Peelable shims

Life has been interesting, full of memorable details, like layered aluminum shim stock pieces that could be peeled 1mm at a time to adjust the height of little lens assemblies, 48 lens to be converged, no two of which matched in prototype machining or mounting. I bought magic shop smoke powder to assess what was wrong with the cooling system. Three fans blew into the projector, no air flow, nothing but turbulence. I reversed one of the fans and installed heat dissipating fins on the inefficient glass lamp mirrors, to be upgraded with my parabolic chrome-plated design to throw more light than heat in a commercial production model.

Two Lockheed engineers came by with a section of the L-1011 cockpit windscreen. There was a layer of gold film to heat and defog the thick, curved windscreen, and most of them had to be thrown away, because the gold film ripped top to bottom randomly in the middle of the screen and wouldn't conduct current. I adjusted my 3-D video microscope to examine their defect sample, experimented with fiber optic lighting, and saw the problem. A tiny speck of dirt had created a puddle of resistance that ripped molecule by molecule in a vertical tear. I enjoyed helping them. The L-1011 was my favorite passenger plane.

Sometimes I annoyed people. I was assigned to coordinate a business presentation for LRT, the government agency that operates the London Underground system. It was proposed to install a new PA system with video news bulletins to entertain and inform folks standing on hundreds of platforms, which train was next and why it was delayed, if it was. Existing PA announcements were totally unintelligible. I worked with two other men on the proposal, both of them ruling class dignitaries. The finance guy understood and accepted my budget cuts, but the electronics wizard went ballistic. He wanted to sell LRT pricey TV monitors he manufactured. I vetoed it in favor of cheap Hitachi screens that I could get below wholesale because it advertised the brand. The other idea I pushed was sequential audio delay, so the sound marched along the platform in one wavefront, no cacophonous echo.

I was overly fussy about ethics. In 2009, I became slightly famous for busting the SEC, the oil industry, and two professional associations. Presto, I had 25,000 followers on Seeking Alpha, and Felix Salmon at Reuters publicized the story I told about fake "proved" oil reserves and black box probability modeling. Nice bright feather in my cap, but zero dollars and zero cents in consulting fees. Worse, I called the top on Petrobras, issued a Sell rating. Investors saved tens of millions of dollars and wrote glowing thanks. The rules were exasperating. Analysts have to be pure as the driven snow, no money invested, no short selling. I wrote a few more financial articles, horse laughed at BHP's $12 billion acquisition of Petrohawk, and celebrated a young Irish economist who correctly saw that it was impossible to convert and fuel the U.S. passenger car and light duty pickup truck fleet with natural gas ("the Pickens Plan"). There's not enough natural gas in the ground to do 10% of it. Eventually I got a booby prize for calling bullshit on BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster, monitoring two dozen ROVs day and night. An editor in Abu Dhabi offered me a weekly column opposite Paul Krugman, $300 for 800 words on any topic I cared to discuss. My first target was George W. Bush and a corrupt oil deal in Ghana. Then the problem of critical elements, shortages of rhenium, gold, and cadmium.

Pity that I never made the leap to digital. I was an analog expert, supply and demand curves and spockets and lighting ratios, tape recorders and vacuum tubes. As a child I assembled radio kits, used a slide rule to calculate antenna lengths, and built lightning arrestors.

* coming attraction *

I have been honored repeatedly in life, always privately, never by cheering crowds. About a year ago, an audiobook producer offered to voice my libertarian ethics, politics, and legal philosophy of due process and national security. It's been completed and will appear as an Audible release on the 4th of July. I find it slightly incredible that big rig drivers, airline passengers, and subway strap hangers will listen to six hours of Wolf DeVoon, but I'm deeply honored that my ideas were commemorated by a very capable professional narrator.

About anarchy

I was a film and TV director. Frequently, daily, hourly, minute by minute, I told people what to do. The best directors perceive what others can do (or can't do). I negotiated, but just as often I challenged them to stretch a little. Everyone does this in grocery stores, or driving a car on a busy street, or dealing with your family. We navigate a parking lot, find a nice cut of meat, choose which brand of cereal to take home. Price matters. Sometimes it's negotiable, especially buying a used car or a house, deciding which job to take (or quit), how much to bid at an auction. I was delighted to get a pine day bed in perfect condition for $5 at a furniture auction, because no one else bid for it. Sometimes it's difficult to get what you want. Please eat your spinach, honey. It's full of iron for healthy red blood cells.

All of these transactions, on a film set or at the family dinner table, are practical aspects of private anarchy, absolutely no government involved. There are some principles of law in the background, most of them physical. Unless you're over six feet tall and nimble, forget about playing competitive basketball. No matter how angry you are, cursing a stalled truck with a dead battery won't start it. Employment can be frustrating at times, hamstrung by rules or a lazy coworker, a manager who's deaf to suggestions, a client who changes her mind halfway through a job. How we deal with adversity and fatigue is a measure of our fitness to live. I was considerably less fit than others. No man is perfectly suited to all situations, but we're free to say phooey! and concentrate on strengthening our strengths. The responsibility of anarchy impels men to study, dream, explore, dare, fail, try again, and succeed in ways that others don't. They're busy building themselves as separate souls, a basic human right.

Legislation forces everyone to conform. Or rebel, which tens of millions of Americans do all the time. Liberty is a tradition with thick deep roots, all the way back to Patrick Henry, who led the fight in Virginia to reject the new U.S. Constitution. He almost succeeded, lost by six votes, 79-89. His descendants recently rallied in defense of the 2nd Amendment, thousands of armed men surrounding the statehouse. It's not an exclusively American phenomenon. British skinhead patriots fought police to stop Black Lives Matter from defacing or toppling national monuments in Westminster.

Law enforcement is selective and weak. It's impossible to regulate road rage in Los Angeles, narcotics in Philadelphia, or homicide in Chicago. Police and National Guard couldn't control riots and looting in 1968 or 1992 or 2020. Law and order is mostly voluntary, something that people do by themselves. Half of the American electorate doesn't vote and don't care what happens in Albany or Sacramento, a bicoastal conspiracy of liars and dunces. They bought guns and ammo, and they're voting with their feet, because cities are no longer affordable, fun, safe, or economically necessary. Cops are quitting, and those on duty are making fewer arrests. Tens of thousands of families have fled New York City.

Anarchy is inextinguishable. No one can force you to love someone, or do the right thing, or do the wrong thing to appease LGBT attorneys. When Target allowed men to use women's rest rooms and changing rooms, thousands of women boycotted the chain. People vote with their feet. They risk their lives to escape Guatemala and enter the U.S. illegally.

Patriots are few, patrolling the world to deter China and Russia, manning missile silos and nuclear submarines. Money can't buy their loyalty. Every good on earth is voluntary. Some of it is fatal. All of it is difficult, like raising a family and protecting your innocent children from government indoctrination, predatory urban animals, seductive internet filth, and drugs.

The only antidote to peril is independence, personal choice.

Forget about racism, political machinations, media headlines, tragedy, and fancy ideas. The meaning of private anarchy is simple. You're free to pursue your own happiness, to thrive as an individual, to care for your family and provide for the future. Declare independence.

The forces arrayed against Donald Trump are extremely powerful, including swing votes in the Senate and distinguished military figures. The possibility of a coup is no longer remote or hypothetical. Crisis serves the interests of vultures like George Soros, who made his fortune betting against the Bank of England. If constitutional government is suspended, whether by military coup, or civil disorder, or a rigged election in November, it will not alter the truth of private anarchy and personal responsibility for the safety of your loved ones. Those who can think independently and sidestep mass hysteria are pioneer citizen heroes devoted to the principles of American life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

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I lack imagination

When things return to normal

Smooth BBC liars lull me to sleep at night, an old habit.

But I hate waking up to communists on NPR. This morning it was TED radio hour, a billionaire early investor in Amazon. No, no, not good enough to give away his own loot. The only way to end income disparity, he said, was to take away everyone's wealth, a 50% tax on income and capital gains. Those who earn less than $100K to be paid time-and-a-half for 40 hours a week, a $20 minimum wage. Big round of applause from the Stanford social warrior TED audience.

What do rioters and antifa want? Destruction and looted luxury goods. Run the police ragged and attack them with rocks and fireworks. Next it will be snipers, like the guy who killed five cops at a Black Lives Matter rally in Dallas. Bad joke on Chicago, hiring the black chief of police who resigned his do-nothing job as top cop in Dallas. Not to be outdone in symbolic idiocy, Dallas hired a black female police chief. The murder rate in both cities increased.

George Floyd? - a dangerous felon with a long rap sheet for armed robbery and assault. He resisted arrest, too doped up to talk sense, a giant that took four cops to wrangle. Did they find a gun in his car? Crack, meth, PCP, or heroin? There was a hostile crowd to watch. No wonder they called for back-up in bulletproof vests. An official autopsy showed no airway injury, no neck injuries. George Floyd tore away in a fentanyl-amphetamine "speedball" stumble. Cops knew he was seriously stoned, held him down, waited for EMS to arrive.

"Universal condemnation!" Hannity proclaims, silencing debate. "He was a Christian man!" Metaxas yells. "No justice, no peace!" mobs of brick throwing protestors cry. In Chicago they didn't need prepositioned pallets of bricks and fire accelerants like Minneapolis, New York, and Washington DC. Looters carried bowling balls, baseball bats, and long handle shovels to smash windows in downtown Chicago, with 132 Chicago cops injured by black rioters.

200 NYPD cops injured, 40 squad cars damaged. 114 District cops and U.S. Park Police injured defending the White House. Every major and minor city in America looted and burned. 75 million white people cowering at home, forbidden to work. Target abandoning 105 looted, boarded up stores. CVS shut locations in 20 states. WalMart closing 100 stores. No fire and casualty insurance payouts for civil strife. Cops in Altanta fired for arresting black agitators. Cops in Buffalo and the Bronx run over by cars. A Vegas cop shot in the head point blank.

Our nation is dying.

Tom Gresham has the right take on it. Antifa is an organized assault funded by Democrats. Don't get involved. Cops can't tell if you're a good guy. They can't see the halo on your head. If antifa rioters try to pull you out of your car, use the skinny right pedal and floor it. If you have no other choice, windows being broken out, light 'em up. Tom carries a double stack automatic, like police do, plenty of ammo to deal with multiple assailants. Antifa thugs are equipped with weapons and firebombs. They shot cops in three states. Don't be a victim.

I hope the military can contain China, Russia, and Iran, virus or no virus. Our adversaries will try to take advantage of economic collapse at home. We might lose the White House, not in November, I mean August. Depends on how heavily armed Black Lives Matter is. I've heard it a hundred times in radio ads, cheery and confident realtors and travel agents: "This too shall pass. When life gets back to normal..."

The depth of willful Republican blindness is astonishing. 82 shootings, 19 dead in Chicago last week, unrelated to the riots. As usual, Mark Levin has everything upside down, blinkered by his brief tenure working for Ed Meese. He's a Trump flagwaver, demanding military action, and he fantasizes that FBI agents and U.S. Marshals can infiltrate antifa undercover. Middle aged tough guys in crewcuts will fit right in, no problem, huh? Jeez.

The right thing to do is to withdraw the cops. Business owners can leave town or defend their property with the 2nd Amendment. Shut down all public schools and fire brainwashed union teachers. Give the school buildings to private organizations, religious or commercial. If cops want to do something, they should attack the narcotics trade as fiercely as Elliot Ness. Either that or pack up law enforcement as a proactive enterprise. Let dope-addled gangsters kill each other. Big cities are no longer needed to conduct finance, trade, or higher ed. The future will be digital and decentralized, in small towns and well-defended enclaves of excellence, none of which will be in Nigeria or Congo. No wonder that freed slaves adamantly refused Lincoln's offer to send them home with grubstake reparations.

No virtue in voting. That's how we got into this mess. Ben Shapiro is hilarious. "We're still a civilized country!" he exclaims, urging Trump to mobilize the 82nd Airborne to tame L.A. and defend Beverly Hills synagogues, jewelers, and Jewish media tycoons. "Where the hell are the authorities?" he rants angrily about Jews being attacked by black looters in Brooklyn.

Every morning another shock. Not important that cops are being shot, four more in St. Louis. There's a far bigger problem. Amazon borrowed $10 billion at 24% annual interest. Consider what that implies, if you understand credit. It has to be a false or garbled report. The least creditworthy junk borrowers paid less than 12% last year. If it's true that Amazon is shelling out usurious 24% as a bad credit risk, then capital markets are frozen shut. I think that makes sense. Credit quality from coast-to-coast crashed. Risk rocketed to the stratosphere. The oil industry is bankrupt, hanging on with Federal bailout loans. Don't depend on refineries to continue in operation. Convert as much as you can to propane or natural gas.

Cops have warned that they can't respond to home invasion or assault. Arm yourself like the citizens of Cicero, Illinois. Curfews are meaningless. National Guard helicopters might work. But martial law and social distancing have killed any hope of normalcy or progress. Trump is indelibly painted with racism, fascism, and crony capitalism. Truth is the first casualty of war, and war was declared long before Trump took office.

Postscript to Mark Levin. Dems are done with Jews. You've been cut out of the coalition. The Republicans say they care about equal rights, but it might be empty words. They remember what happened to George W. Bush, sandbagged by Wolfowitz and Pearle. Trump is in your corner, but he's on the way out. Public service is a dead ideology. Cop recruitment collapsed, resignations up. Forget about the mainstream media. They're doomed dinosaurs. Antifa is coordinated on dark web Proton. If I were you (which I'm not) I'd move to Israel. "There was progress being made!" you moaned on June 1st, but it's over, all gone, and you know it. An endless lock-down for the Wuhan panic, half of all deaths in nursing homes, something else to wrongly pin on Trump. Now a Democrat funded insurrection, New York City smashed and bleeding. No way back from Obama's calculated civil war, and Ray Charles can't fix it.

I just heard a BBC interview with the brainless girl mayor of Rochester. I hereby certify that America is finished. It's over. We're the walking dead. California and New York lawmakers and mayors are in favor of defunding police. Their summer soldiers and midnight assassins are targeting cops, three more ambushed in Brooklyn last night. Don't underestimate the criminal conspiracy to sabotage law and order. Car dealers cleaned out in San Francisco and Chicago, keyboxes pried open, 150 new cars stolen. ATMs blown up and robbed.

The BBC asks rhetorically: "Is America ready for real change?" Change from what to what?  Merit to mush. Liberty to reparations. Mob rule.

Mark my words. Taking down the statue of Lee was only an opening salvo. They won't stop until they change the flag, fifty stars on a field of blue black, and the national anthem: "Oh, say, does our new spangled ban-aa-anner now way-ave, o'r the lan-and built by slaves and the home of George Floyd?" Black generals, black admirals, black teachers and doctors.

It's over. There will be secession.

The uptick in jobs and Wall Street share prices? Your tax dollars at work, $2 trillion poured into small business, used car sales, mail order consumer spending. What it amounts to is a near fatal shot of cocaine. Senate leader McConnell is in full panic, has to push through more borrowed paper funneled through terrified bankers, injecting more horse into the economy, pending more theft, riot, arson, cops and Marines told to stand down, unarmed, make nice with mobs who will castigate, chant obscenities, and throw things at them.

Oh. Something else to think about and take appropriate action. $10 or $12 trillion created by fiat, rather than creditworthiness, will exhibit itself in devaluation of the U.S. dollar overseas and domestic inflation, another reason to cut off lending. Save every penny you can, work if you can, and spend nothing. No new clothes, no new shoes, no kitchen remodel or roofing. Consider a rural Flyover bugout when your job goes poof. Rising prices will kill construction and socially distanced drinking and dining. Risk averse Americans are not going to fly more than once on a crowded plane suffocating in masks, exchanging nervous glances.

Don't be a chump. Boeing is still in business because they have a fat contract to build tankers based on the two-engine 757 airframe. Has nothing to do with passenger aircraft sales. Their order book is a big blank page, passenger airline orders cancelled worldwide. The 737 MAX might never be cleared to fly. It depends on what Obama decides to do. He might impose a hiring quota or simply push Boeing into bankruptcy, to punish white executives, engineers, and skilled mechanics. China would certainly prefer to have Boeing shut.

Eventually, we'll have a multi-billionaire Chinese U.S. president, er, Chairman. I don't enjoy being clairvoyant or realistic about the future. Obama always was and remains a completely treasonous foreign policy fool. Do you think Joe is capable of resisting what Barack tells him to do? A tiny hypodermic poke would promote Michelle to the Oval Office.

Unvarnished truthfulness is usually painful. The hundreds of thousands of black marchers infected each other with Wuhan Corona-19 virus. Our media embargo on who George Floyd was and why he died, from narcotics, a failed struggle to escape, and high blood pressure from a lifetime of greasy fast food and drug and alcohol abuse, is another suicidal march of death, 24/7 repetition of inflammatory lies, smearing cops as racist killers, all black people innocent victims entitled to six-figure reparations and public office.

Infinitely worse, the fabric of American life was shredded. No fair trial in Minnesota. Guilty by threat of mob violence. Ballot harvesting, one-party Democrat rule, confiscatory taxation, and a Green New Deal to silence and starve greedy whites.

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