I am a novelist with work published in science fiction, fantasy, mystery and historical "novelized biography". I've won the Prometheus award and the Dragon award. I also write under the names Elise Hyatt and Sarah D'Almeida. http://sarahahoyt.com/
*UPDATE: On the page of author listings. It became immediately obvious we’d need a bigger page. So we have started putting up a site for this. And as the plans develop, I can honestly say you’re going to LIKE this. Give us another week or so. I promise you’ll like it – SAH*
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*Note these are books sent to us by readers/frequenters of this blog. Our bringing them to your attention does not imply that we’ve read them and/or endorse them, unless we specifically say so. As with all such purchases, we recommend you download a sample and make sure it’s to your taste. If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. I ALSO WISH TO REMIND OUR READERS THAT IF THEY WANT TO TIP THE BLOGGER WITHOUT SPENDING EXTRA MONEY, CLICKING TO AMAZON THROUGH ONE OF THE BOOK LINKS ON THE RIGHT, WILL GIVE US SOME AMOUNT OF MONEY FOR PURCHASES MADE IN THE NEXT 24HOURS, OR UNTIL YOU CLICK ANOTHER ASSOCIATE’S LINK. PLEASE CONSIDER CLICKING THROUGH ONE OF THOSE LINKS BEFORE SEARCHING FOR THAT SHED, BIG SCREEN TV, GAMING COMPUTER OR CONSERVATORY YOU WISH TO BUY. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*
On the planet Nwwwlf, in the lost colony of First Landing, the original settlers carved out one sylvan valley, a lone outpost where humans flourish. But their bright hopes and best intentions devolved over centuries into a rude replica of medieval feudalism.
Gilead Tan, who had been held captive for centuries in his sleeping cell, survived treachery and pain to free a small group of sleepers. But he and his friends now face the perils of life outside First Landing’s sanctuary–without their powered armor, their tools and technology, or anything else they need save for a few chickens.
Gilead must establish a safehold for his crew, but the alien environment does not welcome them and petty bickering threatens their meager resources. He hopes that a trace of smoke – spotted above a distant ridge – beckons them to a better place.
A ball, a ball, Queen Shulamith would hold a ball. . . .In the magical city that all kingdoms can reach, and none can conquer, filled with kings and queens, intrigues and wonders, that the reclusive queen would stage a ball was a marvel among marvels.It will mean much to many: a young woman newly arrived in the city; a woman and a bear who dance on the street; two small orphans sent to the house of their great-great-grandfather; soldiers staging an invasion; and a queen securing her position.
His mission–sabotage the Cyborg Empire–goes awry when the Cyborgs discover his dimensional gate, and Gior, the obnoxious young woman with the rare talent of being able to manipulate dimensional phenomena, is forced to close that gate moments before the Cyborgs capture her.
Now Ice is not just marooned in enemy territory, he needs to rescue Gior quickly, before they get a control chip into her brain.
There are more things in Hell and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy Not even magic can trump terror…
Sarah Blakely fought off demonic possession last month, discovering she has powers she can use against the demonic forces of evil. She’s ready to celebrate her birthday with a bang. But when a deadly variation of meningitis strikes Chattanooga schools without warning, the party isn’t the only thing shut down.
Children are dying, the doctors have no cure, people are panicking, and Sarah doesn’t believe anything about the sickness and fear drowning the city is natural.
With the entire city against them, and questions piling up, can Sarah and her friends stop the invisible specter haunting the city before it gets what it came for?
David is a merchant of deceit, a poet of lies. A dwarf, he claims to be a prince of a lost tribe of Israel. Along with his manservant Diogo, an actor, the masquerade enthralls the citizens of Rome. Jews whisper that David is the Messiah. Destruction awaits the Muslim Turks if Christendom joins with his powerful desert tribe. But why hurry? The food and beds are warm, the ladies plump and willing.
In faraway France, a warlord struggles to regain honor. He’s the Duke of Bourbon, the victor in a great military conquest who has lost his family fortune. His mercenaries go underfed and poorly shod. The money to pay their wages is in Rome.
Richly researched and irreverent, this story weaves actual historical characters and institutions into a wry tale of three men, each on a quest for fame and fortune.
Almira Hartington was heir to the largest fortune in the galaxy, amassed by her father during his time as a director of the Andromeda Company. But when Sir Josiah commits suicide, Almira discovers that she and her siblings are penniless. All three of them must learn to work if they wish to eat, and are quickly scattered to the far reaches of the universe. Almira stubbornly remains on-planet, determined to remain respectable despite the sneers of her former friends.
Sir Percy Wallingham pities the new Lady Hartington. But the lady’s family will take care of her, surely? It’s only after he encounters Almira in her new circumstances that he realizes the extent of her troubles and is determined to help her if he can. He doesn’t know that a scandal is brewing around Sir Josiah’s death and Almira’s exile from society. But it could cost him his life, and the lady he has come to love.
Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.
So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.
We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.
The Poison Pill of $15 Minimum Wage- by Jonathan LaForce
From Where I’m Standing, this idea is insane.
A federally mandated $15 minimum wage would likely see me lose my job. Yes, it’s more than I currently make (by $4.40 per hour). But what it does not account for is whether or not my employer can afford a $15 minimum for a semi-entry level job. Because it’s not just Jon LaForce who is affected, it’s the 6 guys and agal who are also drivers for our office. It’s the 3 guys and a gal we have washing cars 40 hours a week. It’s the managers-in-training who don’t start for less than $13, and only go up to $15 after they’ve passed training while demonstrating basic knowledge and understanding of company policy.
All of that is affected. Financial performance incentives within my company are destroyed under the incoming POTUS’ economically unsustainable idea. We’ve already seen how this played out in Seattle and elsewhere. It was a financial loss for the very people it was supposedly going to benefit. If it was ever actually intended to benefit them at all.
If, as I stated a year ago, the ACA mandate regarding what is “full-time” status for an employee was reversed, I would be able to better support my family, without worrying about losing my job. Being hard-capped at 25 hours a week is utterly garbage. Prior to COVID, I had enough consistent work that I should’ve been enabled to work up to 39 without being full-time and a financial burden to my employer. Having an extra 14 hours a week on my time card is far better than no job at all. That is the reality of raising minimum wage to $15 an hour.
“Well Jon, just go get a new job.” Have you tried finding a job right now? Try finding a job that I can perform while being physically limited due to injuries. I don’t have a 90% disability rating with the VA because I was bored! Try finding a job in an economy and culture where a bachelor’s degree has been devalued by public institutions which prefer being degree mills instead of encouraging genuine scholarship. I have put out approximately 50 job applications just with the Federal government. The fact that I’m still driving cars for a living should tell you quite a bit about how slow the hiring process is. I’ll also tell you that I’ve been rejected for 10 of those jobs, without ever having an interview, or a background check. In nearly six months of applications, I’ve only started 1 background check, and that was last week.
Somebody will want to say “Oh but we have the welfare net, what are you worried about, Jon?” People, when you remove enough of the gasoline, oil, and coolant, from a running engine, it stops working. We’ve gotten a taste of that with COVID. To continue to do so, intentionally drink the vile dregs, so pointlessly, is a waste. Removing more people like me from the system will ensure the engine of our economy crashes to a halt. This is not good for the health of our republic. Nor is it what I want for myself or my family.
I find a quote from John Wayne’s “McClintock” to be most appropriate to the current matter. “This that the white man calls ‘charity’ is a fine thing for widows and orphans, but no warrior can accept it. For if he does he is no longer a man, and when he is no longer a man he is nothing, and better off dead.”
We, as a culture and a country, need to stop taking counsel from our fears. End the lockdowns, begin isolating only those who genuinely need it, and return to normalcy. No more forced masking, no more house arrest. No more encouraging incivility with our neighbors.
If you really want to enable working class, blue collar laborers like myself and so many millions of my fellow Americans, quit working against our best interests. Quit undercutting us at every turn. Stop the senseless minimum wage mandate. Stop hamstringing the American worker with unsound economic theories. Let us work. And take pride in our work.
(*One thing Jon doesn’t mention that makes mandated minimum wage for the entire country even crazier is that there is a completely different cost of living in different regions of the country. I think mostly people in CO at least in the cities are close to a de-facto $15 minimum wage, except for “tipping jobs.” Because the cost of living is excessive. For instance I was shocked to find a friend somewhere else in the country had been the sole earner and put four kids through college on less than 30k a year. In Colorado Springs you could not do that for less than 50k a year unless someone gave you a free house or the family lived exclusively on rice and walked everywhere. So, you know. Different regions have different earning standards and different needs. A Federal minimum wage will devastate entire regions of this country for absolutely no reason. It might be incompetence, but it’s almost surely malice also- SAH)
Competence is not intelligence. Competence isn’t even innate ability. Competence is, instead, the ability to focus on and do the job.
Yesterday a commenter who has commented here occasionally, though not regularly, took exception to my guest poster (who, trust me, has reason to know — there’s a reason that wasn’t even under a nom de net or an anagram of the name) saying the left is not competent.
He (? I don’t remember the sex of that particular nick) said he knows many very competent lefties. And also that if the left weren’t competent they couldn’t take over everything.
Which I think is what necessitates this discussion, and this …. disentangling of the threads of “what makes someone competent.” And “what is competent?”
Individual leftists can be extremely smart. However you define smart. Whether it be knowing tons about an extremely abstract field or simply being able to run their lives such that you make tons of money, or even managing to make vast fortunes/careers from frankly almost nothing. I know several of those. Because of course I do. And FYI a vast core of Mensa is hard left. (Though again, Mensa is not everyone who qualifies, but those who joined. For instance our lower IQ son joined (because we needed to impress a school) but his younger brother never did (no point) and I haven’t renewed in nigh on 20 years. So Mensa is self selected for above a certain IQ (and it’s not amazingly high.) and “wants to be part of a society that defines itself by high IQ.” No judgement. At one time and in one place it was our best bet at making friends. And it worked. Since then…. not so much.) Which means there a lot of left-wingers who are in the top 2% for IQ. I’d honestly estimate there to be the same right and left percentage, or whatever the percentage is in the population.
And yet, this is UNDENIABLY true, and many of us have seen it play out real time:
So, why do they kill and gut the respected institutions — or businesses — or entire business areas? You’re going to say it’s because they want to kill those, but that’s not always true. True, say, maybe of some conservative institutions or IDK oil companies. But not true when it comes to things like publishing or the news industry, which they hope to use for their purposes and which, therefore, they would do better with if it were thriving.
There is a side issue here with such convinced leftists (Obama comes to mind) that their entire set of judgement is not from reality, but that is perhaps best evaluated at the end.
So, let’s start with “leftist gets hired in a field that is predominantly right wing”. I want two caveats here: first, no field in the Western world has been predominantly right wing for at least a hundred years, and going back before that the terms “right” and “left” are far, far more muddled. For the nineteenth century, for instance, I’m almost screamingly left wing. What I am not is Marxist.
The institutions have not been predominantly right wing because, (if you read books published around that time it’s not hard to gather this, btw,) in the aftermath of WWI and the turmoil of the fall of royal families all over Europe (which had been going on for about a century, to be fair) the youth of Europe latched onto Marxism as a new doctrine to give their world meaning. It’s not even hard to see that. Even solidly prosy middle-class women like Agatha Christie (who was also a storytelling genius, but that often descends on people with no regard for who they are) made their communist characters very smart and socially conscious and you know, even when in the wrong kind of right.
For sure for at least 80 years publishing was explicitly left wing and preparing the “great socialist future” with notable exceptions, like Campbell. I’ve read more publisher bios than I can shake a really big pen at and all of them were explicitly encouraging “fiction that moves us to more progressive policies.” Even in the pulps.
So, even back then the way to get accepted was to be explicitly left and cater to the publisher’s own obsessions (same as it ever was.) But the publishers were still competent.
Two or three years ago, I undertook, for reasons known only to the psychiatrist I don’t have, to read back on the books I read as a kid. The project got interrupted for various reasons, but I intend to go back to it, and perhaps do reviews. However, here is what shocked me: the premises of the stories were often either scietifically laughable or (by now) done to death. The characters were walking stereotypes. The settings were often barely sketched in. And yet those books grabbed me from the first chapter. And no, it wasn’t nostalgia, as I didn’t remember a lot of them. What they were was…. competent at the primary job of a pulp science fiction book: have the reader read you and enjoy it, so he’ll buy more. Oh, the ideas were also extremely poisonous, since I read mostly “between the wars” when the line between socialism and fascism was often nonexistent. (We’re kind of there again. Hello, darkness my old friend.) So paens to socialism alternated with sounding the alarm on the NEED for “racial hygiene” (barfs.)
I can attest, having re-read those books that, being entertaining and drawing you along even as you thought they were ridiculous, they were a far more effective way to sell the poison than the current dry and lecturing tomes on the glories Gramsci’s edit on Marx.
So as far as I can tell, those leftists were very competent. And to be fair, they were probably hired on competence, not their ideas, because that’s how non-Marxists hire. “Can you do the job?”
But that was at least four generations ago as working lifespans go. Maybe more, as people after WWII started work later and died younger than we do.
And that competence has been ditched along the way.
Now, how did that happen?
I don’t know. I once read a book on the transformation of Universities in the sixties, but I can’t remember the title because it was a decade or so ago. This happened, btw, in the sixties, so I wasn’t really aware of it. I couldn’t even read till sixty six and it was the end of the seventies before I started trying to understand the world and events.
I do know that my education wasn’t nearly as good as my dad’s. And my brother’s (about ten years older. It’s complicated) was halfway as good as dad’s. For instance, under the excuse of “modernizing” I never got Latin or Greek and knew ancient history only because I found dad’s school books and read them. Other things, such as math, were stretched out over a much longer time. Geography was elided, economics never taught us the basics and went on a grand crusade for Marxist (or in the case of one teacher mixed) economies. We learned way more “activism” than actual facts. In fact most of the classes were devoted to telling us the past of the west was unfair and evil and such, only you know, a little better disguised than now. Also to make us feel superior to our parents and grandparents that we knew this, while they didn’t. The same poison pill has been served, in increasing dosages to every generation since. Now, the book I read said this was done to submit to the demands of protesters in US universities, and maybe it was? Craziness in the US tends to propagate throughout the world. Witness the “black lives matter” demonstrations/riots all over the world. But one could adduce other causes, such as the greater prosperity of the post WWII era, combined with a need for more “trained” white collar workers having facilitated concentrating on “the things they’ll need to use.” I know in the US this meant a lot of science graduates knew almost nothing about the liberal arts.
What I do know is that a large portion of the theme of my — and most of my friends’ — adult lives has been “creating competence.” Because we didn’t leave our educational institutions with much of it. I was recently complimented on my English not along the lines of “Oh, and you are so good at it” but at how astonishing it was for me to use all the levels of the language, know what I was doing and using them for effect. I know there’s a ton of other examples from the past, but this person — by no means a fool — was amazed at someone our generation doing it.
Well, I was lucky in that my first through third year teachers were exceptionally competent and bucked the trend of making learning fun. One of them said “you will memorize the vocab lists, and be tested on them till your eyes bleed. And you will be proficient. And when you leave my hands you will be fluent.”
And yes, that’s part of it, but not all. The fact is in English, and in so many other things, I was aware that while making very good grades, I wasn’t being taught much of anything. So I set about learning. For English this involved finding a bookstore that had forgotten a bunch of books in its attics, and never remarked them after WWII. So I read a lot of abridged works “for foreign learners.” From those, in my second year, I graduated to a (cost the Earth, because of culture-protecting tariffs) a paperback copy of Dandelion Wine, US version. I spent what must have been six months working on that book. This is why every word I wasn’t sure about has notations in pencil on the top. The next book took three months, etc. BUT the point is, “I didn’t get that from school.”
Also, often, in my professional life, I came across the very basics that everyone should know and I wasn’t taught. One of those was: margins. (Not even joking.) Another was punctuation, and I still struggle and periodically have to spend a day doing exercise books just to ‘set it properly’ because early (lack of) learning tells. To this day I’m not sure how to do proper bookkeeping, something mom knew with a (pre-apprenticeship, that’s something else) 4th grade education.
So what I suspect happens in all the “get woke go broke” instances, or the Iowahawk paradigm is that the people coming in, having been hired by true believers (every generation is more of a true believer) and educated by true believers, have no clue how to do the job.
In my own field I was staggered to find out, for instance that there are NO market studies done for publishing. None. They have no idea what the public wants to buy. This is like “management 101” but they don’t do it. Not for content, not for type of plot and pacing, not for SIZE or price. And my guess would be because they have no clue how to do it. They were hired for their beliefs, so what they concentrate on is blazing those beliefs and looking good to their bosses. Which is not a bad personal strategy, but sucks for the business long term. And stems from a lack of competence, not intelligence.
There is a subset of true believers that aren’t either smart or competent and skate through solely on “excessive belief and signaling.” I’d put Obama in that category. I’m still convinced he firmly believes if he ruins the US enough the rest of the world will get richer. Because economics is a foreign language to him and he was taught a bunch of dogma that just ain’t so.
But it is a lot like what happens when “advancing women’s rights” women get hired into a field or take it over. Instead of being passionately interested in the THING be it games, or sf books, or whatever it is they’re messing with this week, they’re passionately interested in “cause.” No matter how smart or well equipped intellectually they are, they’re going to take that area of business or endeavor down. Because it has ceased being the main job.
They can be intelligent and good at what they’re doing, but what they’re doing is not for the benefit of the house/company/endeavor.
BTW a related side of this is how I understand the left thinking we’re stupid. This was particularly true when I was deep in the political closet. When pitching, or talking books with friends, I could hear the other person going “Come on, put in the talking points that will take it “to the next level.” And they’d say things like “oh, you’re just not that deep a thinker. it’s all right.” What it means is that they can’t understand why we don’t parrot the right points to benefit ourselves, since obviously the THING isn’t going to get done, anyway. So we’re stupid. …. They might not be wrong. But only on the very short term, and the problem is that they’re not “deep thinkers.”
Anyway, that is why there is a competence gap between right and left. It’s not because they’re not capable, but because they don’t find the “thing” as worth of their time and devotion as we do. Also because the ideology blinds them, they don’t realize there’s anything to FIX in their education. So even if they wanted to they couldn’t fix what they’re doing wrong.
This, btw, is the explanation for “everything is broken” and is a massive threat to civilization, bigger even than rigged elections, bigger ideological craziness, bigger than anything else. We’ve sold competence for a pot of message. And we need competent people to save civilization.
We all already know that the left is populated largely by useless people with no practical skills. They can’t make anything. They don’t even know where things come from. They don’t know how to keep the lights on or the water flowing through pipes.
They think these things happen by magic, or that those are the responsibility of the peasants to take care of. They’re right to a degree. It’s the little people who take care of those things, and that give the little people a tremendous amount of power they don’t even begin to see. Fight Club had a great scene that illustrated this in a very visceral way.
The point is that the left has taught us something very important this last decade: the power of being petty. Because they are. And they’re not afraid of using it. And when one side insists on being fair and above board while the other side is petty, the petty side wins.
So, you’re going to say “but we can’t get down to their level!” Why not? Because you want to lose? And you want to lose to the most detached, cultist bunch of cosplayers since the Aztecs thought they needed to kill all the people to keep the sun going? Like hell. You’ll be petty and like it. And after that, we can rebuild and make sure the left learns to play fair. But until that day fairplay is death.
They’re going to run it off every site their control. Their HR is going to run off anyone to the right of Lenin. Their marketing managers are going to disadvantage our products. They’re going to do their best to obliterate us. And they dream of executions and prison camps.
So put fair n the box for a while. Be petty. Learn to be petty. Dare to be petty.
Because the truth is, though they’ve managed to control most institutions of power. But where the ability meets the real world? They’ve got nothing. Our side is the one that keeps things working.
Imagine Queen Nancy’s power suddenly goes out and there’s just no one available to fix it for nine or ten hours, or people show up to fix it and everything just goes wrong. Her precious store of ice cream gets melted and her kitchen full of food is now full of trash. How sad. Or her plumbing starts to have a problem, and the parts to fix the problem just aren’t available. Supply shortages, you know. Or every plumber in the area feels unsafe because they’ve seen videos of her violating the covid restrictions, so they’re going to have to take extra safety precautions that will add extra time and cost more. Yes, yes, we know who you are; but with all due respect that doesn’t make a difference to the virus. We have families that we’re worried about, you know?
It doesn’t just have to be Queen Nancy. You surely all have tiny tyrants in your areas. Judges who rule against the constitution, cops who defend them even after the left has called for defunding cops for months, politicians trying to raise your taxes and infringe on your rights.
New York City restaurants issued a blanket declaration that Governor Cuomo will not be served. That’s a good start. Now extend it to every politician that’s expressed support for lockdowns, higher taxes, more regulation, or has been seen violating the restrictions that they’ve demanded you live under. Do it.
Shun them. Deny them services, or charge them three times the normal price- in cash and up front. If you’re tasked with infrastructure work in their strongholds, their precious gated communities, delay the work and do it badly. Make the work cost as much as possible. Be rude to them, and make their lives unpleasant in every possible way. Be petty, and be vicious toward them. Become a nameless, faceless army of inconvenience and never-ending expense.
They do that to us. And they’d do worse if they could.
Agitate against them and start agreeing with Antifa and BLM that those rich people in their gated communities are the problem, and they deserve to be held accountable. We’ve already seen how their revolutionary talk turns into shrill shrieking when the mob comes for them. Don’t defend them, not even verbally. Turn those gated communities into prisons that they don’t feel safe leaving and can’t get services into without great expense and inconvenience. Bleed them dry, demoralize them, and isolate them.
They will surely use the power of the courts they own to try to suppress you. They will surely try to make examples out of people. Demand a jury, every time. If you get called for a jury, show up and lie like hell about your political beliefs during jury selection. Make sure you get onto the jury. If it’s a civil case against someone of any political stripe making life unpleasant for political activists or politicians, agitate the jury to nullify and award court fees to the defendant. Juries do have that power, and we’ve allowed them to pack the juries for too long. When the judge overturns the jury’s ruling, turn your wrath onto the judge. Start petitions for recall them, shun them, deny them service, and make their lives a living hell.
If you find out a business is selectively screwing over the gilded elite, patronize them. Spread the idea of screwing the left over like a rumor. Invisible, everywhere, and a force of nature. Remind people of how much power they really have. Remind people of the plans the clueless left have for them.
The ones trying to break us can only do it if we let them, and they can’t really do a damned thing to force us to make their lives easy. Everyone can fight them this way, even if only by being rude to those who would be their betters.
Who is John Galt? We all are. We run the world that keeps them in comfort while they try to ruin us and destroy civilization. We can collectively stop the machine of their worlds. The people they’re after are the ones they rely on. Start making them see how little power they really have, and take back your power.
I wasn’t going to write a post today, and I’m scheduling this for noon, so as not to interfere with my guest poster, too much.
But having talked to friends about a brainstorm this morning, I realized it needed to come out today. It needs to be out there.
These were the same friends with whom I had a betting pool on “Secret police and political arrests in 5 months.” I regret to say, I lost that bet. In the surreal times we live in, apparently the right bet was “day one of this fraudulent and anti-American administration.”
Or, for sure, day six. And for secret police, wholly in the service of the regime — prepare to be shocked — read a law-breaking, aggressive and absolutely invulnerable FBI.
WASHINGTON DC – A prominent activist in the Stop the Steal movement who spoke at a rally held by backers of President Donald Trump in Washington the day before the storming of the Capitol was arrested on Monday on charges that he took part in the riot.
Brandon Straka, 44, was arrested on a felony charge of interfering with police during civil disorder. The self-described founder of a movement to “walk away” from liberalism was also charged with unlawful entry into a restricted building and disorderly conduct.
As for “storming” the capitol — very funny, pull the other one, it plays jingle bells — because we do have video of the police opening the doors, and the only people captured actually breaking windows seem to be antifa members, who have — of course– been released without a blemish on their burnished record.
So he’s being charged with entry into a “restricted” building, which happens to be the US capitol. And “disorderly conduct.” — which appears to consist of being captured on video saying “go, go, go.
There’s also, apparently “witnesses” saying he told people to take the shield from a police officer. Or something.
Okay, first, let us be rightly understood: the capitol, where the deliberations on the people’s business take place is not and will never be a restricted building. It can be a building under occupation by people who have forgotten their oath to the constitution, and yeah perhaps having forsworn their duty as Americans, let alone elected (so, how many do you think were elected fraudulently?) representatives of the American people, they should be restricted from entering the capitol until they can explain to us what in the name of light fandango they think they’re doing.
The “crime” so far as there was one on the sixth was putting up barriers and locking the doors to the people wanting to watch their representatives selling them down the river into dictatorship by certifying votes in a fraudulent election. Of note, leftists have “stormed” the capitol on the regular, because of a vote they don’t like, or because they took it in their bizarre, deformed minds that some representative had said something they didn’t like. Not a single one of those people, who have stormed the capitol with signs, with costumes, with papire mache puppets have ever been arrested.
Not a single one of them was also shot through the neck, as was Ashli Babbit (#sayhername) for reasons no one understands, in a crime no one is investigating, and by someone who will never be arrested for her cold blooded murder.
Which brings us to Brandon Straka, again. Arrested by the FBI. For what amounts to “crossed the street at the wrong place.”
If I remember correctly Brandon Straka is gay. And he’s about to vanish into the hell of prison, a prison chosen by the FBI which means his life and definitely his health is at risk. Will he ever see the light of day as a free citizen again? I don’t know. Look, it sounds insane. “Entering a restricted building” — remember all those nuns in the 70s who kept breaking into nuclear facilities? — and “disorderly conduct” should warrant AT THE VERY MOST (and given the circumstances of the non-riot and the fact the government are acting like Chinese oligarchs even this is doubtful) a two hour talk with the FBI. Not an arrest.
Brandon Straka, arrested on risible charges has far less ability to defend himself. He’s voiceless, since, as one of the founders of Stop The Steal he was banned from social media at the same time president Trump was. And he certainly has no bottomless pockets. And any lawyer defending him will next be targeted for destruction.
And that’s when it hit me. The secret police is here. It’s here under the guise of our own institutions and under the very thin veneer of law.
This is how totalitarians do it. They know “normal people” will recoil from “entering a restricted building” and “inciting”. Even though these are ridiculous charges.
In China people disappear forever for inciting revolution, which sometimes means they are Christians, or perhaps that they remarked on the resemblance between Emperor Xi and an evil, sh*t eating Winnie the Pooh. (Only they’re far more polite than I am.) And no one complains and no one says anything because, of course, who wants to associate with criminals.
Auxiliary understanding of this: I am probably the only person in this blog right now who has participated in mass protests. I am almost certainly the only person who has participated in illegal mass protests. Illegal, btw, because the government at the time said there was an “Emergency” and protests were banned. (At the same time “spontaneous mobs” of communists were blocking streets and setting fire to things. Stop me when this sounds familiar. Those were of course not illegal because “spontaneous. Oh, and the national emergency was that the government really, really, really wanted us to shut up. Now ask me why I’ve been screaming for a year that I’ve seen this before.)
There is a …. logic to protests. Would Brandon Straka, on his on ever have dreamed of going somewhere where a policeman told him he couldn’t go? I’d bet you money he wouldn’t. But in a crowd, there are pressures you don’t see. And it’s very easy to lie with video, much less “witness” to paint someone as violent.
For instance, I was once caught up in a crowd stampede as someone shot into a crowded plaza and a person maybe 10 feet from me went down. I was frozen for about a second, and then I was running. And if my mother hadn’t kept her cool, grabbed my arm and pulled me flat against the wall, as people ran past me, I would either be part of the crowd who trampled two people to death on the underground passage, or — had I fallen (I’d already lost one shoe) — one of the trampled. If there had been cell phones at the time, and the recording were made from the “right” angle you could show me as the leader of a mob intent on trampling. Or something.
The other fact to take into account is that while the left hates all opposition, they hate it even harder when those they consider “theirs” break from the plantation. I still receive hate mail ranging from wild accusations to bizarre put downs (it was a great shock, for instance, to find out that as a bestseller, with a 20 year career and thirty some books brought out in traditional publishing, with two major awards to my credit and having made a … working wage from this almost every year, I am a “never has been who failed to break into traditional publishing.”) I get hate and attacks all out of proportion with being a minor blogger and a writer of amusing fiction. Why? Well, I’m an immigrant from a Latin country, a woman, with an advanced degree in the liberal arts, and making a living in an “artistic” profession. I BELONG to them, you see. How dare I dissent. Brandon Straka is in the same boat. His very existence denies the left’s deep held conviction that you are a widget defined ONLY b the groups you belong to and that as a member of a “victim group” you must of course support them. By his very existence he encourages other people to come out of the political closet and speak out. And on top of that, he DARES create something to encourage others to walk away.
Which probably explains why they had to silence him almost immediately.
This too is the logic of totalitarianism: silence the prominent voices that contradict your philosophy.
And they always accuse the arrested of something that the people at home, paying no attention might think it’s fair. Like you know “entering a restricted building” or “inciting violence.” Always. Do you think totalitarians tell people “Yeah, we’re arresting him for daring to speak”?
No. there is always an excuse. (Remember the film maker arrested in the middle of the night because they’d decided to blame his deranged movie for inciting the Benghazi attacks? Which even if they had, frankly, what the hell does that even mean? Why would an American citizen curb his speech because some insane savage might take it into his head to kill people? What they used was that he had been forbidden from putting up movies (heaven knows why) and was therefore in parole violation. And as we know parole violators get picked up by the police in the middle of the night, with the news stations alerted.) There is always something to make the timid and law abiding shy away and disclaim knowledge.
And you guys know the process as well as I do by now. Unless you’re ante-fa caught in flagrant being brown shirts on the streets, damaging property and hurting private citizens — in which case Commie LaWhorish, the Vice Fraud of the US will pay your bail and you somehow will end up without a blemish on your record — being arrested by a government (or a deep state agency) that has a grudge against you means you will never see the light of day again. They’ll interrogate you until you’re so confused you contradict yourself, and then they’ll hold you on perjury. They’ll come up with ridiculous charges which suffice, because it’s not like you’ll ever be tried by a jury of your peers. And depending on where they put you, your life and health will be destroyed. And if you don’t happen to be a millionaire, you have no hope of escaping the hell you plunge into. You are, in fact, as much a political prisoner as those in China or Cuba.
First they silence you. Then they arrest you on charges so laughable that you don’t think of defending yourself. And then you disappear.
Like the evidence of fraud in the elections, the courts will find reasons to dismiss the case — no matter how ridiculous — so that the actual lack of evidence of your alleged crimes is never examined. And if needed the press will demonize you, just as they exculpated the (caught on camera) merry fraudsters of November.
And then you’re done. One by one they remove anyone who dares speak out, leaving only the amorphous mass who don’t want to associate with “criminal activity.” As a friend pointed out this morning, soon not denouncing Trump loudly enough for imaginary crimes will be criminal activity.
By the way, this is the whole point of again trying President Trump on charges so ridiculous that they are not even in the same universe as sanity. (Saying to be peaceful means revolution. Or something.) Because then they can arrest everyone who went to DC on the forlorn hope that their representatives would listen to them and not certify a glaringly fraudulent election as “insurrectionists” and “trying to overthrow the government.” Which makes you a terrorist. One of those dangerous “right wing domestic terrorists” that all our agencies are gearing up to go after.
The secret police is here. Thought crime is here. We are all Brandon Straka.
And what are you going to do now, precisely? Take to the streets and protest against them? Why, you insurrectionist. Do you seek to overthrow the government?
One thing I recall from an old chemistry text is that if hydrogen and fluorine gasses are combined, they will explosively form hydrogen fluoride, pretty much no matter the condition. However, if hydrogen and chlorine gasses are combined, in darkness, there is almost no reaction going on. Some hydrogen chloride does form – slowly. But, shine light into the mix and the hydrogen chloride forms explosively. The seemingly small power of light is enough to push things over a threshold and start a potent reaction.
Many things seem to “do nothing” until some thing, some seemingly little thing, triggers a reaction. The classic example is the idiom of “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” The camel starts unburdened, or close to it. The first straw is just a bit of straw, light, insignificant, of no consequences by itself. So is the next (if we presume someone so silly as to load the camel single straw by single straw – but even by the handful, the story is the same – or close enough) and the next. But, each light straw, while almost nothing by itself, is not quite nothing. And is not by itself. The weight is ever increasing and the camel will strain under the load. And, if the loader doesn’t have the sense to stop (and it seems likely the camel would raise some objections even beyond the usual), eventually the weight will exceed what the camel can bear. The “last straw” wasn’t that different from the first straw – a light thing, insignificant, and of no consequence by itself. Only, it wasn’t by itself. And that meant it had great significance and dire consequence indeed.
There are other analogies:
A capacitor (or an arc gap…) can be charged, the voltage increasing. One volt? What problem? Two volts? Nothing seems to happen. Eventually the voltage gets high enough the dielectric breaks down and things arc over. That’s not nothing happening anymore.
A boiler might take 1 PSI just fine. So why not 2? And it will take 2 PSI just fine, so why not 3? And each additional PSI seems to do nothing. Right up until the boiler explodes in a disaster of great and horrific spectacle.
Another analogy could be made for fissile materials – even if there is no true nuclear explosion, it’s quite possible to make a deadly mess (for a while anyway) by assembling seemingly safe bits together until quite suddenly they aren’t safe anymore. And this can even happen by taking what had been safe in one geometry (a long, thin tube of solution) and putting the same amount of material into a dangerous geometry (a short, squat ‘bucket’) This is not theoretical. This very sort of nuclear accident has happened – and more than once.
Whatever analogy you prefer, it’s fairly plain that in the USA of 2021 (and for some time earlier), the straws are accumulating, the voltage is increasing, the pressure is building, the neutron flux is rising… slowly – so far. Things are tense, but many seem to be willing risk another straw and another straw (or equivalent) as nothing has happened. And since nothing has happened, nothing will continue to happen.
There is even some shock when ginned-up events fail to get the activation energy as they are seen for what they are – ginned up events designed to entrap. All those gatherings at state capitols that failed to even happen, let alone failed to become riots to point to, are one example. Or fifty. This likely causing both some frustration – propagandist aren’t getting the Event they hope to spin into something more. And some relief – “Well, if THAT didn’t do anything, it must be perfectly safe to…”
“They treat it like a dial that can be turned up and down, but it’s really a switch.” And it seems the perfect analogy is the thermostat. Yeah, the old goldish round thing that was on the wall at that old house. It seemed like a dial or close. It could turned up and down. But inside, it was a switch. It was OFF or it was ON. Turning it up all that way didn’t heat the house any faster, it just eventually made it uncomfortable. It is possible to turn the thermostat down before the heat gets excessive. Possible is not the same as easy, especially if there are fools constantly turning it back up as far it can go.
But it is an increasingly explosive atmosphere. Eventually the mix will be enough that some little, seemingly insignificant thing will be the spark that sets it off. When will it happen? No idea. Other than, the time is getting ever closer. What will be the spark? Again, no idea. Other than historians will one day look back on it, see it, and opine that had it happened in less explosives conditions, it would have been one little, insignificant straw of no great consequence.
That’s if things go utterly unchecked. And it seems now, that the people many once thought nutty for calling Democrats and “establishment” Republicans a ‘uniparty’ were not nuts at all. Thus the one thing that should be a check on “adding straws” is if not adding straws itself, failing to remove straws. Sure, a precious few are making an effort or at least appearing to be making an effort. It seems unlikely that they will be enough. It is just possible. Miracles do happen.
It’s a Big Problem. But almost all Big Problems are really so many little problems all ganging up. Solve one little problem after another and, if enough little problems get solved fast enough, the Big Problem falls apart and ceases to exist.
Do I know The Solution? Nope. Can I work the Big Miracle to magic away the Big Problem(s)? Nope. Can I do my damnedest to work what tiny efforts I can, in hopes of enough others doing the same, that if we are really fortunate, enough little miracles happen? Yeah. I can do that much. So can you. Now, let’s see if we can all grab away at least one little, insignificant, inconsequential straw. Maybe we can rescue the camel this time. Maybe we fail, but at least we’ll be the SOB’s who tried. It’s a long shot… maybe a million to one, at best.
[And, as we all know, a million to one chance is a sure thing. – SAH]
The left has a plan so cunning that if it were a person, it would be teaching cunningology at Oxford. And the ones who get the reference will also know that their plan is about to go pear shaped in all sorts of interesting ways, and at the end of it there might very well be a turnip or two involved, but not as the only item available in the shelves of the grocery store.
Look, someone pointed out in the comments the left are trying to follow the “plan” for other communist revolutions round the world.
He’s right. They’re trying to follow it to the letter. Partly because it’s worked before, and partly, because to be fair, they’re a cult, and cults don’t know the reason for the ritual, they just follow it.
…. but it’s already going wrong. And it’s only going to get worse.
You see, part of the problem is that the cult of communism and the procedures for “the revolution” were set in the early twentieth century. And it’s designed for the early twentieth century. To the extent they worked in places like Venezuela, it is because the underlying structures of the society were still very much “early twentieth century.”
The US? Well, not so much. In fact we never were much like the early twentieth century in Europe, which is why they’ve had a hell of a time getting a foothold here.
The communist revolution is designed to work in a country that is mostly urban, with a vast urban underclass that can’t rise above for reasons both internal and external despite working unreasonable hours. It’s designed for a country with a firm aristocracy of the hereditary sort (even if that aristocracy is often from trade), it is designed for a country with a conscript army where the plum assignments go to the “good families” as a matter of course, it is designed to work — most of all and very importantly — in a country where they ABSOLUTELY control all the means of mass communication and do so without the vast majority of the people being aware of it.
The last time they could have pulled that off in the US was in the mid seventies. And my guess, honestly, is that they tried. I don’t know for sure, since the news of the time were all reported by biased sources, and besides I’m too lazy and too busy (yes, it’s weird. Often happens to me, though) to spend my day chasing down hints. I bet they did try, though. I bet they gave it a sporting try. And I bet part of the issue back then — as now, btw — is that they were pinning their hopes on a race war, having both not realized how much of a minority people of African descent are in the US (last estimate is what? 14%? Sizeable, sure, but not a large minority and certainly not a majority. Also, and seriously, a lot of that minority is middle class and whatever they voice from the mouth-out as uninterested as the rest of us in having the apple cart overturned. Apples are tasty. Genocide not so much.) Mostly because that sh*t was so successful in Africa, and again the left doesn’t think. It ritualistically applies “what worked” without being able to account for changed conditions.
Anyway, that was the last time they could have MAYBE credibly have followed their little red map to revolution and have it work. And even then Americans were just too darn contrarian. Why everyone and their parents were telling us that Republicans were so dangerous, that they were going to start the nuclear war, that– And we went and voted Reagan in. (Well, not me. I only worked towards it. I didn’t vote. I wasn’t a citizen and I’m not a democrat.)
In fact, America could have engraved on its door lintel “authorities can go f*ck themselves.” The left keeps forgetting that. And sometimes justifiably. Take their Covid-psy-ops. It worked. And it was all run on the “experts” and how important it was.
Uh uh. So, they think their control is back! They’re golden again, baby!
Yeah, not so fast. That one worked because a) even the most cynical Americans (born and raised) couldn’t imagine that anyone would be so evil and unprincipled as to cause famine in the third world by crashing the American economy solely to win an election. (The rest of us laughed in “man, you don’t know commies.”) b)it was coordinated and orchestrated all over the world, and they had a little help from China (and for the love of Bob why isn’t anyone questioning those “leaked” videos of people collapsing and dying in crowds that stopped coming from China the moment the virus hit America? HAS no one asked why these scenes haven’t happened anywhere in the west.) And Americans kept going “other countries wouldn’t close up only to manipulate American elections, right?” (Laughs in “you really really don’t know commies, do you?”) But of course they would. It’s the same elites in control everywhere, and Trump scared them.
The other thing they miss is that this is a trick that works only once. As it’s becoming glaringly obvious that the danger was grossly exaggerated and that this is utter and complete bullocks (yes, yes, people died. People die of the flu every year. And of other things too. “Tested positive on ridiculously high-gain test known for false positives” doesn’t mean they died OF Covid-19) the media has just burned another huge chunk of their credibility, even bigger than what it took to attempt to force us to vote for Hillary. Oh, and by the way, to the extent that Biden had real voters (a distinct minority of his counted-votes) and that those were lied too and told reassuring pap by the press, the press is already burning its credibility with them, like gasoline soaked paper in a bonfire. Mind you, for now the utter idiots might still believe that “ORANGEMANBAD” but the cognitive dissonance won’t long remain.
The media has been burning increasingly larger chunks of its credibility since it put everything on the pot to get the messiah, Barry Soetoro elected. Even they, with all their devotion, slavering lies and knee pads, couldn’t make people believe him a great president, or convince people they were prosperous when they were not.
They could convince people the Clintons were brilliant and their tenure a time of great prosperity WHILE THEY WERE IN OFFICE even if it crumbled afterwards. But with little Barry the simple, they couldn’t even keep it going while he was in office. (And partly this was, nota bene, because Clinton does love America. It’s a bit like a vampire loving humanity because humans are tasty, but he does love us, and he didn’t want to destroy the country as such. Barry however wants to punish us because in his deranged red-diaper mind, we’re responsible for his cool African daddy leaving him. People sense when they’re hated.) And he was an utter economic disaster, and that’s hard to hide. So, in the face of the greatest press in history, and the push for his handpicked successor, people shrugged their shoulders and voted for Trump, a dangerous wildcard as we thought at the time.
In fact, people did it again in 2020. The fact that they had to fraud massively at the last minute, and that the fraud was so blatant they won’t let any court investigate it is your million watt flashlight shining a danger sign to them in the night.
But they won’t heed it.
I’ve come to the conclusion most of the people manipulated by the media manipulation of the social and mass media are at this point…. the left. Which is kind of important to them, because at this point, the vast majority of the left (which are a minority in the country already or they wouldn’t have to fraud, fraud, and more fraud.) are not even useful idiots. They’re “go alongs.” They’re the people who — humans being social apes — instinctively attach to the strong horse, because it’s the ‘nice’ thing to do and they want to be in step with their times.
But their big problem is that the play they’re running with requires them to have FULL control of the means of communication and be able to sell — in full — their version of reality. And have people take it, unquestioningly forever.
It’s already falling apart. Oh, how they must have cackled and danced with glee as the 6th of January became tainted as “riots” even though compared to BLM and the rest it was barely bad behavior. (And even though there’s indications it had already gone massively wrong, since Trump started his speech late and spoke later than they expected, and didn’t lead people to the capitol. ALL of which they counted on. Oh, also, buffallo man? not a credible insurrectionist or revolutionary.)
You can tell that’s not sticking in various ways. First, they immediately got the expected reaction from the Republicans, which was to cave all along the line and start talking about the disgraceful riots. (Look, it’s not QUITE uniparty, Bitch McConnel notwithstanding, but the right are ABUSED SPOUSES. They reflexively cower when the left flexes its muscles.) But even as the left, hysterically, pushes the rhetoric to “attempted coup” and impeached orangemanbad for having a golden weasel for hair (unless you can come up with a better explanation) and having more votes than they could dream of, thereby forcing them to fraud in plain sight, the right is finding its spine. Don’t bitch slap Rand Paul. At least he’s saying our lying eyes are right.
The left is no longer controlling the narrative. Their lies are increasingly crazy and less credible, and people see that. At the same time people are losing trust in the press over the covidiocy and in the left, because six days into the usurper’s reign it’s becoming obvious the junta not only doesn’t have the best interests of America at heart, but doesn’t LIKE America much.
Sure, they have their five year plan. It includes purging the army of dissidents, and demanding their personal loyalty. In their echo chamber this is perfectly reasonable, you know. All the upper echelons who attend parties in DC will tell you this is perfect, and the grunts will do as told. Yeah.
And they’re going to confiscate guns. No, they’re really, really, really going to confiscate guns this time. Look, on facebook some weaselrat crawled out of the wood work to yell at us a propos nothing that everyone laughed at our redneck love for guns. (head desk) You see, they really think what works on them — insults and social shame — works on us too. Hell, I can’t claim to be a redneck, but my instinct was to smile and say “why, thank you kindly. We’ll see how they laugh when those guns are pointed at them.”
Gun control might have flown — did to an extent fly — in the seventies, but hell, these days we know what happens when you give up your guns. Again, they missed their window by, oh, fifty years or so.
Then they’re going to destroy our farms, our factories, our lives in the name of Global Warming, because, well, all their friends are scared sh*tless of Global warming. Except that well, we’ve been told we were all going to burn up so often even the short-term-memory bunnies no longer buy it. Except for the exquisitely indoctrinated and the media, it’s become a joke. “Excuse me, I have to go shovel some global warming off the driveway so we can go to work.”
They need FULL control of the press for this. They ain’t going to get full control of the press. In due time even Parler will be back, and besides most of us have already flown to different arrangements (I’m so fortunate to have kids in their twenties. There are so many places the left doesn’t expect us to be.) And people are ACTIVELLY working on alternatives to Amazon, to social media, to hosting sites. Because they “done pissed us off enough.” and Americans are always prone to trying to wade into the problem, even if all they have is a rag and a bottle of windex. (“Well, at least it can be a clean dumpster fire.”) I guess in world terms we are the guy. We see a problem, we solve, instead of sitting around the UN bitching and emoting.
SOME part of their addled, brain-damaged cult gets that it’s already not working, hence the brazen, bizarre attempt to pass all vote by mail, no challenges allowed, do as we say, peasant.
Well, maybe it will work. Bitch McConnel will try to help them, that’s for sure. But if it works, I declare it a wonderful opportunity to play the game on them. Let’s see, I have….. Counts again…. 300 characters in my head. Most of them are voting age. Do you discriminate against the differently existent? Then there’s the cats. Dead relatives. And– What? If they’re going to make the voting a joke, they should get a taste of their own medicine. And one of the things we are WAY better than they are at is COMPETENCE. At anything.
My guess is that an election under such rules will end up with a billion votes and nervous breakdowns on the left.
IF they’re smart, they’ll backoff before we get there, but alas, I’m very much afraid they ain’t smart.
I predict the next move on their part will be trying to make an example of someone like me — in fact someone exactly like me, you know, not big enough that everyone knows me, not willing to shut up under any circumstances, and …. weird. I.e. most of the people won’t get the science fiction thing–and my guess is they will fail, just as they have failed to sell us that Kyle Rittenhouseis white supremacist. In fact, our response to the Kenosha Kid should have served as their warning. And it sort of did, but only very briefly.
Mind you, we’re taking steps to be physically out of reach and hard to find, but my guess is whomever they attempt to destroy will instead become a folk hero.
Oh, and they will try very hard to purge the army.
And it really does seem they’re going full speed ahead with attempts at gun control.
And they’re going to attempt impeachment part two, while the nation looks in awe at how ridiculously insane they are. Because they really really really need to sell us on the idea that orangemanbad attempted a coup. But the more they poke at that narrative, the more it falls apart. And no matter how much they’re going to try to demonize Trump, they’ll also been dragging him to the limelight. Only idiots think this is a good idea.
From here on it only gets crazier. Their response to “well, that didn’t work” is NEVER “maybe I should examine why not.” Their response is always “double down.”
Am I saying it will be a piece of cake? Well, no. They have all the structures of government, and until they go far enough they have the force to enforce it. Besides, they’re importing more “caravans” which are mostly military age men, and by the way, from research Bill Reader did, members of communist organizations in their native regions.
But my guess is “real” immigrants, the vast wave they’re counting on, will fail to materialize. They’ve seen this show before, and they were already leaving under Obama, for the same reason.
And gang members and commies simply aren’t used to Americans. Nor are Americans about to turn in their weapons like good boys and girls. That doesn’t happen even in the North East.
But–
It’s going to get chaotic and very very ugly. Briefly. On the good side, they’re continuing the good work that Donald Trump started. When this is done, it will be a clean sweep of both houses of congress, the courts (all of them) and yep, the agencies. Because the FBI and the CIA have revealed their hideous partisan faces. On the bad side, so have most mainline churches. I don’t know what comes next, but I know that at this point a snake-handling pastor who is not afraid of having in person meetings or preaching from the gospel has a good chance of capturing a vast chunk of America, no matter how strange his theology. Bad? Well…. maybe. A religiously unified America would be very scary to the rest of the largely atheisticworld. Never frighten a little nation.It might kill you.
However, a word to the wise, if there are any, in the corridors of power, from the so called legislators, to the judges: Turn back now. You’re living in an echo chamber. You don’t know the real opinions of real people, because you’ve made it impossible to tell the truth without losing your livelihood, your family, everything you hold dear. And you have absolutely no clue how quick the preference cascade turns when the “go alongs” realize the majority isn’t where they thought it was.
If you throw your lot in with the left, you’re going to lose.
I grant you the most likely follow up to this is a Generalissimo Franco, but I bet you that too is temporary. Americans are too American for that to stick. Yes, even those of Latin ancestry. Only bloody racists would think otherwise, and the entire country isn’t the left.
Contemplate the fact that in the face of a barrage of demonisation and fear never before seen in the west, Americans hunched their shoulders and voted Donald Trump in such numbers the left had to fraud hard at the last minute and in plain view.
Contemplate that in no other country, not even the other anglophone countries is political blogging a big thing. (And it has to do with us being the citizen-rulers of this country.)
Contemplate that the people — THE PEOPLE — refused to turn on Kyle Rittenhouse.
Contemplate the fact that the narrative on January 6th is already in such tatters even lefty publications are admitting it wasn’t a riot, much less an insurrection.
Contemplate that the left put all its cookie chips on the right showing up to burn things and throw a fit at the FICUS Fraudoguration.
Contemplate that the public opinion is such they keep having to turn off comments on White House videos on the tube of ewes.
Contemplate that we’re really, really, pissed and you have our attention. And that the leftist narrative and that of its captive media are increasingly either ignored or seen as a contrary indicator.
And then go look at pictures of the Ceaușescus.
That’s what happens when a preference cascade occurs. In the morning, beloved leader on the balcony. In the evening, cooling meat.
We don’t want it to get there, but heaven knows the left is bound and determined to push the nation there. And they have absolutely no idea what they’re trifling with.
They’ve convinced themselves America is just like every other nation they destroyed.
They are wrong. And they’re creating mortal peril for themselves akin to driving blindfolded towards an abyss.
Throwing one’s lot in with theirs is highly inadvisable.
Not only is their map not the territory. Their map is written in crayon, includes imaginary lands, and is signed “turnip.”
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When Peggy Becker married Englishman Tommy Morehouse in San Antonio in the spring of 1938, her cousin and best friend Venetia “Vennie” Stoneman was her bridesmaid. After the wedding, Peg and Tommy traveled across the Pacific to Malaya, where Tommy managed his family’s rubber plantation. There they expected to raise a family and live a comfortable and rewarding life among the British expatriates in the tropics, while Vennie returned to Galveston to continue training as a nurse. The start of the Second World War changed those comfortable, settled lives: Tommy Morehouse became a prisoner of war, Peg barely escaped the fall of Singapore with her small son, and Vennie Stoneman was a nurse in the US Army Nurse Corps, tending to battlefield casualties in North Africa, Italy, and France. In Australia, Peg waits out the war, wondering if her husband will survive brutal captivity by the Japanese, and Vennie risks her own life as an air evacuation nurse. Throughout all, the two women write to each other, of their lives, loves, of Vennie’s patients and comrades, and Peg’s children and the woes of running a wartime household among rationing and shortages of shoes for her children.
John Richmond and Frank Smyth have a hobby: they and their friends are WWII re-enactors, touring nineteen-forties festivals in the guise of the Home Guard. So, when Smyth’s daughter is trapped with some other women in a hotel siege abroad, he turns to Richmond and the others for help.
Their first idea seems doomed to failure, or even to make a bad situation worse. They need to find a Plan B.
Zoe O’Brien has found her dream job at a small liberal arts college teaching the history of Medieval witchcraft and magic. Academic life is exactly what she expected it to be…until the squirrels stop by to talk with her and her department chair and best friend turn out to be mages.
Zoe discovers a world of magic and power she never knew existed. She and other faculty mages race to stop a coven from raising a demon on the winter solstice while simultaneously grading piles of final exams and reading the tortured prose of undergraduate term papers. But first, she must learn to master her new-found powers.
Professor June Porter is worried. Her daughter Medina has shown no signs of magic, leaving her defenseless and isolated among magicians. Unless, of course, everyone’s about to discover just how special Medina is.
Anna’s rescue training kicked in when she tripped over the injured elf. Getting him home? No problem. Getting herself home again? That’s going to be a little more complicated.
Trapped Underhill, in the land of the fae, Anna has to remember everything she knows about fairy tales. Not the sweet happy ones: the stories where Baba Yaga boils you alive and giants grind your bones for bread. Her skills as a hunter and her good manners might be all that keep her alive. At least, if she can keep the Wild Hunt at bay!
t is 2185 CE. Humans now live throughout the Solar System, but their most ambitious adventure is about to begin. The starship Victoria will carry over 10,000 colonists to a new world outside the Solar System. The larger-than-life exploits of those colonists will become legendary. The colonists will build a new civilization, and the actions of a few individuals will become famous—and infamous—forever marking their new colony with the Founder Effect.
(Also contains story from Dragon Award Winner, Prometheus Award Winner, best selling author Sarah A. Hoyt. ;) )
When Owen Pitt and the rest of the Monster Hunter International crew are called away to mount a months-long rescue mission in a monster-infested nightmare dimension, Julie Shackleford—Owen’s wife and descendant of MHI founder Bubba Shackleford—is left behind. Her task: hold down the fort and take care of her new baby son, Ray.
But then a routine field call brings her face-to-face with an unspeakable evil calling itself Brother Death. Julie is the Guardian of a powerful ancient artifact known as the Kamaresh Yar, and Brother Death longs for it. In the wrong hands, it could destroy reality as we know it. Julie would die before giving it up. Then little Ray goes missing, taken by Brother Death. The price for his safe return? The Kamaresh Yar.
To reclaim her son, Julie Shackleford must fight her way through necromantic death cults, child-stealing monsters, and worse. And she’ll have to do it all before Brother Death can unleash the Kamaresh Yar. It may be one woman against an army of monsters, but Julie Shackleford is no ordinary woman—she’s maybe the toughest mother on the planet!
Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.
So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.
We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.
According To Hoyt 