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http://www.oann.com/oan-investigation-finds-no-evidence-of-chemical-weapon-attack-in-syria/

Sorry, folks - this is 2018, and the news is a video. I invite one and all to view the video.

I mentioned in another discussion that I'm not convinced that there WAS a chemical attack in Douma, Syria. Despite the UN investigators not making it to Douma, OAN's Pearson Sharp got into the city.

Several caveats. He was brought into the city by government troops. The city has only been recently "liberated" from the "rebels", so there are soldiers everywhere. We can't know that the presence of the soldiers did, or did not, influence either the reporter, or the people he interviewed. I'm not giving Pearson a whole LOT of credence - for all I know, he's a Russian sympathizer. I'm just saying - you need to consider the situation, and weigh the likelihood that someone, somewhere, is lying.

That said, please visit OANN, and watch the video. It's not quite 11 minutes long.

I'll oversimplify the story, briefly:

There was no chemical attack. Government troops were assaulting the area, and driving the rebels deeper into their holes. Combat, all around, and no escape for the rebels. Some rebel or another came up with an idea of staging a fake chemical attack. The plan went forward, word was spread far and wide that there was poison gas in the streets. The government advance slowed, if not halting, for awhile.

During the confusion, the rebels made like trees, and leaved.

The "allied" attack on the government of Syria only helps to keep the rebel's subterfuge, and escape, covered up.

Opinion aside, someone in this story is playing everyone for a bunch of gullible chumps. One opinion says it's the government, and Russia who are playing us for chumps. Another opinion says that the US and it's allies are guilty.

And, there is no clear, credible evidence on either side.

One of the more convincing arguments that Syria isn't messing with chemicals - Since Syria is steadily gaining ground against the "rebels" with conventional weapons, why would they risk the world's ire just to lob a chem weapon or two? They don't NEED the chemical agents.

I have been at the C++ again. After a few years I have been slowly managing to persuade people that directly testing (using TDD) the C++ code is a good idea.

Also, I have tried to put my C smugness and arrogance away in the spirit of doing things "the right way" i.e. in C++ and the way the earnest and eternally vigilant members of the C++ Inquisition would recommend.

A couple of weekends ago I was on a fairly long train journey so for entertainment I reacquainted myself with the C++ Frequently Questioned Answers and laughed out loud a couple of times much to the bemusement of Mrs Turgid.

I had been asked to supervise a much younger and inexperienced member of the team. He had too much to do and so I was asked to pick up some work he had started. Young people today... So I extracted some of his code into independent methods and put them under test with CPPUNIT which involved hacking on some nasty ANT build scripts (don't get me started...) just to add a few .so files to the linker command line. The build scripts are so bad that it takes upwards of 45 seconds to compile, link and run the unit tests (200 lines of code).

Now to the fun, std::map. Why oh why oh why? Well, because the STL and these are "algorithms" and they've been developed by people much cleverer than you and so they won't have bugs like the ones you would write yourself and they have performance criteria and they use templates so you get type checking at compile time and blah blah blah...

Yes, well, nobody expects the C++ Inquisition. Their main weapon is type safety and code reuse. OK, their two main weapons are type safety, code reuse and generics. Hang on, that's three. I'll come in again. Nobody expects the C++ Inquisition. Amongst their weapons are type safety, code reuse, generics, multiple inheritance, virtual methods, references, the STL... You get the idea.

And what was std::map being used for? To store pairs of strings and integers (hex) read out of an ASCII configuration file. How was the file parsed? sscanf()? No, some fancy stream object with operator<<. And what were the ASCII strings? Names of parameters. And there was a third column in the file that specified a width and was summarily ignored by the parser. And what about the names of the parameters? Well, they were looked up in the map at run time, hard-coded, to pull the values out of the map and put into internal variables with all kinds of shifts and shuffles on byte order. And what if the user changed the names of any of the parameters in the file? Yes, what indeed. The user will be editing this file.

Now I do need to use some sort of dynamic data structure myself in this project. I need to map strings to integers, but with integers as the keys this time. My table needs to be populated with the names of files read from a directory and the files sorted in order. If I were doing this in a sane language like C it would be relatively straight forward. Anyway, we're in C++ land now and the C++ Inquisition are in attendance. So I thought I'd take a leaf out of their book and use std::map<uint32_t, std::string> table or something (note the code is infected with stds all over the place, another cool feature) so I decided I'd better read the documentation. I thought I might use the insert() method and check for duplicate keys in the map. Nope, template error. It seems one must use operator[] but that doesn't check for existing keys, it just overwrites them. The suggested remedy? Ah, scan the entire map from the beginning each time to make sure the key isn't already there. Doesn't it throw one of these pesky exception things? I thought they were the Modern Way(TM)?

::iterator is fun. Try to iterate over an empty map, or to an entry that isn't there. How do you detect it? Well, ::iterator is some kind of pointer (you get at the data with ->first or ->second) so you might compare with NULL (sorry, 0 nowadays) but no way because operator== is not defined. The best advice is not to try to iterate over an empty map or to dereference an iterator that doesn't point to anything.

I could have read my file names into a (sorted) linked list checking for duplicates along the way. It would have been less than 50 lines of C, and I could have written it and tested it in the time it took me to get angry about C++ all over again.

The word is chagrin. I have wasted very precious time and haven't even got any working code.

Edited 20180328 to use proper escape codes for angle brackets.

So, I want to engrave some things. Most of these things are going to be iron, steel, or aluminum tools, but I'd also like to engrave some less durable items, such as plastics. I've done a couple searches, and I'm looking at engravers ranging from about $80 (US$) all the way up to about $180,000. I suppose that if I searched, I could find some cheaper, and almost certainly more expensive.

So, I'm looking - and all that I can really see, is how ignorant I am. I have almost zero idea what it is that will make a long-lasting engraver. Will one of those ultra-cheap engravers from China last for ten years of light-to-moderate use? Probably not - but what do I know? Is it necessary to spend thousands of dollars for the same thing? Newegg has a variety of engravers, for less than $400, but the biggest, most powerful among them has a disclaimer:

Engraving Material Note:
1.can engraving materials:wood,bamboo,plastic,paper,leather,bank card,rubber
2.can not engraving material:metal,stone,ceramic,shell,light-reflecting material,transparent material

Seems pretty obvious that I need something bigger, and more expensive, than a $400 engraver. Can engraving metal, dammit!

Does anyone here have experience with non-industrial laser engravers? (Industrial? Quarter million dollars entry level?) Power ratings, sizes, brands, whatever - any information is welcome!

Alright - I think everyone knows that I have no use for Trump. I really don't like the guy much, for a number of reasons. I've even referred to him, on this forum, as The Court Fool.

Mr. Mychal Massie was a subject of discussion on the radio talk show this morning. "Trump isn't a liberal or a conservative, he's a pragmatist."

Wow. I hadn't thought of Trump in those terms - nor has anyone else here, I suspect. It has been stated here that Trump was not a republican, or a democrat. I just never thought in the direction that Massie has.

We recently enjoyed a belated holiday dinner at the home of friends. The dinner conversation was jocund, ranging from discussions about antique glass and china to theology and politics. At one point reference was made to Donald Trump being a conservative, to which I responded that Trump is not a conservative.

I said that neither does Trump view himself as a conservative. I stated it was my opinion that Trump is a pragmatist. He sees a problem and understands it must be fixed. He then sets about fixing it. He doesn’t see the problem as liberal or conservative; he sees it only as a problem. That is a quality that should be admired and applauded, not condemned. But I get ahead of myself.

Now, isn't that enough to make heads assplode? A pragmatist. BTW - Mr. Massie happens to be a black guy. His picture is at the top of the page, showing the face of a moderately dark brown man. So, this is from an African American who does NOT see Trump as a fascist, or a Nazi, or - well - he doesn't even see Trump as the court fool. I need to keep reading . . .

Viewing problems from a liberal perspective has resulted in the creation of more problems, more entitlement programs, more victims, more government, more political correctness and more attacks on the working class in all economic strata.

Viewing things according to the so-called Republican conservative perspective has brought continued spending, globalism to the detriment of American interests and well-being, denial of what the real problems are and weak, ineffective, milquetoast leadership that amounts to Barney Fife, deputy sheriff – appeasement-oriented and afraid of its own shadow. In brief, it has brought liberal ideology with a pachyderm as a mascot juxtaposed to the ass of the Democrat Party.

Immigration isn’t a Republican problem; it isn’t a liberal problem – it is a problem that threatens the very fabric and infrastructure of America. It demands a pragmatic approach, not an approach that is intended to appease one group or another.

The impending collapse of the economy isn’t a liberal or conservative problem; it is an American problem. That said, until it is viewed as a problem that demands a common-sense approach to resolution, it will never be fixed because the Democrats and Republicans know only one way to fix things, and their impracticality has proven to have no lasting effect. Successful businessmen like Donald Trump find ways to make things work. They do not promise to accommodate.

Trump uniquely understands that China’s manipulation of currency is not a Republican problem or a Democratic problem. It is a problem that threatens our financial stability, and he understands the proper balance needed to fix it. Here again, successful businessmen like Trump who have weathered the changing tides of economic reality understand what is necessary to make business work, and they, unlike both sides of the political aisle, know that if something doesn’t work you don’t continue trying to make it work, hoping that at some point it will.

As a pragmatist, Donald Trump hasn’t made wild pie-in-the-sky promises of a cellphone in every pocket, free college tuition and a $15-an-hour minimum wage for working the drive-through a Carl’s Jr.

I argue that America needs pragmatists because pragmatists see problems and find ways to fix them. They do not see a problem and compound it by creating more problems.

You may not like Donald Trump. I suspect that the reason people do not like him is because: 1) he is antithetical to the “good old boy” method of brokering backroom deals that fatten the coffers of politicians; 2) they are unaccustomed to hearing a candidate speak who is unencumbered by the financial shackles of those who own him vis-a-vis donations; 3) he is someone who is free of idiomatic political ideology; and 4) he is someone who understands that it takes more than hollow promises and political correctness to make America great again.

Listening to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders talk about fixing America is like listening to two lunatics trying to “out crazy” one another. Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio are owned lock, stock and barrel by the bankers, corporations and big-dollar donors funding their campaigns. Bush can deny it, but common sense tells anyone willing to face facts that people don’t give tens of millions without expecting something in return.

We have had Democrats and Republican ideologues – and what has it brought us? Are we better off today or worst off? Has it happened overnight or has it been a steady decline brought on by both parties?

I submit that a pragmatist might be just what America needs right now. And as I said earlier, a pragmatist sees a problem and understands that the solution to fix same is not about a party, but a willingness and boldness to get it done.

People are quick to confuse and despise confidence as arrogance, but that is common amongst those who have never accomplished anything in their lives and who have always played it safe not willing to risk failure.

I'm thinking that maybe I need to read more Massie . . .

http://www.wnd.com/2016/01/trump-a-pragmatist-not-a-conservative/
Published: 01/18/2016 at 7:23 PM

A snippet of commentary heard on the radio this morning:

"Democrats are turning out for the primaries in Texas in record numbers, for this mid-term election. But, they still have nowhere near the numbers that Republicans enjoy."

Got home, and took a look for myself. https://www.politico.com/election-results/2018/texas/

Isn't that special? The Republican primary winner has 1.3 - almost 1.4 - million votes. The total of democrat votes is 1.01 million. The total of Republican votes is 1.54 million voters.

Abbot is another Trump, IMO. I don't like him. But, it looks like he has this election in the bag, already. Ted Cruz appears to have it for the Senate, as well.

Congress critters - not so much. They all show big fat zeroes right now. I clicked on a few other states, no one has results to show. I don't even know when primaries happen in most other states.

Anyway - if Dems are turning out in record numbers, and they STILL make such a poor showing - well - Texas is going to remain red, red, red.

Hmmmmm - link doesn't appear to show up as a hyperlink? Let's try again - https://www.politico.com/election-results/2018/texas/

President Trump promised steel and aluminum executives Thursday that he will levy tariffs on imports of their products in coming weeks. He said the imported steel will face tariffs of 25 percent, while aluminum will face tariffs of 10 percent.

"We're going to build our steel industry back and we're going to build our aluminum industry back," Trump told reporters.

The president announced the action after meeting with leaders of the two industries at the White House. On Thursday afternoon, major stock market indexes fell sharply after Trump's announcement, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing down 420 points, or about 1.7 percent.

The obvious two problems with such a proposal is first, it makes everything more expensive for US companies since steel and aluminum get used in a lot of products. Second, there will be return fire. For example, most steel imports come in from countries friendly to the US (Canada, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, Mexico, etc). Retributive tariffs from our best trade partners is not to going to help the US's situation.

Even if this is a typical hard bargaining tactic (start off with an extreme demand and then negotiate down to what you really wanted), it's pretty provocative. There are already people making decisions based on what Trump might do (such as sell offs in the markets). Countries might follow shortly.

Trump is already looking at a massive route in the 2018 elections. This sounds like it'll dig the hole deeper since even the risk of a tariff war will depress economic activity. Right now, the US economy is doing relatively well. But Trump can fix that. Voters will look even less favorably on the Republicans, if the economy tanks on top of everything else.

Several Broward deputies waited outside during Florida school shooting, report says

Coral Springs cops who responded to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School say several Broward sheriff’s deputies waited outside rather than rush in as the killer was gunning down students, according to reports.

The allegations emerged a day after veteran Broward deputy Scot Peterson resigned under fire for failing to enter the school during the Valentine’s Day shooting. President Trump on Friday said Peterson, who was assigned to guard the school, “did a poor job.”

The Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that according to police sources at least three Broward deputies, including Peterson, waited outside. The Broward Sheriff’s Office said Friday it is investigating the Coral Springs officer's claims.

The allegations add to a series of failures that have emerged since 19-year-old gunman Nikolas Cruz killed 17 students and staff, and wounded 16. Cruz was arrested and charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

Two additional Broward deputies are also under investigation over whether they mishandled warnings about Cruz in the months leading up to the shooting. The FBI has admitted it failed to investigate similar claims, and Florida child welfare agency looked into concerns about Cruz, but concluded he wasn’t a risk to himself or others.

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel told the Sun-Sentinel that three Coral Springs officers said one or more sheriff’s deputies did not go into the school building when they should have, and their concerns were relayed to the sheriff’s office by the Coral Springs police chief.

“If our investigation shows that our deputies made no mistakes or did things right, or it’s not corroborated, there will be no issue,” Israel said.

“If we find out, as we did with Peterson, that our deputies made mistakes and didn’t go in, I’ll handle it like I always have. I’ll handle any violations of policy or procedures or whatever accordingly.”

This is a primary reason for contempt of police. These cops milled about smartly, outside of a school building, knowing full well that someone was wandering the halls, killing people. Why? Because they are COWARDS!

Oh, I'm sure they can legally justify their actions with policy, and procedure. And, none of them were actually ordered to go inside of the building. Blah, blah, blah - they can defend themselves in a court of law.

But out here, in real life, each of these people stood by while a marauder was taking lives, several feet away from them.

Military veterans? I don't know, maybe some of us would have leaned on policy and procedure. Many, if not most, of us would have charged into the building. We have a tradition of "whatever it takes". A common comment in evaluations (when justified) is "Petty Officer Whoever is mission oriented, and willing to make sacrifices to see the mission through."

The "mission" in this case, would have been to end the carnage, and to save lives. These cops seemed to be content to allow the carnage to continue, until enough of a police force had collected to ensure their own personal survival.

That is a damned good definition of cowardice.

If you aren't willing to put your own life on the line, you are unworthy of respect. You have no right to wear that uniform. You have no right to your paycheck. You haven't even the right to compare yourself to a lowly dog. Many dogs have readily, and willingly, sacrificed themselves in defense of their masters, or children, or even strangers in some rarer instances.

Cops. We've often mentioned that the police force attracts authoritarian, abusive assholes. We need to attract more people who are willing to risk themselves for their fellow man.

It would be interesting to review these coward's service records. How many of them have been abusive pigs, who singled out defenseless (homeless, prostitutes, female, minority, minors, etc) to abuse?

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/02/24/several-broward-deputies-waited-outside-during-florida-school-shooting-report-says.html

I've heard this theme several times after a mass shooter has acted out. One, two, maybe three news sources blame the shootings on drugs - but the media doesn't really pick up on it. Well, I've just heard it again, in regards to Cruz, the Florida shooter. Drugs are to blame. Hmmmmm . . . let me search for SOME kind of source, I can't just take a radio DJ's word for it, right?

http://www.wnd.com/2018/02/media-ignoring-1-crucial-factor-in-florida-school-shooting/ Yep, depression. All the other conduct I've seen attributed to Cruz ranges from normal, to weird, to maybe a little crazy. But, he WAS being treated over several year's time for depression. Interesting . . .

Paddock, the Vegas shooter - likewise. https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/the-strip/las-vegas-strip-shooter-prescribed-anti-anxiety-drug-in-june/

Adam Lanza, of Newtown, ditto. https://ssristories.org/the-antipsychotic-prescribed-to-adam-lanza-has-a-troubled-history-all-its-own-business-insider/

Ok, I'll try to be fair here - and honest. Those links aren't exactly "mainstream", and they may or may not be "credible". I don't place a helluva lot of credibility in any of the media, to be honest.

But, how about psychologytoday? Is it credible? Unlike some Soylentils, I'm not a part time psychoanalyst. I have no degree in pretending to understand people. I see the title, and hope that it is more credible than say . . . The National Enquirer. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/obsessively-yours/201212/newtown-shootings-caution-about-violence-and-ssris

Newtown Shootings: A Caution About Violence and SSRIs
SSRIs rank high in the top ten drugs that cause violence
Posted Dec 20, 2012

As the debate moves forward about how to keep events like the shooting in Newtown from happening, the inevitable topic that comes up is how to best detect and treat young people with mental illness.

Many of our politicians have opined on this subject, sometimes as a way of deflecting from the issue of gun control. While it is obvious that better screening and treatment of troubled adolescents can be of enormous benefit, we also have to exercise caution.

The reason for the note of caution is that when a typical young person is diagnosed with depression and/or a host of anti-social conditions, the standard treatment offered is SSRI’s [Selective Serotonin Uptake Inhibitors] also known as Prozac-like drugs. There has recently been a great deal of debate about the effectiveness of such medications.

But more relevant to the discussion, is that these very drugs we hope can treat mental illness are at the same time drugs that cause violent behavior including suicide and aggression toward others. In fact, SSRI’s are the leading drugs in a recent list compiled of the Top Ten Drugs that cause violent behavior.

It’s been well known that adolescents and young people have an increased risk of suicide when they begin to take SSRIs. But what we may forget is that suicide is an impulsive behavior that is turned against oneself. But impulses, particularly violent ones, can be turned against others.

An accompanying effect of SSRI’s is the dulling of feelings that cause depression—and one of the main feelings in this line is empathy. If empathy is dulled and violent impulses increase when young people are on SSRI’s, then certainly that is a recipe for causing harm to others.

With every shooting, the hoplophobes resume screeching and squawking about the need for gun control laws. We never hear them even ASK about psychotropic drugs.

As I say, I've heard this question asked, several times, over the years. Aren't the psychotropics suspect? Maybe they're to blame? But, I've never really looked at it. Call it some naive faith that if the drugs were to blame, then someone is working to expose that fact. Except - that is a terribly naive thing to believe. Big Pharma is in the business of making money - even when it creates an opium addiction crisis.

So, what about those shooters? Are they picking up their guns because the guns removed all their natural(?) inhibitions?

Can anyone find an account of a shooter who WAS NOT on anti-depressants or some other psychotropic?

This really is worrisome. The shrinks tell us that one in four, or one in five, or one in seven Americans have mental health issues. Let me find something on that . . . Newsweek claims one in five - that is, 20% of all Americans are nuts, to some degree or another - http://www.newsweek.com/nearly-1-5-americans-suffer-mental-illness-each-year-230608 (no, of course they don't use the word "nuts" - I can paraphrase them however the hell I like)

So, the shrinks claim that 1/5 of all the people you meet are nuts. FFS, are they really nuts, or are the shrinks the ones who are nuts?

Seemingly, people who are NOT vititing shrinks, don't shoot people at random. While, seemingly, people who routinely see shrinks, and take the drugs offered them, are far more likely to pick up a weapon, and start spraying everyone in sight.

So, WTF is going on here? Ideas? Opinion? Should we stop demonizing guns, and start demonizing drugs and Big Pharma?

What is the possibility that the drugs actually MAKE people crazy? From my experience with friends and family who are prescribed drugs for ADD/ADHD, hyperactivity, and other "problems" - they often turn zombie-like. Once close acquaintance described feeling "angry" whenever he was on his drugs. As the drugs wore off, he was much less angry. Of course, that is just one example - one person who felt free to talk to me about his experience.

Are shrinks what is wrong with America today?

In case you haven't heard, FreeBSD has a new code of conduct that's seemingly pulled straight from the shit-spewing face of a blue-haired intersectional feminist.

Me, I refuse to contribute to any coding project with a code of conduct designed to protect people of one political ideology from those who disagree with them. They're of course welcome to do what they like but they'll be doing it without my help in any way.