This That and Important Stuff

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

First this and that: still marooned “this” close to the end of Guardian, mostly because it was really cold in the house night before last.  We had a huge temperature dip and hadn’t adjusted the thermostat.  Which is fine, except that I only noticed when I went to bed.  And then I wasn’t awake enough to get up and change it.  So I spent the night shivering, and was a zombie all day.

You’d think being a zombie is good for writing MHI, but it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.  So I went to bed almost at sunset and slept till seven am, and I’m able to think today, so I’d LIKE to race to the end.  MIGHT be tomorrow though, because yesterday was a fricking wash.

Second, if any of you in the area know of an internship younger son (a year from completing BS in EE and ME with Aerospace as a minor — his school doesn’t offer it as a major.  Plan is to finish the two, get a job, then take master in Aerospace on the side) half time and paying, we’d be very interested in having him apply.  School didn’t tell us he had reached maximum he could borrow until this semester, so we’re in the hook for this semester’s full tuition, which wouldn’t even be a big deal if we’d had warning.  We’d just have postponed some work on the house and such, but… we had no warning.  Their excuse, btw, was that he hasn’t even started to use Parents Plus loans.  Yeah, no.  Not gonna.  Anyway, he needs to work this last year, because we can’t pay it, particularly not if my health doesn’t hold.  (It probably will, but…)  I don’t like to be in a position where if I don’t deliver books we’re broke, iow.

Meanwhile I figured out part of the problem with health, now that thyroid is almost right-adjusted has been second hand apnea.  We’ve gone through this before and it took us five years for Dan to get a cpap.  Well, he lost tons of weight and stopped using it.  He probably shouldn’t have (in his family even thin people have apnea after about 30) BUT he couldn’t make our doctor understand it needed to be adjusted DOWN.  So…. weight crept back on, and I think for the last two years he’s been really noisy at night.  I don’t really hear it, not consciously, but I also don’t enter deep sleep.  We got these mouth adjusters (I’m supposed to have one anyway, as I’ve broken teeth grinding them at night) and it stops the noise.  He still does apnea, as in, I’ll wake up with him struggling to breathe and have to touch him or shake him, but that’s not constant, and I think I only wake on really bad episodes.  So, I’m sleeping better.  (Unless I’m freezing.)  And you’ll think this is weird (unless you’ve gone through it) but I started sleeping with my shooting ear protection on a year ago, and yet didn’t get it until we had to be in a hotel where we had to get up and go to bed at same time.

Anyway, I think poor sleep has been an issue, but it’s getting taken care of.

Unrelated, sort of, if you look to your right, you’ll see a patreon coming soon link.  What you won’t see is that the paypal link is different.

I’d like to ask all of you who subscribe/send money to please change to this link instead.  It doesn’t have subscription ability, but I think Paypal does, anyway.

Reasons for this are IRS.  The other one goes through Goldport Press and it makes it almost impossible not to claim it as income.  This one will be understood to be gifts because you like my blog, not because you’re doing business with a publishing company.  This is why I’m not even offering anything for it.  That and because I’ve sucked at actually sending stuff.  Now you know I was first hypothyroidal then sleep deprived, this might make more sense.  I’ll still make good on this — I still need to do Hoyts’ Huns t-shirts, but it’s low on the priorities — but only once Guardian is in.

Patreon was put there by my husband.  I’ve tried to explain the problem to him.  Since patreon is donate x per, I don’t see how to make it just “Support my blog.”  Also, I think honestly, you should get something more.  So, my intention is to write a novel which I put up episodically for the patreon patrons.  Only I want to have it finished before I start that.  IOW it will be a little while.

Yes, I know some of you REALLY want to support me, and don’t like either paypal or patreon.  Yes, I got your emails.  If you look inside any book published by Goldport Press, there’s an address.  That physical address works for checks, if you MUST.

Okay.

Later on, links to mail chimp will appear, also. We’re trying to make it work, because for some reason it won’t take on this site.  We actually want to do several mailing lists: science fiction, fantasy, mystery, historical and maybe eventually romance.  I know a lot of you read all of it (thank you) but some only read a subgenre and it gets tiring to continuously be told about books you have no interest in.

On the important, this is important:

Victims of the red revolution: The haunting faces of prisoners worked to death in Stalin’s slave camps emerge as 100th anniversary of 1917 Bolshevik takeover approaches.

This is important because mendacious, power hungry and usefully idiot people, have spent thirty years convincing everyone they could that the communists were all gentle, idealistic souls, and that, really, the suffering in communist countries was not as much as that caused by the evil, dehumanizing capitalism.

Communism or socialism are totalitarian systems by nature, even if socialism is totalitarianism with velvet gloves.  When human beings are viewed as existing only for and as of use only to the state, this always happens. Things that we’d have trouble imagining otherwise befall human beings, because human beings don’t matter except in the collective.  So you can kill any number of them to bring paradise to the others.  Only paradise is never paradise when you can be condemned and killed for no reason you can anticipate, when everyone’s needs but the rulers are viewed as “minimum necessary” and not “whatever they want.”

There is no way to do communism (or socialism) right.  Socialism kills by making people stop reproducing (something our ancestors would find impossible to believe) and makes your life small and constricted on the installment plan.  But the end stage of the disease is communism, and communism ALWAYS ends up killing humans in unbelievably large batch lots.

A hundred million broken eggs, still no omelet.  Because the eggs don’t matter and the faith that an omelet will somehow emerge is theological, not practical, there is no way to stop breaking eggs or cook an omelet.

Just say no.  Collectivism: not even once.

 

285 thoughts on “This That and Important Stuff”

  1. No, feeling like identifying as a zombie would not be conducive to writing MHI; identifying as a vampire, werewolf or a great old one would be far more useful (although that last might result in prose that drove readers mad.)

    Keep in mind that (per his latest post at his blog) Larry’s been off playing games while you’ve been home all day slaving away over a hot draft of horror.

      1. Do you need to be PUFF-exempt to identify as a zombie while writing MHI? Wouldn’t want you to have to go work for Stricken.

        1. Vampires would be a great option as loathe as I am to admit. Most other baddies tend to be instinct or mindless. Although I do wonder if there are grades of werewolves as there are vamps. Seemed to be a few per grunge but higher vamps seemed more common.

          1. Traditionally, yes, there are– you could even justify it in modern sense by having skinwalkers (Indian thing, but line up neatly with the wolf-skin belt type European ones, definitely evil by what they’ve got to do to get the ability but otherwise sane), Hollywood cursed ones, family of shifters…..

          2. Alpha’s the book that goes into werewolves. And the ones that last a while tend to be pretty powerful. It’s not clear how many other werewolves are as tough as our favorite. But he, at least, is tough enough to scare Susan (who is apparently considered to be a “master vampire”) and fight Franks to a draw.

            The problem with werewolves is that the youngsters are mindless when transformed. And even the older ones go feral under the full moon absent some mitigating factor (like magic).

            1. Ya. Grunge had some of the loup garou able to plot ways to expand although was in human form iirc. It was finding some way to avoid the feralness without the macguffin from Alpha that I was musing about.

          3. Remember it’s based on horror movies. I don’t know how strict he is about that, but I don’t know how well going back to the folk roots would fit in.

            1. Ya. This is me just spitballing. Vendetta had a nonferal lycanthrope villain and did have MH Alpha.

              Just a different flavor from vampires.

    1. “Communism or socialism are totalitarian systems by nature, even if socialism is totalitarianism with velvet gloves. ”

      Velvet gloves? More like a lubed [probe].

      2. Lube needs to be refreshed on occasion, but under socialism the lube ration is soon raised to 1 teaspoon from 1 tablespoon.

    2. Hey… yeah.

      Occasionally I have a by-now-routine argument with a certain socialist. He always spouts the doctrine that socialism is defined as “the means of production are owned by the workers.” I ask him — what about when they didn’t build it? Well, first we must take it and distribute it to the workers. Er, okay… who enforces it? given that humans aren’t real good at letting go of what they’ve worked for. He never has an answer to that. It’s all just fantasy-la-la with himself as dictator.

      But considering Marx was a leech who lived on other people’s money and never worked a day in his life, and considered it THEIR fault when he was broke… we should be surprised when that entire family of philosophy boils down to: You have stuff. I want it. Give me your stuff, or I’ll kill you.

      1. “the means of production are owned by the workers”
        See, there’s a little-noticed piece of silliness in here. It’s an assumption that, in ‘capitalism’, the “owners” ARE NOT “workers”. Funny, but almost every business owner I’ve ever met puts in more hours than the employees do*.

        Ultimately, Marxism is based on an aristocratic paradigm, assumes that all workers are actually working, and that the aristocratic owner doesn’t actually provide anything to the equation.

        (* I do know of one that doesn’t do much except take money from the enterprise. He treats the business very passively, doesn’t do things to make the business more efficient or effective. And, the choice of business, imo, is predicated on the fact he CAN be totally passive about it.)

        1. Oft overlooked by Marxists (a group noteworthy for the vast amount of things they overlook) is that providers of capital have many many alternate options for their investments. If I can invest my retirement funds in a secure bond paying five percent interest and no further effort on my part, why would I invest those funds in an insecure business returning four percent on investment and requiring sixty to eighty hours a week plus constantly negotiating with workers who complain I don’t pay them enough, don’t provide sufficient fringe (hmmm, I just realized our culture has dropped that modifier) benefits, demand too many hours of them and don’t tell reassuring fairy tales (okay, the shop stewards do that)?

          Yeah, I know: under socialism I will be relieved of the burdens of minding my capital, especially as preserving capital for my retirement is a crime against The State, implying that generous comrades will not provide ease for me in my old age, just as they did for faithful Boxer.

          1. What you point out is, I think, part of the aristocratic paradigm inherent to Marxism, RES. There’s no concept of some lowly worker dude out there, with spare capital that he’s looking to invest. Because, in the Marxist worldview, there is no freedom. So, there’s no way for “workers” to ever BE “owners” (except for “Jewish bankers” or some other imagined cabal) except by overthrowing the previous “owners”. The only people with capital are the aristocrats.

            1. There is also no concept of the guy who starts with nothing more than a shoestring and a bright idea and works it into a product or service that people pay him for because it does something better than anything else in the neighborhood.

              2. There actually used to be machines for washing coins; high-end restaurants and hotels, among other places, used them back in the days when people still paid cash. I don’t know what they did with bills, but all coins given as change were cleaned.

                1. One of my wife’s relatives was a top-level civil servant (the level right below the political appointees) at the Federal Reserve some years back. One day, while giving us a tour we ran across one of his fellows in the hallway.

                  He grinned, and said to us “I’d like to introduce you to the Nation’s chief money-launderer.”

                  The other guy was in charge of the branch of the fed that’s in charge of making sure that overly worn bills are retired. Non-retired bills get steam-cleaned and pressed before being re-distributed back out to banks. So the introduction was quite literally correct—the gentleman was in charge of laundering more US$ than pretty much anyone else in the world. 😉

            3. I have more than once heard claims that Labor is prior to Capital because Labor is what produces Capital. As if a laborer were entitled to the business owner’s labor without having done his own work.

              1. Well, this is true. IFF* you start from a zero-point, where you have nothing but your brain and natural resources surrounding you. Labor, then produces capital. Unless he’s a slave, though, that worker has capital right from the moment he begins to labor and someone else wants to trade for what he now has.

                (* IFF=If, and only if. I don’t know if that’s still the proper math/logic representation.)

        2. Ah, he owns a coin laundry 🙂

          I used to be a member of the industry association and if we don’t change the importation of third worlders I will probably get back into and look into buying one. While a cash business the IRS is pretty good at nailing you so taxes have to be honest and there is a modicum of work to maintain a decent one it is a good “part-time” business.

          1. I had been under the impression that the Mafia controlled the coin laundry business. That in part explains the high staffing levels even though few workers are ever in view.

            1. They might in some places, but when I seriously looked at it in Eastern CT it was mostly blue collar men in their 50s who bought it with overtime at some plant, ie deplorables.

              1. Midwest as well. The place I used when I was at Flat State was owned by a partnership of Korean and Vietnam-era vets and served as a retirement project as well as extra income. Clean, well-lit, and the magazines were always interesting (American Legion publications, American Rifleman, and some ladies’ interest publications.)

            2. Small cash businesses such as a coin laundry are the perfect mechanism for laundering criminal cash, converting it from dirty money into legitimate cash flow eligible for deposit into bank accounts.

          2. > look into buying one

            Around here, the hot tip would be rent-a-closets. There are at least a dozen in my small town, and every time a new one goes up, the bays are all rented before the place is even finished.

            I admit I’m a packrat, but I don’t have to rent separate accomodations for all my stuff…

            1. Yep. And they don’t require much attention (if no inside, air-conditioned spots) once you’ve got them built.

              1. That’s what the people thought who built the storage space we’ve used for Mother-In-Law’s furnishings.

                Right up until a six-inch rainfall turned the shallow creek a good distance from the back of the lot into a raging torrent halfway up the lot. I think there was something about a blockage of the culvert some distance downstream but in truth I did not care.

            2. It comes in handy when antecedents die and you inherit stuff with no immediate space in house. Van arrives full of stuff, it is easy to rent space and store it until you have time to forget about it.

              1. Then there are the “retirement community” rentals. People move in from snow country, put their things in storage, and nobody sees them until the executor has the rental cleaned out…

              2. I actually have a plan in the event of a certain relative dies before clearing out the house (VERY likely, though said relative has hired help now and may actually make progress.) Rent warehouse-type space and enough people to literally truck everything over to said space. Sort items to edges in categories. Let relatives take things they want. Pack up the rest of said things into clearly labeled boxes, put into storage until a midsummer festival the town has that brings in lots of tourists. Stage estate sale *then*, advertised in said festival program, run by estate sale runners. The money made by selling to out-of town folks would be more than enough to cover the other expenses, given the items for sale. (Like dozens of lovely dish sets. Said relative isn’t a hoarder, but does have some impulse purchasing habits.)

        3. Funny, but those hundred thousand dollars of retirement funds I have invested in various companies means of production constitute the just compensation and earnings of my past 40 years of working. Ditto the millions of other folks who’ve done similarly.

          Communists-Marxist-Socialists (or progressive mega-thieves like former Prez BHO) would all have it that none of us worked for any of that, and don’t deserve either our principle back, or any profit for taking a risk on investing in a business.

          Something bouncing in the back of my brain about Islam also not allowing people to receive or pay interest on investments so they had to do a major Rube Goldberg financial structure to get around that for issuing loans. None of them have the guts to admit that Mohammed was dead wrong on that point.

          1. Leftist policies typically discourage deferred spending through a variety of methods. Taxing savings, either directly or through inflation is one method. Subsidizing spendthrifts (e.g., by underwriting and forgiving student loan debt) is another. If you brown bag your lunch in order to set aside 10% of your check for retirement thay will screw you on that. too.

            One might almost suspect them of wanting to keep folks living paycheck to paycheck and dependent on their “assistance” but only cynical counter-revolutionaries and wreckers would imagine that.

          2. Confucianism, Christianity, and (I think) Buddhism all have or had objections to the charging of interest. Many such belief systems also held th merchant in low esteem, as if his work of moving goods from hwhere they were common to where they were scarce was valueless.

            And those beliefs had some, SOME, validity in low tech agricultural societies….especially where merchants did not expect to be doing business in an area very often and had a lower incentive not to cheat.

            They just don’t damn well work in industrial societies.

            1. Christianity’s was actually in this weekend’s readings– it’s very clear about the idea being against taking advantage of the poor, although pretty much everybody was poor then. (ie, can’t keep their cloak overnight because they need something to cover them as they sleep)

            2. It’s the “problem” of unearned income. What goods does a merchant or banker produce? In a world where everything had to be tangible and visible, someone who got money for apparently not producing anything had to be hurting another person. It’s the old zero-sum situation.

              2. You may talk o’ gin and beer
                When you’re quartered safe out ’ere,
                An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot it;
                But when it comes to slaughter
                You will do your work on water,
                An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ’im that’s got it.

                But when you get back to safe quarters there is a tendency to decide you wuz cheated, ’cause look what water costs back ‘ere! The inclination is to ignore or undervalue the risks taken to provide the service at the location where it was needed most.

                Hence the rule about valuing real estate: location, location, location!

                A forty-acre plot in outer Podunk may be far better suited to sustaining yourself and your family through agriculture, but a forty-acre plot overlooking Manhattan’s Central Park will probably command higher rents.

        4. Ugh. This just reminds me that one of my friends’ daughter has swallowed her indoctrination well. She keeps pointing everything bad back to the capitalism, and the greed of capitalists.

          1. And it never sinks in, however often you point it out, that greed is an inordinate desire for material goods, and so she is greedy.

          2. I’m sure that the gal has some items that she spent a fair bit of money for just for the sake of impressing other people- one can point that out.

      2. “the means of production are owned by the workers.“?

        Aren’t Teh Workers themselves the true means of production? Doesn’t that mean Teh Workers are enslaved?

        1. My favorite has been “we mean private property not personal property” when you ask them for “our” MacBook. When you ask what the difference is they say the former is the means of production.

          Well, son, as a programmer and a what to be writer a MacBook IS my means of production.

      3. The fundamental wall of reality Marxism runs into (face-first, over and over again) is failing to see that capital is an input to production just as important as labor. The big difference is that sources of capital are far fewer so, the law of supply and demand being what it is (not optional), the providers of capital command a higher price than the providers of labor.

      4. When I was a pre-teen in the early ‘70s, my family hosted a Soviet computer scientist for a week, while he visited the CS department at my Dad’s university. I had the great joy of playing fly-on-the-wall while my University-Prof & Startup Company Founder Dad talked with this guy about their respective difficulties in getting good people.
        Soviet: Offer them housing (or better housing). Works every time!
        My Dad: Stock Options. Workers owning the means of production, profiting if the company flies.
        Soviet: Sounds effective. [pause] But it would *never* fly at home!

  3. “I’d LIKE to race to the end.”

    Please keep in mind that the quality of a story is not measured by how its author races to the end but by how the reader races to the end.

    It was a while before I learned to phrase my reviews in two essential phrases conveying the essential information anybody wants to know:
    Hard to put down, easy to pick up.
    Easy to put down, easy to pick up.
    Easy to put down, easy to wander off and forget where I left it.

      1. Somewhere in here belongs the school girl’s book review that Thurber quoted in one of his essays; “This book tells me more about penguins than I want to know”.

    2. Easy to put down, easy to wander off and “forget” where I left it.

      Or, at least that’s what I’ll tell the person who gave me the book when they ask where it is. Because I would never dream of going to Hawaii for the sole purpose of flinging the damn thing into an active volcano.

    1. Apply early so they can work on security clearances while he’s still in school, as those can take a while. Especially for people with foreign travel/contacts.

      1. And right now, change your definition of early to add at least a month for even low level clearances in any department. Apparently there’s been a government wide slowing down because they’ve been burned so badly.

      1. Apply, anyway, because – with a great resume, or great potential demonstrated – they might very well figure out what else they can do with him. Smart employers will pick him up and make a place, or try to use an outside perspective on a slot they need to fill. (And, he then gets “broadening”, as well as noting “flexibility” on his resume.)

          1. The key to it is good writing. 🙂
            Turning all the things he’s done into “why you should hire me” points is what’s important. Touting “flexibility”, “critical thinking”, “ability/loves to learn”, and “hard worker” with that information gets you “the in”. Then you get to sell yourself in the interview.

            (Don’t use those terms, but demonstrate them with your experience/skills. No matter how “relevant” you think the actual experience/skill is to the individual position.)

            It’s good training for getting a job later, too. Not just the mechanics, but seeing how to parlay what he has done into what he can do. Which is what a good employer is really looking for.

            (Ummm, yes, I used to help in the employment center on base, for a while. Why do you ask?)

              1. Even more a matter of why he needs to network. If they don’t have an opening they can shove him into they can always be tapped for a contact (or three) who might know somebody. As a general rule, successful managers love helping bright personable youngsters get a step up.

                Just don’t try to schedule an appointment during inventory, month-end-close or other time-sensitive periods.

                As for resumes, they’re for the HR department after the supervisor has decided he’s what they want need.

                1. As for resumes, they’re for the HR department after the supervisor has decided…

                  This This This This.

                  You can fix a resume to get HR happy. Getting a Manager to want to make HR happy about the person they want to hire is the more important step.

              2. If you want, I will gladly help y’all put that together. (You can see the email for commenters, right?)

                    1. D’Almeida was my family’s name before the king was deposed when it was changed to de Almeida, and the d doesn’t count in initials. In fact my nephews are just Almeida.

                1. My current job, I didn’t even apply for – it wasn’t posted. I was just talking to people about airplanes, and jewelry, and then someone called me and asked me to come in for the interview.

                  In fact, my pilot’s license has gotten me more jobs than my university degree or my resume.

                2. HR. There’s a lot you should be able to do without a BA or BS. Except the way some school districts are going, a BA just shows you have the book-learning that you should have gotten in High School. (Look up Texas universities and remedial classes and weep.)

          2. LDS Employment Services has a center in the Denver area (open to all, not just LDS) — https://www.ldsjobs.org/ers/ct/center/68481?lang=eng

            They have resume writing workshops that will go into “the best resume for your circumstances.” My last unemployed stint I was using the resume I’d written using the guidelines I’d learned in my college resume writing course and while I was getting a few interviews a week, I didn’t get any offers for over 9 months. I then went to the LDS course, re-did my resume, and started a new job 5.5 weeks later, so.. I’m a fan of their resume writing course. Of course, I’m in Salt Lake, so I did it at LDS Business College, instead of an employment center so I probably had a slightly different experience.

              1. What? I thought that was a family thing? What with you being a male Mormon with a great rack, I think he just assumed…….

          4. That’s what the definition of Intern is. One of the pull-down menus lets you limit it to just internships/college employees. And they pretty much take anybody that is studying a STEM degree. If there aren’t many in Colorado, I know Tucson has tons. My department alone usually hires around 10.

      2. Apply for everything. Prioritize his efforts for those he wants most, those he thinks he can get, and then the rest.
        A job in hand beats 2 maybes.
        There are exercises that can list all the things he knows how to do that can help identify jobs he’s closest to being qualified to do. Even if he doesn’t know how to do a couple of the requirements for a job, he can still try to get it and work on correcting those deficiencies.

        1. He learns very fast. Another hampering factor is that he blew a semester’s grades while we were moving/his cat died. I know it sounds stupid, but he’s got so many hours it threw him off, and well…
          So his GPA will come up after this semester, but right now is under 3.0, like 2.9 (which isn’t even that bad at his college. Honors for engineering is 3.25)

          1. An “off” semester is very simple to handle. He merely needs to inform potential hirers that he has since made up the course work and is improving, and that the lapse was due to opiod addiction which he has now overcome.

        2. Check with the school placement office for recently hired graduates who might help the networking. While school placement offices are generally worse than useless they can at least provide a conduit to those in the industry. They ought also have a list of local area businesses connected to the industry, offering contact information for their HR & Recruiting people.

    3. Xcel Energy may be an option, if temporary living arrangements may be made away from home. An EE / ME degree would be right up their alley, but the commute to Brush might be a deal killer.

        1. Ah, yes. I think I see. I was thinking in terms of a summer full-time internship when he is looking for more of a long-term, part-time one. Yeah, Xcel wouldn’t work with that.

          1. He’s trying to make money to pay the half of the tuition that the loans covered. (We paid half of each of their undergrad: two BSs each. We CAN’T pay the full thing.)

            2. Sarah, how much does he do with computers? I can check with the company I work for, and they may have something he can do part time from home.

                1. Python or another scripting language are generally more useful/desirable than Java, Unless its a java specific job. (Easier to learn too)

            3. How are his programming skills? Computer Security interest? (I realize it’s not the Aerospace thing he’s probably most interested in, but…) We’ve got many excellent summer internships at quite nice pay. Restricted to Silly Valley, though. Can probably finesse the GPA based on # of course-hours. You should be able to see the email via WordPress if he’s interested.

          2. Dang. Was going to suggest BAE, but that shoots that one down, too, I believe. They’re always one of the first around here to snap up the best ME/EE’s.

  5. Socialism is letting someone else make all the decisions for you. This works out as well as slavery ever has.

    2. Every year I have students who like socialism. Until I offer to socialize their grades. The appeal dims abruptly. (“Wait, you mean average my grade with [other kids] and give me that?!? No way.”)

      1. “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

        Your exam will include an essay question requiring you to evaluate your ability and your need for a good grade. It will be graded on a curve.

      2. Heh. I had a TA class as an undergrad who pushed this sort of teaching, actually. “You learn or fail as a class.” This was said.

        Of course, certain of my fellow students (predictably) took this as an opportunity to stop showing up at all. I helpfully reminded them of the upcoming test that came up about a month later (they had to show up for this, lest the college automatically drop them- this was *not* the TA’s idea).

        When the class average surfaced at a 63.2 out of 100, ach, the angst and woe. Strong men beat their chests! Women wailed and some screeched! After said TA left for more alcoholic pastures, I offered to tutor. For a small fee, of course.

        Capitalism wins again!

        1. was the TA grazing in alcoholic pastures before class?I had an Engineering TA that some of the students had to drag out of the nearby establishment to begin class.

          1. Possible. Socialista the TA was just as bad drunk on the kool-aid of decades old Marxist dogma, though. Tough to tell the difference.

        1. It might not cure, but it certainly dampens their enthusiasm. By the time we get to 1989 and the Berlin Wall et al, they are rather inoculated. Don’t know if it lasts without a booster shot or not, though.

    3. “Isn’t this yacht *beautiful*?”

      “Oh, yeah. Everybody ought to have one.”

      “Why, Mr. Scott! That sounds like Communism!”

      “Oh, no, doll. Under Communism, everybody gets an oar. But nobody gets a yacht.”

      –A conversation from a Shell Scott detective story from the Fifties (from memory)

      1. Actually, everyone gets a broken plank of wood from the burned out remains of the beautiful yacht. Those that are lucky will get one that’s shaped such that they can pretend it’s an oar.

        1. Meanwhile, the Parti takes the yacht’s lifeboat and build a cardboard replica of the original yacht around it.
          And since everyone else has a broken plank, everyone technically owns a yacht, and is required to take part in the Parti’s annual February Regatta.

          1. You know that you can actually build a cardboard boat? The Scouts here had annual races. Yes, they will float. And some will go … well, faster than you could walking on the bottom. And, *some* will even make it to the finish line.
            Oh yes, indeed, that cardboard yacht will float. Just not for very long…….

            It certainly helps to know how to swim if you live in a communist country.

            1. “<IIt certainly helps to know how to swim if you live in a communist country.”

              Nyah. You will simply be denounced as a wrecker, a reactionary and a counter-revolutionary and be sent off to a gulag.

            2. OTOH, they have concrete canoe races at various engineering colleges. One enterprising group figured out a way to spray foaming concrete, making a boat that was basically pumice.

        2. Nah. The Parity has a yacht. We have the privilege of being allowed to row it. Are you not grateful, comrade?

  6. When human beings are viewed as existing only for and as of use only to the state, this always happens.
    See, the problem is that socialism intends that it exists for the purpose of the people. But, you have to have this “state” because of this thing that socialists (progressives, in general) tend to ignore: human nature. So, you have to have a state to enforce socialism, and the state always tends to treat people as things. (It’s not a socialism/capitalism thing, it’s what states do.) So, this wonderful, idealistic philosophy, that works in some smaller bits, for a limited time, for certain people, turns to absolute crap wherever it’s tried in anything larger than a dozen people. Because … human nature.

    makes your life small and constricted on the installment plan
    That’s a great image. And so very true.

  7. “Yes, I know some of you REALLY want to support me, and don’t like either paypal or patreon.”

    There’s always taking you to dinner at cons. Can you provide a general itinerary of preferred types of restaurants suitable for such entertainment? I like Chinese, Indian, Thai, Mexican … and also places that don’t offer to scald my palate.

    OTOH, as Baen and con organizers often provide for such the volunteer brigade is likely less able to deploy such support, therefore I request clarification on the precise definition of “please change to this link instead.”

    THIS link being the Paypal link which I presume no longer links to the Goldport Press site? I love you like a sister (and, as I am West Virginian by birth let me hasten to clarify: not that kind of sister) and want to be supportive but I am not sure I love you enough to figure out how to switch the Paypal feed. I am unsure whether I am more likely to end up double-paying or not contributing at all, but I expect either result to be more likely result than canceling the one and enrolling the other.

      1. Did it, you should see a yuge balance transfer imminently. OK, maybe not yuge. I guess it depends on what your definition of yuge is.

        Note that I poked around a bit and don’t yet see any way to do that particular flavor (person to person) of transfer on a recurring schedule – I found a repeat button, but it just pulls the trigger again.

        Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

        2. 1 is always yuge when compared to 0.
          Just remember that some infinities are also greater than others.

          1. Aye. It is both a comfort and a horror to know that as infinitely moronic as some of things ox has done have been… ox never reached Posneric level of moronicity, which is a much greater infinity indeed.

      2. I hope you will get this set up for recurring payments soon, so I will not have to remember to hit the tip jar every month.

        I note that Paypal hits me for a 9% “handling” fee for this donation, money I would rather send you than them, so any alternate (as if you aren’t already trying!) would be desirable.

          1. You do realize that the cost of stamp and envelope add up, as well as your cost of driving to a bank to deposit the piddling check? Then there’s increased degree of difficulty in reconciling my check book every month, not to mention how much I despise writing checks except when I am paid to do so (just as the shoemaker’s children go barefoot, the accountant’s AP goes into arrears.)

            No, my dear, you will have to live with the burden of direct deposit and the teeth-grinding knowledge that Paypal is taking an additional 9% for saving us both the inconvenience of checks, envelopes, stamps and trips to various establishments.

            1. My bank will let me use its bill pay feature to send actual checks (besides the direct electronic banking thingy). Because I haven’t had printed checks available to me in years.

              1. Good point. I hadn’t considered that, even though my bank offers it, mainly, well, because I don’t want to encourage them.

            2. If PayPal still has bulk pay, that was a much cheaper way of transferring money. It was more of a hassle however. They also did their best to hide it, so if you are interested, look hard.

            3. OTOH, if you send me a stack of SASE I can promise to slip a used, small denomination $bill into one and drop it in the outgoing mail every month. I will even provide a suitable blank sheet of paper to wrap the payment with each sent.

      3. Sarah, I tried to start a new one, but it wouldn’t let me set it up as a recurring payment like the old one did.

        1. I know Steve. Because it’s a PERSONAL one it might not let me. I promised Dan I would put a reminder in a post once a month. I’ll try to put that. But I’m going to try to do a month thing.

  9. Socialism would be pretty easy to ignore if it weren’t for one thing – its supporters always couch it in terms of what the government can do for *you*, ignoring the fact that the government has to take from you in order to provide for you.

    1. Well, and if they didn’t also shoot people and bury them in mass graves because they were hoarders and wreckers and saboteurs and counterrevolutionaries and Антисове́тская агита́ция и пропага́нда and deplorables and…

      1. You forgot science fiction writers.
        “They” really don’t like people who can imagine a better future based on their own efforts.

        1. Wellll, there were some science fiction writers who managed to leverage “inevitable historical triumph of Communism” into “spaceships, aliens, and babes.” But yeah, there were others who were less successful at it, which meant something considerably worse happened to them than being unpersoned by Big Pubs.

      2. But to get to the “shooting and mass graves” step, it first needs to convince enough people that it will make Heaven on Earth. If it couldn’t do that, then there would never be enough people to get to the “shooting and mass graves” step.

        1. I was JUST reading The Book of Lord Shang . Chinese Legalist tradition. An astounding combination of extreme severity and rule, and innocent certainty that THAT would make people good.

    1. Yep.
      Unless you’re in a voluntary commune, usually with religious values backing up your communal ideals, socialism requires taking from some people that didn’t sign on, to give to those who did.
      (And the only communes that work are those that kick out the free-loaders.)

      1. No — all societies are based on greed. Capitalism (more accurately, markets) are based on the presumption that voluntary transactions are superior to transactions compelled by force.

  11. While we’re on the topic of Paypal links and other methods of funding, I would like to take note of the current “Chinese Fire Drill” taking place in Washington as Google, Facebook, Twitter and other social media idiots demonstrate their utility to our enemies.

    Much testimony has been attested to the fact that Russians bought ads to sow division in our political culture — as if the Democrats and Republicans and their puppet masters don’t already do that and worse. Have you seen the Latino Victory Fund ad depicting VA gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie as attempting to run down “undocumented” children in a souped up equivalent of the General Lee? Remember the NAACP ads depicting George W Bush as wanting African-Americans dragged behind cars? Remember the “Every time you vote against Bill Clinton a black church burns to the ground”? What the h.e.l.l. can the Russkies run that would be more divisive? So what if they’re promoting hashtags for and against NFL players “taking a knee” during the anthem? That’s applesauce compared with the red meat served daily by frickin’ Americans!

    So what if they want to add a few drops of vitriol to the web ads flooding our nation? Even if Google, FB anf the Twits could weed out and stop Russian adverts it wouldn’t matter. Were I in charge of Russian meddling I would certainly set up a few paypal feeds to Sarah, Instapundit, Breitbart and Infowars, to name only a few. I would also be dropping change in the pockets at Vox, the <Nation, Andrew Sullivan and a wide variety of other Left-Wing voices, such as Talks-To-Plants and BLM (okay, we all know that the Russians already provide financial support to that last group.) There would be no way to detect and obstruct such rabble-rousing without imposing crippling manacles on the internet community.

    Moreover, any such solution would be akin to enveloping kids in bubble-wrap rather than building in resilience. It is approaching the issue from the wrong direction, promoting a pound of cure when an ounce of prevention will do. Educating folks more competently (as if that is in the government interest!) and reminding them that people on the internet lie, bully, harass and troll without regard to any influx of Soros-money and that critical reasoning is the best safeguard against social media diseases — that’s the best course of action.

    Ceding to such demands as this:<BLOCKQUOTE.“There is zero doubt — and piles of new evidence — that Russia manipulated our election,” journalist Mike Allen of Axios wrote Tuesday. “This next phase [of the investigation into Russia’s interference] will show if Trump himself was aware or involved, or has any interest in doing anything about it — and how extensively America's most powerful [social media] companies enabled the mass manipulation.”
    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/media-convinced-russia-tipped-the-election-to-trump/article/2639201would be futile and counterproductive.

    1. Well, pooh! I spent so much time fiddling the /BLOCKQUOTE that I missed the failed angle bracket on the initial. WP sucks, man!

      I confess a certain amount of Schadenbonericiousness over such complaints as

      Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, a guest on the show, agreed, even while acknowledging that there has been no proof that Russia’s interference made any decisive difference in votes. “And it did,” he said. “It obviously did. We can’t quantify that … [W]e’ll never know for sure that that tipped the election to Donald Trump, but clearly to say that that had no impact is ridiculous.”

      But USA Today White House reporter Heidi Przybyla went further and said that the media should be able to say definitively that Russia’s campaign worked.

      “[W]e as journalists need to stop right now saying that this did not have an effect,” she said, also on MSNBC. “Because what we saw in this election very clearly was that turnout on the Democratic side was depressed and that that was the strategic aim of the Russians.”
      op cit

      which largely amounts to grousing that Russian bots threw the election to Trump while the We (the MSM) were trying to throw the election to Hillary.

      One of my favorite lines from (the movie) M*A*S*H is the one about “Their ringer just spotted our ringer, sir.”

      1. Further on the topic of Schadenbonerliciousness:

        Papa John’s: NFL’s national anthem protests hurt pizza sales
        The CEO and founder of Papa John’s Pizza, the NFL’s official pizza sponsor, said the league’s handling of the controversy surrounding players kneeling for the national anthem has hurt its pizza sales.

        “The NFL has hurt us by not resolving the current debacle to the players’ and owners’ satisfaction,” founder John Schnatter

        [SNIP]

        “Leadership starts at the top, and this is an example of poor leadership,” said Schnatter, who founded Papa John’s in 1984. Bloomberg reported that the pizza chain’s sales are likely falling because fewer people are watching the NFL, which means fewer people ordering pizza as they watch NFL games.

        Papa John’s has been the NFL’s official pizza sponsor since 2010, and though the league’s ratings have declined this year, Schnatter said he believes that will change.

        “This should have been nipped in the bud a year and a half ago,” he said of the national anthem protests. “Like many sponsors, we’re in touch with the NFL. Once the issue is resolved, we’re optimistic the NFL’s best years are ahead.”

        1. I hate to tell him, but I think NFL popularity is on the way down for another reason: in some regions, fewer students are willing to try out for football. In one school (sorry, forgotten the URL), there were more members on the track team than the football team. That declining interest is going to affect NFL interest, whether the players and owners remember they are American teams or not.

          1. And let’s not forget the latest brain damage research. If it pans out football will be gone from the public schools and probably from the colleges and that will kill it totally.

            1. And eliminating football from the colleges might make the colleges a lot more vulnerable, and they are in loud mode when they may soon need to shut up.

              1. I hope they don’t switch their obsessive focus to basketball. I *like* college basketball and it’s done wonderful things for my college, but if it absorbs football culture, that would kill its value. (NB: my college’s coach is a real hard-liner, and will not allow his students’ standards to slip. It was quite a row when a player was caught with psychedelic mushrooms about a decade ago, you could almost hear the yelling from two states away. And he only reluctantly let the guy back in the program the next year after probation.)

      2. Yep – the press is all hot about 400K page views for those Russian-financed side-of-page ads. I’m guessing the anti-Trump press got at minimum three to four (hm, thinking maybe five or six?) orders of magnitude more page views for “news” stories critical of The Donald during the 2016 campaign.

        They are grasping at straws.

        1. “They are grasping at straws.”

          More like flapping at cinders, trying to create a blaze. I doubt more than 5% of people even glance at those side-of-page ads, and that is being generous.

          1. I think more than that glance at them, as they’re usually somewhat distracting. But they do ignore them. Sometimes, they bother to note who it’s advertising, so they can ignore them, too.

      3. So they’re saying that Russian Fake News had a greater effect on the election than the DNC promotion of fraudulent voting? There’s a strong probability that the number of out of state voters abusing the motor-voter law in NH were what tipped the total in Hillary’s favor over Trump. (Disclosure: I hate being a blue state.)

        1. Pfui. Being in a Purple state is no big thrill, either. One reason to DVR everything is so that we can FF through political ads, and even so we saw far too much of Hillary’s smirking face.

          Half or more of every day’s mail for several months went straight to the shredder, although I confess we held a few back for mocking analysis of subliminal content or searching the fine print to find out which mendacious front group sent the particular canards.

          1. One of the few upsides of CA being a Dem taken-for-granted state is the national campaigns don’t spend any money here, so the only time I had to watch the “Elect the Shrill Entitled Felon! She’ll Fall Down Much Less Later On!!” ads was when they bought a national ad on one of the networks.

          2. Hillary’s ad that was meant to curry favor with the Bern Brigade actually made a difference in my vote- that was the thing that made me bound and determined that this horrid woman should not be president.
            It was the ad where she promised that she would go after the wealthy, to take their money and create jobs programs. That the rich would not be able to send their money offshore either.

            1. with all that money she and Bill (and the rest of the dems) have offshore, not likely to happen. That one is the Dem’s lies to their base.
              Luckily for me, my TV tastes prevent much in the way of political ads, and most of those I do see are for things like Protect The Harvest (I watch a LOT of MAVTV and PTH is one of Forest Lucas’ orgs) and for whatever reason I saw far less last election on Science channel, and Discovery keeps the leftoid ads off American Heroes Channel for the most part.
              Hmm, I’d bet there are a few words Lucas would like to aim at the NFL and the Colts about their silly knee taking tantrums.

              1. “I’d bet there are a few words Lucas would like to aim at the NFL and the Colts about their silly knee taking tantrums.”

                Perhaps something along the lines of, “As long as you’re in the position, blow me.“?

        2. IIRC, when they actually looked at the ads on Facebook that could be traced to the Russians, they were –

          1.) Poorly written
          2.) Tended to be for things like BLM and the like

          The reasonable conclusion (which the Left refuses to allow due to its hysteria regarding Trump and Russia) is that yes, Russia did attempt to mess with our election. But it did so in a way to muddle and confuse things. Given what we’ve seen since then, I would guess that they (accidentally, mind you) succeeded.

          1. Most of the ads I see tend towards the “Get Catfished By the Russian Mafia Pretending to be this Stock Photo of a Hot Model” variety.

          2. Of course the question nobody is asking is, “How could Russia possibly mess up the American political process more than it already is?

            Probably because they all know the answer is, they can’t. But that doesn’t make anyone any political brownie points.

            1. 1: Russia doesn’t have to mess up the American political process, it just needs to be able to claim it did.

              2. There are major political brownie points to be won by distracting the public from what a colossally bad candidate Hillary was, what a terribly incompetent campaign she ran, and what a load of lying partisan shills the MSM has been.


              Hillary, the Democrat Party and the MSM are in the position of jumping up and down shouting, “Shoot the rabbit! Shoot the rabbit!”

              1. All the hysterical cries about how Trump’s presidency is illegitimate as a consequence — do they really all want our elections to be annulled every time Russia says, Yup, we meddled?

                1. Sigh. TWICE today the Washington Post notified me of their new poll (with ABC) that “Most Americans approve of Trump-Russia probe, and nearly half think Trump committed a crime”!

                  I very much doubt that ten percent of those who think Trump committed a crime can identify an actual crime committed. In spite of MSM Breathless Reporting, even collusion with the Russians would not be criminal.

                  Not that any of those so convinced could give a rat’s patoot about such an obviously irrelevant fact, of course. I despair for our nation, so ill-served by our Fourth Estate fifth column.

                  OTOH, it looks as if Donna Brazile’s behind-covering memoir is kicking the Clintons to the curb:

                  WP Most Read:
                  1 Democrats express outrage over allegations of early party control for Clinton in 2016
                  2 Analysis: Elizabeth Warren and Donna Brazile both now agree the 2016 Democratic primary was rigged

            2. Most of that already-terribly-messed-up is due to progressives (who are really Marxists) and communist interference that started a century ago, though. So, yeah, they can take credit.

          1. I think they would have to tighten the controls for that to be merely a license to fraud. This is more of an open invitation, like leaving a suitcase full of money in your back seat with the car windows rolled down.

      4. They [politicians of various statist flavors] see what Germany and the UK are doing and they are drooling at the chance to do likewise.

    2. Were I in charge of Russian meddling I would certainly set up a few paypal feeds to …
      Or, you could just give it to Soros, and let HIM produce the interference.

    3. actually I’d get nothing, since I started blocking Russian IPs (Often coming from the Volksdeutsche blog) sometime ago, before the election. They were invariably stirring trouble and I get tired.
      I also disagree with the current “to civil war, to civil war” calls.

      1. Meh. You don’t have to do their bidding just because you take their money. But their bots and trolls are indeed another matter.

        The primary point is that there is not really any way we, as a nation, could block their disruptive inputs. The “Let’s you and him fight” game is an old one and this nation has an abundance of useful idiots … many of them with tenured positions.

        We need to eschew distractions and focus on what is practical. Eris can stuff her golden apples where Apollo don’t shine.

    4. About that attack ad on Ed Gillespie’s campaign …

      # at Power Line relays reports “that donations to Gillespie tripled over the last two days, after the ad aired.”

      And even the editors at the Washington Post have denounced the ad as counter-productive, although that is not exactly they term they use, advising that “It behooves Mr. Northam, while he is offering criticism, to make clear that even though the anti-Gillespie spot was not a product of his campaign, his campaign wants no part of it.”

      “In one anecdote, a PR strategist reported that a contractor working on his house was incensed by the ad, saying, ‘I drive a truck. I wear a hat. I’m voting for Gillespie. My foreman and whole crew are Hispanic. I know their kids. I buy them gifts. But wow, I know what the Democrats think of me now.‘”

      Emphasis added.

      1. Want more Trump? This is how you get more Trump.

        Also, more proof that the Progressives are letting slip the mask of dispassionate intellect that their predecessors spend decades building. The mask that was the only reason people gave their side the time of day.

      2. That is the worst portrayal of a car chase nightmare, ever.

        “Oh, noes! The evil vehicle is driving down the road! It never leaves the road, actually. What shall we do in this pleasant wide-lawned suburb, in order to get away?”

        Seriously, Christine this is not.

        2. It might not be as unrealistic, at least in thst regard, as you’d like to think. The number of people who seem to think only in terms of roads, even when they’re walking, is truly awe-inspiring.

          1. Unless you’re there, it’s hard to know what places you can cut across– and the sort of folks who do casual trespassing should really not be emulated….

            (Standard way to check out houses- jump their fence and walk across the lawn. No objection, area is very safe for burglars.)

            1. I used to walk cross backyards from high school in Ohio, because the smell of diesel in the bus made me sick. Cutting ‘cross backyards cut the way in half.
              My host family fielded phone calls of protest until these people understood I was trying to stay to paths/out of the lawn.

          2. Yes… even when there is a sidewalk, and they’re walking down the middle of the road. It’s… baffling.

          3. The number of times I have “chased” a bird down a road because it keeps flying straight away. . . is no excuse for being a bird brain.

    5. …without imposing crippling manacles on the internet community.

      What makes you think that isn’t the goal? The less rabid Progressives have to know that the reason Trump won ultimately boiled down to their loss of monopoly on the information feed into every American home. People were able to see for themselves how the media manipulate stories to further their chosen agenda, even if it’s by being exposed to obvious fake news. “Hmm, this story on CNN is using a lot of the same tricks as that obviously garbage story on InfoWars last week. Maybe I should look into this a bit more.”

    2. Just that internship question. Didn’t know if you meant the upcoming spring semester or summer. At least my experience was that most internships we’re summer sessions vs co-ops which are done thru school. But looks like no open reqs here ATM anyway in ee or mech/struct.

      1. Also recommend touching base with profs and school. Got my internship/job that way. And I had more authority there than I do at current job, albeit for reasons that are somewhat unique to current organization.

        1. Yeah. They are, and they are probably the ideal for him. Internships are, I gather, mostly not intended to go along with school at the exact same time. Have him talk to his professors.

  13. Aren’t you supposed to go to bed at sunrise and sleep until sunset; then drink so much caffinated coffee you jump when the spider stamps its feet?
    Write when the twilight and darkness is upon you;
    and the barriers between the worlds of the living and the dead thin.
    Play creepy music, light candles, leave the windows cracked so a slight breeze moves the curtains,
    set the room temperature at 55, don’t feed the black cat so it constantly prowls around you while meowing pitiously.

    No idea what aerospace electrical or mechanical engineering jobs are available in Colorado. Mobility is important fresh out of college like that. Boeing in Washington, Lockheed in So. California, United Launch Alliance (joint Boeing-Lockheed), Bigelow Aerospace in Nevada, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, Planetary Resources, SpaceX, Scaled Composites or Stratolauch Systems (can’t remember if they merged or not), Marshall’s in Huntsville, Alabama. Don’t have the foggiest idea how hard it is to break into any of those; but it sounds like your son has the brains to fit right in.

    If he can stand working for Uncle Sam and puttng up with dumb as dirt orders, I would suggest younger son see an Air Force Recruiter and look for a commission. 90 days in Lackland OTS and he’s off and running with a job, and may get his loans forgiven depending on what programs are currently available.

    1. It might help to look at the companies in towns at or near AF bases. There are usually a number of support industries, and they might be an internship option.

      As to what Mike said, there used to be something in the AF called astronautical engineering. Of course, the military tends to put you where they want you.

      1. Again a) still in college, and this is a part time thing he’s looking for. b) He wanted the military at one point. That kids has as many autoimmune issues as I do. So no.

        1. The latter brings to mind that the AF has/had more stringent weight and height requirements. I was right at the top end of the allowable weight for my height, and that was when I was skinny. It was a bad shoulder joint, though, that gave me the modern equivalent of 4F.

      1. My employer has a sizable Denver presence, and typically has co-op and internship opportunities. I’ll see if I can find anything out that I can pass on.

    3. I wonder whether there are any aircraft service companies at the local airport, willing to take on hands to help turn craft about? I’ve worked in the accounting departments of a couple such companies, one handling cleaning (probably not his preference) of airline cabins for turnaround, the other mainly providing service to private (mostly corporate) jets at a variety of levels. (You ought have heard the reactions in our office back when Barry Scutaro attacked corporate jets as an indulgence of the rich — our mechanics, cleaners, refuelers, technicians and front office staff certainly did not imagine themselves rich enough to see jobs in our field reduced.) Sadly, I no longer have any contacts that are likely to be useful, but if he checks a few job sites he might find some businesses doing such work in your area.

      For example, a quick click through on Monster indicates the following Denver area employers in the airline servicing industry:
      Trans States Airlines
      General Atomics (looking for an “Entry Level Airframe & Powerplant Specialist-Deployable” — which suggests appropriate engineering approach)
      Frontier Airlines (which apparently employs Power Plant engineers)

      Even if such firms can offer no internship opportunity it is likely that, approached properly, they may be able to provide contacts and networking advise.

      1. General Atomics (looking for an “Entry Level Airframe & Powerplant Specialist-Deployable”
        General Atomics is looking for a powerplant specialist?!? For airplanes? Is the 21st century finally shaping up as we had hoped?

        1. General Atomics in this time line makes UAVs (Predator, Reaper, etc.) as well as things like developing a Generation IV reactor design, the Gas Turbine Modular Helium Reactor (GT-MHR). What’s available for possible work depends on which division or affiliate in what region.

          I still like the name a lot.

        1. I sussed that after doing my Monster search, but if you change the filter the principle applies. There must surely be companies doing maintenance on planes flying in and out of the airport there. Even if it is not directly applicable to future ambition, their money would be as valid as anyone’s and resume’s do not have to be extremely specific about work done … “worked for ABC Corp performing general aircraft services” can cover a great deal, especially if he can (during interview) relate it to the exact work he’s looking to do, e.g., “By performing these activities I had the chance to gain direct observation of many of the problems that can occur in airframes and the importance of easy accessibility for servicing them.”

          1. Yes. That. His university doesn’t own an airport, does it? (I have have spoken to someone in another state the other day…) There should be a fair number of airports in the area. One of them may have something.

    4. Colorado is mostly space side iirc. Ball Aerospace is the one I remember off hand.

      And as for Boeing St Louis and OKC been hiring too. Think most of the emails I get are for St Louis jobs. Northrup is scaling up in FL but they are focusing on poaching folks like me vs new hires. Lockheed seemed to be mostly Palmdale for the reqs I found.

    5. He being one of Sarah’s kids, the tolerance for ‘dumb as dirt orders’ may be somewhat – limited. 🙂

  14. PETA (and a slimier bunch of swine the gentle rain never fell upon) coined the meme “a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy”. We need to put across something similar…that has the added merit of being true.

    A Socialist is a Communist is a Fascist is a Nazi. There is no difference beyond the cosmetic. They all want to give more power to the State than the State can be safely given, because they all believe eve that when this happens they will magically be in charge. And a hundred million corpses tell us they are wrong. What ends up in charge is inevitably a vicious, amoral, paranoid, thug and his thug cronies.

    3. If someone is stamping on your face, does it matter if they are using their left boot or right boot?

    4. I like to say that Antifa is stealing Mussolini’s playbook right down to the fashion choices.

          1. You know that. I know that. The vast majority of people who know any history at all will understand the ‘brownshirt’ is reference, but not be cognizant of Musso to any great degree.

            I’ve often wondered what it’s like being an Italian villian in a WWII story; nobody LIKES you, but you don’t get any respect either.

          2. No, they are exactly what they claim to be… a modern reincarnation of AntiFa from Weimar Germany.. right down to them actually being communists.

        2. The Brownshirts’re back and you’re gonna be in trouble
          (Hey-la-day-la the Brownshirts’re back)
          You see them comin’ better cut out on the double
          (Hey-la-day-la the Brownshirts’re back)
          You been spreading stories that I was untrue
          (Hey-la-day-la the Brownshirts’re back)
          So look out now cause they’re comin’ after you

          (Hey-la-day-la the Brownshirts’re back)
          (Hey, they know that you been tryin’)
          (And they know that you been lyin’)

          They’ve been gone for such a long time
          (Hey-la-day-la the Brownshirts’re back)
          Now they’re back and things’ll be fine
          (Hey-la-day-la the Brownshirts’re back)
          You’re gonna be sorry you were ever born
          (Hey-la-day-la the Brownshirts’re back)
          Cause they’re kinda big and they’re awful strong
          (Hey-la-day-la the Brownshirts’re back)

          (Hey they know I wasn’t cheatin’!)
          (Now you’re gonna get a beatin’!)

        3. Look up the paramilitary wing of the German Communist Party. You’ll find they’re not the brownshirts. They’re the spiritual descendants of the thugs who fought the brownshirts and ultimately lost.

          I mean, the ones back in Weimar Germany called themselves “Anti-Fascists” (in German, of course) and the symbol they used is almost identical to the one antifa uses.

          1. A Socialist is a Communist is a Fascist is a Nazi.

            There is no difference in behavior, morals, or ethics. There may be factionalism, but they are all the same sort of vermin.

            1. The distinction seems primarily a matter of hygiene and how they dress, rising from worst to best. Nobody hates Nazis more than I (nor for greater cause) but I will acknowledge they dress well and tend to keep themselves quite clean.

              Socialists, OTOH, can famously be identified around the corner and generally offer new definitions of slovenly.

          1. this is why they no longer teach real history in schools anymore. After using said Brownshirts to ride to the top, what happened? They got decapitated when their usefulness was outweighed by the possibility they’d decide to get all Praetorian on Adolph.
            Antifa is figuring on being the SS, but SA is more likely once their usefulness is gone.
            implying someone finds them useful

            1. Oh, every mouth-breather thinking of running against Trump in 2020 thinks that they’re useful. They think that 4 years of ever-growing domestic unrest will cause people to throw Trump to the curb. Because civil unrest leads to people voting Democrat. After all, that’s what lead to LBJ’s huge landslide in ’68.

      2. Yeah, but the statist of old had actual rough men- tough, mean, disciplined WWI veterans inured to hardship and actual sacrifice for the most part- doing all the marching, street fighting, and revolution fighting.

        This sad, sorry lot of special snowflakes are only LARPing- note they tend to do their playacting in areas ruled by sympathetic Leftist governments.

        It’s kind of funny how the Left has pretty much jettisoned it’s old hard core of blue-collar workers and union guys (including Law Enforcement). Where are they supposed to get the next generation of Rough Men for their own side?

        1. I suspect that the ones thinking in those terms are hoping to use criminal and gang elements for that.
          I trust I don’t have to explain why that’s probably a bad idea?

        3. I said they stole the playbook, not that they have the players to actually make it work.

          They think that the gang-bangers are going to come out when called and be their leashed muscle. Have I mentioned that Progressives aren’t very bright?

            1. Well they might, if they thought that they’d end up on top and they’re evil enough to not care about the people hurt while they’re benefiting.

    5. I realize I’m a few days late, but if I may offer a variation:

      A Fascist is a Nazi is a Socialist is a Communist.

      The logic of it flows better for me, since most people associate Fascist and Nazi already. Given that the Nazis were the National Socialist Workers party…

      Q.E.D.!

  15. As to jobs, I just recalled that a certain company has openings in C Springs. Oasis Systems is a defense contractor with some openings at Peterson AFB, related to space and command and control (and other stuff). Some of it is software, and other support positions (like logistics), but it is all useful to what he cares about (imo).
    http://www.oasissystems.com/careers/current-openings/
    At a minimum, he should send his resume and ask.

  17. Pingback: Chicago Boyz » Blog Archive » 100th Anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution

  18. I’m taking class time next week and discussing the Bolshevik Revolution. It’s early per the syllabus, but apparently Stalin’s numbers are being revised upwards. He may now tie Mao as far as fatalities. *shudder*

    1. The current idea is that the reason the Soviet Union turned nasty is because the Eeee-vil Stalin hijacked Noble Lenin & Trotsky’s Worker’s Wonderland and turned it bad.
      That Lenin and Trotsky were more than happy to murder pretty much anyone tends to get overlooked.

      1. And they somehow always manage to overlook that nearly every Communist revolution’s first action in power is to,start purging the intellectual class.

        1. The more I listen to (anti-)American academics rant and rave, the more that sounds like a selling point rather than a downside.

          [sigh]

          I think I need to go find some light-hearted, fluffy entertainment.

          1. Iron Blooded Orphans. I watched the first season shortly before the election, and its upbeat fluff put me in a better frame of mind.

      2. That idea was around when I was studying Russian back in the 80’s. It’s the basis of a whole lot of alternate history in which Stalin gets eliminated, whether by Trotsky or Kirov or whoever, and the bloodbath of the Great Terror is averted. There is strong evidence (J Arch Getty and Oleg Naumov’s The Road to Terror in particular, since the authors delve into such primary sources as the archives of the Central Committee of the CPSU) that the Terror was the result of fundamental contradictions inherent in Communism, contradictions that could not be addressed or discussed because of the official line that Marxism-Leninism was a scientifically proven blueprint that Could Not Fail. So when it did fail, they had to blame the failures on sabotage, because they couldn’t admit that they were dabbling in pseudoscience turned religion.

        It’s pretty much the central thesis of Khrushchev’s Secret Speech, which started the process of “de-Stalinization” which effectively allowed him to keep the Communist regime going by blaming Stalin and the “cult of personality” for the bloodbaths of the era and thus keeping people’s attention from the elephant in the middle of the living room, the failures of Communism. So the USSR bumbled along for several more decades, killing people softly instead of in the obvious bloodbaths of the Holodomor and the Terror.

        1. I want to make thome pithy remarkth dithtinguithing thith from Climate Thienthe … but I cannot do tho.

          1. Haven’t had mass killings of “Climate Deniers” and regular citizens? That seems to be the main thing.

            1. Beyond any question, they have contemplated it and likely would, had they the power to do so. So, no points for not trying.

              1. Saw a “meme” recently that was (as I recall less than eidetically:

                They want a civil war?
                One side has 8 trillion rounds.
                The other can’t decide what restroom to use.

              2. The kids are hoping someone else will do all the dirty civil war stuff for them, and then happily hand them the reins of power.
                Freaking lazy Millennial.

                2. exactly. And somehow, there won’t be bullets headed their way when they Take To The Streets When The Revolution Starts…

  22. I use Patreon a lot, and most of the people I support just use a monthly donation, I usually give each one about $1-2 per month, for a total of about $110. It gets steep when you’re supporting 80-85 creators…

  23. That could lead to a nice running gag:

    “You are a witch? But you’re a guy!”
    “I get that a lot, but yes, I am a guy and a witch. Stop stereotyping!”

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