Drug dealers and the police agree that the C8 Corvette is awesome

Happy National Corvette Day to those who celebrate.

Here’s a heart-warming example of Americans with different perspectives coming together and finding common ground (Road & Track):

“Florida Highway Patrol Adds C8 Chevy Corvette to Patrol Car Fleet”

The C8 Corvette was seized from a drug dealer, and now will be used for community outreach — as well as enforcing traffic laws.

(Photo from the FHP’s Facebook post.)

In the same spirit, let me post some rainbow images that I hope everyone can celebrate for the end of Pride (until Omnisexual Visibility Day on July 6). These are from yesterday at Shoshone Falls in Idaho:

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Being LGBTQ+ is a sign of mental health and also it is possible to plan a career in providing mental health services to the LGBTQ+

We’re coming to the end of Pride Month and there won’t be any additional 2SLGBTQQIA+ celebrations until July 6 when we celebrate Omnisexual Visibility Day (i.e., nearly a full week without a Pride-oriented holiday). Here’s a conundrum from X:

In one of the replies, the taxpayer-funded school notes “Damien will be returning to Brooklyn College this fall for a master’s in mental health counseling, aiming to become a therapist specializing in affirming, trauma-informed care for LGBTQ+ clients.” In other words, we are informed that (1) identifying as LGBTQ+ is not a sign of mental illness, and (2) it is possible to rely on a lifetime income stream from the poor mental health of people who identify as LGBTQ+.

Some images in case the above tweets are memory-holed:

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Why are car insurance liability minimums so low?

Happy National Insurance Awareness Day to those who celebrate. (And Happy Pride to everyone else.)

From a friend in the Boston suburbs:

My kids got hit by a Haitian immigrant. The car is totaled. I am talking to his insurance company and they tell me, yeah so he is only insured up to $10,000 (damage to third parties).

(His teenagers were driving a minivan and weren’t hurt, fortunately. The migrant hit them from behind so his car would have needed to go through two empty rows of seats before reaching the children in the front seats.)

It turns out that the noble enricher was overinsured by Maskachusetts standards:

State governments love to regulate. They have a structure in place for requiring car insurance. Why are these limits set ridiculously low? It would be almost impossible to crash into someone else’s car and do less than $5,000 in damage. Things are complicated to some extent by the “no-fault” idea, but wouldn’t it make more sense to have minimum insurance set at the average cost of a car, e.g., if a driver hits a parked car and there is no doubt whose fault it is, or at the average cost of repairing a house after a car hits it?

How much damage was done by the Haitian whose presence in the U.S. makes all of us better off?

Progressive said they would pay $11k for the totaled [2012] Sienna and said they would arrange for me to come and sign papers. They called back and said that MA law requires that they run a check on me before issuing me any checks to make sure I don’t have any outstanding child support. It would then be deducted from my settlement

Even hitting a 13-year-old car did damage more than 2X the minimum! Separately, note that the tragic car destruction could have been a welcome payday for a family court entrepreneur. Finally, note the astounding value of a 13-year-old minivan!

Related:

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How does the fancy bunker buster bomb work?

People are debating how much damage was done to the underground nuclear weapons facilities built and run by the noble Iranians (an analysis by the unfortunately named “ISIS”). Supposedly, the energy of an underground explosion weakens via an r^3 formula (i.e., falls off as the cube of the distance from the explosion), thus making it critical to place the explosion next to the entirely peaceful underground bunker that is the aggressor’s target. (By contrast, an explosion in air falls off as r^2 and an underwater explosion, e.g., from a depth charge, falls off even more gradually.) Putting the bomb into the desired latitude/longitude position is straightforward, but what control does an attacker have over the depth of explosion?

Despite my skepticism that precision weapons can achieve a decisive victory (as long as the Iranians have a functioning oil and gas industry they will, in my opinion, have the resources they need to develop whatever weapons they want to develop), I asked Prof. Dr. ChatGPT, PhD in Bomb Design: “What technical mechanisms does the GBU-57A/B MOP bomb have to ensure that it detonates at the proper depth to destroy an underground bunker?”

Answer (including an image generated by ChatGPT, which you can tell because “measurement” isn’t spelled correctly):

The GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) uses a combination of inertial sensing, hardened fuzing, and time-delay logic to ensure detonation at the proper depth. While detailed specifications are classified, here are the known or inferred technical mechanisms it likely uses:


1. Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) / Accelerometers

  • The bomb contains an IMU that tracks the weapon’s deceleration as it penetrates the ground.
  • By analyzing deceleration patterns, the system can estimate penetration depth and determine when the warhead has reached the intended depth or structural resistance (e.g., reinforced concrete).

2. Hard Target Smart Fuzing (HTSF)

  • MOP likely employs multi-event, programmable fuzes, capable of:
    • Delaying detonation for a set duration after impact
    • Using deceleration signatures to detect when it strikes different material layers (e.g., soil, rock, concrete)
    • Triggering detonation based on penetration depth estimates or when further penetration slows/stops

3. Time-Delay Fuze Programming

  • Before release, operators can program a preset time-delay for detonation based on intelligence about bunker depth.
  • This is used in combination with sensor data to refine detonation timing.

4. Structural Stress Sensors

  • Embedded strain gauges or piezoelectric sensors can detect physical resistance changes as the bomb passes through materials.
  • These help distinguish when the warhead has entered the actual bunker structure versus overlying rock or soil.

5. Robust Casing and Kinetic Penetration

  • Although not a sensor, the MOP’s hardened steel casing and over 30,000-pound weight give it the ability to reach over 60 meters (200 feet) into concrete or earth before detonation—making precise depth control essential and achievable only with advanced fuzing.

Summary

The MOP uses sensor-based inertial tracking, programmable fuzes, delay logic, and material sensing to control detonation at the correct depth. It does not rely on GPS during penetration, as signal loss is inevitable underground. Instead, it fuses inertial and physical resistance data to achieve its goal: destroying deeply buried, hardened targets like WMD bunkers.

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The righteous at Nature highlight the inferior math achievement of a subset of humanity

Nature officially endorsed Kamala Harris for President and thus fully established their righteous bona fides. Here’s a recent tweet from the same folks:

They’re highlighting the inferior achievement/ability of a subset of humans. When did that become okay?

A no-paywall version of the article: https://archive.is/dY45U

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One-year anniversary of CNN proclaiming Joe Biden to be an intellectual giant

“Right-wing media figures are desperately pushing conspiracy theories about Biden ahead of the debate” (CNN, exactly a year ago):

… particularly over the last few months, MAGA Media has portrayed Biden as a senile, mentally incapacitated elderly man who cannot remember what he had for breakfast, let alone run the federal government. That might sound like an exaggeration to those who don’t tune in to Fox News or listen to talk radio, but it has been a real and constant theme in the right-wing media universe. … the stage also will afford Biden a unique opportunity to puncture the narrative he lacks the mental fitness to be commander-in-chief. That’s a worry for right-wing media figures, which risk seeing their bogus narrative about Biden being ripped up in real time.

A screen shot:

Related…

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How’s the peasant uprising in New York City going?

Polls should just be closing in New York City for the mayoral election (this is the Democrat primary, but no Republican could possibly win).

It seems that elites don’t like the idea of Zohran Mamdani leading his promised peasant uprising.

Here’s a typical elite:

We need more worker power and less inequality. What happens when there is a candidate who promises to empower workers and reduce inequality (maybe by driving some rich people to lower-tax parts of the U.S., but isn’t that good if you truly hate inequality?)? “[Mamdani and] the Democratic Socialist program would be profound and dangerous for NYC, for the Democratic Party, and for the USA.”

We are all New Yorkers, it seems, and we all need New York City to stay unequal with disempowered peasants. Maybe Prof. Summers is channeling Lincoln in his Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves everywhere except in all of the states that Lincoln controlled. Elite Democrats want workers empowered and inequality reduced in every city and state that isn’t currently run by elite Democrats?

Loosely related (to “every American is a citizen of New York City”), Michael Moore’s assertion that “We are all Muslim”:

Readers: What’s your prediction about who wins?

It would be fantastic for Palm Beach County if Mamdani wins. On the grounds that a Mamdani victory would be too good to be true, my prediction is that Florida Realtor of the Year 2020 and 2021 Andrew Cuomo wins.

What happens with Andrew Cuomo, though, once he is surrounded by all of the model-grade females of Manhattan? He apparently had some challenges with the young females of Albany, as noted in “These are the women who were sexually harassed by Andrew Cuomo: AG report” (New York Post):

How many New Yorkers would actually move if subjected to a combination of sharia law and higher taxes? My prediction: very few. Hardly any of them moved when Covidcrats locked them down, closed their kids’ schools, forced them to wear masks, forced healthy young people to accept an injection of an experimental vaccine against a disease that mostly kills those aged 80 and over, etc. If New Yorkers cared about personal freedom and lower tax rates they would already have moved. Americans in general lack the gumption to move, according to the NYT (some of this may simply be because a record high percentage of us are on means-tested public assistance programs; it is tough to get established on what was formerly called “welfare” in a new state):

That said, if only a handful of billionaires set up shop in Palm Beach it will result in lower property tax bills for us here in the peasant neighborhoods of Jupiter (we’re part of the same county, if not part of the same world). Just how much can the tax base grow when one rich douche moves to Florida? “The Secret to Building a $100 Million Megamansion” (Wall Street Journal):

It used to be that 20,000 square feet was big. We are currently in development on single-family houses that are over 50,000 square feet. That’s because they’re adding all these amenities. … We did a shark aquarium for a Grammy Award-winning artist. There was a glass elevator and it landed on a nurse shark pond. That was over $1 million to do. We’re currently doing a $20 million remodel for a house owned by rapper Rick Ross. We’re doing a 2,000-gallon Japanese koi fish pond—that’s also about $1 million. It will go through the entire foyer. … BURRAGE: I had a client who would say, “What’s the question? The answer is money.” … GLASER: Even in my house—it’s 17,000-square-feet—our chef does a group text to tell us that dinner will be ready in 20 minutes. … KARP: It’s like, “What if, God forbid, I can’t get to my plane fast enough and go someplace else? I have to have a safe room.” They are standard in every home, both for violence and natural events. They have to have everything—a place to eat, a place to drink, a place to poop. They also can’t be disconnected from communication; you need to continue to work. These houses have backup generators that are connected to solar panels and glass designed to sustain Category 5 winds. The idea is that after a direct hit by a hurricane you come out of the safe room and your house is still air-conditioned, the art is untouched on the walls and everything is protected. … Kobi Karp’s firm recently designed a home for a New York developer in Miami. ‘The home is designed like a luxury resort where the family never crosses paths with the staff. These clients want an environment where people bring them their shoes and their newspaper and take care of their dry cleaning but they never have to see them,’ Karp said

The article shows $150 million in new tax base that is a 30-minute drive from our house:

(Florida has something similar to California’s Proposition 13, but only for a primary residence (“homestead”). A homestead can’t be reassessed at market value unless it is sold or is transformed via renovation. It’s not as crazy as California in that commercial property isn’t included, but a regular result is that a new arrival may pay 2-3X what his/her/zir/their long-term-resident neighbor pays for an identical house.)

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How to upcycle Tesla Cybertrucks

Californians found a way to upcycle the Cybertrucks whose creator they now hate:

Here’s how Tesla drivers in Los Angeles defend against vandalism:

I’m not sure why this excuses the inexcusable. “I voted for Hitler before I knew that he would attack Russia” would also work? Why doesn’t the Tesla owner have to sell the car to a Deplorable in Texas, for example, and buy a Chevy Tahoe (as Sen. Mark Kelly did) or a Toyota Prius or whatever?

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Memorial Day on Olvera Street in Los Angeles

Flash back to Memorial Day in the historic Olvera Street part of Los Angeles. This was prior to the outbreak of peace that resulted in the deployment of the U.S. military into the streets of the city.

The encampment and trash seen approaching the pedestrian street:

Some tips on hiding rom ICE, resisting Trump, and promoting immigration:

Information about the native-born residents of California who were all killed by immigrants:

One of the unhoused in a city and state where nearly everyone agrees that housing is a human right:

The street itself:

Any day is a good day to be an outdoor masker in California:

Nearby Union Station, ready for California’s High Speed Rail project, which the rich inequality-hating Californians say that they can complete only if working class taxpayers in less-wealthy states give them another $100+ billion in federal money. (Inequality haters in CA, MA, NJ, NY, and other rich states never say that they want federal money instead spent in poorer-than-average states such as Michigan.)

Walking back toward downtown:

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