Author: Sarah A. Hoyt

The Science is Unsettled by Torpenhow-Hill

There is an uproar in the science community at the moment over the budget cuts that President Trump is proposing.  Apparently all the colleges will be closing and people will die.  How bad is it?  A bit of AI fu (because I refuse to dirty my internet with MSNBC or that ilk) finds:

            “President Donald Trump has proposed significant cuts to federal research spending for the 2026 fiscal year, which begins on October 1. The proposed budget calls for a 37% reduction in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and more than 50% for the National Science Foundation (NSF), marking unprecedented reductions for these major science funders.

 Additionally, the budget seeks to eliminate most federal spending on climate and ecological research and would cut NASA’s science budget by more than half, potentially ending major planetary missions.

The Trump administration has also moved to cap indirect costs for NIH research grants at 15%, which would reduce billions of dollars in funding for critical research aimed at developing cures and treatments for diseases. This policy has been met with legal resistance, as Congress has included a provision in annual appropriations bills since 2018 explicitly prohibiting such changes.

 The administration’s broader efforts to slash science budgets have extended to other agencies, including the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which would see a 14% cut to its budget, reducing it to $7.1 billion.”

Thank you AI for doing my dirty work.  Let’s see, National Institute of Health just formally cut funding for gain of function research IE the research that brought us COVID so that will save us a dollar or two.  Furthermore, even though he’s got a golden parachute that’s the envy of wall street, we’re not paying Fauci millions a year so there is that.  And Robert Kennedy has said that he’s going through the department with an ax to eliminate redundant positions.  What the private sector calls deadwood. 

I had to look up the National Science foundation.  Well, nsf.gov tells me that they support 1,900 organizations and 350,000 + teachers, researchers and entrepreneurs across the country.  What the website doesn’t tell me is if there is any oversight or if any of those projects are meaningful, useful or replicable.  Nor are we told if the taxpayers would have voted for them if given a choice.  I’m going to take a wild guess.

The budget seeks to eliminate most federal spending on climate and ecological research.  I’m going to point and laugh and move on.  For the DOE I did a quick abstract search using Arizona as a keyword.  Enjoy the results. https://pamspublic.science.energy.gov/WebPAMSExternal/interface/awards/AwardSearchExternal.aspx.  Then tell me which of these you want your tax dollars to fund.

Last but not least, NASA.  Who does not remember the glory that once was NASA?   I watched Neil Armstrong take the first step on the moon.  But not only were they glorious, they were the only game in town.  By law.  Between 1958 when The National Aeronautics and Space Act created NASA and 1984 when the Commercial Space Act provided a medium for private entities to attempt space it was NASA or nothing.  And for those of us who remember the great Ma Bell days or the USPS or Public Education, well we’re a might bit skeptical about federal monopolies on – anything.  And the shuttle program (IMO and I’ll own it) didn’t get shut down because of the mistakes that were made.  The shuttle program got shut down because the government is by nature risk averse when it comes to public optics and human lives.  (Except for the military but that’s another post.)  So, while I sympathize deeply with the NASA people, they’re doing, not much by order of their bosses. 

Further            more we have problems.  Government spending on research drives out private spending. Not only does the government pull researchers from private industry, it then dictates what will be researched creating a monolithic worldview. The taxpayers have no choice as to whether or not they want to pay for the spending.  There is no oversight regarding the spending.  And we have a deficit the size of a hyperbolic stereotype.

There used to be private labs in industry, Bell, Westinghouse, and GE are the ones I know off the top of my head because I’m a tech.  Hospitals and colleges used to find funding from charities or businesses.  Even now, Saint Jude’s Childhood Cancer Center still pulls money from donations because societies tend to want to protect kids.  But providing tax breaks for research equipment got conflated by a specific subset of politicians with “loopholes, regressive tax policies, and corporate welfare” and not taxing capital expenditures for research became tax any capital equipment.  And the private labs became endangered species.  But the public pork kept rolling and became a secure source of funding.  All you had to do was-what you were told.  Awesome way to do science.  Much bold.  Very replicable.  Totes good for anything. OK not really. 

And oversight. Datarepublican could be working the rest of her natural life trying to find who is spending what on which programs and who ordered them.  They weren’t ordered by congress who are at least theoretically supposed to hold the purse strings.   And what science did we get?  Masks.  A vaccine that people are starting to sue for damages over.  In some cases successfully. Mutilated children.  And the deficit.  The interest on the deficit is larger than the budget for the armed forces.  And I’m over the tears and wailing.  We need to fix the spending and “science” especially what has been passing for it does not get an exemption.  I leave you with an NIH example from the Tweets:

We live in profoundly weird times, in case you haven’t yet looked out the window this morning.

And I don’t say this (only) because this post is coming to you as we careen through America’s big beautiful highways in excess of seventy miles per hour, with my laptop on my lap and my fingers making with the words as I look out at the unusually green Western US landscape.

I won’t be home for at least a week (what are we doing? We don’t know. We might be looking for a home, except for a reluctance to leave younger kid and DIL behind. But we miss Colorado terribly, and the Colorado we miss is no longer there, and sometimes we go poking around. Consider that — despite knowing the story behind it, yes — this is our song.) This has certain problems.

Mostly because when I’m traveling wars break out. Which is weird, but not as weird as the fact that this is inherited. My mom had the same problem.

I’m sorry. No. You can’t lock me in my house.

Anyway…. so, you know. Things will be interesting for AT LEAST a week.

Next as an exhibit of how weird this time is: When did “thank you for your attention to this matter” turn into another term for “FAFO?”

I was joking that this was like datarepublican’s ‘Hi, I’m datarepublican” when you’re talking sh*t on twitter (Everybody gangsta until they get the Hi, I’m Datarepublican) and it occurred to me…..

The problem — if it is a problem, not a bonus — is that this digital world of ours, this strange new world that is still being aborn and as all births seems to come with a lot of sh*t and blood, seems to be the ideal stomping grounds for our people.

Our people? Well, yes. People have taken to referring to it as autists and the way we operate as “the tisms.” I do it myself on occasion because I find it funny. Attending a graduation almost two weeks ago, in a field prejudiced FOR our people, I told the new graduate “it was a tisms parade, and you masked best of all.”

But it’s not. Or at least I don’t think it is, unless you widen it to the ridiculous point. I know most of our people — geeks, obsessives, ADD-compulsives — have bits that get called “on the spectrum.”

As my being an introvert was totally unknown to me until someone told me the real difference was that being out in public exhausted you, I never thought of myself as being “on the spectrum” or ADD. The ADD thing took effort, okay, because I’m so ADD that if I have to wait at a register more than five minutes, and I’m alone, I’ll forget I have a cart and wander off. (If I’m with Dan it just drives him nuts.)

Anyway, I realized maybe I wasn’t quite standard after dealing with quirks from my sons. Things like sensitivity to loud sounds/certain lights which affect younger son suddenly made me wonder if that’s why I spent all of fourth grade UNDER the desk, writing on the seat.

Other things, like the fact I can’t stand gravy or sauce. Any sauce. Mustard in small amounts is tolerated, but even salad dressing has to be on the side and the salad gets dipped in it, or I can’t stand it.

And yes, I eat anything not surrounded by bread (I’m okay with sandwiches) with fork and knife, because touching cooked meat is an unbearable sensation.

Anyway, I have issues calling it “autism” because the “on the spectrum” is so broad that the fringes don’t much resemble the other end.

There will eventually be another name for us: the people who understand text better than interactions, who are as likely to write long letters to people they share a house with as to talk to them; the people who learn how other people function like a rigorous discipline; and who manage, despite all the best efforts of our teachers and parents, and no matter how successful we are to do things in a way that normal people tilt their heads at and wonder where and how we got so weird.

Because of that, I call us Odds. We are ODD. We stick out Oddly. We come up with solutions that would never occur to anyone else.

We are Odd other ways, too. We acquire strange, often temporary obsessions and fall down rabbit holes no “normal” person would think of. Some of us are foremost experts in tiddlywinks. Others know every possible detail of imaginary spaceships in an imaginary world, better than the man who wrote them. And others turn these obsessions into professions.

But even those of us who pass — and like with being an extreme introvert, I “mask” passably well — do things sometimes that are so strange they either get us killed or become memes.

…. like finishing presidential announcements with “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

For various reasons, including technology, we’re in an age that is perfect for us. Let’s face it, most of the time in the past our kind didn’t even marry. Or if they did, they married perfectly normal people who, to be fair, probably knocked some of their sharp edges off. Now — looks at best beloved who is driving and making gestures as he listens to the first half of No Man’s Land read by AI. (And cackling when the AI for reasons inexplicable refers to Skip as Sheep. I checked. I never spelled it that way.) Now, we can marry our own kind. (This is either good or bad, people, we might speciate.)

And now, thanks to the net, and the ability to interact directly online our strange quirks can become memes instead of reviled.

Datarepublican, of course, has other issues which she overcomes with magnificent grace, and I’m so glad no one tried to eugenically cull her before birth or institutionalize her after, because she is needed and she was born for this time. She is magnificent and I’m in awe of her.

I’m only a little Odd. An Oddling. But an egg. But how can I cower when the president can close his presidential statements like a business letter? And when Datarepublican can collar liars with “Hi, this is datarepublican?”

I shall carry my Odd flag into this brave new world, and plant it where I think it needs to go.

In the future perhaps tyrants will cower and “Have a nice day” and armies will disband at “Anyone want some chocolate?” And perhaps “pull up your socks” will be the most motivational phrase ever.

Oddlings advance. Who’s with me?

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

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 MEL DUNAY: Wolf’s Trail (Hunter Healer King Book 1)

The name’s Chloe Fortebat, and I am in trouble. I left my father’s ranch on the plains to come to the Old World: a place of airships, steampower, and monsters nobody talks about. Now I’m dodging giant werewolves with fangs the size of my knife, and the hunters crazy enough to go after them. The most dangerous of these doesn’t look the part: a quiet, sharp-dressed medical man with a tired face….

My name is Dr. Maxim os Storm, and I hunt the beasts that haunt the night. The leader of this pack of werewolves has set his mark on Miss Fortebat, but this brave lady would rather fight him than let him make her his tool. As far as I am concerned, that makes her my ally. My only chance of curing her lies with an ancient machine, hidden by my people in the caves beneath Wolf Island. We must keep that artifact out of the werewolf’s grasp at all costs, for he would put it to a terrible use….

FROM ROY M. GRIFFIS: Holding the Line: Book One of The Long Watch

𝐆𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐮𝐩 𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝟏𝟖-𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫-𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐃𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐲 𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫.

His mother had died so long ago, he could barely remember her. Now he lives with his alcoholic janitor father in the basement of the 150-year-old New Territorial Military Institute. Growing up at the prestigious, low-profile military academy, Danny had watched as the Territorial discretely provided a college education for the sons and daughters of politicians and royal families across the world, as well as the children of the rich and dysfunctional.

Beginning his freshman year at the Territorial on a “child of an employee” scholarship, Danny has a simple plan: graduate, leave behind his widowed drunk of a dad, and get the hell out of Wyoming.

That was before his home exploded. Before he met the sickly, spooky Tatiana who could See. Before the whispers in the night.

And that was before things got really weird.

“𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐛𝐲 𝐑𝐨𝐲 𝐆𝐫𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝. 𝐈𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐚 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐧 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐚𝐭 𝐚 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐧𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐰𝐤𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐩. 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐰 𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥, 𝐚 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐮𝐭. 𝐈’𝐦 𝐞𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐥!”

“𝑨 𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒗𝒆𝒍𝒐𝒖𝒔 𝒎𝒊𝒙 𝒐𝒇 𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒖𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒆!”

“𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒊𝒅 𝒂𝒅𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒏 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑮𝒓𝒊𝒇𝒇𝒊𝒔’ 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒌 𝒉𝒖𝒎𝒐𝒓 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒃𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒌 𝒑𝒂𝒄𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝒂𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒂 𝒅𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒇𝒖𝒍 𝒓𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐 𝒊𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝒇𝒂𝒏𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔.”

FROM PAM UPHOFF: In Plain Sight (Chronicles of the Fall)

A short story taking place after the Fall

Bryanne Volkov is sixteen and moving from a small town to the capital of the Alliance, as her Grandfather is about to become the head of the entire Volkov Family. And her new home is not much like what she expected . . . the servants, odd, and an Executioner much too interested in the family.

FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN: Threads of Empire: Merchant and Empire Book Ten

“Return with coin or not at all!”

Dagnija Modrisdatter brought nothing but bad fortune to her family, or so they believed. When a merchant offered to hire her as spinster and weaver, her father sent her off.

Adrians Eckelbert searched for the master weaver who made ornate belts. He found her on a remote land-tongue, and brought her back to Rhonari.

Dagnija discovers a different world, one filled with possibilities she had never dared to even dream of. But she must learn to navigate the shoals of Rhonari, seat of the trade lords of the Northern Empire. Spinning comes easily to her hand. Speaking for herself and balancing trade law and family duty? Far harder.

FROM BLAKE SMITH: The Hartington Inheritance (The Hartington Series Book 1)

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.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Mesopredator Hustle

A dying star, and a station harvesting its planetary nebula for resources vital to a centuries-old war.

Amidst this beautiful but deadly stellar environment, a spy has infiltrated the star-lifting operations, creating “accidents” to take the lives of the crew. Can two troubleshooters from Engineering, one a human and the other a member of the feline Chongu, track down the killer when Security is certain the real problem is carelessness?

A short story of the Chongu Empire.

FROM MARY CATELLI: Curses And Wonders

A collection of tales of wonder and magic.

A prince sets out to win his way to the dragon’s lair.

A woman fights a curse on her lands.

A man returns to his castle, bringing a magical sword, and worse things.

And more tales.

Includes “Dragon Slayer”, “The Book of Bone”, “Mermaids’ Song”, “Witch-Prince Ways”, “Sword and Shadow”, “Eyes of the Sorceress”, “Fever and Snow” — and “The Emperor’s Clothes”, which is not sold separately.

FROM KAREN MYERS: The Chained Adept: A Lost Wizard’s Tale

MEET A POWERFUL WIZARD WITH UNANSWERED QUESTIONS–AND AN UNBREAKABLE CHAIN AROUND HER NECK.

Have you ever wondered how you might rise to a dangerous situation and become the hero that was needed?

The wizard Penrys has barely gained her footing in the country where she was found three years ago, chained around the neck and wiped of all knowledge. And now, an ill-planned experiment has sent her a quarter of the way around her world.

One magic working has called to another and landed Penrys in the middle of an ugly war between neighboring countries, half a world away.

No one has any reason to trust her amid rumors of wizards where they don’t belong. And she fears to let them know just what she can do — especially since she can’t explain herself to them and she doesn’t know everything about herself either.

Penrys has her own problems, and she doesn’t have any place in this conflict. But they need her, whether they realize it or not. And so she’s determined to try and lend a hand, if she can. Whatever it takes.

And once she discovers there’s another chained adept, even stronger than she is, she’s hooked. Friend or foe, she has questions for him — oh, yes, she does.

All she wants is a firm foundation for the rest of her life, with a side helping of retribution, and if she has to fix things along the way, well, so be it.

The Chained Adept is the first book of the series.

FROM SARAH A. HOYT: Odd Magics: Tales for the Lost

Odd Magics
This is a very strange collection of fairy tales, recast for modern life. In it the prize isn’t always to the fairest, the
magic is rarely to the strongest.
But lonely introverts do find love, women who never gave it a thought find themselves at the center of romance.
Doing what’s right will see you to the happily ever after.
And sometimes you have to kiss an accountant to find your prince.

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: NORMAL

It starts in the dark
As soon as night falls
One by one
Two by two
People say their final goodbyes
And depart to their cars
Leaving behind the knots of conversation
The groups of friends in
Convivial talk

It’s all “Yeah, work tomorrow”
And “Early flight.”
Or “Long drive.”

Groups close around their absence
The other members making the most
Of a final reminiscence
A last joke
A shared meal

Then in the night, while most sleep
One by one and two by two
With their bags
Their stachels
And that special picture they purchased
More leave.

There are spaces now in the parking garage
But they won’t be filled

In the morning
Vast colorful groups gather in the lobby
Last hugs
Last goodbyes
Luggage piled in carts
The hotel exhales them like a gasp of breath
Till there are only, mid-morning
A few trailing remainders

Leaving behind dark places
Where there were reunions
Echoing silences in spaces
Filled with light laughter
And the business of cleaning
And making it
As though we’d never been

And we go
Friends just now so close will return
To being far away
Uncertain flickers on a screen
Emails, comments, online chats

But we take with us
Like close held secrets
The certainty that
They live and breathe
And no matter how odd we feel
How little we fit in
With the world at large
We’re not one of a kind
And not alone

Promo Monday

I’ll be at the Kafe klatch, if you haven’t had a chance to catch up with me otherwise.

And since I don’t leave till Monday morning, feel free to let me know if you want to join the informal, unorganized, secondary Huns dinner to take place tomorrow night at City Cafe. I’ll be out of my con persona and probably very quiet, but it is what it is.

Anyway. It’s been a good con, but exhausting. Sorry if we ran away after my reading. There were a couple of you I wished to speak to, but we had a minor emergency.

I’ll try to be up early and moving around tomorrow.

Mostly just happy I have a blurb, and wanting to share. Also feeling guilty and stupid this isn’t out (or fully revised) yet.

Sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.

On a lost colony world, mad geneticists thought they could eliminate inequality by making everyone hermaphrodite. They were wrong. Catastrophically wrong.
Now technology indistinguishable from magic courses through the veins of the inhabitants, making their barbaric civilization survivable—and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Kayel Hayden, Viscount Webson—Star Empire envoy—has just crash-landed through a time-space rift into the middle of it all.
Dodging assassins and plummeting from high windows was just the beginning. With a desperate king and an archmagician as his only allies, Scipio must outrun death itself while battling beasts, traitors, and infiltrators bent on finishing what the founders started: total destruction.
Two worlds. One chance. No time to lose.

…. so that’s it. Meanwhile I’m moderating a panel on Space Opera tropes in less than half an hour. I’m in my room, getting some introversion time. Don’t know I’ll hit the parties tonight. Maybe one or two.

And you, what are you guys up to?

We’re currently at the Liberty con hotel, but we’re not out in public. You might have caught a glimpse of us running one way and then the other, as we brought stuff in, grabbed dinner, came back to the room.

But Sarah, you’ll say, what’s the point of being there and not there?

The thing is by the time we got in I was feeling extremely tired. To explain: at the doctor’s appointment, there was a discovery that I’m in fact still dragging the sinus infection I got 9 months ago.

This shouldn’t be contagious, because none of my family has caught it except Dan when we first returned and he got over it.

It seems to be some very strange combination of the bacteria and my auto-immune which gets spun up by them. This time I’m on a very strong anti-biotic (and other stuff) which knocks me out.

So if you’re here and you run into me tomorrow and I seem to be looking at you cross eyed, I’m probably not even seeing you, just trying to focus.

Anyway, I’m about to go to bed, and hopefully be rested enough to deal with life tomorrow.

I’m still working through the revision. I am hoping to finish it next week, but we’re going to be on the road a lot. Needs must.

On the bad news front: I don’t have the Indy stickers. And there is a story to this….

When I ordered the stickers, sticker mule replaced the shipping address with the card address. (Yes, I’m sure there was a check mark I missed.) This means the stickers of Indy and his multitool went to Vegas.

We had a few checks arrive at the same time, so we asked for both the checks and the box of stickers to be forwarded…. 3 weeks ago.

We got the checks deposited TWO weeks ago. The stickers?

Well, they went to North Dakota. No we have no idea why. From North Dakota, they went to Chicago.

They’ve been in our city now for THREE full days. The city only has — I think — three physical post offices. It’s been bouncing between them.

Until today we hoped they’d get there today and the house sitters could have them overnighted.

They didn’t get there today.

If a miracle occurs and it arrives tomorrow, we MIGHT be able to get them expedited. Maybe.

Sigh. I’m bummed because I’ve been dragging and that was the one thing I managed to do “in time” for the con.

Ah well.

See you guys tomorrow.

So, are the idiots on Twitter and elsewhere claiming that Iran is “just” Israel’s fight and that we shouldn’t be fighting Israel’s battles and blah blah blah idiots, evil, or simply Russian operatives?

Because at this point all the wounded bear can do to defend its client and proxy Iran is to try to undermine American effort.

I’m probably wasting effort preaching to the fish, but here goes:

You ignorant or malicious idiots, listen up: In Iran’s chants, Israel is the LITTLE Satan, we’re the BIG Satan. If those evil apocalyptic cultists ever get a nuke, Israel will get hit, yes, and it will be catastrophic for them, because they are so tiny. But so will we. It won’t destroy us. We’re a very large country. But it will give the people right now sponsoring and helping Iran — that good ol’ axis of evil, including Russia and China — an opportunity to recover. Both Russia and China are in deep, serious trouble. Getting us hurt would give them a chance to catch their breath and maybe survive.

For obvious reasons and not just because even if they will probably hit NYC or LA — and guys, I have close friends in both, and we have commenters here in both. Jokes aside about their being liberal cesspools — and even DC, we don’t want to lose American lives.

This is not “just” Israel’s fight. Even if it is also Israel’s fight. Frankly, if they weren’t also in danger, I’d say we were using them as our cat’s paw.

Not only has Iran been pursuing nukes and threatening us and Israel, Iran took hostages when I was in high school. That evil hell spawn Jimmy Carter LET THEM and was so thoroughly inept the crisis spread over 400 days, dealing a massive black eye to the US and making the USSR look super-powerful during the cold war.

And before you guys think that didn’t mean anything, that kind of posturing is what other countries looked at before either controlling their commie guerillas or not. They were always looking at who was the strong horse.

Jimmy Carter’s indecisive or complicit bullshit covered Africa in blood and shit and made a living hell of my teen years. It also removed the Shah who, yeah, wasn’t perfect — WHO THE FUCK IS PERFECT WHEN IT COMES TO GOVERNMENTS? — but for the region wasn’t bad and was in fact a client of the US. But oh, no, we had to be Simon pure and help remove him because he wasn’t perfect, and instead bring in the medieval horror of the Ayatollah, a tool of Russia aided and abetted by the French (France, WTF?) who has been a source of terror and war in the region since.

Iran has sponsored countless attacks on the US, it paid for 10/7 (and did the strategy, such as it was.) It’s a major sponsor of terror around the world. It’s in the pocket of Russia, just as it was in the pocket of the USSR and one of its minor functions is to raise the price of oil — Russia’s only asset — whenever Russia needs money.

And it keeps people in horrendous bondage.

And it’s trying to obtain nukes….

Which…. Well, you see, they have to kill every Jew and start Armagedon, so their 12th imam will come from the well and usher in paradise. No, stop. You’re going “Oh, that’s just their justification, they don’t really–“

No, yes, they really think this. These are people who think that Jews are shape changers, including changing into bugs. (I assure you that part of my genetic heritage has conferred such powers on me, or I’d be a lot of fleas, and so many people would be itching.) They believe the birds and some fish spy for Israel. They not only see Jews under every bed, they know Jews have laser eyes, or something.

Look, giving these evil medieval fuckers the power of the sun will be very very bad. And while it won’t bring their water-logged imam to the surface (bet you a dollar) it will change the world in a way none of us wants.

So, if we have to help Israel stomp Iran (further) into the stone age? It’s our war too. Might be more our war than theirs.

Anyone opposing it at this point is either a Russian lackey (Hi Tucker!), an idiot, or so blinded with anti-semitism they’re okay with the world being destroyed so long as Jews ALSO die.

And I’ve had enough. More than enough. I’ve had enough and to spare.

Iran has been at war with us for 46 years. (And for the ones without X)

My graduation song was “I Ran So Far Away” but we all really understood it to be “Iran so far away.” My comparative political theory teacher back in Stow Ohio, in 1981 had a doll of the Ayatollah and we solemnly hung it outside the window every morning. He kept the number of days our hostages had been prisoners on the black board. (I loved that man.)

This has been a very long war. They declared war on us, and we refused to fight because it meant a fight with the USSR. Well, the USSR is gone and Russia is very ill. We might never get a better time to cleanse the evil of the Mullahs from the world.

As always, the regime is not the people. We wish the best and strength and wisdom to the long-suffering people of Persia. Stay away from nuclear sites. And if you can, get the Mullahs yourselves, both for the satisfaction of the thing and because it will save everyone a lot of trouble.

THIS is our fight. I trust Trump to keep it as surgical as possible for us. BUT if it can’t be so kept, it is still necessary.

For the good of the United States of America. For the good of the people of the world, the Islamic state of Iran delenda est.

Aslan is on the move.

*Yes, I know this is late. Look, we’ve been driving all over creation — again — in a repeat of 2020, in fact. So I lost track of time. Though we did manage a deranged enough feat of driving to ALMOST have Father’s Day with both boys. (Though not together, because that would take a teleporter.) Anyway, it’s still good. – SAH.*

Father’s Day by the Baloonatic

My father is 87. He grew up on a small farm on an island in the Great Lakes. While all of his siblings went to university, he ended up dropping out of high school and helping his parents on the farm for several years until he was able to get a job in the nearest big city, working as an instrumentation technician for one of the big nickel mines. While his spelling may be atrocious, my Dad never lost his love for learning. He loved to learn how things worked, taught himself to do so many things, and has been an avid reader all of his life. When I had read all of the children’s books we owned and wasn’t able to get to the library, I would grab books from my Dad’s bookcases – anything from Zane Grey to Frederick Forsyth to classics like For Whom the Bell Tolls or All Quiet on the Western Front.

My Dad is still a hard worker. He did a lot of overtime at work, so he wasn’t home much, and when he was home, he was working on the garden, learning beekeeping or converting our former schoolhouse into a beautiful home – lowering the ceilings, creating a second floor, making it unrecognizable from when he purchased it. At 75, he was given an acre of the former family farmlands from his eldest brother and he built a two bedroom camp. Into his 80s he did the majority of the work himself, from shingling the roof, installing drywall to turning a pile of old ash logs into tongue and groove wood flooring that he finished and installed himself. He still has bees and a garden that is bigger than he needs so that he can share his bounty with others. And when he’s not working on his own projects, he is still out helping other people whenever he can.

And yet, as hard as he worked and still works, my Dad also taught me that work wasn’t everything in life. He has many hobbies, and loves picking up new ones. He is a wonderful amateur photographer, and took the wedding photos for many of my cousins. He still has a darkroom, even if it hasn’t seen much recent use with the onset of digital photography as he moved from film cameras to digital cameras, phones and tablets. He was an early adopter with computers, getting us a Vic 20 in 1983, followed by a Commodore 64 and on to newer computers and all of the gadgets that go with them. When he had a back injury in the mid 80s that led to a long period of bed rest, he finished a bunch of latch hook rug kits that had been bought for my siblings and I, because he couldn’t just lie there doing nothing. In later years, I taught him to cross-stitch, and he delighted in making pictures for each of his grandchildren. Now he makes wooden toys – cranes and trucks and trailers, hand made with exquisite details.

He also spent time with us children whenever he could. He instilled in us a love of cards and board games. He took us on road trips, visiting family and friends, and camping almost every summer. He made sure we grew up with pets – dogs, and cats and chickens, and instilled in us a love of nature and growing things and the outdoors. He taught us about being a good neighbor and a good friend with the way he is always willing to give a helping hand. In a community where the mines provided the majority of work, he helped many families even from the rival mine by providing fresh vegetables and berries when people were laid off work or during strikes by the union. He took us to church every Sunday and taught us the difference between right and wrong, often with the palm of his hand applied to our backsides. He taught me so many things, I don’t know that he will ever understand how much.

The impact that my father made on me hit home tonight because of an issue with someone who is probably now a former colleague. She lost her father at a very young age. She didn’t have someone to look up to as a role model the way I did, to show her not only how to work hard, which she has done, but also to find the balance between work and home. To literally stop and smell the roses, to find passions outside of the workplace and to know that your job should not be your whole life. That’s a hard lesson to learn when you are on a small team that has too much work and not enough people, long hours of overtime and making sure everything gets done, while helping your colleagues, being constantly asked questions and having people reach out to you for help. Learning to set that aside and make time for yourself is something I struggle with at times myself, but as much as I love my job, I have learned from watching my Dad that it is just a job, and I need to have a life outside work. I need to have hobbies and to travel and to spend time with people and to continue learning new things, and to read and dream and appreciate the beauty that is around me every day.

My colleague, who would declare that she is independent when it comes to politics, also suffers horribly from TDS. Shortly after the election she started talking about the need to stock up on years worth of food and was refusing to leave her house to the point of having groceries delivered because she was scared to leave.

It makes me wonder how much of that, too, is the impact of not having a father? How much is lost when you grow up without that steady presence, that protector? When there isn’t someone who picks you up from the car and carries you to bed even when you are faking being asleep? When there isn’t someone to discipline you when you need it, or to make you spend what feels like hours picking dandelions for wine and taking you out for ice cream or doughnuts? Who shares his secret stash of chocolate bars when you stay awake during the long road trips and keep him company? Is this why there are so many women who have become so unbalanced?

Does that explain the difference between our two sons? Her son who also grew up without a father barely leaves his bedroom and his computer. My son grew up with an alcoholic father who, while living with him for most of his childhood, was also mostly absent. Yet my son has managed to graduate from high school, get a job, and finds time to balance his time in front of a computer with going out and joining people on activities, traveling with friends for events, spending time helping my husband-less friends and myself with manual labor.

Fathers don’t just have an impact on their children. It is generational. This explains so much that is wrong in society today, with the loss of the nuclear family, with generations of “baby mamas” who have kids by many fathers. Those kids are growing up without Dads. My Dad made so many sacrifices for us children, to help us have lives better than his or better than those he saw around him. He taught us to work hard, encouraged us to keep learning and growing. His values helped us as we grew up, got jobs and had families of our own. He learned this from his father, who did the same thing.

What happens when that chain is broken and never repaired? It isn’t just breaking families, it is breaking people and it has lead to a broken society.