All of Manley’s 70 plus firearms were unerringly compliant with federal law and the strict firearms laws of Maryland.

When all was said and done, no arrests were made and no firearms or ammunition were seized. The only item taken was Manley’s cell phone.

The family’s home, however, was left in a shambles: front and rear doors shattered, windows broken, floors ruined from flashbang grenades, and dog excrement the family was left to clean up themselves.

Manley told Williams they had only lived in the house for three months when the raid occurred.

To date, the ATF has not issued an explanation for why the raid was conducted, much less publicly apologized for terrorizing the family. Mrs. Manley said the search warrant indicated her husband was a felon in possession of firearms. Manley, however, said he does not have a felony record, he does not sell guns, he does not have any machine guns, and he is still in the dark as to why he was targeted. “To this day we just don’t know,” he told Williams.

If, however, the government truly believed Manley was a felon (hardly a difficult matter for a federal law enforcement agency to investigate and substantiate), he presumably would have been arrested the moment he disclosed his possession of firearms to the agents. That obviously did not happen.

Did the government conduct its due diligence before conducting the raid? What evidence supposedly substantiated the sworn application for the raid? So far, ATF officials have had nothing to say on their own behalf.

The ATF’s actions extracted a heavy toll on the Manley family, who have been left with home repairs, legal bills, and the cost of therapy for their traumatized kids.

The human toll, which will continue to grow in the days and weeks, is heartbreaking. The property loss and personal effects consumed in the fires are just the beginning for a new batch of Angelino refugees. In the days, weeks, months, and years ahead, there will be ongoing concerns about shelter, and whether they can and will try to rebuild their lives in what once was among the most premium places to live in the world. //

The incompetence of Democratic leadership, from the very top at the national level with Joe Biden's addled administration, down to L.A. County and city governance, has failed Angelinos, and the cost of that failure won't be fully realized for a long time to come. //

In 2014, Californians passed a bond measure to finally do something about capturing rain and snowpack run-off before it blends into the Pacific Ocean, becoming useless as both drinking water and fire defense. Proposition 1 passed overwhelmingly, and voters paid $7.5 billion dollars, at least theoretically, to make it happen. Gavin Newsom has been the governor of California for the past six of those 10 years. Would you like to take a stab at how many of these new reservoir or water capture systems have been completed? You're absolutely right. Zero. Quadrillions of gallons of fresh water has been lost, or worse, intentionally pumped to the ocean.

Remember that California just turned in a performance that took 39 days in order to count ballots in the November election. It should be no surprise that the same level of competence didn't exactly get itself ready for fire season.

If there is one thing Newsom is competent at, it's playing the blame game. There's truly no one finer. It's always someone else's fault, or it's climate change's fault - any number of outlets for passing the buck when disaster strikes. When Donald Trump, who has been remarkably consistent on California's need to get their act together and finally get serious about their water issue, which is eminently solvable, and fire prevention programs such as brush abatement near dwellings and housing tracts, reminded people Wednesday of how poorly performing California's leadership has been, Gavin was beside himself. //

If anything good can come out of this man-made catastrophe, it would be that L.A. County would recognize the failure of their Democratic leaders and change course. Neither party can win a state race without the majority vote of L.A. County, so maybe this systemic failure could be the tipping point in future elections.

Fires happen here. It's one of California's unofficial seasons, alon with floods, earthquakes, and riots. and always will be so. But the destruction caused by wildfires doesn't have to be this bad. It didn't have to be as bad this time. It's incompetence and mismanagement that is as predictable as it is tragic. On behalf of the rest of us in the Golden State, Angelinos, please learn the lesson this week is trying to teach before Democrats finish killing us all. //

Elegy
2 hours ago edited
"We have no idea who started all these fires, but social media is full of timelines of people who when the winds began to blow, spotted homeless people starting fires. If you hear no reportage in the next few weeks about what or who started the fires, trust me. It was sparked by the homeless, and that fact will be deep-sixed by a regime media committed to the leftist narrative that would be forever destroyed if that detail leaked out. "

I'm certain this is an accurate assessment. However, there are valid reasons to wonder if there's more to it.

Thousands of illegal aliens from state sponsored terrorist nations have entered the US during Biden's presidency.

We have no way of knowing who they are, where they are, or why they're here.

Are we certain this wasn't originated, as in the setting of the first fires, by state sponsored terrorists perhaps working in the guise of homeless people?

Well-known academic and go-to source for U.S. intelligence and military agencies, Professor John Esposito of Georgetown University, insists that nothing bad was happening during the "five centuries of peaceful coexistence" between Muslims and Christians prior to the First Crusade, which was launched by cynical and evil Europeans, forever turning Islam against the West.

Is that true? My answer follows:
https://youtu.be/hgrrMhxAaog

Blaming these fires on "climate change" when there's little to no fire mitigation (clearing brush, trimming undergrowth, managing forests) and allowing millions of acre-feet of water to be washed out to sea are also really dumb ideas. Maybe these dumb ideas are what they mean by "man-made" climate change.

It's hard to ignore the record.

Fire officials say that homeless camp wildfires doubled from 2020 to 2023 to 13,909. There were 24 "homeless related" fires in LA County responded to every day of 2021.

According to NBC 4 in L.A., some of the homeless campfires started from campers illegally hooking up to underground electricity outlets. That's what caused a fire in Hollywood. //

In October 2024, Joe Biden's Administration officially pronounced an end to controlled burns in California for fire mitigation. //

In the Sacramento area, where a homeless camp sparked a 585-acre wildfire in June 2024, local officials were asked to provide homeless campers with firefighting equipment instead of telling the campers to get out. //

FloridaMan
15 hours ago
somebody's battery operated vehicle (there's no such thing as an electric vehicle) exploded... started the whole shebang...?

Changing just 0.001% of inputs to misinformation makes the AI less accurate.

"People stand out for individual cognitive abilities while ants excel in cooperation.". //

Ants maneuvering a T-shaped load across a maze. //

The piano-mover puzzle involves trying to transport an oddly shaped load across a constricted environment with various obstructions. It's one of several variations on classic computational motion-planning problems, a key element in numerous robotics applications. But what would happen if you pitted human beings against ants in a competition to solve the piano-mover puzzle?

According to a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, humans have superior cognitive abilities and, hence, would be expected to outperform the ants. However, depriving people of verbal or nonverbal communication can level the playing field, with ants performing better in some trials. And while ants improved their cognitive performance when acting collectively as a group, the same did not hold true for humans. //

bugabuga Ars Centurion
18y
268
But wouldn't a group of ants "communicate" by default? And "do not communicate" equivalent would mean turning off their sense of scent and otherwise hindered set of ants? The group of humans that does communicate solves problems better, so wisdom of crowds continues to be the expected outcome.

"Let's put individual humans into a group and prohibit them from doing thing that is making group successful. Oh, look, group was unsuccessful!!! AMAZING!" :). //

fkaOld_one Ars Centurion
4y
322
I don't know who I am said:
How did they get the ants to do it?
Yeah… why would ants want to move a piano? //

Calidore Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
11y
121
EmeraldArcana said:
Humans don’t do a good job communicating through pheromones. Those who’ve tried are often ridiculed.

The Doctor: They could communicate only by precisely modulated gastric emissions.

Emma: Oh no! Planet of the Bottom Burpers! So what happened to them?

The Doctor: They discovered fire. //

Les Pane Smack-Fu Master, in training
9y
95
Aren't humans just better at moving pianos because they're chord-ates?

[I'm so very, very sorry for that. Truly.]

Federal toxicology researchers on Monday finally published a long-controversial analysis that claims to find a link between high levels of fluoride exposure and slightly lower IQs in children living in areas outside the US, mostly in China and India. As expected, it immediately drew yet more controversy.

The study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, is a meta-analysis, a type of study that combines data from many different studies—in this case, mostly low-quality studies—to come up with new results. None of the data included in the analysis is from the US, and the fluoride levels examined are at least double the level recommended for municipal water in the US. In some places in the world, fluoride is naturally present in water, such as parts of China, and can reach concentrations several-fold higher than fluoridated water in the US. //

The inclusion of urinary fluoride measurements is sure to spark criticism. For years, experts have noted that these measurements are not standardized, can vary by day and time, and are not reflective of a person's overall fluoride exposure.

The agency tasked government labs, research institutions, and commercial companies to come up with better ideas to bring home the roughly 30 sealed sample tubes carried aboard the Perseverance rover. NASA deposited 10 sealed tubes on the surface of Mars a couple of years ago as insurance in case Perseverance dies before the arrival of a retrieval mission.

"We want to have the quickest, cheapest way to get these 30 samples back," Nelson said. //

"It has been more than two years since NASA paused work on MSR," the Planetary Society said. "It is time to commit to a path forward to ensure the return of the samples already being collected by the Perseverance rover.

"We urge the incoming Trump administration to expedite a decision on a path forward for this ambitious project, and for Congress to provide the funding necessary to ensure the return of these priceless samples from the Martian surface."
China says it is developing its own mission to bring Mars rocks back to Earth. Named Tianwen-3, the mission could launch as soon as 2028 and return samples to Earth by 2031. While NASA's plan would bring back carefully curated samples from an expansive environment that may have once harbored life, China's mission will scoop up rocks and soil near its landing site.

"They’re just going to have a mission to grab and go—go to a landing site of their choosing, grab a sample and go," Nelson said. "That does not give you a comprehensive look for the scientific community. So you cannot compare the two missions. Now, will people say that there’s a race? Of course, people will say that, but it’s two totally different missions."

Still, Nelson said he wants NASA to be first. He said he has not had detailed conversations with Trump's NASA transition team.

Brandon Morse @TheBrandonMorse
·
That time Chris Farley, impersonating Newt Gingrich, came to congress to swear Gingrich in as the Speaker of the House.

What a great time in entertainment/politics when we could all laugh together.

3:53 PM · Jan 8, 2025

Salon published an essay that compared the MAGA movement to ISIS. Their reasoning: men are drawn to both groups because of...toxic masculinity. The essay compared “so-called incels who commit mass shootings” to “Trump fans who attack government buildings” and “terrorists imbibing ISIS propaganda." The comparison went on to conclude that "toxic masculinity" was responsible for the radicalization of members of both groups. By the way, gold star for the mental gymnastics required to get that January 6 reference in there. //

🇺🇸 2A Patriot 🇺🇸 🔫Gettr & Truth @RightSideRon
@RightSideRonUSA
·
Follow
Masculinity isn’t toxic. The absence thereof is toxic.
Weak men are abusive and spiteful.
Strong men are protective and loving.
Make masculinity great again.
2:51 PM · Jan 3, 2025

The question is, with billions of gallons dropping out of the sky, where does all that water go? Shouldn’t this be enough to end the drought and leave us with oodles of H2O?

Turns out, the answer lies in bad planning, wasted resources and bureaucratic entanglements. Why do I say that? Because most of this water will fly down the LA River and into the ocean, an ephemeral visitor that we fail to capture or effectively utilize. In effect, God is giving us the very answer to one of California’s most vexing problems—and we’re simply letting it slip through our hands. //

Voters in 2018 approved Measure W, which is aimed at improving L.A.’s aging stormwater capture system. Officials are making progress, but experts say there’s a long way to go. Of an estimated 5 billion to 10 billion gallons pouring into the Los Angeles Basin from current storms, only about 20% will be captured by the county. //

Hoi Polloi Boy
7 hours ago
The California State Water Project, as envisioned by Dem Governor Pat Brown back in 60s when dems were still rational, is only 50% built 60 yrs later.
Meanwhile the population has doubled and water is released from major reservoirs to the sea to save the Delta Smelt.

You can't make this stuff up.

The State of Alaska filed a lawsuit against the federal government, alleging a violation of a congressional directive mandating the development of oil and gas resources in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s (ANWR) Coastal Plain.

Known as the Section 1002 Area, the 1.5 million-acre stretch of Alaska’s northern coast was designated by Congress in 1980 for potential energy development.

In 2017, Congress explicitly directed federal agencies to open the area for oil and gas leasing.

But a December, 2024 decision by the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management significantly curtailed this directive.

Nylon is one of the oldest and most commonly used thermoplastics but there still seems to be a lot of confusion about properly drying nylon and in general about how nylon is affected by moisture. //

You could use a nylon 12 which does not absorb as much moisture but Nylon 12 is really expensive.

The first form calculates the pressure or friction loss along a given length of pipeline with a specified inside diameter. The second form calculates the minimum pipe size to limit pressure loss to a specified value.

Additional friction pressure losses occur due to fittings. These losses in-effect add extra additional length to the total pipeline. Use this calculator to estimate how much additional length needs to be added to the overall pipe length below in order to estimate these additional losses. Learn more about the units used on this page.

the soon-to-be-former President Biden claimed that had he stayed in the race, he would have won the 2024 presidential election. That, folks, is denial that's measurable on the Richter scale. //

Steprock
21 minutes ago
I agree, Ward. But do you know how we know for a FACT that he would have lost?

Because he did lose! He was weighed and measured by his own party and thrown out. That was the race to the starting line and he didn't make it.

He lost before it started just like Harris lost to Tulsi. It's not wishful thinking; it's denying what actually happened.

He dropped out. He lost. That's the contest. That's the conclusion. No need to deal in hypotheticals.

Kindle
Your Notes and Highlights

Close to a couple of decades ago (ouch), when I was an active sports blogger, I wrote a list of online rules for myself, which I dubbed the four tenets of the blogging evangel. This was back when blogs and bloggers reigned supreme. Social media has long usurped their place, emphasizing quick quips and clips designed to gather maximum clicks. However, the basic principles remain relevant.

1. The ability to broadcast an opinion neither elevates nor validates said opinion.
2. Blog from and for the heart, not the bank account.
3. Answer your email every time all of the time.
4. Never become what you profess to oppose. Never.
   Indulge me while I break these down a bit.

That sounds a bit arcane, and it likely is; the president, as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, should take the word of the Constitution first and foremost. But, yes, everything is (tiresomely at times) subject to legal interpretation. What's interesting here is that Durbin is asking the DOJ to rescind opinions that he evidently agreed with while Joe Biden was president.

Did you hear that scraping sound? That's the sound of goalposts being moved. //

anon-gkyt
25 minutes ago
Hey, Durbin. What part of Commander-in-Chief don’t you get?? As for use of the military domestically, General Winfield Scott, the senior army commander, stated in 1861 a self-evident fact. The military is to deal with threats foreign and domestic. Ever heard of Lincoln using the US military domestically? If that was not “domestic”, the invasion of the Confederacy was simply an act of aggression by the US government.

Though the reactions from various fact-checking groups were pretty predictable, it was the one from CNN media hall monitor Brian Stelter that was perhaps most revealing of all:

Big picture: Mark Zuckerberg just announced sweeping changes to the social internet, all in line with the desires of President Trump and Trump voters.

Out with the fact-checkers that conservatives deride. In with more permissive rules for posting conservative opinions.

I mean, how absolutely horrifying, right? The free flow of conservative opinions on social media as opposed to the lopsided political biases from "fact checkers' we've seen for years on these platforms and which almost universally impact conservatives the hardest is apparently too bitter a pill for the pro-censorship Stelter to swallow: //

Chuck Ross @ChuckRossDC
·
CNN is currently in court in Florida in a defamation case, had to settle with Nicholas Sandmann for defaming him, was the leading purveyor of the Russia collusion hoax, and hired the reporter who peddled the lie that the Hunter Biden laptop was disinfo. https://x.com/brianstelter/status/1876666450208825470
Brian Stelter @brianstelter
Meta's framing – in its PR blog post – is "More Speech and Fewer Mistakes." An alternate title could be "More Lies and More Confusion." https://cnn.com/2025/01/07/media/mark-zuckerberg-meta-fact-checking-analysis/index.html
11:56 AM · Jan 7, 2025

Bonchie
@bonchieredstate
·
Follow
The “experts” were left “head-scratching”after Trump suggested to clean up brush and build more infrastructure to store water.

They were perplexed by the most obvious solution imaginable.

Amazing.
9:11 AM · Jan 8, 2025. //

Trump’s suggestions have prompted head-scratching from experts who say his prescriptions — more raking, less water released into the ocean for environmental purposes — suggest he does not understand the science of wildfires. Critics also point out that most of California’s wildlands are federally managed. //

The 2024 budget also included increased funding for forest management and wildfire prevention. The state also has the largest aerial firefighting force in the world. Further, it should be noted that much of the land that burns in California and then spreads to populated areas is federally owned and maintained.

Unfortunately, President Joe Biden's Forestry Service canceled all of its controlled burns last Fall out of worry the agency (and by virtue, the White House) would be blamed if anything went wrong. Yes, the federal government valued protecting itself from scrutiny over the lives and livelihoods of California residents. I'd say that's surprising, but it's not surprising at all.

One of the larger issues that does fall on the shoulders of California's leadership is water management. While rainy winters have helped mostly fill the existing reservoirs over the last several years, the lack of capacity has still led to valuable water flowing into the ocean. California has not built a new reservoir since 1979 despite suffering numerous droughts and wildfires over the years. That isn't lost on voters in the state, who passed Proposition 4 in November, which allocated significant funds to increase capacity that is sorely lacking. Whether that will be followed through on is anyone's guess. //

Trump attempted to change federal government policy to increase water diversions into existing reservoirs as a measure to fight wildfires. He was sued by the State of California and a series of environmental groups. They won an injunction in 2020, stopping his plans to provide more desperately needed water.