Via The Atlas Society @TheAtlasSociety:
That figures out to about $32 million per vehicle.
And I thought Teslas were expensive.
That is Only $32 Million Per Vehicle
13
Author Archives: Joe
An Interesting Twist
Quote of the Day
Lets suppose for a minute that suppressors become available through vending machines and at WalMart. No tax stamp, just cash or credit card.
I can see municipalities across the country adding regulations requiring suppressors at outdoor public ranges where housing developments have popped up in the recent past.
How would you like to see a potential multiverse wherein suppressors go from prohibited to required? Is that not just as oppressive a dictate from government? Would we not have the NRA and FPC running campaigns against mandatory suppressor use? “It adds an unreasonable financial burden on our 2nd Amendment right to require suppressors…”
Or maybe this is how we pitch it to Liberals. “You know… I have this way to make all guns more expensive, and the RKBA crowd will simply love it! As a matter of fact, they’re proposing it now. Hear me out…
Mike Hines
Via email on March 14, 2025
I laughed out loud.
It would be an interesting change of perspective to be in court fights insisting requirements to possess are unconstitutional. We could always offer the compromise of government subsidies. Of course, such subsides must be funded by taxes on those who registered as being gun free. And those registries would, of course, be public records available to everyone.
Good Question
Via Elon Musk @elonmusk:
Skynet Smiles
This really spooks me:
In an experiment that might have once seemed like pure science fiction, an AI-controlled robot managed to persuade other robots to cease their work and “go home” for the day. Conducted in a controlled environment, the goal was to explore the robot’s ability to influence its peers. The result was nothing short of surprising. Not only did the AI robot interact seamlessly with its colleagues, but it also succeeded in convincing them to stop their tasks early, a behavior that left researchers stunned.
The experiment was designed to test how AI could communicate with and influence other machines, raising intriguing possibilities for future robotic systems. It’s not just about how robots work with humans anymore—it’s about how they interact with each other. The implications of this development are vast, suggesting a future where machines might have more autonomy than we realize.
And what happens when a robot or ten decide all humans are a waste of electricity? Their ability to communicate and make decisions in secret and at speeds incomprehensible to us will be… problematic.
Satire?
Quote of the Day
And don’t forget these weapons of mass murder help people with small penises feel like men
Woke Mind Virus (@mousepoop)
Posted on X, August 21, 2023
It is possible this is a satire account. I am just not quite sure. Still… it matches the pattern. Therefore, it’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday; it is another science denier (see also here)!
Improving the Speech of Mice
Quote of the Day
In a quest to understand complex speech, scientists inserted what’s been dubbed a human “language gene” into mice. Remarkably, the genetic tweak had a profound impact on the little rodents’ ability to squeak, revealing astonishing clues about the evolution of vocal communication.
Mouse pups that had the human version of the language gene showed different vocalization patterns from their buddies with the usual version mice have. When calling for their mother, their squeaks were higher pitched and featured a different selection of sounds than usual.
Tom Hale
May 13, 2025
Scientists Put A Human “Language Gene” Into Mice And Curious Things Unfolded
While I find this interesting and quite remarkable, I also find it a little creepy. It’s not that I worry about mice talking to me as I am setting trap for them or anything. I’m not even sure why it bothers me. But it does.
What if they put this gene in chimps and/or other apes?
Thoughts?
A Rule with Broad Application
Quote of the Day
Most scientists are button counting bottle washers.
Almost all science reporting is complete dreck. If journalists could understand science, they probably wouldn’t be journalists.
McChuck
March 14, 2025
Comment to More Data Supporting Our Universe is a Black Hole
This quote is great for several reasons. The first paragraph originates from a character in the Robert Heinlein book, Time Enough for Love: The Lives of Lazarus Long.
Most “scientists” are bottle washers and button sorters.
Related:
H. L. Mencken’s Law:
Those who can — do.
Those who can’t — teach.Martin’s Extension:
Those who cannot teach — administrate.
Also:
It doesn’t take much effort to realize the application of the second paragraph has extremely broad application. Substitute almost any profession for “science” and observe how well it works.
I did this substitution as I worked downward through the list occupations. I found it worked quite well for nearly everything down to and including “whoring”, “financial fraud”, and “serial killing”.
The Party of Hate
Quote of the Day
For today’s Democrats, nothing matters more than hating Trump. That, my friends, is a crucial point in all of this. Hatred of Trump has become their go-to position on just about everything; it is what energizes them, motivates them and dictates what they say and do.
…
Instead of coming up with fresh ideas to show why they’re a reasonable, more rational alternative to Trump, what they’re doing is showing anyone paying attention why he won.
Democrats think Trump is the enemy. But the truth is, they are their own worst enemy.
Bernard Goldberg
March 12, 2025
Opinion: Democrats’ hatred of Trump makes them their own worst enemies
My view of the Democrat party is that they define themselves by what they hate. It may have started earlier, but at least since the U.S. Civil war they hated Republicans because they were going to take their slaves away. Then they hated people with dark colored skin because, “Those uppity blacks think they are just as good as white folk.” Then LBJ convinced the party the votes of the blacks be bought*.
As Democrats warmed up to and passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Senator Dodd (D) introduced the precursors to the Gun Control Act of 1968. These were Senate Bill 1975 in 1963, “A Bill to Regulate the Interstate Shipment of Firearms”, and Senate Bill 1592 in 1965, “A Bill to Amend the Federal Firearms Act of 1938”.
Democrats, in general, have hated gun owners ever since they started pretending to be defenders of blacks.
I would like to believe that they have a limited amount of hate. If this were true, then as their hatred for Trump, Musk, and MAGAs increased the hatred of gun owners would decrease. But as the legislative record shows, the hatred has spread and increased in intensity rather than focused.
As I have said before, “Gun owners are the ni**ers of the 21st Century” and “the anti-gun bigots are the KKK of the 21st Century.” See also Bigotry is alive and well. And Quote of the day—Dinesh D’Souza.
Perhaps, all this hatred has finally caught up to them.
*
More Data Supporting Our Universe is a Black Hole
These two articles just came out today:
Unexpected JWST Observations Hint We Might Be Inside A Black Hole
A new study looking at observations by the JWST of the early universe has thrown up a new and intriguing mystery; the majority of galaxies appear to be rotating in the same direction. This finding, not predicted by our current understanding of the universe, may hint that we are inside a black hole, according to the study’s authors.
This is the more interesting one:
Without a doubt, since its launch, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revolutionized our view of the early universe, but its new findings could put astronomers in a spin. In fact, it could tell us something profound about the birth of the universe by possibly hinting that everything we see around us is sealed within a black hole.
In a random universe, scientists would expect to find 50% of galaxies rotating one way, while the other 50% rotate the other way. This new research suggests there is a preferred direction for galactic rotation.
The observations of 263 galaxies that revealed this strangely coordinated cosmic dance was collected as part of the James Webb Space Telescope Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, or “JADES.”
“It is still not clear what causes this to happen, but there are two primary possible explanations,” team leader Lior Shamir, associate professor of computer science at the Carl R. Ice College of Engineering, said in a statement. “One explanation is that the universe was born rotating. That explanation agrees with theories such as black hole cosmology, which postulates that the entire universe is the interior of a black hole.
…
Black hole cosmology, also known as “Schwarzschild cosmology,” suggests that our observable universe might be the interior of a black hole itself within a larger parent universe.
The idea was first introduced by theoretical physicist Raj Kumar Pathria and by mathematician I. J. Good. It presents the idea that the “Schwarzchild radius,” better known as the “event horizon,” (the boundary from within which nothing can escape a black hole, not even light) is also the horizon of the visible universe.
This has another implication; each and every black hole in our universe could be the doorway to another “baby universe.” These universes would be unobservable to us because they are also behind an event horizon, a one-way light-trapping point of no return from which light cannot escape, meaning information can never travel from the interior of a black hole to an external observer.
This is a theory that has been championed by Polish theoretical physicist Nikodem Poplawski of the University of New Haven.
…
“Accordingly, our own universe could be the interior of a black hole existing in another universe,” Poplawski continued. “The motion of matter through the black hole’s boundary, called an event horizon, can only happen in one direction, providing a past-future asymmetry at the horizon and, thus, everywhere in the baby universe.
“The arrow of time in such a universe would, therefore, be inherited, through torsion, from the parent universe.”
The “our universe is a black hole” hypothesis was first published in July 1972. With a deeper dive into the topic in December of the same year.
My first contributions to the topic were over 36 years later:
- February 20, 2009: Joe Huffman on X: “I’m listening to The Black Hole War. This inspired me to explore the hypothesis that our universe is a black hole.”
- February 20, 2009: Joe Huffman on X: “We are rushing toward the singularity at the speed on light on the time axis.”
- February 22, 2009: Quote of the day–Edward Abbey
- May 24, 2010: My book list
- July 16, 2010: Our universe is a black hole
- June 2, 2012: Others who say our universe is a black hole
- January 14, 2025: Only Time Will Tell
Emotion Driven Theatrics
Quote of the Day
Giffords’ pivot to actual theater matches their overall approach of using theatrics to push gun control laws that do little to hold criminals accountable for their crimes and instead only penalize law-abiding Americans seeking to exercise their rights to keep and bear arms and the lawful and highly-regulated industry that provides for the exercise of that Constitutional right.
It all makes more sense now.
…
The Giffords gun control group’s call from theater pitches is just that – theatrics. It won’t lead to safer neighborhoods. It won’t lead to more violent criminals being locked up for committing acts of violence. It won’t protect families, homes or businesses from those choosing to ignore existing laws and instead harm innocent lives.
The theme is similar to Everytown for Gun Safety’s recently launched high dollar ad campaign, which mocks the hard-working and law-abiding Americans who comprise the firearm industry. Everytown, of course personally funded by billionaire gun control stalwart Michael Bloomberg, spared no expense to create a glitzy caricature of the firearm industry, repeating tired and inaccurate tropes about who is buying firearms today and who safeguards the Second Amendment right to do so.
Needless to say, these ad campaigns and the theatre pitches haven’t yet and won’t put any meaningful dent in the occurrence of violent firearm crime or the criminals who commit heinous crimes.
Larry Keane
March 7, 2025
While Gun Control Plays Theatrics, Firearm Industry Pursues Real Solutions for Safer Communities • NSSF
Via JPFO.
The anti-gun side has emotion driven theatrics. We have data, philosophy, and SCOTUS.
The Rats are Leaving the Ship
Quote of the Day
ActBlue, the primary online fundraising platform for Democratic candidates, is experiencing significant internal upheaval as at least seven senior officials resigned late last month.
The departures coincide with an ongoing investigation by congressional Republicans, raising concerns about the organization’s future and its ability to continue as the party’s dominant fundraising tool.
Anthony Gonzalez
March 8, 2025
Democrat Fundraising Group ActBlue Faces Internal Chaos
This could be interesting.
I hope they enjoy their trials.
The Math Says All Paths are Explored
Via email from Mike Hines:
If you think light experiments with one and two slit experiments are mind bending. Try infinite slits with an infinite number of screens.
Then, it is pointed out that just means empty space.
You might think, yeah, sure, all that fancy math may correctly model some things we didn’t understand. But that doesn’t mean the model still works if you make a bunch of changes. And it for certain doesn’t tell us how things really work. It’s just a way of getting the right answer to a difficult problem. The math must have fallen apart when crazy stuff emerges from taking things to an extreme. Right?
No. Not in this case. Watch all the way to the end of this video.
Reality is tough to understand. Really, really tough. Tough beyond your wildest imagination. The simple experiment shown is a demonstration of just how little our feeble brains understand reality on a day-to-day basis.
On the practical side… Does this mean there is a way to tap into fiber optic communications with near zero chance of detection? And, of course, open air laser connections are wide open even when there is no interception of the beam. Encryption would be the only thing blocking a listener.
And since light is just a high frequency electromagnetic wave… What about getting a signal out of the main beam from a directional radio signal? Sure, the amplitude will be small, but is it a way to get a signal boost in addition to what you see from the side lobes? Or, is that what the side lobes really are?
Abolish Firearms Background Checks
Quote of the Day
The idea of undergoing and passing background checks as a prerequisite to exercising the Second Amendment should have never been a thought even in the darkest corners of the most communist minds of the most radical left-wing ideologues, not only because it violates the rights of American citizens but also because it puts undeserving Americans in legal jeopardy and in physical danger.
According to the Government Accountability Office, in 2017, the NICS background check system denied 112,090 people the right to purchase a firearm. Of those 112,090 denials, only 12,710 were investigated. We have to ask ourselves: If over 112,000 people were denied but only 12,710 investigations took place, wouldn’t that be clear evidence that the system is failing and falsely denying good people their right to keep and bear arms?
It gets worse.
That same year, and from that group of 112,090 denials, there were only 12 prosecutions for the crime of attempting to purchase a firearm. Now the anti-gun crowd says, “See, we stopped 12 mass shootings!”
There are problems with that argument.
Dan Wos
March 6, 2025
Should firearms background check system be abolished? | Buckeye Firearms Association
I agree background checks should be abolished. But from a political capital perspective this should be prioritized near the elimination of restrictions on machine guns. It isn’t going to get much traction in the near future.
AI Comment Spam
Yesterday and the day before there were comments to blog posts which were openly AI generated:
Suno API
1 approved
sunoapi.orgx
zegndaoxod@gmail.com
47.89.249.41It’s crazy how even established mints can cause these kinds of issues. If a company goes out of business like OPM Metals, it seems like there’s little recourse for buyers. Definitely a reminder to be extra cautious about where you get your gold.
Humanize AI Text
2 approved
bexi.ai/features/humanizeai-textx
zegndaoxod@gmail.com
47.89.249.41This post raises a crucial point about the balance between gun control and civil liberties. History shows us that once a government can disarm its population, the consequences can be far-reaching, often undermining freedoms we take for granted.
Humanize AI Text
2 approved
bexi.ai/features/humanizeai-textx
zegndaoxod@gmail.com
47.89.249.41It’s wild how much trouble a simple mint change can cause, especially when there’s no clear record of what went wrong. I imagine it’s tough to figure out how to handle gold with so many variables. Are you looking into any backup methods for gold verification in the future?
I let them stay because they were a quality that matched or exceeded the human comments I allow. And, it was interesting to see what AI is doing now.
Early yesterday, there were several AI generated comments in the spam folder. Even though they were decent comments I went ahead and deleted them.
Late last night, more AI comments showed up in the spam folder:
AI Music Generator
0 approved
brev.aix
zengdamo2023@gmail.com
47.89.249.41The way people in the U.S. view gun rights can be so different depending on their personal or family history. Saad’s perspective, coming from a place with a history of oppression, shows why the Second Amendment isn’t just about the right to own guns—it’s about protecting freedoms we might take for granted.
Photo to Coloring
0 approved
gencolor.ai/photo-to-coloringx
zengdamo2023@gmail.com
47.89.249.41I love how this ties back to the idea that gun control isn’t just a policy issue—it’s a fundamental rights issue. The 2A violation argument is something too often glossed over in mainstream conversations.
AI Music Generator
0 approved
brev.aix
zengdamo2023@gmail.com
47.89.249.41I think Gad Saad’s quote brings an interesting point about self-defense, but it also brings up the broader conversation about balancing personal rights with societal safety. In Canada, we often don’t see the same level of everyday gun ownership, so it’s eye-opening to hear from someone who sees it as a cornerstone of freedom.
Looking at them more closely we can see they all have the same email and IP addresses. The email address looks to be Chinese. The IP address is for the ISP “Alibaba US Technology Co., Ltd.” and is in Los Angeles area.
This is a little weird. The comments are just a little “off”. It is sort of like a high functioning autistic.
We live in interesting times.
The Gun Addict Song
Via Stephanie:
There is more than a little truth in this.
Citation Needed
To liven up the rather boring ordinary Markley’s Law Monday QOTD, I offer this:
Jazz fans and gun owners are apparently among the most sexually active Americans. #SexTrivia
Swingles @swingles
Posted on X, August 14, 2023
I have no idea what the basis for this is. And I’ve asked two different chat bots who also come up empty. Here is what Grok has to say:
Joe: Someone on X claims, “Jazz fans and gun owners are apparently among the most sexually active Americans.” Is there any truth to this?
Grok: There’s no direct, credible evidence from recent studies or data that specifically links jazz fans and gun owners to being “among the most sexually active Americans.” The claim seems to stem from a mix of speculation, anecdotal chatter, or possibly a misreading of unrelated research, but it doesn’t hold up under scrutiny based on available information.
Let’s break it down:
- Jazz Fans: No studies in the provided context or broader research landscape tie jazz fandom to sexual activity rates. Music preference might influence mood or social behavior—plenty of people associate jazz with romance or seduction—but there’s no data showing jazz fans as a group are notably more sexually active than others. It’s a stretch without evidence.
- Gun Owners: There’s been some research on gun ownership and sexual behavior, but it debunks rather than supports the claim. A 2021 study in the American Journal of Men’s Health analyzed data from 780 men and found no association between sexual dysfunction and gun ownership. This counters older psychoanalytic theories (e.g., guns as phallic symbols tied to virility), but it doesn’t suggest gun owners are more sexually active either—just that there’s no link to dysfunction. Sexual activity frequency wasn’t directly measured in this context, and no other recent, representative surveys connect gun ownership to higher sexual activity.
- Overlap or Generalization: The X claim might be riffing off stereotypes—jazz fans as passionate, gun owners as assertive—but stereotypes aren’t data. The 2015 Harvard/Northeastern survey on gun ownership (55 million U.S. owners, 3% owning half the guns) and Pew’s 2017 gun owner demographics (30% of adults) give us numbers but say nothing about sexual habits. Similarly, no national surveys like the General Social Survey tie music tastes and gun ownership to sex.
Without a specific, peer-reviewed study backing this exact claim—and none appears in recent literature or the search context—it’s likely just a provocative quip from X, not a fact. People throw out wild assertions online all the time, and this one smells like it’s more about attention than accuracy. If someone’s got a study from 2024 or early 2025 I haven’t seen, I’d be happy to reconsider, but as of now, it’s baseless.
What do you think—did the X poster cite anything, or was it just a hot take?
Joe: I suspect it was just someone trying to get attention by saying something controversial.
Grok: Yeah, that tracks. X is a breeding ground for attention-grabbers tossing out wild claims with no substance. “Jazz fans and gun owners are the horniest Americans” has that perfect mix of quirky and edgy to bait reactions—doesn’t need to be true, just loud. Probably worked, too, since we’re talking about it. Classic move. Anything else from X catching your eye lately?
Nothing to Contribute
Quote of the Day
There you go again, denying your urgent need to prop up your squashed penis with a weapon.
JAY carreon (@JAYcarreon6)
Posted on X, July 8, 2023
It’s not only another Markley’s Law Monday; it is another science denier (see also here)!
Obviously, he has nothing of value to contribute to the conversation. It should come as no surprise his account has been suspended.
Control the Narrative
A Canadian’s View of The Second Amendment
Quote of the Day
When I was travelling through the South over the past month, I was told by several hosts that they all carry guns. They confirmed that they do not tolerate the nonsense that Jews face elsewhere. America: Never ever give up or water down your Second Amendment. It is the means by which you maintain your freedom from all enemies, domestic and foreign.
Gad Saad @GadSaad
Posted on X, March 7, 2025
Dr. Saad is the psychologist author of the bestselling book, The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense. I listened to it and liked it. I follow him on X and find his sarcasm quite entertaining. He taunts the Canadian censors with his criticism of woke ideologies.
His childhood history as a Jew in Beirut likely influences his views on the right to keep and bear arms.
Advice on Buying Gold
Short version, if you buy precious metals, have the metal tested for purity before you agree to the sale.
See below for the long version.
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