friend gave me a Black & Decker ratcheting screwdriver set. It was a little orange case that had a ratcheting handle into which you could insert zillions of different bits: all the different sizes of Philips bits; standard screw head bits; hexagonal bits; some that I have never seen before.
If you didn't know that there are different sizes of screwdriver bits--well, I didn't really fully understand this, and why it mattered, until a few years ago. You already know that some screwdriver blades are too thick to go into the screw head. If you insist on using the wrong size bit, sometimes you accomplishing nothing; sometimes you chew up the head of the screw--and then you have drill out the screw, or use a Vise-Grip to grab hold and unscrew it. (Brutal, ugly, and sometimes the head breaks off the screw.)
Anyway, a very nice set. When you put the various bits into the handle, there was a spring loaded ball bearing that held the bit in place with friction. One day several years ago, I noticed that the bits were no longer staying in the handle--just falling right out. The ball bearing was missing--and for the life of me, I can't figure out how it could have stayed there.
I tried to buy a replacement handle--but that didn't seem to be available, and the bits were not the same dimensions as other, similar handles. Even worse: most off them didn't have the neat ratcheting capability. I could buy an entire replacement set (handle and bits)--but these were a bit spendy, and I would have a bunch of bits that were duplicates.
I was looking at this earlier this evening, and I noticed that the little hole in which the ball bearing had resided was .099" diameter. This was just a bit smaller than the hole size you use with a 6-32 tap. (The number 6-32 means a #6 sized screw, with 32 threads per inch.) I grabbed my 6-32 tap, and tapped this hole. Then I turned a 6-32 screw into the hole. Friction between the screw and the bits holds the bits in place just fine, and you don't have to loosen the screw to remove the bit. The only improvement I might make is to replace this conventional 6-32 screw with a 6-32 set screw so that there is nothing sticking out from the side.
Some years ago, my best friend gave me a Black & Decker ratcheting screwdriver set. It was a little orange case that had a ratcheting handle into which you could insert zillions of different bits: all the different sizes of Philips bits; standard screw head bits; hexagonal bits; some that I have never seen before.
If you didn't know that there are different sizes of screwdriver bits--well, I didn't really fully understand this, and why it mattered, until a few years ago. You already know that some screwdriver blades are too thick to go into the screw head. If you insist on using the wrong size bit, sometimes you accomplishing nothing; sometimes you chew up the head of the screw--and then you have drill out the screw, or use a Vise-Grip to grab hold and unscrew it. (Brutal, ugly, and sometimes the head breaks off the screw.)
Anyway, a very nice set. When you put the various bits into the handle, there was a spring loaded ball bearing that held the bit in place with friction. One day several years ago, I noticed that the bits were no longer staying in the handle--just falling right out. The ball bearing was missing--and for the life of me, I can't figure out how it could have stayed there.
I tried to buy a replacement handle--but that didn't seem to be available, and the bits were not the same dimensions as other, similar handles. Even worse: most off them didn't have the neat ratcheting capability. I could buy an entire replacement set (handle and bits)--but these were a bit spendy, and I would have a bunch of bits that were duplicates.
I was looking at this earlier this evening, and I noticed that the little hole in which the ball bearing had resided was .099" diameter. This was just a bit smaller than the hole size you use with a 6-32 tap. (The number 6-32 means a #6 sized screw, with 32 threads per inch.) I grabbed my 6-32 tap, and tapped this hole. Then I turned a 6-32 screw into the hole. Friction between the screw and the bits holds the bits in place just fine, and you don't have to loosen the screw to remove the bit. The only improvement I might make is to replace this conventional 6-32 screw with a 6-32 set screw so that there is nothing sticking out from the side.
Obese Children
Michelle Obama is concerned about the growing child obesity problem—and well she should. And of course, the government has to be part of this problem. “BMI measurement for all children” and “Improving access to healthy, affordable food, by eliminating ‘food deserts’ in urban and rural America.”
There is absolutely no question that there is a very serious child obesity problem—one that will bankrupt Obamacare (and practically any other health care system that you can imagine). But once again, today’s liberals are intent on the government solving a problem that a previous generation of liberals a generation ago unwittingly created.
Let us marvel in the first generation in the history of mankind where obesity is a problem of poverty. Throughout history, getting enough calories in your diet to even be chubby usually meant you were nobility, if not royalty. King Henry VIII went from a fit and vigorous young man to a guy who needed armor with a 54 inch waistline. If you were a peasant—even what today might be considered middle class—you worked too hard and food was too expensive for obesity to be common.
I’ve seen the change in my lifetime—and Michelle Obama acknowledges the problem is part of a “30-year trend.” When I was in elementary school, I had very few classmates who were even chubby. There was one kid out of 400 in my elementary school who would be considered fat (and probably not even obese)—and he was from Turkey. There are many causes of the increasing obesity problem, and this article focuses on one very substantial cause—but let me emphasize that it is not the only cause—just one that liberals caused.
One of the advantages kids had back then was mothers who were home, and actively involved in child rearing. Even mothers who had to work full-time (like mine) still managed to play an active role in encouraging healthy dietary habits. I was limited to one soft drink a day. Dinner included reasonable portions of meat, a starch, and vegetables—and as much as I hated overcooked vegetables, I was expected to eat them. Desserts were infrequent in our house—perhaps once a week. Nearly every other kid that I knew came from a similar home, with parents making similar efforts to encourage self-discipline and healthy eating.
Today, large numbers of elementary school kids are getting themselves ready for school without a parent. When my wife substituted at our son’s elementary school in California, kids were showing up at school with donuts for breakfast—because both parents had left the house hours earlier, expecting their kids to make their own way. After school, too many elementary school kids are returning to empty homes, and eating for comfort. I recall when my wife and I were out looking at houses one day in California, the realtor let us into one house where a fairly fat elementary school kid was sitting in front of the TV with a huge bowl of potato chips. Many unsupervised kids get in lots of trouble: early sex; smoking; alcohol. Are we surprised that bad eating habits are part of the problem?
When I was 10, most elementary school kids came home to a mother. Today, this is a surprisingly rare situation. When my wife was staying home to raise our children in the 1980s and early 1990s, she described the various neighborhoods in which we lived as ghost towns from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM—at which point the kids would come home to empty houses.
This transformation didn’t just “happen.” It was the result of a conscious decision by liberals to actively promote the idea that no woman was really “fulfilled” unless she had a full-time career—and staying home and raising kids wasn’t part of the career track. Through active propaganda campaigns and passage of laws banning sex discrimination in employment, liberals destroyed the postwar social consensus that a man would normally be the primary breadwinner.
Part of what helped destroy that postwar consensus was that there were a lot of well-educated women who wanted to be more than just mothers. Another factor was the rise of no-fault divorce, which made it much easier for guys to dump their families. Women who had been content to be homemakers now had no choice but full-time employment.
One unfortunate side effect of this dramatic increase in the number of women in the workforce was unsurprising: an increasing competition for resources. What happens to pay scales if you increase the number of workers competing for the same number of jobs? This graph shows what happened to family income for one income families, two income families, and so on, inflation adjusted. Note how one income family incomes stop growing in the early 1970s—while two income families do not. Many Moms wanted a traditional family, where they stayed home and kept the kids out of trouble (including with food). Now these traditional families were competing for housing and other resources with “modern” two wage earner families.
Especially for those with low skilled, low wage jobs before every woman working became the social goal—this was devastating. It was bad for male primary breadwinners, who often could no longer raise a family on one income. It also meant that when divorce happened (often aggravated by financial struggles), a mother joining the workforce with even less job skills than her husband was utterly impoverished. Even if child support payments came in (and often they did not), it was simply impossible to raise a family on her low skill wages—and who will supervise the eating habits of her children while she is away at work?
Some years ago, I watched a fascinating debate about feminism organized by William F. Buckley, with a surprising participant: Professor Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. Professor Fox-Genovese was a nationally recognized expert on labor history, and definitely a liberal—but she made the point that feminism for women such as herself, with graduate degrees working in high status positions, had been a major win. For the majority of women—those trying to raise kids in a trailer park with low wages and no father—it had been a major disaster. I would argue that while childhood obesity has many roots, the good deed of 1960s liberalism—the insistence that every woman with small children should be working, and her kids in daycare—is a big part of the problem.
There is absolutely no question that there is a very serious child obesity problem—one that will bankrupt Obamacare (and practically any other health care system that you can imagine). But once again, today’s liberals are intent on the government solving a problem that a previous generation of liberals a generation ago unwittingly created.
Let us marvel in the first generation in the history of mankind where obesity is a problem of poverty. Throughout history, getting enough calories in your diet to even be chubby usually meant you were nobility, if not royalty. King Henry VIII went from a fit and vigorous young man to a guy who needed armor with a 54 inch waistline. If you were a peasant—even what today might be considered middle class—you worked too hard and food was too expensive for obesity to be common.
I’ve seen the change in my lifetime—and Michelle Obama acknowledges the problem is part of a “30-year trend.” When I was in elementary school, I had very few classmates who were even chubby. There was one kid out of 400 in my elementary school who would be considered fat (and probably not even obese)—and he was from Turkey. There are many causes of the increasing obesity problem, and this article focuses on one very substantial cause—but let me emphasize that it is not the only cause—just one that liberals caused.
One of the advantages kids had back then was mothers who were home, and actively involved in child rearing. Even mothers who had to work full-time (like mine) still managed to play an active role in encouraging healthy dietary habits. I was limited to one soft drink a day. Dinner included reasonable portions of meat, a starch, and vegetables—and as much as I hated overcooked vegetables, I was expected to eat them. Desserts were infrequent in our house—perhaps once a week. Nearly every other kid that I knew came from a similar home, with parents making similar efforts to encourage self-discipline and healthy eating.
Today, large numbers of elementary school kids are getting themselves ready for school without a parent. When my wife substituted at our son’s elementary school in California, kids were showing up at school with donuts for breakfast—because both parents had left the house hours earlier, expecting their kids to make their own way. After school, too many elementary school kids are returning to empty homes, and eating for comfort. I recall when my wife and I were out looking at houses one day in California, the realtor let us into one house where a fairly fat elementary school kid was sitting in front of the TV with a huge bowl of potato chips. Many unsupervised kids get in lots of trouble: early sex; smoking; alcohol. Are we surprised that bad eating habits are part of the problem?
When I was 10, most elementary school kids came home to a mother. Today, this is a surprisingly rare situation. When my wife was staying home to raise our children in the 1980s and early 1990s, she described the various neighborhoods in which we lived as ghost towns from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM—at which point the kids would come home to empty houses.
This transformation didn’t just “happen.” It was the result of a conscious decision by liberals to actively promote the idea that no woman was really “fulfilled” unless she had a full-time career—and staying home and raising kids wasn’t part of the career track. Through active propaganda campaigns and passage of laws banning sex discrimination in employment, liberals destroyed the postwar social consensus that a man would normally be the primary breadwinner.
Part of what helped destroy that postwar consensus was that there were a lot of well-educated women who wanted to be more than just mothers. Another factor was the rise of no-fault divorce, which made it much easier for guys to dump their families. Women who had been content to be homemakers now had no choice but full-time employment.
One unfortunate side effect of this dramatic increase in the number of women in the workforce was unsurprising: an increasing competition for resources. What happens to pay scales if you increase the number of workers competing for the same number of jobs? This graph shows what happened to family income for one income families, two income families, and so on, inflation adjusted. Note how one income family incomes stop growing in the early 1970s—while two income families do not. Many Moms wanted a traditional family, where they stayed home and kept the kids out of trouble (including with food). Now these traditional families were competing for housing and other resources with “modern” two wage earner families.
Especially for those with low skilled, low wage jobs before every woman working became the social goal—this was devastating. It was bad for male primary breadwinners, who often could no longer raise a family on one income. It also meant that when divorce happened (often aggravated by financial struggles), a mother joining the workforce with even less job skills than her husband was utterly impoverished. Even if child support payments came in (and often they did not), it was simply impossible to raise a family on her low skill wages—and who will supervise the eating habits of her children while she is away at work?
Some years ago, I watched a fascinating debate about feminism organized by William F. Buckley, with a surprising participant: Professor Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. Professor Fox-Genovese was a nationally recognized expert on labor history, and definitely a liberal—but she made the point that feminism for women such as herself, with graduate degrees working in high status positions, had been a major win. For the majority of women—those trying to raise kids in a trailer park with low wages and no father—it had been a major disaster. I would argue that while childhood obesity has many roots, the good deed of 1960s liberalism—the insistence that every woman with small children should be working, and her kids in daycare—is a big part of the problem.
The Most Shocking Expression of Racism I've Seen In A Long Time
RealClearPolitics has this absolutely amazing clip of liberal Bill Maher complaining that Obama isn't a a real black President--and then engages in stereotyping of black men as violent criminals. That Bill Maher hasn't been pulled from the air by HBO shows that "racism" is just a political tool of the left; it's clearly not something that really bothers them.
UPDATE: By the way: the language is a bit raw.
UPDATE: By the way: the language is a bit raw.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Precision Machining
I am increasingly pleased with my ability to make stuff very accurately. I received an order for some ScopeRollers for the Celestron CI-700 tripod a few days ago. Much of the work on machining a part is the setup: putting the cutting tool in place; installing the drill chuck in the tailstock; positioning the tailstock; zeroing the handwheels. Therefore, if you are going to make three parts, making nine identical parts isn't even twice the work. I wasn't putting any extraordinary effort into this, but because I have become fairly adept at this, I turned out nine perfectly squared cylinders that ranged from 3.599" to 3.602" in length; that's a .08% variance in length.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Hyperinflation? Or Destructive Deflation?
I can't figure out what is going to happen--but if you have been fortunate enough to sell your overpriced home on the coast and have a few hundred thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket--heck, look what you can buy for pocket change!
It's half of a duplex, built in 2003. The other half is also in foreclosure, for $79,900. I drove by it after dinner; it looks pretty darn nice from the outside. I can remember when that would have been a down payment on, literally, a ghetto house in California.109 Valley View Horseshoe Bend, ID 83629
3 Bed, 2.5 Bath | 1,230 Sq Ft on 0.06 Acres (2,613 Sq Ft Lot)
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
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