A most memorable day

On this day in 1775 the American Revolution began. The people of Lexington and Concord turned back the British, and harassed them all the way back to Charlestown. The Shot Heard Round the World had been fired. April 19, 1775 had secured its place in American and World history.

The significance of this cannot be underscored enough. To date, it is almost surely the only large scale revolution which has had any modicum of positive success. Most new nations sink into anarchy or more terrible tyranny when a known form of government falls. We need only look to the recent Arab Spring uprisings to see this is true.

To be sure, even our Revolution was subject to severe trials early on. It was no certainty that a civil government based on popular will would result from that war. Yet somehow it did; I believe that it was through Providence and American exceptionalism that our nation rose from the battle field as it did.

I do not mean this as an insult towards other people and nations who are now seeking similar freedom and respect. Perhaps over time Libya will stabilize, Isis fail in Iraq and Syria, and the Muslim Brotherhood moderate. But I cannot help feeling that their story will be many more years playing out than the American tale. The fact is that popular uprisings need more than simple change. They need enlightened leadership; they need more than mob or knee jerk mentality.

The colonists had that leadership. They overcame the occasional rabble to form a stable, reasonably free nation. And that's exactly what makes April 19, 1775 so memorable. Our revolution is truly unique in history. It began 241 years ago today.

Tax Day 2016: we should be upset

Today is Tax Day, April 18, 2016. Yet we haven't worked enough just yet to have actually paid our taxes. That day comes later this month. Or maybe in May. Whatever.

You want to make people into Republicans if not Libertarians? Or better, you want to make them conservatives? Make every dime of their taxes, and not their tax forms, due on April 15 (or 18, as is the case in 2016). Further, get rid of the withholding tax. Make people feel deeply exactly how much they pay when it must be paid in a lump sum rather than weekly. You want a second American Revolution? It would start the day after Tax day if we would play fair with workers. Probably sooner.

So many of us are so happy when we get a refund that we don't notice what we actually pay. We're stupidly happy when we get our own money back from an interest free loan given the American government. Anything wrong with this picture, Americans?

I risk my life by working

As if it isn't bad enough that the Federal Government has its hands in too many pies, now we have situations where one the states has taken it upon itself to get involved in enlightening the citizenry through badgering people about what it thinks important. It should be no surprise that that State is California.

While installing an in line ground fault interrupter on a piece of machinery, I found this warning wrapped around the cord:

WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, and other reproductive harm. Wash hands after handling.

On what grounds do they force this warning? California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment guideline states thus: “A person exposed to the chemical at the ‘no significant risk level’ for 70 years would not have more than a ‘one in 100,000’ chance of developing cancer as a result of that exposure.” Anything over that, say one extra case per 100,000 people over 70 years, means the tag has to be applied to the whatever it is at hand.

Doesn't this strike anyone as overkill? How am I supposed to feel about getting a scare that I have increased my chance of contracting cancer simply by putting a power cord on a machine? How do the people using equipment day after day react to the news that they are in such a slightly more hazardous situation than they could possibly have imagined? By what right does California think it can violate someone's comfort zone by insisting on a tag where no significant increase of contracting cancer exists?

We could dismiss it as simply the big dog of the nation throwing its weight around. But it's more than that: it serves as a reminder that government, any government, when its gets big enough feels it has the right to throw its weight around. California is darn near a nation unto itself anyway, and seeing as its infrastructure needs are well below what its citizens demand, one would think it would be more concerned with shoring up its physical plant than in promoting scare stories.

But, after all, its still a big brother government. What's not to love?

A few ideas for April 15

Much gets said about what's wrong with our government, but little gets said about concrete ways to fix it. To be sure, everyone seems appropriately concerned with the acts and laws of government being constitutional. Yet rarely does anyone actually address the document itself. There are things within it which could be changed or altered to better direct the workings of Washington.

We could start by getting rid of the Fourteenth Amendment. Say what you will about how it has protected the rights of the citizenry, it has nonetheless been used to allow the Federal Government to dip too far into what originally had been considered the realm of the States, and the citizens as well. We forget that in 'championing' the citizens' rights we have seen great abuses of their rights as well. We might just be better off to leave basic human rights to the several states.

The Sixteenth Amendment ought to be trashed as well. In letting the feds dip directly into the pocketbooks of individuals we have expanded their power far beyond the intention of the framers. It must be remembered, as the great Chief Justice John Marshall said, "The power to tax implies the power to destroy." Let the feds get money from the states and from various fees for only their necessary functions.

Let's trash the Seventeenth Amendment while we're at it. If senators were elected by state legislatures as they once were, then they could get back to their true job: representing the states as states. We are a federal system after all: it isn't as though the state governments should have no direct say in federal antics.

This is only for a start, to perhaps begin discussion. Sure, nothing will come of it as the special interests hold too much sway and federal power has become too entrenched. But you got to have a dream: if you don't have a dream, how you gonna make your dreams come true?

Blue over threadlocker

Yesterday I needed a tube of threadlocker blue, a liquid which is used on small bolts to help 'lock' them in place as it dries. It's sort of a specialty glue really. I also needed a couple electrical switches. And as I was close to Big Box Mart in my travels, I stopped for them.

The switches were easy to find: right in the aisle with hundreds of electrical components, exactly as you'd expect. Finding what I needed there, I thought it made sense for the threadlocker to be in the aisle with nuts and bolts. So I go to the front of the building and study the signs at the ends of the aisles to find the one with nuts and bolts, found it, and marched down it.

No threadlocker. I combed the aisle for a few minutes, searching intently and not finding the stuff. I then violated the guy code, broke down, and asked an employee where threadlocker might be. He takes me straight to the place where it supposedly had been for years. But it wasn't there last night. The guy complains that Big Box Mart likes to change how its stores are arranged from time to time, often without letting everyone know the new stocking order, but gets out his walkie talkie and asks someone where the threadlocker was moved to. "Aisle Four, just about halfway up," I hear a voice say. So it's off to aisle four.

There was still no threadlocker to be found, not around the middle, either end, or parts in between. I finally gave up and went to the paint counter at the end of the aisle. The man there said to try the next aisle over, aisle three, about halfway down.

I looped around onto aisle three, and immediately saw it was the aisle with the electrical switches. And on the opposite side of the aisle, barely ten feet from where I had picked up the switches I wanted, was the threadlocker. I had wasted 20 minutes for an item virtually next to where I had started.

Sheesh. I simply don't understand that shelving scheme at all.

Taking a bottle to Canada

So, last night was the season ending banquet of the Windsor (Ontario) Granite League. As each club member was expected to bring a door prize worth approximately 20 bucks, I ran into the duty free store on the US side of the border on my way over, to purchase such an item.

Then I proceed to Canada. Now, other than that time I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, when for the first time I was stopped for inspection as I entered that great northern nation, I've had no trouble being allowed entrance to that country. Still, to forestall an issue, I determined to be faithfully honest to the Canadian officials as I crossed into their land.

"Anything coming into Canada which will stay in Canada?" the border guard asked as he took my identification.

"Well,' I answered honestly. 'I bought a bottle of whiskey at the duty free shop, to be given as a door prize."

"What size is it?" the guard queried.

"1.14 litres," I answered, being clear to use the Canadian inflection. But I thought, ah man, he's going to make me pay duty on it.

"What did you pay?" he asks. "Nineteen U.S.," I answer, thinking, you're kidding, you're going to make me pay duty on this?

Next he says, "What brand is it?"

I'm sure by now that he's going to make me pay the duty, and I'm thinking, Really? On a barely over a litre bottle? But I answer rightfully, "Forty Creek". It's a brand popular in Canada, which I knew, though I've yet to try it. But what can it matter? This guy's going to pull me over to pay the duty.

Instead, he begins to nod his head and then smile, as he hands me back my ID. "Good choice", he says. "Have a good time."

I hope whomever chose that bottle as his prize appreciates my anxiety.

An impressive pickup, but at what cost?

We all have our quirks, those habits, beliefs, and wants which kinda defy logic if you think about for a minute. A customer I was dealing with this morning drove up in a huge, double rear wheeled pickup this morning. The bed sat (I'm guessing but sure I'm close) 3 1/2 or 4 feet off the ground. It looked impressive, I admit, and he confided that it was exactly what he wanted in a work truck.

He had a large drain machine in the bed of it. When I say large, I mean in the 250 pound range. Which meant we both had a struggle unloading it. Even with two guys, setting 250 pounds on the ground from more than half our own heights (more than that, I assure you) was a challenge. A few minutes later as I did the quick repair, he told me he would be off for several months beginning next week as he was to have back surgery. "It's all from handling that big machine," he half whined.

I asked him whether part of the problem was having to lift the damn thing so high. Maybe he needs to get a smaller truck easier to load or an electric hoist of some type, I said. "Hoists are too expensive, and that's my baby. I can't get rid of her." So you'd rather settle for back surgery and months of recuperation?

The repair finished, I helped him get the unit back onto his pickup. I wished him well on his surgery. But I just can't grasp the mentality that you have to have everything you want exactly as you want it even when it defies common sense. Especially when it makes such a claim on your health, and by extension your livelihood.

Ah well. People is people.