40 Million Out of work. Probably free to go to a riot.

This week’s riots were probably made worse by 40 million out of work people who need some entertainment after a couple of months on lockdown at home.  That 40 million is out of work because of state government orders closing down their employers. 

Many of our citizens are law abiding.  I don’t have any numbers, I hope that the law abiding are the majority.  A large number of citizens are lawless.  Again, I lack numbers but I sincerely hope we have more law abiding than lawless citizens.  The most lawless have close encounters of the cop kind and wind up in jail.  The medium lawless will take advantage of a riot to pick up a new TV or a new computer, but usually don’t engage in burglary and shop lifting for fear of getting caught.  Only the police and the courts keep the lawless citizens in check.  I am hearing calls from the left to abolish the police.  God help us if that ever happens.  The lawless will over run the country.  We need police and courts to keep the lawless in check.

   The police have a strong sense of comradeship.  They stick together.  It is extremely hard for a police department to lower the boom on misbehaving cops, because the department is made up of cops and all cops feel they need to protect and defend fellow cops from hostile citizens groups.  I’m thinking every department has a few, one or two, maybe more, bad cops who ought to be off the force.  But they don’t get the boot like they should because of the feelings of solidarity with everyone on the force.

  The only fix for this problem is an independent group of non-cops running an agency that finds bad cops and indicts them and pushes the paperwork thru to get them kicked off the force.  Maybe a federal agency like the anti-trust lawyers group at the Justice department. 

  Or we could use the Cambridge solution.  Cambridge MA, better than twenty years ago, had a very offensive Officer De Luca.  He patrolled the public housing projects in Cambridge and was a real pain in the ass to project residents.  One fine day Officer De Luca’s cruiser became stuck in Cambridge traffic.  Suddenly the doors of his cruiser were yanked open, Officer De Luca was pulled out of the cruiser, and the locals beat the stuffing out of him.  It was noticed that Officer De Luca’s behavior in the projects improved greatly after that.

Words of the Weasel Part 55

We should not call them looters, we should call them "protesters who just happen to carry stuff out of a store".  That's the AP style guidelines this week.  Wow!  For that matter the TV people don't use the word "riot" or "rioter".   Nor have they carried stories of shop owners shooting looters.  I know some shop owners who would put a bullet into a looter without even thinking twice about it.  There has gotta be a bunch more out there. 

Peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government…

 

For a redress of grievances.  First amendment.  We are talking about people carrying flags and signs and posters.  Marching in daylight, down routes coordinated with local authorities.  Singing and chanting.  Making speeches.  Listening to speeches.  Dispersing and going home when the demo is over.  That’s peaceable assembly.

Riots are something else.  Breaking shop windows, looting, setting fires, throwing stuff at cops.   We citizens expect law enforcement to break them up, suppress them.  Surround them; arrest a bunch of ‘em.  Use fire hoses and tear gas on em.  Keep them from destroying our livelihoods.   Authorities that permit, or worse encourage, law enforcement to shirk their duty should be turned out of office at the next election.  Or impeached immediately.

The Radial Arm Saw (RAS)

 

Back in the 50’s, when I was a kid, all the other kids’ fathers had shops, in the garage, in the basement, somewhere.  And at least half of them had a radial arm saw in their shop.  It was clear to all us kids that the RAS was the wave of the future and table saws were for old fuddy-duddies.  My father had a table saw, inherited from my grandfather. The radial arm saw remained popular with do-it-yourselfers up thru the 80’s, maybe the 90’s.   Then the safety freaks struck.  They declared the radial arm saw to be dangerous, that using a standard blade was dangerous, that making rip cuts was even more dangerous, and the blade guard didn’t cover enough of the blade.  The wood shop magazines carried the safety freak stories and stopped doing stories about using and buying radial arm saws.   Today, in 2020 there are hardly any new ones for sale, and the price of used ones has sunk down to 50-100 bucks.  You cannot buy a skilsaw for that little. 

   Me, I bought a radial arm saw back in the 70’s and I still have it.  I never did get a table saw.  I still have all my fingers too.  Major benefit of the radial arm saw is it saves space in the shop.  You can push it up against a wall and it works just fine.  The table saw needs clearance all around it to handle big work pieces.  The radial arm saw will make all the cuts a table saw can except for one not too important one.  It will make all the cuts a chop saw can make and in addition it will rip, which the chop saw will not.  You can also use your radial arm saw as a horizontal boring machine, a disc or drum sander, a shaper, a surface planer, and even as a bench grinder to keep your chisels sharp. 

   You do want to be careful.  The tool is dangerous.  The blade on a RAS or a table saw will sever any body part that comes in contact with it.  I keep my hands three inches away from the blade at all times.  If the work piece is too small to allow for three inches clearance, I throw it in the scrap box and find a bigger piece. 

   When ripping I first tilt the blade guard down on the in feed side to allow just enough room for the work to go into the blade but not any fingers that might be sliding or riding along the top of the work.  Then I always set the anti kickback fingers to dig in and prevent the blade from throwing the work back at me.  And I use a wooden shop made push stick for that last bit of push right next to the blade.  If the piece is too narrow to safely push it thru the blade, I throw it in the scrap box and get a bigger piece.  For tricky or difficult rip cuts I will clamp a feather board to the RAS table to keep the work pressed up against the fence. 

   In short I don’t see the RAS as more dangerous than the table saw.  Both machines will take off fingers with the greatest of ease.  You just have to be careful using them.  Right now, a used RAS can be so cheap that you cannot go wrong buying it.  Craigslist is your friend.  If you are starting up a wood shop a RAS makes a fine start. 

Cannon Ski trails are finally green

Ski trails on Cannon have been white with snow up until yesterday.  They make snow on the trails all winter and pack it down with fancy snow grooming machines every night.  By the end of ski season there is a LOT of snow on the trails.  Takes time for the warm weather to melt it all.

George Floyd Killing and Burning down Minneapolis

The George Floyd killing I saw on TV is outrageous. Floyd, handcuffed, prone on the ground, under a police car, had a uniformed officer stand on his throat until he died.  That officer should be prosecuted for murder.  Minnesota had better find some decent lawyers to prosecute, try and convict the officer.

   The looting and burning of Minneapolis is also outrageous.  Each looted store, each burned building is the work of many people over many years destroyed in a few minutes.  Plenty of small business people have lost all they owned, thru no fault of their own.  Some newsies have tried to paint this riot as a protest against the George Floyd killing.  First amendment protects the right to "peaceably to assemble and to petition for a redress of grievances".  Looting and burning is not peaceable, it's a riot. 

   The newsies do not have any stories of police or National Guard making arrests, using fire hoses or tear gas, or breaking up the riot.  Far as I can tell, the cops and the Guard fled the area.  Back trouble, a big yellow stripe. 

Regulating social media.

Trump declared something about regulating social media on TV yesterday.  I did not understand just what Trump means; I have not researched the relevant laws.  All I have to go on is the TV people’s opinions, which can be ignorant and anti Trump.  So let’s just consider what ought to be done.

   Right now anyone with an IQ above room temperature can log on to Facebook or Twitter or U-tube or the rest of them and post any damn thing he pleases.  And it goes world wide.  A bunch of Islamic terrorists have claimed they were recruited sheerly thru watching terrorist propaganda on Facebook and U-tube. 

   The owners of the platforms are the only ones who know how to delete posts, cancel log in privileges, and post comments.  We have to trust them, or shut their platforms down.  I think the platform owners right along have been deleting material that is clearly offensive, pornography, nudity, sex acts, snuff videos, pedophilia, BDSM, Islamic terrorist propaganda, KKK propaganda and worse.  They ought to keep on doing it.  Maybe step it up some.

   Then we come to individual posters who post all sorts of poppycock, anti Semitic, white supremacy, Nazi, alien invasion, and other weirdo ideas.  I think maybe we ought to just leave them alone.  Much of it is so weird that no body pays it attention.  The offensive stuff can be replied to by those who have been offended.

   And then we come to posters who are elected officials.  Since they got themselves elected they have support from a majority of their constituents.  That’s a lot of people who think they are OK.  Same goes for opposition politicos from the major parties.  As a platform owner, I myself would be extremely reluctant to censor an elected official for fear of offending a lot of people and inviting retaliation.  I think the Twitter people are crazy to censor the President of the US.  He has brought them all sorts of viewers/readers/tweeters.  If Twitter doesn’t like what Trump tweets, surely they can find some anti trump tweeters to respond to the Donald.

   If we are really unhappy with the platform owners, then we can get the anti Trust lawyers to break them up.  Facebook is clearly a monopoly.  We would be better off with two sites competing for viewers/readers/pageviewers.