James George Vlassis - U.S. Army Air Corps Cadet during World War II

Jim Vlassis was only 19 when he died in an air collision with another air cadet piloted aircraft at King City, California. My dad had this picture of Jim who was a fellow cadet in training. Apparently there was a farm pilots had to fly over to land at the air base. You came in from the right over it and straightened out for landing.  If you missed your landing you circled around and came in from the left. 

Cadet Jim Vlassis was piloting a PT-22 #41-20807 coming in for a landing from the right and banking right. Meanwhile Cadet Robert Jesse Warren, age 23, was piloting a PT-22 #41-15290 coming back around from an attempted landing from the left and banking left. They hit at about a thousand feet and their chutes opened at about 100 feet. Both died in the fall on October 19, 1943.

We don't have a picture of Cadet Robert Warren, but both young men died training to fight for their country. A sad loss for their families, friends and for the country.

World War II in the Pacific, June 15, 1945

I've been scanning my dad's World War II diary. He was a B-25 bomber pilot. Here's his entry for today 74 years ago:

15 June 1945 Friday
Got up at 0530.  Ate and went back to bed until 0725.  I went to the line and went on my 12th mission over Borneo.  We went from Beanfort to Langhon up the valleys and mountains.  It was really interesting.  The mission lasted 5 hours.  I took pictures with the gun camera of a 13,000 foot mountain and our landing.  I went swimming.  I slept until 1700.  Ate went to a meeting at 1800.  Went to a show.  Saw “Brewster’s Millions”.  It was good & I finished my letter to Ruth.  I got one from her and 3 Oregonians.

The Oregonian had a miniature serviceman's edition. Each page was 8-1/2"x11" with the double page being 17"x11". It had eight pages. Content was a normal front page miniaturized, another page of national news, then a page of local news, editorial page, another page of local news with half the page being comics, a society page with half the page being comics, a sports page, and the final page was a photo essay on a war event in the two editions we have.

Email Blackmail

Just received the email at the bottom of this post from one of my email accounts that I rarely use.

Poor blackmailer! Doesn't know that not only do I not visit adult sites, but that the computer I usually use has no video camera or microphone set up. And the two laptops that do have cameras, have the camera covered (as my friend MaxRedline advised awhile back).

Turns out it came from a provider in Italy: 37.162.31.165.

Don't know who this is, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't have access to my email account, but is spoofing the address.

I wish there were some way to track these guys down.

Hi!

As you may have noticed, I sent you an email from your account.
This means that I have full access to your account.

I've been watching you for a few months now.
The fact is that you were infected with malware through an adult site that you visited.

If you are not familiar with this, I will explain.
Trojan Virus gives me full access and control over a computer or other device.
This means that I can see everything on your screen, turn on the camera and microphone, but you do not know about it.

I also have access to all your contacts and all your correspondence.

Why your antivirus did not detect malware?
Answer: My malware uses the driver, I update its signatures every 4 hours so that your antivirus is silent.

I made a video showing how you satisfy yourself in the left half of the screen, and in the right half you see the video that you watched.
With one click of the mouse, I can send this video to all your emails and contacts on social networks.
I can also post access to all your e-mail correspondence and messengers that you use.

If you want to prevent this,
transfer the amount of $741 to my bitcoin address (if you do not know how to do this, write to Google: "Buy Bitcoin").

My bitcoin address (BTC Wallet) is: 1K1KMHpynJHQRbhzKHyik6yaJuQYxSaZCm

After receiving the payment, I will delete the video and you will never hear me again.
I give you 48 hours to pay.
I have a notice reading this letter, and the timer will work when you see this letter.

Filing a complaint somewhere does not make sense because this email cannot be tracked like my bitcoin address.
I do not make any mistakes.

If I find that you have shared this message with someone else, the video will be immediately distributed.

Best regards!

Unanimous Supreme Court Strikes at Civil-Asset Forfeiture!

This post is dedicated to Max Redline, who has been blowing the trumpet on this egregious "legal" punishment for years.

In Timbs v. Indiana, the Supreme Court has ruled that States are subject to the Eighth Amendment's excessive fines clause.

Civil-asset forfeiture is a legal process by which law enforcement agencies can seize any property, money, bank funds, you-name-it, by saying the items seized were involved in a criminal activity. They don't have to prove they were or that the person committed any criminal activity. The charge itself is sufficient to allow seizure and the defendant has to prove his innocence.

Here's David French at National Review describing the case:

At issue was the important question of whether the Eighth Amendment’s excessive fines clause applied to the states and whether the excessive fines clause applied to a practice called in rem civil-asset forfeiture. Under this practice, law-enforcement officials often engage in two separate punitive legal processes against criminal defendants. The first is the criminal prosecution itself, which can impose prison sentences and fines according to statutorily defined punishments. The second is often a civil action against the criminal defendant’s property. Yes, the government will file suit against trucks, cars, jewelry, boats, and cash — leading to absurd case captions like, say, Texas v. One Gold Crucifix — claiming that the property was used for criminal purposes and then seize that property under a lower, civil, burden of proof.

Law enforcement agencies get to keep the proceeds, so there is a big incentive to finger anything they can for civil-asset forfeiture. French points out that "in 2014, for example, the state took more money from citizens than burglars took from crime victims."

Unfortunately, this is just the first step, as the Supreme Court has left the job of determining what is "excessive" in asset-forfeiture. But, it's a good first step.

What needs to be added beyond determining what is "excessive" is that the person whose property is being seized has to be actually convicted of a crime. Icing on the cake would be that law enforcement or government agencies could not profit by the seizure, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Windshield Wipers in Up Position - fixed itself

The windshield wipers on my parents' van got out of sync and stopped in the up position.

After doing research about fixing it, I decided going to a mechanic was better than taking off the shielding and getting into the works myself.

Well, procrastination (about 2 weeks of only 3 or 4 drives in the car) worked. One rainy day the wipers went back into the down position. Heh. No one on YouTube or the prominent articles on the internet mentioned that possibility. So, I thought I would post it here.

Perhaps it's like the check engine light. My car has had its warning light go on and off for the last 18 years. So far no problems with the car or engine that it was the warning for. I do pray, however, that it will not go on and stay on during DEQ testing time. The Lord has been good to answer my prayers on that.

New Federal Tax Benefits Pale in Comparison to Damage Done to Charitable Giving and Churches

I've finally been able to compare the tax forms and tables from 2017 with the new ones from 2018. I'm not impressed.

The supposed massive raise in the standard deduction is not that massive. Though they increased the standard deduction by about $6,000 for singles and $11,000 for couples, they did away with the $4,050 exemption per person deduction. So that makes the actual increase about $2,000 for singles and $3,000 for couples.

Switching the exemption dollars to standard deduction makes it difficult to itemize medical or charitable expenses and get anything back. So, those with significant medical outlays are hurt as are charitable agencies and churches since donating to them gives no tax benefit to the average person, even the average generous person.

2017 form 1040

2018 form 1040

This is a poor trade off that the Republicans own the blame for (227 of 239 Republican representatives and all 51 Republican senators). I much prefer a system that encourages charitable giving, supporting churches and giving a break to those who have significant medical bills or who are paying off mortgages even though I personally had no problems in the medical or mortgage areas. The extra couple of hundred dollars off my tax bill isn't terribly significant in contrast to the damage to societal values that this new tax system encourages.

Many Merry Christmases from Hamilton Beach

My cousin just sent me this picture of her using our grandmother's 70+ year old mixer to mix cookie dough today.

 It was made by Hamilton Beach. That's a lot of service from a well-used mixer.