Search Results for: node/It takes a good prosecutor to convict a guilty man

This is Never a Good Thing

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Yeah I’m going to probably be offline tonight.  I left work about an hour early because the wife called…  I won’t say what exactly happened but there was a large amount of water that was dumped into our laundry room.  It was not a failure of the washing machine either.

By the time I got home the wife had most of it cleaned up.  Some of the awaiting laundry soaked up a good majority and acted as a barrier to the far side of the room.  However it got into the carpet outside the laundry room and it appears it got behind the furnace though in very minor quantities.  What isn’t comforting though is I found two holes that head into the crawl space that were not thoroughly sealed.  The wood I could feel felt damp.

I have baked  the wood dry with a hair dryer, as well as dried out all the floor molding.  The wife is continuing to hit everything with more heat to help dry it out.  The faster the better. 

I have the thermostat set to 90 to try and help dry things out further.  The humidity in the house is slightly higher than the usual 20% and that’s thanks to the weather.  The humidifier is off and the temperature is rising quite rapidly in the house.

I suppose this is a good time to mention, I’m not a heat person.  I hate the heat and much prefer the cold.  As I say, I can always put on more clothes but there comes a time where I will either be arrested or have nothing else left to take off… both of those occur at the same time interestingly enough.

I will say this has confirmed my plan that if I ever build a house, the washing machine and by proxy utility sink will have sloped concrete floor with a central drain.

SSCC #194 – Wisconsin SP

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A 49-year-old Green County man has been convicted of four felony
counts of sexual assault of a child and two felony counts of incest
involving a child placed in his home for foster care.

James M.
Norquay was working as a Wisconsin state patrolman in February when he
was charged with the crimes in Green County Circuit Court.

Another predator sitting in plain sight hiding as a good guy.  As a note, he was found guilty on all six counts, and he wasn’t just a foster parent but legally adopted the child.  It was a state investigation that caught him.  Even though he’s lost his job and is going to prison, this is still a massive fail.

State Sponsored Criminal Count 194: James M. Norquay

Because hiding in plain sight as a good guy is the best way to get a wide victim selection.

Quote of the Day – Munchkin Wrangler (07/19/2012)

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Nobody builds a business alone, that’s true. But Bob didn’t make all those people work for free, and he didn’t make use of public resources without writing hefty tax checks for the privilege. Bob paid everyone, including his local, state, and federal government, before he even got to make his first dollar of profits. And Bob carries all the risk here. If his business tanks, his contractors aren’t going to return the money he gave them for their work, his employees aren’t going to give back their wages, and the government isn’t going to return the taxes and fees he paid. So why is it OK that when he’s successful enough to make a profit, some populist asshole politicians can stand up and say that “he hasn’t paid his fair share to society yet”?

Munchkin Wrangler – you didn’t build that
July 16th, 2012

[I do love the comments about what it took to build a business coming from a man who’s never built or run a business in his life. Businesses take work, period. There is risk and there is one person who takes that risk and the reward for the risk is the potential for profit. But profit is the result of greed and corruption right?  That person who has poured blood sweat and tears working their ass off so they don’t fail shouldn’t get any reward.

Why should they get no reward, you see someone else actually built their business. The business owner didn’t spend late nights with no bonus pay keeping the ship afloat.  They haven’t spent hours working on a website with zero income coming from it at the beginning.  Who cares that the business operator has paid anyone who works for them a fair wage in exchange for their goods and services?

That’s the crux, people who are paid by the business owner didn’t build the business.  People who build a business invest considerable time and effort without the guarantee of a reward.  That in and of itself is the very nature of business and is known as your Return on Investment.

Building a business means you invest a lot of time and your own money that in the future you may end up with more than you had.  Evidently our fearless leader has some other shining example of what building a business looks like.

*Most annoyingly is some places charge you a fee merely for permission to conduct business.  You see you need a business license to sell things to people who would like your goods and services.  You pay for the privilege but if for one reason or another you take a year off, you get to pay the tax man for the privilege again.  See how that works?  The government has to get theirs or you can’t get yours. -B]

For a friend…

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A friend posted a realization she had about herself this morning.  It was a big one and a good one for her to make. This ear worm is just for her, it’s close enough to her story.

I was blessed with two wonderful parents, however there’s always that thing in the back of your head.  You never want to turn into your parents.  You don’t want to become the unhip square, the authoritarian, the alcoholic drunk (a good buddy of mine refuses to drink for that reason), it bites us right straight to the core.

There are definitely some things that are genetic for our personalities.  My sister (who is adopted) and I prove that to a T.  She recently discovered the family she never knew and it ends up that personality wise she was the spitting image of her mother.  I on the other hand have been informed by my mom that when I go into a long rant I sound exactly like my father.  Sometimes saying the exact same he said long before I was born and never would have heard him say.

At the same time I know my dad hated his parents.  He absolutely did not want to be like them in any way shape or form.  He had very few pleasant memories of his father and there’s a reason he hated yard work.  When you tell your kid you’ll pay him for the work, and then never pay him it leaves a sour taste.  To give you an idea of how split they were, I never met my dad’s father.  The first time I met my grandmother at my grandfather’s funeral.  I was in 4th grade.  My dad was booted out of the house at 16 because he was old enough to be on his own.  My uncle, my dad’s brother-in-law took him in.  I also know my grandfather was very upset I was named what I was instead of after him.  For you see, I was named after the uncle who took him in instead of my grandfather.

We all have demons of some kind.  Some have demons worse than others.  Some are afraid if they uncage the beast there is no going back.  In some cases that can very well be true, addictive personalities for example.  In many cases though that is anything but true.  Just because I channel my father, at many of the times it’s probably for the better, doesn’t make me my father.  Just the same as I’m sure my dad probably did something at some point in his life where he said, “Oh my god, I’m turning into my father.”  The thing is, my dad hated and despised his father and he left those parts out.  What I was left with was man that I only wish I could compare to.  A man that I look at and say I wish there were more people like him.  He wasn’t perfect, but the positive and good far out weighed the bad and even the bad isn’t that memorable.

While genetics might be a strong tie, so is will and determination.  Just because you get angry or violent doesn’t mean you have to like it.  It also doesn’t mean you have to be angry or violent at everyone all the time.  I hate being angry, doubly hate becoming violent, which is funny because a lot of my friends tell me I’m really good at being angry.  The thing is I actually hate it, I hate the feeling, but I know some times it has to happen.  When it does happen, I need to make sure the rage gets channeled to it’s proper location.  There are times however I wish I didn’t snap like a drill instructor.  Anger alone can scare a lot of people quite quickly with the fear of you becoming violent, doubly so when they don’t realizing that being honest will quickly cause it to subside.  But I digress.

The bottom line is this, no matter what our parents have had an effect on who we are.  Both through genetics and our environment.  They’ve had an effect, but they don’t define who we are absolutely.  It’s a combination of the two that creates who we are in the very end.  While genetics might predispose us to particular vices, we can choose to avoid them.  We can choose to dislike or even hate them.  We can also just the same realize that a particular trait is bad in one setting but OK, even valuable, in another.

Saying Goodbye to a Friend…

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Last Sunday was a sad day. On Facebook I had noted my good friend Ray Carter, aka GayCynic, aka Northwest Freethinker, had passed away. It created a large wake within the gun community spurring a few articles such as this one. Sadly this meant I was going to meet a handful of mutual online friends in meat-space for the first time as we said goodbye to another friend.

The good news was, Ray being Ray made the service a fun ride, having planned much of it in advance himself. Including 37 minutes of prelude music (iTunes link).

Ray's Playlist

Ray’s Playlist

Even to the point of writing his own naming in the service:

Raymond was by his own admission over-serious and more sensitive than was really in his own best interests. He was a recovering alcoholic, sober since 1996 with all the benefits and flaws that implies. He sought to be a good son, to accept his brother for who he was, and to be a good uncle and friend.

Ray was driven to activism by many things. His sense of obligation to those who went before, his fundamental opposition to injustice, his patriotism, his love for his fellow man and his belief that often the kindest and most moral thing a government can do is to leave individuals to work out their own destiny.

Ray considered his nieces a special blessing, and loved them every day of their lives. His favorite holiday was Christmas and he went over the top each year that he could, going wild with decorating and striving to uphold the family traditions. He enjoyed cooking, reading and bull sessions with friends.

His time with the Freedom Day Committee, culminating in co-chairing a Pride Parade was a proud memory that he always enjoyed sharing. He took even greater joy in his time working with the Second Amendment Foundation and for firearms rights, which he saw as just another side of the same issue – civil rights – with debatably saner players. Or at least differently nuts.

Ray came to Masonry later in life, following his father and grandfather into lodge membership. He found this an opportunity for service and as an immense comfort during the last years of his life. He requests that in lieu of flowers or other donations that word be made to the Masonic Scholarship Fund of Alki Lodge #152.The growth of the lodge and facilitating educational opportunities for today’s youth was critically important to him.

The support of the Second Amendment Foundation, his friends and colleagues there, and particularly the support and tolerance of Alan and Julie Gottlieb made possible a dignified and graceful passage and rose well above any reasonable expectation of an employer; they are to be commended for their efforts and Ray hopes they accept his deepest gratitude.

Ray asked that I make clear that this service celebrating his life celebrate ALL of his life – not just one part or another. He chose music, verses and asked for themes that reflected who he was – a decidedly out gay man, a pro-gun activist, a patriot, a “small l” libertarian, a supporter of LGBT rights, and all the other roles in his life. He admitted he cheated and threw in one or two songs that he loved just for the beauty of the songs and asked that all of us here forgive him his final whimsy.

I realize now after the service there was a LARGE number of people who for various reasons weren’t able to make it but wanted to be there. I hope this glimpse into the service will suffice and put a smile on your face like Ray would have wanted.

There was limited commentary while sitting in the church regarding stories about Ray. Well anyone that knows Ray knows exactly why that is, I can’t think of any stories that are “Sanctuary Appropriate”. I made sure the story of Ray and Linoge was given to everyone in the room.

The wife made Ray’s Rice Crispy treats:

Rice Krispy treats

Ray Carter

For a 9×13 pan

Ingredients

1 cup each sugar, peanut butter, and light corn syrup

1 16oz bag each chocolate chips and butterscotch chips

6 cups rice krispies (or cereal to be disposed of)

Directions

In double boiler, melt together until smooth, corn syrup and sugar.

Let come to bare boil, back off. Remove from heat.

Stir in peanut butter, blending thoroughly.

Pour blended mixture over bowl of 6c of rice krispies – mixing thoroughly.

Press into buttered 9×13 pan. Use care and/or a spoon.

Set aside.

Clean or retrieve 2nd double boiler.

Melt together butterscotch chips and chocolate chips, stirring until indistinguishably blended.

Pour over rice krispy mix as frosting, until covered from edge to edge.

Either let set, or to accelerate setting, place in fridge or (if in great hurry) freezer.

Using sturdy knife, cut in 1×1 squares (2×2 seem far more common though).

Consume and giggle.

She even made a sign for the closing quote:

Ray says, Consume and Giggle.

Ray says, Consume and Giggle.

At the end, Phil, Drang, Bradley, Link, Ry, Kyle, Dustin, my Mom, TMW, Harry, and I all headed down for BBQ and spent another couple hours chatting and telling stories.

A bunch of us chatting after everything was over.

A bunch of us chatting after everything was over.

It was a sad day but we all made the most of it. We’ll miss you Ray and so long my brother.

Electricity is Dangerous….

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Weer’d had an incident recently in his “Gun Death?” files that centered around a downed power line.

There, she saw a white SUV on the grass of a house. Water spewed from the broken hydrant – about 2,000 gallons per minute – and downed power lines carrying a charge of 4,800 volts lay along the ground, charging the water around the exposed wires.

Most people understand that electricity is dangerous but often they don’t understand how dangerous.  I started the power series and I keep meaning to go back and continue it, and one of these days I will.  For now though I’m going to try and explain just the specifics to try and help people understand what is going on.

To start off with, if you are in a vehicle and it strikes a power pole or a power distribution box.  Stay In Your Vehicle!  Your vehicle will actually help protect you from the voltages.  If you can, back away from the downed conductors and then call 911. In the incident of hitting a power distribution box, odds are the line will fault and a breaker will open.  However, be advised that doesn’t mean your safe.  The majority of faults in the distribution system are momentary.  Because of this fact there is an auto reclosing circuit which will reclose the line and energize it.  The fault will remain and the circuit will open again.  Usually after the 3rd shot failed they will lock out the re-closer.  Still, stay in your vehicle, don’t risk it unless there is a more pressing danger to your life such as a vehicle fire.  If you do need to leave your vehicle, use my notes at the bottom.

Now, if you see someone get in an accident with a power pole or distribution box, keep your distance!  If you see the line arching or sparking, keep your distance as much as possible.  Immediately call the utility and they can de-energize the lines.  While the power company wishes to clear faults when they occur on the power system there is a particular kind of fault that is very hard to detect.  Not only is it hard to detect, but it becomes exceedingly difficult when you’re in the distribution system.

Detecting this fault is difficult because there is not a lot of current involved which is one of the big items that is watched for protection.  The reason there is less fault current, especially at the distribution level is the distance from generation and the fact it is in parallel with numerous other loads.  Especially the further you get down a distribution line.

What is confusing in this case is the combination with water with the fault.  Normally high impedance faults are found on things like asphalt or in the desert on dry sand.  Where the ground itself isn’t a good conductor.  In this case water is an excellent conductor, however I suspect that the water was mainly on asphalt which was acting as an insulator and this fault was way down the distribution line.

So here’s basically what I figure happened.  When the line went into the water, all the water was basically at a potential of 4800 volts.  The water would have a low impedance so there wouldn’t be much of a voltage drop across it.  However, there is a massive drop between the water and the actual earth ground.  As someone stepped into the water they bridged a circuit with their body, especially if they stepped off of grass over a curb into the water.

Your body and electricity don’t really mix.  It takes only a mere 11mA to stop your heart, it isn’t voltage that kills you, it’s the current.  Your bodies natural resistance tops out at around 100 kilo ohms at the skin, if it’s dry and you’re not sweating.  Internally it’s only about 300-1000 ohms.  If you get your skin wet the resistance drops.

With dry skin if you were to grab on to a 4800V line you would get 48mA through your body approximately, that would be more than enough to kill you, though that would depend on the exact path taken through the body.  Wet, the current will be easily measured in Amps.  If some how it doesn’t stop your heart, odds are you will be lit on fire as your body will be dissipating approximately 27 kW of energy.

So everyone please listen to me, stay away from downed conductors.  Yes people may be injured, people may need help, but it will do no good for them for you to injure yourself in the process.  In fact it will divert resources from helping them to helping you.

Now if some how you find yourself near a downed conductor, do not walk towards it or away from it!  Do the following:

  • Keep both feet as close together as possible.  This will keep your feet at approximately the same electrical potential and will limit current flow.
  • Hop both with both feet away from the downed conductor.  Again, do not walk.  At most shuffle.  See there’s a reason they made you learn the bunny hop in PE in school!
  • If you need to exit a car.  Jump clear of the vehicle without touching the vehicle and the ground at the same time.
  • Keep your arms held tightly to your sides.

The explanation of this is think of the ground as a high impedance resistor.  Over a resistor is a voltage drop.  The further the distance on the ground from one point to another the bigger the voltage drop.  Your body has a much lower resistance than the ground, and if you step, that difference in potential will form a circuit through your body.  If you are not comfortable hopping, then shuffle away.

Thank You Captain Obvious…

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DSC_7521_tonemappedSo I stumbled across the following today which while isn’t news to me may be news to others, and even more so may be discounted or considered untrue.  I initially wanted to cover this as I went through the my “Power Series” posts and I touched on it on an episode of Vicious Circle but I think it’s time for me to write it all out.

President Obama has made so-called “green energy” policies a key part of his economic agenda, but as a new book argues, they actually disproportionately hurt the poor by boosting the cost of energy.

This is considered just common knowledge to those within the utility industry.  The reason being is because our legislators are ignoring not just the laws of economics but also the laws of physics.

For the purpose of this example I am going to talk specifically about the Pacific North West, more specifically Washington.

In the mid-2000’s Governor Gregiore decided that hydro-electric dams are not a renewable resource and that by 2020, 20% of the state’s electricity will be “renewable”, read that as wind power.  As an FYI for those out of the area, we pay approximately 4-5 cents per KWh for hydro up here.  Hydro is cheap and plentiful here in the Pacific North West, so much so we ship a good chunk of it to California.

To further encourage the construction of wind farms beyond the mandate the operating costs are subsidized by the state.  The cost even subsidized for a wind farm in the area is approximately 15-17 cents per KWh.  Yes you read that right, 3 times as much even with the state subsidizing it’s operation.

Except wind is not as “Green” as everyone makes it out to be.  You see wind can quickly come and go.  This means generation can quickly come and go offline merely based on what the weather does.  This is a problem because power is consumed on an on-demand basis.  You don’t want your lights turning on in the middle of the night right?  Just the same you don’t like the power going out while you’re working on your computer writing up that report for work.  Part of the whole “smart house” push is so that the utilities can control the load as well such as your refrigerator, dryer, etc., to shed load when necessary.

It makes sense and it sounds good, but ultimately I’m paying for a service and you can either provide it or you cannot.  Well the biggest problem with wind is how quickly it can disappear.  Generators don’t start instantly and other generation in the system doesn’t instantly spin up to supply power to the load.  There is inertia involved and to increase the power means you need to increase the torque etc.  The sudden decline in power being supplied while the load remains constant can cause system instability.

The solution to this problem is to have an onsite generator(s) at a wind farm that idles while the wind farm is producing power.  Usually this takes the form of a Natural Gas Turbine generator.  As the wind dies off the generator spools up to take the load.  Then the generator slowly spools back down to let the rest of the grid slowly absorb the power load.  So in other words your wind generator is burning fuel in a turbine, running as inefficiently as possible so it can pick up the load in event of a rapid loss of wind.

Out here in the Pacific North West this becomes very apparent in the spring with the high spring run off as well as peak winds through the area.  This past year the utilities were forced by the state to buy power from the wind farms while shutting down the dams.

Yes you read that right, the utilities were forced to buy more expensive power and leave cheaper power idle.  Not only were the dams forced to be idle, but because it occurred during peak run off, they were forced to dump water over the spillway and waste it.  Instead of following the laws of economics, they were tossed to the side and instead of the wind, the more expensive power providing the back fill for what hydro couldn’t provide, the roles were reversed, and for what?

Ultimately this does nothing but increase the rates for energy consumption.  Doubly so since the dam has increased costs because instead of it producing power, it’s forced to be shutdown, despite it being the more efficient and cheaper power producer.

This is what happens when politicians get involved in economics and start regulating business.  Instead of the consumer getting a better deal, they get a more expensive product and overall crappier service due to the power swings that come with the fluctuations in wind.

Then again, the goals of our politicians could be much more sinister.

The Season for Giving

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soldiers-angels-_y5rbLinoge is putting on a raffle with great prizes and the funds going to a great cause.

For those who have never discovered Soldiers’ Angels, they do a lot to help support troops.  Not only do they help support troops in the field through the soldier adoption program but also have programs to help those who need it the most, our wounded warriors.

Every year at Boomershoot Joe there is a dinner.  At the dinner is a raffle with the purpose of supporting Project Valor-IT of Soldier’s Angels. 

Why do we raise money for Project Valor-IT?  Well when the soldier and affected family moves from being an abstract face, to being a family you know and personally spend lots of time around, the good they do takes on a whole new level of meaning.  Seriously, click that link fellow gun bloggers.  They helped the family of one of our own and if that’s not a good enough reason to dig in your pocket and help I don’t know what is.

I know times are tight for many of us.  Things are still exceptionally tight around my house from the last unemployment stint.  For every 5 bucks sent to Soldiers’ Angels you get a raffle ticket.  Instead of putting that extra gift under the tree this year, you can put something under someone else’s who could really use it.  There is no way to loose in this raffle.

There are other projects and ways you can donate if you’re interested.  It doesn’t just have to be a monetary donation*.  The Minutemom I know is working on blankets when she has time. 

*Talk to Linoge first with regards to the raffle, I’m talking in general.