Sunday Morning Book Thread 03-24-2019

Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes, wine moms, frat bros, and everybody who's holding your beer. Welcome once again to the stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, a weekly compendium of reviews, observations, snark, and a continuing conversation on books, reading, writing, and publishing by escaped oafs who follow words with their fingers and whose lips move as they read. Unlike other AoSHQ comment threads, the Sunday Morning Book Thread is so hoity-toity, pants are required. Even if it's these pants, which really shouldn't be worn by anyone, not even Frank.

Pic Note

Oxford University has a number of libraries, but I don't know which one this is. It is an unlabeled photo I got it from this page here. If I had to guess, I'd say we're looking at a reading room in the Bodleian Library, but I'm not certain.

Today!

Today is the AoSHQ Sunday Morning Book Thread International De-Lurk Day. I would like to extend a laurel and hearty handshake to all of you lurkers and lurkettes who are brave enough to post your reviews.

It Pays To Increase Your Word Power®

A SKYBAL is a meagre, worn-out person or thing.

Usage: Marvel should've named it's latest movie "Captain Skybal".

need books.jpg

500

I feel like a dope. A lurker complained about not being able to post, getting a "stream of red italic code-babble" which I broadcasted to everyone that I had never seen before, but then other, smarter, morons told me what it was. Of course it's the well known '500' error that Pixy's software gives you when you enter certain punctuation marks. Or more specifically, If you're using iOS, here are some instructions that may help you to fix it. It disables the so-called "smart punctuation" that is on (I think by default) in iOS.

You can also get into trouble if you cut and paste you comment from a word processor rather than a text editor.

Here is the tool that I use when copying and pasting material from Amazon blurbs or e-mails. It converts the non-Pixy friendly characters to their html equivalents. For example outré is converted to outr&#233. I need to do this to get rid of the unsightly black diamond characters that Pixy throws in when the software doesn't like the character. You commenters can use this as a filter to detect which characters Pixy is going to choke on and manually remove them or change them to the equivalents on your keyboard.

Moron hogmartin has implemented something he calls a quote fixer that does the conversions for you automatically.

I hope you morons who are having problems with the red code of death will find these tools useful.

The Wonderful, Wonderful Electoral College

Well, ever since the election of 2016 revealed that over 60 million Americans refused to vote for the candidate who went on public record with her opinion that they were a basket of deplorables, the Democrats, whose strategy of racking up huge majorities in blue urban areas failed to win them the election, have been caterwauling about how the Electoral College needs to be abolished. In other words, because they lost, they think the rules need to be changed. On the fly. Because they say so. This is just like Calvinball, only for politics.

So it is good to see defenders of the EC punching back. Like this one:

I’m not big on Tweetstorms, but I suppose if I am ever going to do one, now is the time. ??For those who don’t know me: I am the author of several books about #ElectoralCollege. Been studying it since 2001. Yesterday, E. Warren came out against the E.C., as you’ve prob. heard /1
— Tara Ross (@TaraRoss) March 19, 2019

If you click on the tweet, you can scroll through the rest of them, and it's quite a vigorous defense. Tara Ross, whom I've mentioned on the previous book threads, is the author of several books on the EC.

The Indispensable Electoral College: How the Founders' Plan Saves Our Country from Mob Rule, Ross argues:

Far from an obstacle to enlightened democracy, the Electoral College is one of the guardrails ensuring the stability of the American Republic.

In this lively and instructive primer, Tara Ross explains

• Why the Founders established the Electoral College—and why they thought it vital to the Constitution

• Why the Electoral College was meant to be more important than the popular vote

• How the Electoral College prevents political crises after tight elections

• Why the Electoral College doesn’t favor one party over the other

• Why the states are the driving force behind presidential elections and how efforts to centralize the process have led to divisiveness and discontent

• Why the Electoral College is inappropriately labeled a “relic of slavery”

Tara Ross is also the author of Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College and also We Elect a President: The Story of Our Electoral College.

This has nothing to do with the EC, but Ross has another book I might have to buy, Under God: George Washington and the Question of Church and State:

No American living in 1800 would have predicted that Thomas Jefferson s idiosyncratic views on church and state would ever eclipse those of George Washington let alone become constitutional dogma. Yet today's Supreme Court guards no doctrine more fiercely than Jefferson's antagonistic wall of separation between church and state. Washington's sharply contrasting views, explored in this path-breaking new book, suggest a more reasonable interpretation of the First Amendment, one that is consistent with religion s importance to the enterprise of democracy.

...Washington considered religion essential for the virtue required of self-governing citizens. Though careful not to favor particular sects, he believed that a democracy must not merely accommodate religion but encourage it.

This is all water under the bridge now, but I'd like to read more about what Washington thought. One of the other founders, I think it was JQ Adams, also stated that the constitution they had come up with would only be suitable for "a religious people", and it would not work for any other kind. Which makes obvious sense: A constitution based on self-government assumes that the people know how to govern themselves. Which brings to mind GK Chesterton's saying that if a person refused to be governed by the 10 commandments, neither will he be governed by the 10,000 commandments.

Encouraging Essay For Authors

Moron author Hans Schantz sent me this essay by John C. Wright that answers the question:

[W]hat's a chump like me to do to have an impact, ESPECIALLY as a writer?

If you're an author who has devoted your life to writing, hasn't sold many books, is struggling to make ends meet, is considering selling parts of your own body for scientific experiments, etc., this essay is for you.

(Note to self: Put something by John C. Wright on reading stack.)

Will Proofread For Food

'Catherine in MO', a mostly lurking 'ette e-mailed me this week asking for a shout-out for her proofreading business. From her description, it sounds like she's lead an interesting life:

I don't remember learning to read. I have a couple of children that I think were born reading, so it's possible it's genetic. When I got tired of croupier work in 2015 (craps is often wickedly fun to deal, but the whole casino world is a young man's game), I started my proofreading business. I have focused on proofreading for court reporters because they tend to have the most volume. I would much rather proofread books. I have a vast knowledge of financial, military, casino, and medical terms thanks to life and depositions. I have not often read criminal transcripts since they are taken by official court reporters who can be required to sign confidentiality agreements that preclude using a proofreader. Officially I have a business degree with a minor in chemistry that I attained in 1998, back when the University of Kansas was still affordable. I have continued my education homeschooling my four children. Five years in banking in various capacities added to my financial knowledge, and three high-risk births out of four greatly increased my medical knowledge. My casino knowledge has even come in handy when proofreading depositions. I am a military (both Army and Navy) brat and married to a 21-year National Guard veteran, so I speak mostly in acronyms when talking to family. Anyone can email me (although if you claim to be a Nigerian prince Gmail tends to doubt your credibility) for specific information about availability and rates, and references if needed.

Those of you who might want to look into making use of her service can read her profile on her LinkedIn page. Or, if you're not signed up with LinkedIn, you can also e-mail her directly at "catherinelueckenotte" (without the quotes) circle 'a' gmail dot com.

Moron Recommendations

Moron lurker 'The Alienist' e-mailed in this review:

One of my favorite authors is Ken Follett and I recently finished "Jackdaws." It's set in occupied France right before D-Day and centers on a woman from the British SOE who's working with the French resistance to sabotage a key German phone exchange. From the Amazon blurb:
"D-Day is approaching. They don’t know where or when, but the Germans know it’ll be soon, and for Felicity “Flick” Clariet, the stakes have never been higher. A senior agent in the ranks of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) responsible for sabotage, Flick has survived to become one of Britain’s most effective operatives in Northern France. She knows that the Germans’ ability to thwart the Allied attack depends upon their lines of communications, and in the days before the invasion no target is of greater strategic importance than the largest telephone exchange in Europe."

The Kindle version is a bit pricey but there's several used hardcover and paperbacks available at reasonable prices.

One of the reasons I liked it so much is that my wife's second cousin was a bombardier and one of the original members of the 492 Special Operations Wing, nicknamed The Carpetbaggers, who dropped supplies and people to the resistance in France and Belgium. There's a video on YouTube that's shows a panel discussion of several of the surviving members, including my wife's cousin, Brownie, that occurred at Hurlburt Field in 2016. I've had the privilege to have many conversations with him about this and other things. He will be celebrating his 99th birthday next month.

The Kindle edition of Jackdaws is a surprisingly pricey $12.99.

___________

I think most of you are going to want to read this one:

Finally, I read Liberty's Last Stand by Stephen Coontz, which was mentioned here a few weeks ago. Coontz is an AOS Moron on steroids. After three coordinated terrorist attacks, President Barry Soetoro decleares martial law and begins rounding up his political enemies and putting them in FEMA camps. Texas declares its independence and war ensues. Along with the exciting story, Coontz manages to discredit every libtard idea and group. He also manages to impart a lot of conservative ideas and philosophy. A fun exciting read.

Posted by: Zoltan at March 17, 2019 09:25 AM (ypj0s)

The prices of the Kindle editions of Coonts' books tend to run high, and Liberty's Laat Stand is no exception.

___________

Every now and again the Book Thread gets recommendation requests for books suitable for children or young adults. Here's an explictly Christian fantasy adventure that might be worth looking into:

63 Greetings! As a dad of two tween / young teen girls, I am always looking for books they might like. I usually read them first if I am unfamiliar with the author. This week I read a YA fantasy novel, Taerith, by Rachel Starr Thomson. Good story, noble hero, plucky herione, themes of redemption and forgiveness. Going to recommend to the 13 year old. This book appears to be part of a series of novels about one family, all by different authors.

Posted by: DIY Daddio at March 17, 2019 09:29 AM (RJscS)

The Amazon blurb:

When he rescues a young woman named Lilia from bandits, Taerith Romany is caught in a web of loyalties: Lilia is the future queen of a spoiled king, and though Taerith is not allowed to love her, neither he can bring himself to leave her without a friend. Their lives soon intertwine with the fiercely proud slave girl, Mirian, whose tragic past and wild beauty make her the target of the king’s unscrupulous brother.

In a land of fog and fens, unicorns and wild men, Taerith stands at the crossroads of good and evil, where men are vanquished by their own obsessions or saved by faith in higher things. The king’s rule is only a knife’s edge from slipping—and when it does, all three will be put to the ultimate test.

The Kindle edition of Taerith is $4.97. Also available in paperback.

___________

If you like, you can follow me on Twitter, where I make the occasional snarky comment.

___________

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, insults, threats, ugly pants pics and moron library submissions 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: OregonMuse at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 First. And I don't even read.

Posted by: Steve and Cold Bear at March 24, 2019 09:00 AM (DgnZv)

2 Tolle Lege

Posted by: Skip at March 24, 2019 09:00 AM (BbGew)

3 hiya

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2019 09:00 AM (gW+6p)

4 2nd I do but still nothing new, but always read the entire thread for tips and reviews

Posted by: Skip at March 24, 2019 09:01 AM (BbGew)

5 Skybal sounds like a lottery

what's the jackpot?

Posted by: votermom certified russian matryoshka bot at March 24, 2019 09:02 AM (dm05u)

6 Ahoy book people!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at March 24, 2019 09:02 AM (kQs4Y)

7 Those pants look fine. I would wear them to barbeque in my backyard.

Posted by: freaked at March 24, 2019 09:02 AM (UdKB7)

8 So as I cannot see well (yet) I am trying to listen to books. Very diff than reading. Still on kendra elliot series.

Posted by: rhennigantx at March 24, 2019 09:02 AM (JFO2v)

9 #5 after skimming content!

yay bookthread!

am reading Death in Londinium based on a previous book thread rec

next is Hoyt & Sanderson alt hist book

then Robert Galbraith #3

Posted by: votermom certified russian matryoshka bot at March 24, 2019 09:03 AM (dm05u)

10 I'm guessing (hoping) Zappa wore those clown pants ironically.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at March 24, 2019 09:03 AM (kQs4Y)

11 Haven't had much time to read books in the past couple of weeks. Work and politics have sucked up all my attention.

Posted by: Trimegistus at March 24, 2019 09:05 AM (wuNX5)

12 Apparently, New Zealand's largest bookstore chain has reacted to the Mosque Murders by banning Jordan Peterson's books. It's a puzzler.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, reading all the comments at March 24, 2019 09:05 AM (Z216Q)

13 Instead of getting rid of the EC, let's get rid of electing the House of Reps.

Lets' appoint them like the old Senate was and even things out since we elect Senators now.

You wanna get crazy, let's get crazy.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at March 24, 2019 09:05 AM (Z+IKu)

14 12 Apparently, New Zealand's largest bookstore chain has reacted to the Mosque Murders by banning Jordan Peterson's books. It's a puzzler.
Posted by: Huck Follywood, reading all the comments at March 24, 2019 09:05 AM (Z216Q)

dafuq?

Posted by: votermom certified russian matryoshka bot at March 24, 2019 09:06 AM (dm05u)

15 I'm guessing (hoping) Zappa wore those clown pants ironically.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at March 24, 2019 09:03 AM (kQs4Y)

No, I bet they were all wrinkled.

Posted by: hogmartin at March 24, 2019 09:06 AM (t+qrx)

16 the constitution: designed by geniuses to be run by idiots.

Posted by: musical jolly chimp at March 24, 2019 09:07 AM (Pg+x7)

17 De-Lurk Day!

Posted by: Weasel at March 24, 2019 09:07 AM (MVjcR)

18 The Great Delurking begins! Ok, Jonah Goldbrick, tell us what book you are reading. The truth this time.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, reading all the comments at March 24, 2019 09:07 AM (Z216Q)

19 Read "The Case For Trump" this week by VDH. It was a bit of a slog for me as it was mostly a rehash of his columns of the past two years.

Felt a bit like reading a very long Louis Lamour book that I had read ten times already. Still he does make a good case for Trump.

Posted by: Big V at March 24, 2019 09:08 AM (sN665)

20 Here's that excellent Prager U clip on the electoral college:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6s7jB6-GoU

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at March 24, 2019 09:08 AM (kQs4Y)

21 I willowed myself last week so I'm reposting this:

$6 (used) book recommendation:

The New Book of Optical Illusions

https://amzn.to/2Hz7szH

I guess it's kind of a coffee table style book, but it's really fascinating. Most of that is because it tries to explain why your brain is seeing what it's seeing, I think.

It addresses some through history, too, like the tricks the Greeks used in their architecture to fool the eye into seeing perfection, uniformity, and straight lines on really long structures.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - search engine expert at March 24, 2019 09:08 AM (xyung)

22 There is a certain lurkeuse who was at the NoVAMoMe who should step up and say hi.

Posted by: hogmartin at March 24, 2019 09:08 AM (t+qrx)

23
dafuq?

Posted by: votermom certified russian matryoshka bot at March 24, 2019 09:06 AM (dm05u)

-----------------------

https://preview.tinyurl.com/y5nmprte

Posted by: Huck Follywood, reading all the comments at March 24, 2019 09:09 AM (Z216Q)

24 I read Captain John Paul Jones' "Extracts from the Journals of my Campaigns". That guy really got around. I had never heard of his idea to do raids on England during the Revolutionary war.
Good if you are interested in the Revolutionary War, Navy, etc.

It's free here:

https://www.americanrevolution.org/jpj.php

Posted by: freaked at March 24, 2019 09:09 AM (UdKB7)

25 On last Sunday's Book Thread, someone mentioned Wolf Pack by CJ Box, a Joe Pickett story (Thank You !)

I ordered it last Sunday, got it on Tuesday and finished it on Thursday.

And it was goooo----00d!

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2019 09:09 AM (gW+6p)

26 I've never read Louis L'Amour but have heard good things about him. What's a good book to try him out?

Posted by: Trimegistus at March 24, 2019 09:09 AM (wuNX5)

27 12 Fascists are going to act like a Fascist, controlling speech and writing words is the start.

Posted by: Skip at March 24, 2019 09:10 AM (BbGew)

28 Apparently, New Zealand's largest bookstore chain has reacted to the Mosque Murders by banning Jordan Peterson's books. It's a puzzler.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, reading all the comments at March 24, 2019 09:05 AM (Z216Q)

-

We'll show that murderer by doing everything he wanted us to do and more!

Posted by: Moron Robbie - search engine expert at March 24, 2019 09:10 AM (xyung)

29 I read Theodore Dalrymple's "Life at the Bottom", based on recommendations on this here thread. I was already familiar with his work as a columnist, but hadn't read any of his books. This one was excellent, if very depressing. It describes British life among the lower 20%. What makes it especially interesting are his insights into the utterly destructive role played by post-war "intellectuals", who were clearly more interested in impressing their friends than doing anything that would be to the benefit of those for whom they claimed to be so concerned. This extended from housing to art to criminology and the relationships between men and women.

It's a virtual how-to manual for America's Dems.

Posted by: pep at March 24, 2019 09:10 AM (T6t7i)

30 Weasel - didja have a nice vaca ?

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2019 09:11 AM (gW+6p)

31 Finished reading "Born To Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey" by Mark Dery that I posted about last week. A good bio, but Dery could have cut out about a quarter if he hadn't been so obsessed with Gorey's sexuality.

In the 50's Gorey began drawing the covers for many authors such as Joseph Conrad, H.G. Wells, and Herman Melville. Dery writes of Melville's Redburn, with Gorey's cover illustration, is "a novel famous for its rampant homoeroticism, is so winkingly gay it teeters on the brink of self-parody." Then in excruciating detail Dery describes the cover to prove it too is gay. He also drew cover illustrations for dozens of paperbacks and was part of the paperback revolution. Publishing's old guard felt selling paperbacks was beneath them.

He was a friend of Charles Addams to whom he was often compared, but neither of them liked the comparison. Addams collected crossbows, picnicked in graveyards, had an embalming slab for a coffee table, and was married in a pet cemetery. A long time contributor to The New Yorker he's best known for his Addams Family drawings, but those are a small part of his work.

When Gorey died in 2000 at his home on Cape Cod he had 25,000 books and 5 cats. He drew and wrote about 100 books. An enthusiastic collector (not a hoarder) his home was full of stuff, such as old potato mashers, S and P shakers, and a mummy's hand (he used to have a head, but it got lost). He was cremated and once made an offhand remark to just "throw me in the yard." So in 2011 when the last of his cats died some of his ashes were mixed with his cats ashes then his friends scattered the ashes on his property. They called it "The Gathering for a Scattering."

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at March 24, 2019 09:11 AM (TDyHc)

32 On learning to read, I was read to from the earliest age, and as my grandmother read to me each day, she would move her finger across each word as she read it. Over time, she would pause instead of saying the word, and I would say the word. By about 3, I was reading the whole book, and by 5, I was able to read the newspaper for the most part by myself.

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at March 24, 2019 09:11 AM (Lyt07)

33 Currently reading Comrade Don Camillo.

The great part about Guareschi is he had no love for commies.

Posted by: Mr. Peebles at March 24, 2019 09:11 AM (oVJmc)

34 On the kindle, I read Longshot In Missouri. This historical fiction by Keith R. Baker, the first in a trilogy, is about Rob "Longshot" Finn a sniper for the Union Army in 1862. He works for Arthur Pinkerton under the orders of President Lincoln. He also is sent as a spy to ferret out members of The Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret society in the north and border states who support the Confederate position in the war. I liked the story and the book's pace. A good, not great read.

I also read The Unburied by Charles Palliser. This is a very good Victorian mystery set in an English cathedral city. A historian come to Thurchester hoping to find a manuscript which he hopes would solve a two hundred year old murder. While there, the town's banker is murdered. The historian, Dr. Courtine, now has two mysteries to solve. Well-written, engrossing novel.

Posted by: Zoltan at March 24, 2019 09:12 AM (8jlwn)

35 I've never read Louis L'Amour but have heard good things about him. What's a good book to try him out?
Posted by: Trimegistus

They're ALL good. ya can't go wrong.

My personal fave was his last one -
Last of the Breed.

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2019 09:12 AM (gW+6p)

36 What's a good book to try him out?
Posted by: Trimegistus

---

Hondo

Posted by: Vashta Nerada at March 24, 2019 09:13 AM (Lyt07)

37 26 Haven't read one in 45 years but read so many, find the first Saggett (? It's been 45 years) and try that

Posted by: Skip at March 24, 2019 09:13 AM (BbGew)

38 Note to self: Put something by John C. Wright on reading stack.)

=====
One of my favorites.

Posted by: Simplemind at March 24, 2019 09:14 AM (ZuGkg)

39 Until just a few years ago Oxford's librarian was an American woman, the first non-Brit and first woman to have the job, and she now runs Harvard's libraries. I've seen her speak and she's a delightful story teller in her own right. I wish somebody like 60 Minutes would interview her and bring her to wider acclaim.

https://tinyurl.com/y2bpmqbg

Posted by: Huck Follywood, reading all the comments at March 24, 2019 09:14 AM (Z216Q)

40
Currently doing a re-read of the 1632
series while waiting for the newer ones to drop below my $10 limit.
On book 4 now. Have 2 new ones lined p.

Posted by: Vic at March 24, 2019 09:14 AM (mpXpK)

41 I guess I'll open up the reviews this week...
Reality plays by its own rules. This theme runs constantly throughout the works of Robert Jackson Bennett. His latest novel, Foundryside, is no exception. It's basically a "heist" novel, with a colorful ensemble of characters who are attempting to steal a powerful artifact that can rewrite the laws of reality. Even though I am generally pretty good about anticipating twists and turns, there are still several moments where you just go, "Whoa! I never saw that coming!" Foundryside is written so that it sets up the world in which the events take place for future novels, but also works quite well as a stand-alone novel. The magic system, scriving, has some very well-defined rules. Naturally, both the protagonists and antagonists spend the majority of the story cheerfully using and abusing the loopholes in the magic system for fun, mayhem, and, of course, profit (the main conflict is between powerful merchant houses). I've thoroughly enjoyed all of Bennett's works ever since I discovered American Elsewhere several years ago. Foundryside is one of Bennett's best works to date. Definitely check it out if you like novels that crank the weird-shit-o-meter past 11.

Posted by: Lord Squirrel at March 24, 2019 09:14 AM (y3dEv)

42 30 Weasel - didja have a nice vaca ?
Posted by: JT at March 24, 2019 09:11 AM (gW+6p)
-------
I did, thank you very much! Spent a few days at the farm than a friend came up from TN for a few days in Lynchburg.
The week sure did go by quickly!

Posted by: Weasel at March 24, 2019 09:15 AM (MVjcR)

43 When Gorey died in 2000 at his home on Cape Cod he had 25,000 books and 5 cats.
---
I have seen my future.

Jake, that was a great summary!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at March 24, 2019 09:15 AM (kQs4Y)

44 On Louis Lamour I would start with "The Daybreakers" If you like that one he follows that up with many more books on the same family.

If you want a stand alone I loved "Down The Long Hills" as a kid.

Posted by: Big V at March 24, 2019 09:15 AM (sN665)

45 They're ALL good. ya can't go wrong.

===============

Second that opinion. And they read like water going down on a hot day, so borrow or buy three when you think you only need one.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, reading all the comments at March 24, 2019 09:16 AM (Z216Q)

46 Haven't read one in 45 years but read so many, find the first Saggett (

Sackett

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2019 09:16 AM (gW+6p)

47 Currently reading "Soulless" by Gail Carriger. The book's cover caught my eye, and this was written on it: A Novel Of Vampires, Werewolves, and Parasols.
Then inside the cover: Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations.
First, she has no soul.
Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead.
Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.

Those London Victorians had their standards (it takes place during Britain's Victorian era). This is the first of her Parasol Protectorate series and this book is a "special" illustrated edition and signed. It has elements of alternate history, steampunk, paranormal, comedy, and (eew!) romance. So far it's a hoot.

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at March 24, 2019 09:16 AM (TDyHc)

48 Here's that excellent Prager U clip on the electoral college:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6s7jB6-GoU
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at March 24, 2019 09:08 AM (kQs4Y)

Nice video. Concise, to the point and simply put.

Thanks Eris!

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at March 24, 2019 09:17 AM (Z+IKu)

49 Frank totally can wear those pants.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at March 24, 2019 09:18 AM (fuK7c)

50 Mob rule? Like the dem party?

Posted by: BignJames at March 24, 2019 09:18 AM (ykq7q)

51 the Democrats, whose strategy of ~~racking~~ making up huge majorities in blue urban
_____

Fixed.

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 09:18 AM (VaN/j)

52 37 - It's Sackett, I think start there

Posted by: Skip at March 24, 2019 09:18 AM (BbGew)

53 32 On learning to read, I was read to from the earliest age, and as my grandmother read to me each day, she would move her finger across each word as she read it. Over time, she would pause instead of saying the word, and I would say the word. By about 3, I was reading the whole book, and by 5, I was able to read the newspaper for the most part by myself.
Posted by: Vashta Nerada at March 24, 2019 09:11 AM (Lyt07)

How wonderful!

Posted by: m at March 24, 2019 09:18 AM (Ts3fP)

54 Finished another short story in Blish’s “The Seedling Stars” collection, in which small adapted humans living in an arboreal society are cast down to the planet’s surface for the crime of heresy – the group didn’t believe the creation myths of giants who brought forth life on this world. Then actual giants visit the planet to see how this experiment in pantropy is progressing…

In “Surface Tension”, a seeding ship crash lands on an ocean planet with one tiny landmass above water. Their seeding samples were destroyed in the crash, so the doomed survivors use their own DNA to craft a colony of humans who can thrive in the one bit of fresh water environment on the island. Very, very small aquatic humans.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at March 24, 2019 09:20 AM (kQs4Y)

55 Didn't Charles Palliser write "The Quincunx"? That was one of the most well-crafted -- and depressing -- novels I've ever read.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at March 24, 2019 09:22 AM (kQs4Y)

56 Just finished Dave Eggers' "The Circle," a story told in third person, central character a mid-w20s woman, Mae, the setting the workplace and culture of a tech behemoth near San Francisco that is Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all rolled up into one.

It's 1984 for the 21st century, and privacy goes out the window.

Someone should take its format and rewrite it to show suppression of speech and even thought, as we see it happening right now.

Posted by: Les Kinetic at March 24, 2019 09:23 AM (+fPHo)

57 Another thumbs up for the C.J. Box rec last week. Passed it on to my husband--more his taste than mine--and he's on his second or third book in a week. Obviously, it was a big hit.

Never realized how much my ex-husband looked like Zappa--or at least did back when we were married in the late 1970s.

Posted by: Art Rondolet of Malmsey at March 24, 2019 09:23 AM (S+f+m)

58 their own DNA to craft a colony of humans who can thrive in the one bit of fresh water environment on the island. Very, very small aquatic humans.
Posted by: All Hail Eris,

Sounds like they'd be good for bait.

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2019 09:24 AM (gW+6p)

59 I have seen my future.
Jake, that was a great summary!
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at March 24, 2019 09:15 AM

Whew! I thought it would be a TL;DR post. Although the morning is still young.

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at March 24, 2019 09:24 AM (TDyHc)

60 55
Didn't Charles Palliser write "The Quincunx"? That was one of the most well-crafted -- and depressing -- novels I've ever read.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes

Long, too.

Posted by: pep at March 24, 2019 09:25 AM (T6t7i)

61 - It's Sackett, I think start there
Posted by: Skip

Jeez, give a guy a movie thread and he goes all to pieces.

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2019 09:26 AM (gW+6p)

62 My book group finished a book, the name of which I'm not even gonna mention, that started off promisingly but ultimately descended into a bunch of obvious memes which irritated me and made me glad to be done with it. I left the group once before because of the dogshit choices they made, particularly contemporary ones, and probably another ultimatum is imminent. The trouble is that among the shit are some nuggets of gold so I'm conflicted.

Last week when I was writing about the end of Lenin on the Train and how the head commie emerged as the chief assfucker out of the chaos in Petrograd, commenter Admiral Marcus blamed a lot of it on Kerensky's boneheaded war strategy. Like clockwork, when I resumed A People's Tragedy it talked about how Kerensky felt obliged to go on offense against the Huns and that the troops would be really really behind it because of this new sense of national patriotism. Nothing could've been further from the truth. The troops were sick of war and wanted to get back home in part to get their share of the action in splitting up the landed estates. Desertion were huge and there was no one to stop them. Granted the Provisional Government was in a terrible position with the allies bugging them to hold up their end of the war effort but Kerensky chose poorly in not telling them to fuck off and taking care of bidness at home, which had horrible consequences.

Posted by: Captain Hate at March 24, 2019 09:26 AM (y7DUB)

63 And I just started Stephen Coonts’s “Liberty’s Last Stand”. I'm only a few pages in and terrorist heads are exploding all over the place like watermelons at a Gallagher show. Fun!

Whoever suggested this book, thanks!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at March 24, 2019 09:26 AM (kQs4Y)

64 Washington considered religion essential for the virtue required of self-governing citizens. Though careful not to favor particular sects, he believed that a democracy must not merely accommodate religion but encourage it.

He was kind of odd - IIRC he was Episcopalian, but never took communion.

Posted by: Steve and Cold Bear at March 24, 2019 09:26 AM (DgnZv)

65 26
I've never read Louis L'Amour but have heard good things about him. What's a good book to try him out?

Posted by: Trimegistus at March 24, 2019 09:09 AM (wuNX5)

try the 2 book bundle Day Breakers and Sackett first.

Posted by: Vic at March 24, 2019 09:26 AM (mpXpK)

66 Lurkers! Speak up and say "hi!"

My dogs are requiring me to go on a morning trot in the woods. I'll look forward to reading everyone's recommendations when I return, 'cause I'm looking for new reading.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, reading all the comments at March 24, 2019 09:27 AM (Z216Q)

67 33 Currently reading Comrade Don Camillo.

The great part about Guareschi is he had no love for commies.
Posted by: Mr. Peebles at March 24, 2019 09:11 AM (oVJmc)

Guareschi rocks. If you can get your hands on the films made from his Don Camillo stories ( they starred Fernandel as Don Camillo) they are beautiful to watch and capture all the warmth and humanity of Guareschi's writings.

Posted by: RondinellaMamma at March 24, 2019 09:27 AM (9Ni3Z)

68 That paneled ceiling could induce more looking than reading.

Posted by: BignJames at March 24, 2019 09:27 AM (ykq7q)

69 Captain Hate, how does your group select books for reading list?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at March 24, 2019 09:27 AM (kQs4Y)

70 13 Instead of getting rid of the EC, let's get rid of electing the House of Reps.

Lets' appoint them like the old Senate was and even things out since we elect Senators now.

You wanna get crazy, let's get crazy.
Posted by: Hairyback Guy at March 24, 2019 09:05 AM (Z+IKu)
_____

No. Let's do it by lot. Socrates was wrong, beans are a better way.

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 09:28 AM (VaN/j)

71 Greetings! It's been a rough week - so much so I actually slept in until 9!

I've been bouncing back and forth on various books, but decided last week to pick up Gibbons' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I'm on volume 4.

As soon as I started reading, I remembered why I took a break. Gibbon was in the middle of a discourse on Why Everyone But Me Is Stupid.

He also threw in a refrain of Your Religion Is Dumb And I Am Smart, which naturally includes lots of insults directed at the Catholic Church.

Gibbon famously gave the rise of Christianity as one of the reasons for the fall of the Western Empire. Supposedly its superstitions and meekness eroded the pagan virtues that made the Roman Republic great.

Of course anyone with even a passing knowledge of paganism knows that the Romans were notoriously superstitious, worrying (and placating) gods here, there and everywhere. Every river had its own god, and the most important decisions of state often rested on cutting open a goat, or a pigeon or some other animal and examining its entrails.

"The liver is healthy! We march tonight!"

Currently he's mocking all of the successor peoples for being stupid and despising liberty. Why couldn't they all be enlightened gentlemen like Gibbon?

He had some great passages early on, but this is just awful.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 09:28 AM (cfSRQ)

72 Book nerds!

Posted by: Ogre at March 24, 2019 09:28 AM (t6MX/)

73 Greetings! As a dad of two tween / young teen girls, I am always looking for books they might like.

Here's what they could be watching, instead of reading.

The 2019 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards were held Saturday at the Galen Center in Los Angeles.

RelatedEight Scribes Selected for Disney-ABC Television 2019 Writing Program
DJ Khaled hosted the kids-voted show, which dumped buckets of slime on unsuspecting celebrities, and handed out honors for music, movies, TV and video games.

Posted by: Steve and Cold Bear at March 24, 2019 09:29 AM (DgnZv)

74 Didn't Charles Palliser write "The Quincunx"? That was one of the most well-crafted -- and depressing -- novels I've ever read.

I read this and thought she was going to talk about Trollope. Confession: I've never read any books by Anthony Trollope.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, reading all the comments at March 24, 2019 09:30 AM (Z216Q)

75 The spin to control and shape the narrative, as re Mueller, coming out of CBS in its Sunday morning show right now, is as fast and furious as ever.

In one quick take, they flash a poll result on screen, the question being a binary one, was Mueller investigation politically motivated, or was it justified. They report half saying justified, 45 percent saying politically motivated, 5 percent saying they are clueless.

They are showing talking head after talking head, all of them leftists, gravely saying how important the whole thing is, and how much it produced, how many indictments, and how clearly it showed Russian interference in our elections.

The narrative continues in its shape-shifting madness.

Posted by: Les Kinetic at March 24, 2019 09:30 AM (+fPHo)

76 Posted by: Jake Holenhead at March 24, 2019 09:16 AM (TDyHc)

Souless is a lot of fun!

Posted by: votermom certified russian matryoshka bot at March 24, 2019 09:30 AM (dm05u)

77 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. I hope everyone had a great week of reading.

Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2019 09:32 AM (bmdz3)

78 48 Here's that excellent Prager U clip on the electoral college:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6s7jB6-GoU
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at March 24, 2019 09:08 AM (kQs4Y)

Nice video. Concise, to the point and simply put.

Thanks Eris!
Posted by: Hairyback Guy at March 24, 2019 09:17 AM (Z+IKu)

The 2016 map of counties

https://cdn___s-1.medium.com/max/1000/1*86sURhsiwekHqCuqjbFnkQ.png

Posted by: rhennigantx at March 24, 2019 09:32 AM (JFO2v)

79 Beans have the added benefit of also being good for one's heart.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - search engine expert at March 24, 2019 09:33 AM (xyung)

80 I want to thank Anonsaurus and Christopher Taylor for their recommendation of John Drake books. I started "Fletcher's Fortune" this week and the reviews are correct: they are a combination of Flashman and Hornblower. It is a page turner so far. A bit hard-edged but the writing is vivid and effective. I got the first of another series by Drake, "Death In Londinium". Haven't started it yet.

I checked the used book store for more of Drake's books but there wasn't even one. I believe the great majority of his sales are on Kindle. That cuts into my chances for serious bargains. Bummer!

Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2019 09:34 AM (bmdz3)

81 Thanks captain I chose that nic after thr head of section 31, after a top men bout of obtuseness.

Yes kerensky who did not suffer the consequences of his category error insisted on continuing the war, somewhat like his Iranian analogue bani sadr who was the one who as a mossadegh dead ender, had poised the well internationally against the Shah, and Khomeini threw him under the bus years later he was Gary sicks proof of the October surprise.

But my particular beef was with the handling of war minister kornilov, who sought to wipe out the bolsheviks but like Warren Beatty in that carly Simon song he thought it was about him.

Posted by: Admiral marcus at March 24, 2019 09:34 AM (TxTRY)

82 32 On learning to read, I was read to from the earliest age, and as my grandmother read to me each day, she would move her finger across each word as she read it. Over time, she would pause instead of saying the word, and I would say the word. By about 3, I was reading the whole book, and by 5, I was able to read the newspaper for the most part by myself.
Posted by: Vashta Nerada at March 24, 2019 09:11 AM (Lyt07)
_____

Exactly how my grandmother taught me (plus saying "sound it out"). Don't know how old I was, but I know I expected, at six, to have become "as clever as clever". I also remember being delighted by "heffalump."

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 09:34 AM (VaN/j)

83 I've never read Louis L'Amour but have heard good things about him. What's a good book to try him out?

I see others have already recommended Sackett. Another good one is Tucker, which is about a teenager who falls into bad company, and then ends up hunting his former associates to right a wrong he himself is partially complicit in.

Posted by: Grey Fox at March 24, 2019 09:35 AM (bZ7mE)

84 Lurkers of the world, come forth. You have nothing to lose but your brains.

(Which are of no use to you in today's world, anyway.)

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 09:35 AM (VaN/j)

85 When I first read comment 34 above, about Longshot, I thought the poster was recommending an old paperback western Men's Adventure series called Longarm, about a gunslinger with a very long . . . um . . . thingy.

Posted by: Trimegistus at March 24, 2019 09:36 AM (wuNX5)

86 On goodreads, the first page of reviews of Stephen Coonts' Liberty's Last Stand is dominated by NPCs leaving vitriolic one-star reviews and liking each others reviews.

Notwithstanding this coordinated trashing, the book has 925 five-star reviews and 502 four-star reviews vs. 143 one-star reviews. So it looks quite promising. I added it to my TBR list and am looking forward to it. Coonts has an impressive back catalogue, including Flight of the Intruder. Thanks for the tip, Zoltan!

Posted by: cool breeze at March 24, 2019 09:36 AM (UGKMd)

87 Jake Holenhead discussed "Born To Be Posthumous" by Mark Dery about the artist Edward Gorey. Jake's observation about Dery's fixation on Gorey's sexuality was right, unfortunately. Dery wants to know and would prefer that Gorey be gay. That spoiled the book for me. Too bad. I thought it was kinda dumb to demand a straight answer from someone who spent most of his life being contrary and inconsistent. The author's insights into Gorey's effectiveness were good. At least it was a library book so I didn't waste money.

Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2019 09:37 AM (bmdz3)

88 Lloyd: I had the same reaction to Gibbon. By the time I got to the end of Decline and Fall his blatant anti-Christianity (not just anti-Catholic or anti-clerical but anti-Christian) was grating.

Posted by: Trimegistus at March 24, 2019 09:38 AM (wuNX5)

89 So kerensky shuts down kornilov, idiot pre sjw portlandian John Reed thinks its still a conspiracy between the two of them, Harrison Salisbury fifty years later still gets it wrong. It took Richard pipes the premier rissian expert at Harvard to describe it properly also soltzhenitsym addresses it in his last volume of the red wheel which dead tree libraries wont stock

Posted by: Admiral marcus at March 24, 2019 09:39 AM (TxTRY)

90 Following up myself: and of course the more political Gibbon got, the more mistakes he made. He gives this whole diatribe about the scandalous career of the man who became St. George of England -- except that (as I understand it) the scandalous Egyptian bishop was a different St. George. Too good to fact-check, eh, Mr. Gibbon?

Posted by: Trimegistus at March 24, 2019 09:39 AM (wuNX5)

91 Here's a roundabout way to decide on a book. Last night Mrs. JTB found an article about new discoveries of ancient Egyptian shipwrecks. She knows that stuff always interests me. The article brought out that one wreck had never been seen before and there was only one description in history. It was in Herodotus' Histories. One of those items scholars point to as a sign of his tale-telling. They were wrong. Again. Herodotus was accurate enough to make the barge recognizable after 2,500 years. I recall it was fashionable for history majors to denigrate Herodotus' accuracy (also the Bible) when I was in college in the early 70s. That smugness pissed me off then and my attitude hasn't improved. They use negatives to 'prove' their point.

This morning I'll get down my copy of the Landmark Herodotus. Haven't read it in way too long a time.

Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2019 09:39 AM (bmdz3)

92 Regarding the books for impressionable daughters, I can offer my own works, if they are interested in the genres.

The Man of Destiny series essentially fixes the Star Wars prequels, so if they like Star Wars, they will like the books. It's generally PG rated.

I also wrote a novel in the style of Jane Austen (no, really) but set on a desert planet. I should have titled it "Jane Austen's Dune." It's called Scorpion's Pass and has some high adventure elements as well. One of my daughters is featured on the cover.

I wouldn't recommend Battle Officer Wolf as it's more horror/sci-fi. Three Weeks with the Coasties may be interesting, but also over their head. My kids are reading it, but that's because they want to see how I represented them.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 09:40 AM (cfSRQ)

93 Captain Hate, how does your group select books for reading list?
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at March 24, 2019 09:27 AM (kQs4Y)

Everyone submits choices and they get ordered so nobody gets left out. The woman who made the last choice is kind of an irritating dimwit, and that's not just my opinion, and she chose the book I mentioned (which probably wasn't nearly as wretched as I made it sound but I'm in a bit of a bad mood) based on a state controlled radio interview and/or review she heard. Since my son in law, who became a US citizen last week, recommended the excellent Ron Rash to me based on a commie radio interview I won't dismiss them out of hand.

My choices haven't all been unalloyed successes; Gravity's Rainbow irritated me nearly as much as everything else out of the fucking 70s, for example. But they're usually outstanding.

Posted by: Captain Hate at March 24, 2019 09:41 AM (y7DUB)

94 Just got a library copy of "Uncharted" that Sabrina Chase mentioned last week. I'm only a few chapters in so far but it is a fun read and clever. In 1759 an impenetrable barrier blocks the new world from Europe and magic has been unleashed in the new countries. The combination of physical science and magic science, not aways a hard distinction, is interesting. Also, Ben Franklin is one of the most powerful of the thaumaturges and he enlists Lewis and Clark to carry out his hopes. It sounds odd but it works. The timing is strange as I've been reading books and journals about the exploration of western Canada in the same general time period. But that reading is for another thread.

Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2019 09:41 AM (bmdz3)

95 Posted by: Jake Holenhead at March 24, 2019 09:11 AM (TDyHc)

https://preview.tinyurl.com/yy8mcxv7

According to this, Gorey did covers for books by Gide, Proust and Henry James. So yeah, that's pretty gay.

Posted by: Steve and Cold Bear at March 24, 2019 09:42 AM (DgnZv)

96 65 26

I've never read Louis L'Amour but have heard good things about him. What's a good book to try him out?

Posted by: Trimegistus at March 24, 2019 09:09 AM (wuNX5)

try the 2 book bundle Day Breakers and Sackett first.

Posted by: Vic at March 24, 2019 09:26 AM (mpXpK)

Those are good picks for sure. One I read recently that stood out was "To Tame a Land". I have all the books, even the Hopalong Cassidy stories. I got on the list a long time ago. And once you get on that list, they just keep coming.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 09:43 AM (n13/j)

97 Just finished Dave Eggers' "The Circle,"
Posted by: Les Kinetic at March 24, 2019 09:23 AM

Years ago I read a book by David Poyer with the same name. A young ensign reports to his first ship, an ageing WW2 destroyer manned by a very shady crew. He was unprepared for the "real" navy. Good book too.

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at March 24, 2019 09:45 AM (TDyHc)

98 The cartoonist Kate Beaton did a fun series riffing on Gorey paperback covers of famous novels. It's here:

http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=242

Posted by: Trimegistus at March 24, 2019 09:45 AM (wuNX5)

99 Lloyd: I had the same reaction to Gibbon. By the time I got to the end of Decline and Fall his blatant anti-Christianity (not just anti-Catholic or anti-clerical but anti-Christian) was grating.

Now y'all know why I tend to go into lecture mode when people start talking about "barbarians" sacking Rome and why Rome fell because X, when X happens to be the current meme that everyone is talking about.

There actually are some interesting parallels between the Late Roman Empire and the modern world, but there are enough significant differences that drawing direct lessons is difficult, and unless you are very familiar with the actual history and culture of that time period you are bound to err badly.

Posted by: Grey Fox at March 24, 2019 09:46 AM (bZ7mE)

100 90
Following up myself: and of course the more political Gibbon got, the
more mistakes he made. He gives this whole diatribe about the scandalous
career of the man who became St. George of England -- except that (as I
understand it) the scandalous Egyptian bishop was a different St.
George. Too good to fact-check, eh, Mr. Gibbon?

Posted by: Trimegistus at March 24, 2019 09:39 AM (wuNX5)

---
Yes, I've noticed the same thing. He acts as though human folly started with Christianity, and completely ignores all the nonsense of pagan life and its cruelties - which were far worse.

I also find the old chestnut of the Church "hoarding wealth" really grating at this point in my life. Yeah, I'm a Catholic convert, but before I "swam the Tiber" I did a fair amount of research and for all the Protestant-inspired critics bitching about the wealth of the medieval Church, it's interesting that when the Reformation came, all that wealth went to the Crown or the Nobility.

Churchill was at least honest about this, noting that shutting down the abbeys and monasteries basically threw the poor to the wolves and made them close to serfs once more. I want to grab Gibbon through the pages of his book and shake him.

"If you find that gold chalice on the altar so offensive, do you think it will look better on a Duke's dining room table? Because that's where it ended up."

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 09:46 AM (cfSRQ)

101 Good morning, all - and true to form, I bought into a series that was mentioned last week in the booth thread: John Drakes "Fletcher" series. The first book was available on Kindle for 99 cents and the rest were attractively priced (that is, under $5, which is my limit for ebooks.)
Rollicking good reads - kind of a cross between Horatio Hornblower and Harry Flashman. I'm halfway into the second book by now - very entertained by them.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at March 24, 2019 09:47 AM (xnmPy)

102 Been waiting for this one.

No lurker I, but I still wanted to pitch in a review.

I haven't read this book in years, but Donald Westlake put out several winners before he hit it big with his Parker and Dortmunder series.

Example: "God Save the Mark."

Plot: A sucker for every swindle comes into a fortune of shady origins. Word gets around, and every con man around shows up at his door. So do more threatening characters. The Mark must fend off the grifters and discover why he got the money.

Classic Westlake, dated in only a few aspects. The overall story line holds together, and the individual episodes remain memorable. I fix on the woman who tried to enforce a marriage proposal, only to flee when a shady lawyer comes into play.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I hope you will, too.

Posted by: Weak Geek at March 24, 2019 09:47 AM (ARF+3)

103 When I first read comment 34 above, about Longshot, I thought the poster was recommending an old paperback western Men's Adventure series called Longarm, about a gunslinger with a very long . . . um . . . thingy.
Posted by: Trimegistus

Longarm was authored by 3 diff authors one of whom was the late Will C. Knott who wrote several other westerns.

I took a creative writing class from him way back when.

He was a pretty cool guy.

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2019 09:47 AM (gW+6p)

104 Souless is a lot of fun!
Posted by: votermom certified russian matryoshka bot at March 24, 2019 09:30 AM

Have you read the other books in her series?

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at March 24, 2019 09:48 AM (TDyHc)

105 I read this and thought she was going to talk about Trollope. Confession: I've never read any books by Anthony Trollope.
Posted by: Huck Follywood, reading all the comments at March 24, 2019 09:30 AM (Z216Q)
---
I've only seen the series!

Somebody here read and enjoyed Trollope.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at March 24, 2019 09:48 AM (kQs4Y)

106 Lloyd: I had the same reaction to Gibbon. By the time I got to the end of Decline and Fall his blatant anti-Christianity (not just anti-Catholic or anti-clerical but anti-Christian) was grating.
Posted by: Trimegistus at March 24, 2019 09:38 AM (wuNX5)

Eddie illustrates the problems of an autodidact who gets a boneheaded idea in his head and starts reading subsequent things in most part to confirm them. He didn't have anyone to tell him he was misunderstanding things badly. Some of the amended footnotes are scathingly in just how wrong he was.

Posted by: Captain Hate at March 24, 2019 09:48 AM (y7DUB)

107 The author's insights into Gorey's effectiveness were good. At least it was a library book so I didn't waste money.
Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2019 09:37 AM

Heh. I did. $35 freaking bucks.

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at March 24, 2019 09:50 AM (TDyHc)

108 26 ... "I've never read Louis L'Amour but have heard good things about him. What's a good book to try him out?"

You may get 40-11 different suggestions. Try:
- Flint
- Ride the River
- any of the Sackett stories
- Comstock Lode

Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2019 09:51 AM (bmdz3)

109 Now y'all know why I tend to go into lecture mode
when people start talking about "barbarians" sacking Rome and why Rome
fell because X, when X happens to be the current meme that everyone is
talking about.

There actually are some interesting parallels between the Late Roman
Empire and the modern world, but there are enough significant
differences that drawing direct lessons is difficult, and unless you are
very familiar with the actual history and culture of that time period
you are bound to err badly.

Posted by: Grey Fox at March 24, 2019 09:46 AM (bZ7mE)

---
That's why Gibbon is so insufferable. He's supposedly reading all these ancient texts and writing about them.

The line about Catholics being superstitious really stuck in my craw, though. I mean the Romans famously took their strategic direction from "sacred" chickens!

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 09:51 AM (cfSRQ)

110 66 Lurkers! Speak up and say "hi!"

_

Yo yo yo!!

Posted by: Lurking Lurker at March 24, 2019 09:52 AM (FiUMj)

111 That's why Gibbon is so insufferable. He's supposedly reading all these ancient texts and writing about them.

The line about Catholics being superstitious really stuck in my craw, though. I mean the Romans famously took their strategic direction from "sacred" chickens!
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 09:51 AM (cfSRQ)

He predated the modern MFM by always deferring to the rock worshippers.

Posted by: Captain Hate at March 24, 2019 09:54 AM (y7DUB)

112 Posted by: Trimegistus at March 24, 2019 09:45 AM (wuNX5)

Well now I need this:

https://topatoco.com/collections/ kate-beaton/products/beat-bowiemug

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at March 24, 2019 09:54 AM (kQs4Y)

113 64 Washington considered religion essential for the virtue required of self-governing citizens. Though careful not to favor particular sects, he believed that a democracy must not merely accommodate religion but encourage it.

He was kind of odd - IIRC he was Episcopalian, but never took communion.
Posted by: Steve and Cold Bear at March 24, 2019 09:26 AM

He also attended Catholic Mass on occasion while President, this at a time nd place when Catholicism was looked down on, to say the least. He felt it important to be seen as the President of all Americans, not just one faction or denomination.

Posted by: josephistan at March 24, 2019 09:54 AM (Izzlo)

114 I did start on Rushdie's first novel, midnight children, when he was working at Ogilvy and Mather, what tedious drudgery

Posted by: Admiral marcus at March 24, 2019 09:54 AM (TxTRY)

115 Eddie illustrates the problems of an autodidact who
gets a boneheaded idea in his head and starts reading subsequent things
in most part to confirm them. He didn't have anyone to tell him he was
misunderstanding things badly. Some of the amended footnotes are
scathingly in just how wrong he was.

Posted by: Captain Hate at March 24, 2019 09:48 AM (y7DUB)

---
Yes.

Gibbon's achievement (which is considerable) is that he creating a single narrative history of the Roman Empire in English. That's no small feat.

I get now why people (like my father) chose an abridged version that cuts out all of this nonsense.

"Here follows a 20-page digression by Gibbon on the customs of the barbarian nations in which he gets things exactly backwards, peppered with more anti-Christian invective."

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 09:54 AM (cfSRQ)

116 Wmmyn studies and Marvel Comics totally bodleian...

do they allow spray cans?

Posted by: saf at March 24, 2019 09:56 AM (5IHGB)

117 I knew how he ticked off the ayatollah because satire wasnt his thing and he had iron lady derangement syndrome but sheesh

Posted by: Admiral marcus at March 24, 2019 09:57 AM (TxTRY)

118 Sounds like they'd be good for bait.
Posted by: JT at March 24, 2019 09:24 AM (gW+6p)
---
My first thought was "sea monkeys!!!"

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at March 24, 2019 09:57 AM (kQs4Y)

119 In book-related news, I'm going to start working again for the appraisal company that I had worked for several jobs ago. My old boss at the auction house called me & said that the appraisal company (a related, but separate, entity) had a yuuuuge library to appraise and that they might need my help. Hopefully, this could turn into a full time position in the future, but for now it's just contracting.

Posted by: josephistan at March 24, 2019 09:58 AM (Izzlo)

120 Thanks for the recommendation for Sarah Hoyt and Kevin Anderson's Uncharted (Book 1 of Arcane America) - a fascinating alternate history of a magical America in which wizard Ben Franklin dispatches Lewis and Clark to investigate magical happenings.

Morons in Ohio ought to check out the Book Loft in Columbus, Ohio's Germantown - a marvelous warren of book shelves stocked to the brim. I picked up Jim Butcher's Brief Cases while there - a collection of Dresden File short stories to tide me over until his next novel appears.

Posted by: Hans G. Schantz at March 24, 2019 09:58 AM (1pQvR)

121 It took Richard pipes the premier rissian expert at Harvard to describe it properly also soltzhenitsym addresses it in his last volume of the red wheel which dead tree libraries wont stock
Posted by: Admiral marcus at March 24, 2019 09:39 AM (TxTRY)

Don't get me started on libraries becoming the last Blockbuster Videos in existence instead of repositories of culture.

Posted by: Captain Hate at March 24, 2019 09:58 AM (y7DUB)

122 114: I didn't finish it. Not a big Rushdie fan, but happy he survived the fatwa

Posted by: CN at March 24, 2019 09:59 AM (U7k5w)

123 Federalist 69 on the difference between a president and a king: "The one can confer no privileges whatever; the other can make denizens of aliens."

Sanctuary governors are acting as little kings, minting their own citizens through Motor Voter. And now they want to use those voters to throw a presidential election, too.

If Democrats try to install a Democrat popular vote-winner over a Republican Electoral College-winner, the firestorm will make Bush v. Gore look like a dispute over a parking spot.

If a state awards its electors to a candidate that its' voters did not choose, that is a massive Civil Rights violation. By what right do state legislators think they will hand your votes over to the losing candidate of their choice? The arrogance--and criminality--is staggering.

To add insult to injury, none of these illegal Compacts were passed by popular vote.

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at March 24, 2019 09:59 AM (Ndje9)

124 Pants are finally on (sorry, OM) and I'm off to the movies. Behave.

And lurkers, uncloak.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at March 24, 2019 09:59 AM (kQs4Y)

125 I recently read "Lost City of the Monkey God" by Douglas Preston. It's non-fiction, the account of a fascinating and relatively recent archeological find in Honduras. Truly intriguing, as there were apparently a hoax or two over the years reporting the find (or the absence of anything TO find...), all of which was proven false through the dogged determination of a hard core group of dedicated archeologists. It reads like an adventure novel, and has interesting anecdotes covering the dangers of the jungle, politics, academic jealousies and more. Without spoiling anything, the book takes a fascinating turn in the last third or so, discussing the history of Central and South American exploration during the age of discovery, which then dovetails with some truly frightening elements faced by the book's subjects upon their return from the expedition. A good read...

Posted by: MarkW at March 24, 2019 10:00 AM (wPwOb)

126 I hear New Zealand is nice this time of year,though the sheep are edgy and the bookstore owners and Prime Ministress edgier......

nice facial tattoos overall..........

Posted by: saf at March 24, 2019 10:01 AM (5IHGB)

127 Good Morning! Lurker Book Report- I recently read The Conservative Mind by Russel Kirk.

I am trying to cure a lot of ignorance that I carried over from my wonderful public education. Ultimately I liked Kirk's work. First and foremost as a great collection of thinkers and writers of the Conservative canon for me to read or read about in the future. I found Kirk's writing pleasant, including passionate overtures to principles and some amusing quirks. I also liked how he included writers of literature such as Hawthorne and Emerson, in addition to political writers.

On the downside, I wanted an answer to what does it mean to be a conservative. On that front, there was some clarification but still pretty grey. That's ok, though. I guess that is what you get for allowing individuality. Towards the end it got a little depressing as even Kirk admits his 20th century conservatives are liberals and it seems that all Conservatism is complaining about how things are changing beyond your control. No fault of the author here, I suppose, and perhaps a credit to his representation of history.

The two characters that reminded me of Trump were Canning: "By burying the Old Toryism, he made possible the survival of conservative opinions." and Disareli, with his imaginative Nationalism (and something about fancy clothes?)

Posted by: Nowak at March 24, 2019 10:02 AM (yzaGW)

128 Don't get me started on libraries becoming the last Blockbuster Videos in existence instead of repositories of culture.

Posted by: Captain Hate at March 24, 2019 09:58 AM (y7DUB)

---
Video stores were on the ropes and I think libraries helped finish them off. Our local one had free dvds available for checkout, which the commercial operations simply couldn't compete with.

Oh wait, did I see "free?" I meant: Paid for by a one mill levy included in your property tax.

This is why ours isn't going anywhere any time soon.

The book collection turns over frequently and they seem to be a mostly a book club for retired women (who request the books they want to read).

On the plus side, someone there likes Waugh because they have most of his books and that's how I discovered him.

It's also an afterschool hangout, what we being next to the high school.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 10:02 AM (cfSRQ)

129 Now y'all know why I tend to go into lecture mode
when people start talking about "barbarians" sacking Rome and why Rome
fell because X, when X happens to be the current meme that everyone is
talking about.

There actually are some interesting parallels between the Late Roman
Empire and the modern world, but there are enough significant
differences that drawing direct lessons is difficult, and unless you are
very familiar with the actual history and culture of that time period
you are bound to err badly.

Posted by: Grey Fox at March 24, 2019 09:46 AM (bZ7mE)

We sometimes discuss theories about Joe Biden and lead poisoning. Are you saying that's incorrect? It would explain a lot of what goes on in DC and the EU.

Posted by: Steve and Cold Bear at March 24, 2019 10:02 AM (DgnZv)

130 I don't chime in on the running debate on fasting because I don't know or care much about it... but not eating for eight days is like some ascetic monk, and I can't believe going that long is healthful.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at March 24, 2019 10:02 AM (5aX2M)

131 Wait, Eris! Whatcha gonna see?

Posted by: Bandersnatch at March 24, 2019 10:03 AM (fuK7c)

132 Am I ... could I actually be ... is it even possible ... that my phone is unbanned and I can post thousand year old jokes like, "Where's the Player's Handbook?" again?

Whoever posted the answer to the wall of red 500 error is a genius. Still a moron, but a genius nonetheless. I thank you, sir, and shall forward a modest remittance in your favor in due course.

Posted by: Blacksheep at March 24, 2019 10:04 AM (6mvRv)

133 Currently reading, "Killing the SS" by Mr. O'Reilly. (It was a gift, don't judge me!)

Anyway, O'Reilly recounts that ex SS who were guilty of heinous crimes were employed by the CIA and, in fact, the CIA helped them to escape.

I understand the intelligence business may involve dealing with unsavory characters in other countries but aiding, abetting and them employing some of the worst of humanity in the US?

Seems the CIA has been tainted since its inception.

Posted by: Blake - used vacation salesman at March 24, 2019 10:04 AM (WEBkv)

134 Delurk? Sure. The (short) book I read this summer.

"The Fat Vampire" by Johnny B. Truant
Sterling Stone (September 29, 2012)

A vampire with a conscience saves Reginald Baskin's life by turning him into a vampire. What's not to like? When the former-victim is 300 pounds, slow, weak and out of shape and now destined to an eternity of healing. Always healing back to his original vampire out-of-shape. This tale is an exploration of that crazy idea. Why not? It's really good writing and really great fun on the way.

Hey. Reggie saves the day from a vampire apocalypse. Twice.

This is the first of a six novella series best enjoyed in one omnibus volume. Subsequent titles are Tastes Like Chicken, All You Can Eat, Harder Better Fatter Stronger, Fatpocalypse and Survival of the Fattest.

In the series Truant writes the funniest vampire mythos that I have ever met. Yeah. This is Horror-Humor. I never heard of Truant before, and still suspect it's a nom de plume because the writing is just too good... but he works with other guys and they've formed sterlingandstone.net to publish their prolific output, most of which is pretty good. (Some is just word count, buy it's better than 50-50 that I will enjoy their writing.)

Seriously - this is good. I try to pass the word on about it, but no one ever believes. I guess it's just too insensitive to write about fat people, especially if they live forever.

Posted by: Terry at March 24, 2019 10:04 AM (64PZ4)

135
To add insult to injury, none of these illegal Compacts were passed by popular vote.

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at March 24, 2019 09:59 AM (Ndje9)

---
When that whole thing first got rolling it was pointed out that the compacts were meaningless because they were unenforceable.

So if Trump wins the popular vote, the deep blue states will still vote against him with impunity.

Also, since the states choose the electors, you could have a situation where state legislatures simply vote the electors one way after the popular vote (in that state) goes the other.

This was the situation (that people conveniently forgot) in Bush v. Gore. Because Florida's popular vote was in dispute, the Legislature convened and awared its electors to Bush in accordance with their state constitution.

The system actually has some robustness built into it, if people bother to use it.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 10:07 AM (cfSRQ)

136 I get DVD's along with books from libraries for a buck or two a pop. It makes it difficult to by such things from our internet betters. I have purchased entire tv series for a ten spot.

My issue with libraries is with the screaming kids and clueless parents. They don't even seem like libraries anymore.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 10:07 AM (n13/j)

137 Had a steady stream of company after Christmas. The only thing I've read all year is the instruction booklet for the new airbed.

Posted by: creeper at March 24, 2019 10:08 AM (D7e/V)

138 Yes gehlen was our only major source of intelligence on the eastern bloc and the Soviets, the OSS analytical section including maurice Halperin and herbert marcuse was crawling with commies.

Posted by: Admiral marcus at March 24, 2019 10:08 AM (TxTRY)

139 buy that is

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 10:08 AM (n13/j)

140 I knew how he ticked off the ayatollah because satire wasnt his thing and he had iron lady derangement syndrome but sheesh
Posted by: Admiral marcus at March 24, 2019 09:57 AM (TxTRY)

Rushdie isn't an untalented writer as far as constructing an interesting narrative but hooo boy he goes off the rails at times.

I've also started reading volume 1 of Nabokov's biography by Brian Boyd and didn't realize that his father's assassin in Berlin was a czarist sympathizer. I'm reading his stories concurrently with the parts of his biography when they were written and dear God some of his early works were unreadable; but others were promising early sketches.

Posted by: Captain Hate at March 24, 2019 10:09 AM (y7DUB)

141 Good morning!

Let's smile and be happy and strike fear in the heart of killjoy leftists everywhere.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 24, 2019 10:10 AM (u82oZ)

142 willowed:

223 69 there were sizable protest in England over Brexit, no idea if that was a one off or not.
Posted by: Skip at March 24, 2019 07:15 AM (BbGew)

A lovely song sung to the Remainers:

https://www.samizdata.net/2019/03/mr-frisby-and-the-rats-of-in/
Posted by: m at March 24, 2019 08:55 AM (Ts3fP)

And there are lyrics to read, too, including:

The US president. Saint Obama. Back of the cue.

Which I think is an error for:

The US president, Saint Obama--back of the queue.

Posted by: m at March 24, 2019 10:10 AM (Ts3fP)

143 This was a continuation of policies Dulles had pursued during the war, dealing through Italian even Japanese intermediaries, we saw what the aftermath of the first world war wrought the rise of Soviet communism a rickety Japanese democracy that fell in the 30s. The decimation of a generation of young men I'm the fields of Flanders

Posted by: Admiral marcus at March 24, 2019 10:11 AM (TxTRY)

144
A point I've made about the Electoral College before is that virtually none of the 30-40 most developed nations in the world directly choose their head of government, with France and S Korea being the exceptions (even those two exceptions are a bit shaky). Most are parliamentary systems, a handful of dictatorships and monarchies, and some real oddballs (Switzerland's rotating Presidency for example)

Direct elections of a nation's head of government through a national popular vote is something you only see in third-world shitholes.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at March 24, 2019 10:12 AM (eXA4G)

145 I had a chance to get a mint collection of the entire Battles and Leaders of the Civil War set for a very cheap price. I did not pull the trigger and it went bye- bye.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 10:12 AM (n13/j)

146 I understand the intelligence business may involve
dealing with unsavory characters in other countries but aiding, abetting
and them employing some of the worst of humanity in the US?

Seems the CIA has been tainted since its inception.

Posted by: Blake - used vacation salesman at March 24, 2019 10:04 AM (WEBkv)

---
Post World War II, there weren't a lot of people with clean hands.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 10:13 AM (cfSRQ)

147 "Soulless" by Gail Carriger
____

For some reason - can't imagine why - I first read that as ' "Soulless" by Ginger'.

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 10:13 AM (VaN/j)

148 Headlines

CNN
Investigations will continue despite end of Mueller report
PMSNBC
Lieu: House Dems have sent document preservation letters to DOJ
CBS
Congress braces for Mueller findings as Barr and Rosenstein review report

Posted by: rhennigantx at March 24, 2019 10:13 AM (JFO2v)

149 Still plowing through Winston Churchill's History of the English Speaking People. His wonderful prose and today's reality is heart wrenching in lost possibilities.

Great story telling by someone who really understands how the actions of leaders change a nation. And also how the character and culture of the people can change leaders.

Just got through the end of civilized Roman Britain. And the rise of the Saxons. Not easy reading. The parallels are easy to see with today's Britain.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 24, 2019 10:15 AM (u82oZ)

150 145
I had a chance to get a mint collection of the entire Battles and
Leaders of the Civil War set for a very cheap price. I did not pull the
trigger and it went bye- bye.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 10:12 AM (n13/j)

---
YOU FOOL!!!

Seriously, that's sad. I tried to read it cover-to-cover but it's not really set up for that. It is nice to be interested in a topic in the war and than go riffing for articles on it.

Plus, it is the source material for almost all narratives. Those killer quotes you see everywhere? Yeah, guess where they came from?

I'm sure another will turn up.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 10:15 AM (cfSRQ)

151 136: They're not. Probably the worst time of day at our local is right after school. Parents use it as a free babysitting service for the middle schoolers.

Posted by: CN at March 24, 2019 10:15 AM (U7k5w)

152 Beautiful library, but I wonder about fires. There are no visible sprinklers (no surprise in a historical treasure) But do they have a hidden halon system or anything else?

Posted by: pst314 at March 24, 2019 10:16 AM (iRbDn)

153 for 2 years the dems said "wait for the mueller report". now, one day after its finish, they refuse to read the ag's summary (pelosi) and are demanding mueller be brought in to testify - why didn't he interrogate trump, did trump get to him, is he colluding with trump. just unreal.

o/t ranting. sorry.

Posted by: musical jolly chimp at March 24, 2019 10:16 AM (Pg+x7)

154 Just got through the end of civilized Roman Britain.
And the rise of the Saxons. Not easy reading. The parallels are easy
to see with today's Britain.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 24, 2019 10:15 AM (u82oZ)

---
I love his point that the standard of living in Britain would not reach Roman levels of comfort until the mid-19th Century.

Crazy to think about that.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 10:16 AM (cfSRQ)

155 153
for 2 years the dems said "wait for the mueller report". now, one day
after its finish, they refuse to read the ag's summary (pelosi) and are
demanding mueller be brought in to testify - why didn't he interrogate
trump, did trump get to him, is he colluding with trump. just unreal.

o/t ranting. sorry.

Posted by: musical jolly chimp at March 24, 2019 10:16 AM (Pg+x7)

---
It's a cult. Logic is useless.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 10:17 AM (cfSRQ)

156 I'm not saying it justifies anything, just to explain reasoning in a particular case.

We protected and eventually exfiltrated Klaus Barbie because he was a commie hunter nonpareil, and we needed those. He had been the hunter of French Jews, no doubt, but the Resistance lived in terror of him, and they were better at hiding than Jews.

Sometimes what made these guys criminals was also what made them useful to us.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at March 24, 2019 10:18 AM (5aX2M)

157 It was an error. I could have had the whole thing for $20 and it was super clean. That set is a core holding along with the Official Records of the War of Rebellion. And yes, not something you just pick up and read through lol.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 10:19 AM (n13/j)

158
Sometimes what made these guys criminals was also what made them useful to us.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at March 24, 2019 10:18 AM (5aX2M)

---
"He may be a sonofabitch but he's OUR sonofabitch."

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 10:20 AM (cfSRQ)

159 Yes he was hired by frenxh and British intelligence as well,

Posted by: Admiral marcus at March 24, 2019 10:20 AM (TxTRY)

160 I'm also reading "Liberty's Last Stand" and also highly recommend it. One of the dilemmas it got me contemplating again was having to face the choice as an American of whether or not to fire on a fellow American on the other side.

Posted by: That Deplorable SOB Van Owen at March 24, 2019 10:22 AM (wZ9cV)

161
I understand the intelligence business may involve
dealing with unsavory characters in other countries but aiding, abetting
and them employing some of the worst of humanity in the US?

Seems the CIA has been tainted since its inception.

Posted by: Blake - used vacation salesman at March 24, 2019 10:04 AM (WEBkv)

---
Post World War II, there weren't a lot of people with clean hands.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 10:13 AM (cfSRQ)

True, and as bad as the Nazis were, in fact they weren't nearly as murderous as the Bolsheviks or the Imperial Japanese. So I don't get my tits in an uproar over using things like using the Gehlen Organization, because the gorram Bosheviks were on the rise.

On the other hand, whether those ex-SS types were actually effective against the commies at the beginning of the Cold War is a legitimate question to ask. And I've read arguments both ways.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at March 24, 2019 10:22 AM (eXA4G)

162 157
It was an error. I could have had the whole thing for $20 and it was
super clean. That set is a core holding along with the Official Records
of the War of Rebellion. And yes, not something you just pick up and
read through lol.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 10:19 AM (n13/j)

---
That's pizza money! You're killing me here.

Mine's in decent shape (the dust jackets are in poor shape) and it cost $40. That's a steal. Why didn't you take it?

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 10:23 AM (cfSRQ)

163 Put in Zoolander while I fold laundry this morning.

Some dude shows up in a cameo that I think is President of the United States now.

Posted by: Mr. Peebles at March 24, 2019 10:24 AM (oVJmc)

164 He may be a sonofabitch but he's OUR sonofabitch."
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 10:20 AM (cfSRQ)

------

And, like it or not, the US did not have a strategic objective in finding justice for Jews - Nuremberg was a convenient fig leaf for de-Nazification.

Our new long-term goal was eradication of Communism in Western Europe, and that was goal that we shared with the erstwhile Nazi Reich.

It was inevitable that some of them with boots on the ground in the commie hunting business would end up contracting for us.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at March 24, 2019 10:26 AM (5aX2M)

165 On the other hand, whether those ex-SS types were actually effective against the commies at the beginning of the Cold War is a legitimate question to ask. And I've read arguments both ways.
Posted by: IllTemperedCur at March 24, 2019 10:22 AM (eXA4G)
--------------

Considering our government was shot through with commies post WWII, I have to say "no."

Yeah, I know the CIA was supposedly pointed at external enemies, but, they weren't good enough to figure out the commies were running agents in the US?

Anyway, it is hindsight, armchair quarterbacking, so, grain of salt and all that.

It's that with everything that has happened in our government since the election of President Trump, I've started questioning a lot of my premises when it comes to the agencies supposedly in charge of defending America.

Posted by: Blake - used vacation salesman at March 24, 2019 10:27 AM (WEBkv)

166 154
I love his point that the standard of living in Britain would not reach Roman levels of comfort until the mid-19th Century.

Crazy to think about that.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 10:16 AM (cfSRQ)

*Looks at computer, heater, light bulbs, refrigerator, well-stocked pantry, multiple sinks with running water*

*Looks at ravening mobs of half-educated, brainwashed idiots who want to throw all that away and turn the US into Venezuela*

Yeah, crazy.

Posted by: rickl at March 24, 2019 10:28 AM (sdi6R)

167 Not exactly a book but there's going to be a Deadwood movie and this is the trailer.

https://youtu.be/TlgHEldO7y0

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at March 24, 2019 10:28 AM (+y/Ru)

168 RE: John C. Wright:
May I recommend 'Awake in the Night Land'. From the Amazon blurb:
"AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND is an epic collection of four of John C. Wright's brilliant forays into the dark fantasy world of William Hope Hodgson's 1912 novel, The Night Land."
Fascinating premise, and one of my favorite books. Wright's style reminds me a bit of Patrick O'Brien. Inspired me to go discover William Hope Hodgson's writing, which is equally fascinating.

Posted by: Isheen at March 24, 2019 10:28 AM (YQube)

169 Have you read the other books in her series?
Posted by: Jake Holenhead at March 24, 2019 09:48 AM (TDyHc)

yeah, I think there are three?

it's been a while. there's a bit of sjw in it imo, but it was fun anyway

Posted by: votermom certified russian matryoshka bot at March 24, 2019 10:28 AM (dm05u)

170 Has any lurker actually de-lurked yet?

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at March 24, 2019 10:28 AM (rz9v+)

171 167 Not exactly a book but there's going to be a Deadwood movie and this is the trailer.

https://youtu.be/TlgHEldO7y0
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at March 24, 2019 10:28 AM (+y/Ru)

But I didn't hear a continual stream of cussing. Must be a different Deadwood.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at March 24, 2019 10:31 AM (rz9v+)

172 160

Lib will use thug gangs to fire on you promising them free college legal weed white pussy and $15/hr minimum wages.

Posted by: rhennigantx at March 24, 2019 10:31 AM (JFO2v)

173 Dr Dre's (hawt) daughter got into USC. He twattered that he did it all with no jail time.

I've always like Dre.

One thing I've seen a lot related to the story is the snark like "as if USC is hard to get into" or "they did all that for USC??". USC is a top 25 school and if you plan on having a career in California, other than Stanford, there's no better school to attend as far as job prospects and networking opportunities go.

Posted by: Lurking Lurker at March 24, 2019 10:31 AM (FiUMj)

174 OK, I'll de-lurk. My name is Bandersnatch, some call me Bander for short.

I like to read and my favorite format is words in grey boxes.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at March 24, 2019 10:32 AM (fuK7c)

175 127
...On the downside, I wanted an answer to what does it mean to be a conservative...
Posted by: Nowak at March 24, 2019 10:02 AM (yzaGW)
_______

One of Kirk's main points is that that question cannot be answered. There is no single Socratic definition; it's a constellation of views and attitudes.

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 10:33 AM (VaN/j)

176 Jake Holenhead, the Parasol Protectorate series kind of reminds me of Elizabeth Peters old Amelia Peabody detective series, (which is not fantasy) - the heroine has the same kind of attitude & humor

for those interested, that series starts with Crocodile in the Sandback

Posted by: votermom certified russian matryoshka bot at March 24, 2019 10:33 AM (dm05u)

177 Ya'll probably already know this, but FNC's Chris Wallace is as compromised and ideologically hide-bound as any of the other alphabet channels' talking heads.

Posted by: Blutarski at March 24, 2019 10:33 AM (+Tibp)

178 174 OK, I'll de-lurk. My name is Bandersnatch, some call me Bander for short.

I like to read and my favorite format is words in grey boxes.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at March 24, 2019 10:32 AM (fuK7c)

---------------

Welcome, Bender!

Just wondering, why choose a name from the show "Futurama?"

Posted by: Blake - used vacation salesman at March 24, 2019 10:34 AM (WEBkv)

179 I'm going thru two books of short stories, classics.
One is the complete Father Brown mysteries by GK Chesterton and the other is Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries.
They are each such fun and harken back to the past in a reverent way.
Morals are not looked down on.
Class distinctions and "hating what is bad," are simply reported, not judged.

Posted by: Nan Gladden at March 24, 2019 10:34 AM (60yhg)

180 SPLC deserve to die a slow painful death

Posted by: rhennigantx at March 24, 2019 10:34 AM (JFO2v)

181 170 Has any lurker actually de-lurked yet?
Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at March 24, 2019 10:28 AM (rz9v+)

not yet, but I could start lurking
*pouts*

Posted by: votermom certified russian matryoshka bot at March 24, 2019 10:34 AM (dm05u)

182 Mine's in decent shape (the dust jackets are in poor shape) and it cost $40. That's a steal. Why didn't you take it?

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 10:23 AM (cfSRQ)

I don't know when this one was printed, but the pages were obviously very high quality. The dust jackets were immaculate. Now I am getting pissed lol.

I just got lazy. I bet that no one else would buy it and I could get it the next time. But there was no next time.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 10:34 AM (n13/j)

183 I've been lurking for the last few minutes if that counts.

Posted by: JackStraw at March 24, 2019 10:35 AM (/tuJf)

184 Lurkers have gone to MoMes?! Wow!!!

Posted by: Cheribebe at March 24, 2019 10:35 AM (fnWQo)

185 If the Ds keep demanding full transparency and the release of everything, why shouldn't Trump release everything he has on the provenance of the Mueller investigation. I'm looking at you Jimmy Drama Comey.

Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 10:36 AM (1UZdv)

186
I've always like Dre.

-------

Me too. Though to be fair, Dre is a multi-billionaire, and any school has a vested interest in kissing up to him in hopes of future meaty donations.

A chump like Bill Macy you work for the money upfront.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at March 24, 2019 10:36 AM (5aX2M)

187 I've been crazy busy with thins the last 2-3 days and have avoided most of the Mueller news. I got the headline that the report is ready, but not much else.

I'm catching up now on the reaction of the left and it...is.....GLORIOUS!!!!

Posted by: Lurking Lurker at March 24, 2019 10:36 AM (FiUMj)

188 182
I don't know when this one was printed, but the pages were obviously very high quality. The dust jackets were immaculate. Now I am getting pissed lol.
Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 10:34 AM (n13/j)

Geez. Now I'm pissed.

Posted by: rickl at March 24, 2019 10:37 AM (sdi6R)

189 libraries are now "community centers"

Posted by: votermom certified russian matryoshka bot at March 24, 2019 10:37 AM (dm05u)

190 Ya'll probably already know this, but FNC's Chris Wallace is as compromised and ideologically hide-bound as any of the other alphabet channels' talking heads.
Posted by: Blutarski at March 24, 2019 10:33 AM
~~~~~

Yeah, I can't watch him at all anymore. Watching Maria Bartiromo on FOX Business now.

Posted by: IrishEi at March 24, 2019 10:38 AM (NtglE)

191 I've posted once before, so not a true delurking, but I will accept the invitation to come forth from the shadowy mists of lurkerdom to say, Hi Horde!

Posted by: Retief at March 24, 2019 10:38 AM (yBQiw)

192 I watched that doc on Dre and his partner (the Italian guy whose name I always forget). Made me really appreciate what the two of them accomplished together.

The American dream in a nutshell.

Posted by: Lurking Lurker at March 24, 2019 10:38 AM (FiUMj)

193
Besides the tools listed in the post, there are also some tips and tricks in my unauthorized, unofficial, still desperately needs updating
Ace of Spaces Commenters Survival Guide.
http://bit.ly/aoshq-csg

Okay, sorry for intruding. Carry on, verbiphiles.

Oh, and thanks for the new nic.

Posted by: skybal webworker, between the stacks, at March 24, 2019 10:38 AM (GvEen)

194 173 I still want to know who they are really after with this whole college bribe thing. This isn*t new.

Posted by: Cheribebe at March 24, 2019 10:39 AM (fnWQo)

195 189 libraries are now "community centers"
Posted by: votermom certified russian matryoshka bot at March 24, 2019 10:37 AM (dm05u)

___

Not where I live. They are libraries. And they are very popular. Every time I go into one, the place is packed.

Posted by: Lurking Lurker at March 24, 2019 10:39 AM (FiUMj)

196 Some of the Peter Wimsey short stories are just utterly gonzo. In one of them Lord P. fakes his death, infiltrates a weird pulp-magazine crime gang that acts like a cult, seduces a woman and sets a trap for the big boss, all just so Sayers could use a MacGuffin she read about in Popular Mechanics. ("Machines that recognize your voice!") There's enough in that story for a whole novel!

Posted by: Trimegistus at March 24, 2019 10:39 AM (wuNX5)

197 Posted by: Lurking Lurker at March 24, 2019 10:38 AM (FiUMj

------

Jimmy Iovine

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at March 24, 2019 10:40 AM (5aX2M)

198 Time to wander, as church is calling.

Stay reading, my friends!

...the least interesting man in the world.

Posted by: Blake - used vacation salesman at March 24, 2019 10:40 AM (WEBkv)

199 197

Thank you.

Posted by: Lurking Lurker at March 24, 2019 10:40 AM (FiUMj)

200 154 Just got through the end of civilized Roman Britain.
And the rise of the Saxons. Not easy reading. The parallels are easy
to see with today's Britain.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 24, 2019 10:15 AM (u82oZ)

---
I love his point that the standard of living in Britain would not reach Roman levels of comfort until the mid-19th Century.

Crazy to think about that.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 10:16 AM (cfSRQ)
_____

I've read books arguing that it was matched in the 12th C, and maybe the 13th. Then it all went to shit; first cold wet weather, then plague.

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 10:41 AM (VaN/j)

201 I have decided to go from marginal lurking to full on lurking.

Posted by: Northern Lurker, irritable, so very irritable. Have I mentioned I'm irritable? at March 24, 2019 10:41 AM (JgA4k)

202 Hi Retief!

How's intergalactic diplomacy going?

Posted by: votermom certified russian matryoshka bot at March 24, 2019 10:41 AM (dm05u)

203 Seems like the call for lurkers to come forward is kind of self-negating. If you come forward and post and identify yourself then by definition you're not a lurker, are you? The REAL lurkers are the ones smirking and saying to their screens "You won't trap me that way!"

Posted by: Trimegistus at March 24, 2019 10:41 AM (wuNX5)

204 Oy, I have to leave for church and when I get back the thread will be over and done. Since John C. Wright was mentioned, let me suggest his Awake in the Night Land, a collection of his stories based on William Hope Hodgson's The Night Land. Hodgson, and Night Land in particular, was a forerunner of H.P. Lovecraft. I've only read one of the stories of Wright's collection since I don't have the collection myself, but that one story was absolutely incredible, so I'm going to buy the collection as soon as I can justify spending more than five bucks on a SF book.

Posted by: Jim S. at March 24, 2019 10:41 AM (ynUnH)

205
184 Lurkers have gone to MoMes?! Wow!!!
Posted by: Cheribebe at March 24, 2019 10:35 AM (fnWQo)

From my own experience attending MoMee's in CA and TX, about half or more of attendees are lurkers.

I think we sometimes forget just how large Teh Horde is.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at March 24, 2019 10:41 AM (eXA4G)

206 There are no words to describe how wordy is John C Wright.

Unattractively Tolkien-ish? Bah. Just one opinion, I know.

Posted by: Terry at March 24, 2019 10:42 AM (tYN81)

207 Any chance of another New England meetup? We could go hide out in the catacombs somewhere.

Posted by: Trimegistus at March 24, 2019 10:42 AM (wuNX5)

208 I'm a real life lurker
I hate face to face events

Posted by: votermom certified russian matryoshka bot at March 24, 2019 10:42 AM (dm05u)

209 I heard that Norwegian cruise ship that was in trouble yesterday got its propulsion system figured out before the whole shebang got dashed on the rocks of the Norwegian coast. But not before airlifting a handful of passengers off by helicopter.
Anyone else hear any news about it?

Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at March 24, 2019 10:42 AM (w7KSn)

210 Seems like the call for lurkers to come forward is
kind of self-negating. If you come forward and post and identify
yourself then by definition you're not a lurker, are you? The REAL
lurkers are the ones smirking and saying to their screens "You won't
trap me that way!"

Posted by: Trimegistus at March 24, 2019 10:41 AM (wuNX5)

I held out a long time, smug as hell. Then blah blah blah.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 10:43 AM (n13/j)

211 One of the first books I ever read based on a tip from the book thread was Joseph Courtemanche's Assault on St. Agnes. I just finished re-reading it and highly recommend it to all. The protagonist is a devout older gentleman, retired military, who is drawn back into service after he helps take down a terrorist attack at his church. I love how the character is not your usual 30-something, rugged, SEAL or Special Ops superstar - instead, he's a regular guy who just happens to have had a military past. And is a terrific shooter. I've been waiting on the sequel since I first finished the book.
I've been lurking here for years - I posted once, under this nic. Thanks for the suggestion on how to beat the code problems - I was getting that 500 error too!

Posted by: CarolnaGirl at March 24, 2019 10:43 AM (tYKlt)

212 209 a really exciting vacation...

Posted by: votermom certified russian matryoshka bot at March 24, 2019 10:44 AM (dm05u)

213 It's from an eliot poem,

The ex ss were among that formed the gehlen org which helped prop up Nasser against isreael skorzeny the basis for shaws col hessler also trained the IRA while also working for mossad.

Posted by: Admiral marcus at March 24, 2019 10:44 AM (TxTRY)

214 On delurking please to be provide banking information.

Posted by: Northern Lurker, irritable, so very irritable. Have I mentioned I'm irritable? at March 24, 2019 10:44 AM (JgA4k)

215 202 Hi Retief!

How's intergalactic diplomacy going?

The CDT keeps me busy, but there's booze. You know how it is.

Posted by: Retief at March 24, 2019 10:45 AM (yBQiw)

216 Posted by: CarolnaGirl at March 24, 2019 10:43 AM (tYKlt)

Hi!!! that book sounds familiar

Posted by: votermom certified russian matryoshka bot at March 24, 2019 10:46 AM (dm05u)

217
I heard that Norwegian cruise ship that was in trouble yesterday got its propulsion system figured out before the whole shebang got dashed on the rocks of the Norwegian coast. But not before airlifting a handful of passengers off by helicopter.
Anyone else hear any news about it?
Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at March 24, 2019 10:42 AM (w7KSn)

My understanding of the situation as of late last night was that they got one engine running, enough to stabilize the ship but not enough to get it completely out of danger. So the evacuation was continuing.

I gotta say, doing a helo evac on a pitching deck over rough water in 50mph winds has to take some brass balls in the pilot's chair.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at March 24, 2019 10:47 AM (eXA4G)

218 Jimmy Iovine started s an engineer on early Springsteen albums. He met Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes (best bar band ever) and snuck them into the studio at odd hours to keep them away from the Corporate Suits. He was the first white man involved in rap. He married a Playmate who was a Berkeley grad.

Playa!

Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 10:47 AM (1UZdv)

219 214 On delurking please to be provide banking information.
Posted by: Northern Lurker, irritable, so very irritable. Have I mentioned I'm irritable? at March 24, 2019 10:44 AM (JgA4k)

___

Hi, are you the same "John" from American Bank Company that called me yesterday?

Posted by: Lurking Lurker at March 24, 2019 10:48 AM (FiUMj)

220 Thank you.
Posted by: Lurking Lurker at March 24, 2019 10:40 AM (FiUMj)

-----

And it is fascinating... I'll have to watch that doc. Both of those guys were music nerds, got into the music business, figured out it was more "business" than "music," and so they focused on business. Once they hooked up, the sky was the limit.

Meanwhile, Suge Knight will die in prison.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at March 24, 2019 10:48 AM (5aX2M)

221 delurking juice helps.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 10:48 AM (n13/j)

222 He was the first white man involved in rap."

A Traitor to his Race!!!

Posted by: Tom Servo at March 24, 2019 10:48 AM (V2Yro)

223 149 Still plowing through Winston Churchill's History of the English Speaking People. His wonderful prose and today's reality is heart wrenching in lost possibilities.

Great story telling by someone who really understands how the actions of leaders change a nation. And also how the character and culture of the people can change leaders.

Just got through the end of civilized Roman Britain. And the rise of the Saxons. Not easy reading. The parallels are easy to see with today's Britain.
Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 24, 2019 10:15 AM (u82oZ

You're a little behind me - I just finished the chapter on Henry II last night

Posted by: josephistan at March 24, 2019 10:50 AM (Izzlo)

224 198 Time to wander, as church is calling.

Stay reading, my friends!

...the least interesting man in the world.
Posted by: Blake - used vacation salesman at March 24, 2019 10:40 AM (WEBkv)

______

One nice thing about Popery is the Sat night Vigil Mass. And that's speaking as an old fart. I expect it works even better when you're young, and can sleep it off Sun morning.

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 10:50 AM (VaN/j)

225 211 One of the first books I ever read based on a tip from the book thread was Joseph Courtemanche's Assault on St. Agnes. I just finished re-reading it and highly recommend it to all.

Posted by: CarolnaGirl at March 24, 2019 10:43 AM (tYKlt)

Hi, thank you for delurking, glad one of the anti-500 solutions worked for you. It seemed like such a long time ago that I recommended Assault on St. Agnes. Been waiting for the sequel, too. Haven't heard from the author in ages, so who knows what's happening with it.

The author could have passed away for all I know. He wasn't a young guy.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at March 24, 2019 10:50 AM (rz9v+)

226 I have to get those freaking books now! I will probably pay up just to end the pain.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 10:51 AM (n13/j)

227 209: Sounded ghastly. I liked the Viking river cruises, but generally shy away from the floating hotels. The helicopter rescue sounded horrid.

Posted by: CN at March 24, 2019 10:52 AM (U7k5w)

228 Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom by Ion Mihai Pacepa and Ronald J. Richland

Deeply interesting dive into the methods of the KGB and their lie factory in Moscow. As told by the highest level defector to the us in the 1970s the head of the Romanian Secret Police.
Describes the slander of Pope Pius XII as Hitlers stooge when he was known as a smuggler of Jews out of Europe during the war. All because he stood up to Stalin. The first two times they tried this smear By Stalin and Khrushchev it was laughed out of the debate by he witnesses who had direct knowledge of the facts. But in the 70s with Brezhnev and the Soviet agent histories she in the west the witnesses had aged and died out and the media was all to eager to believe the lie written by the massive KGB lie machine in Moscow.

More stories are presented enjoy.

Posted by: Dread0 at March 24, 2019 10:53 AM (Bptbo)

229 If they got a few tugs out there to it, it would help things out.
Anyway, someone in Norway posted some pictures of the situation, which was dire.
The ship was just a couple miles off shore, pitching in 30 foot swells, bobbing like a cork.
BBC says they are headed to Molde under their own power.

Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at March 24, 2019 10:54 AM (w7KSn)

230 Maybe there needs to be a lurkers only thread for people too shy to comment in front of regulars.

Posted by: Northern Lurker, irritable, so very irritable. Have I mentioned I'm irritable? at March 24, 2019 10:54 AM (JgA4k)

231 I saw David Horowitz on CSPN hawking his latest book, Dark Agenda, and was so impressed I bought it. It is about the progressives war an Christianity and it is very good. It seems incongruous that an agnostic Jew is defending Christianity but he points out that religion isn't the real target; it just got caught in the cross fire. The real target is western values, particularly American values. The concept that all men are created equal and do not need a king or pope or tyrant of any name to rule them arose directly from the Protestant Reformation (and that idea must be destroyed). Although much of this book is pretty grim (not to mention ragestroke inducing), there is humor. Madalyn Murray O'Hair tried repeatedly to defect to the USSR but the Soviets wouldn't have her. They thought she was crazy (or maybe that she would do us great harm if she remained here). I have a few caveats (in addition to it being ragestroke inducing). It's one of those books that are so packed with ideas that you can get lost in the implications of a comment and realize you haven't actually read anything for a few minutes. Although it is not anti-Catholic (Horowitz doesn't have a dog in that fight), it clearly attributes American history and American values to the 97% of the population who were protestant Christians at the time of the Revolution.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at March 24, 2019 10:54 AM (+y/Ru)

232 I lurked for a long time, til I split up with my ex. De-lurked out of sheer boredom, as I had a lot of time on my hands, suddenly.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at March 24, 2019 10:55 AM (5aX2M)

233 Re: Norweegean ship. Probably just a faulty software update. Thumb drive mix-up. Re-booted from a prondrive. Tentacle related.

Posted by: Burger Chef at March 24, 2019 10:55 AM (RuIsu)

234
One nice thing about Popery is the Sat night
Vigil Mass. And that's speaking as an old fart. I expect it works even
better when you're young, and can sleep it off Sun morning.

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 10:50 AM (VaN/j)

---
I'm going to the 5:30 mass later today. Last week we started a soup before leaving. Got it up to a good rolling boil and turned the burner off as we stepped out the door.

Came home and it was good to go.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 10:57 AM (cfSRQ)

235 the KGB and their lie factory in Moscow

-
I see that Pelosi has called an emergency Donk caucus meeting to come up with the right lie to deal with a post-Mueller world.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at March 24, 2019 10:57 AM (+y/Ru)

236 Greetings:

Read two early American history books recently.

One was "God, War, and Providence" by a guy named Warren. It's about Roger Williams and the formation of what has become known as" The State of Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations". ( I sojourned in Newport for a couple of years in the early '80s, so I get to call it "Little Rhody") Those Puritans were some serious folks and their need to dominate reminded me of today's Progressives in many ways.

The other was "In the Hurricane's Eye' by Nathaniel Philbrick. It's about the last year or so of our Revolutionary War and the aforementioned George Washington's dealings with the French and the British. Good coverage of the Caribbean theater and the maps and battle schematics are Class A. I've read two other Philbrick book, "The Last Stand" (about Custer Sitting Bull) and "Mayflower" (about those damn Puritans) and the author writes worthwhile books.

Posted by: 11B40 at March 24, 2019 10:58 AM (evgyj)

237 I have been exploring Inter-library loan, I am reading The Scarith of Scornello by Ingrid Rowland, which is about the supposed finding of Etruscan documents in the 1600s at the site of the last Etruscan city in Volterra, Tuscany. The documents were supposed to have been written by a Etruscan Diviner named Prospero, who had been assigned to be a sentry to defend against that city's destruction by Rome in the aftermath of the Catilina's attempt to foment an Etruscan backed revolt in response to him losing a Consulor election in 64BC.

It is interspersing the timeline of the discovery and the personalities involved, with the political situation of the time.
This is important, since Volterra had been annexed by Tuscany just as the documents found talked about the conquest of the Etruscan cities by Rome, and it also discusses the influence the papacy and the inquisition had over science and publication.

The find was a fraud, since the Etruscans wrote on linen fabric and not linen bond paper, but the book is about the examination of these documents in the 1600's

Posted by: Kindltot at March 24, 2019 10:58 AM (mUa7G)

238
De-lurking. Didn't read any books this week but did takes moms to the movies.

Posted by: Governator Hickenlooper at March 24, 2019 10:58 AM (jYje5)

239 The helicoptered 450 people off that ship, continuing into the night. I've never heard of an operation like that.

Odd point: the ship had 915 passengers and 458 crew. That seems like a really expensive ratio.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at March 24, 2019 10:58 AM (fuK7c)

240 What was interesting was Robert ludlum had at least two pr the plots about nazi takeovers, in the west, the truth was stranger than this re the gehlen org and paperclip.

Posted by: Admiral marcus at March 24, 2019 10:59 AM (TxTRY)

241 >>But in the 70s with Brezhnev and the Soviet agent histories she in the west the witnesses had aged and died out and the media was all to eager to believe the lie written by the massive KGB lie machine in Moscow.

Good thing nothing like that could happen here.

Posted by: JackStraw at March 24, 2019 10:59 AM (/tuJf)

242 "That seems like a really expensive ratio."

Depends on the price point.

Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at March 24, 2019 10:59 AM (w7KSn)

243 . It seems incongruous that an agnostic Jew is defending Christianity but he points out that religion isn't the real target; it just got caught in the cross fire.

-----

I never stop harping on it. When they're tormenting bakers or slamming Jews in Congress, it's all part of the war of the State against man and G-d. We're all in the cross hairs, and we have to stand together.

Which reminds me... after bingo today, I need to see if Masterpiece is open Sunday. I'll go buy some treats and say thanks for standing up for the 1st amendment rights of religious people.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at March 24, 2019 10:59 AM (5aX2M)

244 It's just about time for me to put my pants on and head to church. I'm speaking today and the pulpit's not big enough to hide. So pants are needed.

Posted by: Northern Lurker, irritable, so very irritable. Have I mentioned I'm irritable? at March 24, 2019 10:59 AM (JgA4k)

245 231: I think religion IS the real target. If it wasn't I don't think the progs would be so pro-abortion, anti-prayer and so hellbent on removing Christianity while teaching about little old islam. The progs have broken their asses trying to push feminism and gay/lesbian stuff into the churches and synogogues too, but mainly churches.

Posted by: CN at March 24, 2019 11:00 AM (U7k5w)

246 One other comment on Horowitz' Dark Agenda. He's not anti-Catholic as can be seen by the fact that he's big on Saint Augustine.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at March 24, 2019 11:01 AM (+y/Ru)

247 He predated the modern MFM by always deferring to the rock worshippers.

Posted by: Captain Hate at March 24, 2019 09:54 AM (y7DUB)

I noticed that in Doyle's Through the Magic Door essays that were recommended here. In writing of Gibbon he never mentions the anti-Christian attitude and speaks approvingly of Gibbon's writing about muslims. They both seemed to view muslims as strong, stoic, noble, cultured, warriors even though Doyle had the example of the Sudan War and the Mahdi's followers that should have shown him the truth.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at March 24, 2019 11:01 AM (uquGJ)

248 Antemeridian greetings, bookworms.

Posted by: Insomniac at March 24, 2019 11:01 AM (NWiLs)

249 221
delurking juice helps.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 10:48 AM (n13/j)

---
People lurk for a reason. I lurked here for years and nothing was going to coax me out.

Why? Because I came here for the content and JUST the content.

Took a while to get into comments and honestly, I did that because so many of the other blogs I used to read simply vanished. Time was, a man could fill his time just going from blog to blog and reading the content. Who cared what the commenters had to say!

But a lot of those blogs are dead or ruined. NRO is dead to me and TWS is simply dead. So is Steven Den Beste, who was always a good and lengthy read. Wretchard is still around at PJ Media, but his posts are less frequent.

I could go on.

So I comment.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:01 AM (cfSRQ)

250 177 Ya'll probably already know this, but FNC's Chris Wallace is as compromised and ideologically hide-bound as any of the other alphabet channels' talking heads.
Posted by: Blutarski at March 24, 2019 10:33 AM (+Tibp)

Funny how compromise always move to the Progressive side of the argument.
You start off saying The current citizens deserve a fair and safe space to work and live.
The progs then argue that the citizens will not live in Podunkville and they will not work at the chicken plant.
So the talking head agrees that a better visa system would help aliens work legally, pay taxes, and make it safer for all.
So prog says if they work, pay taxes, then they vote, get to bring over 24 family members, and get SS benefits.
So talking head agrees to Immigration Reform.
Prog know about 25% will follow law, 75% will do whatever they fuk they want and all will vote Dem!
The prog then says

Posted by: rhennigantx at March 24, 2019 11:02 AM (JFO2v)

251 There are a couple of editors and proofers out there in the horde and I can't afford any of them

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at March 24, 2019 11:02 AM (39g3+)

252 I'm reading "Our Man in Poughkeepsie: The Story of Dastardly RUSSIAN Super-Spy Carter Page Who Was So Dangerous, We Wiretapped A Presidential Campaign Four Times To Stop Him, Yet Mueller Only Mumbled A Couple Of Questions Before Cutting Him Loose To Prey On America Again!"

It takes about two years to read it.

After that, I'll be reading "Eye of Needle-Dick: The Adam Schiff Story".

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at March 24, 2019 11:03 AM (Ndje9)

253 A.H. Lloyd

Ordered your A Man of Destiny from the slave empire Amazon. I will review it, if I really like it. Good luck.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 24, 2019 11:03 AM (u82oZ)

254 There are a couple of editors and proofers out there in the horde and I can't afford any of them
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at March 24, 2019 11:02 AM (39g3+)
At first glance I thought you wrote editors and poofters. Made me raise an eyebrow.

Posted by: Northern Lurker, irritable, so very irritable. Have I mentioned I'm irritable? at March 24, 2019 11:04 AM (JgA4k)

255 Josephistan, Congratulations on getting the book-related contract. Hope a full-time job will result.

Posted by: Mrs. JTB at March 24, 2019 11:05 AM (bmdz3)

256 Time was, a man could fill his time just going from blog to blog and reading the content. Who cared what the commenters had to say!

Yeah, its sad what has happened. I don't mind so much the bloggers that retired, I just about have from my little blog. Its the ones who went stupid or crazy that are frustrating. A lot of them left blogging to write for some online publication.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at March 24, 2019 11:05 AM (39g3+)

257 josephistan

Been a bit busy. I could catch up, but not with my list of things to do. And I am savoring the prose.

If that book was written today, there would be lots of stuff about Eleanor's sex life.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 24, 2019 11:05 AM (u82oZ)

258 I've been reading Stuart MacBride's crime novels set in Aberdeen. Highly amusing and very good characters and plots IMHO. Once you understand shite means shit its smooth sailing.

Speaking of smooth sailing, I recently visited Admiral Nelson's flagship Victory preserved in drydock in Portsmouth southern England and I'm sorely tempted to reread all of the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey/Maturin novels. Maybe I'll try to find something historical on Nelson's life. In the giftshop you can get a Victory bottle opener fridge magnet (which I bought because I need one) and a fabric Christmas ornament of Nelson's mistress but I got a Royal Navy one instead because I need one of those as well. Lots of other good stuff which you 'rons and 'etts would need.

Posted by: Dirks Strewn at March 24, 2019 11:06 AM (/Fmtj)

259 Posted by: CN at March 24, 2019 11:00 AM (U7k5w)

-------

It's one of the targets. A big one. As long as there is religion, there will be allegiances besides to the States. Moreover, from a cultural standpoint, even the non-believers will understand that there are standards of ethics not dictated by the State.
The Statists view the State as G-d (and by extension, themselves, too) and there can be only one.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at March 24, 2019 11:06 AM (5aX2M)

260 I was up late last night reading "The Steel Bonnets" by George MacDonald Fraser. It's an engrossing history of the Anglo-Scottish border reivers (cattle and sheep rustlers) who terrorized northern England and southern Scotland during the Elizabethan and Stuart eras.

The Grahams, Armstrongs, Johnstones, and Maxwells (to name just a few of the most powerful clans) were the Corleone family in doublets and hose and in shittier weather. They murdered, plundered, and blackmailed not only other powerful, predatory families, but poor and humble people. A wretched hive of villainy and scum truly does describe the Borders in those days.

A really absorbing book- the author is the same man who wrote the "Flashman" series of novels, so you know it's well written.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&&V. at March 24, 2019 11:06 AM (d6Ksn)

261 At first glance I thought you wrote editors and poofters. Made me raise an eyebrow.

What a man or a woman does with their books in their private time is no business of mine.

I think religion IS the real target.

I don't think it is so intentionally, at least not for most leftists. I think they are whispered to by their Lord and Master and think its a good leftist idea without recognizing the hellish origins of the scheme.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at March 24, 2019 11:07 AM (39g3+)

262 Morons in Ohio ought to check out the Book Loft in Columbus, Ohio's
Germantown - a marvelous warren of book shelves stocked to the brim. I
picked up Jim Butcher's Brief Cases while there - a collection of
Dresden File short stories to tide me over until his next novel appears.
=====

Darnitall, I meant to recommend Jim Butcher's Chicago Wizard series to teenagers. Very well done (haven't read the last few) and my reading kidlet devoured them as an early teen. As they are shelved in the 'adult' section of the library, she felt very grownup and kept reading until the 'curse of the high school lit class requirements' hit.

Posted by: mustbequantum at March 24, 2019 11:08 AM (MIKMs)

263 211
...Joseph Courtemanche's Assault on St. Agnes...
Posted by: CarolnaGirl at March 24, 2019 10:43 AM (tYKlt)
_____

That name rang a bell, so I did some DDGing.

Courtemance was Russell Kirk's wife's maiden name. I also came across this, from her brother, Regis. It's a short clip, from 1995, about patriotism. I recommend giving up the 4 minutes, as he hits quite a few of the points people like Trump, Carlson, and Anton are making.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShakEISzBCM

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 11:09 AM (VaN/j)

264 231: I think religion IS the real target. If it
wasn't I don't think the progs would be so pro-abortion, anti-prayer and
so hellbent on removing Christianity while teaching about little old
islam. The progs have broken their asses trying to push feminism and
gay/lesbian stuff into the churches and synogogues too, but mainly
churches.

Posted by: CN at March 24, 2019 11:00 AM (U7k5w)

---
Everything old is new again.

During the persecutions under Diocletian, Christians were dragged in front of an altar and told to burn some incense and pour a libation. Pretty simple stuff. Spoon the power into the fire pot and pour out some wine.

Do that, and you can go about your business. Refuse, and you die.

That's what the left is doing now. Surrender your beliefs and we'll leave you alone. Keep them and we'll ruin you.

That's why the ACLU is suing to make Catholic hospitals perform abortions. They keep losing the cases because there are ample alternatives out there, but all it takes is a single activist judge to win the day.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:10 AM (cfSRQ)

265 191 Retief

Welcome.

What is the current uniform of the day?

Until I was in the service, I just chuckled at those throw-away lines. Then I understood, and they became much funnier.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 24, 2019 11:10 AM (u82oZ)

266 Big Fraser fan here. He has a bio about his time as a 19-year old Scot fighting in the Burma campaign in the British Army.

His Flashman novels are a critique of Empire.

His novel Mr American shows how he admired Americans above the Anglo-Saxons in England.

Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 11:10 AM (1UZdv)

267 Trying to think of books for young girls, boys I know lots because I was one once.
V. Clausewitz- On War is only one I can think of, might as well start early.

Posted by: Skip at March 24, 2019 11:10 AM (BbGew)

268 Retief

Good to see another aficionado of quality SF o the blog.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 24, 2019 11:10 AM (u82oZ)

269 209 I heard that Norwegian cruise ship that was in trouble yesterday got its propulsion system figured out before the whole shebang got dashed on the rocks of the Norwegian coast. But not before airlifting a handful of passengers off by helicopter.
Anyone else hear any news about it?
Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at March 24, 2019 10:42 AM (w7KSn)
_____

Edgar Allan Poe covered it.

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 11:11 AM (VaN/j)

270 John C Wright wrote a great trilogy early on that should've just kicked in the doors of SF.

Great imagination. Interesting characters. Nice far future extrapolation.

The first book is:

"The Golden Age"

Check it out.

Posted by: naturalfake at March 24, 2019 11:11 AM (CRRq9)

271 And, like it or not, the US did not have a strategic objective in finding justice for Jews - Nuremberg was a convenient fig leaf for de-Nazification.

Our new long-term goal was eradication of Communism in Western Europe, and that was goal that we shared with the erstwhile Nazi Reich.

-
Those who like sausages and foreign policy shouldn't watch either being made.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at March 24, 2019 11:11 AM (+y/Ru)

272 I'm really hoping the "500 error" fix listed above solves my iPad posting problems.

Here goes nothing...

Posted by: PabloD at March 24, 2019 11:11 AM (ZJfXm)

273 I think communist regimes are, by necessity, atheistic. The state has to the beginning and the end of all things-the alpha and omega of life.
Anything claiming higher authority than the state must be quashed.

Posted by: Northern Lurker, irritable, so very irritable. Have I mentioned I'm irritable? at March 24, 2019 11:11 AM (JgA4k)

274 Woo Hoo!!!

Posted by: PabloD at March 24, 2019 11:12 AM (ZJfXm)

275 253
A.H. Lloyd

Ordered your A Man of Destiny from the slave empire Amazon. I will review it, if I really like it. Good luck.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 24, 2019 11:03 AM (u82oZ)

---
Thanks! If you keep reading, please please please also rate the other books in the series. There seems to be a falloff where people rate just the first one.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:12 AM (cfSRQ)

276 But a lot of those blogs are dead or ruined. NRO is dead to me and TWS is simply dead. So is Steven Den Beste, who was always a good and lengthy read.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:01 AM (cfSRQ

When I first heard that SDB had passed, I should have installed one of those "web-crawling" apps and hoovered up the entire USS Clueless site. Many of his essays were simply brilliant.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at March 24, 2019 11:14 AM (rz9v+)

277 I noticed that in Doyle's Through the Magic Door
essays that were recommended here. In writing of Gibbon he never
mentions the anti-Christian attitude and speaks approvingly of Gibbon's
writing about muslims. They both seemed to view muslims as strong,
stoic, noble, cultured, warriors even though Doyle had the example of
the Sudan War and the Mahdi's followers that should have shown him the
truth.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at March 24, 2019 11:01 AM (uquGJ)

---
Islam (like paganism) benefited from the exotic feeling of being "the other."

Gibbon and Doyle lived in a time when churchgoing and the religious calendar were deeply woven into day-to-day life. It was bracing for them to imagine something new and more vigorous, even if their conception was ultimately wrong.

People do that today, of course. The left is all about how AWFUL things are, without any clear idea of what will replace it. They just know that hate western culture and are totally convinced that something better is out there.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:15 AM (cfSRQ)

278 Has any lurker actually de-lurked yet?
Posted by: OregonMuse.

******

127 & 134 I believe

Posted by: Muldoon at March 24, 2019 11:15 AM (m45I2)

279 I know a lot of people here like bashing Ann Coulter but I'm re-reading How to Talk to a Liberal. She nailed it with a sledge hammer.

Posted by: Can't resist temptation at March 24, 2019 11:15 AM (2DOZq)

280 I brought up a couple of times Amazon not allowing me to review a book because I did not exceed a spending limit. Never had a response yes, no, it can happen, doesn't happen to me, it's a scam or whatever.

Posted by: Skip at March 24, 2019 11:15 AM (BbGew)

281 After that, I'll be reading "Eye of Needle-Dick: The Adam Schiff Story".

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at March 24, 2019 11:03 AM (Ndje9)

Are you sure the title didn't say Bill Kristol?

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at March 24, 2019 11:18 AM (rz9v+)

282 I could go on.

So I comment.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:01 AM (cfSRQ)

My experience is similar. I had a list of places I checked and that list got smaller and smaller over time. The names are not the same but it is the same situation. I don't do fakebook so that is a a complete non-starter. There is insty, and Drudge and Hot Air are really just by habit, really just muscle memory. I usually spend about one minute at each site. The H.A. minute has become so tedious and pointless that I am going to end it for good. Drudge is just to make sure we are not in some major war all of a sudden.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 11:18 AM (n13/j)

283 246 One other comment on Horowitz' Dark Agenda. He's not anti-Catholic as can be seen by the fact that he's big on Saint Augustine.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at March 24, 2019 11:01 AM (+y/Ru)
______

St Augustine was the favorite Catholic of virtually all the early Reformers. Sort of their equivalent of George Orwell to us nowadays.

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 11:19 AM (VaN/j)

284 Anything claiming higher authority than the state must be quashed.
Posted by: Northern Lurker, irritable, so very irritable. Have I mentioned I'm irritable? at March 24, 2019 11:11 AM (JgA4k)

----

I don't know why I've been thinking of Ceausescu so much lately, but I have.

Because of his nationalism, he was an odd Communist that never banned the Church, so central to Romanian national character.

But, he hated it. He hated it so much, that in downtown Bucharest, he had the ancient churches picked up and moved a couple hundred yards back. Then, he had brutalist apartment blocks built facing the street, blocking the churches from view along his commonly used routes.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at March 24, 2019 11:19 AM (5aX2M)

285 One of the truly dangerous things about this whole banning the electoral college idea is, the people advocating for it are so convinced of their undeniable, perpetual rightness, they think once they get over this ONE tiny problem, they'll rule forever.

As they should.

And that, folks, is the stuff of history. Over and over, the most heinous examples of man's inhumanity toward man, are committed by those who are thoroughly convinced they are right.

The Democrat mob is a relentless atrocity, and I get so pessimistic these days because I am convinced it's not a question of if, but of when they will take over.

Posted by: BurtTC at March 24, 2019 11:20 AM (cY3LT)

286 I got impatient and delurked last week. And got a mention in this weeks post, thanks Muse!

This week I started reading Titanborn by Rhett C Bruno. I have several sci-fi ebooks from one or more sign-up-for-our-mailing-list offers, and I think that is where I got this one. Just started it, so we will see.

Posted by: DIY Daddio at March 24, 2019 11:22 AM (RJscS)

287 BurtTC my thoughts exactly

Posted by: Skip at March 24, 2019 11:22 AM (BbGew)

288 The Ds are going to get crushed in 2020.

Trump will be unleashed in a second term.

Two more SCOTUS picks, maybe three.

Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 11:23 AM (1UZdv)

289 Okay, we're pretty far into it. Not exactly book related, but worth reading. An island of sanity in Montrose County, CO, where the county commissioners have issued a 2nd Amendment sanctuary county resolution. Full text here:

http://www.montrosecounty.net/DocumentCenter/

View/13008/Resolution-11-2019_1

Remove the spaces.

Posted by: Muldoon at March 24, 2019 11:24 AM (m45I2)

290 247 He predated the modern MFM by always deferring to the rock worshippers.

Posted by: Captain Hate at March 24, 2019 09:54 AM (y7DUB)

I noticed that in Doyle's Through the Magic Door essays that were recommended here. In writing of Gibbon he never mentions the anti-Christian attitude and speaks approvingly of Gibbon's writing about muslims. They both seemed to view muslims as strong, stoic, noble, cultured, warriors even though Doyle had the example of the Sudan War and the Mahdi's followers that should have shown him the truth.
Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at March 24, 2019 11:01 AM (uquGJ)
_____

That used to be the common Brit attitude toward them. You'll find it in Kipling. Of course, they lived in a time when they were quite confident that Islam was not much danger; it was on the wane.

Even later, I've noticed that Michael Gilbert often portrays them favorable. But then it occurred to me that the one's he'd have known - the ones in Britain in the 40s - 70s, were the ones who came trying to get away from the bullshit. Very different from today's variety, as the Cubans I knew differed from today's Latin immigrants.

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 11:24 AM (VaN/j)

291 I remember Steven den Beste predicting that most of the small blogs would eventually fall by the wayside and die out, leaving only a few big blogs. He was right.

Posted by: rickl at March 24, 2019 11:24 AM (sdi6R)

292 225 211 One of the first books I ever read based on a tip from the book thread was Joseph Courtemanche's Assault on St. Agnes. I just finished re-reading it and highly recommend it to all.

Posted by: CarolnaGirl at March 24, 2019 10:43 AM (tYKlt)

Hi, thank you for delurking, glad one of the anti-500 solutions worked for you. It seemed like such a long time ago that I recommended Assault on St. Agnes. Been waiting for the sequel, too. Haven't heard from the author in ages, so who knows what's happening with it.

The author could have passed away for all I know. He wasn't a young guy.

No, he's still around and writing; supposed to have a sequel out this year. In between he took a break and published Nicholas of Haiti, a completely different story (also good.) Joseph Courtmanche has a web site - www.commotioninthepews.com.

Posted by: CarolnaGirl at March 24, 2019 11:25 AM (tYKlt)

293 "I know a lot of people here like bashing Ann Coulter"

I'm actually kind of glad Trump get's some push back from the right on things like immigration and our interventionist policies. It's her typical Coulter brashness that pisses people off but they should know by now it's part of her shtick.

Posted by: lowandslow at March 24, 2019 11:25 AM (gNCcC)

294 Titiana McGrath has a book out, Woke, a Guide to Social Justice.

Has anyone read it?

Posted by: Kindltot at March 24, 2019 11:26 AM (mUa7G)

295 My experience is similar. I had a list of places I checked and that list got smaller and smaller over time. The names are not the same but it is the same situation. I don't do fakebook so that is a a complete non-starter. There is insty, and Drudge and Hot Air are really just by habit, really just muscle memory. I usually spend about one minute at each site. The H.A. minute has become so tedious and pointless that I am going to end it for good. Drudge is just to make sure we are not in some major war all of a sudden.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 11:18 AM (n13/j)

I gave up on Drudge years ago.

Here are some conservative news aggregation sites you might want to check out, maybe you'll find one you like:

http://badblue.bitnamiapp.com/trendr8.htm
https://www.whatfinger.com/
https://www.christiandailyreporter.com/

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at March 24, 2019 11:27 AM (rz9v+)

296 Anything claiming higher authority than the state must be quashed.
Posted by: Northern Lurker, irritable, so very irritable. Have I mentioned I'm irritable? at March 24, 2019 11:11 AM (JgA4k)

----

I don't know why I've been thinking of Anything claiming higher authority than the state must be quashed.
Posted by: Northern Lurker, irritable, so very irritable. Have I mentioned I'm irritable? at March 24, 2019 11:11 AM (JgA4k)

----

I don't know why I've been thinking of Ceausescu so much lately, but I have.

Because of his nationalism, he was an odd Communist that never banned the Church, so central to Romanian national character.

But, he hated it. He hated it so much, that in downtown Bucharest, he had the ancient churches picked up and moved a couple hundred yards back. Then, he had brutalist apartment blocks built facing the street, blocking the churches from view along his commonly used routes.
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at March 24, 2019 11:19 AM (5aX2M) so much lately, but I have.

Because of his nationalism, he was an odd Communist that never banned the Church, so central to Romanian national character.

But, he hated it. He hated it so much, that in downtown Bucharest, he had the ancient churches picked up and moved a couple hundred yards back. Then, he had brutalist apartment blocks built facing the street, blocking the churches from view along his commonly used routes.
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at March 24, 2019 11:19 AM (5aX2M)

Not meaning to sound like insipid George Lucas dialogue, but we hate what we fear, and we fear what we are not quite so sure is wrong. It has power over us, because it creates doubt, so we must kill it even harder... unless our eternal soul (that we are not so convinced doesn't exist) has us convinced we cannot kill.

So those who think of Ceausescu as a monster, I think it's probably true he was one of the most tortured souls on this planet. As for now... he knows. We can guess.

Posted by: BurtTC at March 24, 2019 11:27 AM (cY3LT)

297 Funny how compromise always move to the Progressive side of the argument.
______

That's baked into the liberal cake. They are incapable of seeing it any other way: their views ARE the compromise between them and their opponents.

And this goes way back, it is one common thread between the modern leftists and classical liberals. John Stuart Mill had the very same attitude.

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 11:28 AM (VaN/j)

298 About Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples.

I admire Churchill. But he was a racist, and looked down on the Celtic people in his own land. It's why he got turned out of his office as soon as his usefulness in war was over.

Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 11:28 AM (1UZdv)

299 I'm guessing (hoping) Zappa wore those clown pants ironically.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at March 24, 2019 09:03 AM (kQs4Y)

I think Frank had enough force of personality to overcome the pants.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at March 24, 2019 11:28 AM (nPGq2)

300 Hopefully, this could turn into a full time position in the future, but for now it's just contracting.
Posted by: josephistan

Best of luck with that, pal.

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2019 11:29 AM (gW+6p)

301 236 ... "One was "God, War, and Providence" by a guy named Warren. It's about Roger Williams and the formation of what has become known as" The State of Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations". ( I sojourned in Newport for a couple of years in the early '80s, so I get to call it "Little Rhody") Those Puritans were some serious folks and their need to dominate reminded me of today's Progressives in many ways."

I grew up in RI. I always thought it was cool that the state began because Roger Williams honked off the Puritans.

Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2019 11:30 AM (bmdz3)

302 Christopher Taylor, you can afford me. I do it for the sheer joy of putting words together properly. I did a partial edit of Colin Flaherty's "Don't Make the Black Kids Angry."

The only fly in the ointment is my complete lack of knowledge of editing software. I can only work with hard copy. But I'll take a shot at it if you'd like.

Posted by: creeper at March 24, 2019 11:30 AM (D7e/V)

303 A.H. Lloyd, same, used to be so many

My list I don't visit/dead, from memory, in no particular order:
Ankle Biting Pundits
Little Green Footballs
Red State
Mean Mr. Mustard
Polipundit
There was a gun guy, Rottweiler in the masthead
Andrew Sullivan

And several others I'm forgetting. By the time you read all those, you'd covered a lot of news and perspectives

Posted by: RoyalOil, Vicroy Canadian Territories at March 24, 2019 11:31 AM (TN1P5)

304 There are a whole lot of people that I'd like to see meet the same fate as the Ceausescus.

(No, not anybody here. Relax.)

Posted by: rickl at March 24, 2019 11:31 AM (sdi6R)

305 298
About Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples.

I admire Churchill. But he was a racist, and looked down on the
Celtic people in his own land. It's why he got turned out of his office
as soon as his usefulness in war was over.

Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 11:28 AM (1UZdv)

---
That being the case, how do you explain his comeback?

You know, he did do a second stint as prime minister after Labour made a hash of things.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:31 AM (cfSRQ)

306 It's why he got turned out of his office as soon as his usefulness in war was over.

He got turfed out for the same reason that the gunfighter who saves a town from villains is run out of town: people want that kinda guy when its dangerous and they need help, but then they're ashamed they needed him and fear him afterward.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at March 24, 2019 11:31 AM (39g3+)

307 So those who think of Ceausescu as a monster, I think it's probably true he was one of the most tortured souls on this planet. As for now... he knows. We can guess.
Posted by: BurtTC at March 24, 2019 11:27 AM (cY3LT)

His wife was nice.

Reminds of me someone, I just can't place it.

Something about slabs of meat.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at March 24, 2019 11:31 AM (Z+IKu)

308 And, for interested Colorado Morons a link to the webpage of the group petitioning to get repeal of the National Popular Vote law onto the ballot for next year.

https://www.coloradansvote.org

You can volunteer to circulate petition for signatures here:

https://www.coloradansvote.org/volunteer

Posted by: Muldoon at March 24, 2019 11:32 AM (m45I2)

309 Classical English Metaphor by Ward Farnsworth
Excellent analysis of the writing techniques that can make words more memorable and persuasive, with lots of reminders of how fabulous Churchill was.

Posted by: LASue at March 24, 2019 11:32 AM (XROPS)

310 281 After that, I'll be reading "Eye of Needle-Dick: The Adam Schiff Story".

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at March 24, 2019 11:03 AM (Ndje9)

Are you sure the title didn't say Bill Kristol?
Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at March 24, 2019 11:18 AM (rz9v+)
_____

Needles are too rigid for the Captain.

BTW, and not related, I have found that as I age I go into stretches where my reading ability declines. I will then (and one is going on now) have a stretch where nothing very rigorous takes hold. My solution is usually rereading Lewis and Chesterton. (And Bill James.)

But I don't like it. This round I honestly attribute to Satan, as I meant to dive into the Summa, plus an old (that is good) Jesuit commentary on St Paul.

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 11:34 AM (VaN/j)

311 Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:01 AM (cfSRQ)

My experience is similar. I had a list of places I checked and that list got smaller and smaller over time. The names are not the same but it is the same situation. I don't do fakebook so that is a a complete non-starter. There is insty, and Drudge and Hot Air are really just by habit, really just muscle memory. I usually spend about one minute at each site. The H.A. minute has become so tedious and pointless that I am going to end it for good. Drudge is just to make sure we are not in some major war all of a sudden.
Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 11:18 AM (n13/j)

Same here - it's amazing how much is gone. I used to comment at HA, gave that up when they went to the FB commenting sytem (drove away 90% of their readership with that, I think). Now when I do look there I realize AP is always posting something from the Cuckshead. And then there's people like Patcucksico who have gone total Never-T and thrown away every scrap of reputation they ever had because of it.

But, ironically, due to the big shake out, this Blog right here has now, kind of quietly and unexpectedly, become the Heart of today's online conservative movement. (I would never say "Republican", because so many idiots are working so hard to destroy that word now.)

Posted by: Tom Servo at March 24, 2019 11:35 AM (V2Yro)

312 265 NaCly Dog

Protocol calls for the Midmorning Semiformal Post Coffee Uniform, with Awards, Sword Optional.

For those wondering, Salty is referencing the source material for my Nom de Plume, Keith Laumer's excellent Retief series from the 60's. Baen republished them in an omnibus a few years ago, and Laumer's incisive, hilarious sarcasm is in my mind the very essence of A0S Moronitude.

Posted by: Retief at March 24, 2019 11:35 AM (yBQiw)

313 Not meaning to sound like insipid George Lucas
dialogue, but we hate what we fear, and we fear what we are not quite so
sure is wrong. It has power over us, because it creates doubt, so we
must kill it even harder... unless our eternal soul (that we are not so
convinced doesn't exist) has us convinced we cannot kill.

Posted by: BurtTC at March 24, 2019 11:27 AM (cY3LT)

---
This is why "tolerance" isn't enough for the cultural left. They want actual endorsement because it not only breaks their enemies, it quiets their own restless consciences.

Abortion means killing a human being, and that's a shameful act. Thus the left now wants everyone else to endorse it, thinking that if everyone says it isn't shameful, they won't feel shame.

But deep down, they know the truth.

I find it fascinating how so many of the original litigants in Roe v. Wade ended up entering the Church and seeking forgiveness after the fact.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:36 AM (cfSRQ)

314 One reaason I like reading history is it puts our problems in perspective. You think you have it bad? Imagine being a poor farmer on the Anglo-Scottish border in the 15th century, living in a hovel with maybe 10 head of cattle. Every single night, you fear that a band of cattle rustlers from a powerful clan like the Armstrongs or Grahams are going to swoop down on your family, steal every single thing you own. and burn down your home Fight back and they might burn you along with your home. There is no welfare state. The authorities aren't much interested in helping you. Life was like that on the borders, not for one or two years, but for generations.

On the lighter side, I remember I once worked with a Johnston and a Maxwell in the same office. I liked them both, but they didn't like either other at all. I wonder if they knew their ancestors had really, really, really not liked each other. The Johnstons' idea of interior decoration was to adorn the walls of their castle with the flayed skins of Maxwells . The modern day Johnston and Maxwell I knew confined themselves to glares and grumbling under their breath about each other, so I guess that's progress.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&&V. at March 24, 2019 11:37 AM (d6Ksn)

315 Long time lurker here. I recently read Declan Finns Saint Tommy series. Police officer Tommy Nolan discovers he has some unusual powers, bilocation and ability to smell evil two examples. He is told by his priest that he has these powers because he will be a saint. A demon appears and the action starts. I enjoyed them because Tommy is a good man-full of faith and love. He struggles with the saint part because he does not believe he is that good of a man. So he is also humble. His wife and son are awesome, too. Unlike too many books today, Catholics are good people, abortion fanatics are not. Lots of action and I really enjoyed them.

I would not recommend to friends who are liberal, they would be offended.

I was wondering if there are any morons in the Texas Panhandle area Lubbock and Amarillo. It would be fun to meet up and talk books.

Thank you to Oregon Muse for his hard work on the book thread. My Sundays are not complete unless I have checked it out. I also enjoy the Morons comments and have a TBR list I will never get through. Blessings to you all!

Posted by: Flaming Tumbleweed at March 24, 2019 11:39 AM (iasrR)

316 I gave up on Drudge years ago.

Here are some conservative news aggregation sites you might want to check out, maybe you'll find one you like:

http://badblue.bitnamiapp.com/trendr8.htm

https://www.whatfinger.com/

https://www.christiandailyreporter.com/

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader Pants Monitor at March 24, 2019 11:27 AM (rz9v+)

Thanks OregonMuse, I appreciate the reccos I am trying to remember some of the sites I used to check out. There was the original RS, and powerline. I remember a site called Captains Quarter's blog that I think went away. Another was Flopping Aces. It looks like that site is still around. I can't vouch for any of these because I have not read them in years. There is that one site that that we all know changed sides overnight, I won't mention the name. And I am not talking Kristol.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 11:40 AM (n13/j)

317 OM - just joining the thread so maybe this has already been posted.
Re: Steven Den Beste - https://sdb.dotclue.org/archives.shtml

Posted by: Tonypete at March 24, 2019 11:40 AM (Y4EXg)

318 288 The Ds are going to get crushed in 2020.

Trump will be unleashed in a second term.

Two more SCOTUS picks, maybe three.
Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 11:23 AM (1UZdv)

I wish I could be as confident. The fraud on the Dems side in 2020 will be massive.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&&V. at March 24, 2019 11:40 AM (d6Ksn)

319 Since I have never posted on the Book Thread, I will identify as a Lurker.

In college I took a course for the mathematically-challenged (in my case, retarded) to satisfy the math requirement. The course was on topology. The subject was mesmerizing. It took me to a book titled Dots and Lines, by Richard J. Trudeau. Became one of my favorite books.

Posted by: French Jeton at March 24, 2019 11:41 AM (Fjvqd)

320 In 1951, British Labour got more votes than Churchill's conservatives, even after bollixing things while in power.

And yes, Churchill was a racist, and saw gradations of worth even among his own people, which nicely tied to their historic support for his beloved Empire.

Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 11:41 AM (1UZdv)

321 Since we're on a book thread...

Brideshead Revisited contains a lot of truth in its pages. You can quote it all over the place, but I want to focus on where Lord Marchmain is dying.

The family is still nominally Catholic, but the old man has turned his back on the Church and each time a priest comes, he's sent away.

To Charles Ryder, this is as it should be. The Church is medieval, useless and the priest is standing like a vulture. Why can't they let the man die in peace?

But when Lord Marchmain does finally take communion and repent of his sin, it spells the end of Charles' relationship with his daughter because he's now provided a positive example at long last.

Charles also comes to understand that life isn't about what WE want, but what is required of us.

The left is like Charles (who represents what Waugh used to be): not just content to sin, but demanding that other endorse it. When that endorsement doesn't come, it's shattering.

A lot of the left's machinations are designed to keep people from repentance.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:43 AM (cfSRQ)

322 I admire Churchill. But he was a racist, and looked down on the
Celtic people in his own land. It's why he got turned out of his office
as soon as his usefulness in war was over.

Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 11:28 AM (1UZdv)

---
That being the case, how do you explain his comeback?

You know, he did do a second stint as prime minister after Labour made a hash of things.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:31 AM (cfSRQ)

Racist? Is Irish a race?

I'm not going to say the man was perfect, or didn't have some beliefs that might not fly today, but perhaps... just perhaps, the guy wasn't so fond of the Irish, because they spent much of the 30s (and 40s) playing footsie with guys like Al Hilter.

I wasn't alive then, but I can kinda see why that might have turned him off toward those people.

Posted by: BurtTC at March 24, 2019 11:43 AM (cY3LT)

323 258 I've been reading Stuart MacBride's crime novels set in Aberdeen. Highly amusing and very good characters and plots IMHO. Once you understand shite means shit its smooth sailing.

Speaking of smooth sailing, I recently visited Admiral Nelson's flagship Victory preserved in drydock in Portsmouth southern England and I'm sorely tempted to reread all of the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey/Maturin novels. Maybe I'll try to find something historical on Nelson's life. In the giftshop you can get a Victory bottle opener fridge magnet (which I bought because I need one) and a fabric Christmas ornament of Nelson's mistress but I got a Royal Navy one instead because I need one of those as well. Lots of other good stuff which you 'rons and 'etts would need.
Posted by: Dirks Strewn at March 24, 2019 11:06 AM (/Fmtj)
______

Envy. Envy. Envy.

That's one pilgrimage I know I will never make, alas.

If you haven't read it, I cannot recommend too highly N A M Rodger's Command of the Ocean, which covers the RN 1649- 1815. It really is the best history of the era I know.

One good bio of Nelson, which isn't too long, is Bennett's Nelson the Commander.

BTW, the line O'Brain cites "Never mind maneuvers, just go straight at them" comes from Cochrane, who is not a reliable source. It misrepresents Nelson's actual views (ask the Ca Ira's captain).

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 11:44 AM (VaN/j)

324 Of course it's the well known '500' error

I can haz post?

Posted by: crisis du jour at March 24, 2019 11:45 AM (L8DUW)

325 320
In 1951, British Labour got more votes than Churchill's conservatives, even after bollixing things while in power.

And yes, Churchill was a racist, and saw gradations of worth even
among his own people, which nicely tied to their historic support for
his beloved Empire.

Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 11:41 AM (1UZdv)

---
Good thing PMs aren't chosen by popular vote, eh?

By the way, was Churchill substantively wrong about India turning into a basket case upon independence?

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:45 AM (cfSRQ)

326 Yes! I can has post!

Posted by: crisis du jour at March 24, 2019 11:45 AM (L8DUW)

327 They both seemed to view muslims as strong, stoic, noble, cultured, warriors even though Doyle had the example of the Sudan War and the Mahdi's followers that should have shown him the truth.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at March 24, 2019 11:01 AM (uquGJ)
_____

That used to be the common Brit attitude toward them. You'll find it in Kipling. Of course, they lived in a time when they were quite confident that Islam was not much danger; it was on the wane.

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 11:24 AM (VaN/j)

The British were aware that Islam was an existential threat from at least 1894, when Turkish Muslims began the genocide of Armenian Christians. Read Greenmantle by John Buchan, which was a bestseller in 1916, or Peter Hopkirk's Like Hidden Fire, an excellent history of that period.

If only Americans today were as aware of the danger as the British were then.

Posted by: cool breeze at March 24, 2019 11:45 AM (UGKMd)

328 Thanks, OM

Posted by: crisis du jour at March 24, 2019 11:46 AM (L8DUW)

329 " The Johnstons' idea of interior decoration was to adorn the walls of their castle with the flayed skins of Maxwells "

You mean the Boltons

Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 11:46 AM (1UZdv)

330 Barrel save?

Posted by: cool breeze at March 24, 2019 11:46 AM (UGKMd)

331 Not meaning to sound like insipid George Lucas
dialogue, but we hate what we fear, and we fear what we are not quite so
sure is wrong. It has power over us, because it creates doubt, so we
must kill it even harder... unless our eternal soul (that we are not so
convinced doesn't exist) has us convinced we cannot kill.

Posted by: BurtTC at March 24, 2019 11:27 AM (cY3LT)

---
This is why "tolerance" isn't enough for the cultural left. They want actual endorsement because it not only breaks their enemies, it quiets their own restless consciences.

Abortion means killing a human being, and that's a shameful act. Thus the left now wants everyone else to endorse it, thinking that if everyone says it isn't shameful, they won't feel shame.

But deep down, they know the truth.

I find it fascinating how so many of the original litigants in Roe v. Wade ended up entering the Church and seeking forgiveness after the fact.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:36 AM (cfSRQ)

Yeah, humans basically have two options: Seek redemption for our sins, through love, or be destroyed by our hate. If not in this life, then the next.

Posted by: BurtTC at March 24, 2019 11:46 AM (cY3LT)

332

Posted by: crisis du jour at March 24, 2019 11:46 AM (L8DUW)

333 You're lucky the Barrel sleeps in late on Sundays; otherwise he would have plucked your soul.

Posted by: PabloD at March 24, 2019 11:47 AM (ZJfXm)

334 ''Thanks OregonMuse, I appreciate the reccos I am trying to remember some of the sites I used to check out. There was the original RS, and powerline. I remember a site called Captains Quarter's blog that I think went away.''

The guy that did Captains Quarters went over to Hot Air which is a hot mess of Never Trump.

Posted by: Tuna at March 24, 2019 11:47 AM (jm1YL)

335 Book I have read this week - Rising Sun, Falling Skies by Jeffrey R. Cox.

The book is about the short and brutal life of the US Asiatic Fleet and ABDA in the defense of Singapore, the Philippines, and the Netherlands East Indies during the first few months of the Pacific War. How bad luck, lack of air power, lack of support, and other factors doomed their valiant efforts.

One wonders after reading this book what might have happened if in those precious early hours of 8 December 1941 Douglas MacArthur had not apparently fallen to pieces and had ordered his small force of B-17 bombers to strike the Japanese air bases on Formosa when the Japanese had been socked in due to fog. Or if the British had not sortied Prince of Wales and Repulse while truly defending the landward approaches to Singapore. What if USS Boise, equipped with radar and 15 6in guns, had not gashed her bottom; how would such a modern warship have affected the fate of HMS Exeter, HMAS Perth, or that of USS Houston? If American admiral Glassford had been sunk on the first day of the war, how would things have gone different since Admiral Hart did not trust his judgement; Glassford was such a man that when he succeeded Hart he threw a promotion party for himself in a war zone, after Java finally fell he was assigned a post in the Atlantic theater and thus to obscurity. What also becomes clear is USS Langley was sentenced to a watery grave before the first Japanese aircraft found her because the Dutch admiral Helfrich kept changing the ship's orders and thus delayed their arrival until it was inevitable for the Japanese to find her.

On the downside, this book needed at least one more pass by a proofreader and editor. On one occasion a US destroyer's name is not placed in italics while some pages later the name of the captain of a Royal Navy warship is. A few of his paragraphs need cleaning up to make his meaning more clear, for example a British destroyer suffering another engine fire that forced it out action took a couple reads by me to suss out that meaning. Cox also spends quite a few pages trying to get into the mind of Admiral Karel Doorman to explain the Admiral's actions when going into battle, this after admitting that there is not much information to go on. Doorman went down with his light cruiser flag ship De Ruyter.

If you can't locate a copy of Edwin P. Hoyt's book The Lonely Ships: The Life and Death of the US Asiatic Fleet, then get Cox's book.

Final note, Cox mentions something that I have mentioned in the past and that Hornfischer in Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors did not in regards to the loss of USS Gambier Bay. He talks about how USS Hornet was captured by the Japanese who then had to sink her. Cox also mentions the sinking by naval gunfire of the British carrier HMS Glorious by the German fast battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.

Posted by: Anna Puma at March 24, 2019 11:47 AM (RJHwk)

336 There was a gun guy, Rottweiler in the masthead

Posted by: RoyalOil, Vicroy Canadian Territories at March 24, 2019 11:31 AM (TN1P5)

I think that was the blog that called itself the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler. Don't know if it's still around.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at March 24, 2019 11:47 AM (rz9v+)

337 I still check in on Grouchy Old Cripple From Atlanta every Friday just to see who he selected for his "Asshole Of The Week Award". Mad Maxine, Schumer, and others have been repeat recipients. This Friday it was James Clyburn. Denny doesn't have the traffic Ace has, but his commentary can be very biting and on-point at times.

I still miss The Other Side Of Kim. Getting kicked off Little Green Footballs was what brought me here years ago.

Posted by: thatcrazyjerseyguy at March 24, 2019 11:48 AM (9YBqo)

338 Racist? Is Irish a race?

I'm not going to say the man was perfect, or didn't have some
beliefs that might not fly today, but perhaps... just perhaps, the guy
wasn't so fond of the Irish, because they spent much of the 30s (and
40s) playing footsie with guys like Al Hilter.

I wasn't alive then, but I can kinda see why that might have turned him off toward those people.

Posted by: BurtTC at March 24, 2019 11:43 AM (cY3LT)

---
The Brits hate everyone around them. It's part of their culture. The Welsh are sheep-shaggers, the Scots eat porridge with their fingers, the Irish are pope-worshippers, etc.

Those groups in turn slag on the English, who also look down their noses at the blokes from the village next door.

The term "racist" is almost worthless as a descriptor, and throwing it at Churchill merely clouds issues.

His riffs on the Germans and French are also biting and probably worse than anything he ever wrote about Africans or Indians.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:48 AM (cfSRQ)

339 Good thing PMs aren't chosen by popular vote, eh?

By the way, was Churchill substantively wrong about India turning into a basket case upon independence?
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:45 AM (cfSRQ)

Churchill also saw Gandhi as a rotten little fraud. Not because Churchill was rayciss, but because Gandhi was, indeed, a rotten little fraud.

Posted by: BurtTC at March 24, 2019 11:49 AM (cY3LT)

340 I still miss The Other Side Of Kim. Getting kicked off Little Green Footballs was what brought me here years ago.
Posted by: thatcrazyjerseyguy at March 24, 2019 11:48 AM (9YBqo)

Is that Kim DuToit? If so, he's still alive and kicking:

http://www.kimdutoit.com/

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at March 24, 2019 11:49 AM (rz9v+)

341 Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 11:41 AM (1UZdv)

types
deletes.

I am not jumping into this without knowing the context.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 11:50 AM (n13/j)

342 I wish I could be as confident. The fraud on the Dems side in 2020 will be massive.+++++++++++++
Agreed. And can already imagine the spineless GOP exclaiming how "for the good of this deeply fissured country, we must accept the results unquestioningly and with good faith." Back to losing like gentlemen.

Posted by: Old Dude at March 24, 2019 11:50 AM (LGXGf)

343 Racist? Is Irish a race?

-
More of a marathon. A wiskey marathon.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at March 24, 2019 11:51 AM (+y/Ru)

344 24 I read Captain John Paul Jones' "Extracts from the Journals of my Campaigns". That guy really got around. I had never heard of his idea to do raids on England during the Revolutionary war.
Good if you are interested in the Revolutionary War, Navy, etc.

It's free here:

https://www.americanrevolution.org/jpj.php
Posted by: freaked at March 24, 2019 09:09 AM (UdKB7)
----------------
I knew about his raids, but had no idea a journal of his was in print! My kids will love it: we're all fans of his.
Thank you!

Posted by: Brunette the 'Ette at March 24, 2019 11:51 AM (RQs5n)

345 Racist? Is Irish a race?

I'm not going to say the man was perfect, or didn't have some beliefs that might not fly today, but perhaps... just perhaps, the guy wasn't so fond of the Irish, because they spent much of the 30s (and
40s) playing footsie with guys like Al Hilter.

I wasn't alive then, but I can kinda see why that might have turned him off toward those people.

Posted by: BurtTC at March 24, 2019 11:43 AM (cY3LT)

---
The Brits hate everyone around them. It's part of their culture. The Welsh are sheep-shaggers, the Scots eat porridge with their fingers, the Irish are pope-worshippers, etc.

Those groups in turn slag on the English, who also look down their noses at the blokes from the village next door.

The term "racist" is almost worthless as a descriptor, and throwing it at Churchill merely clouds issues.

His riffs on the Germans and French are also biting and probably worse than anything he ever wrote about Africans or Indians.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:48 AM (cfSRQ)

Yeah, it looks more like internal family squabbles to me, but I'm not British, like the Irish are.

Seems to me, the Irish owe the rest of the family an apology for siding with the nazis. Until then, they're wrong and the English are right. Period. Everything else is immaterial.

Posted by: BurtTC at March 24, 2019 11:51 AM (cY3LT)

346 317 OM - just joining the thread so maybe this has already been posted.
Re: Steven Den Beste - https://sdb.dotclue.org/archives.shtml

Posted by: Tonypete at March 24, 2019 11:40 AM (Y4EXg)

Oh my. There it is. I had no idea this existed. You, sir, are a great American.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at March 24, 2019 11:52 AM (rz9v+)

347 The library photo: That's Duke Humfrey's Library:
http://tinyurl.com/yy3vsph8

...which is one of the reading rooms of the Old Bodelian Library:
http://tinyurl.com/yxhobpw4

Posted by: pst314 at March 24, 2019 11:53 AM (iRbDn)

348 I never tire of one Fish, Two Fish.

Posted by: Chompers Guevara at March 24, 2019 11:54 AM (EgshT)

349 Was Ireland considered an Axis ally during the war?
I'd heard that they were simply unaffiliated.
If they sided with the Axis it was because fook the Brits...

Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at March 24, 2019 11:54 AM (w7KSn)

350 Just started The Place of the Lion, by Williams, a CS Lewis friend. I've read mixed reviews, and that's usually a good sign.

Posted by: CN at March 24, 2019 11:54 AM (U7k5w)

351 Churchill had a complicated history with Ireland that started with his inheriting his fathers support for the Northern Unionists.

The Black and Tans were his bright idea for suppressing the Irish rebellion, and it backfired. He forced peace terms that included homage to the King, that caused an Irish Civil War, and later repudiation by de Valera. He blamed the Irish for their reaction to his own racist Imperialism.

Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 11:55 AM (1UZdv)

352 Was Ireland considered an Axis ally during the war?
I'd heard that they were simply unaffiliated.
If they sided with the Axis it was because fook the Brits...
Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at March 24, 2019 11:54 AM (w7KSn)

I think it might be fair to say the Irish were "neutral" in much the same way we were neutral... until the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.

Posted by: BurtTC at March 24, 2019 11:56 AM (cY3LT)

353 The Republic of Ireland was officially neutral during WWII. Though some were rooting for the Nazis. Thankfully the German agents sent to cause trouble were idiots who tended to be promptly caught once ashore. Of course can't forget to mention Operation Kathleen.

Posted by: Anna Puma at March 24, 2019 11:57 AM (RJHwk)

354 349 Was Ireland considered an Axis ally during the war?
I'd heard that they were simply unaffiliated.
If they sided with the Axis it was because fook the Brits...
Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at March 24, 2019 11:54 AM (w7KSn)

I have heard that the Irish hated the British so much, they were pretty much pro-Nazi during WWII. There are apparently a couple of airfields in Ireland that our Air Force wanted to use, but no, they were off-limits.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at March 24, 2019 11:57 AM (rz9v+)

355 345
Seems to me, the Irish owe the rest of the family an apology for siding with the nazis. Until then, they're wrong and the English are right. Period. Everything else is immaterial.
Posted by: BurtTC at March 24, 2019 11:51 AM (cY3LT)

The Irish were probably still pissed off at the Brits from the shit that went down in the 17th century.

Posted by: rickl at March 24, 2019 11:57 AM (sdi6R)

356 349
Was Ireland considered an Axis ally during the war?

I'd heard that they were simply unaffiliated.

If they sided with the Axis it was because fook the Brits...

Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at March 24, 2019 11:54 AM (w7KSn)

---
Ireland was bound by treaty to allow the British the use of certain ports on the western coast. This was part of the independence agreement.

In the 1930s, the appeasement governments handed these bases over to the Republic, on the understanding that they could be used to save the UK if there was another submarine threat.

This did not happen, and the Irish played footsie with the Germans, even going into official mourning on the death of Hitler.

Interestingly, the Irish Army had a problem keeping up to strength because so many of its soldiers were deserting to fight for the UK.

Not great moment in Irish history.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:58 AM (cfSRQ)

357 The guy that did Captains Quarters went over to Hot Air which is a hot mess of Never Trump.

Posted by: Tuna at March 24, 2019 11:47 AM (jm1YL)

I did not remember that. I thought it was hard core like here. I agree about Hot Air. I figured out Allah was a squish but now I think even the 2nd and 3rd tier are that way.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 11:59 AM (n13/j)

358 Is that Kim DuToit? If so, he's still alive and kicking:

http://www.kimdutoit.com/

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader Pants Monitor at March 24, 2019 11:49 AM (rz9v+)

Yep. That's the one. Kim lost quite a bit of steam after his wife passed away. She was an amazing lady. One of my favorite essays by Kim was "The Pussification Of The Western Male. Still use it to piss off feminists, Heh.

Posted by: thatcrazyjerseyguy at March 24, 2019 11:59 AM (9YBqo)

359 squish is too kind. I don't like bashing people and I don't think I am. It is pretty obvious that Allah wants the left to win.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 12:00 PM (n13/j)

360 I wanted something pretty and escapist at the moment.

Plant:Exploring the Botanical World is a collection of botanical images from the art world to micro-photography to herbarium specimans. It's a coffee table book, not for carrying on errands but it is very pretty and very escapist.

Posted by: Lirio100 at March 24, 2019 12:00 PM (JK7Jw)

361 321
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:43 AM (cfSRQ)
_____

Maybe I should take that up again, too. One thing some don't realize is that the reason Charles and Julia cannot marry is Charles's marriage. Julia's is invalid.

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 12:00 PM (VaN/j)

362 ¡Soy impresionado! My hash has changed for the first time in 5 years!

Posted by: Chompers Guevara at March 24, 2019 12:02 PM (EgshT)

363 On one point, Churchill follows the dominant opinion of his day (still dominant when I went to college) in saying that the Saxons pretty much drove out or exterminated the Britons. But now DNA seems to show that the English are mostly still of Celtic stock.

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 12:03 PM (VaN/j)

364 OM, Thanks for another book thread. I plan my Sunday mornings around it.

Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2019 12:03 PM (bmdz3)

365 It's kind of a crappy one, tho. Sigh.

Posted by: Chompers Guevara at March 24, 2019 12:03 PM (EgshT)

366 I think it might be fair to say the Irish were "neutral" in much the same way we were neutral... until the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.
Posted by: BurtTC at March 24, 2019 11:56 AM (cY3LT)

I think this is it. Maybe Irishmen "talked" up "Fook the Brits", but quietly they helped out the Allies. They had to know that once Hitler conquered Britain, they would be next.

Posted by: JoeF. at March 24, 2019 12:04 PM (NFEMn)

367 as far as the left is concerned, everyone who did not grow up with helicopter parents and SJW classes in lieu of history and civics is "complicated" and "problematic". I could tell you how Lincoln, Grant, and Eisenhower are problematic, but I won't.

I am not saying we can't question historical figures, far from it. But you can go too far with presentism. And some people we would find wrong by today's standards, personally suffered so that we have the luxury of critiquing them in a free and prosperous society.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 12:05 PM (n13/j)

368 The Republic was neutral. Comical tales of German fliers shot down who were kept as POWs in a kind of honor system.

Churchill wanted the southern Irish ports to extend his antisubmarine screen, and almost invaded. He hated that Ireland wouldn't give any support, but he was as responsible as anyone for creating the enmity.

And no one in Ireland was a secret Hitler supporter like the abdicated King Edward who spied for, and conspired with, the Nazis. I know this from watching The Queen on Netflix. Churchill buried it.

Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 12:05 PM (1UZdv)

369 Reading CIA cold war docs. Pretty dry.

Posted by: Burger Chef at March 24, 2019 12:06 PM (RuIsu)

370 Worried a little Ace is on day 8 ( sidebar) of his fasting, but as long as still hydrated guess he will eat when it's needed.

Posted by: Skip at March 24, 2019 12:06 PM (BbGew)

371
I never tire of one Fish, Two Fish.

Posted by: Chompers Guevara at March 24, 2019 11:54 AM

Girlfriend you have to 'splain the plot of that book to me sometime.

Posted by: Maxine Waters! at March 24, 2019 12:06 PM (jYje5)

372 Blue sky to the west. Things are lookin' up!

Posted by: Burger Chef at March 24, 2019 12:06 PM (RuIsu)

373 I remember Kim's essay "Let Africa Sink" from his old blog.

He mentioned a newspaper article saying that a bunch of headless bodies were found.

The next day they reported that a bunch of heads were found.

The day after that, the paper said that the heads didn't match the bodies.

Posted by: rickl at March 24, 2019 12:07 PM (sdi6R)

374 I finished "The Dark Valley" by Piers Brendan. It's an overview of the 1930s as it was experienced in Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan and Russia in successive chapters. I found it very interesting, very well written. Brendan has a nice descriptive style of writing, where he sketches various characters without judging them (with one odd exception).

Posted by: BeckoningChasm at March 24, 2019 12:08 PM (l9m7l)

375 And no one in Ireland was a secret Hitler supporter
like the abdicated King Edward who spied for, and conspired with, the
Nazis. I know this from watching The Queen on Netflix. Churchill
buried it.

Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 12:05 PM (1UZdv)

---
The Queen is full of crap. Makes up all sorts of stuff. I wouldn't cite that as an authority.

One can make the case for Sweden and Switzerland being neutral. It made absolute sense given their location.

Ireland has no such excuse. If you're going to smear Churchill, do spare some spite for Eamon De Valera, a truly nasty piece of work.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 12:10 PM (cfSRQ)

376 347 The library photo: That's Duke Humfrey's Library:
http://tinyurl.com/yy3vsph8
...which is one of the reading rooms of the Old Bodelian Library:

http://tinyurl.com/yxhobpw4
Posted by: pst314 at March 24, 2019 11:53 AM (iRbDn

So I was kind of right in my guess. Thank you for this more complete info.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at March 24, 2019 12:10 PM (rz9v+)

377 One Fish, Two Fish, I get .. all your fish.

There were a bunch of AOC's favorite books posted awhile back.

Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 12:10 PM (1UZdv)

378 And no one in Ireland was a secret Hitler supporter
like the abdicated King Edward who spied for, and conspired with, the
Nazis. I know this from watching The Queen on Netflix. Churchill
buried it.

Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 12:05 PM (1UZdv)

Well, nobody except de Valera. And a lot of other Irishmen.

Spare us the revisionism.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at March 24, 2019 12:11 PM (wYseH)

379 335
Posted by: Anna Puma at March 24, 2019 11:47 AM (RJHwk)
_______

One fun book on that is The Ghost That Died at Sunda Strait. I'm not all sure about accuracy though, it's very much a work dedicated to building up our performance.

H P Wilmot wrote a good book about the period, before he had a stroke or went gaga. (The Last Century of Naval Warfare is simply appalling. The first two vols are the worst writing on naval history I have ever encountered.)

One thing I am convinced of - and ABDA is an example - is that you cannot combine fleets of two allies UNLESS one simply accepts subordinating itself completely to the major partner. As the Brits did when they joined our Pacific Fleet(s), or we did in WWII.

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 12:11 PM (VaN/j)

380 He also threw in a refrain of Your Religion Is Dumb And I Am Smart, which naturally includes lots of insults directed at the Catholic Church.

Gibbon famously gave the rise of Christianity as one of the reasons for the fall of the Western Empire. Supposedly its superstitions and meekness eroded the pagan virtues that made the Roman Republic great.

Of course anyone with even a passing knowledge of paganism knows that the Romans were notoriously superstitious, worrying (and placating) gods here, there and everywhere. Every river had its own god, and the most important decisions of state often rested on cutting open a goat, or a pigeon or some other animal and examining its entrails.

"The liver is healthy! We march tonight!"

Currently he's mocking all of the successor peoples for being stupid and despising liberty. Why couldn't they all be enlightened gentlemen like Gibbon?

He had some great passages early on, but this is just awful.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 09:28 AM (cfSRQ)

Gibbon was a man of his time and he reflected the prejudices of his age.

Posted by: JoeF. at March 24, 2019 12:12 PM (NFEMn)

381 Seems to me, the Irish owe the rest of the family an apology for siding with the nazis. Until then, they're wrong and the English are right. Period. Everything else is immaterial.
Posted by: BurtTC at March 24, 2019 11:51 AM (cY3LT)

The Irish were probably still pissed off at the Brits from the shit that went down in the 17th century.
Posted by: rickl at March 24, 2019 11:57 AM (sdi6R)

Probably. I have no idea what went down in the 17th century in Ireland, but to me it sounds vaguely similar to complaints about the Crusades from muzzies and their fellow travelers.

So yeah, as has been pointed out elsewhere, I don't think the average Irishman has to be held responsible for what their leaders were doing before AND DURING the Second World War, but what they were doing was not acceptable, and it wasn't neutrality. It was pro-nazi.

For whatever reason.

Have some way of acknowledging and reconciling that fact, or forever carry the shame.

Posted by: BurtTC at March 24, 2019 12:12 PM (cY3LT)

382 370
Worried a little Ace is on day 8 ( sidebar) of his fasting, but as long as still hydrated guess he will eat when it's needed.

Posted by: Skip at March 24, 2019 12:06 PM (BbGew)

---
I don't think that's healthy at all.

From reading him over time, he seems to be locked in a cycle of "binge and purge" rather than changing to a healthy lifestyle, which requires attention to your diet and regular exercise.

Starving yourself and then subsequently gaining it all back can't be good for you.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 12:12 PM (cfSRQ)

383 I think we sometimes forget just how large Teh Horde is.

It would be interesting if Pixy could give us the number of unique hashes there are out there? I know with VPN's and multiple devices, it would be over-exaggerated, but might be a fun number to play with.

Posted by: jayhawkone at March 24, 2019 12:12 PM (wY8h5)

384 362 Soy impresionado! My hash has changed for the first time in 5 years!
Posted by: Chompers Guevara at March 24, 2019 12:02 PM (EgshT)

Call up your ISP and threaten to sue them if you don't get your old hash back.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at March 24, 2019 12:12 PM (rz9v+)

385 Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 12:10 PM (cfSRQ)

You beat me to it.

de Valera hated England more than he hated the Nazis. Pretty impressive.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at March 24, 2019 12:13 PM (wYseH)

386 Trump's tweet this morning:

"Good Morning, Have A Great Day!"

If only I had the power to throw my enemies into convulsions of delusional hate by simply wishing them a great day.

Posted by: mpthompson at March 24, 2019 12:13 PM (aVqY6)

387 357 The guy that did Captains Quarters went over to Hot Air which is a hot mess of Never Trump.

Posted by: Tuna at March 24, 2019 11:47 AM (jm1YL)

Ed Morrissey - I used to really like him, but lately he's seemed way too overeager to please his new employers.

Iowahawk is another one who's decided it's way more important to amuse his new liberal friends in Austin than to do anymore conservative writing. Look at his twitter feed, and you'll see it's about music concerts, and tract housing, and good places to eat. It's as if now, after years of doing such witty commentary, he's now terrified of saying anything political at all. But getting a nice big paycheck from a nice big liberal outfit does that to you, I guess.

Posted by: Tom Servo at March 24, 2019 12:13 PM (V2Yro)

388
All dem fish. You got the red one and the blue one. But jus what the hell they doing, and why y'all gotta count 'em? Just put 'em back in the water and leave well 'nough alone.

Posted by: Maxine Waters! at March 24, 2019 12:14 PM (jYje5)

389 The Irish were probably still pissed off at the Brits from the shit that went down in the 17th century.

Posted by: rickl at March 24, 2019 11:57 AM (sdi6R)

---
I love Churchill's comment that in school he learned Oliver Cromwell killed a lot of people and this made him a Great Man worthy of study.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 12:14 PM (cfSRQ)

390 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vh-wEXvdW8

Flanders and Swann's explanation of the English attitude.

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 12:14 PM (VaN/j)

391 358 Is that Kim DuToit? If so, he's still alive and kicking:

http://www.kimdutoit.com/

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader Pants Monitor at March 24, 2019 11:49 AM (rz9v+)

Yep. That's the one. Kim lost quite a bit of steam after his wife passed away. She was an amazing lady. One of my favorite essays by Kim was "The Pussification Of The Western Male. Still use it to piss off feminists, Heh.
Posted by: thatcrazyjerseyguy at March 24, 2019 11:59 AM (9YBqo)

He's not wrong. And the indoctrination started no later than my generation. I still have to fight the effects sometimes.

Posted by: Insomniac at March 24, 2019 12:15 PM (NWiLs)

392 Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:01 AM (cfSRQ)

I believe Wretchard spends a lot of time on Twitter now. Same with IowaHawk, who has the gall to chide people for abandoning blogging for Twitter when he has abandoned his own blog.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at March 24, 2019 12:16 PM (phT8I)

393 Nood unintended consequences.

Posted by: Insomniac at March 24, 2019 12:16 PM (NWiLs)

394 267 Trying to think of books for young girls, boys I know lots because I was one once.
V. Clausewitz- On War is only one I can think of, might as well start early.
Posted by: Skip at March 24, 2019 11:10 AM (BbGew)And The Prince, by Nicky.

Posted by: Fox2! at March 24, 2019 12:16 PM (MwFQu)

395 I reommend The Golden Age by Wright, also. Count to a Trillion is also very good, but the series might drag a bit in some of the later books. The Everness duology is also good, so too the Orphans of Chaos series. Most of them really, Somewhither maybe not so much.

Posted by: .87c at March 24, 2019 12:17 PM (DmDmL)

396 Gibbon was a man of his time and he reflected the prejudices of his age.

Posted by: JoeF. at March 24, 2019 12:12 PM (NFEMn)

---
I don't fault the man for believing what he does, but I do fault him for going on and on about it when he should be writing history.

It's not that he wrong, it's that he tedious. I can forgive the former, but not the latter.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 12:17 PM (cfSRQ)

397 I did not remember that. I thought it was hard core like here. I agree about Hot Air. I figured out Allah was a squish but now I think even the 2nd and 3rd tier are that way.
Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 11:59 AM (n13/j)
~~~~~

Captain's Quarters was Ed Morrissey himself.

Posted by: IrishEi at March 24, 2019 12:17 PM (NtglE)

398 Nood plastic bags

Posted by: Hands at March 24, 2019 12:18 PM (786Ro)

399
From reading him over time, he seems to be locked in a cycle of "binge and purge" rather than changing to a healthy lifestyle, which requires attention to your diet and regular exercise.

Starving yourself and then subsequently gaining it all back can't be good for you.

Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 12:12 PM

Not saying or implying this is the scenario but I've read that a near starvation diet causes human cells to go on a virtual 'lock-down' mode. Like nothing gets in or out.

If one is undergoing chemo there's implications this increases the effectiveness and will cause less harm to healthy cells.

Posted by: Newest Nic at March 24, 2019 12:19 PM (jYje5)

400 Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at March 24, 2019 11:02 AM (39g3+)

I don't remember any egregious errors in your books, although it's been a while since I reread them. Sabrina Chase credits Anachronda with the practically pristine editing of at least her early books, don't know if he's still doing that.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at March 24, 2019 12:20 PM (phT8I)

401 Worried a little Ace is on day 8 ( sidebar) of his fasting, but as long as still hydrated guess he will eat when it's needed.

Posted by: Skip at March 24, 2019 12:06 PM (BbGew)

---
I don't think that's healthy at all.

From reading him over time, he seems to be locked in a cycle of "binge and purge" rather than changing to a healthy lifestyle, which requires attention to your diet and regular exercise.

Starving yourself and then subsequently gaining it all back can't be good for you.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 12:12 PM (cfSRQ)

Same here. Lots of people have convinced themselves that this or that diet, ones that rob people of nutrients, are healthy.

Oh well.

Pay attention to your own body, that's all I can say. If whatever you are doing is working, then keep doing it. If what you are doing is causing harm, to your organs, your body mass index, your blood levels, your energy levels, your mood, etc etc etc, then consider changing your diet.

Nobody ever suffered from eating a balanced diet of natural foods, in moderation (with exercise). Nobody.

Posted by: BurtTC at March 24, 2019 12:20 PM (cY3LT)

402 Name the most pro-Nazi thing de Valera did.

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor hung with Nazis in the late 30s, gave Nazi saluted in public, and were implicated in plots to retake the throne. Churchill had to order them off the Continent and pack them off to the Bahamas.

Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 12:20 PM (1UZdv)

403 I think this is it. Maybe Irishmen "talked" up
"Fook the Brits", but quietly they helped out the Allies. They had to
know that once Hitler conquered Britain, they would be next.

Posted by: JoeF. at March 24, 2019 12:04 PM (NFEMn)

I would be interested in hearing specifically how they helped them. You don't hear that much about the Irish effort to defeat the Nazis and Japan.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 12:20 PM (n13/j)

404 I picked up Jim Butcher's Brief Cases while there - a collection of Dresden File short stories to tide me over until his next novel appears.

I think Butcher has lost interest in the Dresden series. I read the last one while recovering from surgery and I think that was almost five years ago now. I was looking forward to the next book but I kind of don't care anymore.

Posted by: Bob the Bilderberg at March 24, 2019 12:21 PM (qc+VF)

405 In the bibliography, Cox lists two Wilmott books:

Empires in the Balance: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies to April 1942 and The Barrier and the Javelin: Japanese and Allied Pacific Strategies to February to June 1942. Both US Naval Institute Press. 1982 and 1983 respectively.

Posted by: Anna Puma at March 24, 2019 12:21 PM (RJHwk)

406 "The Irish were probably still pissed off at the Brits from the shit that went down in the 17th century."

For that same reason, a significant number of Irish in the South and in border states during the Civil War sided with the Confederacy. They didn't take kindly to the idea of an all-powerful federal government making war on their home states, doncha know. There were notable Irish brigades on both sides, particularly in border areas like St. Louis.

Posted by: Secret Square at March 24, 2019 12:22 PM (9WuX0)

407 I just want to throw in a recommendation for reading anything by John C. Wright. His Sci-Fi is mind blowing. Whether it the his Golden Oecumene trilogy, or his Count to Infinity series, or pretty much anything he's every written. There are no duds.
He's a great writer, and deserves to be far better known than he is.

Posted by: SK at March 24, 2019 12:22 PM (ZnuB5)

408 I can smell the rancid fading echos of the B.O. Admin: We did all those things that PDT is claiming he did. Ya, see, WE really did that, but the biased press just would not give us our props. Ignint piss ants.
If only you all had voted (or have had it voted for you) the world would be sunshine lollypops and rainbows. But no, you silly twits, you had to go and vote in someone who really did want to transform our corrupted system.
Just you wait, you. When we gain power THIS time it will be different. We will vote ourselves in as the permanent controlling philistines ( or is it Palestinians? Not sure which or both.) WE will enforce when you are happy or sad. In any event we will send all but the top 1 per cent to the poor house and make damned sure you never get a pay raise.
Freedom will be strictly doled out of the barrels of our hookahs, crack pipes and plastic straws.
NOW, kneel and kiss my feet. NO NOT the ring. That is only for those that have just sucked my message.

Posted by: Ray at March 24, 2019 12:25 PM (AVxHd)

409 Captain's Quarters was Ed Morrissey himself.

Posted by: IrishEi at March 24, 2019 12:17 PM (NtglE)

It came back to me. I recall the site being really conservative, libertarian-conservative which is a kind of my thing. But I might remember it wrong. OTOH, the guy might have just changed. I have no use for Morrissey. There was a really good blogger that gave it up or got sick I recall And I am not talking about Breitbart. I thought it was the CQ guy, I just am not sure. It has been a good 20 years and my rota is small as hell lol. IT is barely a rota. Thanks of Oregon for the recs.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 12:25 PM (n13/j)

410 380
Gibbon was a man of his time and he reflected the prejudices of his age.
Posted by: JoeF. at March 24, 2019 12:12 PM (NFEMn)
_____

He was more prejudiced than Dr Johnson, for God's sake. The "of his time" argument goes only so far. And trusting (as opposed to just enjoying) Voltaire is a bridge too far for anyone to go.

Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 12:27 PM (VaN/j)

411 Interestingly, the Irish Army had a problem keeping up to strength because so many of its soldiers were deserting to fight for the UK.

Not great moment in Irish history.
Posted by: A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2019 11:58 AM (cfSRQ)

And DeValera said "screw 'm" when they came back after the war.

Posted by: Fox2! at March 24, 2019 12:28 PM (MwFQu)

412 The Irish were probably still pissed off at the Brits from the shit that went down in the 17th century."

For that same reason, a significant number of Irish in the South and
in border states during the Civil War sided with the Confederacy. They
didn't take kindly to the idea of an all-powerful federal government
making war on their home states, doncha know. There were notable Irish
brigades on both sides, particularly in border areas like St. Louis.

Posted by: Secret Square at March 24, 2019 12:22 PM (9WuX0)

Very true, they had Irish brigades on both sides. Patrick Cleburne was a famous Irish born Confederate General. He wanted to free the slaves and continue the war but few listened to him.

There was an infamous Irish unit in the war with Mexico. They switched sides after pleading from Catholic priests. This is not attack on them, it is just history. They suffered a very bad fate. I don't doubt that Americans treated many Catholics poorly. They did the same during the Revolution and it made things harder in the operations in Canada.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 12:32 PM (n13/j)

413 DeValera, that name sounds about as Irish as Beta Beano being Spanish.

Posted by: Anna Puma at March 24, 2019 12:33 PM (RJHwk)

414 Posted by: Eeyore at March 24, 2019 11:24 AM (VaN/j)

The failure of the west to be the haven for free thought and personal liberty that the former wave of immigrants sought is a deep betrayal. Uncle X and Cousin Y who were the ones they were *trying* to get away from are now welcomed with open arms by the governments and if those who were here first (the moderates that Bush and company said they wanted to have stand up and lead) "See something, say something" they are called islamaphobic and ignored. And then their kids, inculcated in alienation by the schools that encourage every sort of paranoia, are easy prey to those promising to teach them "the real way".

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at March 24, 2019 12:35 PM (phT8I)

415 There have Spanish in Ireland for centuries.
Something about ship wrecked sailors...

Posted by: navybrat, sometime commentater at March 24, 2019 12:37 PM (w7KSn)

416 386 Trump's tweet this morning:
"Good Morning, Have A Great Day!"

If only I had the power to throw my enemies into convulsions of delusional hate by simply wishing them a great day.
Posted by: mpthompson at March 24, 2019 12:13 PM (aVqY6)

Troll level: Wizard

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at March 24, 2019 12:39 PM (rz9v+)

417 de Valera was born in Brooklyn of a Spanish father and Irish mother, but grew up in Ireland.

Because he had American citizenship he was the only ringleader of the 1916 rebellion who wasn't executed. It gave him subsequent prominence, and he was a mild dictator for decades who pushed for a kind of enforced Catholic Socialism.

I'm not a fan. I am a Michael Collins fan.

Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 12:40 PM (1UZdv)

418 Brooklyn?

Someone tell Doll Eyes Alex she ain't so special after all...

Posted by: Anna Puma at March 24, 2019 12:41 PM (RJHwk)

419 The Black and Tans were his bright idea for suppressing the Irish rebellion, and it backfired. He forced peace terms that included homage to the King, that caused an Irish Civil War, and later repudiation by de Valera. He blamed the Irish for their reaction to his own racist Imperialism.
Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2019 11:55 AM (1UZdv)

You have now given us ample proof that your opinions are worthless.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at March 24, 2019 12:41 PM (nPGq2)

420 I think more than a few immigrants are a bit dissillusioned that the country they worked so hard to come to legally is not quite what they dreamed. It is kind of like the guy that dreams of living on baguettes and wine in France and after jumping all the hoops, sees a McDonalds on every corner. But freedom is a much bigger deal.

I often go on about how conservatives have lose the media, academia, and the culture. But it is crazy to ignore that so many parents let their kids get this way, it was benign neglect at best.

Hell, we had liberal teachers when I was a kid. I argued with them and challenged them, just as they argued with me and challenged me. Somehow I got good enough grades to pass. I get that it is different now. But the real question is, WHY IS IS DIFFERENT?

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 12:42 PM (n13/j)

421 Delurking...

AoS Book Thread, Gardening Thread, and Movie Thread are weekly stops for me. Many thanks to the Morons and our furry host.

Currently reading "Cocktails from Hell" by Austin Bay. Just started it but not bad so far.

Also finishing up "Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. I recommend it.

Finally, finishing Colin Grey's "The Future of Strategy" this week. Good think-y book but the dude needs an editor.

Posted by: Soylent Red at March 24, 2019 12:44 PM (FGZtn)

422 In considering the decline of blogs & other sites and the steadiness of AOSHQ, I expect a particularly strong factor is something aside from content: the always-excellent Pixy commenting ware.

Posted by: skybal webworker, the unwelcome intruder, at March 24, 2019 12:46 PM (GvEen)

423 Posted by: French Jeton at March 24, 2019 11:41 AM (Fjvqd)

Are you aware of the Applied Topology series by Margaret Ball? She is a commenter at Sarah Hoyt's blog According to Hoyt that has a lot of crossover commenters with the HQ.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at March 24, 2019 12:46 PM (phT8I)

424 Why is it different?

The American sense of fair play is fading fast in a sea of "I must be validated! You must validate my existence by agreeing to everything I say! Or else!"

For gosh sake, in the newest #1 of Captain Marvel she is taking a selfie of herself. And when she was asked what would she tell her younger self, Carol Danvers replied, "you were right."

Posted by: Anna Puma at March 24, 2019 12:47 PM (RJHwk)

425 Hell, we had liberal teachers when I was a kid. I argued with them and challenged them, just as they argued with me and challenged me. Somehow I got good enough grades to pass. I get that it is different now. But the real question is, WHY IS IS DIFFERENT?
Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 12:42 PM (n13/j)

Parenting skills and schools have gotten worse. Part of it is more working moms. I'm not trying to badmouth wimmenz with careers so much as kollidges insistence that having a career is THE ONLY avenue for a woman's life to be worthwhile. By definition this reduces the amount of time they spend with their offspring. Does that mean that can't be overcome by dedicated parents? Not at all, but those less willing to do what's necessary produce problems.

Posted by: Captain Hate at March 24, 2019 12:56 PM (y7DUB)

426 Hell, we had liberal teachers when I was a kid. I argued with them and challenged them, just as they argued with me and challenged me. Somehow I got good enough grades to pass. I get that it is different now. But the real question is, WHY IS IS DIFFERENT?
Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 12:42 PM (n13/j)

Because the the liberals weren't in "power"--or at least they didn't think they were--and so they allowed dissent without punishment. It's the same with "Free Speech Movement." When the left wanted THEIR ideas and views to be heard, they were all in favorite of it.
Now they they know--or intuitively grasp --they THEY are in power, they know--or at least feel like-- they can get away with quashing opposing viewpoints.

Posted by: JoeF. at March 24, 2019 12:56 PM (NFEMn)

427 Posted by: thatcrazyjerseyguy at March 24, 2019 11:59 AM (9YBqo)

He and Bill Whittle used to comment on Rachel Lewis' blog. That was possibly the first blog I read consistently and I think it was recommended by the conservative group on Ravelry that got axed by the Rav admins during the '08 election season.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at March 24, 2019 12:58 PM (phT8I)

428 Thanks for the post on Catherine in MO, the proofer. I make the greatest connections on the book thread. BTW, just heard from M. Todd Henderson who is abroad at present, and wrote to tell me he's working hard on his follow-up to MENTAL STATE, which was publisher-nominated for the Edgar Award this year. I met him here!!!

Posted by: Elaine Ash at March 24, 2019 12:59 PM (8Ez+K)

429 Okay, delurking to report: I read Shikhari by Alma Boykin this last week. It is a SciFi YA with all the action on a colony world. I expected to enjoy it because I had already read a few books from a different series (fantasy) by Boykin and I did.

Posted by: momsalurkin at March 24, 2019 01:02 PM (/z9Q7)

430 He was kind of odd - IIRC he was Episcopalian, but never took communion.

Posted by: Steve and Cold Bear at March 24, 2019 09:26 AM

Indeed he was. I just got back from church - his church - where I sat in his pew. I can't speak to whether or not he took Communion, but I assume he did.

Posted by: pep at March 24, 2019 01:04 PM (T6t7i)

431 No can do on the banking information; the warden confiscated all my assets. My Russian is a little sketchy, but she mentioned something about, "Babushka's for Trump."

Posted by: takbodan at March 24, 2019 01:08 PM (FX4Z6)

432 Just woke up. Been fixing the living room floor the past week and am pretty tired, but not too tired to read.

Amazon Prime offers subscribers a free e-book every month from a selection of "First Reads", and some of them are not bad. Currently reading "Blood for Blood" by Victoria Salman. It's about a female veteran and an autistic man who survive a train crash. The crash may have been caused by terrorists...too soon to tell at this point.

Posted by: Toad-O at March 24, 2019 01:10 PM (cct0t)

433 I'm a lurker-light and have a few suggestions for the book thread:
Right now the Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis. Right from the get go, Screwtape says to keep people from Faith, use an alternative belief system and position it as "the philosophy of the future." (Ie the 'right side of history.")

Other favorite: Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey - a compelling narrative, masterful and memorable characterizations, and compassionate understanding of the human heart.

Lastly, The Fixed Period by Anthony Trollope, a satirical dystopian novel set in the future (1980!) about a society that wants to create a utopia.

Posted by: vivi at March 24, 2019 01:11 PM (11H2y)

434 even in the subversive Animal House, the Deltas were scared as hell of the dean. I don't care if they were right or left, the students were there to be taught by the profs and administration. Today the students threaten their profs, they threaten the deans. It is the World Turned Upside Down.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 01:11 PM (n13/j)

435 Thank you for posting that, OM! And thanks to everyone who has inquired already.

I'm sure I'm willowed thanks to Mass, but I'm still going to read the whole thread!

Posted by: Catherine in MO at March 24, 2019 01:16 PM (+PvVa)

436 Does Mueller have to get his report signed by his parents?

Posted by: saf at March 24, 2019 01:49 PM (5IHGB)

437 Sometimes the Internet sends us down interesting rabbit holes- was reading a blog that talked about Ronnie O'Sullivan, who is probably the best snooker player in the world. So I went and watched a few matches knowing little to nothing about snooker except the basics and even the beginner I was saw that he was leagues above others. Ran across a used copy of one of his books, Framed, and thought why not? It was a decent little mystery with the main character of the book being an owner of an old snooker club in Soho. Not sure I would pick up and read another one, but not wasted time.

Posted by: Charlotte at March 24, 2019 01:49 PM (JwHYp)

438 Over Christmas break I read Hillaire Belloc's Characters of the Reformation. Someone up thread noted that Horowitz relates American values to Protestants. Belloc, through discussing the main players in the split of the Anglican church from Roman Catholicism, explains that so well. I had never thought about the political implications of the Reformation before, but I say even as a Catholic that without the Reformation, America would not be what it is.

Posted by: Catherine in MO at March 24, 2019 01:50 PM (+PvVa)

439 To 295 My experience is similar

You can add The Federalist and Powerline to your daily list. I also check Memeorandum as a good measure of what GPS/Fusion and TDIP is pushing on any given day. Clearly journOlist is still active in some form or other.

Posted by: Jonah at March 24, 2019 01:55 PM (pYQR/)

440 De-lurking. I post about twice a year. Now that I can post from my phone, I may post more often.

I appreciate the book thread so much and have found many wonderful authors. Regency romance is my favorite and someone here introduced me to Mary Kingswood and Sarah Waldock. Kingswood's blog has in turn led me to more authors than I can count.

Posted by: Rarity at March 24, 2019 01:58 PM (WLYTv)

441 I believe Poe Lurks novelly.....

Posted by: saf at March 24, 2019 01:59 PM (5IHGB)

442 Bookmark
As wrote usually read down the entire book thread

Posted by: Skip at March 24, 2019 02:00 PM (BbGew)

443 I like our local library system. The branches are light and airy, a far cry from the dark mausoleums I used as a kid. And I have no quibbles with them stocking comics collections and DVDs. Hell, I like that.

Speaking of kids -- I'd rather middle-schoolers hang out in the library than most other places. Something might soak into them. And at that age, they shouldn't need parents around. As for younger kids, the only time I might have heard crying is from a tired tot during a story time.

The biggest problem with the branch we use most often is parking. It shares a building with a community center. A tennis complex is adjacent. On weekends, expect to be at the far end of the lots.

Central Library might have bum problems, but as a mid-sized city, we have shelters within a mile from there.

I feel sorry for some of you.

Posted by: Weak Geek at March 24, 2019 02:22 PM (ARF+3)

444 443: They tend to be loud, disrupting other patrons. and violate rules about eating and drinking with abandon . Can't take the grandsons there as the tweens are profane and unpleasant. I feel sorry for someone who thinks this is appropriate parental supervision .

Posted by: CN at March 24, 2019 02:29 PM (U7k5w)

445 Can we put the links to comment fixers somewhere permanent? Maybe close to the combox?

Posted by: goodluckduck at March 24, 2019 02:35 PM (V8zw+)

446 ane and unpleasant. I feel sorry for someone who thinks this is appropriate parental supervision .

Posted by: CN at March 24, 2019 02:29 PM (U7k5w)

Same, I don't feel sorry for myself, well I do a bit. A part of our cultural history is lost. But it is the parents who don't discipline their kids. And it is not just in libraries, you see it like crazy in stores. Kids scream at the top of their lungs in public and the dumb ass parents do nothing or yell back at them to no effect. You can see it on the face of everyone, they smirk at each other with the knowing look of "what the hell? I guess this is the world we live in now". But nobody does anything. They just smirk in defeat and remember a better time.

Posted by: Quint at March 24, 2019 02:44 PM (n13/j)

447 I'm reading "Civilization Before Greece and Rome" by H.W.F. Saggs, emeritus professor of Semitic languages, University of Wales. The back cover calls it a "... [F]ascinating work...[a] survey pf the greatest achievements of the ancient civilizations of the Near and Middle East...."

I was wondering how Israel lived under all the laws given it by God through Moses and realized I had this book in my library. Saggs hasn't answered all my questions, but I know know how to buy an Syrian salve-girl in a pre-monetary society.

I

Posted by: wcgreen at March 24, 2019 03:00 PM (NGK/X)

448 The Brits hate everyone around them. It's part of their culture. The Welsh are sheep-shaggers, the Scots eat porridge with their fingers, the Irish are pope-worshippers, etc. "

Do they really hate them? I got the impression when I was there that it was more like condescension. They know they are the big dogs on that block. I think of the scene in "Barry Lyndon" where the English officer who steals Barry's Irish sweetheart away from him gives Barry a superior little smirk at the dinner table. Of course, being condescended to is infuriating and inspires hatred. Barry responds by throwing his wine in the officer's face, and that leads to a duel.

Posted by: Donna&&&&&&V. at March 24, 2019 03:38 PM (d6Ksn)

449 Coonts pulls no punches! He calls the outgoing president (this was written in 2016) "Barry Soetoro".

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at March 24, 2019 04:08 PM (kQs4Y)

450 Another Retief fan here. I own more of the books than I've read. To remedy that someday.

I enjoy the stories' gobbledygook acronyms. Fits in with my rule that any program whose name forms a cutesy acronym will fail. Shows the planners put more thought into the name than the program.

I prefer European-style names, such as Solidarity.

Posted by: Weak Geek at March 24, 2019 04:22 PM (ARF+3)

451 Delurking:

I still recommend The Train to Crystal City: FDR's Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America's Only Family Internment Camp During World War II
by Jan Jarboe Russell.

Whenever a liberal says Trump will shop off illegals to camps, I throw thsis at them. It is a book you will not put down. And you will hate FDR even more.

Posted by: RGallegos at March 24, 2019 11:32 PM (59GQk)

452 In honor of DeLurker Day, I have a couple of recommendations.
Is it any wonder that teen boys don't want to read books, when they're given Romeo Juliet, Wuthering Heights, or Anne Frank. Good books all, but when you are battling to capture the imagination of boys, they just aren't that inspiring. There are some great books out there if you want to get off of the beaten path.
Frontier Doctor: The Autobiography of a Pioneer on the Frontier of Public Health by Dr Samuel Crumbine. It's on Amazon, but you can get a better deal if you go through a website like Alibris. This is a fun book about a young man from back East who, after becoming a doctor, travels to Dodge City KS during the days of lawmen like Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson. Crumbine is a shrewd businessman and self-promoter, and eventually ends up running the Dept of Public Health for the State of Kansas. Crumbine is credited with popularizing the flyswatter and taking Kansas from a newly formed frontier state to the second best state in the country for public health matters.
Richard Harding Davis is another great author for boys (and girls, too). He was a contemporary of, and good friend to, Teddy Roosevelt. He was a war correspondent and a novelist; he was equally adept at describing the dirty, grimy conditions of war as well as the everyday lives of the idle rich and the street hustlers. Even better? You can get many of his books on Kindle for free. You can't beat that. Try it, your kid will thank you.

Posted by: Beers4Goats at March 24, 2019 11:33 PM (JKjSA)

453 I'd read Larry Correia's Monster Hunter series and Grimoire series and really enjoy his writing. It's always fun, which ought to be the first purpose of reading fiction (I've never understood what's so great about most of the 'great fiction' they made us read in school, and especially the way they insisted on handling it- it's like their real aim is to destroy any interest in reading).
I finally decided to read Dead Six, the first of his series with Mike Kupari, and just finished it on Friday. Quite different since it doesn't have the fantasy elements, more the military/thriller/adventure/government conspiracy genre. I liked it a lot - enough to buy the second book in the series as soon as I finished the first.
There are AOS playing cards involved!

Posted by: Meh at March 25, 2019 08:23 AM (bjDUI)

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