A "surly curmudgeon[], suspicious and lacking in altruism." (Robert A. Heinlein)
Generally I don’t tend to be a conspiracy theorist, but the direction things are going anymore, who knows. Meanwhile, prudent patriots will kindly keep their powder dry and their booger hook off the bang switch.
https://vxtwitter.com/seanmdav/status/1746567516955005353
Via Instapundit.
From Friday, 12/29/2023, through Tuesday, 1/2/2024, my novella Saving The Spring will be available FREE on Kindle. (This isn’t a KDP “read for free”, this is FREE as in “you get to keep the book.”)
Jack Randall knew immediately something was off when he pulled up to the old roadhouse. Little did he know that crossing paths that night with the establishment’s beautiful bartender and her handsomely-rugged boyfriend/cook would lead to him recalling his former life as a god – or fighting a rematch with the god who had stolen his memories.
To anyone who still peeks in here from time to time, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Have a couple of MidJourney Christmas images on the house. Christmas is also a time for lovers, so…snuggle up to your sweetie and have a nice evening.
Thank you to all who purchased my three Timelines novels while they were on sale for the past week! And now…the next promotion!
From 5AM EST Saturday December 2 till 5AM EST Saturday December 9, the two Timelines Universe novels are on sale (in ebook format) for 99 cents apiece.
I don’t normally advertise my books on this blog (other than in the sidebar) but I don’t know how much traffic my author blog gets…so here is a self-plug for a sale on the three Timelines novels to date. This sale will run for a week starting at 5AM EST Saturday (Nov. 25) and running through 5AM EST next Saturday (Dec. 2).
You can of course read these novels for free on KU, but eventually you have to give KU books back. You can now own all three of these for under $3. (And what were you going to do with that $3? You can’t even buy a latte for that.)
Anyway, here’s the link to the sale article on my author blog. And thanks to any and all of you who are readers.
The Hon. Roger T. Benitez, United States District Judge for the Southern District of California, in Duncan v. Bonta, p. 70, opinion issued today:
One government solution to a few mad men with guns is a law that makes into criminals responsible, law-abiding people wanting larger magazines simply to protect themselves. The history and tradition of the Second Amendment clearly supports state laws against the use or misuse of firearms with unlawful intent, but not the disarmament of the law-abiding citizen. That kind of a solution is an infringement on the Constitutional right of citizens to keep and bear arms. The adoption of the Second Amendment was a freedom calculus decided long ago by our first citizens who cherished individual freedom with its risks more than the subservient security of a British ruler or the smothering safety of domestic lawmakers. The freedom they fought for was worth fighting for then, and that freedom is entitled to be preserved still.
(My emphasis.) No kidding. Thank you, Judge Benitez. Maybe people will sit up and take notice, now.
And by people I mean “non-communists.”
And no, the header image is not a mistake. It’s an absolutely mad, crazy, fucked-up world out there, now, and my header image fully reflects that.
It’s two Japanese characters that read, “BAKA”. Or, “Crazy.” Or, when applied to a person, “Fool,” “Idiot,” “Joe Biden,” or similar terms in English. (That last may be my own interpretation.)
The most common explanation for this comes from Chinese history, where we are told
The kanji characters for baka together translate as “horse deer” or “point at a deer and say horse.” This is in reference to Zhao Gao, a Qin Dynasty politician who attempted to test his troops before committing treason. To test them, he presented a deer and called it a horse, which many rightfully found foolish. Those who wished to serve under him, however, followed along with his tomfoolery. The 11th-century book The Tale of Genji used this same explanation to talk about someone calling something another name to suck up to authority.
— https://www.cbr.com/what-does-baka-mean-anime/, accessed 8 Sep 2023
Sounds about right to me. These are the baka years, after all.
Happy birthday in heaven, love. This is what Midjourney thinks you’d look like if you were still with us and healthy.
Saturday morning, about 5AM, we were awakened by a yowl from our 14-year old Lynx Point Siamese cat, Frankie. Those who know, know that he was affectionately known as the Lord High Preventer of Work, or LHPoW for short. He’s the cat sitting on my desk in my current author picture on Amazon and at the back of my books. And he spent a lot of time on that desk, “helping” me write.
As it turns out, he had a bad case of congestive heart failure and had thrown a blood clot that cut off circulation to his legs. Though we got him to the emergency vet very quickly (we were there within 30 minutes), there really wasn’t anything they could do for him. They gave him methadone to kill the pain and get him back to a comfort level where they could examine him better, but the conclusion was simply that his time had come, so we authorized euthanasia at around 6AM.
Needless to say, my wife and I are both in shock. Frankie was fine Friday night when we went to bed; he jumped up and lay down on the pillow above my wife’s head as he has done for months. And there was no indication after that of any problem until he started yowling several hours later and woke us up.
Frankie was something of a feral rescue. I won’t say he was entirely feral but his mother was more or less feral and of course daddy cat was a traveling salesman. We got him in 2009, when he was five weeks old, and our older cat, Tiggr (RIP) sort of became a mommy to him. They were great friends until Tiggr passed away in 2015. At any rate we always spoil our cats and Frankie was no exception to that rule. And now he has left a paw-shaped hole in our hearts that will, eventually heal…but there will always be a scar there, just as there is for our other cats, Snoopy and Tiggr.
So the mantle of Lord High Preventer of Work now falls to its fourth holder, our void cat Tux. The LHPoW is dead; long live the LHPoW.
Rest in peace, little buddy. Your remembrance shall be for a blessing.