Category: Uncategorized

To quote Leonard Cohen, “Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering.”

Sure. Trump could be better. For one he could not have fallen for the Covidiocy and enabled the the hell that was 2020. Of course, we don’t know to what extent that was possible, because we didn’t get the same information.

On the other hand, his information was probably — okay, certainly — corrupted, judging by his hires and even his nominees for the SOCUS whom we were all assured were of the highest constitutional pedigree. And I’m sure he was too…

Be that as it may, the other side wishes to deliver us bound to our foes. They stole our election and corrupted our institutions by dint of Chinese fraud and Chinese bribes and Chinese use of kompromat.

The Chinese are the same as they ever were: the most racist people on Earth, viewing themselves really as the ONLY people, the Middle Kingdom at the center of the world, whose birthright it is to enslave the rest of the world.

The left, on the other hand, wants them to win, because they think China, the place that is doing Nazi Germany one better in genocide and crimes against minorities, and destruction of its own environment, is the vindication of their communist dream, and will make things perfect, besides giving these losers and terminal weirdos an opportunity for revenge over the rest of us. Revenge for what? Well, for not bowing down to our leftist “elites” and ULTIMATELY for daring have functional lives and be happy.

I don’t expect anything to happen in DC, other than one big final rally for people to take with them to the dark years ahead. Our system has been corrupt and traitors sit in every position of power.

For the retarded and you poor Europeans reading this: Yes, there was fraud. There was massive fraud. In fact, the Zombie and the Whore (such wonderful candidates your side gets!) had planned fraud so EXTENSIVE and everywhere (including TX, yes.) that they felt no need to CAMPAIGN. They could hide in the basement, because they had no need of any votes.

Only Trump surprised them, by getting more votes than expected, and they frauded in open view of everyone.

Proof? Well, there is extensive proof everywhere, including the fact that they got 90% Biden votes in when mysterious pipes broke that didn’t wet anything, and the observers were sent home. We have video in fact.

So, why isn’t this vindicated in court? Because the courts have refused every case, including the SOCUS refusing a case they’re constitutionally forced to take. Because apparently TX has to take the “pseudent” that other states frauded into being. No recourse. No “standing.”

And here we are. If there were no fraud, the left would have joined the right in demanding that courts take the case, so this thing called “discovery” would take place and the claims of fraud would be proven wrong. Instead, they’ve been sweeping the evidence under the rug, refusing to report it, and counting on people to believe in the bullshit snow job.

Some will. Too many.

I don’t think that’s the end. You see, I’ve seen the countries where communism succeeded in taking a hold. And even in Venezuela, they weren’t one tenth as spoiled as we are. No, seriously. Like every Latin American country they had a considerable underclass who lived in dire need, and for whom the communists were only a small step down, combined with a feeling of revenge on those who were formerly better off. (An illusory feeling. Those have long since run off.)

America is not like that. The only envious class are the college graduates in bullshit studies, and the races who were told the man is hiding the stash. And both of those live way better than … well, anyone else on Earth.

The thing is, see, once they’ve taken the government by corruption and they know they have, they know they don’t need to pretend anymore. So, you know, it will be like the day of judgement, when the secret of every heart will be laid bare. They’re going to drive full speed into communism. They have actually proposed the retarded bill for South African style land redistribution to “African Americans” which is a level of retarded that goes with A-men and A-Women. They apparently have no idea that black people are not a MAJORITY in America as they were in South Africa or mostly rural, as they were in South Africa (or of course that even there it was a florid disaster.) I have no idea why they think mostly urban black people in the US will want to have farms. Or where they’re going to find black people to take all the productive land of America. Or–

The only thing I know is that the answers to all of these will be a combination of illusion and mental deficiency. I fully expect them to do what was done in Mozambique and round up black medical school students and physics majors and force them to go farm. Because they’re following a playbook and f*ck real people.

And there will be a lot more idiocy. More idiocy than even you or I can anticipate. Even with all we’ve read. Because these people are next-level stupid and cult-level detached from reality. And because the only way communist/socialist societies survive is by despoiling and parasiting free societies. Only the US cannot — CANNOT — parasite other countries. There are none rich or big enough to keep us in the style we’d condescend to. The left thinks China will support them, but China can barely support itself and is enslaving vast swaths of Africa to keep its population at a “barely surviving” level.

Prepare, prepare, prepare! And if possible, get to where you’ll be safe, away from urban centers. And pray for me, please. I’m stuck here for another year. Getting our investment out of this place would be nice, and getting out of here with family, cats and computers intact is essential. Yes, we’ve scouted out a landing place. No. I’m not telling anyone where it will be, not even the state.

For two or three years we’re going to eat the bread the devil baked. All of us. There will be incidents, and minor rebellion events, but I don’t expect we can get this boot off our necks until they OBVIOUSLY fraud 2022 and have reduced the living conditions and safety of most people to things we never imagined in America.

But here’s the thing, Americans are spoiled. No, I’m serious. We’re spoiled to an almost supernatural level for humans. We don’t expect our government to not give a d*mn about things like clean water being available. We don’t expect our government to allow foreigners to destroy vast swaths of our land with strip mining (wait for it. I bet you.) We don’t expect to be taxed at insane levels, and the money sent abroad. We don’t expect to be treated like peasants.

We had a taste of it in 2020 and we’re ANGRY as heck, except for a few bleating sheep. Not angry enough to do anything drastic, but oh, angry. Very angry.

The fun part of this, friends, is that without the Covidiocy and the year from hell, the commies could have pulled off their coup, and kept their boot on our necks for ten, fifteen years, till we were broken, and so tired we couldn’t fight back.

But they’re starting out with us pissed, tired, and the feeling that the people at the top are acting like insane tyrants.

It won’t last long. But I do expect two or three years.

Which is why if I could I’d be in DC tomorrow. It will be dangerous at all, but it would be a feeling of not being alone to take into the very dark years ahead.

So, there is something we can do. We can ring the bells that still can ring. As the liberty bell was once heard, its sound reverberating through the centuries to us, we shall sound the horns of Jericho.

The objective is for people coast to coast, regardless of their location at Noon ET on Wednesday, to blow their car horn in support of President Trump and the rally taking place in Washington DC.    Let the sound of our patriotic message carry with the same intensity as the Horns of Jericho.

There’s a graphic you can copy and share at the link. I’m not putting the graphic in because FB is less likely to censor content buried in a blog post, in words.

BUT I beg you to do this. And I beg you to share the event as far and wide as you can, in all your blogs, in all the social media, everywhere large and small.

Let us sound the horns, loud and clear enough that they will reverberate through the dark years ahead and bring us to the other side of them in freedom, when the walls of totalitarianism will come tumbling down.

Let’s roll.

By now you’ve all seen the video of the representative saying “A-men and A-women” right?

If you haven’t, you need to. Because it’s hard to believe without seeing.

A prayer opening the 117th Congress concluded, "Amen and a woman."

"Amen" translates to "so be it." pic.twitter.com/SIGBtgLk5v

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) January 4, 2021

Seriously, y’all. Seriously, seriously, seriously.

I can’t find it, but thee was an article somewhere that said totalitarianism (it was a dry, academic article, studying various implementations of totalitarianism) always starts with corruption of the language, so people can’t communicate and realize how absolutely insane and out of touch with truth the impose reality has become.

BTW that was the most revelatory thing about that article that (damn it) I can’t find. Totalitarianism always imposes a version of everything that has nothing to do with reality. I don’t remember if the article said it, or if it’s just my observation from reading a lot of history, but totalitarianism also slowly, slowly tilts out of true more and more, so that by the end of it, you’re living in a parody of rational life, prioritizing things that make absolutely no sense. Like, for instance, apparently this is the most important thing for science to get done, right now!

UK Company Develops Climate Change Masks for Cows

I mean we’re all stupider for incidents like this. ALL OF US.

Stupider in the sense that “this behavior is anti-survival, yo. Keeping concentrating on crazy shit like this will end civilization and eventually the human race.”

But it is what totalitarianism is made of. It is the reason for Hitler is was way more important to kill Jews than to win the war. It is why communists became more focused on thought crimes and empty gestures the less they were able to feed their population. It is why Maduro at one point was raving about Portuguese stealing hams from Venezuela, or something equally stupid. It’s stupid and insane, but it makes sense inside this bizarre reality that has nothing to do with real reality.

Look, there is a part of the human brain that gives up when it can make no sense of conditions. We’ve seen this over and over again, with societies that reach a point they become obsessed with things that make no sense or are even detrimental, like oh, all the cargo cults in history. Or the way Islam in the last 50 years has concentrated on repressing women more and more and more, because that will solve all their problems.

The problem is that when humans reach that stage, they tend to construct pretty theories that explain EVERYTHING. At least they do if you never look outside them at all, and see the evidence they’re batshit nuts.

My theory is that Marxism exists at all because of this. Because Marx’s rather stodgy mind couldn’t make sense of the Industrial revolution, and the fact the world didn’t bow down to his natural birth superiority and brilliance and preferred instead to favor those with money, who worked for it.

So he built a beautiful system with zero reference to reality, but which made him feel the warm fuzzies and valued the useless intellectuals like him. And since then, despite all disproof, it’s been tilting more and more out of contact with reality.

As each stage fails, and they risk coming in contact with reality, they start attempting to make it impossible to see the failure. The attack on the language is a long form of this. The “climate emergency” a hysterical cultish part of it. Both are reaching points where those of us outside the cult can only clap our hands over our mouths and go “Oh, dear.”

I’d say next up is sacrificing babies to the climate gods, but hey, they’re doing that already in various ways.

And that’s what terrifies me. Honestly. There aren’t many of them, but not only do they hold positions of power, achieved by their more sane ancestors, but they are also starting to tilt to the level of insanity and lack of ability to see what’s real where they’re impossible to communicate with, and impossible to call to any semblance of usefulness or even calm.

You know, I’m sure the Aztecs came up with their theory of sacrificing humans to the sun god because the climate had gotten colder or whatever. So they did what humans do and created a system that made them feel they were doing something, even though they had no such ability.

BUT the fact was they had no such ability. Which meant that little by little, their own system said “well, if it’s not working, you haven’t done enough.” And they kept tilting more and more crazy till it was a hundred thousand hearts for the sun god, or the light goes out.

I thought that “womyn” and “herstory” were already terminally stupid manifestations of linguistic ignorance and feminist cultishness. Honestly, using they for singular of insisting in “man/woman” is also bizarrely stupid. Since man in non particular cases means the race of humans (and no, it doesn’t mean we’re all male. OBVIOUSLY) when you say man/woman you’re actually implying women aren’t human. I’m fairly sure I am.

BUT the problem is not the language as such. The problem is that they’re trying to use the language to fix a problem that doesn’t exist and get a result no one sane wants.

The idea of women being able to work and achieve to the limit of their abilities is unimpeachable. The problem is that the feminists looked at women who achieved despite being blocked and who were exceptional people and therefore achieved very highly, and made a completely nuts theory that this meant women were inherently better than men, and would ALL be top achievers, if they were given a chance.

Then when chances were given and the expected results didn’t happen, they built this entire theory of how women were still somehow oppressed: lack of role models, mean math teachers, the oppression of the male gaze, emotional labor, language…. And away we went down the rabbit trail of increasingly crazy things, with each of them held up as a be all end all and violating their latest shiboleths being the equivalent of genocide.

Sacrifice more rationality to the sun god now! Or we’ll never have women being exactly the same as men! Only better! Because all women are natural geniuses if unoppressed!

And that is the same, dialed to eleven in everything.

All of twenty twenty one — listen to the science, heathen! — and the bizarre culmination of imprisoning the entire population of the western world, and making them wear a symbolic muzzle to avoid a cold-family virus with slightly higher than normal mortality for such viruses (once we shake the stupid out of the statistics) is a manifestation of how far this has gone.

We can no longer indulge them or tolerate their mild eccentricities.

That speech is ridiculous, but also chilling. It is a mark of how far detached form history, from reality, from humanity they’ve become.

And once that happens, the horrors they can come up with to force to cosplay in their insanity are limitless.

We can no longer afford to give an inch, shrug our shoulders, or pretend they’re anything but utterly, bizarrely insane.

It might be too late to save them. But we can save ourselves.

*Once more sorry this is ridiculously late. I have not excuse, except that words seem to flow but ONLY after 9 pm. So I write to midnight, and then forget to go to bed. Sigh. This too shall pass. – SAH*

BOOK PROMO

*Note these are books sent to us by readers/frequenters of this blog.  Our bringing them to your attention does not imply that we’ve read them and/or endorse them, unless we specifically say so.  As with all such purchases, we recommend you download a sample and make sure it’s to your taste.  If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. I ALSO WISH TO REMIND OUR READERS THAT IF THEY WANT TO TIP THE BLOGGER WITHOUT SPENDING EXTRA MONEY, CLICKING TO AMAZON THROUGH ONE OF THE BOOK LINKS ON THE RIGHT, WILL GIVE US SOME AMOUNT OF MONEY FOR PURCHASES MADE IN THE NEXT 24HOURS, OR UNTIL YOU CLICK ANOTHER ASSOCIATE’S LINK. PLEASE CONSIDER CLICKING THROUGH ONE OF THOSE LINKS BEFORE SEARCHING FOR THAT SHED, BIG SCREEN TV, GAMING COMPUTER OR CONSERVATORY YOU WISH TO BUY. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

FROM T. L. KNIGHTON: Sabercat (Tommy Reilly Chronicles Book 1)

Despite his rich-kid roots, Tommy Reilly is struggling to make it as a freighter captain. Despite a universe of possibilities, he finds himself running afoul of both pirates and corrupt bureaucrats who seem determined to get in his way at every point. It’s like karma for his bullying past is smacking him in the back of the head.

All of that changes when a figure from his past asks for his help.

Now he’s finding himself at odds with a greedy and overly ambitious business owner who has government backing who happens to be the same man who impounded the very load he needs on his ship. The fact that the load is only the first step in securing information that could bring down the status quo might have something to do with that, however.

Tommy and his crew of misfit rejects have to use skills most of them would rather forget to secure their load, all with eyes watching them everywhere.

FROM HENRY VOGEL: The Lost Planet.

He doesn’t know how to be human. She has never been out on her own. But they’re the last hope for humanity. 

Within the vast and alien Regency, starship pilot Glen Susa knows only the life of a slave. Raised by his master and forced into a life of crime, he dreams of freedom, visiting the Terran Republic, and meeting a girl. With human space ripe for invasion, Glen breaks the chains of slavery and flies off to warn his people.

The daughter of a xenoarchaeologist, Elise dreams of a normal life. Instead, she assists with her father’s research into the fate of the Progenitors, who founded the Regency and then vanished. When her father discovers evidence of a Regency invasion of the Terran Republic, Elise goes on the run to take the news back to humanity.

Chance brings Glen and Elise together, but their warning comes too late. Certain the Terran Republic cannot defeat the alien armada, they set themselves a daunting task–solve the thousand-year-old mystery of the Progenitor’s fate and discover their lost homeworld…

Can Glen and Elise do the impossible before humanity falls to the Regency?

If you love taut intrigue, unique alien cultures, and hair’s breadth escapes, you’ll love Henry Vogel’s modern take on the golden age of space opera.

Buy The Lost Planet and chart your course for adventure today!

FROM LAURA MONTGOMERY: Mercenary Calling.

Exoplanets. Terrorists. Lawyers…

Calvin Tondini has his first client, but he may be in over his head.

It’s the twenty-second century. Humanity’s first and only interstellar starship returns safely. Its mission to discover a habitable planet succeeded beyond all hopes, but there’s one problem. Captain Paolina Nigmatullin of the USS Aeneid left an unsanctioned human colony behind and now stands charged with mutiny.

Despite a somewhat spontaneous approach to his own career, life, and limb, Calvin intends to map a more cautious path for his new client. Captain Nigmatullin, however, shows an unnerving penchant for talk shows—appearing on them, that is—and otherwise ignoring her attorney’s sober counsel.

How can Calvin ensure his client’s freedom when death stalks the Aeneid’s crew, and Nigmatullin herself hides secrets from everyone, even her lawyer?

Buy Mercenary Calling today for the legal thrill of next century!

FROM DOROTHY GRANT: Scaling The Rim.

Never underestimate the power of a competent tech.

When Annika Danilova arrived at the edge of the colony’s crater to install a weather station, she knew the mission had been sabotaged from the start. The powers that be sent the wrong people, underequipped, and antagonized their supporting sometimes-allies. The mission was already slated for unmarked graves and an excuse for war…

But they hadn’t counted on Annika allying with the support staff, or the sheer determination of their leader, Captain Restin, to accomplish the mission. Together, they will overcome killing weather above and traitors within to fight for the control of the planet itself!

FROM MARY CATELLI: The Princess Seeks Her Fortune Paperback.

In a land where ten thousand fairy tales come true, Alissandra knows she is in one when an encounter with a strange woman gives her magical gifts, and another gives her sisters a curse. And she knows that despite the prospects of enchantments, cursed dances, marvelous birds, and work as a scullery maid, it is wise of her to set out, and seek her fortune.

FROM ELLIE FERGUSON: Prey (Stalker’s Moon Book 3.

They say you can never go home. That’s something CJ Reamer has long believed. So, when her father suddenly appears on her doorstep, demanding she return home to Montana to “do her duty”, she has other plans. Montana hasn’t been home for a long time, almost as long as Benjamin Franklin Reamer quit being her father. Dallas is now her home and it’s where her heart is. The only problem is her father doesn’t like taking “no” for an answer.

When her lover and mate is shot and she learns those responsible come from her birth pride and clan, CJ has no choice but to return to the home she left so long ago. At least she won’t be going alone. Clan alphas Matt and Finn Kincade aren’t about to take any risks where their friend is concerned. Nor is her mate, Rafe Walkinghorse, going to let her go without him.

Going home means digging up painful memories and family secrets. But will it also mean death – or worse – for CJ and her friends?

Originally released as Hunter’s Home, Prey includes approximately 4,000 words of new material.

FROM ALMA BOYKIN: Familiar Tales.

Smiley Lorraine: Wolverine. Rosie Jones: 100-lb. Skunk. Morgana Lorraine: Witch with Editorial Problems.

Welcome to a world where Familiars choose magic workers, and a few others, as their partners. A world of adventure, tax-deductions, bad publisher tricks, and odd veterinary clinics, where wolverines wear glasses and iguanas sing along with the radio—badly—while casting spells and keeping their chosen humans out of mischief.

Or try to.

(Five short-stories.)

FROM CEDAR SANDERSON: The East Witch

Anna’s rescue training kicked in when she tripped over the injured elf. Getting him home? No problem. Getting herself home again? That’s going to be a little more complicated.

Trapped Underhill, in the land of the fae, Anna has to remember everything she knows about fairy tales. Not the sweet happy ones: the stories where Baba Yaga boils you alive and giants grind your bones for bread. Her skills as a hunter and her good manners might be all that keep her alive. At least, if she can keep the Wild Hunt at bay!

FROM AMIE GIBBONS: The Magical Adventures of Evie Jones.

Meet Evie Jones, a witch stumbling into adventures, fighting the rules of her authoritarian government, and bringing the fire to everything from her career to her love life.

Evie Jones is a witch and a lawyer, but don’t hold either against her. She’s not the evil kind of either… well, maybe a little. She is brave, determined, loyal, and absolutely against everything the Council, the totalitarian worldwide witch government, stands for. In the battle between order and chaos, Evie’s here to burn them both down, one broken rule and one saved person at a time.

Humans don’t know about magic, and the Council wants to keep it that way. No matter what. Evie knows where the Council can shove their rules. But even she is careful not to attract their attention.

So what do you do when helping your friends runs up against your government’s rules? If you’re Evie Jones, you get real sneaky, real fast.

But even Evie can’t fly under the radar forever. Can she save her friends, witches and humans alike, from evil witches, demons, and worst of all, the Council?

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: ABSORBED

There are weird benefits to being on the right side of politics, a blogger and a writer.

I mean, okay, I giggle hysterically when someone accuses me of selling out to the right, because…. dude. No, seriously! This would be like the famous spy who sold out his country for a twinkie and a pack of pre-chewed gum.

Mostly the benefits of expressing a political opinion loudly are all on the left. Weirdly, they get far less of what I’d call “Grass roots” support. I have a friend who did a deep dive into the patreon of noted lefties in my field and emerged with the information that it was a massive circle jerk, and not just intellectually. I.e. on paper they might get 40k, but they were donating close to that, so if you visualize it, the same 40k was going round and round and round.

We on the right do get the grassroots support, and by the way, because I haven’t and I should, I appreciate everyone who supports this blog more than I can say, particularly because you guys KNOW I’d do it anyway, but you choose to send me money to show your appreciation. And knowing how tight many of you are, that is a compliment indeed. The money is appreciated (well, not this last year, but the year before I’d have made almost nothing without it) but so is your support and KNOWING you’re there as a failsafe mechanism, if — say — my computer dies (Thank you guys!) or my cat needs extremely expensive treatments (Okay, it only bought us six months, but it was Greebo and I’m SO GLAD we had the six months. I still miss my Fuzzy Buzzy editor more than I can say.) Because I’m doing this without a net, and there’s nothing below if we fall and…. well, we all feel the cold in the air and, to coin a phrase, winter is coming.

The left otoh get ….. money and position and power. If I turned my coat today, I’d start winning awards tomorrow, and being invited to talk shows to talk about the future, and having all kinds of accolades, and probably get a college teaching post and not for languages.

So in that sense, not being on the left, if you’re doing it for mercenary motives would be a sign of stupidity. Of course, I’m not doing it — only — for mercenary motives. Oh, I like being paid for my writing. But my politics are a part of being on the side of what I believe is right, what will enhance humanity’s chances of survival, what ultimately will create a world in which my descendants (hopefully) biological and “adopted” can thrive and pursue happiness. And that means I can’t sell out — which would ALWAYS be to the left, for any rational person — because there are things more important than money. One of them being my soul.

Mind you, we’re in a position of inferiority to the extent of commanding the heights of cultural power and money, because we are stupid. We’ve been playing by Marquis de Queensberry rules, while the other side is having a brawl. We insisted for a century we couldn’t take politics in account when hiring, when buying, when promoting.

The end result of this is exactly where we are, and Hollywood puts the five minutes of hate at straw conservatives even in stupid romantic comedies.

Some of us are waking up though. As you guys know I came up with the “Not One Red Cent” policy, in which I’m not promoting/helping/buying from the left, unless I can’t help it. And even then, I’m trying to work on alternatives. (Slowly, that’s how.)

The reverse of that is “encourage people on our side. Help them. Promote them.” We can’t give a lot of monetary advantage (yet) but we can give knowledge, help, a leg up. And to be fair, there’s a ton of unappreciated talent on our side, partly because we were forcibly held out of creative fields for so long.

Later this month, I’ll have a promo for people’s creative non-writing stuff. If you do that, send me a link to your shop, your restaurant, your whatever. Winter is coming, and it’s time to help the neighbors get their crops in, before it snows. Send it to the book promo email.

But weirdly, we all seem to have hit it more or less at the same time. There are deals, and money-making ventures in the offing, which came at me unexpectedly and through sideways channels. I will blog about them when contracts are inked.

But more interestingly, this last year, I got a lot of semi-weird gifts, which I’m very bad at blogging about. And btw semi-weird is not a criticism, and they’re all things I USE. I just didn’t expect them, but they were very welcome when I got them. And I keep meaning to blog about them, and will in more detail later.

However, for now, I want to talk about two of them. One was a set of murder needles. I’d post a pick of me wearing them, but I don’t know where I put the pics. (Look, computer died….) However, there’s no way I could do a review as complete as this one:

Hair Stabbies.

And I’m copying pics from their latest FB promo so you see how pretty they are:

The other unexpected, but much appreciated gift I got was King Harv Coffee.

I knew about them, because they’d sent Professor Jacobson of Legal Insurrection a gift when he was on the receiving end of some professional unpleasantness due to his opinions. Back then, I sent an email asking if they had a subscription program, as I intended to get some as a gift for son (I still need to do that. This has been…. a year. I mean last year, though I expect the same again.) They said no, but they were working on it.

Then last month out of the blue they sent me a gift of their Mars coffee, as appreciation for my insty work and the work here as well.

I was grateful and happy with the coffee, of course but you know, the REAL coffee connoisseur around here is not me, but my son. So I waited till the holidays, when he could try it.

Well, he did try it, and so did I. And now, when I can afford it, I’m getting a subscription for myself.

Son made all sorts of noise about chocolate undertones, and a front loaded nutty flavor. He’s all classy that way. I’m not. What I can tell you, though, is that in recent years I’ve been going off coffee. Something about menopause plus thyroid adjustments made me taste the bitter undertone of coffee more than usual. Look, I like bitter. I love roasted hazelnuts, dark chocolate and beer. But I have limits, and in coffee, early morning, I realized I was adding more and more sweetener and cream, and it wasn’t even healthy.

Well, King Harv? I understand now why Glenn Reynolds says it’s not hard to drink your coffee black with no sweetener. No, seriously. It’s flavorful, and nice, and mellow, and almost no bitterness. I actually downed the first cup with nothing in it, just the coffee before my brain realized I was drinking it plain. Then I had the second cup the same way.

So, that’s a life goal this year: Make enough money not only to get a subscription for son, but to get myself a subscription as well.

Thank you, King Harv’s Imperial Coffees for a much appreciated gift.

Oh, and they’re our kind of nerds, too. My husband opened the package before I got to it, and it was weird to hear him laugh out loud….

Because, well, apparently Mars produces GOOD coffee.

Who knew?????

Anyway, this is my attempt at thanking some of the people who’ve been very very good to me.

And I will get back to Witch’s Daughter. I AM actually working again. I am however in the middle of a space opera, which means getting my head back into fantasy is a little hard. But I’ll have a new chapter by next week. I’ve written a little of it.

Okay. That’s it for now. Book promo and vignettes tomorrow.

When in the Course of Human Events….

You know how it goes, right?

What we haven’t known is how to apply it. I’ll confess I’m still not the best at this. But hey! I do know one thing. If the left, those who would subjugate the individual to the collective by force, those who trade in groups and “collectives” and “classes” and “races” and all that nonsense that has nothing to do with real human beings, in the individual instance want us to do it, I will not do it. Oh, I might wear the stupid cosplay to prevent local merchants being shut down even more than they are. But other than that? Ah no.

I am not stupid, I am not gullible, and I am not going.

They think they have won, but as always the left mistakes the package for the gift. They don’t understand that taking over all our institutions by betrayal, graft and probably blackmail doesn’t mean they’ve proven the republic was wrong, only that they’re traitors. (And stupid ones at that, destroying the greatest engine of prosperity of mankind for what they think will be their power and advantage.

Most of all they want to be admired, considered wonderful, and kowtowed to. We will not give them that.

You can subvert a republic and occupy a free territory, but you can’t subjugate a free people and — more importantly — you can’t get them to love you and admire you (which these fractured adult children want most of all.)

You can use the forms of our elections for a total sham and theft, and prop up a senile old man, because even with fraud no one will put up with your insane clown laugh, but in the end you won’t be president. You’ll be a pseudo-dent and still Commie LaWhorish with the calluses on your knees, from the means you used to climb in politics.

We will not surrender, we will not fawn, we will not put up with this nonsense.

As anyone who has ever tried to get a stubborn two year old to do what they want knows the power of passive resistance, I believe our would be lords and masters are in for a fun surprise.

Yes, I know, some of you can only engage in White Mutiny, or what used to be called in my days “A Strike of Zeal.” Other of us are ready and willing to be more openly defiant.
Howsoever you can do it, do it. It’s time to push their noses in.

Well, it will be fun for us. And we’re going to need some fun, because they are going to do their best to wreck our economy, our living conditions and set up World War Three, though in their defense that’s not what they think they’ll be doing. They think they’re setting up the eternal reign of their Chinese masters who are so superior to our blinkered western ways. But that is not what will happen.

So, let’s have our fun as we can. Because winning this one is going to hurt like a bitch, in ways both personal and public.

But in the end we win, they lose.

Because we’re the future of mankind. And they have no future beyond eternal quibbles about words like “mankind” and semantic nitpicking.

It’s a new year. We have a lot to do. Communism, a disaster everywhere it was tried, managed to escape to the West and infect our universities, our cultural institutions, our entertainment, and our young with their lies As with all painful infections, you have to destroy it. And because the USA is — despite Europe’s denials — the heart and center of Western culture, it has to die here.

The ultimate battle between good and evil (oh, and communism is evil. The worst evil, for the skim till offended crowd. It is the arrogation of power to an undefined entity “the people” but not tabulated by the votes of the people, but by the “guidance” of those “who know”. In other words, it is tyranny and it always ends in the same way tyranny ends, in death and waste. And as for you, dear Skim Till Offended, don’t flatter yourself that you will be one of those “who know.” In the end it’s a very small number on top, and you’re not the most ruthless psychopath around.)

Fortunately this is a battle that we, Fantasy Fans are most prepared for: the essential thing is not to let them in your head, not to let them distort your perceptions, and to continue resisting no matter what force, emotional, social, mental or even physical (and they won’t get to that, at our level of granularity for a while) they bring to bear.

We’ve read about this hundreds of times. Now let’s do it.

Let’s go to work.

I spent the day cleaning, and just realized I hadn’t posted. So sorry.

I try to spend the first and last day of the year doing what I hope the year will bring, but this year I needed to clean the depression of 2020 which had a lot of things piled everywhere because no spoons.

Depression is self perpetuating. So, give yourself a good shake, and enter 2021 as well as you can because we’re going to survive this. We’re going to turn this b*tch around.

My house is clean, I’m going to make dinner for my husband and resident son, including a bunch of gnoshing stuff. And then I’m going to work on the almost-done novel while we watch a few movies (I multi-task.)

You guys take care, give the black dog a kick. We will figure this out, we will save or revive our country. And we will not take any guff from anybody.

It’s going to be tough, but we can handle tough. Chin up. Shoulders square. Singing “We shall overcome” is optional, but we shall anyway.

As the man said “Come on sons of rock and starvation, how long will you let the warden–“

Move it. Go in with your best game face. Mort the Wart won’t know what hit him.

Go into 2021 with your best foot, and may G-d have mercy on our souls.

This morning, between sleep and wakening, I had a nightmare. Not a real nightmare, but one of those where all things add up.

I’ve been worried about the 6th though I don’t think anything will happen. No, not even the congress challenging elector choices.

Look, Trump is startling naive in some odd ways, perhaps because he’s really not a politician. I have no clue why he’s calling people to DC on the sixth, but it could be anything from his thinking a large enough show of force will jolt the lawmakers into acting like human beings instead of China bought bots.

Or it could be he wants to have, as someone here said “One last rally” and a farewell to his supporters, before riding off into the sunset.

I do think the most dangerous place to be on the 6th is DC. Notwithstanding which, if I could figure out HOW I’d be there.

But here’s the thing, particularly if we have a strong showing on the 6th… The left is already jumpy, and they will lose what remains of their tiny minds.

The thing in Nashville, yeah, maybe it was a Covid suicide, but…. But it stinks to high heavens, including positioning the mobile home exactly where it should be to take out phone and internet.

Perhaps it was a test run, as well as anything else. We know we can’t trust our secret services.

So, what if they take out all phone and internet on the 6th, and then claim this was Trump supporters, and that Trump is trying to effect a revolution, and they send out people to arrest all known/prominent Trump supporters (Note this probably won’t get to my level. It MIGHT, but probably won’t.)

And then in three days internet is restored, and the phone, and the story is set of the failed Trump coup. Which, of course, allows them to move on with their political cleansing program “completely justified”?

No, I don’t think any of that will work. I think if they try it, the mess resulting will probably blow against them.

But I also can see them thinking this is a viable plan. Look, they live in stories, mostly Hollywood movies. They couldn’t find reality with two hands and a seeing eye dog. And yes, they’re stupid enough to try this.

Coincidentally, and I don’t think on purpose by anyone human, the 6th is the feast of the epiphany, which makes me feel there’s more at work.

So, guys…. It’s probably just a nightmare, and I’m probably crazy, but make sure you’re okay for the necessities, and keep your clothes and weapons where we can find them in the dark.

Things might be about to get really rough.

The week after the election, I was very disappointed in an acquaintance that I both like and respect intellectually. As I was saying that if we let this election stand, the republic is gone, he said if our institutions were already corrupt enough to let this stand, the republic has been gone a long time, perhaps our whole life.

I was angry, because well…. Because I prefer people spit out the black pill. Sure, maybe the game is rigged, but as RAH put it, if you don’t bet you can’t win.

As it turns out, we were both right, but mostly wrong.

You see, I’d forgotten — as I’m sure he has too — who the sacred ruler of these United States is.

Before I go into that, let me take a detour. As most of you know, I was a bookish child raised in Europe. Well, in the romantic, daft portion of Europe, which is better and worse. Particularly in the North of Portugal, a land of mists and crazy people, legends are very important. And being a bookish child, of a fantastic disposition, and the child of a man obsessed with legends and the past, I have heard about a million variations of the “The King Comes Back” story.

Heck, one of my favorite stories growing up, consumed in every form I could find it was Robin Hood (The liberals have him all wrong. He was, quite obviously, the first tax rebel.) Though that story, as history, is a bit confused as Richard the Lion Heart had…. as they say zee issues and his brother John Lackland was actually a pretty good steward. But history written by winners, etc.

Anyway, most of “The king comes back” or “the sleeper wakens” are based on older, much older stories. It wasn’t unusual for a king to have to go away, particularly when like the king of Itaca, their kingdom was kind of small, and they plowed their own lands. I mean there was business and stuff that called the householder/king away from home and you know travel had to be hazardous in those days.

While the king was away, his servants and underlings had a merry time, and when the king came home, he had to set things back in order.

This is related of course to “the sleeper wakens” which tended to be what the stories turned into when the king didn’t come home, and the righteous subjects needed to dream of a rescue.

Most kings, of course, at least after the Neolythic were no good, and wastrels, and all that, which is why we kicked them out. Oh, there was the occasional good one, in a string of f*ckers. And unlike Heinlein I’m not convinced proper breeding would fix that. It’s not the genes, it’s the behavior and the checks on that that makes the just king. Or ruler. Or whatever the heck. Which is why I will write later on why letting the franchise slip away is a very bad thing, perhaps the worst thing. (For example, we need do no more than look at Europe which has transferred all its power to unelected bureaucrats on purpose (shakes head.))

But the important thing here is that “when the good king/responsible householder goes away/falls asleep, his servants become corrupt and abuse the people” is, as far as history is concerned day ending in y, or year ending in a number. (Or in real old times, in some kind of name.) It’s the normal course of events.

And of course, the fault is ours doubly: one, because we forgot we were the king of this land. And two, because we fell asleep.

The fault of the first is, ultimately, the education system which has been taken over for a long time by a cabal of our enemies. (And people who think themselves superior, which most teachers do, though perhaps never as unwarrantedly as in the late twentieth/early twenty first centuries, are unlikely to teach the sovereignty of the common man.) And the second, well… World War Two after the shock of the depression (More on both later) made people inexplicably believe the government was competent to look after everyone. (A good thing to consider here, is that at the time “scientific” governance was all the rage. I don’t think this myth lasts very long.) And we were prosperous. Very prosperous. We’re not the first sovereign to be lured by his pleasures and his wealth into not minding the kingdom. Fortunately it’s not irreversible.

Also, fortunately, We The People were not a dissolute king, not at bottom. Except for those “disloyal servants, who have been eating out our worth” we retained enough ability not to be tempted by the really crazy sh*t. Or at least we retained a core of horse-sense. No, we are not the hardest-working people in the world, but study after study has proven we are the most efficiently-working people in the world. We are also, despite the (willfull?) corruption of our education, quite competent, thank you. And as I pointed out in 2016, people offered a choice between a party who was screaming they’d given them things, and one candidate saying “we’ll create jobs” chose the jobs. This sovereign is not an air-dreamer, or completely out of touch with reality or his roots.

Then there is the fact that after five generations of communist indoctrination, after four intensive years of denigrating the guy who brought jobs back, after endless beat downs, starting in infancy, on how we and our country are the worst, people hunched their shoulders and voted for Trump in such numbers that the commies had to emergency-fraud (this beyond their well oiled fraud machine, or as the potted plant put it, “the most inclusive and largest fraud network”? was it?) in front of G-d and everyone to get the commies in.

This is not an addled and defeated king. This is a king who fell asleep for a while; has just woken up; is a bit confused, but is ultimately, quite capable for his duties and his throne. He’s a little disoriented now, having just woken up, over the last three years, so be patient. (These things always take longer than we expect them to!)

But in the end, the story is clear: when the good king comes home and he is GOOD — and we are, despite everything — he sets his own house in order and he prevails. (See Ulysses, Itaca, probably a codifying of much, much older stories, and a sort of prototype.)

Which means the Republic isn’t lost. Not while We The People remain. It might be temporarily mislaid, but only because we’ve been absent/asleep.

Not saying that it won’t be a little while before we take up the throne and set things to rights. (Look, the thing is that the left is daft and their minds almost virgin of history. They don’t understand that they’re a lot closer to the Nazis than to the commie regimes, and the nazis only lasted 11 years by constant invasions of other lands. Even if we wanted to take that way, we can’t. There aren’t — particularly after the covidiocy — any lands even as close to our wealth. Socialism, national or international, is a parasite, it only works by stealing from other lands. And yeah, the commies, USSR and China lasted longer but admittedly that was because our elites fed them/gave them special deals/helped them survive. And even so, they still had t parasite/steal from other lands. The other thing is that they think we are Russian barefoot peasants, or completely downtrodden Chinese. Instead they’re dealing with — by the grace of G-d — spoiled Americans, where even our lower middle class are used to, by global standards, living like kings. They/we will not take the deprivations of communism. Particularly not communism that we didn’t choose, and which can’t be fed by cannibalizing other lands.)

In other words, yeah, things might get pretty bad for a couple/three years. But in the end? The king of this land is awake and has come home. And we all know how the rest of this story goes. WE ALL KNOW.

Square your shoulders. Be not afraid. In the end, we win, they lose.

Remember you’re Americans. We The People are the sovereign of this land. We’ve been asleep, but now we’re wide awake.

This only ends one way.

No post today. Post tomorrow.

Sorry guys, we’ve been trying to get a lot of admnistrivia in place before the end of the year. Also, it’s my anniversary.

I started to write a post on ignoring the bleakness, and how evil never wins for long and certainly not forever, but not today.

It’s overcast and gray and yucky out here rocky mountain way. But this too shall pass.

I’ll leave you with a musical theme, and go get some more work done, because anniversary or not, work needs doing.

And honestly, gut feel, it won’t be that long. But it’s good to remember, it’s never forever.

*Sorry this is RIDICULOUSLY late. The day after travel is always slow, but today is exceptionally so, probably because we did a fast “cannon ball run” back home, leaving very early and arriving very late and forgetting to eat in between, and then arrived to Havelock-cat hygiene issues that HAD to be fixed before going to bed. We’re all well. Well, the constitutional republic is looking like it might die, of course, but the close family is okay. And the republic…. if it dies, doesn’t mean we stop fighting. On the contrary. So, bear with me today and tomorrow, and then we should be back on track-ish – Sarah*

BOOK PROMO

*Note these are books sent to us by readers/frequenters of this blog.  Our bringing them to your attention does not imply that we’ve read them and/or endorse them, unless we specifically say so.  As with all such purchases, we recommend you download a sample and make sure it’s to your taste.  If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. I ALSO WISH TO REMIND OUR READERS THAT IF THEY WANT TO TIP THE BLOGGER WITHOUT SPENDING EXTRA MONEY, CLICKING TO AMAZON THROUGH ONE OF THE BOOK LINKS ON THE RIGHT, WILL GIVE US SOME AMOUNT OF MONEY FOR PURCHASES MADE IN THE NEXT 24HOURS, OR UNTIL YOU CLICK ANOTHER ASSOCIATE’S LINK. PLEASE CONSIDER CLICKING THROUGH ONE OF THOSE LINKS BEFORE SEARCHING FOR THAT SHED, BIG SCREEN TV, GAMING COMPUTER OR CONSERVATORY YOU WISH TO BUY. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

FROM MEL DUNAY: Shadow Captain (Star Master Book 1)

His one chance to escape slavery could trap his brother in a terrible fate!

Jetay has been on the run with his brother for a long time, hiding his psychic powers from the evil Red Knights. Living as a slave on a star freighter, Jetay dreams of freeing himself and his brother, and of wielding his powers openly.

On a frontier planet, Lady Lanati of the Partisan Alliance seeks his help for a secret mission. It will take him across the stars to the edge of a black hole, with a Red Knight chasing him every step of the way. He might finally get a chance to use his powers for good.

But the price of that chance may be too high, putting his brother in grave danger. Can Jetay save himself and his brother without sacrificing Lanati and her friends? If he can’t find a way to save them all, the battle against evil may be over before it begins….

FROM MARY CATELLI: Through A Mirror, Darkly

What lies behind a reflection? Powers have filled the world with both heroes and villains. Helen, despite her own powers, had acquired the name Sanddollar but stayed out of the fights. When the enigmatic chess masters create a mirrored world reflecting her own home and the world about it, it’s not so easy to escape. All the more in that the people of that world are a dark reflection of all those she knows.

AND DON’T FORGET, MY BOOKS ARE ON SALE TILL TUESDAY FOR 99C. (WELL, ALL THOSE I HAVE CONTROL OF. MORE OF THEM NEXT YEAR. I WAS TOLD ONE OF THE LINKS DOESN’T WORK, BUT SINCE I WAS TRAVELING, I COULDN’T FIX IT. IF YOU SEARCH THE BOOK’S NAME, IT SHOULD COME UP ANYWAY: SO HERE’S THE LINK TO THE POST WITH ALL THE BOOKS.

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: BRANCH