If he was not such a narrow-minded bigot, he could have posted something along MAGA people reading the “wrong” books and could have for an interesting argument about reading materials and how we choose what we read and how we interpret it.

But he went with the preconceived ideas that those not “thinking” like him must be ignorant creatures who do not know how to operate a book, less have use for them or the necessary furniture to hold them.

And I want them to keep thinking like that. I want them underestimating the shit out their opponents.

Till reality smacks them hard and permanently.

This consolidated case is still live before the Supreme Court.

It was heard on the May 16th conference. It was put on the agenda for May 23rd. Yesterday, we learned that it is on the Agenda for the 30th of May.

It takes 4 Justices to agree to grant certiorari. It takes 5 to deny. This means that there are currently Justices that are still undecided and who are doing research.

For comparison, Duncan was distributed for conference one before Bruen and then again after Bruen where it was GVR.

Bruen was distributed for Conference (put on the agenda) On 2021-4-1, 2021-4-16, and then again on 2021-4-23.

Three days later, certiorari was granted.

Monday will be interesting.

There was a war of insults between De Niro and Trump supporters in NY. As usual Bobby D pretended to be gangster, but his bodyguards deviated him from getting his ass to pay for the checks being issued by his mouth.

The Twiter/X Leftyverse obviously came in defense of De Niro citing his acting as proof of value, but they kept bringing him as The Godfather.

Sorry, no. There is only one Godfather and that was Marlon Brando. De Niro portrayed nicely the young and coming Vito Corleone, but he was at best a secondary actor in a movie where the star was true actor Al Pacino.

De Niro has played pretty much one role through his career and that is the one of mafioso. Depending on the movie, he adds sprinkles of certain flavor, but they are all pretty much the same foundation. And he is pretty decent at it only if he does not make the mistake of casting a better actor opposite to him like in A Bronx Tale where Chaz Palminteri puts to shame anything De Niro has ever done as mobster.

“Now yous can’t leave”

De Niro peaked with Raging Bull. It has been repeating the same mobster act since then.

I am back from my week of re-education for using language that may have hurt others and I am completely rehabilitated.

A small boy and his friend run through the yards, they are 5 or 6 years old. They slide partially down a hillside and slowly peek over the top, looking for “Charlie”.

The one boy turns to the other and asks, “What are you going to do when you are drafted?”

War comes to them on the TV every night. They know about those that ran to Canada. They know those that stayed. They know of the bodies of what were once vibrant young men arrive day after day from that horrible place, Vietnam.

They talk of their grandfathers. Of those that served in WWII. They speak of the silence of those veterans who returned.

Today, I remember my Great Uncle Joe talking about all the heroes he knew. Some of whom died in the skies over Germany. He was never a hero. He flew in the same plane, he put his pants on the same, he ate with those heroes. According to him, every man aboard his plane was a hero, except him.

He was a hero. He was a bombardier of a B17 Flying Fortress.

Today, Vietnam is ancient history. Desert Storm, V1 in 1991 is ancient history. The war on terror is what is remembered by men older than their years.

“All gave some, some gave all.”

Thank you, I remember you. We remember you.

After more than a week, success was had.

The number of subprojects that went into this one simple little gear boggles my mind.

• Locate a reasonable rotary table
• Document what was needed for it
• Clean and restore 8″ Cushman Chuck
• Make chuck key
• Locate dividing plates for the rotary table
• Make T-Nuts for rotary table
• Make socket-head replacement screws for chuck
• Make socket-head attachment screws for chuck/backplate interface
• Make backplate
• Make retaining collar
• Make MT3 alignment plug
• Modify eccentric to have a retaining grove for U-Spring
• Make grooving tool
• Make nose cap for spindle
• Thread eccentric for tensioning ring
• Make a mandrel for holding gear blanks
• Make gear blanks
• Read the section in the 1914 Machinery’s Handbook about gears
• Create Emacs spreadsheet to calculate gear cutting parameters
• Create a Python program to create a dividing plate table
• Incorporate dividing plate information into Org-mode spreadsheet for single point of information (Enter DP and Number of teeth, get out cutting parameters and which dividing plate to use along with dividing plate setup)

In addition to that, I have 3 toolholders almost finished, I’m still waiting for the dovetail cutter to arrive and then to drill and tap the adjustment screw plus the retaining screws.

For those that might wonder why 14.5° PA, 16 DP instead of a more modern 20° PA, it is because this is what my lathe uses.  With a single purchase of the 8 involute cutters, I can make any gear my lathe might need.