Book Promo And Vignettes By Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike

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 ALMA BOYKIN: Healer, Hunters, and Hearts: Familiar Generations Book Seven

Birds of mischief flock together …

Healer and Hunter, Deborah Chan Lestrang makes her way in the world as an herbalist and Healer who also hunts fell creatures when needed. Tensions inside her extended family call for a healer of hearts as well—a task far trickier, perhaps, than easing physical pain.

Weaker magic workers report being harassed by birds, birds inside a shield. Foul creatures appear, brought by a gate-spell cast by a coven. Or was it?

An old ill resurfaces …

Word comes from the north of a new drug, one that seems to grant magical abilities to those who take it. And that does not kill them as quickly as heart’s fire did. Could the birds of ill omen and the new pharmaceutical be related?


Deborah must find a path between duties and desires, the past and the present. But she does not travel alone. And she is her parents’ daughter. If she can survive Master Lestrang’s chili and his curries, she can banish abyssal evil. Maybe.

FROM GENE LOOMIS: THEY BITE

When retired secret agent Guy Devlin answers a call from his old boss, Talbot—known simply as “Chief”—he has no idea the Agency is about to thrust him into its most perilous mission yet.

Devlin’s mission: infiltrate an ultra-secret facility, Project Cerberus, led by the brilliant but dangerously ambitious Dr. Pandora Marx. Her work, blending human and animal DNA to create hybrid superweapons, has reached catastrophic proportions. Creatures engineered in the hidden Pacific lab have broken free, and with intelligence, strength, and an insatiable thirst for survival, they are beyond any threat humanity has ever faced.

But it’s not just the creatures that make Project Cerberus nearly unreachable. The island itself is a fortress of mystery—its location concealed from satellites, and an electromagnetic field that renders all approaching planes and boats dead in the water.

With his team, Devlin races against the clock to rescue what can be saved and destroy what cannot. As the creatures multiply and evolve, their intelligence grows, making it clear that Devlin and his crew are not just facing monsters but a new apex predator. It’s a game of survival in the wildest, most treacherous terrain imaginable, where the lines between hunter and hunted disappear.

Will Devlin stop Project Cerberus before the creations it unleashed consume the world? Or will humanity fall prey to these creatures that should never have been?

FROM E. L. LYONS: Starlight Jewel: Gifts of the Auldtree, Book One

The Starlight Company’s survival depends on thieving and assassinating without upsetting the humans around them.

Axly, like all hybrids, is Company property—from the rings on her fingers to her woody bones and the skin that covers them. Her rank as the Starlight Jewel affords her some freedom in the city of Minalav, where the hybrids of the Starlight Company follow a code to keep balance between humans and sprygans. Axly isn’t bound by this code, especially when it conflicts with protecting her human half-brother. She’ll do anything to keep him safe—even if it means damaging company property or destroying Minalav’s balance to do it.

General Arthur Grimwalt is only in Minalav to secure a deal to protect his country, not be romanced and robbed by the infamous Starlight Palace’s lavish balls. Securing such a deal has left Grim with more than he bargained for and vague memories as to how it happened.

If the Starlight Company won’t let Axly go, then she’ll give the gluttons what they want and more. No one leaves this tale unscathed.

FROM PAM UPHOFF: Origin Stories

Six stories in the Troystvennyy Soyuz on the run up to and during the Fall of the Alliance.

Young people with problems with the brutal society, and all too often their own families. Young men and women reaching for a better future, as everything changes around them.

FROM R. KENWARD JONES: The Face in the Grave

The Fratelli crime family’s accountant, Tony Diderrick, is dead, which is a big problem for him, but a bigger problem for lots of other people…
His two wives, one of whom knows he’s dead, the other of whom doesn’t know where he is, and neither of whom knows the other exists.
Richie Fratelli, head of the Fratelli crime family, who wants to know where his accountant went, and more importantly, what he did with over half a billion dollars of family money.
Jack Franklin, the deep cover FBI agent assigned to keep an eye on a man so high on the most wanted list there’s not a number to match how wanted he is.
Stick Gordon, a masochistic hit man determined to find Diderrick and settle up old accounts, and Sandy Anderson and Carla Dyson, college schoolmates and star-crossed lovers in search of answers about their dead father.
All these players converge on a hillside graveyard in the Virginia countryside, hoping to unlock the secrets the man entombed took to his death; some seeking wealth and power, some seeking glory or revenge, and some seeking closure. Who gets there first and what they do when they get there will determine whether the mystery ends in tragedy or redemption.

EDITED BY WILLIAM JOSEPH ROBERTS AND TIM CAJUN BISCHOFF: It Came From the Trailer Park: Volume 4

You hear the word Vacation and it brings up thoughts of water, sand, refreshing drinks, and fun times.

Of course, when your budget matches your monthly grocery bill, expectations have to be lowered and surprises expected, and not usually the good kind.

With thirteen stories of action, adventure, horror, and down right knee slapping fun, you’d best buckle up butter cup, you’re going on a trailer park Vacation!

FROM MARY CATELLI: Enchantments And Dragons

A wizard must produce justice enough to satisfy a dragon. A young man tries to rob a tiger’s lair. An enchantress tries to keep a court safe while they ignore the perils of misusing her magic. A lady finds that court intrigues can spread even to the countryside. And more tales. Includes “Over the Sea To Me,” “Dragonfire and Time”, “The Maze, the Manor, and the Unicorn”, “The White Menagerie”, “The Dragon’s Cottage,” “Jewel of the Tiger,” and “The Sword Breaks.”

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Fire and Forge

Long after their worshipers are forgotten, the gods are still holding up a corner of the bar at the Godshead Tavern. Some have learned since their stories became myths, some never did, and some are still finding old curses coming back to haunt…

Poseidon wants Artemis to lift Medusa’s curse so he and Medusa can resume relations, while Chronos seeks another chance to be whole and get to know his kids.

Meanwhile, Ares falls head over heels for a mortal half his size who manages to kick his ass not once but twice, and Loki’s son is trying to rebuild his life (and his credit) after a short marriage to Pandora.

Life and love runs smoothly for no one, god or mortal. And another disaster is brewing…

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: She Dreams Day and Night

Nancy White they called her, a good, solid name for a troubled girl. But she knew her father had called her by another name, before he disappeared through the gate into another world of strange stars and stranger moons. No matter how hard the staff of Hildred House try to force her to forget, she remembers. And longs to reopen the gate, to rejoin her father on that alien shore where cloud-waves break.

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: SCARED

War and Cough

There will be memes in a few meme… moments, but– Not because I think I owe you a report, but because I know you guys worry, I thought I’d report on my doctor’s visit in a post, not just comments.

Turns out it’s pneumonia, a bit of bronchitis, and a double ear infection. Which sort of explains why I haven’t been able to work other than blog posts here, not even fun blog posts in the substacks or patreon. Explains but doesn’t excuse of course. Yes, I’m still feeling guilty about long silence.

I’ve been medicated. Don’t see much effect yet. If no visible effect by Monday maybe I should go back.

Anyway, it’s difficult to be this sick as we gear up for civil war. No, not the elections or anything national.

The right blogsphere has been riven — riven I SAY — by an essential and irreconcilable disagreement: Egg nog, or cider?

I’ve declared for cider — warm, with a stick of cinnamon — but things are so bad I live with a nogger, myself. (Even if he’s a nogger splinterist: cold, strictly no alcohol.)

Honestly, I don’t like being this sick as things head up. What if noggers come to the door and force me to consume their noxious beverage? The resident nogger would likely open the door to them!

It’s horrifying how quickly these things can escalate.

All I can do is plead for inter-beverationist understanding and tolerance.

There Might Be No Post Today

When in the course of human events, a Sarah is still trying to cough up a lung after three weeks and a course of antibiotics and furthermore, when this interferes with the writing, she has to be dragged — kicking, screaming and swearing in four existing languages AND a made up one — to the doctor.

She doesn’t like doctors except the ones who comment here, and she sure hopes she doesn’t have to go to the hospital. They kill people there. (No, really. Iatrogenic events are one of the primary causes of the death in the US.)

I’m under threat, though, by family members AND fans. And that last is very scary because you guys are resourceful and determined. I don’t want anyone driving here over two days just to drag me to the doctor, so I surrender right now.

Anyway, I will try to post when I get back. Considering it took me till now to be out of bed and functional, this might not work.

Burn The Boats

I would like to give you an anti-blackpill, but I’m having serious issues with depression partly because I’m having post-viral syndrome, which always comes with depression. I’m also very afraid because I remember how seamless the fraud was in 22 and how many people believed that election was clean.

I don’t believe that election was clean, because I don’t believe we’ve had clean elections… possibly ever. But I do believe the fraud has been overwhelming since at least 2012. (I mean, it might have been overwhelming in 2008, except the Obama campaign was seamless enough and they sold his image as super smart and black — did I mention black? — well enough that a lot of brainless and young and gullible voted for him. So while the fraud was enormous, I don’t think it was as bad as in 12 and subsequent.) I think the only reason we got 2016 is because they weren’t expecting Trump to have any real support and so they didn’t fraud enough. But their confidence that her Shrilliness would win definitely means they thought they had enough fraud.

This year… well, they have the opposite of that certainty, and the polls have been giving them bad news, and they’ve been keeping the polls close and…. GAH. Because they have so many ways of committing fraud, and now ALSO illegal aliens voting. And so many illegal aliens. And this.

So, I’m depressed and not sleeping well, and at this point I find it hard to have hope.

Others don’t have that problem.

And they might be right. There are a lot of indications they might very well be right. Like, for instance Tulsi Gabbard shifting. And the various non-endorsements. And– But people like Tulsi most of all, because the woman doesn’t have a disinterested or idealistic bone in her body and is a consummate politician.

Of course, she could be wrong.

And note I’m not putting much faith in the fact that Trump says this time he’ll fight the fraud. I think our Yugely popular president is still naive when it comes to how bad the fraud is. Good men have a big problem understanding the actions of very bad men. And unfortunately and shockingly, given the lack of the left finding anything real on him after all this, we must conclude that Trump is a good man. (Sigh.)

So, I’m having serious trouble believing we’ll beat the steal. REAL trouble. Because it’s endemic and entrenched. I just believe it will be sneakier than in 2020. More like 2022.

I think the panic we’re seeing is because the left is PARANOID about Trump. He defeated the steal once. And his people didn’t believe in PRESIDENTLOLEIGHTYMILLION’s victory, pretty much ever. So they’re snakebit and think that Trump has magical powers. Hence the panic.

OTOH they seem to have grown massively more incompetent in four years and have fully acquired Obama’s Mierdas touch. Everything they touch turns to shit. So, it’s possible. It’s quite possible they’ll do something so utterly stupid the steal will be obvious even to the blind. OR it will fail utterly.

However, don’t assume that. Assume they steal it once more.

Yes, it’s going to be bad. It’s going to be very very very bad. I’ve seen what population replacement looks like in a Portugal where everyone speaks with an accent and BUSINESS OWNERS sometimes don’t speak Portuguese at all. (This was a problem as the person also didn’t speak English.) And it’s horrifying. That whole thing that the left spend the nineties nattering about, the “anomie of modern life”? Yeah, disparate populations with no common culture or roots and all living together in landscapes they have no tie to is the closest realization of that I’ve ever seen. And that’s not counting the third-worldization of the US, the complete unrepentant allowing of the worst elements in, etc etc, all while throttling our energy, corrupting our information and generally doing everything they can to hurt us, going as far as they can to the “now we shoot” tripwire without tripping it.

This year is already going to be very lean for most of us for Christmas. Four more years is almost unthinkable.

But– and this is an important but — they can’t win long term. They can cause untold destruction because they control the institutions, but they don’t control the information, not any more. And all their attempts at doing so bounce hard against them.

Which means they’ll be losing as they’ve been losing for the last four years, in rear guard action. And it’s entirely possible that by 2028 further steal is impossible. Or the world has collapsed. Six of one half a dozen of the other.

Keep in mind that if it gets bad for the US it gets unimaginably worse for the rest of the world. The US is the engine of the world economy. When we ache, the world explodes in pain. The sort of pain I expect here means the world coming apart at the hinges. Which in turn, yes, also affects us. (It also means your ideas of refuge abroad are … inadvisable. Remember in 2012 people talking of Brazil and Australia as refuges? Yeah. Here we have the 1st and the 2nd amendment. They give us advantages.)

Our biggest danger here is the illegal immigrant dilution of culture, identity and belief. BUT please keep in mind we’re a big and spread out country. It’s hard to flood us in the same way Europe has been flooded. And also that when things get hard enough here, the flow starts the other way. It did under Obama and there are indications it already has (and how) here. Because people who come here don’t come here for the same conditions as back home.

We are winning the cultural war, and politics is downstream from culture. Cleaning the fraudulent mess that passes for elections here is also downstream from culture. Because people need to get angry enough. And yes, there are indications.

However, even assuming they steal the elections yet again, there are things to remember:

Vote. Almost every voice telling you not to bother is on the other side. (The rest are pudding heads.) Because it would make their hiding the fraud much much easier if our side just walks away. Vote. Vote like you mean it.

If we lose, I don’t want to hear a peep about Trump. NOT ONE PEEP.

Yes, I’m talking to you, DeSantis maniacs. Though not just you.
If DeSantis maniacs are still hurting from some things Trump said during the primary, they haven’t even thought about the things DeSantis would get hurled at him in the general.
And if you think DeSantis could have “beat the steal” you don’t get the magnitude of the steal. The only one who could “beat the steal” is a wholly owned republican, one who could give the illusion of a win while governing as close to the way the left wants as he can get away with. And I’m not convinced the first Trump assassination attempt wasn’t designed to do just that, by putting Nikki Haley on top of the ticket.

So I don’t want to hear a peep. Trump doesn’t have less chance against the tide of fraud than anyone else. Arguably he has more.

Yes, yes, mean tweets and unforced errors, and you’re going to hold your breath till you’re purple. That’s cute. Adorable, even.

In 2020 Trump got more votes than in 2016. Which was unprecedented. Unheard of. And the election still got stolen. It just got stolen at the last minute and obviously because they weren’t counting on his doing that. Ultimately that’s the biggest take away. Under unprecedented attack and under lockdown, more Americans voted for Trump than in 2016. No one gives a hanging damn about mean tweets is what I’m telling you. And unforced errors are human. When the left stands ready to turn anything you say into one of those this will happen.

Consider, perhaps that no candidate could ever match your delicate sensibilities and pure feelings. Become a trappist monk or something. BUT DO NOT RUN TO SOCIAL MEDIA AND LEND FORCE TOT HE STEAL BY CLAIMING TRUMP IS A HORRIBLE CANDIDATE. He never was that, and he never will be. AND what’s more he knows if he loses he (and possibly all his family) will be bankrupted and dead. I think that’s the reason he’s running at all this time.

So for him, he’s all in. He’s like the pig who contributes the bacon to your breakfast. He’s giving it his all.

Not the ideal candidate? You’re right, he’s not. Because that doesn’t exist, particularly for us libertarians. But that’s not why he is at risk of losing.

He’s at risk of losing because the democrats have built a rube-goldberg fraud machine.

And the only way for us to go against it and win is to NEVER STOP POINTING OUT IT EXISTS. Never engage in a circular firing squad pointing our we coulda shoulda, etc. Sure, we coulda shoulda. But the only republican the fraud wouldn’t defeat is one that is on their side.

Don’t close your eyes. Don’t avert them from the horrendous fraud taking place.

The Greeks before the walls of Troy burned their boats so they couldn’t leave until the war was won.

This is me, I’m running with a torch. There is no backing up.

Burn the boats. Win or lose, we’re all in.

In Fire And Terror Return

*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*

copybook-headings-final

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!

A Tide of Fraud

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Assumptions and Projections

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 And Vignettes By Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike

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