123 thoughts on “Mirror”

      1. Biden early voting + mail in voting “lead” is down to .28% in FL.

        He needed a massive lead to outperform the red tsunami that happens on election day.

          1. Is there another one coming?

            They did just get one– Crossover mentioned they got rain, rather than major damage, in her area.

          2. Voting is an essential activity.
            No State will risk having their results thrown out by not allowing or restricting in-person voting on the official election day.

          3. Could happen, for our own good of course.

            France just locked down all 67 million citizens until at least 1 December. The Daily Mail: “All of France’s 67 million people have been ordered to stay at home at all times with no visitors, or risk steep fines or prosecution, with a few exemptions.”

            I suspect among the ‘few exemptions are all the muslims living in the over 700 no go zones.

              1. Seems to be Despicable Kate Brown’s objective, and dammit, I Object!

                Right now, it’s a bit of Irish Democracy. Not sure what’s going to happen after the election, but I *hope* that there will be some wailing and gnashing of teeth in Salem, Oregon come November 4th. (Not expect, but hope. They can’t take that away from us.)

                1. It’ll be either

                  * Thank you God

                  or

                  * Oh C*** / SOB

                  I’m hoping for the former.

                  Can we hope, but not expect, that the greater Portland Metro area got the sense God gives out and votes with the rest of the state for a change? Please? I won’t hold my breath. But wouldn’t that twist Herr Katie’s nose?

            2. I have to correct one mistaken fact. There are not 700 “no go” zones in France. There are some “no go” zones, but the French government wouldn’t ever admit to them or put them on an official list. And the 700 zones that everyone is talking about, based on a Fox News report that misunderstood a couple of facts, are the “Zones Urbaines Sensibles” from an official French government list. They are areas of the country where the government is saying “This is a sensitive urban zone where we need more police activity”, not where the police just don’t go. Nobody knows how many “no go” zones there are in France, but it’s not the 700 zones on that official government list that keeps getting misunderstood.

              1. Yes, but is the French Army still patrolling Paris in squads of four, with battle armor and submachine guns?

                1. Yep; they’ve been doing that for a while. At no point did I say that France doesn’t have a serious problem with jihadists. There are indeed some areas where the police don’t want to go, and where the army patrols in groups. (Though just because the army patrols in groups doesn’t mean it’s an area with problems: when my parents were still in France before they retired, I went to visit them once for Christmas. They lived near Grenoble, in a large city in the Alps which has never had a significant jihadist problem. But the day we went to the open-air Christmas market, I saw several squads of French soldiers patrolling in groups of two. Not because of any known threat—Grenoble has never had a jihadist attack AFAIK—but because it was a large gathering of people and would therefore be an attractive target if a terrorist were to have been planning something.) And a patrol group of four, rather than two, does suggest that that’s a highly dangerous area, which might indeed be one of the “no-go” areas (for the police) the French government doesn’t want to admit to.

                  It’s the specific 700 number that caught my attention. I’m familiar with the fact that there are some 700 “Zones Urbaines Sensibles” that have been officially listed by the French government, and that people often misunderstand what that list is. So whenever I see people citing “700 no-go zones”, I know this is another case where someone heard of the existence of that list and misunderstood what it actually is. It’s not a list “no-go” zones, but a list of “make sure there’s extra police presence in this area” zones, which is kind of the opposite of a “no-go” zone. The “no-go” zones (which, I’ll say it again, do exist) won’t be on any official list, and that 700 number comes from an official list.

    2. Kinda weird they have the corona virus tote board on the screen even when it is already split four ways. Do they think it changes hourly?

  4. A sweet and sentimental story….the part about leaving in his Mustang almost smacks of a link to the “SERRAted” ‘verse which I also enjoyed….

  5. Thanks for sharing your stories with us. They seem to capture that sense of place you do so well, the weirdness of your mind realms, and to have the Hoytian voice, which I so-helpfully cannot describe, but know when I hear it in my mind’s ear.

    Go reader! Grab her short story collections! They are eminently re-read able, and some will go ’round and ’round in your head long after you’ve closed the book.

    P.S. “Sure, and maybe she’ll do something absolutely wonderful, some day. ”

    She’ll raise a daughter (or more) just as you did who build an invisible golden chain of love and competence stretching through space and time and all of our civilization will be built upon their work.

    Just in case some of you (you know who you are) didn’t think there was anything you’d done in this fight or could still do.

      1. ❤

        Thank you.

        Never learned HTML. Was too busy working with other coding languages. Probably would have eventually if I hadn't retired. Users on software I worked on were pushing for online and phone options. Ironically one of the biggest advocates were a counties that have vast swaths of "no connection here". Possible Musk's Internet/Cell SkyLink system would even leave gaps, if one goes by *satellite radio cutouts. OTOH never did plan on working til or past age 70. With that outfit, it'd be that long or longer (I retired at 59, 5 years ago).

        * Sure, more satellite saturation would help. Those dang narrow-ish canyon/passes …

        1. Assuming we see a fully populated Starlink constellation, you should not see the same problem you see with satphones. The constellation density will keep the link from your phased array ground station connected (barring maybe the bottom of the Grand Canyon in a narrow section).

        2. We’re on satellite link, but I know a couple who live on the north side of [redacted] Mountain. No TV, no ‘net, any phone is wired. (We have some impressive dead spots nearby.) Some folks (not these) have wireless links to people who have line-of-sight connections to actual (better than satellite) broadband internet. Works for them.

          1. Well I was implying N CA counties, bordering the Oregon southern border, and some not too far south (Shasta/Alpine/Siskiyou/Mono, etc.)

            Ironically. Company is in Oregon. They have three (3) clients in Oregon, used to be 4 but Douglas County couldn’t afford the annual cost. Forest Grove, Josephine, and *Deschutes. Why? Because the Association of Oregon Counties has a free public works option available to all Oregon Counties. Not as extensive. Wouldn’t have saved Deschutes from the law suit. But it is free & meets the federal auditors requirements, even if it takes them longer to do the audits.

            * Got a panic call from Deschutes Road manager. County was being sued by a road works company because the county was doing too much of their own road repair (don’t remember the legal reason this was “bad”). That the published rates being used were “too low”. County had to report all the type of costs, plus examples, as part of preliminary discovery. The panic call was because there were no depreciation costs in the reports. “Why didn’t the software have vehicle depreciation process?” It did. The county had never set it up. They had a month “to fix” and recalculate all the actual costs. The judge gave them a “break”. They only “had” to go back 5 years for ALL vehicles in the fleet at during that time. Didn’t figure it could be done. At which point summary judgement against the county. The county had 15 years worth of data (back to 1994). ALL of it was updated and processed through the current year, for every vehicle in the fleet. Reports generated, verified, into the Judge’s hands by the Thursday of the second week. Plus they proved they were over costing their charges (because they’d been running the costing report, not wrong, but too conservatively). Suit dismissed. I got flowers out of it … “Hand holding above and beyond”.

        3. I don’t think that’s HTML, I think it’s WordPress.

          I never ‘learned’ HTML either, I just picked up some of the syntax and tag codes.

          Tags inside < and > are HTML. Most other things are not.

      1. Thank you.

        Used to have (a long time ago) a cheat sheet of these locations. It has been long, long, lost.

  10. Yep, [i]another[/i] human/fairytale-being romance with a happy ending. Someone needs to start keeping a scorecard. 😛

    BTW, what is it with immortal creatures suddenly becoming mortal themselves whenever they hook up with mortals? Even Tolkien did that, if I recall.

    Also, a couple of notes:

    >> “Liddy is pregnant,” I said. “She and Peter want to get married this month”

    Are you sure you want to have both fathers here named Peter? Especially if you’re going to suddenly drop it in like that after mentioning the pregnancy? For a moment part of my brain thought there might be incest involved.

    >> “There were wrinkles on her four head”

    FOUR head? What is our princess exactly, a conjoined-twin ettin?

    2. BTW, what is it with immortal creatures suddenly becoming mortal themselves whenever they hook up with mortals? Even Tolkien did that, if I recall.

      Symbolism of the two becoming one– and the human becoming fey doesn’t really… fit quite.

          1. You’re immortal and don’t lose that when getting involved with mortals, although you can’t give immortality to your partner either.

            You’re also sterile, although that’s not the part I was thinking of.

        2. Actually, the fey already have it: almost all of them live until they are killed. The killing methods aren’t as specific and dramatic as Highlander……

          1. Not in the Hoytverse, they don’t. Not unless marrying them off to a mortal is on the official list of ways to murder a fey.

    3. Are you sure you want to have both fathers here named Peter?

      I think that’s just a mistype. Liddy’s guy was Mike elsewhere.

      1. I think it’s a Hoytian slip; I suspect all mothers, even those giving birth to daughters on paper, are absolutely sure their daughters’ husbands are…

        1. Don’t worry, when the typos are almost as entertaining as the story itself you must be doing something write. 😛

      3. Before Tolkien? I usually credit E. R. Eddison. His book, The Worm Ouroboros, first published in 1922, is what Tolkien’s work was compared to at the time it was published. I found it a good read, but be aware that at one point you have a description of a wall for (if I recall correctly) about 10 pages. High fantasy, well done.

  11. I bring good news!

    A friend in Pennsylvania (ESR) reports that the Amish have gone full visibly pro-Trump. Yard signs. Buggy signs. Everything.

    That level of publicity means they have full consensus across the Amish world.

    That means Trump has a couple hundred thousand additional voters who normally don’t come out.

    PA is in the bag. Rejoice! For Reeees have no sting!

    1. There was an Amish Trump parade in (I think) Lancaster county a couple-three weeks ago. Buggies with signs and flags. Never before seen.

      1. I read (Gateway Pundit?) that Biden and Barry were doing Sooper Sekret rallies in Michigan. Invite only, time and location not disclosed. [rolls eyes, fishes under computer desk…] Wanna bet they get disrupted anyway?

        1. They did that here! Well, tried.
          Literally nobody knew where it was, 20 hours before it happened.

          Didn’t work.

          Partly because the WHO radio guy announced it the second he knew….

  18. Well, this one hits – as the Daughter Unit has recently come to terms with being pregnant. And knowing that we don’t live in fairy-land, where everything is perfect.
    We live in real life, and have to make the best of it.

      1. Oh, Barb – I am so sorry.
        This trans fad is going to leave a lot of damage behind, when it finally fades, like the “recovered memory” thing did.

            1. I have a friend my age who has gone down that path and lost all her family in the process, creating a hard, bad old age for herself.
              I tried to explain the sex definitions are platonic categories. NO ONE FITS THEM EXACTLY (the can and the contents don’t need to match) and I probably fit “woman” way less than she did, if one is looking at the “contents listing.” (Let’s see, I am a political addict, love economics, berserk in physical fights, and among my hobbies are carpentry and hands-on home renovation.) But she wouldn’t listen. In fact, she was one of the most feminine women I’ve ever known.
              In retrospect, I’ve come to think of this as a form of committing suicide.
              Which means it’s going to get very, very, very bad.
              And yes, they’re being sold “if there’s no surgery, you are fine.”
              I feel worse for all the people who’ve had surgery. There’s no happy ending there.

              1. In retrospect, I’ve come to think of this as a form of committing suicide.

                The people who do it talk about it like that. “Deadname.”

                1. It’s an interesting insight. Given the centrality of M/F-ness to our nature, it makes a certain sense.
                  I’m sorry about your situation, Barb.

        2. Thank you. This story really hit close to home for me. It frustrates me that they wouldn’t give her a hysterectomy in case she wanted to have children later (she does have a lot of uterine issues) but they’ll happily hand out drugs that will kill her fertility.

      2. *hug*

        I’m sorry.

        The human body can recover from a lot– I have many impossible relatives– but that has got to hurt so much.

          1. The kids can hurt us in a way no one else can. They are inside the defenses, part of our core being.
            I don’t think they realize that. I didn’t when I was their age.

        1. I try to make my collections over 40K, but then I want them in dead-tree and that gives me a reasonable price point.

  24. I discovered a day or two back that my Android phone refused to auto complete the address for this blog in the address bar. It seems the tech overlords noticed and think you guys are effective enough to show up on the radar screen for the thought police.

          1. Even my kids have the attention span to read this on impulse.

            And yet you’re obviously doing it pretty quickly.

            Bigger threat.

  25. Biden’s handlers just figured out — less than a week from the election — that they were using exactly the wrong strategy in the campaign.

    oops

    1. Well, found out the right strategy on one aspect.

      How many undecided/persuadable voters are on Twitter enough for this to matter?

      Thing about changing/triangulating message, it dilutes whatever intensity your ‘choir’ has. Yes, Biden’s twitter die hards are a bit intense. Might also be brittle. Now maybe it isn’t the ‘straw that breaks the camel’s back’, and trigger’s a nervous break or voting apathy for many of them, but maybe more than it pulls in for Biden. Dunno.

    2. Yeaaaah, how? HOW are you going to ‘shut down the virus’? Huh? What exactly are you going to do that Trump hasn’t already done, or isn’t already doing, far more effectively?

      Why is nobody asking Fascist Joe those questions?

      What would you do? ‘Listen to the science’? (to the scientists, actually, because ‘the science’ doesn’t speak English)

      Trump did that. Your hero Fauci told him the virus was no big deal, we don’t need masks, we don’t need shutdowns, it will be just another flu — until mid-March, when suddenly we were living in The Last Centurion. And now, we were always at war with Eastasia.

      Trump stopped flights from China, and you called him ‘xenophobic’. (your handlers looked that up for you, didn’t they?)

      Trump stopped flights from Europe, and you screamed “RAAACIIISSST!!”

      Trump invoked the Defense Appropriations Act and got millions of gloves, masks and ventilators made in weeks. He also stopped China from taking any more of them.

      Poor old Joey doesn’t have a clue, just a big mouth, some clever speechwriters and a sea of teleprompters. And a ‘free press’ that never asks any questions beyond ice cream preferences.

      1. a) He may well think he can convince the PRC not to release Covid-21 if he is a good little viceroy for them.
        b) Technically speaking, mass graves would be a way to ‘shut down the virus’.

        1. Holy crud, that is some…. wow.

          The guy had the gall to accuse the trump guys of trying to drive them off the road, and post clips of the video THAT SHOWS THEM TRYING TO FORCE THE TRUMP CARAVAN OFF THE ROAD?!?!

          No wonder the police told him it wasn’t their jurisdiction. They’re not trained for hysteria.

      2. Doesn’t have quite the flavor to feel correct to me. I’ll trust it isn’t image board trolling after the election, if it becomes clear that it is largely confirmed from other information.

        OTOH, 8 to 12 years is about correct for a high enthusiasm, low information activist, and turnover.

        Interesting to see if the true level of disenchantment is high enough to have knock on effects in later elections.

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