Freedom is not a synonym for the right to vote in fair and open elections. Fair and open elections with a wide franchise might – might – be a useful instrument for promoting freedom. But contrary to much shallow thinking, the right to participate in such elections is not itself “freedom”. Freedom is the right to choose and act as you please, with this right bound only by the equal right of every other peaceful individual to do the same. (Or to quote Thomas Sowell, “Freedom … is the right of ordinary people to find elbow room for themselves and a refuge from the rampaging presumptions of their ‘betters’.” I would add that freedom requires also elbow room from the rampaging presumptions – and from the enviousness, ignorance, myopia, and even the good intentions – of one’s peers and, indeed, from those of everyone.)
In practice it is sometimes difficult to identify the detailed locations of the boundaries that best ensure equal freedom for everyone. This reality, however, neither renders the goal of equal freedom of choice and action for everyone less desirable nor makes this definition of freedom less serviceable.
Don Boudreaux, “Quotation of the Day…”, Café Hayek, 2017-04-23.
May 10, 2019
QotD: Defining freedom
May 9, 2019
Spokeshave Q&A | Paul Sellers
Paul Sellers
Published on 8 May 2019The spokeshave is a far more important tool than we might understand so we’d like to make it more understandable for you. Paul considers the spokeshave to be one of the most undervalued and underestimated tools and one he cannot imagine his own woodworking life without. We’ve had many questions over the years about spokeshaves and thought it would be a good idea to follow on from the coping saw Q&A with a whole Q&A dedicated to this amazingly versatile hand tool.
Questions:
0:37 Which is the most versatile spokeshave? Which one will accomplish more tasks than the others, and which ones are your favourites?
1:36 When would I use a curved bottom spokeshave as opposed to a flat bottom?
5:13 What would be a good beginners spokeshave?
6:15 If you were going to own two spokeshaves, what would they be?
7:14 I have a Millers Falls No. 1 cigar spokeshave and find it almost impossible to get a shaving from. Do you have input on adjusting and also sharpening the blade?
7:44 Is your blade sharpened straight across, or does it have a slight crown side to side, like some smoothing planes?
8:33 I have my spokeshave bevels at 30 degrees, would 25 degrees be better?
10:10 [How do you] sharpen wooden spokeshaves? The blades seem so different from the cast handle spokeshaves which have blades like small planes.
11:42 When do you push vs. pull the tool?
13:20 How do you prevent chatter that is a result of the small surface area on the base of the spokeshave?
15:22 Are there any issues with having the spokeshave set for a lighter shave on end and a heavier shave on the other end?
16:36 How do I get an extremely fine cut when shaping curves
17:46 Is there a modification or adjustment to keep chips getting jammed under the blade.
20:11 How do I keep the spokeshave sole parallel to the flat surface or at the correct angle to the curved surface to get consistent shavings? It looks like I have to apply some force to tilt it a bit forward but my hands don’t feel when it is in the correct position.
22:11 I noticed you perform straight planing with the spokeshave over wood wider than the blade itself, and get super thin shavings. Can you explain how you set the spokeshave for this?
23:56 I recently bought a wooden spokeshave and often find the blade works itself loose after a few passes, i close the mouth of the plane as much as possible but still find after a few passes it opens up and needs adjusting again.
25:40 Why are there two blade adjustment screws?
26:24 Are new cheap generic spokeshaves restorable? If not, what makes them unusable? I regret getting one of these, but it was also crazy cheap, so this information would help me understand what to look for in good ones.
27:35 I have a couple of wooden spokeshaves that I have trouble getting to work. The soles of these spokeshaves are quite worn out, so the mouth is very wide. I can’t seem to get thin shavings. I haven’t found any that don’t have this so can’t figure out if this is down to my technique or the tool. My question is: how can you tell when the sole of a wooden spokeshave needs fixing and how do you set the blade properly to get thin shavings?
30:31 Is the blade inserted bevel up or down?
32:03 The Stanley spokeshave I purchased online is a bit “rough” to say the least. Does one need to “prepare” it like with a handplane (flattening the sole and such)?Click the link below to read more about the uses of spokeshaves: https://paulsellers.com/2019/03/a-spo…
For exercises that will work on your control of the flat-bottomed spokeshave and establish good patterns for continuously reading the grain visit: https://commonwoodworking.com/spokesh…
Want to make your very own wooden spokeshave? See: https://woodworkingmasterclasses.com/…
MV Asterix delivers for the Royal Canadian Navy and breach of trust charge is dropped
Amid rumours that the Trudeau government is contemplating dropping the charge against Admiral Mark Norman, Matthew Fisher retweeted a link to his article from last year, praising the ship and suggesting that it should be renamed in honour of the man who did everything he could to get the RCN’s only current replenishment ship to sea:
MV Asterix
Photo via Canadian Defence Review
Aboard MV Asterix and HMCS Charlottetown – The Trudeau government would have fits, but the Royal Canadian Navy should consider renaming the MV Asterix the HMCS Admiral Mark Norman.
The controversial new replenishment ship, which entered service on time and on budget this past January, has been performing brilliantly for the navy during sea trials. That was the unanimous opinion of sailors on HMCS Charlottetown and on MV Asterix after a series of refuelling exercises with the Canadian frigate and American destroyers during a hunt for three U.S. nuclear subs that I witnessed recently in the Caribbean.
The only hiccup during the five-day war game was on the American side. The crew on one of the destroyers was unable to establish a good seal on the fuel probe Asterix sent over as the vessels sailed at 15 knots in a two-metre sea with about 30 metres of water between them. However, it only took about 10 minutes to fix the problem.
Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, who ran the RCN before becoming the military’s second-in-command, strongly supported leasing or buying Asterix. The admiral was suspended early last year and subsequently charged with breach of trust for allegedly violating cabinet confidences. He is accused of passing on information pertaining to doubts that the Trudeau government was believed to have had about leasing the vessel. Although there were strong signals that it wanted out of the deal, the government eventually decided to honour a contract that Davie had with the Harper government to lease Asterix for five years at will be a cost of $677 million,according to the Globe and Mail.
“I think the Asterix is fantastic,” said Chief Petty Officer 2nd Class Mark Parsons, the Charlottetown’s chief bosun’s mate, who oversaw two approximately hour-long, problem-free fuel transfers from the tanker to his warship. “We have missed that capability since (HMCS) Preserver was retired in 2014” because of electrical problems and corrosion.
Parsons’ opposite number on Asterix, CPO2 Steve Turgeon, served on the 48-year old Preserver until 2013. Since January he has been training four deck crews of 11 navy sailors each to handle refuellings. This has allowed Canada to once again be an independent blue-water navy after several years in which it depended on NATO allies and leased Chilean and Spanish navy tankers for fuel at sea. A fresh group of navy sailors has just begun training on the Asterix, which is participating with two Canadian frigates in the vast U.S.-led, 25-nation Rim of the Pacific naval exercise off Hawaii this month.
And on the legal front:
Just saw Admiral Mark Norman walk into Ottawa courthouse with his legal team. Andy Leslie, Liberal MP & retired three star general who was going to testify for Norman, gave the admiral a bear hug.Norman told media army: "it's a beautiful day."
It is for him but not for PM Trudeau— Matthew Fisher (@mfisheroverseas) May 8, 2019
Later in the day, the news was finally made official: the government has dropped the charge and Vice-Admiral Mark Norman wants his job back:
The newly exonerated Vice-Admiral Mark Norman says he was alarmed by the persistent belief among senior government officials that he was guilty, and that their false assumptions took a significant financial and emotional toll on him and on his family.
On Wednesday, prosecutors stayed the single criminal charge of breach of trust laid against Norman, a major victory for the senior naval officer who has always maintained his innocence in the face of allegations he leaked confidential information about a project to procure a supply ship for the Royal Canadian Navy. In announcing the decision, Crown prosecutor Barbara Mercier told the court it was necessary in part due to new evidence the defence produced in March.
“This new information definitely provided greater context to the conduct of Vice-Admiral Norman, and it revealed a number of complexities in the process that we were not aware of,” Mercier said. “Based on the new information, we have come to the conclusion that given the particular situation involving Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, there is no reasonable prospect of conviction in this case.”
She did not provide any details on what exactly that information was.
The announcement ends the two-year legal battle against the officer and heads off what would have been a politically explosive trial for the Liberal government in the middle of a federal election campaign.
A fascinating little detail is also reported:
[Admiral Norman only] learned from a reporter’s question that Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan had announced the government would pay for his legal fees. “Wow,” was all he could muster in response. In 2017, the Department of National Defence had denied Norman’s request for financial assistance, concluding he was likely guilty.
So even though they’re finally making the right gestures, they still manage to be as ungracious as humanly possible while doing so. It’s not the kind of reputation you’d want to encourage.
Equipment Review: The Best Heavy Duty Cutting Boards
America’s Test Kitchen
Published on 5 Apr 2019Each cutting board model had its fans. But a few factors made certain boards more durable, more pleasant to cut on, and more foolproof to maintain.
Buy our winning heavy-duty cutting board: https://cooks.io/2HZ4oOc
Behind the testing: https://cooks.io/2Ie5yF0
Full testing details and ranking chart: https://cooks.io/2CSPWTBWatch more equipment reviews: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDfNw…
ABOUT US: Located in Boston’s Seaport District in the historic Innovation and Design Building, America’s Test Kitchen features 15,000 square feet of kitchen space including multiple photography and video studios. It is the home of Cook’s Illustrated magazine and Cook’s Country magazine and is the workday destination for more than 60 test cooks, editors, and cookware specialists. Our mission is to test recipes over and over again until we understand how and why they work and until we arrive at the best version.
QotD: Respect for the law
Here one comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constitutionalism and legality, the belief in “the law” as something above the State and above the individual, something which is cruel and stupid, of course, but at any rate incorruptible.
It is not that anyone imagines the law to be just. Everyone knows that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. But no one accepts the implications of this, everyone takes it for granted that the law, such as it is, will be respected, and feels a sense of outrage when it is not. Remarks like “They can’t run me in; I haven’t done anything wrong”, or “They can’t do that; it’s against the law”, are part of the atmosphere of England. The professed enemies of society have this feeling as strongly as anyone else. One sees it in prison-books like Wilfred Macartney’s Walls Have Mouths or Jim Phelan’s Jail Journey, in the solemn idiocies that take place at the trials of conscientious objectors, in letters to the papers from eminent Marxist professors, pointing out that this or that is a “miscarriage of British justice”. Everyone believes in his heart that the law can be, ought to be, and, on the whole, will be impartially administered. The totalitarian idea that there is no such thing as law, there is only power, has never taken root. Even the intelligentsia have only accepted it in theory.
George Orwell, “England Your England”, 1941-02-19.
May 8, 2019
Brave New World – Dystopias and Apocalypses – Extra Sci Fi
Extra Credits
Published on 7 May 2019We kick off a new season of Extra Sci Fi exploring the theme of dystopias and apocalypses. We begin with Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World — a very early novel that make a compelling argument for why the dystopia exists at all.
Dystopian literature really began when the two World Wars, the Great Depression, and more socio-political unrest in the world began to disrupt the utopian aspirations of science fiction at the time. So enters Brave New World.
Andrew “The Milk Dud” Scheer has problems, but bigotry, racism and xenophobia aren’t among them
I’m far from a fan of The Milk Dud, but the Canadian media’s attempts to paint him as a kind of alt-right echo of Trump are worse than pathetic:
Andrew Scheer meets British Prime Minister Theresa May
Photo via Wikimedia Commons
As election 2019 approaches, one thing has become obvious: it did not matter who the Conservative Party of Canada would have elected to lead their party. The mainstream media would have still implemented the same smear tactics against them
The smears include calling them bigots, racist, xenophobic, making lazy connections to extremists, and claiming that they are “alt-right adjacent.” This type of name-calling is the new norm from the Canadian left, and it sadly seems to only be getting worse
Why does the MSM want Andrew Scheer to be racist so bad!? Andrew Scheer, the father of five from Saskatchewan and quite possibly the most boring politician in today’s ecosystem of larger-than-life cult of personality type leaders, is not a racist. I beg, and I plead every night that these baseless criticisms will peter out, but they continue to pop up. Why?
What statement, in what interview, in what conversation, did Andrew Scheer say anything remotely racist? There is not a single instance.
Making Door Pulls | Turning Tuesday #15
Matt Estlea
Published on 7 May 2019In this video, I make some door pulls for the Router Bit Cabinet I am currently making. If you’re interested in watching this series, you can do so here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cgxp9…
_________________________________________________________________Support what I do by becoming a Patron! This will help fund new tools, equipment and cover my overheads. Meaning I can continue to bring you regular, high quality, free content. Thank you so much for your support! https://www.patreon.com/mattestlea
_________________________________________________________________See what tools I use here: https://kit.com/MattEstlea
My Website: http://www.mattestlea.com
_________________________________________________________________My name is Matt Estlea, I’m a 23 year old Woodworker from Basingstoke in England and my aim is to make your woodworking less s***.
I come from 5 years tuition at Rycotewood Furniture Centre with a further 1 year working as an Artist in Residence at the Sylva Foundation. I now teach City and Guilds Furniture Making at Rycotewood as of September 2018.
I also had 5 years of experience working at Axminster Tools and Machinery where I helped customers with purchasing tools, demonstrated in stores and events, and gained extensive knowledge about a variety of tools and brands.
During the week, I film woodworking projects, tutorials, reviews and a viewer favourite ‘Tool Duel’ where I compare two competitive manufacturers tools against one another to find out which is best.
I like to have a laugh and my videos are quite fast paced BUT you will learn a lot, I assure you.
Lets go make a mess.
Your electronic devices and the Canadian Border Services Agency
A few years ago, many civil libertarians were upset that the US government allowed warrantless searches of electronic devices at the border, but it was less well known that the Canadian Border Services Agency does the same at the Canadian border:
“Canadian Border Sign” by jimmywayne is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
According to the CBSA, it has the right to search electronic devices at the border for evidence of customs-related offences — without a warrant — just as it does with luggage.
If travellers refuse to provide their passwords, officers can seize their devices.
The CBSA said that between November 2017 and March 2019, 19,515 travellers had their digital devices examined, which represents 0.015 per cent of all cross-border travellers during that period.
During 38 per cent of those searches, officers uncovered evidence of a customs-related offence — which can include possessing prohibited material or undeclared goods, and money laundering, said the agency.
While the laws governing CBSA searches have existed for decades, applying them to digital devices has sparked concern in an era where many travellers carry smartphones full of personal and sometimes very sensitive data.
A growing number of lawyers across Canada argue that warrantless digital device searches at the border are unconstitutional, and the practice should be stopped or at least limited.
“The policy of the CBSA of searching devices isn’t something that is justifiable in a free and democratic society,” said Wright who ran as a Green Party candidate in the 2015 federal election.
“It’s appalling, it’s shocking, and I hope that government, government agencies and the courts, and individual citizens will inform themselves and take action.”
How To Ferment And Make Your Own Hot Sauce, Easily
Joshua Weissman
Published on 5 Apr 2019Hot sauce has a very special place in my heart … And no I’m not talking about heartburn. We can make our own hot sauce at home with any peppers we want. That means that we now have full control over the flavor. The end result? The perfect hot sauce for you. Happy Fermentation Fridays Folks!
Kitchen Organization Video: https://youtu.be/NW6fgAu4h40
FOLLOW ME:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealweissman
Website: http://joshuaweissman.com/—————————————————————
Ingredients you’ll need:
Fermented peppers-
1.25lbs (540g) red fresno peppers
1.25qt (1163g) water
3.5 tablespoons (51g) fine sea saltHot Sauce:
8 cloves garlic
1/2 cup (118ml) neutral oil (canola)
1# (456g) fermented peppers (you can leave the seeds on or off)
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (150ml) white distilled vinegar
3 tablespoons (42ml) brine
salt to taste
May 7, 2019
The Suez Crisis reconsidered
Jordan Chandler Hirsch reviews a new book on what is now a somewhat forgotten international crisis that shook the Atlantic alliance, Philip Zelikow’s Suez Deconstructed:
Zelikow encourages readers to assess Suez by examining three kinds of judgments made by the statesmen during the crisis: value judgments (“What do we care about?”), reality judgments (“What is really going on?”), and action judgments (“What can we do about it?”). Asking these questions, Zelikow argues, is the best means of evaluating the protagonists. Through this structure, Suez Deconstructed hopes to provide “a personal sense, even a checklist, of matters to consider” when confronting questions of statecraft.
The book begins this task by describing the world of 1956. The Cold War’s impermeable borders had not yet solidified, and the superpowers sought the favor of the so-called Third World. Among non-aligned nations, Cold War ideology mattered less than anti-colonialism. In the Middle East, its champion was Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who wielded influence by exploiting several festering regional disputes. He rhetorically — and, the French suspected, materially — supported the Algerian revolt against French rule. He competed with Iraq, Egypt’s pro-British and anti-communist rival. He threatened to destroy the State of Israel. And through Egypt ran the Suez Canal, which Europe depended on for oil.
Egypt’s conflict with Israel precipitated the Suez crisis. In September 1955, Nasser struck a stunning and mammoth arms deal with the Soviet Union. The infusion of weaponry threatened Israel’s strategic superiority, undermined Iraq, and vaulted the Soviet Union into the Middle East. From that point forward, Zelikow argues, the question for all the countries in the crisis (aside from Egypt, of course) became “What to do next about Nasser?”
Israel responded with dread, while, Britain, France, and the United States alternated between confrontation and conciliation. Eventually, the United States abandoned Nasser, but he doubled down by nationalizing the Suez Canal. This was too much for France. Hoping to unseat Nasser to halt Egyptian aid to Algeria, it concocted a plan with Israel and, eventually, Britain for Israel to invade Egypt and for British and French troops to seize the Canal Zone on the pretense of separating Israeli and Egyptian forces. The attack began just before the upcoming U.S. presidential election and alongside a revolution in Hungary that triggered a Soviet invasion. The book highlights the Eisenhower administration’s anger at the tripartite plot. Despite having turned on Nasser, Eisenhower seethed at not having been told about the assault, bitterly opposed it, and threatened to ruin the British and French economies by withholding oil shipments.
Throughout, Suez Deconstructed disorients. As the story crisscrosses from terror raids into Israel to covert summits in French villas, from Turtle Bay to the Suez Canal, names and places, thoughts and actions blur. Venerable policymakers scramble to comprehend the latest maneuvers as they struggle with the weight of history: Was Suez another Munich? Could Britain and France still project power abroad? Would a young Israel survive?
If you’re not familiar with the Suez Crisis and want more than just the Wikipedia article for background, here’s the coverage of the military side of things from the British perspective (Operation Musketeer) from Naval History Homepage.
A detailed map of Port Said in 1936 (American Geographical Society Library). Changes by 1956 are not known.
Map via Naval History Homepage.
Tale of the Golden Tree – Nart Sagas – Russian Myth #1 – Extra Mythology
Extra Credits
Published on 6 May 2019Join the Patreon community! http://bit.ly/EMPatreon
“If our lives be short let our fame be great!” The legends of the Nart people still echo across the Caucasus, but that echo is getting fainter, so to honor that cry from long ago, it’s only fitting that we tell one of their tales today. We’ll start with an old one, perhaps one of the first to be told. The tale of a golden tree.
The Nart people pursued the apples of a golden tree which bore a strange red and white pattern — eating from either side of it would allow the conception of a child with beautiful white hair. However, the apples kept mysteriously vanishing during the night — so two mighty brothers were set on the case of the vanishing apples.
Arthur Chrenkoff relates his own economic “a-ha!” moment
He says he’s never had a religious or spiritual revelation, but he did have one that was pure economics:
By way of background, you have to remember that I grew up under declining communism. As someone has once wryly remarked, in a planned economy everything is planned except for the economy. In Poland of my childhood and early teenage years virtually everyone was employed by the state and so virtually all the income was derived from the state, except, of course, for the rampant black market. Shops were few and generally poorly stocked. Some goods were unobtainable, others required queuing and a lot of luck (or connections) to get, and either way most were of inferior quality to that in the West. Even if you have managed to save enough money, you had to get onto a waiting list to acquire an apartment, car, or household goods. The wait could take decades. Life’s necessities were more widely available but quite haphazard in their distribution. During the crisis years of the 1980s, most food items required ration cards. People literally had to scheme and plot to get their hands on toilet paper. Sure, the Eastern European socialism for most part managed to provide everyone with a bare minimum of subsistence so that no one starved anymore, but beyond that the economic system was shambles, never managing to produce the sufficient quantity and quality of what people needed and wanted. We all knew that the West, by comparison, was a kingdom of plenty, thanks the workings of that scary capitalism, but as a kid I wouldn’t be able to explain to you how, by contracts to our socialism, it somehow managed to produce in abundance all those cars, toys and oranges and bananas. We were told by the authorities that it was all a sham, built on exploitation of workers and resulting in widespread poverty. But we knew enough to know that everything is relative. When the Jaruzelski regime in the early 80s trumpeted in the government-run media (there were no other legal ones) its charity initiative to send sleeping bags to the homeless of New York, an anonymous wag somehow managed to place and ad in one of the papers “Will swap a two bedroom apartment in Warsaw for a sleeping bag in New York”.
I was 15 when I left, unbeknownst to me two years before the fall of the Wall, and spent 16 months in Italy before finally arriving to start a new life in Australia. For a kid from Eastern Europe, Italy was a revelation; I didn’t know enough about anything then to realise that the country we thought was a paradise has always in reality been somewhat of a hot mess. Australia at the end of the decade of wide-ranging economic reforms, which really opened the country to the world and unleashed its creative potential, was even more of contrast to the drabness, shortages and absurdity of the “real socialism” I grew up under.
The story of my economic experience is very brief: one day, not long after settling in Australia, I was in a car, being driven somewhat off the beaten path, through what can be described as a light industrial area. Then, all of a sudden, among all the rather anonymous sheds and buildings I saw a large, free standing store. I can’t remember its name but I remember it was selling carpets. And that’s all. I grew up with few shops around, which, no doubt in part because European cities tend to be a lot more condensed, occupied the same space as the living. But here, here was a whole store, a very large store that specialised in one product only – floor coverings – and it was, relatively speaking, sitting in the middle of nowhere. That it was in business, that it somehow managed to operate, indicated to me that people, many people, actually drove over here, from some distances away, for no other purpose than just to buy one thing – a carpet. So strange. So peculiar. This was my revelation, my economic epiphany in a back seat: this whole capitalist system must truly be incredibly complex and magnificent – and superior to all the alternatives – if it means a shop like this can thrive selling one particular type of product to people who don’t live anywhere near it.
The Science of Ginger: Why and How it Burns and Its Impact on Cooking | Ginger | What’s Eating Dan?
America’s Test Kitchen
Premiered on 22 Mar 2019Why does ginger burn? Why does ginger turn pink? How come ginger makes meat mushy? Dan answers these questions and more about one of the most interesting ingredients cooks have at their disposal in this episode of What’s Eating Dan?.
Click here to browse our ginger recipes: https://cooks.io/2FlixBy
Click here for our Ginger Snap recipe: https://cooks.io/2JuniOB
Click here for our Ginger-Scallion Everything Sauce recipe: https://cooks.io/2Yh01Tu
How to make Ginger-Milk Curd and the science behind it: https://blog.khymos.org/2014/02/24/gi…ABOUT US: Located in Boston’s Seaport District in the historic Innovation and Design Building, America’s Test Kitchen features 15,000 square feet of kitchen space including multiple photography and video studios. It is the home of Cook’s Illustrated magazine and Cook’s Country magazine and is the workday destination for more than 60 test cooks, editors, and cookware specialists. Our mission is to test recipes over and over again until we understand how and why they work and until we arrive at the best version.
