*Yes, I really should do a post. But despite having slept a lot, (I woke up at 11:30) I’m very sleepy. I’m coughing less, and definitely on the upswing, but the big lie told about Covid was that only it, uniquely had a post viral syndrome (long covid.) ALL URIs do, and the length of it seems to mirror the severity of the infection. Right now I’m in the part of the proceedings where I seem to need to rest rather a lot. And having written my post for Mad Genius Club I suddenly felt myself exhausted and in need of a nap. I should still write a post. But instead I’m going to re-run this blog’s unofficial anthem. Which, frankly, is very very topical in the lead up to this election. SOME PEOPLE have been all but inviting the Gods of the Copybook Headings to rampage through the nation…. and they are. And it’s going to get worse, win or lose. – SAH*

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Rudyard Kipling

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,

I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.

Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn

That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:

But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,

So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,

Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,

But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come

That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,

They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;

They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;

So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.

They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.

But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life

(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)

Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;

But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew

And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true

That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man

There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.

That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,

And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,

As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Yes, I am in fact QUITE aware that I sound like a loon when I say that fully 25% of total counted votes are fraud. And that those are mostly on the left side. Oh, 25% is my low estimate. It could be that a full 70% of votes for Biden were fraudulent and that instead of being a closely divided nation we are in fact an overwhelmingly anti-left nation held captive by a small minority that rules by fraud. Which would explain a lot of the things we see.

Yes, I know I sound like a loon because reasonable people estimate that fraud is something under 3%.

That’s fine. I’m used to reasonable people being full of shit. Mostly because reasonable people seem to expect everyone else to be reasonable, and that no one will try to shut down the world to tank an economy and win an election, say, to give a random example. Because no sane person would do that, of course. But 2020 should have shown you some people weren’t reasonable. Or sane. Or decent. Or socialized to be rational members of the human species. For some people naked power is the only motivator.

Another reason I sound like a loon is that a lot of us know people who buy everything the left sells, vocally endorse everything they hear on the MSM, etc. etc.

However, I respectfully would like to note that most of us “intellectuals” which is a broad word for “thinks and reads too much” and as good a definition of the readers of this blog as any (though not as good as plain Odd) runs in circles that are composed of the 20% or so of the nation that are GENUINELY leftist. Or if they aren’t, they keep their lips zipped in order to keep their jobs and position, since the left maintains power with a scorched Earth policy.

So, lest you think I’m a raving loon who hasn’t thought through things, I will lay before you all the means and ways in which the left commits fraud in the elections.

First let’s establish why it’s 99% the left committing fraud. This is known as “because the press exposes only the right.” I.e. by chance or design (likely by design because it was part of doctrine for the USSR for subverting other countries) the press was early on captured by Marxists. They in turn made sure to serve the cause over their profession (this is also always true of Marxists.) Which meant that while the right might be — probably is — as larcenous and idiotic as the left, it could not fraud for the longest time. When it tried to, it got jumped on like a ton of bricks. Meanwhile a blind eye was turned to the left’s fraudulent practices. While people whispered about it, the press did not report it, and no one investigated it. The left was allowed to be prolix in its fraud. The right could not fraud without being denounced.

This is why when fraud is brought up and the left screams “both sides do it” the only fraud they can bring up on the right is some race for dog catcher in Back of Beyond, South Nowhere. It’s not because the others weren’t caught, it’s because that was the only fool who dared, at a very small level. And he got caught.

Meanwhile the left thrives on institutionalized and diversified fraud.

First you have motor voter.

On the principle that it is racist to ask someone who does not look “from around here” and speaks with an accent or doesn’t speak the language for proof of citizenship, and on the idea that it would be easier to get people involved in the political process if they were registered to vote, you are allowed to register to vote when you get a driver’s license.

There have been cases of people getting accidentally registered to vote while showing a foreign passport as their ID. More than one case, but one was written up by a frequent guest poster.

“Now, Sarah,” you’ll say reasonably. “Just because people are registered, we don’t know if they vote. Most foreigners likely know they’re not supposed to. Why would they?”

We’ll ignore the harping we’ve seen in various magazines claiming the world should vote in US elections because they’re “So important.” And the fact many people have a loose idea of citizenship and confuse it with residency.

Recently there have been surveys that show that in fact a lot of people without citizenship do vote. This was merely the ones who were willing to ADMIT it and it was a vasty percentage. And at any rate, if they’re registered to vote, someone else can vote for them.

So what is our excuse for not requiring proof of citizenship to vote?

Well, it’s racist to. The left says so, and screams like a stuck pig if we try to change that.

Second, and mind you I’m going by order of how these things came about: There is no set day to vote anymore. Our election day is now an election month. Early voting is the norm anymore.

Every time I mention this is a bad thing people come over to belly ache, tantrum, drop on the floor and drum their heels rhythmically and tell me I just want to deprive them of their vote. Because they have to work on the day set aside for voting, damn it. How can I be so mean?

That’s right. I do. I want them to stop having the right to a ceremonial-only vote that gets submerged in a tide of fraud and is entirely meaningless. And if they don’t like that, they can gaze upon my middle fingers and contemplate the fact there were remedies for this problem long before this “waltz in whenever you feel like. Vote for convenience” bullshit.

Why am I so mean? Because I saw this in action in 2012. A full 1/3 of the people — middle aged, working people, who seemed quite sane of body and mind — who came to vote in the precinct I was watching were told they’d already voted. No explanation was given for this obvious tide of dementia that caused them to forget this fact. Instead they were appeased with “casting a provisional vote” which is a largely ceremonial, entirely meaningless gesture.

Why meaningless? Well, because whoever voted for you certainly didn’t mark their vote so it could be removed later. And provisional votes don’t get counted unless there’s more of them than the difference between the candidates’ totals.

I heard, though I wasn’t there, that in Denver there were 2/3 of people afflicted by dementia in some precincts.

This was the year that the democrats won a BARE MINORITY in the state legislative organs, and used it to sweep in vote-by-mail. … which we’ll get to.

Third: Week chain of custody for ballots.

Look, this year people have been snapping photos of this and sending it in, but it has always been a problem.

We mostly hear of it not when ballots go missing, because in the past how would we know, but when ballots are found in the back of a truck, mysteriously all voted to get the democrat over the top.

It is said this is how JFK won the presidency, and I have no reason to doubt it, having witnessed Boulder CO regularly find enough ballots to elect whatever crazy they were enthused about (Often, weirdly more ballots than there were voters in the area) and also having seen Al Franken elected by the same trick.

BUT if you try to bring these things up, even though their preponderance over the years is massive, the left screams like a stuck pig and calls you a conspiracy theorist. And the next time, the same ballots will show up. Oh, sorry, different ones. But the same machine.

Fourth: Lack of investigation of suspicious voting instances.

Precincts where 125% of eligible voters voting. Ballots found in the back of trucks. Machines that are out of order. Running out of ballots. Misprinted ballots. Buses full of voters showing up with out of license plates. etc. etc. etc.

EVERY instance of possible fraud should be investigated, of course. Because trust in our elections is essential if we’re to trust in self-government. But try it. Just try it. In 2021 that somehow became an actionable offense. Not the fraud. Trying to expose it. For some reason the left considers it a direct attack on “our democracy” to investigate the probity of our elections.

Fifth: Absentee voting.

This was always permitted of course for service members. And it’s the last thing I want to do to deprive those at risk of dying for the nation of their right to have a say in the elections. OTOH military voting has always been a point of contention. Oh, not for the right. But it seems military ballots have a tendency to not be counted/be lost/vanish in certain jurisdictions.

Now some of this might be because the US military is a bureaucracy and things aren’t super efficient, but some of it is almost for sure deliberate. Note above these mysterious losses of military ballots, or disqualifying them for not having this or that that is supposed to be waived, is never investigated.

Meanwhile for a while absentee mailed-in ballots have been allowed in other circumstances: travelers, people away from their jurisdictions, etc.

Some of this is reasonable, or would be if we had an at all secure system. There might be no other way of voting for some people, say those confined to the hospital.

However, this is where we must consider the risks and the pay off. There used to be a system for voting early/away if you absolutely couldn’t be there, and it didn’t involve the US mail. See, you’d contact the local election authorities, with proof you’d be away (in my case non refundable and very expensive plane tickets and a visa) on the date, and they’d send you a time and place to vote. You’d bring this paper in, and vote ahead of time. The numbers were relatively small, because you had to prove you couldn’t do it on the day.

Ideal? No. What about last minute emergencies, shut ins, etc?

However, it prevented the wholesale request of absentee ballots who are filled by who knows whom, in an industrial-scale operation. All the instances of mistaken registration feed this fraud machine.

Also as our population ages and becomes either physically or mentally impaired, there is ballot harvesting with this type of absentee ballot. It’s easy to get an elderly person to sign a ballot someone else voted. Not to mention the ability to confuse a dementia patient to vote the way you wish.

Look, my MIL voted in four elections when she wasn’t able to recognize her son and thought her husband was her father. Oh, she also thought that Trump had landed on the roof to steal her diamonds (she didn’t have any diamonds.) I’m not salty about that, really, because she, a long-time habitue of The View would have voted that way if she were compus mentis anyway, but really. Should I end up in that situation, I hope my kids take care because I wouldn’t like to vote for Marxists before I am dead.

The left will say something like better have ten wrongful votes than deny the vote to someone who is entitled to vote. This is nonsense. Because the vote is not something that exists in a vacuum. Ten fraudulent votes negate a rightful one, anyway. So again, the “right” retained is to ceremonially cast a vote for who you want, which is swamped by the fraudulent votes generated by the leftist machine. Now maybe the left is doing this out of misguided kindness. Do you believe that?

Sixth: Our voter rolls are a mess.

I didn’t know how much of a mess until I called/walked precincts in three election cycles.

Guys, on these supposedly curated, etc. lists, a full half had moved away/changed phones/someone else lived there/changed registration, etc. etc. etc.

And there are 145 year old people voting in Colorado Springs.

There is absolutely no reason for this. We should be able to purge voter rolls. Except that the left likes it that way. And will resist any attempt to purge the rolls.

Seventh: Our registration is system is a fricking mess. Beyond motor voter.

Since the nineties, people will register you on the street. No proof of citizenship. Heck, no proof of address.

This has been exposed several times, though I lack links, but there have been many many Mickey Mouses registered in vacant lots.

When I moved to our house before last in Colorado, in 2003, the next election cycle we got voting cards for… I no longer remember the exact number, but I want to say ninety some people.

Now this was a six bedroom Victorian, but really, there was no possible way that many people lived there at any point (And no indication they had) unless they were stacked everywhere, including the unfinished basement and one asked the other for room to breathe in.

Again, surplus registrations are a vehicle for fraud. But this loose registration system can’t be removed without the left bemoaning attacks on the holy right to vote being impinged.

Eighth: Same Day Voter Registration.

This is not extant in every state, but where it is, it should be obvious it’s insane. However people seem not to realize it.

For one, pardon me, but if you didn’t think to register until the morning of voting day, you probably aren’t very ready to exert your voting right in the manner a responsible citizen should.

The answer is always the same “But what about people who just moved?” (Well, they can frigging well vote where they came from one more time, or not vote for one election cycle. And I say that as someone who was in that situation a couple of times.)

Again, I must emphasize, if you try to account for every “off” instance, all you do is dillute your vote to the point it’s meaningless, because of all of the fraud it allows.

Take same day registration: to register you must show proof of residency. This might be sort of okay if that were a driver’s license — at least it’s a little harder to fraud — but no. Usually the “proof” is something like a utility bill in your name at the address you’re claiming.

Maybe this would have been okay in the eighties? Even then, relatively easy to fraud. But now, it’s trivial. I could print myself bills addressed to me at addresses in every neighboring state. Would take me maybe a few hours, including finding samples of the bills online.

However, try to remove that, and you’re racist. Because apparently being able to think and register ahead of time is something only those who don’t tan can do. (I object.)

Nineth: Many — though not all — states don’t require ID to vote.

This means all of the above available registrations, where people might or might not use them at all can be voted by a determined machine paying minimum wage to their flunkies, or better paying nothing to a bunch of brainwashed zombies who are convinced they’re fighting “for justice.”

However, if you want IDs to vote, you’re “racist” and the left will trot out some 94 year old black woman who SUPPOSEDLY doesn’t have an ID. How she doesn’t have an ID in this day and age, when you need an ID to have a bank account, to receive Social Security, to receive medical care, and to enter a courthouse is a good question. But the left screams very loudly that black people don’t have IDs and that it’s racist to require them. And they’re very good at being loud.

Tenth: Universal vote by mail.

I think 23 states have this now. You’re mailed your ballot whether you asked for it (and exist) or not.

How can this be even remotely legal? The possibilities for abuse should be obvious to the most obtuse: How do you know who voted it? How can someone in an abusive situation vote without oppression/override by someone else? How do you police that the ballots actually got delivered (someone was recently caught dumping piles of them) or that once picked up they’ll be counted? You’re not there to ensure it’s put in, and that another ballot isn’t substituted. Yes, there is email notification. Sometimes. My vote in 2020 never arrived. Mysteriously. It also lacked the privacy sleeve. Mysteriously. And this is before ballots taken from the trash and voted. Ballots mailed to office buildings and voted in industrial quantities. Etc, ad nauseum. (Well, I’m nauseated.)

Curiously, no state with universal vote by mail is uniformly republican (though the switch is sometimes relatively slow.) The left sells this as being a cheaper system, which has the advantage of chutzpah, because it must be the only instance of fiscal conservatism from them.

Eleventh: Dominion Machines.

Who have the arrant nerve of threatening any American citizen talking about their being insecure. Bite me.

They are a shady company that sold itself to various legislations, again, because easy and simple. Rumor has it they were created to fraud elections in Venezuela.

Whatever they were created for, if you follow that link, they are like rapid-intervention fraud, in case all other fraud fails.

There is no excuse for using these things to vote. And no one would. In good faith. The company’s lack of good faith is obvious in threatening to sue people. That is not how a reputable company goes about instilling confidence in its operations. It’s a mob tactic (Except dumber. My apologies therefore to any mobster reading this).

Twelfth: The new shiny this year! Foreigners ABROAD can register without showing proof of American Citizenship.

No. Really. I swear I’m not making this up.

Coincidentally (!) the left is saying our election this year might hinge on overseas votes. Sleep tight.

Thirteenth: Rapid distribution of illegal immigrants, primed to vote without even being legal in various Republican counties/areas.

Given how lax our registration to vote is, yes they are. Besides we know they have been given instructions at the border. And there’s plenty of instances.

Again, sleep tight, and you know how hard the left is fighting for open borders. Do you think it’s for nothing?

A plethora of links I didn’t include above:

https://ericrasmusen.substack.com/p/cheating-with-absentee-ballots

https://ericrasmusen.substack.com/p/329614-election-crimes-were-detected

https://nypost.com/2024/10/25/us-news/swing-state-county-reports-thousands-of-suspected-fraudulent-voter-registration-forms/

https://hosted.ap.org/theunion/article/5f4296fe3f6900c8a173f83181287413/12-colorado-mail-ballots-were-stolen-and-filled-out-3-them

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/10/22/texas-voter-verification-lawsuit-paxton/

https://twitchy.com/samj/2024/10/22/georgia-interference-sos-n2402578

But Sarah, you’ll say, just because there are all those chances for fraud, why do you think it’s happening? Or that all of them are being used?

Well, partly because the left fights like cornered cats when you try to take a single one away. This both tells you how few real voters they have — they need all the fraud — and that they’re making use of every instance of allowable fraud.

Partly because the US isn’t Portugal. We’re not a little country, known only for cork, wine and cream pastries. And even then, elections would get massively frauded in Portugal with this much room for fraud, because there’s always someone who wants to corner the market on cork, wine and cream pastries.

But the US controls the world’s only creditable military force (Except perhaps the IDF) and has enough money even if funny to sink or elevate entire economies. Every dodgy regime and every one of our world rivals wants a say in our governance.

And all of those Marxist horrors are getting it too, because we allow it. And that’s all that’s needed.

This discounts how awful the news are abroad. They make our news seem right wing and fair. And therefore how many well meaning people abroad might think they’re doing a good deed in saving us from “fascism.”

If three ballots were voted fraudulently in Colorado, thousands were. I bet you. And there’s nothing to prevent it.

Now, why I think the fraud is at that level?

It’s hard to tell, and in fact the range I’m giving is huge, from a quarter to really close to a half of total votes being fraudulent.

The thing is, the more the mass media loses its grip — and the fact they’re losing their grip is itself proof since the left still trusts them — the more it becomes obvious the majority — vast majority — of people are not WITH the left.

From “Let’s go Brandon” going viral, to the various buy and boycotts on the right, it’s becoming obvious that the left like the old USSR is a paper tiger.

They can only keep a pretense of being a majority by controlling the press/arts/teaching/all communication. Hence their new found lust for censorship.

This is not a sign of a majority or winning ideology. It’s the sign of a desperate clique fighting to keep control over a vast, restive population.

Oh, yeah, and they manage to fail, even with everything above. See, 2016 and the frantic panicky last minute cheating in 2020. Because they are a rump minority.

So, you ask, why bother voting? And what reason is there to vote?

First, vote because if you don’t their cheating looks more plausible than ever.

Second, vote because the majority of people — rightly — aren’t ready to reach for the last box.

Third, vote because this is the MOST INCOMPETENT “elite” ever to fraudulently seize control of a country. Yes, that means they’ve ruined us sometimes not even on purpose. But it also means all their schemes seem to bite them in the ass. Somehow. So stake in your vote to have a chance it will bite them in the ass again.

Fourth, there is always the chance, if everyone votes, they’ll be forced to invent a completely improbable number of votes for Kamala. I jokingly say 400 million votes but honestly 150 million votes would suffice and be enough.

Fifth, those who tell you not to bother voting and try to shame you out of voting are clearly and transparently glowies and agents provocateurs, sometimes to a ridiculous degree.

NOW SPIT OUT THE BLACK PILL.

There are reasons to vote and hope.

First, the left is acting like they’re not sure of winning at all.

Now, yes, a lot of this can be their paranoia/guilty conscience. In fact probably a lot of it. There is a reason they had national guard units and barricades around DC. Also after 2016 they are afraid that Donald Trump has some kind of magical abilities to beat their fraud.

Yeah, I hear you, but still. Look, they’re crazy and occasionally dumb, but not intrinsically stupid. If they’re panicking there are reasons.

Second, they are more coherent and unified than us — because they’re creatures of the pack, which we ain’t — but they’re not widgets in a vast apparatus. There are cliques and subgroups. And right now some of their subgroups have had enough. Which might cause some interesting glitches in the fraud.

Third, Tulsi Gabbard is a consummate politician. She would not change registration ahead of the election if there were no hope/if there were certainty of retaliation.
The fact is all of them, including the old commie RFK and the new commie, his running mate, are behaving like they expect an extinction event that leaves the GOP the only party worth fighting for.

Fourth, take it for what it’s worth, but Trump has vowed to fight the fraud. I suspect he’s still too naive and by the book to really do so, but I’d also bet he’s less so than in 2020. So, there’s hope.

Fifth, There are levels of fraud no one will believe. And people are already antsy about it. Right now. And ANGRY. This is not 2020.

Sixth, Even if they win, they lose. No, seriously. The culture has been slipping through their fingers faster and faster. They can’t get it back unless they get total information control. And at this point that ain’t happening. It hasn’t happened in Brazil or China, and it won’t happen here.

Seventh, Lord defend us and protect us, we do have the fourth box. We’d rather not use it. We really would rather not use it. But we do have it.

Eighth, in the end we win they lose. We’re just trying and praying to keep the damage to innocents to a minimum. May the Author be with us.

Now stop listening to this mad woman and go make your preparations. Because win or lose, the next three months are going to be a stone cold bitch.

Go.

Imagine I’m talking about someone you don’t know. And I say “So and so is dumber than a doorpost.” Supposing you trust my opinion, what would you think? That the person I’m talking about is dumber than a doorpost, of course. If you don’t trust my opinion, you might just go “Oh, there Sarah goes again.”

On the other hand, replay the same scene, but I say “She’s dumber than a doorpost” or “[Ethnic sounding name] is dumber than a doorpost.”

Do you immediately jump to “You’re sexist/racist”? If so, congratulations. You found the racist. Let me just get you in front of a mirror.

Because there is nothing in being a woman/able to tan that protects you from being dumber than a doorpost. People who can tan, and yes, women too are HUMAN. That means that they partake the general panoply of human traits. There are geniuses and morons, saints and demons, hard workers and layabouts, and mostly — most of them — are just “blah normal.”

If minorities and women are fully human, then being able to criticize any individual with those characteristics should be a thing, without anyone suspecting you of being racist/sexist.

If on the other hand you are sure that all minorities and women are stupid/inferior, then bringing up that this one is stupid/inferior IS, definitionally, racism/sexism.

The problem isn’t that the left is racist and sexist. They are. The problem is that they don’t know they are, and that they got there through a truly bizarre circuitous route.

Part of it is thinking of humans as widgets that all fit in a large group definition. That’s a Marxist thing, though Marx applied it mostly to classes. But still, it’s part of the system, and Gramsci expanded it to races. Also the fact that Marx created a dualist system worsens it. To be a victim, there must be an oppressor. (To realize how wrong this is, consider most of human history. Everyone was victimized by circumstances. No oppressor needed.) If someone is oppressed they’re inherently virtuous and will triumph in the end. And here we are. Because the only true values are oppressed/oppressor, people can’t really have independent characteristics. And if you call someone something, you are, of course, insulting the whole group. Therefore you’re an oppressor and they’re victims.

But it gets worse.

You see, they no longer can tell who is smart and who is dumb. Part of this is the capture of the educational and cultural institutions by leftists, and the bizarre association of “Smart” with “Spouts leftism.” I mean, there is an overlap of “High IQ” and “Leftist” because of course high IQ people tend to do well at education — it’s one thing IQ tests measure — and education has become leftist indoctrination. This correlation has been interpreted as causation by other leftists. Therefore they’ve decided High IQ=leftism. And therefore leftism=high IQ. (They are also blind to how many High IQ people are submerged and hiding their opinions due to fear for career/family/future. You know, it’s amazing they can simultaneously cancel everyone of a different opinion and not realize silence is not consent.)

If you think that, or the reverse for that matter, is true, you have blinded yourself to signs of true intelligence/stupidity.

While I don’t think highly of Obama — due to his unscripted performance — I don’t think Gavin Newsom is in any way stupid. While Joe Biden is too dumb to pour piss out of a boot with the instructions written on the sole, Bill Clinton is fairly brilliant (had to be to keep his sex-bunny eruptions silent so long.) And before age and drink took their toll, her Shrillness, Hillary and her Evilness Nancy Grey Goose Pelosi were nobody’s fool. Jean Francois Kerry OTOH is dumber than a trepanned fish. And on our side… Guys, I think most of Pierre Delecto’s brilliance is in his hair. McCain had the perpetually enraged look someone who feels the joke is whizzing by over his head. W… well, I’m not sure he’s on our side, but he’s not stupid. His inarticulateness is that of smart but not word-oriented people. The least said about Mitch McConnel the best. The brilliant people are rare, and two of them on the right right now are black: Thomas Sowell, and Clarence Thomas. I also happen to think that if our first black president had been Ben Carson it would have settled a lot of racist assumptions forever. While Obama…. well.

I can tell this, because what I look for to determine “At least normal intelligence” is “Can complete an understandable sentence that doesn’t wander off into nowhere or contradict itself.” (And let’s pause for the left’s insulting assumption that Kamala’s vocabulary is too elevated for us. Bitch, I could tie her up in sesquipedalian brilliance from here to next Wednesday and leave her in my dust. She’s not simply verbose, she’s incoherent.)

I can tell if someone on the other side is of superior intelligence because they defend their — fairly indefensible — beliefs in a manner that leads me to pause and think through the arguments, instead of rolling my eyes so hard they fall off their sockets.

The left on the other hand, by and large, can no longer do this. For everything from intelligence to artistic brilliance, they look first to “Are the opinions expressed correct to today’s received wisdom from above.” And if they are, they are — or course — very smart or worthy of accolades. (As we saw with the super genius who disparaged my work because it doesn’t espouse “correct” beliefs.)

This has caused them to become mired in stultified blindness across the board. If you can’t question received wisdom, you’re not going to realize something you’re advocating has not only been tried, but also failed spectacularly. And if you use mindless “correct” repetition to signify art and innovation, your products are going to be so boring you can replace sleeping pills with your latest offerings.

It has also caused them to become unwitting racists. (Or perhaps witting. For some of them.) If someone who happens to tan (or be a woman) is accused of stupidity they first check that the utterances are correct to today’s received wisdom. If so, they assume he/she/it is of course brilliant.

Therefore the only reason to accuse such a person of stupidity must be that the person doing the accusation is an oppressor, and therefore racissss, sexissss and probably homophobic too. (Dear leftists, for a stretch goal I challenge you to come up with something that ends in isssss that means not liking homosexuals. Then we can cast you as snakes in the animated version of this period’s history which our great grand kids will doubtlessly be creating. Okay, so this might be the illness speaking, but come on, it will be adorable, in a slightly repulsive way!)

The accusations have been overused and if they haven’t yet lost all their power are vanishingly close to doing so.

But getting rid of it would require the actual racists and sexists to undergo a complete epistemological revolution.

On the good side, if they manage it, they will be able to field better candidates. On the bad side, doing it might be equivalent to growing back eyes you’ve plucked out.

Book Promo

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. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.– SAH

FROM PATRICK SEAMAN AND BLAKE SEAMAN: Accipiter War: Fort Brazos: Book One.

In a heartbeat, the world changed forever. Thousands dead in an instant. A city and military base torn from Earth and transported to an alien realm. And the survivors left asking one question: why?

Welcome to the world of Accipiter War, where the city of Fort Brazos, Texas and the Joint Reserve Base find themselves ripped from their homeland and dropped into a strange, inside-out planet. Faced with staggering loss and an uncertain future, the community must band together under the leadership of newly-elected President John Austin and Vice President Gail Finley to confront the dangers of their new reality.

But as they grapple with the aftermath of what some are calling the Awakening Day Culling, a new threat emerges. Nightmare creatures, impervious to bullets, begin to stalk the survivors. And the mysterious alien Spire in the town square comes to life, presenting a chilling message: humanity has been chosen to fight a war against the Accipiters, the merciless destroyers of worlds.

FROM MARK S. EHRLICH: Float the Boat

It’s December 2017 and consultant Nick Harmon is screwed. When he finds his ex-flame murdered the night before a reunion, police suspect he’s the long-hibernating Surf Club Killer. Nick has his own theory too: that Adnan Sulaiman, the event’s guest-of-honor, copycat-killed her. Backing it up only sinks him deeper into suspicion. But Nick’s unconcerned. Even if he cuts his own throat, he’s going to make Sulaiman pay.

Adnan Sulaiman’s latest deal will make real estate history. But the Indonesian billionaire now stands accused of murder. Not by DC police, by a dead woman he never met and a cabal of media loudmouths. The bad news goes global fast. One partner bails, others waiver, and protesters mass at headquarters. He’s in the fight of his life and won’t back down.

Detective Steve Caine designates Nick the key suspect and Sulaiman a longshot. But is either man the elusive serial killer? Troubling inconsistencies mount, and unanswered questions dog him. Then a reporter breaks news about crucial evidence. One murderer or two? And if the Surf Club Killer’s in town, when will he carve another wave?

FROM DALE COZORT: Snapshot: Book 1 of the Snapshot Universe

For eighty million years, the Tourists have taken Snapshots of Earth, creating living replicas of continents. Life in the Snapshots quickly diverges from the real world, creating a universe where humans and animals from Earth’s history fly between Snapshots, exploring, fighting, and sometimes meeting themselves.

In 2014, the Tourists’ newest Snapshot catches Middle East Analyst Greg Dunne rushing toward Hawaii to join his wife, who just went into labor. The new Snapshot doesn’t include Hawaii, cutting Greg off from everyone he loves.

Greg is thrust into the aftermath of a hidden, decades-old massacre, where Germans from a pre-World War II European Snapshot battle ranchers from a Korean War-era U.S. Snapshot,a fun house mirror version of the US cut off from the world since 1953.No Beatles. No Internet. No Personal Computers. No cell phones. No Vietnam War.But an endless new frontier.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Detritus

Nick Bryant was a junkie. Lived on the streets, and everything. And then, he saved a baby girl from drowning, and fell into the role of protector. As he, the baby, and her older brother get to know one another, he decides that maybe, there’s more left to him than the drugs, and decides to try to live again. And maybe build a family.

FROM MARY CATELLI: The Princess Goes Into The Forest

Act with care. . . .

In the home of a wealthy but vanished family, four young people, inventorying the household, find the props for the family’s amateur theaterics. But a few minutes of donning them to play at roles has consequences that none of them could have guessed. One plays a subtle courtier, one a brave swordsman, one a powerful enchantress. . . and one takes up the role of a princess, and goes into a forest.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Spiral Horn, Spiral Tusk

A unicorn’s horn for the king, a medal for the admiral — but what for the lass who makes it possible?

Rissa possesses the dolphin-singer gift, which saved her life when the thief-taker found her. If she can guide the fleet to the white whale with the spiral tusk, she might win back her freedom.

But first she must return to land — and the sea has become angry at her betrayal…

A short story of the Ixilon universe

Originally published in Beyond the Last Star: Stories from the Next Beginning, edited by Sherwood Smith.

FROM BLAKE SMITH: The First Adventure of Sir Garamond de Crecy

Sir Garamond- Gerry, to his friends- has been knighted for less than a month, and he’s already found his first great quest: saving the beautiful and helpless Princess Alyssia of Ollandra from the dragon that is holding her in dreadful captivity. Or so he thinks…
A lighthearted short story.

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.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: WAX

On the bad side I have got markedly worse the last two days, and there’s a suspicion…. Okay, Dan thinks it sounds like I have pneumonia. Which he has reason to know because it wouldn’t be the first time. Again, the threat of dragging my butt to the doctor if this doesn’t improve. So, I hope it improves and will rest and such (Such as consume mass quantities of lemon tea and try to breathe very deeply), but I’m frustrated, as I intended to CLEAN today and the state of the house is making me sweat.

On the good –? — side, people on Twitter have been exceptionally stupid in ways that are so stupid they’re almost amusing. Or perhaps I just feel they’re amusing because my brain is starved for oxygen. Could be either.

We’ll gloss over the first super-genius, because I’m not convinced he wasn’t an AI or someone following a script. He did his best — after disparaging Elon’s mind, and my saying he mustn’t know many smart people — to get me to brag about my IQ and when I didn’t do that (my opinions of IQ as a measurement are well known. It measures something. I’m just not sure it’s what most people think it is) he proceeded as though I had. It ended with him declaring me a very bad writer because I’m not Ursula LeGuin (Those of you who know she tempted me into writing initially because she p*ssed me off so badly, and who have been following my most recent attempt at the book that engendered can feel free to laugh into your sleeves) and finished (!) by declaring my books the moral equivalent of Pinochet. (!)

We’ll gloss over it, because it’s like trying to argue with Kamala’s word salads, where none of it means what he thinks she means. I mean…. seriously? The only way to interpret that nonsense is to assume to him the definition of good literature is what promotes ideas he agrees with. And while that seems to be the left’s definition of “good literature” most of them are too smart to say it out loud. Or, once having said it out loud, realize they’re not painting themselves in the best color.

Since part of his script(?) included calling me meek and polite or something like that, then answering my tweet laughing about this (come on guys. Meek. Me.) by saying geniuses didn’t get bent out of shape (note I never claimed to be a genius) I’m going with the assumption he’s an AI script. Even the fifty cent army, following a script, is better than that at arguing.

So we’ll gloss over him, though he was, it turns out, an harbinger of things to come. At least yesterday I got a Super Genius claiming they could and WOULD ban private automobiles. (And I presume all internal combustion engine.)

I haven’t gone back, partly due to a friend visiting to condole on Valeria, partly due to the fact that attempting to cough out a lung is taking pretty much all my remaining energy. But–

His comment was in my making fun of someone saying while they realized that banning private transportation wouldn’t work with far flung people, people should be encouraged and given subsidies to move nearer other people.

My answer to his boastful nonsense was to point out that he would be dead. Then I realized he might think I was threatening him, rather than predicting consequences, so I pointed out he didn’t know where food came from.

Okay, I do get that transport trucks are not always private, but let’s work through this, okay?

I once lived in a tiny country — it’s amazing how small it is now that it has a highway system — where almost no one had a private car. I mean, there were still tons of them, but it was perhaps one per hundred people. And many/most of those were company cars.

On top of which the country was developed on a medieval plant, restricted by ox cart and carriage, meaning that population density was already, to begin with, much higher than the US, even the US East, and that population was distributed in concentrations roughly equivalent to a day travel on foot or less all along major routes.

I don’t know if I’m making any sense. Look, oxygen. But like this: the American West is dotted with little population groups (villages/towns) about 30 minutes away from each other by train, because of when it was settled. Nowadays that’s about 15? 20? minutes drive. Most of the tiny towns are dying or have died, which makes this harder to see, but it can still be gleaned.

In Europe, particularly in Portugal because it’s a seaside country and has a desirable climate (probably. I found it a bit wet, but…) it’s very densely populated, and about maybe five miles between population centers, large or small. The smaller population centers cluster around larger towns, and therefore there is a movement of live-in-the-periphery work-in-town that’s predictable and capable of being accommodated by public transport.

Even so, even with all the advantages of geography, people still needed to live far away, and those people needed private transport, even when I was little. You could sort of make do with long range public transport, but it was not easy.

To explain: most people who worked the land still had to live in fairly isolated locations, because they needed room to grow food in, (even though Portugal is so ridiculously fertile an acre MIGHT feed a family.) And they needed to come to town for supplies/seeds/ etc, not necessarily in a schedule cogent with public transport. And also well, have you ever taken a cow to the vet in public transport? The mind boggles. Okay, the vet could come to you, but if he’s dealing with rare public transport to isolated places…. your cow will die.

This is in a tiny country.

The US is not a tiny country. And again, I get the feeling of arguing with people who either aren’t American or who live in such large enclaves that they have no idea what the rest of America is like. Or, more probably, who want reality to conform to their mental maps. Which are drawn in crayon, and possibly the contents of their diapers.

There is no way in something the size of America that you can maintain population, even a tenth the population, if you forbid private transport. There will not be the ability to live remote to grow food. And unless people are now like angels, and don’t need to eat, that won’t work.

I mean, guys, I know you can live in places like NYC without a car. In fact, a privately owned car might be an hindrance, though people still have them from when they need to live. But from my reading (I’ve never lived there) that also restricts you. If my reading is correct, each neighborhood is almost a city in itself, experience wise, and you rarely venture out of it. Okay, you don’t need to. You have everything right there. But the everything you have depends on people who live remote to very remote, and need private cars, because their lives don’t move at the rhythm of public transport. And because public transport is hard to organize for remote and dispersed population.

I mean, they can ban privately owned vehicles. Of course they can. But at that point they are running straight into “never give an order you know won’t be obeyed.” Because even tiny Sri-Lanka rebelled after its rulers attempted to starve it with dictatorial mandates.

And sure, they can ban things on the sly by making gas super-expensive banning sales and new cars and…. If you assume Americans are less inventive than Cubans who have managed without new parts for over fifty years and still have functioning cars. And if you assume that within a month there wouldn’t be homemade cars made of plywood and living room sofas running on used fry oil. These are things I don’t advise to assume. Not if you put Americans in a place where it’s “Be inventive” or “die.” I mean, if you’re going to have to break the law to drive a car, might as well break it and build your own cheaper one.

And yes, I do realize this puerile “Super genius” would tell me that reducing population is the point of it. Somehow these idiots never realize THEY are the population they want to reduce. They always think their non-existent massive brains would rescue them from doom. Somehow. They’re too valuable to the state, I think is their idea. That they might be most valuable as compost is not something they contemplate. Which…. is the limitation of their brains.

Ultimately perhaps I shouldn’t be too upset at the poor idiots. The left is at war with reality. Why wouldn’t its indoctrinated cannon fodder think it’s a just war?

And now I’m going to take a nap. Which is more productive than trying to figure out what’s in these morons’ heads, right?

There might be doctor later, when husband comes down from the office. I hope not, but there might be.

I’ll just make lemon tea in the meantime.

I thought she was seventeen, but checking the blog, she was only 15. I do have pictures of her as an adult, but they’re hard to find, and harder to tell apart from other two voids, now also departed.

Above, she was only three weeks old, and just recovering from the massive eye infection that caused her mom to bring her to the humans, and ended up with us bottle raising her.

Dan was always her favorite person in the world.

We unfortunately gave her to someone totally unworthy, but she came back to us in 2018 and lived with us till today.

She has been losing weight, but I thought it was her not eating while daddy was gone, but today she was hiding and visibly panting. I made an appointment, thinking they could give her pain meds, and she’d be fine.

But her heart was… funny, and the doctor said if we were going to try to save her she’d have to go into the emergency vet, and she expected her to die overnight anyway.

With broken hearts, we chose to let her go.

Yes, she could be feisty. And she was not a cat person. She loved humans and was very sweet to us, but she hated all cats. You see, she was raised by humans from her earliest memories.

I hope ever after, if we’re worthy, she’ll be there waiting for us.

I feel bereft and numb, and a little aching. I hope Havey stays with us through the end of the year. I’m not ready for another loss.

Let There Be Candle Light By Orvan Ox

After the last post about the simpler (no pressure or mantle) kerosene lamps and lanterns, someone suggested a post about candles. This seems a bit strange, at least initially. Candles are rather simple things and who has not used one or at least seen one used even if merely for a few moments atop a cake? And yet… there are various sorts of candles, some better for light and some better for heat, as well as various holders and lanterns. And even so, while the modern era might go on about lumens for brightness, it’s candlepower that seems more readily understandable.

There are certainly many sorts of candles, but for “grid down” the purpose is light, heat, or both. It’s not about ambiance, entertainment, or who knows what else. This constrains things. The “birthday candle” doesn’t last long enough to be practical. The scented candles might be alright now and then, for some, but for any duration they can get overpowering. The big pillar candles might be alright for a while, but are subject to having the outside become a light-filtering wall as the center burns down. If they have multiple wicks, though, this might be mitigated and allow for a bit more light.

What it comes down to, at least for me, is unscented tapers, thinner pillars, and tea light candles. The tapers fit into various candle holders and even candelabras and, like the thinner pillars, are for providing light. Tea lights are made to keep things warm, and some can last several hours. Tea lights do provide some light and there are camping lanterns that use such. These are rather small and so the wall of the thing is close to the flame, thus it gets quite hot.

A few examples:

First, the tapers. A nice looking candelabra, with five candles so plenty of candlelight. And in the back a very simple candle holder. These are both “set it place and leave it alone” sorts of things. Moving them means the liquid wax at the top of the burning candle is apt to spill… possibly onto you. For paraffin and soy waxes this is annoying enough. Beeswax has a higher melting point/range and burns are all too likely. The ancient looking holder with the finger ring lets one carry the candle and any wax spills are caught by the brass, not the hand or arm.

The pillar in front is another simple holder, meant to be left where it was set and lit. The pillar contained all in glass can be readily moved around, just only grip well under the flame. The candle with the glass envelope does flicker some, but surprising little much of the time. It also seems to last quite a long time.

A couple candle lanterns. The one with the glass chimney is nice, but the lack of air intake (as manufactured) other than via the top of the chimney means it flickers quite bit. That’s unmodified. It was not unusual for a person to (with chimney removed!) poke a few nail holes in the base to let air in. One could also drill holes, of course. The other is a sort of “flashlight” and with the design of the handle, it can be hung on a nail or such. That’s a nice, fancy(-ish) thing made to look fairly nice. A larger soup can and some time with a metal snips and a bit of work to deal with sharp edges and it might not look as nice, but would also serve.

A tea light lantern. It’s not super bright (what candle is?) but there is some light.

But where the tea light really does well, is to provide heat, even if not very much. But if one provides some heat, more than one can provide more heat. An ideal heat source? Not really. Right, proper heaters certainly do better. But in a pinch something like this “dubious slapdash heater” might be enough to keep a small room if not comfortable at least tolerable.

This is a 5 by by grid of tea lights on an old cookie sheet, with a ‘cooling rack’ holding up a copper plate and a heat-powered fan to spread the heat around the room. The copper plate is admittedly expensive (fancy thing for using cast iron on a glass top range without worrying much about it) but aluminum is also a good thermal conductor – if it was not, why are most heat sinks aluminum?

There are some specialty tools for dealing with candles, which are not really necessary, but I’ll be complete and mention them. There is a wick adjuster, a wick trimmer, and a snuffer.

The wick adjuster might seem to be something to keep a wick straight up, but that can be the wrong thing to do. A taller flame is a brighter flame, true. A too tall flame is a sooting flame, however. Self-trimming candles have wicks that curl some and thus the end of the wick is burned away. If the candle is not self-trimming, adjusting the wick to have it burn off might be called for.

The trimmer is a fancy scissors that can catch the trimmed wick. Trimming is done before the candle is lit (or after it is extinguished). The wick should start about ¼ inch high.

And the snuffer is just that. A little bell to cover the flame and snuff it out. This has the advantage of not getting burnt fingers from pinching out the flame, or possibly spattering wax from blowing out the flame.

If you really to delve into things candle, there are plenty of texts on how to make your own or how they are made. For “what’s going on” there is The Chemical History of A Candle by Michael Faraday. You can find that on Project Gutenberg.

Once more, with feeling, I’m going to be the voice that cries in the desert. It’s not that anyone listens, but I have to try. And hey, if you can, spread the word. I don’t know if these help, but it’s logical and they can’t hurt.

Unless you’re in an all vote by fraud… er mail state DO NOT VOTE EARLY. Look, voting early just tells them how many votes they need to fake. The only way we can win against the fraud is with a total suckerpunch.

So, unless you’re in an all vote by mail state, vote as late as possible. And if you’re in an all vote by mail state, if they have a place you can come to vote if you spoil your ballot do so, and vote at the last minute. The later the better.

Vote as late as you can get away with. Take friends with you to vote as late as possible.

AND DO NOT — REPEAT — do no use the machines. If there’s an option for getting the paper ballot and fill it, do so, even if the line is ten times as long.

At this point we know, and there was an article on this site about it, that AT BEST Dominion machines are massively insecure. At worst, well…. They were created to help a Venezuelan tyrant win. You fill in the blanks.

So, again from the top: vote as late as you can get away with. Vote on paper.

Until we can get the whole thing reformed, that’s the best we can do.

And hey, even if they fraud themselves in, let’s make them spin up 400 million votes for Commie LaWhorish. Then everyone will know! It’s a goal.

Come on, 400 million!

When I was in Europe, whether visiting in Portugal or in brief airport sojourns in Madrid and Amsterdam I kept running into weird things coming off the TV. No, seriously.

“The government must provide more affordable housing.” “We demand the government create more pre-school slots.” “Government must provide more transportation.” “Government needs to create more child care.”

Look, it was so pervasive that I heard it twice at least per airport, though I only stayed there a couple of hours.

And it hit me wrong.

I’m not going to say that we don’t have our idiots claiming that “Government must provide” fill in the blank. I’m sure we’d find tons of them in deep blue areas, and they practically jump in front of the mic at Democrat conventions.

But the truth is that it’s not universal here. And in general, it’s understood that government doesn’t “create” things or “give” you things. At some level, in our back brains, we know it’s a matter of the government “allowing” i.e. getting the heck out of the way and letting things happen.

Most of the things we really desperately want government to “provide” are things that they should and we’re entitled to from them: border security. National defense. Answers.

But in Europe the phrasing wasn’t even questioned. And I’ve seen the same from Australian posters on Twittex.

It makes me wonder, it does. Do they think government is going to be out there with trowel and bricks building houses? If not, where do they think it comes from?

It’s like Commie La Whorish wanting to give every black man a 20k non-payable-back loan. Where does she think money comes from? Oh, yeah, sure, print it. But when you print it, since it’s a symbol of value, not value itself, it just devalues the other symbols out there. So in the end, it comes from all our pockets, including those of black men. And it will buy less and less the more you print.

Every time I heard “Government must provide” and what followed was not “Evidence they’re not a criminal conspiracy against their own people” my hackles rose, and I started talking back to the TV in a couple of languages. For some reason this performance amused my dad, though I’m not sure he understood what the objection was.

You see, they have become convinced that the government giveth, the government taketh away, blessed be the name of the government. And at this point what they expect the government to do is the equivalent of expecting vampires to produce living children.

I’m not saying we don’t have trouble right here. And if we manage to thread this needle and get ourselves out of this pinch, it will be proof certain that G-d looks after fools, drunkards and the united states of America.

But I hate to say this, in the fight against globalist technocracy, Europe’s feet are in a cement bucket. It is impossible to fight against intrusive, all controlling government when you think government is the engine of the economy.

In this global fight, our allies are more than a little brain damaged. Yep. I’m very afraid it is up to us again to once more get the chestnuts out of the fire.

Build under, build over, build around. Show the world there is another way. Because when the increasingly incompetent kakistocracy collapases, the world will be in dire trouble.

And we’re the only ones not waiting on directions from above.