Trump goes after gun rights ⚖️🔫
After the shooting of Alex Petti, President Trump has decided to stand with the government and ICE, rather then the people when it comes to the right to keep and bear arms, and to peacefully protest. He is choosing the government over the people.
While inevitably we need some government, we don’t need the heavy handed tactics of ICE in Minnesota or any other location. Police should be there it offer help when it is needed and requested, but it’s not their job to be an aggressive force or trample on inidivdual rights.
The government should be enforcing laws when called upon, those times when it’s actively hurting other people, but not just going out there to cause trouble because some statue exists on the book. We aren’t a nation of raids and investigations for no purpose. We as a society believe in protecting individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government and establishes requirements for issuing warrants.
Police should not interfere with or be otherwise bothersome for protests. While it might be reasonable to monitor protests and respond when there are complaints of law breaking, it’s not their job to interfere with others when nobody is complaining or causing harm. And they certainly should not be killing or harming people, who are disruptive, roudy or just disrespectful.
People in our country have a right to own, and in many cases carry guns for personal protection. That includes at protests, while traveling in a motor vehicle, while in their homes or even at a business. While most states have restrictions of some sorts, courts and legislatures have realized citizens have a right to self-protection enshrined in our constitution.
For the President to question people’s civil rights is a great disservice to our country. Moreover, to attack the gun rights of Alex Petti, is even more alarming for a President who claims to be pro-second amendment yet acts more like a liberal Democrat then any true advocate for the most fundamental of our rights.
Deeper Dives into SuperDuty Trucks
I’ve started to do a deep diver into individual dealership websites, and realized there are a lot of SuperDuty trucks out there with the extended cab and the FX4 off-road package. Almost every Ford dealer has at a least a few of them. Especially if I’m willing to consider either the XL base trim or with STX appearance package, the 3/4 ton or 1 ton axle (F-250 vs F-350), long bed versus short bed, and the 6.8L vs 7.3L. I have slight preferences on all of those things, like I think the 7.3L is slightly more reliable, the F-350 probably has better resale value, and the STX appearance package is nice, but also price and availability are considerations too. I really don’t want dog dish hub cabs, and fleet white, but also not a lariat trim. That said, if I have to spend several days doing phone calls, and driving a day to pickup the truck I really want and will serve me good through my estimated retirement around 2040 – and potentially save a few thousand bucks, then it’s definitely worth it. I keep studying dealer strategy videos. I will do it, get the truck I want. Just like I will have that off-grid cabin, land out in country, with goats and cattle, a trash burner, and lot more guns, eventually.
People say you should spend no more then 10% of your monthly income on a car, but I am not planning to buy on finance or at least not finance for more then a month before retiring the note to get dealer incentives. The thing is I am frugal on so many parts of my life, like riding my bike and taking the bus to work, living in a blighted apartment at County Welfare rate, cooking my own simpe food, keeping the heat at 50 degrees or lower, and my truck is a big part of my leisure and adventures in the wilderness. And certainly I can keep it below 10% of my income if I annualize a $60k the cost over 6-years, and let’s be honest, those low-spec SuperDuty trucks have long-established naturally-aspirated engines and simple solid axles that are likely to at least 15-years if I keep up on the maintenance. My new truck will be smelling like a sheep farm before next winter! I’m at mid-career, and a buying SuperDuty isn’t going to change my savings and investment plans at all, as I had the cash earmarked for this purpose for 5-years now. That said, I do feel guilty about it all, I know 2040 or whenever I get rid of such a nice truck will come sooner then I want it to. But then I’ll get another truck. It’s not like the stock market keeps rising, and paper valuation fly to greater heights each day.
Population Growth Slows Due to Decline in Net International Migration
Population growth in the United States has slowed significantly with an increase of only 1.8 million, or 0.5%, between July 1, 2024, and July 1, 2025, according to the new Vintage 2025 population estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.
This was the nation’s slowest population growth since the early period of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the population grew by a historically low 0.2% in 2021. The slowdown also comes after a sizeable uptick of growth in 2024, when the country added 3.2 million people and grew by 1.0%, the fastest annual population growth rate since 2006.
“The slowdown in U.S. population growth is largely due to a historic decline in net international migration, which dropped from 2.7 million to 1.3 million in the period from July 2024 through June 2025,” said Christine Hartley, assistant division chief for Estimates and Projections at the Census Bureau. “With births and deaths remaining relatively stable compared to the prior year, the sharp decline in net international migration is the main reason for the slower growth rate we see today.”
Slower population growth was felt across the country. All four census regions and every state except Montana and West Virginia saw their growth slow, or their decline accelerate.
NPR
The U.S. population growth slowed sharply last year due to a steep drop in immigration.
An annual estimate from the Census Bureau Tuesday shows the nation's population grew by just 1.8 million people during the 12 months ending last June. That's about half the growth rate of the previous year.
A major factor behind that slowing growth was the foreign-born population, which grew by 1.3 million during the year, a 52% smaller increase than the previous 12 months. That drop results from fewer people entering the country through legal channels as well as the voluntary or forced departure of some living in the country illegally.
termux-url-opener bash script for downloading and playing Youtube videos
How I download and play YouTube videos with my smartphone using vlc and yt-dlp! I wrote this bash script as ~/bin/termux-url-opener and tell the YouTube app to share with termux. Prompts if I want to download an mp3 audio or video, saves the file, then opens it ad free in vlc.
#!/bin/bash
read -t 5 -p "Hit m for mp3 otherwise download video: " CHOICE
if [[ "$CHOICE" == "m" ]]; then
DOWNLOAD_DIR="/sdcard/Movies"
cd "$DOWNLOAD_DIR"
FILENAME=$(yt-dlp -x --audio-format mp3 --print filename -o "%(title)s.mp3" "$1")
FILENAME=${FILENAME%.*}.mp3
echo "downloading mp3..." $FILENAME
yt-dlp "$1" -x --audio-format mp3 -o "$FILENAME"
am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW \ -
-d "file://$DOWNLOAD_DIR/$FILENAME" \
-t "audio/mp3" \
-n org.videolan.vlc/org.videolan.vlc.gui.video.VideoPlayerActivity
exit 1
fi
DOWNLOAD_DIR="/sdcard/Movies"
cd "$DOWNLOAD_DIR"
FORMAT="bestvideo[height<=240]+bestaudio[abr<=128]/best[height<=240]"
FILENAME=$(yt-dlp -f "$FORMAT" --print filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" "$1")
echo "Downloading: $FILENAME"
yt-dlp -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" "$1" -f "$FORMAT"
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
echo "Got error, retrying in 10 secomds"
sleep 10
yt-dlp -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" "$1" -f "$FORMAT"
fi
am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW \
-d "file://$DOWNLOAD_DIR/$FILENAME" \
-t "video/*" \
-n org.videolan.vlc/org.videolan.vlc.gui.video.VideoPlayerActivity