Tragedies That Might Not be Avoidable

 But if there is, these sort of suits should be a wakeup call. 1/27/26 Boston.com:

Lindsay Clancy, the Duxbury mother accused of killing her three children, is now suing several of her mental health care providers, alleging they failed to diagnose her bipolar disorder and prescribed a revolving door of pharmaceuticals that triggered a psychotic break. 

“Lindsay Clancy did everything a mother in her situation could do,” the medical malpractice lawsuit states. “Her husband advocated for her. Her family drove from out of state to help care for her children. And still, the medical system failed her completely.”

Filed last week in Norfolk Superior Court, the lawsuit accuses several medical providers of a “catastrophic failure” to properly diagnose, treat, and monitor Clancy as her postpartum mental health rapidly declined. Instead, the suit alleges, they subjected Clancy to a “disorganized, uncoordinated course of polypharmacy” that only made her worse. 

Clancy had been experiencing auditory hallucinations for weeks leading up to the killings, according to the complaint, but the commanding voice took on a new urgency after her husband left to pick up dinner on Jan. 24, 2023.

“This is your last chance. Kill the children so you can kill yourself,” the voice purportedly said. “THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE. YOU HAVE TO KILL THE KIDS SO YOU CAN KILL YOURSELF.’”

According to the lawsuit, Clancy entered a dissociative “dream-like state” as she strangled 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan inside the family’s home, telling them, “Go to God, baby.” 

In the course of my mass murder research, I have found way too many similar tragedies where postpartum depression led to a mother murdering all her children, often followed by suicide. If you know someone who has recently given birth and is showing symptoms that include hallucinations, it is time for someone to intervene. One would hope mental health professionals would have seen this and said, "Wait a minute. The drugs are not working."

If Greed is Driving the Transmadness by Doctors, This May Discourage It

 1/31/26 National Review:

A woman who received a double mastectomy at the age of 16 under the guise of transgender-related healthcare was just awarded $2 million in the first successful medical-malpractice lawsuit brought by a destransitioner.

Fox Varian sued her New York-based psychologist and plastic surgeon for facilitating her gender-transition double mastectomy in 2019, independent reporter Benjamin Ryan who attended Varian’s recent trial, said. Although a host of detransitioners have sued doctors who rush to “affirm” gender confusion with life-altering surgeries, Varian’s is the first known successful lawsuit.

Claire Deacon, Varian’s mother, was led by her daughter’s psychologist to believe that breast removal was the only way to heal Varian’s gender dysphoria, she told the jury. At first Deacon told Varian’s psychologist Kenneth Einhorn that top surgery was “never gonna happen” if she could help it.

“This man was just so emphatic, and pushing and pushing, that I felt like there was no good decision,” she said, according to an Epoch Times report. “I think it was a scare tactic: I don’t believe it was malice, I think he believed what he was saying … but he was very, very wrong.”

The idea of her 16-year-old daughter receiving a mastectomy made her “physically ill,” Deacon said. But Deacon was led to believe by Einhorn that Varian would be unhappy unless she was affirmed in her gender dysphoria. It was the “the hardest, most difficult, gut-wrenching” decision, Deacon told the jury.

Defendants Einhorn and plastic surgeon Simon Chin implied that Varian wanted the medical procedure, and was even at risk of suicide should she not receive a mastectomy. Chin’s attorney called Deacon’s consent a “critical fact” of the case, and asked jurors what might have happened to a potentially suicidal Varian had Chin refused the surgery.

That seems a little light on the damages, but likely more than this butcher earned mutilating this girl. Yes, mother and daughter should have stood their ground and said NO, but "the science" and why not trust someone in a white coat?

Complexities of Categories

 For this incredibly long research project, I have sometimes needed to expand particular descriptors: what sort of location (work, school, public place, residence, other private location)? Cause has been a surprisingly straightforward one.  There are cases for which no single cause really fits. This is one where first reports suggests divorce. The next report got a bit weird: not really at work, but work-related as well as confused relationships.

Hollywood, Fla. (1968)

08/07/1968: “Estranged husband of one of the daughters,” 31, forced entry into Phil Wein stein’s home, shooting him, his wife and two of the three daughters to death before suicide.  (The third child was found by police hiding under the bed, unharmed.) Police later explained that the murderer had worked for the father’s law firm. He was fired because of “An intra-family love triangle involving two young sisters one of them, his wife.”

Category: family non-resident

Suicide: yes

Cause: other

Weapon: pistol[1]

---

[1] "Gunman Slays 4 In Family, Kills Self," Orlando Sentinel, Aug. 08, 1968, 24;  “Man Slays 4 In Family, Kills Self,” [Elmira, N.Y.] Star-Gazette, Aug. 08, 1968, 4.

Email Problems

 My personal email firstname @ firstnamelastname.com receives but cannot send.  Thunderbird times out on send.  My mailhost has no answers.  They see connection attempt.  So I tried Outlook.

SmtpSubmissionPermanent5XXException: Smtp submission failed. Server 'claytoncramer.com' Port '465'. --> Unexpected SMTP server response. Expected: 235, actual: 535, whole response: 535 Incorrect authentication data

Failure code: d8f5

Dysonsphere Meets Grok

SpaceX wants to put a million solar powered AI data centers in orbit to provide unprecedented computing power.

Musk never thinks small.

Drug Conviction as Lifelong Firearms Disqualifier

 U.S. v. Hembree (5th Cir. 2026):

Defendant–Appellant Charles Hembree was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).  He has a single predicate felony conviction: a 2018 conviction for simple possession of methamphetamine.  On appeal, Hembree challenges whether § 922(g)(1) is unconstitutional as applied to him and raises various constitutional challenges to his conviction.  For the reasons explained below, we find Hembree’s conviction unconstitutional as applied and reverse the district court’s conviction. 

This is because under the Bruen standard, there is no tradition under U.S. law of disarming persons for drug abuse.

The government acknowledges that illegal drug possession was “a problem that the [founding-era legislatures] did not perceive” but anchors on the Supreme Court’s statements in Rahimi, which were echoed by our court in Diaz, that “a ʻdead ringer’ for or ʻhistorical twin’ to past regulations” is not required to “pass constitutional muster.”  Instead, the government argues, “what matters is whether founding-era legislatures would have understood their powers to include the ability to pass such a law.”  The government highlights that our court “in Diaz pointed to two aspects of [historical] tradition: laws severely punishing certain crimes at the time of the founding and laws disarming persons who pose a danger with firearms.” Following that approach, the government draws on two bodies of law to justify its use of methamphetamine possession as a predicate felony for § 922(g)(1).  First, it points to “[h]istorical laws authorizing severe punishment for knowing possession of contraband,” arguing that these laws “show that permanent disarmament of those convicted of possessing illicitly obtained goods today, like Hembree, is consistent with the Second Amendment.”  Examples offered by the government include laws punishing the knowing receipt of a stolen horse, the theft of mail, and the counterfeiting and forgery of public securities with death.  Next, it points to “[h]istorical laws disarming dangerous people” and argues that “[d]rug crimes are inherently dangerous, even in situations where a defendant has ʻonly’ been convicted of ʻmere’ drug possession like Hembree, because the possession of narcotics entails the dealing with and enriching of drug traffickers.”  The government further urges that “the facts of the underlying case demonstrate the dangerous nature of narcotics,” but the only facts it points to beyond the mere fact of Hembree’s felony conviction are the facts of the present § 922(g)(1) case.4 Hembree takes a narrower view of the historical analogue.  He cites that, until a century ago, “there was virtually no effective regulation of narcotics in the United States.”  David T. Courtwright, A Century of American Narcotics Policy, in Treating Drug Problems: Volume 2, 1 (Dean R. Gerstein & Henrick J. Harwood, eds., 1992).  Hembree reasons that the “federal government did not even begin criminalizing non-medical drug use until the early Twentieth Century” and opium and other substances were legal.  Further, Hembree posits that “[i]t was not until 1906 that the Pure Food and Drug Act first required that certain substances, such as alcohol, cocaine, and heroin, be accurately labeled, Pub. L. 59-384, 34 Stat. 768, 770 (repealed 1938), and the first ban on possession and distribution came about a decade later.”  Under Diaz, he argues that § 922(g)(1) can only be constitutionally applied to a defendant if “his disqualifying convictions would have been subject to [harsh felony] punishments in the Founding Era.”  Because “conduct similar to possession of methamphetamine was not even criminal, much less subject to the death penalty or forfeiture of estate,” at the Founding, Hembree argues that the government has not met its burden of proving that disarming him is within the tradition of regulations and punishment at the Founding. 

The government argued that drug dealing is an inherently dangerous crime, but Hembree's conviction was for possession, not dealing. 

Threading

I tapped the collar on the extension tube for a 1/4"-20 thread but the appropriate thimbscrew did not lock the eyepiece securely. Why?

The collar is about 1/4" thick and thst is not enough threads to clamp down adequately I persuaded myself.  So I did an 8-32 thread and it worked.  8 threads instead of 5.

UPDATE: Another disappointment: the thumbscrew holding the extension tube in the tube interface does not hold it in place square to the interface.   I think the problem is that interface flange is only .5" wide and that is not holding it square even though it is very little difference in ID and OD.  I think the interface should be 1" wide.  I have no 1" thick pieces from which to start.  I do have a  5" thick piece of CFC that I can laminate into a 1" thick piece.