Sunday Morning Book Thread 08-21-2016: Summertime [OregonMuse]

El Ateneo Bookstore, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2).jpg

Libreria El Ateneo Grand Splendid Bookstore, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Good morning to all of you morons and moronettes and bartenders everywhere and all the ships at sea. Welcome to AoSHQ's stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, where men are men, all the 'ettes are gorgeous, safe spaces are underneath your house and are used as protection against actual dangers, like tornados, and snowflakes soon dissolve. And unlike other AoSHQ comment threads, the Sunday Morning Book Thread is so hoity-toity, pants are required. Even if it's these.

I could have sworn I've used a pic of this bookstore before, but I couldn't find where. So maybe I didn't. I'm going to eventually run out of library/bookstore pics so I'm going to have to get into repeats at some point, I'm afraid.

Anyway, according to this MSN travel piece:

Formerly a 1920s-era performance and movie theater, the Grand Splendid was the home of tango stars like Carlos Gardel. Everything inside has been repurposed: The box seats have been converted to reading nooks, while the stage is now a café. Visit in the afternoons and you might get to hear someone at the piano taking advantage of the building's amazing acoustics.

Click on the pic for a larger version.

Lest We Forget

From time to time on this blog, we old farts swap stories and reminisce about how much better things were in ye olde days, a time when, for example, you could leave your door unlocked, or kids could go off by themselves for the entire day and their parents wouldn't be worried sick about them. Not to mention the cool old cars, the cool old food, cool old buildings, etc.

But, as moron Mike Hammer noted in one of the morning threads a week or so ago, there are some things in the past that are perhaps best left there:

The first summer when I was home in Minnesota was that gosh-awful polio epidemic they had there. We admitted 464 proven cases of polio just at the University Hospital, which is unbelievable. And this was a very severe paralytic form. Maybe two or three hours after a lot of these kids would come in with a stiff neck or a fever, they'd be dead. It was unbelievable. It was just loads of people that came in, sometimes with only a fever but usually a headache and a little stiffness in the neck. And just absolutely terrified. At the height of the epidemic, the people in Minneapolis were so frightened that there was nobody in the restaurants. There was practically no traffic, the stores were empty. It just was considered a feat of bravado almost to go out and mingle in public. A lot of people just took up and moved away, went to another city.
— Richard Aldrich, M.D.
quoted in A Paralyzing Fear

Yeesh. This is horrific enough that Stephen King could write a book about it (which, now that you mention it, I think he already has). Anyway, the doctor quote is from A Paralyzing Fear: The Triumph Over Polio In America, which is a companion book to the PBS documentary of the same name.

(h/t to lurker John for the pic)

There are only two countries left in the world where the "wild" polio virus is still being reported. Guess where:

(Afghanistan and Pakistan) is the last remaining region with wild polio cases. Both major sides of the Afghan civil war support polio vaccination and polio rates are declining rapidly in Afghanistan, with only 19 cases in 2015...In Pakistan there were 53 cases in 2015, the highest number for any country. Vaccination in Pakistan is hindered by conflict and organizational problems. The militant Pakistani Taliban claims vaccination is a Western plot to sterilize local children. 66 vaccinators were killed in 2013 and 2014.

So, thankfully, polio is being reduced even in that part of the world, despite the efforts of death cult jihadis to spread it around.

Crossing the Streams

25 I lost my best pal this week.

My ten year old Lab had a coronary heart failure. I knew he wasn't well, but apparently he had cancer, and tumors in his chest were bleeding and filled his heart cavity with blood. He collapsed Monday afternoon after I got home from work. I managed to get him into the car with the help of my neighbor (my Lab weighed over 130 lb, he was a big dog), and by the time I got him to the emergency pet hospital, he was in cardiac arrest.

Last week, Hrothgar was writing about how he had lost his oldest dog, and I knew mine was sick, but just didn't realize how sick he was. I don't think taking him to the vet earlier would have prevented much, but it just broke my heart to lose my best friend. As my son said, he was the best dog a guy could have ever asked for. He loved my sons, and was just a great companion.

What makes dogs so loyal, such good friends? How do we ever deserve something as wonderful as that? How did I ever deserve to have such a good dog?

Posted by: Bossy Conservative....outlaw in America at August 20, 2016 03:40 PM (RFeQD)

A few days ago, moron commenter Anonosaurus Wrecks made me aware of Cold Noses At The Pearly Gates, a book that discusses where our pets go when they die:

The death of your beloved pet can be one of the most heartbreaking losses you'll ever endure. But recovery isn't only about closure. You also want to know where your best friend has gone.

After the intense, unexpected grief he experienced following the loss of his own companions, animal lover and biblical scholar Gary Kurz set out to prove that there are indeed pets in Paradise. After devoting countless hours of research, he now shares his inspiring insights to bring you a richer understanding of animals and their souls. You'll finally find answers to common questions about animals and the afterlife--and you'll also get a 30-day devotional to help you work through your grief.

I do not know enough about this topic to have an opinion. I certainly believe in the afterlife, and I don't think I would be surprised at either possibility. I don't think the Church has ever made a definitive ruling. I'm not a pet owner, and I haven't given this question much thought. I (literally) do not have a dog in this fight.

But what I found interesting is that while I was looking at this book, Amazon shoved some others at me that were very much like it. Biblical Proof Animals Go To Heaven by Steven H. Woodward, Wagging Tails in Heaven: The Gift Of Our Pets' Everlasting Love by Gary Kurz and The Rainbow Bridge: Pet Loss Is Heaven's Gain by Niki Behrikis Shanahan, to name three. And there are others.

I was quite surprised by this. This is apparently a topic that many people care very deeply about. I never knew.

Readers Wanted

A long-time lurker e-mailed me and asked if I could scare up a few volunteer readers for his novel he would like to publish, and provide him with feedback. I said sure, so here is the story as Jeff describes it:

It is an origin story of sorts for a character named John Smith, conceived as means of writing action/adventure stories at different points in time.

The first John Smith was a rogue, not keen on authority but smart and capable of blending into high society or low. He fell hard for the ideals of the Revolution, joined the Continental Army and promptly found himself in the stockade. General Washington saw his potential and put Smith in touch with some wealthy Founding Fathers who kept clear of the history books due to their unsavory professions. Smith’s successors have continued in the role ever since, passed down one to the other, working outside the government on behalf of every President through the present day.

It sort of sounds like the short-lived TV series Agent X.

The John Smith in this story is nearing retirement when President Roosevelt enlists his help finding a captive French scientist whose secrets may help Germany unlock the atom bomb.

So if this story interests you enough that you'd like to read it and provide feedback to the author, send him an e-mail: johnsmithnovel at 'G' mail period com.

Moron Recommendations

From a thread of a few days ago, wherein the virtues and defects of huge-ass fantasy author George R.R. Martin were being discussed:

In the early '80s he produced a heck of a good vampire/historical thriller called Fevre Dream, set in the 1850s, with unpleasant vampires, good historical detail, and one of the ugliest heroes in fiction (in fact he's called "The Ugliest Man on the River," the Mississippi River). Of course it wasn't 500 pages long, either.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at August 16, 2016 09:52 AM (txdEq)

Here is the Amazon blurb for Fevre Dream

Abner Marsh, a struggling riverboat captain, suspects that something’s amiss when he is approached by a wealthy aristocrat with a lucrative offer. The hauntingly pale, steely-eyed Joshua York doesn’t care that the icy winter of 1857 has wiped out all but one of Marsh’s dilapidated fleet; nor does he care that he won’t earn back his investment in a decade. York’s reasons for traversing the powerful Mississippi are to be none of Marsh’s concern—no matter how bizarre, arbitrary, or capricious York’s actions may prove. Not until the maiden voyage of Fevre Dream does Marsh realize that he has joined a mission both more sinister, and perhaps more noble, than his most fantastic nightmare—and humankind’s most impossible dream.

Up to this point, I has not read a single book by Martin, and after not being able to make it through the first episode of HBO's adaptation of Game of Thrones, I didn't think I was ever going to. But this one sounds like it may be worthwhile to read. So it's now on my stack.

___________

Anonosaurus Wrecks recommends Dance With the Devil: A Memoir of Murder and Loss, about the murder of Andrew Bagby, written by the victim's father and grandfather. This is the murder about which the documentary Dear Zachary was made" AW's description:

Crazy-ass female doctor with long history of abuse and crazy ass begins affair with male doctor twelve years her junior. When he dumps her, she stalks him eventually killing him then flees to Canada. During extended extradition hearings, she announces she's pregnant with victim's child eventually giving birth. When it looks like she will be deported, she straps the baby to her and commits suicide by jumping into the Atlantic. Scathing indictment of Canada's bail proceedings and child welfare agencies. Heartbreaking.

Books By Morons

From votermom's Goodreads group for morons, there's a new moron author Hans Schantz, a long time lurker, who has written a novel which he describes as "a science fiction techno-thriller about a conspiracy corrupting the world and how a young man rallies his friends and family to fight back."

The Amazon blurb describes The Hidden Truth: A Science Fiction Techno-Thriller as "Dan Brown meets Ayn Rand".

In addition to being an author, Schantz says he is "an entrepreneur, inventor, and father."

___________

I never knew that fantasy books could be divided into two categories, 'grimdark' and 'noblebright' until Sabrina Chase put me some knowledge in an e-mail this week. The difference should be obvious by the labels, but the former, according to Ms. Chase, makes you want to slit your wrists, but the latter is the opposite:

"Noblebright fantasy characters have the courage to risk kindness, honesty, integrity, and love; to fight against their own flaws and the darkness of the world around them; and to find hope in a grim world."

That's the blurb she's quoting on a new collection, Light in the Darkness: A Noblebright Fantasy Boxed Set, a collection of 12 books by 12 different authors including Ms. Chase's novel Last Mage Guardian. Also her short story, 'Wolf of Shadows'.

This collection will not be available for download until 10/18/2016, but you can pre-order it now for the low, low price of 99 cents. For less than a buck, you get 12 full-length, uplifting fantasy novels. Is that a good deal or what? It will also be available at the usual outlets like Kobo, Smashwords, Barnes&Noble, and Apple.

I guess there's some sort of consortium for noblebright writing, and I'm not sure if they're taking applications, but if they are, you should know that the penalties for backsliding are rather severe:

If any of our group starts writing like GRR Martin we go to the offender's house and beat them with sticks until they see the error of their ways.

Because nothing improves your writing more than a good beating.

___________

I've got good news and bad news. First, the good news: Krakatoa's brother has written a book. He said so right here.

Krak sez:

[H]ere's a little something for those looking for sweet literary payback against the overwhelming tide of PC, post-modern, post-morality, ham-handed political manifestos regularly generated by today's publishing houses. I bring you a non-PC, post-idiocracy, double-fisted mud-in-the-collective's-eye romp.

And he provided his own review:

It's SciFi although not hard SF. Won't make you do math, and mostly, it's a story about kicking a lot of ass. I'm biased, but I did enjoy it more than I expected, with a lot of good pages against only a few parts a little meh.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's high literature. But it's also not at all bad and had me turning pages, especially relative to contemporary fare. It can be heavy handed at points, and the action can tend towards the graphic novel at times. But I've read a lot worse from a lot of people making it through the regular literary channels and into paper publication. A. Lot. Worse.

The full title of this novel is Firing of the Crucible: Heros are not born. They are made. Phoenix Empire: Book 1.

The Amazon blurb is a bit of a head-scratcher. It starts out like this:

The Empire has thrived for millions of years with very little war marring the peace. It spans a large portion of the galaxy. Less than a hundred years ago the Empire found a young race, the Easlank. They were a race apparently recent to space travel but who consider all other life to be either slaves or food. The Empire decided to correct this view and help them integrate into the Empire.

Then it veers off into a different direction and it sounds like it's describing a completely different book. So I don't know. But krak's bro has also written a novella, Attila the Runner: Episode 1: Awakening

And now the bad news. Both of these were on sale for FREE, but the sale ended yesterday, one day too early for the book thread. So I don't know how much they're going for now.

___________

Moronette krukke1, who has been forced into lurker status because she's been pixybanned, is offering a FREE sampler of short stories taken from her 'Glimpse' series. To receive this sampler, all you need to do is go to her website. After your browser loads the home page, you should get a pop-up window asking to enter your email address. You will then be emailed a download link.

___________

Don't forget the AoSHQ reading group on Goodreads. It's meant to support horde writers and to talk about the great books that come up on the book thread. It's called AoSHQ Moron Horde and the link to it is here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/175335-aoshq-moron-horde.

___________

So that's all for this week. As always, book thread tips, suggestions, bribes, rumors, threats, and insults may be sent to OregonMuse, Proprietor, AoSHQ Book Thread, at the book thread e-mail address: aoshqbookthread, followed by the 'at' sign, and then 'G' mail, and then dot cee oh emm.

What have you all been reading this week? Hopefully something good, because, as you all know, life is too short to be reading lousy books.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 08:58 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Good morning bookworms
I don't have a new book yet, maybe by end ov the day

Posted by: Skip at August 21, 2016 08:59 AM (bksJQ)

2 Leaning towards the next Aubrey/Maturin novel Mauritius Command

Posted by: Skip at August 21, 2016 09:01 AM (bksJQ)

3 Not long ago, sitting around having drinks at the garden table, my much younger 3rd-cousin-once-removed neighbor asked me to tell his 9-year-old daughter what it was like being a kid during the polio epidemics. So I did, matter-of-factly as I could manage. Her eyes got big and she bit her lip. Must have been like meeting a survivor of the Black Death, except that she'd never seen anyone with braces. It's been that long.

The little girl down at the corner got it (well, she's pushing 60 now, still with the brace) because that was the summer of the Salk vs Sabin fight, and some kids down at the state kapdle had caught it from the vaccine, and her parents were scared as hell and were poorly advised and decided to hold off a while. That kind of stuff was the really scary part.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at August 21, 2016 09:10 AM (tIja6)

4 I will not go on about it again, but I am (for better or worse) old enough to recall the precautions that my parents took during the 1952 polio epidemic. One thing that I recall is that my dad's barber offered to come to the house to cut my hair.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at August 21, 2016 09:11 AM (9mTYi)

5 I'm currently reading Book 1 (of 3) of The Watchers Of The Well, the follow-up sequel series to The Well Of Souls series of 5 or 6 books by Jack L. Chalker. He has a foreword in Book 1, where he explains why he wrote this series; in a word, money.

Well Of Souls was by far his most successful set of books, and when the publisher comes to you, waving a multi-million dollar check...

I'm enjoying Book 1 so far. I got lucky at the used bookstore and was able to buy all 3 tomes at the same time.

Posted by: GnuBreed at August 21, 2016 09:12 AM (gyKtp)

6
I wanted to report back to the book thread about the Frontline series recommended last week end.

Opened up the Frontline series by Kloos
(First book is 'Terms of Enlistment') that was touted on last Sunday Book thread, and was captivated by the story.

I enjoyed all four but by the end the nagging political thread running through the books became an irritant. Military, poorly led. Government bad. Corporations bad. Rich people bad.

The poor people of Ferguson, brutally oppressed by an occupying military force, just want to have enough to eat and be free of crime, and if we would just let the good people of Ferguson police themselves crime would end, people would be well fed because all that government spending on space would go to feeding poor people in the city.

Sorry, I'm in a mood.
I spend several days exploring a story idea of my own and forty pages into it I realized that I was the only person on the planet who was interested in the story.

So I nuke'm from orbit and closed the file.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at August 21, 2016 09:14 AM (dw3S5)

7 &*%^#* sussin', frussin', pain-in-the-butt Rainbow Bridge!

Posted by: St. Peter wielding his Eternal Pooper Scooper at August 21, 2016 09:16 AM (wPiJc)

8 About our pets. I think it was WFB that told the story about an older lady who sought assurance from her priest that her dog would be in Heaven when she got there.

The priest gently told her that there was no scriptural evidence or suggestion that animals had a place in Heaven.

"But," she said worridly, "I could never be happy without my little dog.."

"Well" said the priest, "in that case, your dog will certainly be there."

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at August 21, 2016 09:16 AM (9mTYi)

9
I'm old enough to remember the sugar cube with the vaccine that we were given in grade school, and was old enough to know what a miracle it was.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at August 21, 2016 09:16 AM (dw3S5)

10 Finally got around to reading "City of Mirrors", book three of Justin Cronin's the passage trilogy. It was ok, kinda meh...not really sure how I feel about it. I've had it sitting in my kindle library since it came out.
I really enjoyed Adrienne Lector's Green Fields zombie series. Waiting for her next book.
Just read Chris Pike's Unexpected World and enjoyed it but there is only the one book so far.
Now I'm looking for recommendations for meaty post apocalyptic/ dystopian type books worth reading.

Posted by: lindafell de spair -racist, redneck, sexist, bitter clinger, Moron in TEXIT! at August 21, 2016 09:17 AM (xVgrA)

11 re polio, two things -- First, two 'in the wild' cases were reported this year in some African country I forget which.

Second, they are burning corpses in Siberia that are emerging from the permafrost after several were found to have polio DNA fragments.

Posted by: GnuBreed at August 21, 2016 09:19 AM (gyKtp)

12 Finished "The Black Widow", by Daniel Silva.

Very real plot, with solid characters.

But the last chapter seemed to devolve into something less then, yet more than a final chapter to that particular novel.

This was the first of the Gabriel Allon series to leave me with this feeling.

Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at August 21, 2016 09:20 AM (ptqRm)

13 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. Kind of an odd week for reading, a bit here and a bit there. Two of my favorite magazines arrived, "Fly Tyer' and "Muzzleloader". I never read them all at once but savor an article at a time. I'll have them done, even some of the ads, before the next issue arrives.

Posted by: JTB at August 21, 2016 09:21 AM (V+03K)

14 "I'm old enough to remember the sugar cube with the vaccine that we were given in grade school, and was old enough to know what a miracle it was. "

Boy, did that just dredge up an old and faded memory from my cranial hard drive.

Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at August 21, 2016 09:22 AM (ptqRm)

15 Finished Stealing America : what my experience with criminal gangs taught me about Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic party
by Dinesh D'Souza.

It is a good story. He comes across as naive, but educable. He lucidly explains America and what made America successful for a wide range of people in this book.

OBSF: Reading SF prevents future shock. The Syndic (1953) by Cyril Kornbluth and The Shockwave Rider (1975) by John Brunner both have criminals and criminal gangs as the basis for governance of the US.

Also finished The Return of Santiago (2003) by Mike Resnick. Meh. OK in parts.

On deck: Characters and viewpoint (2010)
by Orson Scott Card

Posted by: NaCly Dog at August 21, 2016 09:23 AM (u82oZ)

16 Posted by: Skandia Recluse at August 21, 2016 09:14 AM (dw3S5)

In the first 3 books the humans are sometimes so awful you wouldn't mind if the aliens wiped them out. He left that theme out of book 4, far as I can tell. Look forward to more of the series.

Posted by: waelse1 at August 21, 2016 09:27 AM (AzuxA)

17 My mom was a nursing student during that polio epidemic, and my sisters and I got whatever was coming along as a vaccine as soon as it was available. She wouldn't ever talk about it beyond saying that she'd never forgotten all the children in iron lungs.

Posted by: Lirio100 at August 21, 2016 09:28 AM (WY8ka)

18 This week finished the last of Jack July's Amy Lynn series.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at August 21, 2016 09:28 AM (9mTYi)

19 May I recommend The Little Red Book?

Posted by: Ready For R. R. R. Hillary!!11!! at August 21, 2016 09:29 AM (Tyii7)

20 Good morning. I'm so relieved that in this thread, the men are still men and all the 'ettes are gorgeous. I don't know why I got that mixed up with the chess thread; I was all out of whack yesterday I guess.

I have to admit I'm glad I no longer have to press my tutu for this thread, though. That was a pain.

Posted by: bluebell at August 21, 2016 09:29 AM (805dc)

21 My mom was a nursing student during that polio epidemic, and my sisters and I got whatever was coming along as a vaccine as soon as it was available. She wouldn't ever talk about it beyond saying that she'd never forgotten all the children in iron lungs.
Posted by: Lirio
-------------

At the time, my mother was a practicing nurse, and she was not taking any chances with my sister and I. We were totally quarantined.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at August 21, 2016 09:31 AM (9mTYi)

22
Winners for the Hugo Awards were announced August 20, 2016 at MidAmericon II, the 74th World Science Fiction Convention, held in Kansas City MO, August 17-21, 2016.

Best Novel The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US)

Best Novella Binti, Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com)

Best Novelette Folding Beijing, Hao Jingfang (Uncanny 1-2/15)

Best Related Work NO AWARD

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer [Not a Hugo Award] Andy Weir

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at August 21, 2016 09:33 AM (kdS6q)

23 So, I finally finished reading "The Horse, The Wheel, And Language" after working on it for....wow, over two years. I didn't make much progress since I only read it in the park, after biking to said park. And I usually only made it through a couple sub-chapters per sitting. Plus, I put it aside whenever I had a good novel on my Nook...

Anyways, the premise of the book is that the people who first spoke the Indo-European language were the first people to domesticate the horse and develop the wheel, and that these developments were a big part of why their language spread. Its a neat theory, and its pretty cool what they can deduce about the Indo-European culture. However the book itself is pretty dry, as large parts of it are dedicated to cataloging archaeological sites and then interpreting this data and explaining how it supports the theory. Important stuff, but a slog to get through.

Posted by: Castle Guy at August 21, 2016 09:34 AM (7aeqx)

24 Polio? Isn't that a rich man's disease?

Posted by: SJW in training at August 21, 2016 09:34 AM (MNgU2)

25 A comic strip is sort of like a shorter book.

And some of the story lines have become engrained in our history.

So I offer this.

We have lost the little red headed girl from the world of Charlie Brown.

http://tinyurl.com/z6g5mkk

Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at August 21, 2016 09:35 AM (ptqRm)

26 I'm old enough to remember the sugar cube with the vaccine that we were given in grade school, and was old enough to know what a miracle it was. Posted by: Skandia Recluse

It's funny how some life events fade from memory, while others remain clear. For some reason, even as a preschooler, I knew this was a big deal.

I can still picture the tray of sugarcubes. Pink, if I recall. Standing in line with hundreds of adults and children at the local grade school.

Posted by: free range 'sorta' conservative but not 'true' conservative at August 21, 2016 09:35 AM (ZnIt3)

27 I'm continuing with 'The Collected Letters of CS Lewis, volume 2' and it gets more interesting with each page. It's early 1932 and Lewis is concerned about his brother serving in the British Army in Singapore as the Japanese invade China. Beside the warmth he feels for his brother, the fears of Lewis' WW I combat experiences come through. Other letters touch on his still evolving understanding of Christianity, preferences for certain authors and book topics, even some bawdy jokes.

I picked up this and the first volume thinking I would look at a letter here and there. I will eventually read them all. It's like watching a time lapse of the life of a man I admire and look to for literary guidance. The two volumes are on Kindle beause they were cheap at 1.99 each. I'll continue looking for hardcover versions that are affordable. I've said before that I want certain books in print not just ebooks and these qualify.

Posted by: JTB at August 21, 2016 09:35 AM (V+03K)

28 As to polio vaccines , I'm old enough to remember queing up in the summer out doors at the playground for an injection . And although injections and me were never much of an issue , there was to be no whining or tears with this shot . My mother told me to thank god that this shot was here . Have a vague recollection of Dave Garroway( the first Today Show host ) interviewing Salk about the wonder drug . I didn't know mush about anything but I knew this was big

Posted by: jay hoenemeyer at August 21, 2016 09:36 AM (uvj0z)

29
File under BS, Utter:

In between the walks on the beach and multiple rounds of golf with NBA stars, President Obama is also taking some time on his summer vacation to hit the books.

The White House shared today five books that made the cut for Obama's summer reading list. Here are the books:

"Seveneves" by Neal Stephenson
"Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life" by William Finnegan
"The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead
"H is for Hawk" by Helen Macdonald
"The Girl on the Train" by Paula Hawkins

http://tinyurl.com/hurpa5p

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at August 21, 2016 09:37 AM (kdS6q)

30 Posted by: Castle Guy at August 21, 2016 09:34 AM (7aeqx)

Does it address opinion that the invention of the whippletree as one of the most significant developments?

Posted by: SJW in training at August 21, 2016 09:38 AM (MNgU2)

31 Another (readable) book by GRRM. Windhaven, jointly w/Lisa Tuttle. The story of a group of people that crashed on a planet covered mostly by water, whose most reliable means of communication is by flyers (an inherited position) since the wind almost never stops. So, what happens if the inheritor doesn't want to fly? And his adopted sister does?

It was so good I spent years (before the interwebz) looking for more books by him. So when GoT came out I got/borrowed the first book and read it. And IIRC the second one. I only made it partway through that and decided that these were not people i wanted to spend any time with.

Posted by: yara at August 21, 2016 09:38 AM (KX+ym)

32 @23 And as any of us beer historians will quickly add, right after they developed the language, domesticated the horse and invented the wheel, they came up with drunk driving. Hey, you're not opposed to the tenets of Western culture, are you?

Posted by: Stringer Davis at August 21, 2016 09:38 AM (tIja6)

33 Off ignorant sock

Posted by: Joe Hallenbeck at August 21, 2016 09:39 AM (MNgU2)

34 What is the difference between a moron and a lurker?

Posted by: todd at August 21, 2016 09:39 AM (0tW2s)

35 Fortunately for me, the polio epidemic is known to me only as a matter of history. However I've seen the pictures of kids in iron lungs and other horrible memorializations of the disease. This is why I find it infuriating, and downright evil, to see the powers that be causing the resurgence of diseases that we'd conquered years ago by allowing the uncontrolled flood of illegals coming in from third world shitholes.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 21, 2016 09:40 AM (0mRoj)

36 Last night way late in the ONT Epobirs brought news. Grim news one might say since it was all about Soviet Justice Wankers at WorldCon virtue signaling, again.

Jerry Pournelle was up for an award for the There Will Be War anthology. The Supreme Soviet of the Hugos elected to give No Award in that category.

Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 09:41 AM (NSeBd)

37 Yeah he toned it down in the fourth book. If he hadn't that would have been my last one.

Posted by: WOPR - Nationalist at August 21, 2016 09:41 AM (u1FKh)

38 Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at August 21, 2016 09:37 AM (kdS6q)

He read them the same as he shot 2 under par. You know they gave him cliff notes in case someone asks him about them. I'd guess he didn't even read those.

Posted by: Joe Hallenbeck at August 21, 2016 09:42 AM (MNgU2)

39 Well, I gotta offer a mea culpa to anyone that followed my recommendation to read V.E. Schwab's "A Darker Shade of Magic". It turned out to be kind of a disappointment.

It started off really strong, great setting, interesting dialogue....but then it just got boring. The characters became one-dimensional and flat, the action sequences were predictable and usually unnecessary and the ending just felt tacked on and rushed. When the answer to the question half-way through the book of "Would I care if the author killed off the main character and his (sorta) side-kick right now?" is "No", that's a bad sign.

The abrasive, sociopathic, 19-year-old female thief with one eye who kicks everyone's ass, including entire groups of armed and armored men, was especially eye-rolling. I like female heroines when they're done right (check out Vin in Sanderson's Mistborn series), but Christ, I wanted to punch this character in the face the entire book. No growth, no development, just the author getting off on creating yet another irritating over-powered "grrrrlllls rock!" stereotype. Oh, and the author gave this wooden, one-dimensional trope of a character a flintlock revolver (which did exist in the early 1800s) but were known for being finicky and unreliable. This pistol, of course, was dead-on reliable, super-accurate and never needed to be cleaned or reloaded or anything. Because, grrrlll power!

So give it a try if you want, but I was disappointed in the final product. The book has a lot of potential but I think that's just a result of having a really cool setting (four Londons with different levels of magic). Save your money and buy a Christian Cameron book (I just started his first installment in the Long War series. If you love Greek military history, this is the book to get...)

Posted by: Pave Low John at August 21, 2016 09:42 AM (OejZ/)

40 "What is the difference between a moron and a lurker?"

A moron is an uneducated individual, uninterested in elevating their level of knowledge, nor the ability to hold intelligent written discourse.

A lurker on the other hand, is an individual who reads the posts and comments here on a regular basis, but for whatever reason, chooses to not write comments themselves.

On the other hand, we have Morons.

The capitalization is of no small significance.

Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at August 21, 2016 09:43 AM (ptqRm)

41 34 Todd

A Moron proves it by posting. A lurker just smiles at the posts in grey boxes.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at August 21, 2016 09:43 AM (u82oZ)

42 About our pets. I think it was WFB that told the story about an older lady who sought assurance from her priest that her dog would be in Heaven when she got there.

The priest gently told her that there was no scriptural evidence or suggestion that animals had a place in Heaven.

"But," she said worridly, "I could never be happy without my little dog.."

"Well" said the priest, "in that case, your dog will certainly be there."
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at August 21, 2016 09:16 AM (9mTYi)

I think that's the answer. Start with a few basics:

1. Belief in a loving God.
2. Belief in an afterlife.
3. The things that bring one joy on Earth.

After that, I'm not sure what "proof" one needs of the details of Heaven. I cannot imagine needing to read a book on the topic. There is such a thing as over-thinking things.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 21, 2016 09:44 AM (Pz4pT)

43 The Girl on the Train is now a movie. I'd bet Obama got a sneak preview.

Posted by: Joe Hallenbeck at August 21, 2016 09:44 AM (MNgU2)

44 Still don't understand. In this blog, what is the difference between a Moron and a lurker? How would you know if someone is lurking if they don't comment?

Posted by: todd at August 21, 2016 09:44 AM (0tW2s)

45 A lurker keeps his mouth shut and appears a fool.
A Moron opens it and removes all doubt.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at August 21, 2016 09:45 AM (tIja6)

46 About our pets. I think it was WFB that told the story about an older lady who sought assurance from her priest that her dog would be in Heaven when she got there.

The priest gently told her that there was no scriptural evidence or suggestion that animals had a place in Heaven.

"But," she said worridly, "I could never be happy without my little dog.."

"Well" said the priest, "in that case, your dog will certainly be there."
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at August 21, 2016 09:16 AM (9mTYi

That's the subject of one of the best Twightlight Zone episodes.

Posted by: Joe Hallenbeck at August 21, 2016 09:46 AM (MNgU2)

47 In the first 3 books the humans are sometimes so awful you wouldn't mind if the aliens wiped them out.

Posted by: waelse1 at August 21, 2016 09:27 AM

The two central characters are quite likeable. I never thought humanity should be wiped out. It just seemed that many of todays news headlines were in that story, and I didn't mind that; I found it quite enjoyable.

In my own case my characters are beautiful red headed female warrior priests who bewitch man and beast with modern pharmaceuticles, and I've discovered people don't like them!

Yet we have the moron pet thread, and I see many of the horde miss their departed pets. That is an a major part of my characters; they love their apex predators and are loved by them. I've even been accused of writing 'Mary Sue' characters and I ask, "What is wrong with that?" Who doesn't want to be the hero? You would rather be the bad guy, or the victim?

Another undercurrent is that these killer women make some men crazy, out of their minds crazy.
The story I was trying to write has these lovely women trying to befriend their neighbors to form an alliance, but the paranoia of some of the men gets in the way.

In the end, I gave up. The girls leave, and one says, "Just drop a rock on their heads. The universe would be a better place with fewer humans in it."

And my work doesn't sell. It's inexplicable, I tell you.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at August 21, 2016 09:46 AM (dw3S5)

48 Mauritius Command is one of my favorite in the series, and its the first where Aubrey really seems to have grown up and become the captain he should be. It also is a fascinating bit of naval history I wasn't aware of regarding a battle for islands in the middle of nowhere.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at August 21, 2016 09:47 AM (39g3+)

49 Posted by: Stringer Davis at August 21, 2016 09:45 AM (tIja6)

Heh . Good one.

Posted by: Joe Hallenbeck at August 21, 2016 09:47 AM (MNgU2)

50 todd

Moron's comment in the little grey boxes.

It, as well as some basic intellectual requirements is what makes the Morons.

I comment...therefore I am.

Lurkers, well, they don't comment, so we don't know they are here.

Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at August 21, 2016 09:47 AM (ptqRm)

51 How would you know if someone is lurking if they don't comment?

Stay close to the fire and randomly shoot into the bushes. It may not hit any lurkers but it might scare some away and it will make you feel like you're doing something.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at August 21, 2016 09:47 AM (mgbwf)

52 What is the difference between a moron and a lurker?

Posted by: todd at August 21, 2016 09:39 AM (0tW2s)

Tasteful topless photos in the files, and t-shirts for the guys.

#twoweeks.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at August 21, 2016 09:48 AM (Zu3d9)

53 What is the difference between a moron and a lurker?
Posted by: todd at August 21, 2016 09:39 AM (0tW2s)

The wall between the two is great and vast and wide. Lurkers lurk and morons... well, morons go to that little box at the end of the comments and types in the first dumb thing that pops into their pointy little heads.

How does one graduate from lurker to moron status?

You just did. Congratulations! Or condolences. Whichever seems most appropriate to you.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 21, 2016 09:48 AM (Pz4pT)

54 I comment...therefore I am.

Commento ergo sum.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 21, 2016 09:49 AM (0mRoj)

55 So how does the author say that someone is a lurker unless they self-declare? And what is pixi-banned?

Posted by: todd at August 21, 2016 09:49 AM (0tW2s)

56 How do you conjugate Valu-Rite into Latin???

Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 09:50 AM (NSeBd)

57 55 So how does the author say that someone is a lurker unless they self-declare? And what is pixi-banned?
Posted by: todd at August 21, 2016 09:49 AM (0tW2s)

You sure do ask a lot of questions. Are you sure you're not Bob from the NSA?

Posted by: Insomniac at August 21, 2016 09:50 AM (0mRoj)

58 I have to say that the comments engine here is a little cryptic, I wish that it was Disqus, but I am guessing that the blog owner has a reason for the way it is.

Posted by: todd at August 21, 2016 09:50 AM (0tW2s)

59 44 todd

You don't know about lurkers unless they decloak in the Pet thread.

But you know them by their fruits; when they post long time lurker, first time poster and they show they understand our memes like elbows, why you do not upset FenelonSpoke or Jane D'Oh or AtC, and buzzion posting from the dead.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at August 21, 2016 09:50 AM (u82oZ)

60 A Moron says, "Hey guys, I wrote a book and from having interacted with you in the past I think some of you might be interested in it."

A lurker says, "Hey OM, nobody here knows me but since I'm trying to sell a book, and since you run this book thread, could you pimp it for me?"

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at August 21, 2016 09:51 AM (wPiJc)

61 *sniff*

Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at August 21, 2016 09:51 AM (ptqRm)

62 How would you know if someone is lurking if they don't comment?
Posted by: todd at August 21, 2016 09:44 AM (0tW2s)

It's a Schrodinger's cat thing. Once the lurker reveals himself, he is no longer a lurker.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 21, 2016 09:51 AM (Pz4pT)

63 I remember the polio epidemic well. A younger friend of mine was, I believe, the last person in our town to contract it shortly before the vaccine became available.

Started reading P.G. Wodehouse. Love the writing, but man, cricket is a confusing game. "23 not out?" WTF?

Posted by: That SOB Van Owen at August 21, 2016 09:52 AM (CAKDm)

64 Polio: I vividly remember standing in line at the junior high school waiting for the sugar cube. I was old enough to be completely aware of iron lungs, braces, and death from polio. My mother was an RN and her closest RN friends, who were in different areas of New England, had met and trained together during WW II in NYC. Our parents were VERY aware of what the benefits and possible side effects of the treatment could mean. There were a lot of 'adult only, kids get out of the room' phone calls about it as the date approached.

I'm pretty old fashioned, even a bit of a luddite, but I'm glad these are memories, not current events.

Posted by: JTB at August 21, 2016 09:52 AM (V+03K)

65 It's a Schrodinger's cat thing. Once the lurker reveals himself, he is no longer a lurker.
Posted by: BurtTC at August 21, 2016 09:51 AM (Pz4pT)

Not to be confused with a lurker exposing himself.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 21, 2016 09:52 AM (0mRoj)

66 As an alternative to WoldCon and the Hugo Award, DragonCon will be giving out its own awards.

http://awards.dragoncon.org/

Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 09:52 AM (NSeBd)

67 Yay book thread!

Today in History - the Battle of Tenaru (aka Battle of Ilu River)

On my blog today is a short post about one of it's heroes.
Link in nic

Posted by: @votermom at August 21, 2016 09:52 AM (rzbDX)

68 "You sure do ask a lot of questions. Are you sure you're not Bob from the NSA?"

Not us.

Check with the FBI

Posted by: Bob, from the NSA at August 21, 2016 09:52 AM (ptqRm)

69 There's a Twilght Zone about pets and heaven.

Old hillbilly and his faithful hound die while on a hunt. But they don't know it.

They come upon a gate in a fence with a kindly watchman who explains to them and also that this is Heaven's gate. But, so sorry, the hound cannot be admitted. So the hillbilly refuses the watchman' entreaties and decides to jeep walking.

Shortly down the lane, they come to another watchman who also claims to be at the entrance to heaven. This time, of course his doggeh is welcome. When the hillbilly asks about the first gate, turns out it was Satan trying to trick the old man into hell by abandoning his hound.

So according to Rod Serling, there are no doggehs in hell, and if anyone promises you paradise for abandoning your dog, shoot 'em.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at August 21, 2016 09:53 AM (9UTTV)

70 Currently reading Tank Tactics which is a study of ETO tank fighting. McNair really shafted US tank development.

Posted by: WOPR - Nationalist at August 21, 2016 09:53 AM (u1FKh)

71 After reading "White Girl Bleed Alot", and "Don't Make The Black Kids Angry" by Colin Flaherty, I love middle of nowhere flyover country all that much more.

Both books are well documented and depressing, though you'll have to do some searching for the video evidence as it keeps being pulled down. Inconvenient to the media/political narrative, you know. But Flaherty has some good links right at his book website.

Posted by: Subtle and Hilarious Sock at August 21, 2016 09:53 AM (DHDiP)

72 34 What is the difference between a moron and a lurker?

Posted by: todd at August 21, 2016 09:39 AM (0tW2s)

A moron is a denizen of this here smart military blog who posts comments.

A lurker is just a moron who reads the blog and the comments, but never posts any comments him/herself.

Posted by: OregonMuse at August 21, 2016 09:54 AM (YHmsR)

73 My old Aunt contracted polio up there. She was sick for years and then somewhat recovered, only to get sick again years later. An awful disease

Posted by: Rick554 at August 21, 2016 09:55 AM (oWtm/)

74 Posted by: Lirio100 at August 21, 2016 09:28 AM (WY8ka)

My father-in-law spent time in an iron lung as a three-year-old because of polio. I used to *sorta* joke that if I went anti-vax he'd get the kids taken away. His lungs have always been rather weak and prone to infections and I wonder how much is due to polio.

It makes sense that many sent to Siberia pre-vax would have or carry polio. Easy to forget possible vectors lime that.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at August 21, 2016 09:55 AM (GDulk)

75 "I'm here for the hookers and the booze and the Internet porn."

This is what you would hear at the architectural monstrosity known as the New Downtown Seattle Public Library.

Posted by: Headless Body of Agnew at August 21, 2016 09:56 AM (FtrY1)

76 The White House shared today five books that made the cut for Obama's summer reading list. Here are the books:

"Seveneves" by Neal Stephenson
"Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life" by William Finnegan
"The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead
"H is for Hawk" by Helen Macdonald
"The Girl on the Train" by Paula Hawkins

http://tinyurl.com/hurpa5p
Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at August 21, 2016 09:37 AM (kdS6q)

Yeah, I call BS on that. I just work a 9-5 & as it is I can only get a chapter read a day.

Posted by: josephistan at August 21, 2016 09:57 AM (7qAYi)

77 It seems to me a sad sort of theology that seems less interested in whether one will meet Jesus in Heaven than whether Fluffy will be there.

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at August 21, 2016 09:57 AM (wPiJc)

78 In before page 100! (See, "page" instead of "comment" - it's like a hardcopy reference as if book... right? right? um... let me go start the coffee...)

Posted by: mindful webworker - dog-earing the pages at August 21, 2016 09:57 AM (XkxK0)

79 >>The full title of this novel is Firing of the Crucible: Heros are not born. They are made. Phoenix Empire: Book 1.

I read it and enjoyed it. Like the different point of view, not humans wandering out into the galaxy, but...well, you'll see.

Posted by: Mama AJ at August 21, 2016 09:58 AM (gTQoY)

80 While todd asks some good questions, it reminds me of the wild times.

The time before the AoSHQ Style guide, provided with each paid membership, no matter what level of membership paid.

And the decoder ring.
Available only to the Platinum members.

Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at August 21, 2016 09:58 AM (ptqRm)

81
I come here to vent.
That annoys people.
So they call me a troll.

Writing has been called a mental illness, a character flaw, a compulsion. Which is cause and which is effect?

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at August 21, 2016 09:59 AM (dw3S5)

82 Those books are on his list, but the ones he'll actually read are by guys like Zinn and Mao

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at August 21, 2016 09:59 AM (39g3+)

83 In my evangelical days, the teaching I remember was that in heaven we would know our relationships, but that it isn't like you would still be married to your wife. She would just be there like you are. So not sure about the dog thing.

Posted by: todd at August 21, 2016 09:59 AM (0tW2s)

84 And the decoder ring.
Available only to the Platinum members.

Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at August 21, 2016 09:58 AM (ptqRm)

Yes, I keep my decoder ring in a safe within a safe, just to be sure!

Posted by: Hrothgar at August 21, 2016 10:00 AM (wCEn4)

85 >>Not to be confused with a lurker exposing himself.

And yet so many do get confused with that...

Posted by: Mama AJ at August 21, 2016 10:00 AM (gTQoY)

86 Just started watching the SyFy tv show based on the "The Magicians" books by Lev Grossman that have been discussed here before. (A grittier/nastier Narnia/Harry Potter-type story). While I thought the book was a bit wordy at times, the show is the opposite, pretty bare bones exposition and then right into the plot. If I hadn't read the book, I doubt I'd know what was going on. In both the book and the show, likable characters are few and far between, but it's still a good tale.

Posted by: Lincolntf at August 21, 2016 10:00 AM (2cS/G)

87 I could have sworn I've used a pic of this bookstore before, but I couldn't find where. So maybe I didn't. I'm going to eventually run out of library/bookstore pics so I'm going to have to get into repeats at some point, I'm afraid
---------
Not all reruns/repeats are a bad thing OM

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at August 21, 2016 10:00 AM (voOPb)

88 To be fair, there's a difference between "summer reading list" and "stuff he's read".

It only took one summer reading list without being asked any questions about those books in the fall for me to figure out it was bullshit.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at August 21, 2016 10:00 AM (mgbwf)

89 This is why I find it infuriating, and downright evil, to see the powers that be causing the resurgence of diseases that we'd conquered years ago by allowing the uncontrolled flood of illegals coming in from third world shitholes.Posted by: Insomniac

The phrase 'willfully ignorant' comes to mind. Anyone who supports Hillary Clinton falls into that area.

I will not soon forgive nor forget their ignorance because it threatens me, my family, my friends directly.

Who among us, who stood in line for hours, with just about everyone else in their community, ever forget?

Posted by: free range 'sorta' conservative but not 'true' conservative at August 21, 2016 10:01 AM (ZnIt3)

90 I just re-read Daybreakers by Louis L'Amour, and it struck me how good a season of an HBO series that would be -- although it doesn't have nearly enough nudity and sex in it to make them happy. I really wish I had the money to produce books as series, not some gargantuan epic, but a book a season or two.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at August 21, 2016 10:02 AM (39g3+)

91 Many thanks, OregonMuse! Yes, we are trying to start a Thing with noblebright. I'm sure there are people who prefer books were everybody dies, alone, in the rain, but I don't and I think I'm not alone. And our little band of adventurers is planning other collections if this works, so stay tuned...

Also keep an eye on the Dragon awards. This is starting to look like a Thing too, as the Hugos fade away into the swamps of PC. And ordinary mortal like Book Thread Morons can vote too! No cost. http://awards.dragoncon.org/

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at August 21, 2016 10:03 AM (GG9V6)

92 I finally finished "Confrontation" by Nick van der Bijl. It's about the British Commonwealth war against Indonesia in the 1960s. It's well-written for what it is, but a book about small until patrols in the jungle tends to get tedious after a bit, each mission is barely distinguishable from the one that preceded it.

Posted by: josephistan at August 21, 2016 10:03 AM (7qAYi)

93 If there's a doggie heaven, mustn't there be a doggie hell? Mostly German Shepherds who fell in with bad company?

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 21, 2016 10:03 AM (bQxkN)

94 It seems to me a sad sort of theology that seems less interested in whether one will meet Jesus in Heaven than whether Fluffy will be there.

I agree, but it will put people in pews and money in your pocket.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at August 21, 2016 10:04 AM (39g3+)

95 Good gosh, David Weber's Safehold series is now eight books long? And Hell's Foundations Quiver is one of the nominees for the new Dragon Awards.

At least book fourteen of the Honor Harrington series is coming out - Shadow of Victory in November.

Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 10:04 AM (NSeBd)

96 Speaking of olde-tyme epidemics and medical mysteries-

Two of my favorite books the I was a boy were written by a newspaper columnist, Berton Roueche:

"The Incurable Wound"

and

"Eleven Blue Men"

They are collections of his columns concerning medical mysteries from roughly the 1940s.

The interesting thing is-

how very much the epidemiologists' or public health officials' work in those days was like that of a gumshoe detective. since they lacked the technology that we all take for granted.

The other thing that's interesting is the suppressed level of fear hovering over some these stories-

their greatest fear was that these mysteries might represent a new epidemic rearing it's ugly head amongst the America populous.

(Though I suppose, those days are returning thanks to all our undocumented "guests". Suddenly, everything from exotic new viruses to super bedbugs and head lice are appearing on the American landscape.)

As a boy, I found these fascinating, and still dip into my (crumbling) paperbacks of those books from time to time.

Now, for the bad news, these books are no longer in print and apparently haven't been for years. You can find them on amazon at a "meh" price.

Though, I still see them from time to time in used book stores. If you have a great used book store in your area, you can probably find them there or maybe at a big central library.

If that sounds like your kind of thing, check it out.

Posted by: naturafake at August 21, 2016 10:04 AM (HGtd0)

97 Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at August 21, 2016 09:51 AM (ptqRm

This.

Posted by: chiefjaybob, who hates everyone at August 21, 2016 10:04 AM (G2Sc9)

98 Posted by: Legally Sufficient at August 20, 2016 05:44 PM (tbKrr)

Posted this on the Pet Thread yesterday, and still we have had some dog commentary here today, I'll repost it here:

"Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart for a dog to tear."

The complete poem is at

http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_dog.htm

Posted by: Hrothgar at August 21, 2016 10:04 AM (wCEn4)

99 It's a Schrodinger's cat thing. Once the lurker reveals himself, he is no longer a lurker.
Posted by: BurtTC at August 21, 2016 09:51 AM (Pz4pT)

Not to be confused with a lurker exposing himself.
Posted by: Insomniac at August 21, 2016 09:52 AM (0mRoj)

Ah, now we are getting deeply philosophical. If one chooses to show up here, without pants... and really, why would you not, is it better to tell everyone or keep it to yourself?

A highly personal decision, I am sure. Not one we should be imposing on anyone, and yet, like Ginger v. Maryann, will lead to many arguments.

Posted by: BurtTC at August 21, 2016 10:04 AM (Pz4pT)

100 I recently came across the ultimate Anti-Moron book. It's life advice is opposite of what occurs at aos.

Don't Sweat The Small Stuff....and it's all small stuff

Random chapter captions:

Make Peace with Imperfection
Let Others Be 'Right' Most of the Time
Search for the Grain of Truth in Other Opinions
Just for Fun, Agree with Criticism Directed Toward You

( actually a lot of the chapters address positive traits that many morons have outside the intertubz comment world )

Posted by: Joe Hallenbeck at August 21, 2016 10:06 AM (MNgU2)

101 Uh oh, Sabrina Chase and I both pushing the Dragon Awards. The end is nigh!!!!

Or is that "Neigh!" due to well writing Noble Bright?

Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 10:06 AM (NSeBd)

102 If one chooses to show up here, without pants... and really, why would you not, is it better to tell everyone or keep it to yourself?

*****

If you choose the second option be sure to put some masking tape over your web cam.

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at August 21, 2016 10:07 AM (wPiJc)

103 I'm old enough to have taken both the Sabin and Salk vaccines.

Posted by: Tuna at August 21, 2016 10:07 AM (JSovD)

104
So, I finally finished reading "The Horse, The Wheel, And Language"
after working on it for....wow, over two years. I didn't make much
progress since I only read it in the park, after biking to said park.
And I usually only made it through a couple sub-chapters per sitting.
Plus, I put it aside whenever I had a good novel on my Nook...

[. . .]

Posted by: Castle Guy at August 21, 2016 09:34 AM (7aeqx)

David Anthony gives a good lecture, if you are interested in looking him up on YouTube. He is also used a lot as a reference in the first 20 or so episodes of The History of English Podcast, which starts by looking at Proto Indo-European

With an idea of what it all means Anthony's book might be more approachable. (I'm a language and culture geek.)

Posted by: Kindltot at August 21, 2016 10:08 AM (ry34m)

105
And a cobbled together summary. Sounds dismal:

Best Novel The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US)

Independent Wymyn of Color and her Gay BFF pursue her husband for child support across magic Volcano Dune, in the Second Person Narrative no less.

Also, someone still thinks using the EFB "Maiden, the Mother and the Crone" trope is hip.

First of a threatened trilogy.

http://tinyurl.com/gnsajnk

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at August 21, 2016 10:09 AM (kdS6q)

106 Hugos are out.

N. K. Jemisin won best novel.

Really? Her works are terrible. She's only famous for pushing the SJW political line.

The Hugos are now officially worthless. All hail the Dragon Awards!

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at August 21, 2016 10:10 AM (0KfYo)

107
Sans Pataloons could mean many things, like skirts, kilts, shorts, beach wear, evening wear.

I don't see the problem.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at August 21, 2016 10:10 AM (dw3S5)

108 11 they are burning corpses in Siberia that are emerging from the permafrost after several were found to have polio DNA fragments.
Posted by: GnuBreed at August 21, 2016 09:19 AM (gyKtp)

You didn't see the article about all the smallpox bodies?!

Posted by: bebe's boobs destroy at August 21, 2016 10:10 AM (hscyr)

109 I got a bunch of new books these past few weeks. I wanted to post on last week's book thread, but there was a fire alarm in my building, and by the time that was over I had to rush to get to church & the rest of the day was gone.

Last week I got an order in from Naval & Military Press in the UK. They specialize in military history, especially from British publishers. They had a huge sale, with many books as low as a pound, so I picked up books on Mugabe's war machine, the Portuguese conquest of Africa, the Ethiopian theater in WWII, the Sixth Coalition against Napoleon & Wellington's campaigns in India. All that & shipping for less than $30.

During the week I got a book on Nader Shah, 18th-century warrior king of Persia. Looks to be the only book in English that gives any detail on the Russo-Persian & Ottoman-Persian Wars of that era.

And on Friday a local used bookstore had a sale, and I picked up a history of Ulster, Sherman's Carolina Campaign, the 1905 Russian Revolution, and the invaluable Putnam Aviation series book on American Naval Aircraft.

Posted by: josephistan at August 21, 2016 10:10 AM (7qAYi)

110 todd
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
***pst***{ whispers..new guy^^^^^^^}

Posted by: lindafell de spair -racist, redneck, sexist, bitter clinger, Moron in TEXIT! at August 21, 2016 10:11 AM (xVgrA)

111 Please check out OM's link to the fancy pants dudes. It's like a trio of WASP golf harlequins.

Tried to power through Tom Kratman's Texit novel "State of Disobedience" but didn't find it up to Krat's high watermark of transgressive offense, "Wacht Am Rhein", in which old Nazis are rejuvenated to fight aliens. That's like my favorite Venn intersection and it did not disappoint. "State" was just meh, if prescient. Ringo's "Last Centurion" was far better.

Has anybody read Krat's "Amazon Legion"? It's been moldering on my shelves for years.

I could refrain from buying/checking out books for a year and have ample reading material right here at home, but there's this addictive book thread...

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 10:12 AM (jR7Wy)

112 N. K. Jemisin???

I'll go read The Left Hand of Darkness instead.

Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 10:13 AM (NSeBd)

113 I'm not wearing assless chaps again today.

Speaking of chaps my mominlaw gave me a couple of O'Reilly Killing books, Reagan and Kennedy. Are these a waste of time?

Posted by: freaked at August 21, 2016 10:13 AM (BO/km)

114 (15): "OBSF: Reading SF prevents future shock. The Syndic (1953) by Cyril Kornbluth and The Shockwave Rider (1975) by John Brunner both have criminals and criminal gangs as the basis for governance of the US."
__Shockwave Rider__ described infectious code years before they became an issue. BBC (iirc) interviewed Brunner after the first worldwide virus attack, some years later.

Posted by: Malcolm Kirkpatrick at August 21, 2016 10:14 AM (IbUUZ)

115 "I'm not wearing assless chaps again today. "

There are those who have written western based stories who say that Chaps, with the ass sewn in are nothing but pants.

Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at August 21, 2016 10:15 AM (ptqRm)

116 Listened to Russell Blake's Ramsey's Gold (Drake Ramsey #1) where a young man named Drake Ramsey inherits a mysterious journal pointing to a South American treasure. Naming him Drake seems appropriate as it plays out like an Uncharted videogame, with bad guys, gun battles and so on. Pretty good.

Listened to Playback (Philip Marlowe #7) by Raymond Chandler, where Marlowe is hired to find a woman without explanation. He finds others are also on her trail and has to put the pieces together. Great stuff.

Read The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle, where British adventurers go out in search of dinosaurs in South America. Pretty good.

Read Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, one of his best comedies, at times LOL funny and other times serious. Have to dig out he Branagh/Thompson DVD.

Posted by: waelse1 at August 21, 2016 10:16 AM (AzuxA)

117 Sans Pataloons could mean many things, like skirts, kilts, shorts, beach wear, evening wear.

I don't see the problem.
Posted by: Skandia Recluse at August 21, 2016 10:10 AM (dw3S5)

It is impossible for me to wear my ball gown without also wearing my tiara... which tends to fall off when I yell at the comments made here.

So yeah, it's a problem.

DON'T JUDGE ME!!

Posted by: BurtTC at August 21, 2016 10:17 AM (Pz4pT)

118 Beer Preceded the Wheel: an epistemological proof

Thag and Oog brew up some beer, go outside to the front porch of their cave, sit down on the hood of Oog's Mustang GT to watch the sunset. They soon run out of beer.

Oog: "Hey, let's drive over to Grok's place and see if he has any beer."

Thag: "What's driving?"

Oog: "If I didn't have these square rocks on the ends of my axles I would show you."

Q.E.D.

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at August 21, 2016 10:18 AM (wPiJc)

119 I could have sworn I've used a pic of this bookstore before, but I couldn't find where. So maybe I didn't. I'm going to eventually run out of library/bookstore pics so I'm going to have to get into repeats at some point, I'm afraid
---
Oregon Muse, I bet there are morons with plushly appointed libraries. Perhaps they could send in photos a la the Pet Thread?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 10:18 AM (jR7Wy)

120
Best Novella Binti, Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com)

Summary

Spike Lee's "School Daze"-- in Spaaaaace!

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at August 21, 2016 10:19 AM (kdS6q)

121 I love being able to add to someone's reading pleasure and will get the chance next week.

Had the annual eye exam this week and, as usual, started talking books with the optometrist. Her husband is a Tolkien fanatic, so I know he's a good guy. Their 14 year old son loves reading historical fiction and is about to start 'Master and Commander'. At the used book store yesterday I found copies of 'A Sea of Words' and 'Harbors and High Seas'. These are excellent adjuncts to the Aubrey/Maturin books. They were a buck apiece and in great condition. I'll drop them off to her next week. Hopefully, the kid will enjoy them and I get to be a good (and inexpensive) influence.

That same trip to the book store yielded affordable copies of books about background on Narnia stories, a 'biography' of Horation Hornblower, and others. Damn, I love that place but it is dangerous.

Posted by: JTB at August 21, 2016 10:19 AM (V+03K)

122 Lindafell- I left a message for you at the end of EMT.

Posted by: Ben Had at August 21, 2016 10:20 AM (giLZa)

123 Just came across this nice piece of writing, "Voters can change their minds quickly, but in Clinton's case it won't even be clear what they think in the first place."

Posted by: free range 'sorta' conservative but not 'true' conservative at August 21, 2016 10:21 AM (ZnIt3)

124 The hillbilly and his hound was one of the truly great Twilight Zones.

The only G R R Martin book I liked was a set of short stories called "Tuf Voyaging", which I recommend. After reading that I looked into other books by him, but they all were "meh" at best.

All re-reading lately, nothing good on the "New" shelves at the library .... just finished I, Claudius, starting Claudius the God today.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez at August 21, 2016 10:21 AM (gUoN4)

125 Crossing the Stream.

I came home early on Friday to take Sarge into the vet for his last visit. He was nearly 12 (a good age for a Borzoi) and his bleeding from the anus had become more frequent and his breathing was becoming raspy.

Heartbreakingly, he was not asking to go: even in his last day - like his brothers Chance and Smudge - he greeted us with bright eyes, a wagging tail and an eager appetite.

It was raining and I went down to the kennel with a collar and leash to collect him. When I went in, I saw that his pen-mate Ilya was not in with him. With growing alarm I kept calling for Ilya without him coming in. I ran outside to the back of the kennel and found him outside the pen door, dead.

So I had the awful duty of bagging Ilya up (difficult because he was stiff), taking Sarge to be euthanized, returning home with his corpse, collecting Ilya and taking them both to the crematory.

Posted by: Kodos the Executioner at August 21, 2016 10:21 AM (J8/9G)

126 All Hail Eris, get a subscription to Crunchy Roll and then can watch 200+ episodes on Japanese folk tales. Usually three stories per episode. The show is aimed for kids, but the stories can be downright grim.

One story is of a samurai accused by his father-in-law of stealing money. So he kills father-in-law and promises wife he will find the killer. Samurai is soon reduced to being a poor ronin. This is when the wife gives birth to a baby boy which angers the samurai because it is all a drag. He is then offered a government job, if he marries someone's granddaughter. So he poisons his wife and murdered their servant, sending their bodies down the river. Then he freaks out at the wedding ceremony and kills his new bride and father-in-law because he keeps seeing his dead wife... Let's just say it does not end well for the samurai.

Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 10:23 AM (NSeBd)

127 I remember going to a friend's grandparents house about 30 years ago. His grandmother was in an iron lung. Not something you forget,and the thought of rows of kids in those is awful.

Posted by: A dude in MI at August 21, 2016 10:23 AM (qXXGi)

128 I set Wearing the Cat aside for the nonce. I did find some bits that made me giggle so all is not lost. But here's a question for moron authors: is it the absolute number of reviews on amazon that make a difference, or is it the rating? How's this work? Which is a way of asking, if I'm not inclined to give four or five stars, is it still helpful to post a review?

Funny thing happened when I decided to watch some movies (all made for TV, I suspect) that amazon listed on prime for me in "mysteries." The first one was so truly awful, chiefly because it starred Ally Sheedy whose primary acting method is grimacing and pointing her scary chin at people aggressively. Anyway, it was a true-crime story so I found the book online for just a dollar and it's not bad. Problem is, I started reading it immediately on putting down Wearing the Cat, so when I woke up in the middle of the night (damned heat wave) and started reading something about "Jane" and an investigation, I was left wondering if I had maybe fallen asleep with my finger on the page in Wearing the Cat and the story had taken a weird turn. Weird for a navy dentist, at any rate.

And I'm still reading "Hollywood Party" and feeling a level of disgust for Hollywood I can't even quantify. But the thing about all the commies in the 30s and 40s and 50s, they were at least true believers. But the ones today are just useful idiots, emphasis on the idiot part, of course, without enough wit to strike a match, but plenty dumb enough to fall for collectivism. So much contempt, so little time.

Posted by: Tonestaple at August 21, 2016 10:24 AM (VsZJP)

129 Random chapter captions:

Make Peace with Imperfection

Let Others Be 'Right' Most of the Time

Search for the Grain of Truth in Other Opinions

Just for Fun, Agree with Criticism Directed Toward You

( actually a lot of the chapters address positive traits that many morons have outside the intertubz comment world )

Posted by: Joe Hallenbeck

The book is primarily aimed at recovering alcoholics. I know, because my late alcoholic brother in law gave it to me one Xmas years ago. He's dead now, from the effects of alcoholism. Actually, pretty sad, and not trying to mock his problem, or alcoholism. But the whole idea of "not sweating the small stuff" was supposed to be a coping mechanism to reduce anxiety and the compulsive behavior that is thought to lead to alcoholism.

Posted by: Bossy Conservative....outlaw in America at August 21, 2016 10:24 AM (S6Pax)

130 So Stephen King annoys the shit out of me, but I really enjoyed The Stand. Then he released the uncut and unedited version, which was good too. Am I to understand there is a third version where he added material? If that's the case, I will probably want to read the new edition, but hate the idea of further enriching the asshead.

Posted by: Weasel at August 21, 2016 10:26 AM (Sfs6o)

131 Chaps, with the ass sewn in are...

*****

Ouch!

Posted by: Every dude at the Folsom Street Fair at August 21, 2016 10:26 AM (wPiJc)

132 I'll go read The Left Hand of Darkness instead.
Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 10:13 AM (NSeBd)
---
Ooh, I haven't read that since I was a teen.

Lots of great new wave scifi explores sexuality without being doctrinaire or making it the whole focus of the novel. Samuel R. Delaney, James Tiptree Jr., and John Varley all did it with style and humor.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 10:26 AM (jR7Wy)

133 This could be serious trouble - Cats in Space and Other Places.

http://www.baen.com/cats-in-space-and-other-places.html

Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 10:27 AM (NSeBd)

134 Saw on twitter last night the SJWs pulled their usual tricks at the Hugos. Nowadays I avoid Hugo winners but check out the Sad Puppy list of recommended books instead.

Posted by: waelse1 at August 21, 2016 10:27 AM (AzuxA)

135
Has anybody read Krat's "Amazon Legion"? It's been moldering on my shelves for years.

I could refrain from buying/checking out books for a year and have
ample reading material right here at home, but there's this addictive
book thread...
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 10:12 AM (jR7Wy)

I've read Amazon Legions, and I found it a very hard read. Not bad or difficult or hard to follow, but the whole thing was hard to read.

A lot of Kratman's work is about remaking society to survive, either large scale or small. Mostly knocking off the things that damage you, prevent you from functioning and going with things that do work.

The problem with this sort of story and this sort of person is that it is not a comforting tale, and surivivors tend to be driven bastards.

Kratman is a good writer.

Posted by: Kindltot at August 21, 2016 10:27 AM (ry34m)

136
Best Short Story "Cat Pictures Please" by Naomi Kritzer

Summary

HAL likes pictures of kitties.

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at August 21, 2016 10:27 AM (kdS6q)

137 Civilization is a fragile thing. The eradication of communicable diseases was important to its development.

Truly, our fearless leaders who ignore the dangers of savage diseases regaining purchase in the US believe they live in a bubble.

Last I checked, Puerto Rico was part of the US. Zika is on the verge of becoming a cataclysm there.

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 21, 2016 10:28 AM (bQxkN)

138 130 So Stephen King annoys the shit out of me, but I really enjoyed The Stand. Then he released the uncut and unedited version, which was good too. Am I to understand there is a third version where he added material? If that's the case, I will probably want to read the new edition, but hate the idea of further enriching the asshead.
Posted by: Weasel at August 21, 2016 10:26 AM (Sfs6o)

It won't take long for copies to appear on the secondary market

Posted by: josephistan at August 21, 2016 10:28 AM (7qAYi)

139 I did grab a free copy of krak' s brothers book, but haven't had a chance to read it yet. Will try and get to it on the train tomorrow.

Does anyone know what's up with Mark Steyn? A bit worried about him.

Posted by: Gem at August 21, 2016 10:28 AM (uaHyk)

140
Best Novelette "Folding Beijing", Hao Jingfang

Summary

Alibaba Group, plz gives us monies - thx The Hugos

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at August 21, 2016 10:29 AM (kdS6q)

141 Please check out OM's link to the fancy pants dudes. It's like a trio of WASP golf harlequins.

Those are Loudmouth (or similar) pants. Their big deal was that they launched with John Daly as their spokesmodel.

John Daly, for those unfamiliar with golf, is not the epitome of WASP.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at August 21, 2016 10:30 AM (mgbwf)

142 138

Has King been talking to George Lucas?

Posted by: A dude in MI at August 21, 2016 10:30 AM (qXXGi)

143 114 Malcolm Kirkpatrick

The Shockwave Rider was filled with great ideas.

Yes, a large part of the plot was the hero (Nick Haflinger) being a great coder and how infectious code was described years before they became an issue.

Nick is fighting a criminal oligarchy in charge of the US government. He even stopped an US nuclear attack on him with his coding skills. Well, it is SF.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at August 21, 2016 10:31 AM (u82oZ)

144 >>The interesting thing is-
how very much the epidemiologists' or public health officials' work
in those days was like that of a gumshoe detective. since they lacked
the technology that we all take for granted.

Our local science museum had a special exhibit on Sherlock Holmes/Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle got his inspiration for Holmes' approach of detailed observation from one of his medical school professors, who taught that so much of a patient's condition could be deduced from their appearance (identifying their profession, environment, habits, etc.).

Posted by: Lizzy at August 21, 2016 10:31 AM (NOIQH)

145 90 ... Love Louis L'Amour books and the Sacket series in particular. There was a two part TV mini-series made in the 70s with Tom Selleck and Sam Elliot based on 'The Daybreakers' and another Sackett story. I have the DVD and watch it at least once a year. Just plain fun. I wouldn't trust HBO or other premium cable channels to do justice to L'Amour books. The Hallmark channel might get it right.

Posted by: JTB at August 21, 2016 10:33 AM (V+03K)

146 Civilization is a fragile thing. The eradication of communicable diseases was important to its development.

Ignoramus at August 21, 2016 10:28 AM

There are a number ot things that are fundamental to modern civilization and the very essence of good government is preserving those things, yet the modern progressive is intent on the destruction of those things.

It is a frightening thing to see.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at August 21, 2016 10:33 AM (dw3S5)

147 As a reader of history everything I have ever seen was to stay away from O'Reilly history.
Just got Mauritius Command, the one thing I find is Patrick O'Brian uses actual historical events and fills out whatwe don't know with his story. Next toWar and Peace so far these books are the pinnacle of what a historical novel should be.

Posted by: Skip at August 21, 2016 10:34 AM (bksJQ)

148 naturalfake - thanks for the reminder about the Berton Roueche books; I loved those stories ! Out of print, huh ? Reason and analytical thinking being out-of-fashion and un-pc these days, I suppose. Gonna pick them up on Amazon today.

On polio vaccination; I think I had the Salk twice and the Sabin 3 or 4 times - they were working real hard in the early 60's to make sure no one was missed.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez at August 21, 2016 10:34 AM (gUoN4)

149 Which is a way of asking, if I'm not inclined to give four or five stars, is it still helpful to post a review?

******

I think the answer depends on the author (and their motivation) as well as your 'relationship' to the author. If you are a friend of the author it's probably better to be honest with them and give them your honest critique in person or a private communication and avoid a 2- or 3-star review on Amazon. If you just want to boost someone's ratings out of a sense of shared point of view (i.e. fellow Moron), then lie and put up a 4- or 5- star review.

I was once personally lambasted by a Moron author for giving a 3-star review to their book. It was "devastating" to that particular person. One reason I refrain from giving reviews just for the sake of giving reviews.

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at August 21, 2016 10:35 AM (wPiJc)

150 If anyone is interested in what used to qualify to win a Hugo, in the anthology Cats in Space and Other Places we have Fritz Leiber's "Ship of Shadows."

http://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781625795397/9781625795397.htm

Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 10:36 AM (NSeBd)

151 Forget "There Will Be War," even though I admit that it was a travesty. In the "Best Related Work" award, those evil, cynical, subhuman scum at the Hugos voted 1800 votes for "No Award" versus only 80 for the story of Moira Greyland Peat, who told the story of her sexual abuse at the hands of her mother, Marion Zimmer Bradley, or 40 for "Safe Space as Rape Room," an investigative piece about the lengths to which science fiction fandom supports pedophilia. These people are scum, pure scum.

Posted by: David, Infamous Sockpuppet at August 21, 2016 10:37 AM (VJuQ6)

152 And I forgot to add to the pets-in-heaven topic even though at RCIA last week, this very thing came up. Although I was told NOT to present my logic to one particular priest, it seems that the world will be remade, perfect entirely at some point in the timelessness that is heaven. (We were told of "chronos," our time, and "kairos," outside of time where God is.) Anyway, the world will be remade, perfected and with all of creation there which logically has to mean animals as well as plants, which logically has to mean my dogs and cats. I'm just not to mention this to Father Francis.

Posted by: Tonestaple at August 21, 2016 10:37 AM (VsZJP)

153 Exactly All Hail Eris, such great writing and not a single Soviet Justice Wanker with a nail studded bat to be seen darkly glowering.

Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 10:38 AM (NSeBd)

154 is it the absolute number of reviews on amazon that make a difference, or is it the rating? How's this work? Which is a way of asking, if I'm not inclined to give four or five stars, is it still helpful to post a review?

No one is exactly sure how Amazon uses reviews for its ranking in terms of suggestions and advertising, but the more high end reviews, the better it seems to regard a book.

In the end, I think people should go by their own judgment. How do reviews affect you? Do you check the stars and move on if they don't have enough? Does a huge number of reviews help move you toward interest or purchase?

I was once personally lambasted by a Moron author for giving a 3-star review to their book. It was "devastating" to that particular person.

I'm sorry that happened, no author should respond to any reviews, ever. 3 stars is still pretty good, and I think we're all lying to ourselves if we think we write 5 star books, especially our first ones.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at August 21, 2016 10:38 AM (39g3+)

155 Japanese folk tales. Usually three stories per episode. The show is aimed for kids, but the stories can be downright grim.

So, you're saying it's not an accident that the Japanese and the Germans hooked up?

Posted by: Bandersnatch at August 21, 2016 10:38 AM (mgbwf)

156 A caution for anyone seeking readers here on the Book Thread. I got the names of 12 people when I posted several months ago. All but one of those people (Hi, Votermom!) disappeared into the ether without a trace, despite several emails asking that people just contact me back and confirm they were still alive. So, I would go somewhere else for readers.

Posted by: David, Infamous Sockpuppet at August 21, 2016 10:39 AM (VJuQ6)

157 And I'm still reading "Hollywood Party" and feeling a
level of disgust for Hollywood I can't even quantify. But the thing
about all the commies in the 30s and 40s and 50s, they were at least
true believers. But the ones today are just useful idiots, emphasis on
the idiot part, of course, without enough wit to strike a match, but
plenty dumb enough to fall for collectivism. So much contempt, so
little time.

Posted by: Tonestaple

Merging the streams.

Realization that much of what Hollywood has put out for DECADES is propaganda to make you think a certain way. And it works. As you grow older and much more skeptical, you become more resistant, but also begin to feel isolated.
The talk of coding and computer viruses to corrupt the OS is a lot like this. Ideas, mainly collectivist and banal vulgar ideas perpetrated by Hollywood, corrupt your thought processes.
Sometimes reading classic literature is an anti-virus, because it reminds you of a time when people actually thought, and ideas mattered. Most movies now being made are truly terrible in conception and execution, and most people are totally clueless about how they are being programmed.

When the folks here talk about how this or that story would make a great movie or mini-series on TV, they answer their own question. Although books with divergent, thinking ideas are still permitted, and printless publishing for E-readers promotes that, mass media will not allow some ideas out of the bottle to be seen by the mouth-breathers out there, who get all their information and experience from movies and TV.

Posted by: Bossy Conservative....outlaw in America at August 21, 2016 10:39 AM (S6Pax)

158 I am just old enough also to remember seeing slightly older kids at school with braces, or in small wheelchairs because of polio - the polio vaccine came out when I was a baby, and my mother and both my grandparents were fanatical about seeing that we all had the proper vaccines. I posted about this, early on at my first blog - it was like missing an actual, first-hand encounter with a monster, but seeing very well where the monster had just been, crushing, smashing, destroying.

Not just in real life, but in some of the books that I read as a kid, which left an indelible impression. In one of the All of a Kind Family books, there was an account of a summer polio epidemic, which one of the secondary characters was affected by. And in the book Mrs. Mike - the account of the diphtheria epidemic which killed the heroine's two small children. Mary Ingalls, in the Little House books, going blind from scarlet fever (likely meningitis) ... so - very little sympathy here for the fanatical anti-vaxxers.

BTW - almost done with "Indestructable" - the story of WWII aviator P.I. "Pappy" Gunn. Review to be posted soon on Amazon.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at August 21, 2016 10:39 AM (xnmPy)

159 Nein nein nein! The Germans had Grimm....

Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 10:40 AM (NSeBd)

160 Binge reading Georgette Heyer's historicals. Partly because I'm suffering from a crisis of optimism. Partly because the Aubrey-Maturin binge is still green in memory.

Thanks to whoever recommended Legionary: the Roman Soldier's Unofficial Manual. Excellent!

Pre-ordered Sabrina Chase's noble bright recommendation. Thanks!

Posted by: sinmi at August 21, 2016 10:40 AM (qChhN)

161 So I had the awful duty of bagging Ilya up
(difficult because he was stiff), taking Sarge to be euthanized,
returning home with his corpse, collecting Ilya and taking them both to
the crematory.

Posted by: Kodos the Executioner

What a really awful day you must have had. Sorry about losing your dogs. That must have been pretty depressing.

Posted by: Bossy Conservative....outlaw in America at August 21, 2016 10:40 AM (S6Pax)

162 I used to try to get reviews, I'd ask people for them, shop my books out to review blogs etc. I got back some pretty poor ones -- not poor ratings but poorly done reviews. Ones that didn't seem to comprehend the genre or just weren't very well written.

I've come to the conclusion its better to just let them trickle in organically and naturally from readers.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at August 21, 2016 10:41 AM (39g3+)

163 Guess where:
(Afghanistan and Pakistan)

I had just been thinking "polio. There's something Obama can't fuck up!". Then you go ahead and write that...

Posted by: t-bird at August 21, 2016 10:41 AM (ANVXm)

164 Polio, Smallpox, Measles, Cholera, and the rest are still there. As a recent internet article about Russian Permafrost pointed out...

And wishing for the good things of the past is not a zero sum game. We can keep the good things of the present while still giving the usurpers a 40-foot pine enema.

Posted by: setnaffa at August 21, 2016 10:42 AM (jl6Ly)

165 There must be a place for doggies in heaven. Is there a better routine example of God's love for us than our floppy eared best friends?

I fall short every day in any number of ways. We all do. Yet Marcie and Ranger- my lab/ cur pups- are always berserk with joy to see me. Even despite the fact that I'm the one who walks them out to the kennel every day before work- and these creatures LOVE to run- They're love is unconditional.

My wife and I had issues with fertility. After each or our two misscarries, our lab Bailey could feel the loss as well. Her behavior completely changed- she cuddled a little closer to my wife in the weeks that followed those two events. She wouldn't leaver her side, and when Benjamin was born, I suspected she might struggle with the new pecking order. Nope, not the least. Bailey was great.

Losing our pets is so very tough, but even that is a lesson- Time is previous. Use it wisely and of course, do your best to take great care of them and make sure they're loved in return.

Posted by: Cooldawg at August 21, 2016 10:42 AM (kca06)

166 Ben Had,
I sent a test email. Is it people or peoples?

Posted by: lindafell de spair -racist, redneck, sexist, bitter clinger, Moron in TEXIT! at August 21, 2016 10:42 AM (xVgrA)

167 127 I remember going to a friend's grandparents house about 30 years ago. His grandmother was in an iron lung. Not something you forget,and the thought of rows of kids in those is awful.
Posted by: A dude in MI at August 21, 2016 10:23 AM (qXXGi)

My mother told me that she remembers summers in the 40s and 50s and every hospital had all the iron lungs working day and night.

Posted by: OregonMuse at August 21, 2016 10:43 AM (YHmsR)

168 I was once personally lambasted by a Moron author for giving a 3-star review to their book.
-------------------------

I don't take criticism well, and I have some bad reviews. I have some good ones too.

Reviews on Amazon are a lot like 'buzz', everyone talking about it. There was an article, linked in an ONT I think, about how the book "The Valley of the Dolls" was premoted. Books are sold like any other product. It is only since Amazon and the internet that a political ideology has taken to writing bad reviews to shut up points of view they don't want published.

So reviews are a good thing. Just try to be fair to the person who wrote the book. You want the author to do better next time, not stop writing.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at August 21, 2016 10:44 AM (dw3S5)

169 Kodos, wow,
I cannot imagine how awful that must have been.

Heartfelt sympathy for your losses.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez at August 21, 2016 10:44 AM (gUoN4)

170 The problem with this sort of story and this sort of person is that it is not a comforting tale, and survivors tend to be driven bastards.

Kratman is a good writer.
Posted by: Kindltot at August 21, 2016 10:27 AM (ry34m)
---
Thanks Kindltot, that is, alas, a very astute observation.

I am not made for the post-apocalyptic world. My only contribution would be my library! Not sure I'm Abbess material either, unless it's a free-wheelin' Canterbury Tales type sister.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 10:45 AM (jR7Wy)

171 Does anyone know what's up with Mark Steyn? A bit worried about him.
Posted by: Gem at August 21, 2016 10:28 AM (uaHyk)

I haven't heard anything. Why are you worried?

Posted by: OregonMuse at August 21, 2016 10:46 AM (YHmsR)

172 So reviews are a good thing. Just try to be fair to the person who wrote the book. You want the author to do better next time, not stop writing.

No, no, I definitely want the authors of some of the stuff I have been reading lately to stop writing. Definitely stop writing. (shudder).

Seriously, though, I am mostly of the "Don't say anything if you can't say something nice," school of thought when it comes to reviews.

Posted by: David, Infamous Sockpuppet at August 21, 2016 10:46 AM (VJuQ6)

173 151 Forget "There Will Be War," even though I admit that it was a travesty. In the "Best Related Work" award, those evil, cynical, subhuman scum at the Hugos voted 1800 votes for "No Award" versus only 80 for the story of Moira Greyland Peat, who told the story of her sexual abuse at the hands of her mother, Marion Zimmer Bradley, or 40 for "Safe Space as Rape Room," an investigative piece about the lengths to which science fiction fandom supports pedophilia. These people are scum, pure scum.

Nothing, absolutely nothing from Castalia House will win a Hugo as long as there are enough SJWs voting for Hugos. Vox Day is absolutely toxic to them - which is probably why Jemisin got the Best Novel Hugo, as they famously crossed swords years ago.

The other travesty is that the voters go out of their way to snub Baen's Toni Weisskopf for editor year after year.

Posted by: David, Infamous Sockpuppet at August 21, 2016 10:37 AM (VJuQ6)

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at August 21, 2016 10:47 AM (0KfYo)

174 Not sure I'm Abbess material either, unless it's a free-wheelin' Canterbury Tales type sister.

******

Maybe you could set up your post-apocalyptic library in the basement of an abandoned warehouse store.

You could call it "Abbess and Costco Cellar"

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at August 21, 2016 10:47 AM (wPiJc)

175
I can still picture the tray of sugarcubes.

Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

Posted by: Bertram Cabot Jr. at August 21, 2016 10:47 AM (IqV8l)

176 Ben Had,
I sent a test email. Is it people or peoples?

That would be "The Pipples."

Posted by: David, Infamous Sockpuppet at August 21, 2016 10:48 AM (VJuQ6)

177 Hey, I test read Dan's H's A Place Outside the Wild AND criticized(joke), I mean critiqued it! Honestly too.

Posted by: lindafell de spair -racist, redneck, sexist, bitter clinger, Moron in TEXIT! at August 21, 2016 10:48 AM (xVgrA)

178 "Ideas, mainly collectivist and banal vulgar ideas perpetrated by Hollywood, corrupt your thought processes.
Sometimes reading classic literature is an anti-virus, because it reminds you of a time when people actually thought, and ideas mattered. Most movies now being made are truly terrible in conception and execution, and most people are totally clueless about how they are being programmed."

Truth.
I can add nothing to this, nothing at all.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez at August 21, 2016 10:50 AM (gUoN4)

179 There's a link on the right of the home page "The Great Stench of 1858" about how bad things got in London after the volume of raw shit dumped into the Thames escalated. Especially when it mixed with the drinking water. Outbreaks of cholera were thought to be caused by the miasma of the stench, but detective work by the "father of epidemiology" showed it came from the water. And London figured out how to fix it.

In the early 1800s, the civic leaders of a burgeoning New York City stole a page from the history of ancient Rome and built a water system to support a population 10x what they had. These were men of vision and guts.

There is a place for government in advancing our common wealth. For a long time now, I, for one, have seen precious little from our federal government that has promoted our general welfare.

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 21, 2016 10:50 AM (bQxkN)

180 I'm reading the book for Live Die Repeat. It's Groundhog Day with aliens.

Posted by: Kindltot at August 21, 2016 10:50 AM (ry34m)

181 Drudge has outdone himself with his headline pic this morning.

Posted by: Mr. Peebles at August 21, 2016 10:51 AM (Pby3z)

182 Chaps, with the ass sewn in
---
Mirab, his sails unfurled!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 10:52 AM (jR7Wy)

183 The "suicide" bomber in turkey was 12 years old. Sick fuckin religion. But hey I got an idea let's bring more of them here and do nothing to stop The FAB from getting Elected. What could possibly go wrong?

Posted by: Nevergiveup at August 21, 2016 10:52 AM (7Xbcu)

184 Nothing, absolutely nothing from Castalia House will win a Hugo as long as there are enough SJWs voting for Hugos. Vox Day is absolutely toxic to them - which is probably why Jemisin got the Best Novel Hugo, as they famously crossed swords years ago.

You are right, but Moira (I can call her that, she is a friend on Facebook, and an amazing person) had nothing to do with Castalia. Anyone who can read her account of what happened to her and her brother and not be moved is inhuman. She is very upbeat about the whole thing, though. She was mostly disappointed that Chuck Tingle's "Space Raptor Butt Invasion" didn't win in its category. She is going to have the last laugh, though, I think. She has signed a contract with a pretty large advance to write her story. She is nearing completion and if what she has shared of the manuscript is any indication, it is going to be a runaway bestseller. She can cry about the Hugos all the way to the bank as she cashes large checks from her publisher.

Posted by: David, Infamous Sockpuppet at August 21, 2016 10:52 AM (VJuQ6)

185 157 ... "Sometimes reading classic literature is an anti-virus, because it reminds you of a time when people actually thought, and ideas mattered."

Ain't that the truth. Fewer and fewer new books, TV shows and movies have any appeal for me. But there are a couple of thousand years worth of reading for me to catch up on and learn about. (The CS Lewis academic writings have been a godsend.)

Posted by: JTB at August 21, 2016 10:52 AM (V+03K)

186 158
As soon as the first vaccine was available my sisters and I were in the pediatrician's office getting our shots. Mom was always proud that we were his first injectees. I think she must have waited by the phone and made the appointment when word of availability went out. Such was the anxiety of 1950's era parents.

Posted by: Tuna at August 21, 2016 10:53 AM (JSovD)

187 A question about charity. How many here have made charitable acts of time, money, or expertise and been silent about it? I believe there is some biblical reference to the practice, but I'm not so good at finding chapter and verse.

Anyway... I'm coming across multiple small media references to Donald Trump donating an entire tractor trailer of about 70, 000 pounds of supplies to Louisiana flood victims. That may have been the truck he was helping to unload.

So, because it not being reported in large media, is it from his wishes, their ignorance of the fact, or their desire to ignore?

Posted by: free range 'sorta' conservative but not 'true' conservative at August 21, 2016 10:54 AM (ZnIt3)

188 A question about charity. How many here have made charitable acts of time, money, or expertise and been silent about it?
---------------
*raises hand*

Posted by: lindafell de spair -racist, redneck, sexist, bitter clinger, Moron in TEXIT! at August 21, 2016 10:55 AM (xVgrA)

189
Does anyone know what's up with Mark Steyn? A bit worried about him.
Posted by: Gem at August 21, 2016 10:28 AM (uaHyk)

I haven't heard anything. Why are you worried?
Posted by: OregonMuse at August 21, 2016 10:46 AM (YHmsR)

Someone said he was on a world tour.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot Jr. at August 21, 2016 10:56 AM (IqV8l)

190
Soviet Justice Wankers at WorldCon virtue signaling, again.
Posted by: Anna Puma

At this point. WorldCon is just WisCon with more expensive hotel rooms.

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at August 21, 2016 10:56 AM (kdS6q)

191 I'm doing a lot of reading this weekend. I am reading LCDR Fitreps. exciting stuff

Posted by: Nevergiveup at August 21, 2016 10:56 AM (7Xbcu)

192 I'ma go with "desire to ignore", freerange.
Doesn't advance the narrative at all, at all.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez at August 21, 2016 10:57 AM (gUoN4)

193 Survived the wedding shower yesterday for eldest kidlet. It was held in a very trendy-type Irish pub. We had the upper bar, made up like a library. Very nice, but uncomfortably perfect. They had large photos of Irish authors and the only ones I recognized were GB Shaw and James Joyce. The other two were more modern -- so later today I'll have to look them up. Odd thing, the local rugby team was in the downstairs. I didn't know you could play rugby without mud, blood, and sweat -- somehow they were all clean and only saw one ankle with an icepack. Went outside to smoke in the drizzle and only one rugby player was outside smoking as well. I mentioned that in my day more than half of the rugby players smoked and it was odd to see only one. He laughed and said moving to suburbia is killing him.

Posted by: mustbequantum at August 21, 2016 10:57 AM (MIKMs)

194 I often daydream about living in a simpler time, not thinking about the benefits we enjoy from the advances in modern medicine.

Posted by: Weasel at August 21, 2016 10:57 AM (Sfs6o)

195 Free Range, call it a two-fer. The MSM dare not report on the flooding least it cast their Boy Emperor in stark comparison with Bush and Katrina. And it has to do with Trump whom they consider the second coming of Vlad the Impaler.

Larry Correia commented on this matter back on the 19th at least in regards to the flooding.
http://monsterhunternation.com/2016/08/19/the-american-news-media-sucks/

Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 10:57 AM (NSeBd)

196 No, no, I definitely want the authors of some of the stuff I have been reading lately to stop writing. Definitely stop writing. (shudder).

Seriously, though, I am mostly of the "Don't say anything if you can't say something nice," school of thought when it comes to reviews.
Posted by: David, Infamous Sockpuppet at August 21, 2016 10:46 AM (VJuQ6)

Amazon reviews themselves are an interesting sociological phenomenon. Some people see it as you do: only say something nice. Others take the opposite: only review when they have something bad to say.

Even innocuous things, like dishwashing detergent: "1 star... I would give it zero stars if I could, THE BOX WAS DENTED WHEN IT ARRIVED SO I SENT IT BACK AND THEY GAVE ME MY MONEY BACK!!! DO NOT BUY!!!!!!!!!"

Really? Really???

Posted by: BurtTC at August 21, 2016 10:58 AM (Pz4pT)

197 >>>The militant Pakistani Taliban claims vaccination is a Western plot to sterilize local children. 66 vaccinators were killed in 2013 and 2014.

Thar's actually a good idea. It's a humane way to stop terrorism by attrition.

Posted by: Yuimetal at August 21, 2016 10:59 AM (+wjl1)

198 196 whenever I run across idiotic reviews I click the "not helpful" button. Makes me feel better.

Posted by: Weasel at August 21, 2016 11:00 AM (Sfs6o)

199 #111, I read Amazon Legion and decided I would no longer follow that series as a result, but basically because I couldn't remember any of the characters when I closed it, I lost all respect for the commander for his cynical plan, and I no longer felt like wading through the story to see what happened in the war. I'll just imagine the crusade against the UN.

Posted by: Graves at August 21, 2016 11:01 AM (beOli)

200 As a all but dailh reader of Steyn am missing his writing, but he is on a southern hemisphere tour. Don't think he has subbed for Rush either. ( He is the only one that can immediately bump Prager for me)

Posted by: Skip at August 21, 2016 11:01 AM (bksJQ)

201 I read These Honored Dead by Jonathan Putnam. This is a historical mystery set in 1837 Springfield, IL and features the real room-mates Joshua Speed and a young attorney named Abraham Lincoln. Overall, not a bad read; however, I figured out the villain about 2/3rds of the way through the book. I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

The author didn't have obvious anachronisms that jumped out at me. The book is told in the first-person and the protagonist is Joshua Speed. Lincoln is relegated to being prominent secondary character.

Real people play roles in the story and the best parts of the book for me were the various aspects of life in Springfield in 1837. I enjoyed the book but it quite wasn't what I was hoping for.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at August 21, 2016 11:01 AM (5Yee7)

202 Re: Trump truck
I think I found it Matthew 6

Therefore when thou doest [thine] alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

Posted by: free range 'sorta' conservative but not 'true' conservative at August 21, 2016 11:02 AM (ZnIt3)

203 I don't understand the one star reviews that then say the reviewer liked the book quite a bit.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at August 21, 2016 11:02 AM (GDulk)

204 So, because it not being reported in large media, is it from his wishes, their ignorance of the fact, or their desire to ignore?

Eleven years ago: "In a shocking display of indifference and lack of common feeling for people undergoing hardship, President George Bush continued to pretend that nothing bad was happening in Louisiana as he followed a normal schedule while the population of hurricane-ravaged state continued to suffer in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina."

Last week: "In a cheap political stunt that badly disrupted important rescue activities, Republican nominee for President Donald Trump brought a token amount of 'relief supplies' down to flooded parishes in Louisiana and then spent several hours posing for photo-ops while pretending to participate in the relief efforts. Louisiana's governor condemned the action, calling it 'naked partisan politics.' He went on to praise President Obama and Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for 'having the humanity and decency to stay away, allowing us to get along with more important matters.' He also pointed out that both of these Democratic politicians realized that 'if they were to come down here, it would become all about them, and neither one of them has any desire to be in the limelight, but are actually shy and retiring.' President Obama did say that he would be down to tour formerly flooded areas on Tuesday, after the rescue efforts for those locations are completed and the golf courses reopened on Monday."

Posted by: David, Infamous Sockpuppet at August 21, 2016 11:02 AM (VJuQ6)

205 Polio doesn't stay in the past. My twin brother Wendell (I know: Wendell and Wenda. What were our parents thinking?) had it when we were pre-k. All I remember firsthand is not being able to be with him, which was terrifying to a twin. Learned years later that my mother took care of him at home, the doctor visited and said, in the next 24 hours he'll either be dead or it will leave him.

Thank God, it was the latter. He went on to be a terrific athlete--tackle at Washington State--then fought in VietNam. My hero, and not just mine.

But--and it's a big but--there's a thing called Post Polio Syndrome. It comes back decades later, and causes unpredictable loss of muscle mass. Wendell's 6'6" and hasn't weighed less than 300 pounds in adulthood. He's lost lots of thigh muscle in one leg, putting terrible strain on his joints. Lots of falls. Probably the only thing he's ever met up with that he doesn't know how to fight.

Posted by: Wenda (sic) at August 21, 2016 11:03 AM (pZEKq)

206 I would worry about Steyn if I didn't know his whereabouts as the leftists and Muzzies probably have a price on his head.

Posted by: Skip at August 21, 2016 11:04 AM (bksJQ)

207 I don't understand the one star reviews that then say the reviewer liked the book quite a bit.

Or the opposite where they give a book 4 stars then spend the whole time talking about its flaws???

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at August 21, 2016 11:04 AM (39g3+)

208 Drudge has outdone himself with his headline pic this morning.

That is beautiful. Unusual for Drudge to do a photoshop, though, isn't it?

Posted by: t-bird at August 21, 2016 11:08 AM (RrDm2)

209 OLYMPIC FACT: If it weren't for that whole tax kerfuffle with King George III back in 1776, the combined medal count for Great Britain this year would have been 183 total Olympic medals, including 70 Gold, 59 Silver and 54 Bronze.

The closest competitor would be the country of 4 billion people: China. It has a total of like 70 total medals.

Taxes kill greatness.

Posted by: Adirondack Patriot at August 21, 2016 11:08 AM (KQTmr)

210 Also keep an eye on the Dragon awards. This is starting to look like a Thing too, as the Hugos fade away into the swamps of PC. And ordinary mortal like Book Thread Morons can vote too! No cost. http://awards.dragoncon.org/

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at August 21, 2016 10:03 AM (GG9V6)

Eventually, the progressive SJWs will abandon the dry, lifeless husk of the Hugo awards. And if the Dragons have achieved a certain amount of prestige, they'll be the next SJW target, either for takeover or destruction.

It's the world we live in now.

Posted by: OregonMuse at August 21, 2016 11:09 AM (YHmsR)

211 Drudge has outdone himself with his headline pic this morning.Posted by: Mr. Peebles

Is he a AoS reader? I posted link to that picture here a couple hours ago.

That photoshop is gonna be all over the internet by nightfall.

Posted by: free range 'sorta' conservative but not 'true' conservative at August 21, 2016 11:09 AM (ZnIt3)

212 Drudge - Playing through!

Posted by: Skip at August 21, 2016 11:10 AM (bksJQ)

213 "That is beautiful. Unusual for Drudge to do a photoshop, though, isn't it?"

You assume that it's a photoshop?

Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at August 21, 2016 11:10 AM (ptqRm)

214 Posted by: David, Infamous Sockpuppet at August 21, 2016 10:52 AM (VJuQ6)

I was talking about the Pournelle thing. I should have been more clear.

They are overtly hostile to Castalia. Baen they just treat shabbily.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at August 21, 2016 11:10 AM (0KfYo)

215 Have to share this one.

A couple of days ago an ad for a golf book popped up on my Kindle along the lines of "The Secret to Breaking 90 Consistently". Since it was only $.99 I snapped it up, figuring (like all forever hopeful golfers) you never know.

The book basically can be boiled down to - it's easy to break 90, simply do the following.

Be able to consistently:

(1) Hit your drive 200 yards straight down the fairway.

(2) Hit an iron 150 yards straight down the fairway

(3) Use a wedge to put the ball on the green from 100 yards or less

(4) Take no more than two putts

(5) Do these all the time , on all 18 holes.

(6) If you cannot do all of the above, all the time, go see a golf pro and take lessons/practice until you can.

Ohhhhhkaaaay. Now I get it. Easy peazy.

If you are part of the vast majority of the golf world who aren't low handicappers, you will have to chuckle at this. If you aren't a golfer, sorry I can't golfsplain it to you better.

Posted by: RM at August 21, 2016 11:12 AM (U3LtS)

216 203 I don't understand the one star reviews that then say the reviewer liked the book quite a bit.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at August 21, 2016 11:02 AM (GDulk)

Sometimes they don't understand the rating system and they think that a 1-star review is a good review. I know it's hard to believe, but I've seen this more than once on Amazon.

Posted by: OregonMuse at August 21, 2016 11:12 AM (YHmsR)

217 Posted by: Christopher Taylor at August 21, 2016 11:04 AM (39g3+)

Oddly enough, I can understand that better. There's a good chance they really did like it and want to "help" make it *perfect* (or what passes for perfect in their own mind). John was like that. He spent the most energy criticizing what he liked best.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at August 21, 2016 11:13 AM (GDulk)

218 I remember the sugar cubes. I also remember that in high school there was a sweet young girl that was confined to a wheelchair because of polio. The buildings at that time were not handicap accessible, so there were no elevators, only stairs. The thing that stays with me is that whenever she had a class on a different floor, all she had to do was get to the stairs, and four guys would spontaneously materialize out of the crowd of students changing classes and pick up the wheelchair and transport her up or down the stairs as required. I'm no longer sure that would happen in many ~~schools~~ indoctrination centers today!

Posted by: Hrothgar at August 21, 2016 11:13 AM (wCEn4)

219 bit off topic but involves reading. I came across a mention of jigsaw puzzles. Haven't done any in a long time but decided to read up on them. There are blogs and a lot of reviews on Amazon and retail sites. These people are serious about their puzzles. They go into the quality of the image, how well the pieces fit together, thickness of the pieces and how easy they are to handle, even whether the maker uses a matte, anti-glare finish on them. It was fun dealing with their enthusiasm.

Posted by: JTB at August 21, 2016 11:13 AM (V+03K)

220 199 #111, I read Amazon Legion and decided I would no longer follow that series as a result, but basically because I couldn't remember any of the characters when I closed it, I lost all respect for the commander for his cynical plan, and I no longer felt like wading through the story to see what happened in the war. I'll just imagine the crusade against the UN.
Posted by: Graves at August 21, 2016 11:01 AM (beOli)
---
Ringo and Michael Z. Williamson have an undercurrent of American candoism that buoys up their stories. In one tale Williamson whisked his characters back 10,000 years, and after the shock and depression of being cut off from the benefits of civilization the group determined that "we may be out of our time but we ourselves are still of our time and will behave accordingly. This is the situation we find ourselves in, there's no going back, but we will deal with it". I like that.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 11:13 AM (jR7Wy)

221 Photoshopped? Well did this one back in 2011 on Gaylord Merkin Focker the Wurst

http://annapuna.blogspot.com/2011/07/obama-gut-call.html

Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 11:13 AM (NSeBd)

222 Taxes kill greatness.

Posted by: Adirondack Patriot at August 21, 2016 11:08 AM (KQTmr)

I helped a lot!

Posted by: Chairman Mao at August 21, 2016 11:15 AM (wCEn4)

223 Photoshopped?

As Dan Rather would say: "The image is fake, but accurate."

Posted by: Adirondack Patriot at August 21, 2016 11:16 AM (KQTmr)

224 Posted by: OregonMuse at August 21, 2016 11:12 AM (YHmsR)

I was wondering if that was the case. Which made me wonder if it was a cultural difference with some reviewers. Which made me wonder about purchased reviews.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at August 21, 2016 11:16 AM (GDulk)

225 Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at August 21, 2016 11:16 AM (GDulk)

Five thumbs down?

Posted by: Hrothgar at August 21, 2016 11:17 AM (wCEn4)

226 "Losing our pets is so very tough, but even that is a lesson- Time is previous. Use it wisely and of course, do your best to take great care of them and make sure they're loved in return."

Amen to that. My little girl is curled up by my feet next to my desk, nose twitching as she dozes. If I get up and walk into the next room, she will be right behind me. They are our hearts.

Posted by: RM at August 21, 2016 11:18 AM (U3LtS)

227 I helped a lot!

Posted by: Chairman Mao at August 21, 2016 11:15 AM (wCEn4)
______________________

Excellent point. Taxes AND COMMUNISM kill greatness.

Posted by: Adirondack Patriot at August 21, 2016 11:18 AM (KQTmr)

228 Polio? Isn't that a rich man's disease?

Posted by: SJW in training at August 21, 2016 09:34 AM (MNgU2)

I know this is a sock being sarcastic, but I actually did some research on polio during a statistical process control class and found that there is some validity to the view that lowered resistance to the polio virus is a consequence of modern hygiene.

No surprise, but statistical process control techniques established that the Salk vaccine eliminated polio in the US by the early 1960's (except now we're importing Third World peasants).

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at August 21, 2016 11:19 AM (5Yee7)

229 If you are part of the vast majority of the golf world who aren't low handicappers, you will have to chuckle at this. If you aren't a golfer, sorry I can't golfsplain it to you better.

Posted by: RM at August 21, 2016 11:12 AM (U3LtS)

I think I see the humor. This probably isn't an exact analogy, but it sounds like buying a book called 'How To Stay Healthy' and finding out that it recommends these steps:

-Eat nutritious meals

-Get 8 hours of sleep each night

-Enjoy healthful, regular bowel movements

-Get plenty of exercise

-Develop a positive outlook on life

-Work at a job that is enjoyable and fulfilling

-etc.

Heh. And you pad 99 cents for that??

Posted by: OregonMuse at August 21, 2016 11:19 AM (YHmsR)

230 Obama Photoshopped? I did this one prolly in 2012:

http://tinyurl.com/ocur48t

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at August 21, 2016 11:20 AM (wPiJc)

231 But here's a question for moron authors: is it the absolute number of reviews on amazon that make a difference, or is it the rating? How's this work? Which is a way of asking, if I'm not inclined to give four or five stars, is it still helpful to post a review?

Hey tonestaple,

Glad you found some giggles!

Here's the thing about Amazon and reviews from everything I've read.

There are three ways to get out of the "writer's ghetto" on amazon:

1) Big name author -

if Zombie Kurt Vonnegut came back and wrote a book, it would be all over amazon on recommendations, pop ups, etc based on his name alone. Not to mention the whole zombie angle.

2) Sheer raw selling power -

Self-explanatory. Amazon wants to sell books. This is why non-fiction is probably the most lucrative area for unknown authors. You title your book "The 100% Guaranteed Way to Bang any Chick You Want and Stay Drunk at Work" - you're probably going to sell a few...million.

Few fiction books are going to generate this without some kind of backing or advertising or log-rolling.

Which for unknown fiction writers leaves...

3) Good reviews -

Amazon specifically looks for good reviews of a sufficient quantity.

If you can generate, roughly 40 (to 50), 4-5 star reviews for a particular book, amazon will start spotlighting you in a way that will drive sales.

So, you can see that if a book that's just come out gets 5-10 good reviews but then 1 bad review takes on a greater importance in influencing new readers cuz hey, literally 10-20 percent of the reviews are bad, which might influence readers and depress sales.

If someone write a, say, 1 star review for Zombie Kurt Vonnegut's "Cat's Cradle"...it's a big meh cuz there are literally thousands of positive reviews.

I think all authors know they're going t get poor reviews, it's part of the game. It's a little like sending your kid to school for the first time, you know there'll be highs and lows, friends and bullies, you just hope the good stuff grossly outweighs the bad.

I hope that helps.

Posted by: naturalfake at August 21, 2016 11:20 AM (HGtd0)

232 "It seems to me a sad sort of theology that seems less interested in whether one will meet Jesus in Heaven than whether Fluffy will be there. "

Not really. Meeting Jesus in Heaven is how you will know it's Heaven. That's what it's there for. If you don't meet Jesus there, you're not in Heaven, and you really do not, do not, do not want your critters there with you.

Posted by: Tonestaple at August 21, 2016 11:20 AM (VsZJP)

233 Man-Dog is the best partnership ever.

How did Man ever get a good night's sleep until dogs joined our tribe?

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 21, 2016 11:20 AM (bQxkN)

234 "Heh. And you pad 99 cents for that??"

Your analogy nailed it exactly, Oregon Muse.

Posted by: RM at August 21, 2016 11:22 AM (U3LtS)

235 Sorry to hear about you companion lab.

Posted by: Locke Common at August 21, 2016 11:26 AM (I6Am+)

236 Man-Dog is the best partnership ever.
-------------------------------------------

There was an advice column for the newly divorced which said : immediately following your divorce, get a house plant. If the plant survives six months or so, then get a dog. If both the plant and the dog survive another six months, then you can start thinking about dating again.

In my case, the plant survived. But it looked a little pot bound, so I repotted the thing, and it exploded all over the room. Vines trailing everywhere. I threw it out, never did get a dog. I grew up with dogs. I know how they are.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at August 21, 2016 11:27 AM (dw3S5)

237 "It seems to me a sad sort of theology that seems less interested in whether one will meet Jesus in Heaven than whether Fluffy will be there. "

Not really. Meeting Jesus in Heaven is how you will know it's Heaven. That's what it's there for. If you don't meet Jesus there, you're not in Heaven, and you really do not, do not, do not want your critters there with you.

Posted by: Tonestaple at August 21, 2016 11:20 AM (VsZJP)

*****

Let me revise my comment a little then.

The magnitude of meeting Jesus in Heaven is so amazing a concept that the concern about whether my Fluffy will be there with me is amazingly trivial, in my view, to the point of irrelevance.

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at August 21, 2016 11:27 AM (wPiJc)

238 Does give whole new meaning to Fluffy clouds though.

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at August 21, 2016 11:28 AM (wPiJc)

239 "there is some validity to the view that lowered resistance to the polio virus is a consequence of modern hygiene."

I've heard a similar explanation for why we now see peanut allergies when it was unheard of when I was young.

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 21, 2016 11:29 AM (bQxkN)

240 Greetings:

Real men got the polio vaccinations from lady nurses all in starched white (except for the stockings) with those little dixie-cup hats precariously perched atop and a white-coated male doctor nearby to supply and needed adult supervision.

And they did not cry.

Posted by: 11B40 at August 21, 2016 11:32 AM (evgyj)

241 Nick is fighting a criminal oligarchy in charge of the US government.

----------
ripped from tomorrow's ~~headlines~~ carefully suppresed reality.

Posted by: Vlad the Impaler, whittling away like mad at August 21, 2016 11:32 AM (dIc3Q)

242 237 "It seems to me a sad sort of theology that seems less interested in whether one will meet Jesus in Heaven than whether Fluffy will be there. "
Not really. Meeting Jesus in Heaven is how you will know it's Heaven. That's what it's there for. If you don't meet Jesus there, you're not in Heaven, and you really do not, do not, do not want your critters there with you.
Posted by: Tonestaple at August 21, 2016 11:20 AM (VsZJP)
*****
Let me revise my comment a little then.
The magnitude of meeting Jesus in Heaven is so amazing a concept that the concern about whether my Fluffy will be there with me is amazingly trivial, in my view, to the point of irrelevance.
Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at August 21, 2016 11:27 AM (wPiJc)

I'm laughing my ass off here because I'm thinking of the moron who goes by the nic 'Fluffy', whom I play chess with in the moron horde chess group.

So yes, I would very much like to meet Fluffy in heaven.

Posted by: OregonMuse at August 21, 2016 11:34 AM (YHmsR)

243 I've heard a similar explanation for why we now see peanut allergies when it was unheard of when I was young.
Posted by: Ignoramus at August 21, 2016 11:29 AM (bQxkN)

kids don't eat enough dog hair and dirt and are weaned on baby food instead of real food, so they don't pick up the antigens that say "foreign but not deadly"

IMHO

Posted by: Kindltot at August 21, 2016 11:35 AM (ry34m)

244 LOL,

The Loma Theater in San Diego got turned into a BookStar.

I wonder which was done first.

Posted by: Grampa Jimbo at August 21, 2016 11:35 AM (4+VII)

245 Rhythmic gymnastics on the Olympics.
Cirque de Soleil without the frisson that someone may fall and break a neck.

Love the Olympics but this is silly.

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 21, 2016 11:36 AM (bQxkN)

246 The immune system works best when it is challenged in multiple ways. Cross-reactivity allows some degree of protection against related viruses. "That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger" is more than just a catch phrase.

One can also liken the immune system to the moral ethos of a nation. If it hasn't been reinforced previously in small incremental ways, it won't be prepared for a major invasion or "fundamental change".

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at August 21, 2016 11:37 AM (wPiJc)

247 kids don't eat enough dog hair and dirt and are weaned on baby food instead of real food, so they don't pick up the antigens that say "foreign but not deadly"
IMHO
Posted by: Kindltot at August 21, 2016 11:35 AM (ry34m)

That's why I had Mrs. Muse season our kids' food with stuff she scraped out of the carpet sweeper.

No, not really. But perhaps that wouldn't have been a bad idea.

Posted by: OregonMuse at August 21, 2016 11:39 AM (YHmsR)

248 If you don't meet Jesus there, you're not in Heaven, and you really do not, do not, do not want your critters there with you.

Posted by: Tonestaple at August 21, 2016 11:20 AM (VsZJP)

Had to read that thrice, but yes!

Posted by: Hrothgar at August 21, 2016 11:39 AM (wCEn4)

249 "Leaning towards the next Aubrey/Maturin novel Mauritius Command"

Back to books. An excellent series.

"Master and Commander" the flick was a noble effort.

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 21, 2016 11:39 AM (bQxkN)

250 whenever I run across idiotic reviews I click the "not helpful" button. Makes me feel better.

I've tried reporting obvious troll reviews where they appear for serious (as in, Cambridge-published) scholarly work. Amazon leaves the reviews up anyway. Their criteria for keeping or deleting reviews seems arbitrary to me.

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at August 21, 2016 11:39 AM (6FqZa)

251 I'm still working my way through Empires of the Sea. The Siege of Malta has just been lifted and Suleiman the Magnificent has just died and his son has taken the throne.

This era isn't one I'm terribly familiar with and I didn't realize just what a near run thing the siege was. It's a gripping book thus far and recommended. I ordered Ospreys Renaissance War Galley 1470-1590 in large part due to Empires. I'm looking forward to reading it when it gets here.

Posted by: J. Random Dude at August 21, 2016 11:40 AM (C9lNt)

252 Stepping into the deep dog doo here... (Burt, some of us "overthinkers" need to think it through thoroughly.)

Animals do not develop souls of potential survival value as mortal humans do, via our relationship with the spirit.*

http://bit.ly/ub130-2-8

(Link goes to Urantia Book passage. I've been discouraged from posting about the UB here, so on this rare occasion, let me be clear: I don't expect anyone to believe anything just because that wild & crazy UB says so, but I reference it for anyone who would like to read its perspective. BTW, according to the UB, Jesus was born this day in 7BC. HBD, Jesus!)

*To me, this does not mean we can never find our furry four-footed friends again.

"Well" said the priest, "in that case, your dog will certainly be there." That sums it up so well.

The way I see it, we must, by experience, develop our souls to perfection, making a whole-hearted choice of the eternal life, in this realm or some Purgatorial next. Animals, by contrast, are already perfect as what they are. So, while they are not resurrected as we may be, they may in a sense be reanimated on high, as extensions of ourselves.

I say as extensions of ourselves because it would seem cruel for Faithful Fido to be in Heaven forever waiting at the gates for a human who failed to choose eternal life.

Frankly, I hope I don't have to spend eternity feeding and cleaning the catbox for all the cats we've had. That's a whole lotta cats!

Posted by: mindful webworker - stomps on flaming poo bag at August 21, 2016 11:40 AM (XkxK0)

253 34 What is the difference between a moron and a lurker?
Posted by: todd at August 21, 2016 09:39 AM (0tW2s)

In my case (as the "lurker" who send Mr. Muse the whisper picture) a lurker is someone who reads this post every week, reads most of the comments 3 out of 4 weeks, and posts 1 week (maybe) out of 6.

Usually by the time I get to the comments they are north of 300 and dwindling down to 1 every 10 minutes or so, rather than 5 or 6 every ten minutes.

Posted by: John Pomeroy at August 21, 2016 11:42 AM (Cqa1S)

254 Posted by: Kindltot at August 21, 2016 11:35 AM (ry34m)

Daughter has a dear friend in her late 60s early 70s, and they were together in her friend's barn with her friend's daughter and infant grand-daughter. The baby dropped a pacifier on the barn floor, Grandma picked it up, dusted it off and handed it back to infant. No doubt that kid will have a great immune system!

Posted by: Hrothgar at August 21, 2016 11:43 AM (wCEn4)

255 Love the Olympics but this is silly.

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 21, 2016 11:36 AM (bQxkN)

On Friday, I turned the TV on and they were showing some sort of synchronized fooforah involving 8 (count 'em) 8 swimming women doing what looked like a kind of upside-down ballet in the water.

I turned off the TV.

Posted by: OregonMuse at August 21, 2016 11:46 AM (YHmsR)

256 Posted by: mindful webworker - stomps on flaming poo bag at August 21, 2016 11:40 AM (XkxK0)

Animals, by contrast, are already perfect as what they are.

^^^^^
This!

Posted by: Hrothgar at August 21, 2016 11:47 AM (wCEn4)

257 I came home early on Friday to take Sarge into the
vet for his last visit. He was nearly 12 (a good age for a Borzoi) and
his bleeding from the anus had become more frequent and his breathing
was becoming raspy.

Heartbreakingly, he was not asking to go: even in his last day -
like his brothers Chance and Smudge - he greeted us with bright eyes, a
wagging tail and an eager appetite.

It was raining and I went down to the kennel with a collar and leash
to collect him. When I went in, I saw that his pen-mate Ilya was not
in with him. With growing alarm I kept calling for Ilya without him
coming in. I ran outside to the back of the kennel and found him
outside the pen door, dead.

So I had the awful duty of bagging Ilya up (difficult because he was
stiff), taking Sarge to be euthanized, returning home with his corpse,
collecting Ilya and taking them both to the crematory.

Posted by: Kodos the Executioner at August 21, 2016 10:21 AM (J8/9G)
===============================================

Oh no - what a horrible thing for you to have to endure. I feel so badly for you. Borzois are such beautiful dogs. Was Ilya a Borzoi as well?

Posted by: grammie winger at August 21, 2016 11:47 AM (dFi94)

258 Drudge has outdone himself with his headline pic this morning.

Posted by: Mr. Peebles at August 21, 2016 10:51 AM (Pby3z)

It's beautiful. I wish it was sent to everyone in the MFM who's been making excuses for Prezzy Fore vacationing through this.

Posted by: TheQuietMan at August 21, 2016 11:48 AM (auHtY)

259 Almost semi-lurker checks in. Viva le good readz.

Posted by: DRH at August 21, 2016 11:48 AM (/dHde)

260 I like trains and people on trains stories and movies (Rear Window). Read reviews about Obama's favored Girl on A Train. Author, 15 years as a journalist, so one assumes a following. Anyway, reviews were good -- 4/5 star , but what appears to be true is that her three main characters are unlikable, distant, unrealistic. So, Obama will be in good company and will probably love it.

Posted by: gracepc at August 21, 2016 11:49 AM (OU4q6)

261 OM, you could also look at the images of the National Library of Argentina. Looks like a giant fist.

Posted by: Kindltot at August 21, 2016 11:49 AM (ry34m)

262 All I can remember about the polio epidemic is that going to get your shot or your sugar cube periodically was part of our ordinary life. We did it many, many times. And my mother was fierce in enforcing naptime, because tired children got sick. One time on vacation we tried to skip out through the back door, and I have never seen her so angry! Could not figure out why back then.

Posted by: PJ at August 21, 2016 11:50 AM (cHuNI)

263 The immune system works best when it is challenged in multiple ways. Cross-reactivity allows some degree of protection against related viruses. "That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger" is more than just a catch phrase.

Man, ain't that the truth.

In our area, some of the Moms come completely unglued if little Tomlickinson gets a bit of mud on him. No dogs or cats allowed either. And non-gluten, non-fat, all-natural diet don't you know , dahling.

On the other hand, (Warning! virtue signaling ahead) I can hardly think of anything better than for a kid than going to the park with his dog and rolling around in the dirt. It's good for them physically, mentally, and immunologically.

Posted by: naturalfake at August 21, 2016 11:51 AM (HGtd0)

264 Posted by: gracepc at August 21, 2016 11:49 AM (OU4q6)

Superficial, catty comment I know. So apologies to all who actually read the book and liked it.

Posted by: JTB at August 21, 2016 09:35 AM (V+03K)

Thanks for sharing CS Lewis Letters -- got vol 1 and 2 at $1.99.

Posted by: gracepc at August 21, 2016 11:52 AM (OU4q6)

265 Reading "In War's Dark Shadow" by W. Bruce Lincoln. Russia before the Great War, 1891-1914. Reading history makes me daily grateful I live in the here and now. The living conditions for most of the Russians at that time were a hell on earth , intolerable barely describes it. The peasantry were riddled with incurable diseases, exploited and taxed ruthlessly, and if they were unlucky enough to be drafted , it was for life in a brutal system . The industrial workers were little better off , it's no surprise that the country was ripe for revolution , of any kind . Let it burn was their motto. Led by an idiot, Nicholas , they finally had enough . It is the world's misfortune that another inbred idiot, Wilhelm led Germany , and a warmonger , Conrad, had so much influence in Austria-Hungary . I hope the 3 of them are peasants in the next life for eternity.

Posted by: JHW at August 21, 2016 11:53 AM (kn0BL)

266 Taxes kill greatness.

You know what else kills greatness? Whatever India does. 1.6 billion people and they got a silver medal and a bronze medal. Their system might require a population of 100 billion people to compete with the US or UK or China.

Posted by: t-bird at August 21, 2016 11:55 AM (Z58Xa)

267 It's good for them physically, mentally, and immunologically.

They don't call it 'Vitamin Dirt' for nuthin'!

Posted by: t-bird at August 21, 2016 11:56 AM (Z58Xa)

268 I asked this last week but I was late to the thread and everyone had moved on, but does anyone have a recommendation for a good, accessible book on the Sino-Japanese war?

Posted by: J. Random Dude at August 21, 2016 11:57 AM (C9lNt)

269 I'm a lousy housekeeper and my kids (and my husband, and I) rarely get sick. So I think (all right, I'm hoping) there's some truth to that. Plus, we are all fans of the great outdoors. I think there's nothing like getting outside frequently to keep you healthy.

Posted by: bluebell at August 21, 2016 11:57 AM (805dc)

270 OM, you could also look at the images of the National Library of Argentina. Looks like a giant fist.

Posted by: Kindltot at August 21, 2016 11:49 AM (ry34m)

What an odd-looking structure.

Posted by: OregonMuse at August 21, 2016 11:58 AM (YHmsR)

271 I tried to read Girl on a Train last fall, I think it was. It was not my type of book at all - gritty, depressing, with the afore-mentioned unlikeable characters. I kept on for a while, because I had read how good it was, and I knew that the ending was supposed to be a big surprise.

I finally couldn't take it anymore. I quit where I was, looked at the end, said to myself I was glad I quit when I did, and took it back to the library.

Because, as a wise Muse says, life is too short to read lousy books.

Posted by: bluebell at August 21, 2016 12:00 PM (805dc)

272 Kindltot, I just found the gift you left me in the ONT after I went to sleep. Thank you.

I'm listening now. What a voice. That's the one I was hoping for, but she got it instead.

Posted by: bluebell at August 21, 2016 12:05 PM (805dc)

273 I'm trying to clean out my garage, so I went to a flea market to sell some stuff and I had some books on my table and a Chinese woman who had to be in her 50's if not her 60's picked up the biography of Albert Speer and said "Ohhhhh, he's my favorite".
And I'm thinking she doesn't realize who he is,
maybe she thinks he's an old rockstar or something, but Nope ! She knew who he was and he was her favorite Nazi !
I've been dumbfounded all week now wondering
"Who has a favorite Nazi ?"

Posted by: JT at August 21, 2016 12:05 PM (nrEax)

274 #268 J. Random Dude

I copied these recommendations from a Reddit AskHistorians Thread:

For the Second Sino-Japanese War: Try Shanghai 1937: Stalingrad on the Yangtze by Peter Harmsen for one of the best books I've read on a very specific (and important) battle.

For a broader look at the war, try Forgotten Ally: China's World War II 1937-1945 by Rana Mitter. It's not super academic and I think it focuses on the Chinese point of view a bit too much, but its very readable and is a great introduction to the war.

For the First Sino-Japanese War I'd recommend The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy by S.C.M. Paine. It's the best book I've read on the war, which in general suffers from a serious lack of English literature

Posted by: JHW at August 21, 2016 12:06 PM (kn0BL)

275 "Who has a favorite Nazi ?"

I really didn't know any better.

Posted by: Blondie at August 21, 2016 12:07 PM (BO/km)

276 Found an interesting link to a history of the National Library (watch out, it's a wall of text):

http://www.loc.gov/loc/legacy/loc.html

Thank goodness farsighted individuals scoured the globe for finds. Who knows what would have been destroyed otherwise:

"As American influence and interests began to expand in the twentieth century, Putnam looked abroad to build the Library's collections, boldly applying Jefferson's dictum that no subject was beyond the possible concern of Congress or the American people. The Librarian was especially farsighted in acquiring research materials about other countries and cultures. In 1904 he purchased a four-thousand volume library of Indica, explaining in the Library's annual report that he "could not ignore the opportunity to acquire a unique collection which scholarship thought worthy of prolonged, scientific, and enthusiastic research, even though the immediate use of such a collection may prove meager." In 1906 he acquired the famous eighty-thousand volume private library of Russian literature owned by G. V. Yudin of Siberia, even sending a staff member to Russia to supervise the packing and shipping of the books. The Schatz collection of early opera librettos was purchased from a German collector in 1908. Large and important collections of Hebraica and Chinese and Japanese books also were acquired.

In the early 1930s, the Library purchased 2,600 volumes from the book collections of the Romanov family. The Russian Imperial Collection includes biographies, works of literature, and military, social, and administrative histories, held chiefly by the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. The Law Library, however, received copies of military and law books. The ornate pink volume probably belonged to Catherine the Great."

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 12:07 PM (jR7Wy)

277 "Who has a favorite Nazi ?"

*Hitler comes through the front door, tosses hat on hatrack*

Eva! You're favorite Nazi is home!

*applause, canned laughter*

Posted by: "I Love Eva" - the TV Series at August 21, 2016 12:11 PM (HGtd0)

278 Eris, I have been mulling this over.

There are different types of tough. There is "suck the snot from a dead man's nose" tough, and then there is the tough that gets the job done, quietly and as efficiently as possible. Like a mill grinding grain. The mill isn't really a bastard, but don't get your shirt-tail nipped between the stones or in the gears.
The first one is being callous, the second one is being determined to see it through.

Don't sell yourself short on the second element.

There is a book called The Survivors' Club, by Ben Sherwood, which is a research into what sort of traits survivors have. I read it because I have an interest in surviving, and I think it did me some good.
At one point Sherwood took a class in surviving a downed craft incident from either the Navy or Marines that involved being dropped, strapped into seat in a helicopter frame, into the water and getting to fight his own way out.

http://astore.amazon.com/aoshq-20/detail/0446698857

Posted by: Kindltot at August 21, 2016 12:14 PM (ry34m)

279 ""Who has a favorite Nazi ?"

Oskar Schnindler?

Speaking of books, Speilberg pretty much shot Thomas Kenneally's book --even the Girl in the Red Dress -- but Kenneally has been pretty much ignored for his contribution.

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 21, 2016 12:14 PM (bQxkN)

280
More Hugos:

IO9: Hugo Awards Celebrate Women in Sci-Fi, Send Rabid Puppies to Doghouse

Female writers, editors and artists took home seven individual awards. All four categories for works of fiction went to women, three of whom were women of color.

The big victor of the night was N.K. Jemisin, who won Best Novel for The Fifth Season. In her acceptance speech (read by Alyssa Wong), Jemisin, a black woman, expressed how thrilled she was that people "would choose to vote for the story of a forty-something big-boned dredlocked woman of color waging an epic struggle against the forces of oppression."

Jemisin had some choice words for the the Rabid Puppies group:

"Only a small number of ideologues have attempted to game the Hugo Awards. That small number can easily be overwhelmed, their regressive clamor stilled, if the rest of SFF fandom simply stands up to be counted. Stands up to say that yes, they do want literary innovation, and realistic representation. Stands up to say that yes, they do just want to read good stories but what makes a story good is skill, and audacity, and the ability to consider the future clearly rather than through the foggy lenses of nostalgia and privilege."

Dear NK:

F U and the gay dinosaur you rode in on.

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at August 21, 2016 12:14 PM (kdS6q)

281 "Who has a favorite Nazi ?"
Posted by: JT at August 21, 2016 12:05 PM (nrEax)

Wasn't Speer the Nazi architect? Maybe she just liked his buildings.

Posted by: OregonMuse at August 21, 2016 12:14 PM (YHmsR)

282 Over 200 comments.

Wildly off topic, has anyone tried to fix the innards of a kitchen faucet? It's a lever faucet and the water doesn't want to stop when I turn it off. It's not the washer at spout of the faucet.

Posted by: Infidel at August 21, 2016 12:16 PM (cB/jX)

283
"Who has a favorite Nazi ?"
Posted by: JT at August 21, 2016 12:05 PM

I remember that show. A Nazi crash lands in California and a newspaper reporter (played by Bill Bixby) finds him and takes him home and passes him off as his uncle.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot Jr. at August 21, 2016 12:17 PM (IqV8l)

284 157, I don't go to movies but maybe every 10 years or so, last one in the theater was The Passion of the Christ as I was reasonably sure it wouldn't be too messed up. And I only watch movies on A-prime when it's too hot to read or think or move.

As to the influence reviews have on my amazon purchases:

With actual products like fans and coffee makers, I start with the one-stars and if broken items seem random, I'll move up to two stars and so forth. I don't trust those long-winded five-star ones as they read like shills.

With books, well, most recs I get here so I don't bother with the reviews although I may write one. If I know the book is political and I know the slant, I may read the one-stars for fun but they have no influence on my decision to buy - that's decided by the author. I don't know when my last book decision was determined by reader reviews.

Posted by: Tonestaple at August 21, 2016 12:17 PM (VsZJP)

285 I've been dumbfounded all week now wondering

"Who has a favorite Nazi ?"
Posted by: JT at August 21, 2016 12:05 PM (nrEax)

Speer was not hanged at Nuremberg because all his co-defendants said he was a clueless idiot who was also a genius. It might have also been that he had worked on the Reich's nuke plant development.

He served his sentence, wrote his autobiography and died of cancer.

Posted by: Kindltot at August 21, 2016 12:18 PM (ry34m)

286 Concerning pets in heaven:
Mindful comes closest to my thoughts on the subject. Pets are not in heaven for the sake of their own souls (which do not exist, probably), but for the complete happiness of their human. Is heaven filled with the souls of feral animals? Why would that be the case? However, where does that leave the wild rabbit in my backyard, for which I built a protective brush pile and put out vegetables. We would stare at each other with appreciation (and maybe two-way fondness), but no further relationship. We played an fairly important part in each other's lives. But, does it get the rabbit into heaven?

Posted by: French Jeton at August 21, 2016 12:19 PM (WMvHw)

287 Infidel -

lever, as in single handle ?

Usually those have replaceable working parts inside; some have a replaceable cartridge that contains all of the works, others have a rebuild kit of parts.

What brand ?

Posted by: sock_rat_eez at August 21, 2016 12:19 PM (gUoN4)

288 Fortunately for me, the polio epidemic is known to me only as a matter of history. However I've seen the pictures of kids in iron lungs and other horrible memorializations of the disease. This is why I find it infuriating, and downright evil, to see the powers that be causing the resurgence of diseases that we'd conquered years ago by allowing the uncontrolled flood of illegals coming in from third world shitholes.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 21, 2016 09:40 AM (0mRoj)

The Western Development Museum in Swift Current, Saskatchewan has in its collection an iron lung home-built by a local farmer whose daughter contracted polio at a time when all the available iron lungs in local hospitals were in use. He got it built in time, and it saved her life.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at August 21, 2016 12:20 PM (oqkO3)

289 The sidebar article about The Great Stench of 1858 is worth a read.

Posted by: rickl at August 21, 2016 12:20 PM (sdi6R)

290 How Morons play 'My Favourite Nazi'

http://www.ufunk.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/selection-du-weekend-206-15.jpg

Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 12:24 PM (NSeBd)

291 Re the Hugos

I used to devour Sci-Fi 30 years ago, can't stand it now . Tried a few newer , but just horrible junk , it takes too long to find a gem in the huge pile of trash.

History, well written , tops just about anything in Sci-Fi , IMO , what world , for instance , can be any stranger than what Cortez and his tiny army found in Mexico. Aztecs were utterly alien to them. Or what the first Portuguese sea-farers found when they finally arrived in India and Brazil.

Posted by: JHW at August 21, 2016 12:25 PM (kn0BL)

292 Schindler or Rabe are pretty much at the top for good Nazis. For certain positive values of good as opposed to what WorldCon uses as a yardstick for good when it comes to stories.

Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 12:25 PM (NSeBd)

293 Don't know the brand. Yes, single handle. bought it at Lowes over 10 yrs ago. Guess I will pull it apart and if it looks trashed or too hard to fix I will have to get a new faucet. Those have gotten pricey.

Posted by: Infidel at August 21, 2016 12:26 PM (cB/jX)

294 Posted by: Kindltot at August 21, 2016 12:14 PM (ry34m)

Thanks! I'm reading the first couple chapters right now.

One thing in my favor is that, as an amateur student of history and the child of Depression-era parents, I know that bad times can happen to good people, and I will not be gobsmacked if and when it happens to me.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 12:28 PM (jR7Wy)

295
@284

I'm a lot like that. I Don't read the reviews very often and avoid the ones from marketing.

I want to read some of the book, a sample, or a preview.

But the reviews are used by amazon to make suggestions to browsers of other books they might like, and they affect the ranking you get on a general search. Few people bother to page through 400 book suggestions. If you aren't on the front page or two or three, most readers never see you.

I key on the tittle and the blurb, but I'm on a budget and one or two bad reviews will put me off.

I'm a sea of conflicting thoughts and emotions, hamstrung by indecision and doubt. And I'm a sucker for a good story.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at August 21, 2016 12:28 PM (dw3S5)

296 Posted by: JHW at August 21, 2016 12:25 PM (kn0BL)

So, give with the titles!

Recommend some books on those subjects.

Posted by: naturalfake at August 21, 2016 12:29 PM (HGtd0)

297 282 Over 200 comments.
Wildly off topic...

Posted by: Infidel at August 21, 2016 12:16 PM (cB/jX)

I'll allow it.

Posted by: OregonMuse at August 21, 2016 12:30 PM (YHmsR)

298 187, Every payday, but other than asking our pastor about "should I designate it for this particular project fund or should I just give to the general" and this mention here, you will not find me discussing it with anyone at all.

The director of religious education discussed tithing back when she was poor as a churchmouse at a recent RCIA and that greatly influenced me to step up in that it made me feel ashamed for not being more diligent.

Posted by: Tonestaple at August 21, 2016 12:30 PM (VsZJP)

299 "Who has a favorite Nazi ?"

Hermann Goering, for his fearless sense of fashion.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 12:31 PM (jR7Wy)

300
"Who has a favorite Nazi ?"

Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS.

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at August 21, 2016 12:34 PM (kdS6q)

301 Wildly off topic, has anyone tried to fix the innards of a kitchen faucet? It's a lever faucet and the water doesn't want to stop when I turn it off. It's not the washer at spout of the faucet.

Your local hardware/home depot should have a kit containing 2 different size springs and washers if you don't know the make/model of your faucet.

Turn off the hot and cold water to your faucet.
There should be a knurled ring at the base of the
faucet, loosen that pop off the faucet, peer in the hole and voila !
Remove the washers using tweezers and replace
them.
The springs rarely wear out.

Check out a youtube vid to familiarize yourself
with the procedure.

Posted by: JT at August 21, 2016 12:34 PM (nrEax)

302 So I had the awful duty of bagging Ilya up (difficult because he was stiff), taking Sarge to be euthanized, returning home with his corpse, collecting Ilya and taking them both to the crematory.

Posted by: Kodos the Executioner at August 21, 2016 10:21 AM (J8/9G)

Condolences, Kodos. Doubly sad day.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at August 21, 2016 12:36 PM (oqkO3)

303 Take off the handle and see what you see .... then find out the brand and search-engine something like "fix leaking faucet".
Most good hardware stores will have what you need.

10 years old can be an issue with repairing, though; the last kitchen faucet I tried to fix (a Delta, 8 or 10 years old, very straightforward and a cheap parts-kit too) came apart when I tried to remove the stuck retaining nut, the thin brass of the housing tore like paper.
New faucet time anyway.

Wishing you the best of luck !

Posted by: sock_rat_eez at August 21, 2016 12:37 PM (gUoN4)

304
Wildly off topic, has anyone tried to fix the innards of a kitchen faucet? It's a lever faucet and the water doesn't want to stop when I turn it off. It's not the washer at spout of the faucet.
Posted by: Infidel at August 21, 2016 12:16 PM (cB/jX)

Sounds like a ball-type valve. It's possible the handle is loose. Can you pull it off? If so, then tighten the little setscrew with a small allen wrench. That should let you close the valve completely.

Otherwise, you can rebuild the valve with a new gasket set. Don't forget plumber's grease.

Check out repairclinic.com to find parts and (possibly) instructional videos for your faucet.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at August 21, 2016 12:37 PM (0KfYo)

305 299 "Who has a favorite Nazi ?"

Hermann Goering, for his fearless sense of fashion.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 12:31 PM (jR7Wy)

I like P J O'Rourke's response when liberals accuse him of being a Nazi. He reminds them that no one has ever had a sexual fantasy of being tied up and ravished by a liberal.

Posted by: OregonMuse at August 21, 2016 12:37 PM (YHmsR)

306 I just received the book "The Un-Civil War: Blacks vs Ni**ers: Confronting the subculture within the African-Amrican community" by Taleeb Starkes.

no asterisks throughout the book.

It should be required reading at every school.

Posted by: Stateless Infidel at August 21, 2016 12:37 PM (js67+)

307 Posted by: sock_rat_eez
OM
JT

Thank you. I hate plumbing and I can't find the freeking allen wrenches.

Posted by: Infidel at August 21, 2016 12:38 PM (cB/jX)

308 so many infidels....

Posted by: Stateless Infidel at August 21, 2016 12:40 PM (js67+)

309 or kids could go off by themselves for the entire day and their parents wouldn't be worried sick about them.

Today the parents would be lucky to just be worried. Child Protective Services would probably pay them a visit and possibly charge them with neglect.

Posted by: Very Undude at August 21, 2016 12:40 PM (2X7pN)

310 repair clinic. I think a moron mentioned the the other day and I couldn't remember the name.

Thanks all.

Posted by: Infidel at August 21, 2016 12:40 PM (cB/jX)

311 Should be a 1/8 and you shouldn't need to replace the ball or any O-rings.

Posted by: JT at August 21, 2016 12:40 PM (nrEax)

312 #187

So, because it not being reported in large media, is it from his wishes, their ignorance of the fact, or their desire to ignore?

Posted by: free range 'sorta' conservative but not 'true' conservative at August 21, 2016 10:54 AM (ZnIt3)

Yes. The latter two. If it would hurt Trump, they'd report it. If it would put him in a positive light, they won't. Simple rule.

Posted by: OregonMuse at August 21, 2016 12:41 PM (YHmsR)

313 Still slogging through 'Blcklisted By History' by M. Stanton Evans. It's slow because of the type of material and the anger it inspires.

It appears that US security was greatly compromised and numerous countries fell under communist rule mainly because the Democrats couldn't accept blame for stuff that happened on their watch and would destroy a member of the opposition party seeking to plug the hole rather than deal with the real problem. I recall seeing the phrase 'Who lost China' as a kid but didn't really understand the implications.

If you've only heard the Hollywood version of these events, you've been given a massive dose of complete BS propaganda.

Posted by: Epobirs at August 21, 2016 12:41 PM (IdCqF)

314 Speaking of Nazis, I saw the new flick Anthropoid. Liked it with a few reservations. About the 1942 assassination of #3 Nazi Reinhard Heydrich in Prague by Czech and Slovak freedom fighters.

You can make a case that Heydrich was even more evil than Hitler.

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 21, 2016 12:41 PM (bQxkN)

315
Favorite Nazi

Just out of curiosity I searched on 'German Flying Aces' and got a hit - Top Ten German Flying Aces of all Time.

First name on the list Eric Hartmann - 352 kills.

Allied pilots make 'ace' with five.

I don't know any of the men on the list, but it would be foolish to blind ourselves to what they did. Not saying I 'liked' any of them or that I have any admiration for them.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at August 21, 2016 12:44 PM (dw3S5)

316 119
Oregon Muse, I bet there are morons with plushly appointed libraries. Perhaps they could send in photos a la the Pet Thread?
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 10:18 AM (jR7Wy)

In yesterday's morning thread, one link led to another one about an old woman with 92 cats. There was a photo of a room filled with cat carriers. I said, "Mentally substitute books for cat carriers and that's what the inside of my house looks like."

Posted by: rickl at August 21, 2016 12:44 PM (sdi6R)

317 Hartmann racked up those 352 kills the hard way since the Luftwaffe did not like rotating their pilots home after a certain number of missions to do things like train up new units. He got those kills because he fought the whole war except for a few furloughs. By the end of the war Hartmann was no longer painting the black tulip on the nose of his Bf-109 because Russian pilots would simply avoid him. Once the war was over, Hartmann and many other Germans became Soviet 'guests' for the next ten years.

Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 12:48 PM (NSeBd)

318 Infidel-
Would recomend a few self help books, but in the meantime shut off valve ( hopefully it works) then take it apart, check all rings and see if there is any debris in the mechanism. Any water supply be it well pump or public can throw in a stone or metal parts.

Posted by: Skip at August 21, 2016 12:49 PM (bksJQ)

319 The books don't eat or fill litter boxes. A person with too many books for the size of their home is far less crazy than those keeping excessive numbers of animals.

Posted by: Epobirs at August 21, 2016 12:49 PM (IdCqF)

320 Book related, as of last week The "Encyclopedia of the Jesuits" is completed and has been sent off to Cambridge Univ. Press. The culmination of about 15 years of work, travel, writing by my wife and a handful of her colleagues. So, in a year or so, grab a copy.

Posted by: Lincolntf at August 21, 2016 12:50 PM (2cS/G)

321 296 naturalfake

I'm scrambling to name some I have close to hand , but I'll give it a try.

For Cortes and Mexico , a classic written by a soldier in Cortes' Army "The Conquest of New Spain" by Bernal Diaz . Unforgettable descriptions of their first battles in Yucatan.

A scholarly, but very readable history "Conquest: Cortes , Montezuma and the Fall of Old Mexico" by Hugh Thomas.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/jfkuvow

"Conquerors" by Roger Crowley Portugal's long trek, in time and space, to India, very readable.

"The Last Crusade" by Nigel Cliff, The Epic Voyages of Vasco da Gama. Very readable also, it emphasizes the religious aspects of the above in more detail, it was a continuation of their enmity against Islam and how they crippled them significantly, militarily and financially. Amazing that a tiny country of a million people hurt Islam so bad, but it was unsustainable in the long run.

Many others very good, but I don't have them to hand quickly.

Posted by: JHW at August 21, 2016 12:51 PM (kn0BL)

322 Never gets mentioned here but watching Book TV on C-Span 2, Dana Loesch has been on reveiwing her book Flyover Nation:You can't Run a Country You've Never Been To

Posted by: Skip at August 21, 2016 12:51 PM (bksJQ)

323 My original Kindle won't go nearly as long on a charge as when new. Time to get another, I guess.

I re-read Robert Crais' "Demolition Angel" last week, and most all of it seemed new. One of his best, IMHO. Much as I like his Elvis Cole and Joe Pike characters, this one stars Carol Starkey, as mixed-up a character as one could be, an ex-bomb-tech now a detective, on the trail of a very clever bad guy.

Posted by: the littl shyning man at August 21, 2016 12:51 PM (MtMjs)

324 If you've only heard the Hollywood version of these events, you've been given a massive dose of complete BS propaganda.
Posted by: Epobirs at August 21, 2016 12:41 PM (IdCqF)

I'm also reading Evans' book and you're right. It is slow going because it is so densely packed with information.

We need to teach the correct historical records. As you said, the Hollywood version is BS.

Posted by: OregonMuse at August 21, 2016 12:52 PM (YHmsR)

325 One thing that free up time for more reading is not wasting any time on 'news'. Even Fox isn't reliable and the others are completely corrupt. I get more accurate and timely news here on Ace. Not joking.

Posted by: JTB at August 21, 2016 12:53 PM (V+03K)

326 Finished up the Mongoliad Series this week.

Thinking about the new Django Wexler book this week.

Posted by: garrett at August 21, 2016 12:55 PM (c1srJ)

327 I'm missing a book, It is a reference book on a Napoleoic army not that it matters. I have had it since 1980 its down to a collection of pages but can't find it. It has to be here somewhere. I also have this book photocopied in a notebook which is missing and have it on old computer which doesn't work.

Posted by: Skip at August 21, 2016 12:55 PM (bksJQ)

328 319 The books don't eat or fill litter boxes. A person with too many books for the size of their home is far less crazy than those keeping excessive numbers of animals.
Posted by: Epobirs at August 21, 2016 12:49 PM (IdCqF)

Yeah, I think I'm into "hoarder" territory. I only have two cats, though.

Posted by: rickl at August 21, 2016 12:55 PM (sdi6R)

329 Hey all, just popping in to say I'm making plans for my DC trip and OM's cool pics have inspired me to get my reader ID card to go in the LOC main reading room.

I'd say "I'll post pics" but they aren't allowed

Posted by: tsrlbke PhD(c), rogue bioethicist at August 21, 2016 12:56 PM (dzmBR)

330 >> inspired me to get my reader ID card to go in the LOC main reading room.

My ex is the head Photo Conservator at the LOC.

Posted by: garrett at August 21, 2016 12:58 PM (c1srJ)

331 Favorite Nazi

Just out of curiosity I searched on 'German Flying Aces' and got a hit - Top Ten German Flying Aces of all Time.

First name on the list Eric Hartmann - 352 kills.

Allied pilots make 'ace' with five.

I don't know any of the men on the list, but it would be foolish to blind ourselves to what they did. Not saying I 'liked' any of them or that I have any admiration for them.
Posted by: Skandia Recluse at August 21, 2016 12:44 PM (dw3S5)
---
Hey, even Goering was a decorated flying ace.

Don't know if Ernst Udet was a Nazi, though he served under Goering at the Luftwaffe as Director-General of Equipment. He was a natural at flying and a party boy and not at all suited for administrative work. The pressures of the job drove him to drink. This I understand. Imagine if the Nazis had PowerPoint.

Are we sure the Nazis didn't pioneer PowerPoint? Seems like something that would be cooked up in their hellish laboratories.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 01:00 PM (jR7Wy)

332 My favorite Nazi is Trump.

My nephew keeps telling me he's like Hitler.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&V (whitely waiting for the ballgame) at August 21, 2016 01:00 PM (P8951)

333 332 My favorite Nazi is Trump.

My nephew keeps telling me he's like Hitler.
Posted by: Donna&&&&&V (whitely waiting for the ballgame) at August 21, 2016 01:00 PM (P8951)
--
Oh God, I made a comment at work that I could never understand the appeal of Mussolini, and my coworker friend immediately likened it to Trump fandom.

Cuz Trump's a Nazi!

Apart from having a beloved daughter who converted to Judaism, that is.

They just can't help themselves from virtue signalling, even when there's nobody around who cares.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 01:04 PM (jR7Wy)

334 Thanks for the heads up. Here's Dan Loesch on C-SPAN:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?409992-1/words-dana-loesch

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 01:08 PM (jR7Wy)

335 "One thing that free up time for more reading is not wasting any time on 'news'. Even Fox isn't reliable and the others are completely corrupt. I get more accurate and timely news here on Ace. Not joking.
Posted by: JTB"

So true. Same here.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez at August 21, 2016 01:10 PM (gUoN4)

336 "Cuz Trump's a Nazi!"

Being "right wing" is conflated with being a Nazi, which is terribly historically inaccurate. That and Trump is a bit of a caudillo.

My college daughter didn't know that Nazi is short for National Socialism, the label Bernie loves.

You know who scares me -- Tim Kaine. He's a pansy in many ways but I'd bet is a brutal apparatchik behind the scenes. Recently had a private dinner with Soros son and heir. The beat goes on.

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 21, 2016 01:11 PM (bQxkN)

337
Dr. Wernher Von Braun (maybe he wasn't a Nazi)

The US couldn't build a rocket that flew.

Von Braun did, and got us to the moon, which we have apparently abandon.

http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/vonbraun/bio.html

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at August 21, 2016 01:11 PM (dw3S5)

338 The director of religious education discussed
tithing back when she was poor as a churchmouse at a recent RCIA and
that greatly influenced me to step up in that it made me feel ashamed
for not being more diligent. Posted by: Tonestaple at August 21, 2016 12:30 PM (VsZJP)
=====

I was a single parent with four -- without the 'scholarships' provided by our local parish, mine would not have been able to attend Religious Ed. Those people did yeoman work ensuring that all kids and families who wanted (and needed) to attend did so. If I ever have a dime beyond utilities and mortgage, I owe those people a lot. The 'gift of faith' is predicated on some kind of base and bless them for providing the base.

Posted by: mustbequantum at August 21, 2016 01:15 PM (MIKMs)

339 Von Braun, supposedly joked about the V2, "I was shooting for the moon but hit London instead." Or at least that's what Carl Sagan said.

Posted by: auscolpyr at August 21, 2016 01:15 PM (suO/a)

340 Posted by: JHW at August 21, 2016 12:51 PM (kn0BL)

When you get the chance, maybe later today or next week's Book Thread,

I'd love to get some more book titles about the Portuguese and their landings in Brazil and India.

I never read anything about those and it sounds fascinating.

Posted by: naturalfake at August 21, 2016 01:17 PM (HGtd0)

341 "The US couldn't build a rocket that flew."

Vannevar Bush was a household name during WWII but has faded from our collective memory. He was our chief scientist during WWII and more than anyone was responsible for our commitment to building the Bomb, and for creating our military-university complex. He had a blind spot on rocketry, and didn't fund it, which is why we lost a step to the Germans despite the early lead Goddard had spotted us. Like many involved in building the Bomb, he had later regrets. He was unrelated to Poppy or W Bush.

In a 1945 article -- As we may think -- he put forth the idea of the memex, which anticipates in many respects the internet-connected personal computer and World Wide Web that we're now all using. He saw the memex as a tool to improve the way we think, so it also anticipates ideas like the semantic web that are still being put forth.

Bush called science the Endless Frontier. He'd have been a Trekkie and would be hanging at Comic-Con, were he still around.

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 21, 2016 01:18 PM (bQxkN)

342 Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 01:04 PM (jR7Wy)

It's amazing how well Trump, a life long resident of a city with the largest Jewish population in America, managed to hide his Nazi sympathies until he ran as a Republican.

In the meantime, liberals still take Jesse "Hymietown" Jackson seriously.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&V (whitely waiting for the ballgame) at August 21, 2016 01:18 PM (P8951)

343 If Clinton was our first Black President, then you can call Trump our first Jewish President. He's very tight with them.

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 21, 2016 01:21 PM (bQxkN)

344 Eris - I forgot all Book TV interviews are on YouTube I think, wanted to see one a long time ago, took a chance it was on YouTube and it was.

Posted by: Skip at August 21, 2016 01:22 PM (bksJQ)

345 Billions and billions of Hillary's lies.

Posted by: Zombie Carl Saga at August 21, 2016 01:22 PM (Tyii7)

346 339 Von Braun, supposedly joked about the V2, "I was shooting for the moon but hit London instead." Or at least that's what Carl Sagan said.
Posted by: auscolpyr at August 21, 2016 01:15 PM (suO/a)

I believe that line originated with Tom Lehrer.

Lehrer wrote a song about Von Braun:

*Sung with German accent* - "Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department," said Werner Von Braun."

"In German and English I know how to count down, and I'm learning Chinese," said Werner Von Braun.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&V (whitely waiting for the ballgame) at August 21, 2016 01:22 PM (P8951)

347 Von Braun, supposedly joked about the V2, "I was shooting for the moon but hit London instead." Or at least that's what Carl Sagan said.
Posted by: auscolpyr at August 21, 2016 01:15 PM

I don't know the man, but I can understand the circumstances. The government of your country is what it is, and if your dream is going to the moon, you make a deal with the devil.

It also seems to illustrate why the modern progressives consider nationalism, patriotism, and defense of your country to be akin to 'Nazism'. Thus, by definition, Trump is a Nazi.

If you are a policeman, and the law says you must arrest evil christian right wingers who oppose Obama's plan to give free healthcare to the masses, you do your job.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at August 21, 2016 01:23 PM (dw3S5)

348 "So true. Same here."
Me too. I used to wake up and check the headlines on the FOX and CNN websites from my phone while I was still in a prone position. I stopped because I found it increasingly hard to even get myself out of bed after the constant anti-Trump barrage.

I don't even watch FOX News anymore.

Posted by: JoeF. at August 21, 2016 01:24 PM (ZZFMS)

349 #340 naturafake

I'll make up a list for next week, I have quite a collection of books on the Portuguese in the Age of Discovery. A couple on their operations in Ethiopia before and after reaching India. Looking for Prester John, they allied with the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia against the Muslims, beat the hell out of them. Also their operations in Arabia, they damn near conquered them too, had forts on the Strait of Hormuz.

Posted by: JHW at August 21, 2016 01:24 PM (kn0BL)

350 Posted by: Donna&&&&&V (whitely waiting for the ballgame) at August 21, 2016 01:22 PM (P8951)

I did not know that. I think I heard Sagan's quote from "A Pale Blue Dot" audio book.

Posted by: auscolpyr at August 21, 2016 01:24 PM (suO/a)

351 "I don't even watch FOX News anymore."

Repost:

I'd bet it's that Stephen Bannon sees an opening to expand Breitbart with Roger Ailes involved. Ailes made Rupert a lot of money but appears to have gotten undeserved short shrift. There's a big opening for a center-right news organization with a populist bent. Streaming delivery means you wouldn't necessarily need cable access. Developing?

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 21, 2016 01:26 PM (bQxkN)

352 I have the loudest family on the planet living next door to me. They are out in their backyard from sunup til after midnight and not a single one of them seems to be capable of communicating at less that 120 dB. Just felt like venting.

Posted by: Zombie Carl Saga at August 21, 2016 01:27 PM (Tyii7)

353 Ernst Udet and Hermann Goering were both WWI fighter aces.

It took real balls to fly in combat during WWI in those flimsy contraptions. The fuel tank was right in front of the pilot, and many pilots, especially of the Allied side, didn't wear parachutes. If the plane was hit and caught fire, they jumped to their deaths rather than burn. And sometimes the planes simply came apart in mid-air during violent maneuvers.

Yet there was never any shortage of volunteers for the air services of all the combatants. Anything was better than trench warfare.

Posted by: rickl at August 21, 2016 01:27 PM (sdi6R)

354 I'm surprised we haven't had more presidents from New York, given its size and impact. Better ways of making a living present themselves, I guess.

Knickerbockers like Martin Van Buren and the Roosevelts, sure, but why not more scrappy Gothamites like Giuliani and Trump?

I love how Trump says the word HAAHHHrrible like my New Yawk relatives used to say about inferior cheesecakes.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 01:29 PM (jR7Wy)

355 Agent X was deservedly short-lived because it was a left-wing wet-dream of subverting the Constitution by stealth. Sharon Stone's presence was no surprise; Gerald McRaney's was embarrassing. I was shocked to find that Aaron Sorkin was not involved.

Posted by: Chas C-Q at August 21, 2016 01:29 PM (Y0Piu)

356 Posted by: JHW at August 21, 2016 01:24 PM (kn0BL)

Thanks.

Also, more Aztec stuff too if you have some goodies.

Going to get the Hugh Thomas today-

His "Slave Trade" book is a masterpiece.

Posted by: naturalfake at August 21, 2016 01:30 PM (HGtd0)

357 I call BS on Obama's "reading" list. He's not reading up on Martha's Vineyard. Sure, he may have "bought" them or carried around one of them, but he's not reading a lick. And just look at the titles. They all check some box.
I especially call BS on the Stevenson book.

Posted by: JoeF. at August 21, 2016 01:31 PM (ZZFMS)

358 Yet there was never any shortage of volunteers for the air services of all the combatants. Anything was better than trench warfare.

----

That might have been a factor on the German side where the brass told their pilots that they were cowards if they wore one.

Posted by: auscolpyr at August 21, 2016 01:31 PM (suO/a)

359 I'm reading my scorecard. It's horrible.

Posted by: Prez'nit Divot at August 21, 2016 01:32 PM (Tyii7)

360 naturalfake, it will be a pleasure, I'm glad there are history lovers here. Yes, Thomas' book Slave Trade is very good, I'm at the point to buy some of his other histories.

Posted by: JHW at August 21, 2016 01:33 PM (kn0BL)

361 "I asked this last week but I was late to the thread and everyone had
moved on, but does anyone have a recommendation for a good, accessible
book on the Sino-Japanese war?"

First, or Second?

From the point of view of a Japanese leftist, with regard to the Second, see Saburo Ienega's _The Pacific War, 1931-1945_.

Unsparing with regard to Imperial Japan's atrocities against the Chinese civilian population.

Posted by: torquewrench at August 21, 2016 01:33 PM (noWW6)

362 JHW,

The Portuguese were mighty mighty at one time.

Big effect in Japan as well.

Maybe you have a good book recommendation about that as well.

Posted by: naturalfake at August 21, 2016 01:34 PM (HGtd0)

363 I've never seen so many snowmen in my entire life. I blame it on white privilege.

Posted by: Prez'nit Divot at August 21, 2016 01:34 PM (Tyii7)

364 Just saw the mangiest, sorriest looking coyote I've ever seen. Reminded me of the famous South Texas "chupacabra" video.

He was right outside the chain-link fence when I went outside to get something out of the pickup. Trotted off in the direction of the highway (100 yards) so I couldn't take a shot. That's either the second one to be up near the house recently or the same one twice.

Posted by: Ricardo Kill at August 21, 2016 01:35 PM (9ym/8)

365 "I'm surprised we haven't had more presidents from New York"

Well, we're guaranteed to get one this year, as Hillary is also "from" New York.

I think one of the reasons is that NY is an ethnic stew. We still haven't seen an Italian or Jewish president, and after a nearly 200 year presence, we've only had ONE Irish Catholic prez.
Also, Republican politicians from NY tend to be of the Rockefeller or Jacob Javits wing, and would never be nominated by the national party.

Posted by: JoeF. at August 21, 2016 01:36 PM (ZZFMS)

366 The Portuguese were mighty mighty at one time.

Big effect in Japan as well.
--------------------------------------

James Clavell' 'Shogun' is all about that; fiction I believe, very interesting fiction. His book on Hong Kong "Tai'Pan also very good.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at August 21, 2016 01:37 PM (dw3S5)

367 I wonder if the rubes down in Louisiana got the case of bag towels I sent them.

Posted by: Prez'nit Divot at August 21, 2016 01:37 PM (Tyii7)

368
282
Over 200 comments.

Wildly off topic, has anyone tried to fix
the innards of a kitchen faucet? It's a lever faucet and the water
doesn't want to stop when I turn it off. It's not the washer at spout of
the faucet.

Posted by: Infidel at August 21, 2016 12:16 PM (cB/jX)

Generic repair process:

(1) Shut off water; (2) disconnect faucet and move to workspace; (3) disassemble, not losing pieces; (4) when sufficiently disassembled, you'll be looking at a seal or o-ring that has failed; (5) replace it; (6) reassemble; (7) replace in kitchen; (

turn on water.

Posted by: cthulhu at August 21, 2016 01:37 PM (EzgxV)

369 Aerial combat was very Darwinian. The experienced aces racked up their high totals by killing off the noobs on the other side. There was a period in the spring of 1917 when the average life expectancy of a rookie British pilot was two weeks. "Bloody April", they called it.

Posted by: rickl at August 21, 2016 01:38 PM (sdi6R)

370 I especially call BS on the Stevenson book.
Posted by: JoeF. at August 21, 2016 01:31 PM (ZZFMS)

I meant Stephenson....

Posted by: JoeF. at August 21, 2016 01:38 PM (ZZFMS)

371 Dammit, I swore that I would not read a book thread recommendation this week and then rush right out and order it.

You people are like crack dealers.

Posted by: That SOB Van Owen at August 21, 2016 01:38 PM (CAKDm)

372 Well yeah, casa infidel is getting a new faucet.

/s

Posted by: Infidel at August 21, 2016 01:39 PM (cB/jX)

373 That SOB Van Owen at August 21, 2016 01:38 PM

LOL

What did you order?

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at August 21, 2016 01:41 PM (dw3S5)

374 288 Fortunately for me, the polio epidemic is known to me only as a matter of history. However I've seen the pictures of kids in iron lungs and other horrible memorializations of the disease. This is why I find it infuriating, and downright evil, to see the powers that be causing the resurgence of diseases that we'd conquered years ago by allowing the uncontrolled flood of illegals coming in from third world shitholes.

Posted by: Insomniac at August 21, 2016 09:40 AM (0mRoj)

I have a cousin who got polio when she was a kid. It was a mild case. She has some difficulty walking and has used a cane ever since.

I reminded her anti-vax sister of that recently. The sister (a big Trump fan, which is unfortunate, since she's rather nuts.) She has bought into the whole organic food/Monsanto/big Pharma is trying to kill us all thing and keeps sending me stories from very sketchy sources. (I've tried telling her that a person who is generally conservative should not rely on Vox and HuffPo for reliable information about vaccines and healthcare, but on this matter she sides with the loony left.)

She replied that the polio vaccine was good, but all these other ones - well, the doctors and Pharma are out to get us and you're better off drinking green tea and taking St. John's Wort or whatever natural remedy she's big on this week.

She largely supports Trump because she's fearful of all these diseases coming across the border - and she's got a valid point there.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&V (whitely waiting for the ballgame) at August 21, 2016 01:41 PM (P8951)

375 What happened in LA kinda gives new meaning to a water hazard. I like to think of world events as they relate to the links. Fore.

Posted by: Prez'nit Divot at August 21, 2016 01:43 PM (Tyii7)

376 "It took real balls to fly in combat during WWI in those flimsy
contraptions. The fuel tank was right in front of the pilot, and many
pilots, especially of the Allied side, didn't wear parachutes."

Re-reading _Retribution_ by Max Hastings, about the final battles before the fall of Imperial Japan. (And looking for instances of plagiarism, of which he has recently been accused by John Schindler in another work. Not finding any that I recognize in this one.)

Hastings notes during his discussion of Operation Ten-Go off of Okinawa that IJN warships during WWII all lacked lifeboats and flotation jackets. This was doctrinal. Deliberate. Meant to convey that surviving defeat was shameful and that the crews must fight to the last man aboard. Victory, or death by drowning.

Of course, by the late years of the war, many experienced combat sailors of the IJN who might have been rescued to fight again aboard another vessel had in fact drowned. And green new Japanese crews were consistently outfought by their already blooded USN rivals, some of whom had had several ships sunk out from underneath them, but were rescued to fight anew.

Posted by: torquewrench at August 21, 2016 01:43 PM (noWW6)

377 That's either the second one to be up near the house recently or the same one twice.

Posted by: Ricardo Kill at August 21, 2016 01:35 PM (9ym/

You may have some yummy looking cats or dogs at Casa Killo.

My Sis in CA lost two dogs and one cat that way.

Posted by: naturalfake at August 21, 2016 01:45 PM (HGtd0)

378 naturalfake, I think I have a couple. There's also this book that I bet would interest you . "Tragic History of the Sea", originally a collection of Portuguese pamphlets written at the time . Half the ships never made it back to Europe, they were worm eaten and grossly over-loaded with loot . Shipwrecks galore, in such a small country with increasing competition from other European seafarers and Muslims, their population couldn't replace the loss of so many sailors. Most that barely survived ended in great suffering in unexplored Africa. Copies as cheap as $4.64 at Amazon.

http://tinyurl.com/jfkxl8o

Posted by: JHW at August 21, 2016 01:45 PM (kn0BL)

379 >>The Portuguese were mighty mighty at one time.

1494: How a Family Feud in Medieval Spain Divided the World in Half.

If you've ever wondered why they speak Portuguese in Brazil but Spanish in every other South American country, the Treaty of Tordesillas is your answer. For the other half of the world, see the Treaty of Zaragoza.

Posted by: JackStraw at August 21, 2016 01:45 PM (/tuJf)

380 Sans Pataloons could mean many things, like skirts, kilts, shorts, beach wear, evening wear.

I don't see the problem.
Posted by: Skandia Recluse
---------------

Heh. Sans Kulaks, on the other hand, means 'un-bothered by troublesome bourgeoisie'.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at August 21, 2016 01:46 PM (9mTYi)

381 Skandia,
I couldn't resist "Legionary: The Roman Soldier's (Unofficial) Manual". There are apparently several "Manuals" available--- Viking, Hoplite . . .
There goes the budget.

Posted by: That SOB Van Owen at August 21, 2016 01:46 PM (CAKDm)

382 I couldn't resist "Legionary: The Roman Soldier's (Unofficial) Manual". There are apparently several "Manuals" available--- Viking, Hoplite . . .
There goes the budget.
Posted by: That SOB Van Owen at August 21, 2016 01:46 PM

That does sound interesting. I could add it to my library reading list but I think I'm up to five or six pages now, and going to the library requires leaving the house. lol

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at August 21, 2016 01:48 PM (dw3S5)

383 I am reading "Crimson Shore" by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. It is the latest in the Pendergast series. So far, so good. Quirky and mysterious as always but more fun than usual.

Based on what I've read so far (53%):

[ X ] Recommend
[ ] Don't recommend

Posted by: Diondre Cole at August 21, 2016 01:50 PM (4bjXi)

384 While I agree wholeheartedly that this is a stupid time to be alive, I also recognize that in my case, it's the ONLY time I could be alive.

I've mentioned before that I and my twin sister were born 2 months early and I was 2 lbs. 8 oz. when I was born - Diane was even smaller and died 13 hours after birth. I've talked to a neonatalogist about it and he said that I'm damned lucky to be here, since neonatal units were non-existent in 1959. I was put in an incubator and spent most of my first year in the hospital. I was also born with a dislocated hip and there are rather pitiful photos of me in the incubator with my leg up in a tiny cast.

Now they can keep even 1 pound babies alive. But if I had been born in 1939 or 1949 my chances of survival would have been even slimmer.

And who knows? Under big government, it might be decided that premmies are too expensive to care for. In Illinois, they leave babies my size on tables to die. In future, it might not matter if the mom wants the kid or not.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&V (whitely waiting for the ballgame) at August 21, 2016 01:54 PM (P8951)

385 "apparently several "Manuals" available--- Viking,"

Friend had a riff: Viking Good job? Bad job?

Weeks in an open boat. Bad job
Raping nuns. Good job

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 21, 2016 01:55 PM (bQxkN)

386 268 J. Random Dude at August 21, 2016 11:57 AM

If you're looking for one on the first Sino Japanese War, there's S. Paine's The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 (2003). I have it, but haven't had a chance to read it yet. It gets good reviews.

Posted by: josephistan at August 21, 2016 01:55 PM (7qAYi)

387 Meanwhile, the Irish Olympic Council has had their passports seized in Rio, awaiting developments. One Irish guy got busted for scalping tix last week, might be related to that.

Posted by: Lincolntf at August 21, 2016 01:55 PM (2cS/G)

388 @382:
I've still got my issued copy of the 1969 "Guidebook for Marines", so I'm from the era that our 782 gear was all bronze, anyway. I also have a reprint of the 1940 Marine Corps Small Wars Manual, which comes in handy if you need to pack a machine gun on a mule, or invade Haiti some weekend.

Posted by: That SOB Van Owen at August 21, 2016 01:57 PM (CAKDm)

389 G'Day, all.

Just getting on the interwebs for the first time today.

That pic at Drudge is one of the greatest photoshops EVER.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 21, 2016 01:58 PM (1ZOkK)

390 "Weeks in an open boat. Bad job
Raping nuns. Good job"

Well, I believe in this
And it's been tested by research
That he who fucks nuns
Will later join the Church...

Posted by: The Clash. at August 21, 2016 01:58 PM (ZZFMS)

391 365 "I'm surprised we haven't had more presidents from New York"

Well, we're guaranteed to get one this year, as Hillary is also "from" New York.

I think one of the reasons is that NY is an ethnic stew. We still haven't seen an Italian or Jewish president, and after a nearly 200 year presence, we've only had ONE Irish Catholic prez.
Also, Republican politicians from NY tend to be of the Rockefeller or Jacob Javits wing, and would never be nominated by the national party.
Posted by: JoeF. at August 21, 2016 01:36 PM (ZZFMS)

What the presidency would be like with an Italian from NJ ( quite the improvement over what we have now, I'd say.) :

http://tinyurl.com/jd6yrre

Posted by: RondinellaMamma at August 21, 2016 01:59 PM (oQQwD)

392 383
I am reading "Crimson Shore" by Douglas Preston Lincoln Child. It
is the latest in the Pendergast series. So far, so good. Quirky and
mysterious as always but more fun than usual.

Based on what I've read so far (53%):

[ X ] Recommend

[ ] Don't recommend

Posted by: Diondre Cole at August 21, 2016 01:50 PM (4bjXi)

Love Preston and Child, and also their individual works.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 21, 2016 01:59 PM (1ZOkK)

393 Oregon Muse, I bet there are morons with plushly appointed libraries. Perhaps they could send in photos a la the Pet Thread?
Posted by: All Hail Eris
------------

*looks around at a stack here, a stack there*

Yeah, no.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at August 21, 2016 01:59 PM (9mTYi)

394 Finally just finished Anatomy of a Soldier by Harry Parker. Recommended here. Very good read.

Also finished Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie. Hate. Hate. Hated it! So fucking incomprehensibly tedious. Same with David Brin's Existence. 40 pages into that and have no interest in continuing.

Posted by: Sharkman at August 21, 2016 02:00 PM (P8jrK)

395 That pic at Drudge is one of the greatest photoshops EVER.
Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 21, 2016 01:58 PM (1ZOkK)

Ha! That is great.

I see that 13 people were shot at a party in Bridgeport, CT. How can that be? CT has strict gun control laws!

Posted by: Donna&&&&&V (whitely waiting for the ballgame) at August 21, 2016 02:01 PM (P8951)

396 Given that, should I dare to take on Delaney's Dhalgren?

Your assistance is appreciated.

Posted by: Sharkman at August 21, 2016 02:01 PM (P8jrK)

397 I'm glad you're here, Donna.

In a sane world, it's a no-brainer that everything, including saving preemies, should become easier and less expensive over time, with new discoveries and innovation.

But the heavy, suffocating hand of government can't even keep toilet paper on store shelves in Venezuela.

Posted by: rickl at August 21, 2016 02:02 PM (sdi6R)

398 OT
Would one of the Bloggers please go over to Chirs Muir's website and get that likeness of Hillary posted over here?
It's truly threadworthy.

www.daybydaycartoon.com

Posted by: DASTARDLY DAN at August 21, 2016 02:04 PM (z7tRX)

399

It's 2 in the afternoon. The Fall Guy marathon is on. And this thread is 5 hours old.

Posted by: Mister Magoo's at August 21, 2016 02:04 PM (uRoFj)

400 "You may have some yummy looking cats or dogs at Casa Killo. "

Not really. No cats. Only dogs are my sister's when she's here and they're a heck of a lot bigger than this coyote. My little dog but he's rarely outside by himself.

No food outside. I don't know why it's coming up so close. I suspect it's the same one.

Posted by: Ricardo Kill at August 21, 2016 02:04 PM (9ym/8)

401 It's a beautiful building, repurposed to reflect how live arts have become a niche market and filling a theater regularly in all but the largest cities is difficult.

Now it is a bookstore, a soon-to-be niche market for all but the largest cities.

Interesting...

Posted by: RobM1981 at August 21, 2016 02:05 PM (VVBN7)

402 Oh, I have "Legionary: The Roman Soldier's (Unofficial) Manual" -- very good.

I would have made a nifty legionette -- I have all my body parts, I'm 5'6'', and a citizen of the Republic -- but alas, no slaves, eunuchs, or women allowed.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 02:05 PM (jR7Wy)

403 I remember pundits opining in 2008 that Rudy would not do well in the South because his brash NY style would not sit well with Southerners.

I don't believe that. Everyone, North and South, admired the way he handled himself after 9/11. Nobody expects New Yorkers to have the mannerisms of old school Southern gents.

That's not the reason Rudy didn't win.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&V (whitely waiting for the ballgame) at August 21, 2016 02:06 PM (P8951)

404 396 Given that, should I dare to take on Delaney's Dhalgren?

Your assistance is appreciated.
Posted by: Sharkman at August 21, 2016 02:01 PM (P8jrK)
---
Dhalgren is fantastic. Do it.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 02:07 PM (jR7Wy)

405 119 All Hail Eris
393 Mike Hammer, etc., etc.

Let's not take pictures of our own libraries. We would have to make the shelves pretty and all sorted and stuff. My wife the former librarian would make me dust, on top of that.

Ask for a publicity photo of your local civic and/or University library. Let them do the work. Your taxes are paying for it anyway.

Then send it to our gracious host, OregonMuse.

OregonMuse, is this acceptable to you?

Posted by: NaCly Dog at August 21, 2016 02:07 PM (u82oZ)

406

Books 'n Pets 'n Guns threads?

Posted by: Mister Magoo's at August 21, 2016 02:10 PM (uRoFj)

407 Michael Goodwin has an excellent piece in the NY Post about how journalism is "collapsing before our very eyes" what with the media essentially an arm of the Clinton campaign.
A lot of you will say "Fuck Goodwin. He voted for Obama in 2008."
That's true and he has issued many a mea culpa since. I actually think his voting for Obama strengthens his case against Clinton.

Posted by: The Clash. at August 21, 2016 02:10 PM (ZZFMS)

408

'The Stench of 2016: My Depends' is a best seller! The DNC bought all of them up for door prizes!

Posted by: Hitlery at August 21, 2016 02:11 PM (qul7b)

409 Or instead of photos of libraries, how about photos of significant or beautifully bound books?

Posted by: josephistan at August 21, 2016 02:12 PM (7qAYi)

410 Books 'n Pets 'n Guns threads?
Posted by: Mister Magoo's at August 21, 2016 02:10 PM (uRoFj)
---
At one time there could have been a photo of me nerfing my fat tomcat off of my bookcase of collectable tomes.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 02:12 PM (jR7Wy)

411 JHW

Thanks for the recommendations. I think I'll be ordering a used copy of Forgotten Ally from Amazon.

Speaking of which, is anyone else getting more and more annoyed at their local public libraries? Mine keep reducing shelf space in favor of rows of computers (mainly used by kids to play Minecraft or some such) or sitting areas. I'm ordering more and more books just because I can't find copies to borrow.

Posted by: J. Random Dude at August 21, 2016 02:12 PM (C9lNt)

412 www.daybydaycartoon.com
Posted by: DASTARDLY DAN at August 21, 2016 02:04 PM (z7tRX)

OMG! It makes you want to laugh and puke at the same time.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&V (whitely waiting for the ballgame) at August 21, 2016 02:12 PM (P8951)

413 Michael Goodwin has an excellent piece in the NY Post
-----------------------

And Instapundit has a three part response.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at August 21, 2016 02:13 PM (dw3S5)

414 "That's not the reason Rudy didn't win. "

I agree, but the consultants and media yakkers believed that he couldn't and so it was....
It's the same as they have been saying about Trump since he started his campaign, but he hasn't listened to them and thus far has proven them wrong at every turn.

Posted by: JoeF. at August 21, 2016 02:14 PM (ZZFMS)

415 "Let's not take pictures of our own libraries."

Rows and rows of white file boxes. Unsorted. Entirely random.

::: hangs head mournfully :::

Posted by: torquewrench at August 21, 2016 02:15 PM (noWW6)

416 "That's not the reason Rudy didn't win."

Rudy passed on the early primaries and put all his chips on Florida, where he lost. A lot of Rudy's natural support then gravitated to McCain.

At the time, the perception was that Rudy was too squishy on SoCon issues to make it through the Southern Republican primaries.

Flash forward, and Trump beat Cruz with Evangelicals.

With Trump, you're getting someone like Rudy -- a pragmatic guy who's conservative on some issues but not all, with NYC bridge and tunnel values.

Posted by: Ignoramus at August 21, 2016 02:15 PM (bQxkN)

417 398 OT
Would one of the Bloggers please go over to Chirs Muir's website and get that likeness of Hillary posted over here?
It's truly threadworthy.

www.daybydaycartoon.com
Posted by: DASTARDLY DAN at August 21, 2016 02:04 PM (z7tRX)

*gouges out eyes with rusty nail*

Posted by: rickl at August 21, 2016 02:16 PM (sdi6R)

418 412 www.daybydaycartoon.com
Posted by: DASTARDLY DAN at August 21, 2016 02:04 PM (z7tRX)

OMG! It makes you want to laugh and puke at the same time.
Posted by: Donna&&&&&V (whitely waiting for the ballgame) at August 21, 2016 02:12 PM (P8951)
---
*plucks eyes out, wanders the desert wailing*

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 02:16 PM (jR7Wy)

419

Homeless Pedo Scum watching Ped Pron is the best use of library computers and I shall issue an executive order requiring it Day 1!

Posted by: Hitlery at August 21, 2016 02:16 PM (qul7b)

420 JHW,

Tragic History of the Sea?

Bought!

Posted by: naturalfake at August 21, 2016 02:17 PM (HGtd0)

421 412 www.daybydaycartoon.com
Posted by: DASTARDLY DAN at August 21, 2016 02:04 PM (z7tRX)

Really, let's make that picture go viral. That's Sabo-worthy.

Right back at ya, Alinskyites!

Posted by: Donna&&&&&V (whitely waiting for the ballgame) at August 21, 2016 02:18 PM (P8951)

422 Rabid Puppies euthanized at Hugo Awards

Posted by: him at August 21, 2016 02:19 PM (JBYUX)

423 Thanks, Eris.

Posted by: Sharkman at August 21, 2016 02:20 PM (P8jrK)

424 Son and his sweet dog just arrived for a visit. Nearly blind (from seizure a few weeks ago) kitteh stared her down.

Son had to beg the dog to come in the house.

Son going, "Come on. It's just a cat." Hilarious.

Posted by: Jane D'oh at August 21, 2016 02:22 PM (1ZOkK)

425 Aerial combat was very Darwinian. The experienced aces racked up their high totals by killing off the noobs on the other side. There was a period in the spring of 1917 when the average life expectancy of a rookie British pilot was two weeks. "Bloody April", they called it.

-
I've been reading Marked For Death about WWI aviation, primarily British. It is arranged by subject matter rather than chronologically so it cannot be read as a narrative. Further, personal stories, the spice of history, are very brief. These detract from the fun of reading but it certainly de-romanticizes the "knights of the air" myth. WWI pilot's life was nasty, brutish, and short.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With More Je Ne Sais Quoi! at August 21, 2016 02:23 PM (Nwg0u)

426 We need a GoFundMe for all the Morons who have plucked their eyes out over that cartoon.

Perhaps so they can get Seeing-Eye Cats?

Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 02:23 PM (NSeBd)

427

MZB stuck a Hugo in my hershy highway once... might still be in there, who knows?

Posted by: Hitlery at August 21, 2016 02:23 PM (qul7b)

428 420 I have the original 2 volumes, I marveled at the titanium balls (or greed) of the sailors returning thousands of miles to Portugal. Every sailor piled cases and cases of spices on the decks of their worm-eaten ships , enough to retire on for life if they made it home. The Cape of Good Hope was merciless to many of them.

Posted by: JHW at August 21, 2016 02:24 PM (kn0BL)

429 Posted by: naturalfake at August 21, 2016 11:51 AM (HGtd0)

For whatever reason Middlest Kidlet had a thing for eating dirt as a toddler. Never gets colds, doesn't have allergies, but when she *does* get sick it's a doozy (UTI and honest-to-God actual influenza). She's a terrible patient as well since she isn't accustomed to feeling ill.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at August 21, 2016 02:24 PM (GDulk)

430 Since we're way past OT Josephistan get any painting in?

Posted by: Skip at August 21, 2016 02:24 PM (bksJQ)

431 I think that cartoon has murdered the thread as surely as Ft. Marcy Park did not kill Vince Foster.

Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 02:28 PM (NSeBd)

432

That cartoon makes me HOT!

Posted by: Hitlery at August 21, 2016 02:29 PM (qul7b)

433 425

Two interesting books on flying in WWI are:

No parachute : a classic account of war in the air in WWI in letters written in 1917 by Lieutenant A.S.G. Lee, Sherwood Forresters, attached Royal Flying Corps.

and

Sailor in the air: the memoirs of the world's first carrier pilot by Richard Bell Davies.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at August 21, 2016 02:29 PM (u82oZ)

434
Speaking of flying and wars...

just caught a few minutes of Aviator. What a shitty movie. Just like Gatsby. Martin Scorcese sucks.

Posted by: Mister Magoo's at August 21, 2016 02:30 PM (uRoFj)

435 Not exactly literary but certainly educational:

From the recent WWII Magazine is an article on novelties poking fun at the Axis. My favorite is toilet paper with an image of Hitler on each square, with remarks like " A movement in the right direction, "He's de-seat-ful", "Let's do it up brown", and my fave, "Use only when Panzer down".

Lots of crass but funny stuff lampooning fascists and Japanazis.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 02:32 PM (jR7Wy)

436 426 We need a GoFundMe for all the Morons who have plucked their eyes out over that cartoon.

Perhaps so they can get Seeing-Eye Cats?
Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 02:23 PM (NSeBd)

Chris Muir is a master at drawing the female form. Sam and her sister are just...exquisite. They look hotter than most live-action porno actresses.

He almost manages to make Hillary look attractive. Almost. He can't help himself.

I am sure that the reality is far worse.

Posted by: rickl at August 21, 2016 02:32 PM (sdi6R)

437 I see he left is celebrating their jackbooted victory over Rabid Puppies.

Posted by: Tilikum Killer Assault Whale-Skeet Surfer at August 21, 2016 02:33 PM (hVdx9)

438 Kodos,

I apologize, I missed your first comment about your dogs. So, so sorry. Losing your dog hurts, hurts, hurts. And two?

All the best. It does get better after a while, but it's awful.

Posted by: RM at August 21, 2016 02:33 PM (U3LtS)

439 I'll make up a list for next week, I have quite a collection of books on the Portuguese in the Age of Discovery.

-
Beautiful music to read by: 1492: Music From the Age of Discovery by The Waverly Consort.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With More Je Ne Sais Quoi! at August 21, 2016 02:33 PM (Nwg0u)

440 430 Since we're way past OT Josephistan get any painting in?
Posted by: Skip at August 21, 2016 02:24 PM (bksJQ)

Yes, I finished up my Dassault Ouragan in El Salvador A.F. markings. I've been working on an IAI Kfir in Colombian markings, but need to get the right paint colors. I'll probably go to a local-ish hobby store next weekend

Posted by: josephistan at August 21, 2016 02:35 PM (7qAYi)

441 www.daybydaycartoon.com
Posted by: DASTARDLY DAN at August 21, 2016 02:04 PM (z7tRX)

Wow.

I just lost all will to live.

But...that is exactly the way to go. If the leftards want to play their alinsky games.

I have one for any Artistically Gifted Morons to create-

Nude gross Hiilary with her floppy breasts as huge, veiny floppy eyeballs, with the caption:

Big Mama is Watching You!

You're welcome!

Posted by: naturalfake at August 21, 2016 02:37 PM (HGtd0)

442 Nood pantalooned chick.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at August 21, 2016 02:40 PM (jR7Wy)

443 Josephistan since you build model aircraft, this might interest you. The theme for next year's IPSM US nationals in Omaha is Rolling Thunder.

http://www.ipmsusa2017.com/

Care to try and build the Trumpeter F-105D in 1/32d scale? Or perhaps in 1/144th scale.

Hopefully next year they will avoid the controversy that engulfed part of the show - some of the categories were combined at the last minute. Can we say Lemon Face?

Posted by: Anna Puma at August 21, 2016 02:41 PM (NSeBd)

444 Here's a vision of hell - driving through Detroit at night:

https://twitter.com/hautedamn/status/766442356233019392

Posted by: Donna&&&&&V (whitely waiting for the ballgame) at August 21, 2016 02:41 PM (P8951)

445 Favorite Nazi

-
I'm gonna have to go with Otto Skorzeny who, after the war, became an assassin for Mossad.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With More Je Ne Sais Quoi! at August 21, 2016 02:41 PM (Nwg0u)

446 433

I only build in 1/72, The One True Scale. And I would never dream of entering a competition, I'm no where near as good as those guys. But the F-105G Wild Weasel is one of my faves, such a big, powerful beast.

Posted by: josephistan at August 21, 2016 02:44 PM (7qAYi)

447
"Of course, by the late years of the war, many experienced combat sailors of the IJN who might have been rescued to fight again aboard another vessel had in fact drowned. And green new Japanese crews were consistently outfought by their already blooded USN rivals, some of whom had had several ships sunk out from underneath them, but were rescued to fight anew."

Makes total sense. Had never really thought about that. The older I get, the more I come to understand how much there is to know and how little I know.

Posted by: RM at August 21, 2016 02:45 PM (U3LtS)

448 219, I am addicted to jigzone.com. I can't have actual puzzles as I have a cat.

Posted by: Tonestaple at August 21, 2016 02:46 PM (VsZJP)

449 And thanks for the review info, naturalfake!

Posted by: Tonestaple at August 21, 2016 02:50 PM (VsZJP)

450 "I'm gonna have to go with Otto Skorzeny who, after the war, became an assassin for Mossad."

That is crazy. I just read the recap of his life on Wikipedia. Wow.
He was probably the only man to ever have had ex-Nazis and at least one member of the Mossad to pay him respects at his funeral.

Posted by: JoeF. at August 21, 2016 02:53 PM (ZZFMS)

451 I tried to read Girl on a Train last fall, I think it was. It was not my type of book at all - gritty, depressing, with the afore-mentioned unlikeable characters. I kept on for a while, because I had read how good it was, and I knew that the ending was supposed to be a big surprise.

I finally couldn't take it anymore. I quit where I was, looked at the end, said to myself I was glad I quit when I did, and took it back to the library.

Because, as a wise Muse says, life is too short to read lousy books.

-
I liked it even though the above is mostly true and it is basically a Lifetime movie rendered as a book. I liked the different narrators and the non-chronological story telling with a number of unexpected Hitchcockian twists.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With More Je Ne Sais Quoi! at August 21, 2016 02:54 PM (Nwg0u)

452 Not really. Meeting Jesus in Heaven is how you will know it's Heaven. That's what it's there for. If you don't meet Jesus there, you're not in Heaven, and you really do not, do not, do not want your critters there with you.

-
If you meet Obozo or Hillzebub,you're in deep, deep trouble.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With More Je Ne Sais Quoi! at August 21, 2016 02:58 PM (Nwg0u)

453 Whoa. I watched that documentary Dear Zachary. Very moving, the Bagbys are just such amazing people. Incredible what the Canadian justice system put them through!

Posted by: Lurker primus at August 21, 2016 02:59 PM (jn9ql)

454 And thanks for the review info, naturalfake!
Posted by: Tonestaple at August 21, 2016 02:50 PM (VsZJP)

You're welcome!

Posted by: naturalfake at August 21, 2016 03:02 PM (HGtd0)

455 ""Who has a favorite Nazi ?"

That's tough. I worked with so many...

Posted by: George Soros at August 21, 2016 03:04 PM (OLNwX)

456 I visit the book thread every week, but it's been a while since I've posted.

Donnie Brasco by Joseph D. Pistone and Richard Woodley. I liked the film so I decided to read the book. Mr. Pistone was an undercover FBI agent who almost became a made man in the NY mafia in the late 1970s. Of course the book covers more details than the film. The film is pretty true to the book, but it portrays Pistone as having a good relationship with Lefty Ruggiero and a poor one with Sonny Black Napolitano but in reality it was just the opposite. It was also a surprise how relatively small amounts of money would keep Lefty happy (for example if Pistone paid for his plane ticket to Florida, or rented a car, or paid for the hotel room, etc.). Recommended.

Posted by: long time lurker at August 21, 2016 03:06 PM (a+BAV)

457 What is the difference between a moron and a lurker?

-
Post count.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With More Je Ne Sais Quoi! at August 21, 2016 03:10 PM (Nwg0u)

458 Read the "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" script. Not too shabby. Fairly entertaining story, that focuses on Harry's youngest son Albus and Draco's Malfoy's son Scorpius and the trouble they get into using a time turner. Being a script it lacks the description and internal dialog you would note in a novel, and sometimes the dialog is a bit awkward, but as I said, I found the story fairly entertaining.

Posted by: Darth Randall at August 21, 2016 03:13 PM (6n332)

459 To join the goodreads club dominus requires a greeting...

Hi

Posted by: Born01930 at August 21, 2016 03:30 PM (dKNvS)

460 Annosaurus #439 Thanks for that. I always liked the Waverly Consort, I had no idea they made the music you referenced. Will get a copy.

Posted by: JHW at August 21, 2016 04:31 PM (kn0BL)

461 Re post #30...I don't recall the book talking about whippletrees. But I do remember a lot of talk about investigating ancient horse skulls for wear caused by bits in their mouths, and how to tell the difference between what kind of bits may have caused the wear. It was that kind of book.

...I really should have checked back on this thread before going out for the afternoon bike ride....

Posted by: Castle Guy at August 21, 2016 04:35 PM (7aeqx)

462 Hello again

Heading home after moving kid the elder in

Posted by: @votermom's phone at August 21, 2016 05:12 PM (097s0)

463 Hans Schantz alt hist is quite intriguing- I'm in the middle of it

Posted by: @votermom's phone at August 21, 2016 05:13 PM (9ppuP)

464 David Mccullough's The Wright Brothers

Posted by: LifeTrek at August 21, 2016 06:40 PM (5DG2B)

465 Hi!

Posted by: beans at August 21, 2016 07:37 PM (1JsgA)

466 I was at the WorldCon (met fellow 'ron filbert).

Spent time at the "business meeting" where they were very blatant about how to rig the voting system to keep out the Puppies.

For next year, they are changing the nomination system whereby for any nomination category, you get one "point" that you can either spend on one nomination, or spread over multiple ones. This was designed to stop "slates".

They retroactively tested this result and it would result in many top vote getters being kept off the ballot... and since the raw data is not released, there is no way of telling if this is rigged or not.

Indeed, there were less than 400 puppy slate nominators and and from about a thousand to almost four thousand total nominations.

This will result in Vox Day getting a heck of a lot of more people to sign up and vote, or concentrate on pushing one single work to nominate. With a combination, they could hypothetically guarantee with enough votes either a puppy Hugo or a No Award.

A proposed change that will be voted on next year in Helsinki (where the next WorldCon will be) will allow a strong plurality to kill off potential nominees who received the most nominations with a "reject" vote.

Posted by: The Political Hat at August 21, 2016 09:08 PM (JMVz2)

467
I like the idea of using pictures of the libraries located in certain Moron's towns....

Also, maybe certain Moron's could take pictures of a row or two of their own books that they enjoyed and send it in to be used as the main photo on the book thread....books that they think everyone should read....books on liberty....books on sci fi....books on history....whatevs..... just a thought....

that could be a never ending supply of book photos for this wonderful thread that I read EVERY week.....oftentimes too late to get in on the conversation....obviously.

Thanks for another GREAT book thread OregonMuse !! Love it !!

Posted by: The Thread is Dead at August 21, 2016 09:44 PM (xlcvc)

468 I think that Argentinian Opera House/bookstore was the one prominently featured in the beginning of Highlander II, which was filmed in Argentina.

Posted by: Rusty Nail at August 21, 2016 09:50 PM (S2VsH)

469 "Who has a favorite Nazi ?"

*Hitler comes through the front door, tosses hat on hatrack*

Eva! You're favorite Nazi is home!

*applause, canned laughter*

Posted by: "I Love Eva" - the TV Series at August 21, 2016 12:11 PM (HGtd0)
_____________________

Sounds more like "Fuhrer Knows Best"

Posted by: DynamiteDan at August 22, 2016 02:08 AM (liWRH)

470 Thanks for the shout out to my science fiction techno-thriller, The Hidden Truth. I've dropped the Kindle price to $0.99 the next couple of days in appreciation and as further encouragement.

Posted by: Hans G. Schantz at August 22, 2016 11:22 AM (0h1Dx)

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