It’s the last Friday of the Month, which means it’s time once again for Oprah’s The Glibs’ Book Club:
SugarFree
I’ve been reading the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch off of jesse’s recommendation. I’m through the fifth book and I am really enjoying it. It’s a deft mash-up of The Dresden Files and British police procedurals. I’m not sure how many books he is shooting for, but the formula is set-up for dozens and dozens if he felt like it. And the series is popular enough to have tie-in comics series. The most baffling part of reading them is that it hasn’t been made into a TV series yet. Aaronovitch started as a TV writer and he has the rhythms of serial television down pat.
Speaking of The Dresden Files, I also read Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera series this month. I liked them quite a bit. They magnify both Butcher’s strengths and weaknesses as a writer. His battle and fight scene are superb; his character’s relationships with women range from baffled to mildly horrified. People are either really, really good or really, really bad; Butcher doesn’t care much for subtle. They are big books, widescreen epics that manage to pull-off the central conceit entertainingly, despite leaning on many of the most groan-worthy of fantasy conventions.
jesse.in.mb
Put a hustle on to finish the books from last month as this month’s What are we reading? approached, and have mostly succeeded (Luz Gabas writes better sex than Dan Simmons’ turgid descriptions of erections could hope to match). I’m lollygagging on picking the next read as Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 has been staring at me (literally one eye is poking out from my shelf) for years, and I want to reread Gaiman’s American Gods before I watch the series or Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman before the movie comes out. Ultimately I’ll probably settle on Beach Lawyer by Avery Duff, part of the Kindle First early release program for novels (underrated Prime perk). As far as I can tell many of the novels they select are blander versions of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with heavy themes of violence against women. Zygmunt Miloszewski’s Rage was the most emblematic of this trend.
JW
He dead.
Old Man With Candy
I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that my reading this month, beyond technical stuff, has comprised re-reading. I have to get out more. Nonetheless, I’m rereading these because I think they’re damn good.
Tom O’Bedlam is very underrated scifi written by Robert Silverberg, a very underrated writer. Ever since reading Stephen Vincent Benet’s “By the Waters of Babylon” when I was a kid, I’ve had a deep love for post-apocalyptic stories. And I also have a weakness for the sort of novel that develops several different storylines, then skillfully brings them together at the end. Combine that with hallucinogenic ecstasy and a deliciously ambiguous conclusion, this is my favorite Silverberg and a novel that seems almost tailor-made for my tastes in fiction. Chungira-he-will-come, he will come.
My geeky side drew me to Uncertainty, a retelling of the early history of quantum mechanics. The book’s focus is much more on the personalities and dynamics of the theory’s origins than any explanation of the wonderful weirdness of the new physics, which was just fine for me- get your physics from Feynman. The author, David Lindley, transforms the names I only knew from various equations and theories into three dimensional human beings. As a bonus, he shares my scorn for the pomos and sociological types who, without any actual understanding of the uncertainty principle, love to invoke it to support their confused world-views.
Riven:
Still reading Dead Witch Walking… But I swear I’m actually going to start it this weekend. Pinky-promise.
Brett L:
I blew through the latest installment of Nathan Lowell’s Golden Age of the Solar Clipper series To Fire Called. Although the books have gotten a little darker, and certainly the universe a little deeper since Quarter Share, it remains the same fun kind of low-calorie high fun series you can inhale in short sittings, feel good about universes where they (mostly) live happily ever after, and capitalism works thanks to having to get a long way from habitable space before you can magically be somewhere else. I’m also slogging through Gaiman’s Norse Mythology. As someone who liked a couple of his books but doesn’t think he’s THE towering literary figure of the 21st century that this is a labor of love where he has (thus far) failed to sway me to his love of the mythology. I remain entirely bored by the canon mythology. Stay tuned for June when I binge read Neal Stephenson’s attempt to jump into the (thus far British) “magic is real and there’s a government agency for that” genre. And I think in July I’ll be (based on the story arc as I understand it) hate reading Charlie Stross’s latest Laundry File like it was written by an ex-girlfriend I’m still not over.
SP
I tend to read several books at once, one of which is usually a mystery or spy thriller. While I’m waiting for the new Scot Harvath from Brad Thor (out on June 27), and the new Chief Inspector Gamache from Louise Penny (out on August 29), I’m reading through the V.I. Warshawski novels by Sara Paretsky. I’m currently on book 11, Blacklist. Set in Chicago and the western suburbs right after 9/11, the usually very lefty Vic is thrown into several puzzles involving events around the HUAC and complications from the Patriot Act. There is much to please a libertarian heart in this one, from diatribes against the gutting of the Bill of Rights to our heroine actively subverting the police. DO NOT read any of the reviews. They all seem to contain spoilers. (What’s up with that?!)
Also in process: Daybook by Anne Truitt, a look into an artist’s journals (recommended to me by an older artist I admire whom I was recently privileged to meet); and 3 Steps to Yes: The Gentle Art of Getting Your Way by Gene Bedell. It seems to be working. It’s been much easier to live with OMWC since I started this book.
Banjos
Banjos is currently reading Everybody Poops for the 127th time per her toddlers’ request. It is their most holy text.
sloopyinca
Sloop is reading The Neverending Story and will have an update when he’s done.
I read “But Not the Hippopotamus” last night.
It has a surprisingly sad ending. Plus a twist worthy of M Night.
*unable to decide between narrows gaze and applause*
The first time I read it, I did not see the last line coming. The major plotline was entirely predictable, but that last line came out of nowhere.
Which pretty much describes Shyamalan’s work. Predictable with a twist out of nowhere.
*settles on narrows gaze*
Imagine if a Scooby Doo episode ended with them pulling off the mask and saying, “Huh….Who are you?”
Mr. Simpson, this is the most blatant case of false advertising since my case against “The Never-Ending Story”!
I am reading “The Art of Learning” by Josh Waitzkin for the second time. I plan on reading it again every summer. This year I am using it to improve my sports skills in the off season.
The last time around I had mentioned The Cassandra Trigger, by Adrian Wylie. It’s actually free right now on Kindle if you want to check it out.
Haven’t had time to read much lately. Looking here for recommendations.
Penthouse Letters?
Still with Erle Stanley Gardner. Couple of ICND2/CCNA books. ITIL Foundations is on the back burner.
I’m embarrassed to realize the last reading post was already a month ago. Where did the time go?
I just read this: via WaPo – “In suburban Manchester, a search for what might have motivated the attacker”
Does anyone over 6 years old not see through their bullshit? Is that possible?
If they went for a drive in Fallowfield, S. Manchester, they might possibly be able to answer that question very easily.
The motivation that confuses me is the one that has europe committing suicide by saracen. I mean, I know the answer but I just cant get it to sink in.
It’s complicated.
If you can’t tolerate extremism, they might leave. And then, where will all the students at University of Manchester go to buy a chicken phaal with a couple of naan and a pint of Kingfisher at 3AM?
You know, this might be enough reason for me to advocate opening the flood gates to mass Muslim immigration. Sadly, I don’t think these assholes are motivated by food and booze in generous portions at late hours, though.
Kingfisher?!
*gags*
As a drink, on its own, right. But it’s the perfect complement to the kind of meal that makes you call home so the wife can put a roll of TP in the freezer for when you get home.
The woman in my avatar would have likely noted that the motivations behind that suicide are altruistic, with sacrifice being held as the highest ideal, with the most virtue being assigned to sacrificing the best for the least worthy–the whole “progressive stack” shebang, using modern parlance.
Nothing is more noble than sacrificing other people’s children’s lives.
+1 Childless Merkel
Great band name
Maybe they’d rather commit suicide by saracen than have to watch Capitalism win?
With the collapse of the commies, you have to find a new team to root for against the evuls?
They’ve painted themselves into a corner. They could point out legitimate grievances Muslims may have towards Western Military actions, but then they’d have to condemn many of the favoured politicians that put those policies in place.
They dont really have any legitimate grievances.
I was just thinking that if I had a time machine and went back and told Lord Kitchener what his great grandchildren were up to he would hijack the machine from me and come to the present and shoot them.
Again the Muslims are animals who must be spoken to softly. They could point out the legitimate grievances everyone has to everyone else. Yet Japanese and Germans are not blowing up children. And if they did nobody would say it’s okay because someone was dropped a bomb on them.
This. US troops are stationed in and around Japanese holy land, yet no one associates Japanese immigrants with barbaric criminality and acts of terrorism.
It’s like a game. Let’s see how hard we can ignore the elephant in the room.
Last person to pay the jizz tax wins.
I finish reading Shadowrealm. The last run through was to distinguish between proofing fixes and stylistic differences between my editor and me.
He does not like leapt. I can’t stand leaped.
I’m imagining scenes from ‘The Odd Couple’ right now.
Eh, I have final say on what goes to Amazon, and we only communicat electronically. I can’t tell you where he’s actually located.
He suggested I find something other than ‘Digitigrade’ to describe digitigrade feet, and then didn’t offer any actual suggestions…
Resort to a simile.
I know you’re late in your edit, but this always reminds me why O’Brian had Maturin in the ‘Master and Commander’ series – to play the role of the audience when language was used that wouldn’t be familiar to non-specialists. Almost nobody who starts reading those books would know what a futtock was, so a paragraph gets written with Jack Aubrey explaining to the naif Maturin.
I know what you’re saying, and understand why.
I’m also fighting the impulse to give the snotty retort that my readers have Google.
I shouldn’t be sending them away from the pages to look up words. But there are always a handful that sneak into each book. I tend to leave them there anyway. Do far there have been no complaints from readers about vocabulary usage. With the interior effectively “in the can” so to speak, I’m disinclined towards re-writes. ‘Digitigrade’ shows up twice. Once when a were-jackal has transformed, and once later on.
Well, as the human turns into the lycanthrope, his walking will be more doglike, so you have an alternative, although you’ll start to sound a bit Lovecraft-ish.
“As the man’s body turned to that of a wolf, his character changed, indeed, his stride altered to a far more dog-like, digitigrade gait of a lupine predator.”
Which clearly provides the explanation without making it look like you raided a thesaurus.
Technically, he’s a Thosanthrope.
/Paraphrashing Jester of Anubis in “Dead Men Talking”
you made me google it, but now I know FOREVER. It’s almost like reading expands vocabulary?
That may be a side effect, but I aim to entertain first.
oh, I think most books have that as a secondary or side effect.
unless it’s aimed at kids or education.
I still have to get your first book.
Is this distributed in dead tree form or just electronic? If it’s just going to be on the kindle they can stick their big meaty finger against the screen for a few moments to get a definition.
Both Kindle and Paperback will be available.
“Double jointed feet”, “toe walking”, “dog legged”
Perhaps your editor is in the wrong line of business.
He does catch proofing errors, which is 90% of what I pay him for.
“Leapt” sounds more sudden. “Leaped” sounds like the subject flew a little further. 2 Cents.
Please let us know when it’s out. Amazon does a really, really shitty job of telling me when a book it knows I’m interested in (because I bought every book preceding) is out. Really frustrating when, for example, this book gets pushed back couple times so I lose track of it, and then only find out it’s released because I remembered to check.
I was too late for Morning Links, but hell yes to the Omnirunner. His were my favorite bits of Lucid Blue, though Junior Redemptioners came close.
I plan to submit a whole book-shilling article to Glibertarians when I have a firm release date.
It should be out in june.
*Shadowrealm will be out in June.
Omnirunner is still being worked on.
I know context would have implied that, but I wanted to be unambiguous.
Fiction: Decided to do a re-read of the Malazan Book of the Fallen to see if it’s going to make much more sense the second time through.
Non-Fiction: Trying to work my way through The Art of Electronics to shore up parts of my skillset.
Listening: Hardcore History King of Kings which is interesting but not as good as his WW1 series.
I need to finish the last half of the last episode of both King of Kings and WW1.
The Cuban Missile Crisis one was good.
I’m not big into podcasts but the WEI series was fantastic.
WWI. I didn’t have any autocorrect issues until the most recent Android update.
Which one is the Cuban Missile Crisis one?
Also have you gone through the older ones that cost money? Are they worth it? He says the format of the show has changed a lot, which makes me wonder if it would be less accessible to someone who doesn’t know shit. He’s not really specific about what changed though.
No, I have listened to most of the free ones. I liked Wrath of the Khans a lot.
Cuban Missile Crisis is the most recent. “The Destroyer of Worlds.”
Which edition of Art of Electronics do you have? The 3rd was a very worthwhile step up, and that’s a step up from a level that was already pretty damn high.
Pro Tip: Get Bob Pease’s “Troubleshooting Analog Circuits” if you haven’t got it already.
I got the 3rd edition. Thanks for the tip. Analog design is definitely one of my weak points. I went to a small state school and our one tenured professor who taught all that stuff was terrible. I’m trying to fill in the gaps of my shoddy education, but find myself more inclined to writing software, or better yet, doing almost anything else once I’m out of work.
Analog design chops are a rarity these days. Worth your time to help you stand out from the pack.
Agreed! I’ve often thought that the younger crop of engineers are much worse off than older ones. There are so many distractions now, that it’s become very difficult to really sink yourself into learning something. I don’t know how many times I sat in ‘study groups’ in school where people were just on Facebook and would check back in every few minutes to see if someone had an answer to the problem we were working on. Combined with the ever lowering standards, it just seems to me like we’re creeping towards a Foundation Trilogy kind of situation (granted I’m being a bit hyperbolic).
Combine that with the general de-emphasis on hardware in tech nowadays (everyone wants to make a shitty website to mine data on shitty narcissists), and you have a situation where a huge block of skills will be going away in the next 10 – 15 years and there aren’t a lot of people stepping up. Those that are are mostly hobbyists that think programming an Arduino is being a hardware hacker.
Except now I can’t read any history or historical fiction book in anything other than Dan Carlin Voice.
Seems to me like a good problem to have. He has a pretty expressive voice, and really helps make the subject matter engaging.
I went through an Irvine Welsh phase at one point where I read four or so of his books back to back and ended up with my internal monologue as whatever fucked up interpretation I had of his fucked up scottish accent he writes with.
In a less shill-worthy note, if we count autodibooks, I’ve got most of the “Bernie the Burglar” series queued up for the road trip. “Burglars Can’t be Choosers” started already because “Vaults of Terra: The Carrion Throne” finished earlier this week.
Agent Pendergast has been riding with me on my commutes lately.
I mostly liked these. They were a little uneven, but not enough to make me stop binge-reading the series (the way I read nearly all series).
There’s a book series about Bernie Sanders?
Love the Bernie Rhodenbarr books. I should take them down and re-read them. Fun and quick.
Just read D DAY Through German Eyes – The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944
Interesting even if I found myself wishing the story-tellers dead on several occasions. The most interesting parts were the answers to questions regarding German morale. Many of them talked about how they really were motivated to “defend unified Europe”. Between that, friendly French civilians and collaborators, and all the non-German soldiers more than happy to fight for the Wehrmacht or Waffen SS, they sounded like a more capable version of the EU.
Years ago, when I was in college, the senior lab technician was a WW2 vet, who had been in the BEF for the retreat to Dunkirk, and had been in the D-Day landings too.
His recommendation (it was hard to tell whether in jest or not, he was a real 24-ct “Little Englander”) was that in 1945 they should have sown the whole continent from Lisbon to Belgrade,with salt to “stop all the buggers from starting any more wars”.
As I age and have seen the EU develop, I see some of the wisdom in that simple solution.
Several of the Germans were also shocked at how pissed-off and ferocious the Brits in particular seemed when the showed up at their bunkers.
Ah, that would have been Jim then …
It was kinda funny.
Hey, what’s the beef? We’re the same race and all that… You are’t angry about the blitz and all your buddies I machine-gunned on the beach are you?
Jim actually was most incensed at the idea that the Luftwaffe had tried to bomb Buckingham Palace. he thought it was “unsporting” for some reason.
See, I would do ONLY unsporting stuff. Knock off the king, sure. But mostly torture civilians. Be as evil as conceivable, while also risk-averse. Don’t fight anyone who might be able to fight back. Preferably take prisoners to torture on TV, but kill if necessary — especially children & puppies.
Master and Margarita by Bulgakov since it’s been on my to-read list for years, and I don’t have anything better to do.
I skim-read it in my mid-20s and have concluded since that I was too stupid to get it back then. I’m afraid to re-read; what if I still don’t get it?
This month has been much more devoted to the outdoors here at Casa BEAM, since we’re finally getting decent (i.e., not rainy and cold) weather here in The Lower Rainland™. However, besides my usual diet of non-fiction (history, politics, general “thought” stuff), I have been dipping into The Art of Electronics (3rd ed.) and going through Douglas Self’s Small Signal Audio Design (2nd ed.), for both amusement and to try and actually learn something.
Douglas Self, BTW, is God. Or at least God’s First Undersecretary. Not sure which.
That makes two for Art of Electronics! With OMWC as our overlord / mentor, we’ve got a solid foundation for an electro-cult. Maybe we can team up and make some battery operated libertarian women?
Ave Machina?
I stand ready with my non-existent recall of equivalent circuits.
You can be our QA tester. Somebody’s gotta
be the first to stick their dick in the damn thingsensure they can properly hold a conversation and enunciate libertarian principles.I think I can honestly say that I would be of negative value to any electronics project you launched. My sole contribution to the science was (bizarrely) a recommendation to a guy who had been building custom guitar pickups for decades.
He was having problems with the design of some humbuckers which weren’t cancelling all the noise from each other’s coils (for the non-axe community, humbuckers are pairs of pickups designed to eliminate ambient interference). Sat down with the circuit which looked hideously overengineered. Twenty minutes and a cup of coffee later and I asked him about the construction of the package’s Faraday Cage.
“Faraday what?” quoth he.
And behold, once a Faraday Cage was fabricated and installed, the guitar was sent off to Terrence Trent D’Arby.
My moment of (until now) anonymous glory.
I, too, am but a humble Dabbler, a Dilettante, nay, even a Thumbsucker when it comes to All Things Electronic. I have woeful gaps in my knowledge, which I like to describe as a mile wide but an inch deep. Er, kilometre wide but centimetre deep. Whatevs.
I’ve managed to keep from electrocuting myself for a long while now. Don’t ask about when I was younger.
Tis your punishment for living on the Left Coast. The provinces all have their own little ways of making your life hell.
Truer words were never spoken.
If Doug’s work appeals to you, do NOT miss this.
Hmmmm. I have a vague recollection of seeing something like this (or mebbe it was just a collection of Self’s articles) on the Web some time ago. Doug Self’s recent comments on his own website lead me to believe that, while valuable in an historical sense (you can see some of the thinking behind the Blameless amp, ferinstance), he believes that his best work is his most recent editions of Small Signal Audio Design, The Design of Active Crossovers and Audio Power Amplifier Design. Some of that’s just shameless promotion, I’m certain, but I’m sure there’s a lot of truth to it.
Still reluctant to pull the trigger on the Active Crossovers book; they’re all quite pricey for a poor Canuck with a debased currency . . . :-/
I am reading regulations; local zoning, state zoning, and marijuana rec grow regulations. And literature on greenhouses. And federal flood plain regulations. And trying to determine whether a conexunts as a structure for purposes related to the above. While also trying to trim all this flower from our first harvest because our patients are making donations for it faster than we can trim and cure it. Oh, and trying to figure out how to scale up our cloning process as we’ve got more demand than we can fill presently so I’m making models to determine if the money for extra cloners generates enough revenue to justify other stuff we’ll have to put off if we buy them. Plus ‘advice’ from black market growers that have no concept of scale.
I didn’t choose the start-up life, the start-up life chose me. And I love it.
The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes. I had to put aside Bryan Burrough’s Days of Rage because I hit politics burnout–the Russia hysteria is seriously harshing my mellow–and literally everything I was reading everywhere was dreary, and haven’t picked it up again… although my current choice isn’t exactly a laff riot, either. I need to get back into reading fiction regularly again.
I read
*looks into camera*
Glibertarians.com
fuck you, that’s why.
I think it’s a testament to all of you guys that I’ve spent hours reading your comments, both pre and post diaspora. A lot of times I don’t get to the links until they’re pretty much dead, but just following the conversations is some mix of funny, informative and funny.
But not offensive? Brothers, we have failed!
Sorry, I can’t remember the last time I was offended by something. I’m not sure that’s a gene I have. Feel free to keep trying though!
with my job I’m here a lot less than I might like. But I do always like the articles and comments here.
And even back before this great place, I learned a lot at the old one.
I’ll admit I’m surprised by how much my views have been changed / clarified through exposure to this place. The last couple years for me have been a slow walk from progressive to libertarian (kinda, there’s no pure libertarians I’m told), with this place as a kind of capstone.
Not only have I learned a lot here, but who doesn’t love STEVE SMITH jokes and woodchipper references?
STEVE SMITH THINK RAPE NO JOKE, IT LIFESTYLE CHOICE.
close enough, you know. I am the purest of libertarian. except PB, i think he holds the high score.
With PB the purity is more related to what he’s snorting than himself.
*raises hand*
But then again, I don’t like anything.
In my defense I loved both rape and woodchipper jokes long before Glibertarians was a thing.
STEVE SMITH YOUR RAPESQUATCH THEN!
Zuckerberg on tv now blathering a bunch of proggie bullshit. He made a fortune off of college students desire to sniff each other’s farts. He should stick to that.
*sigh*
At least when Andrew Carnegie got rich, he decided to give away his own money.
He’s at it again? Good heavens, I guess he’s really going to try and run for office. I mean, they do need fresh blood to fill that gargantuan leadership void… but I don’t think I really need a President J. Edgar with a file on everyone and that sympathizes with the commies.
Is President the only thing he could run for? Zuckerberg might actually win if he ran for a Governorship, or even a Senate seat.
He totally has a better shot at that, especially in California, but after Trump I think that big-ego billionaires are going to be more inclined to take a shot at the big seat instead of contenting themselves with a more reasonable option like a trifling governorship.
See, if I knew whoever he was running against was competent, I wouldn’t be worried. Because all you have to do run a couple of Zuckerberg’s more…stupid quotes (as someone mentioned before, like the one where he says people who trust him are ‘dumb fucks’) and you can do a pretty good job poisoning the well.
C’mon, Jesse. Just pull it off the shelf. Aomame is waiting for you.
Maybe I’ll bring it on the cross country road trip I have planned for August. My grandparents sold their home and are trying to offload a bunch of heavy items on me, plus I have two weddings and a solar eclipse. Also if there are people in the north between Los Angeles and Rochester NY that want to grab a beer, I might be passing relatively near to y’all. Also anyone in Winnipeg? I will be stuck there for a week. A WEEK.
Send me pics. I’ve always suspected that Winnipeg is just a joke that Canada is playing on the rest of us.
That’s how I feel about most of the names of New Jersey towns. They all sound like fictional places to me.
“Muskanetcong”?
Some of the CT ones too,
Who would want to live near ‘Mianus”?
The people in Blue Ball, PA?
Let’s not forget that it’s not far from Blue Ball to Intercourse, if you’re in PA. About 12 miles IIRC
*wiggles eyebrows at Number.6*
What’s funny is my family seat is the Finger Lakes area of NY, so Conesus and Skaneateles don’t bother me at all, nor does the butchering of Spanish place names in LA, which drives friends who studied Spanish but didn’t grow up here insane. El Segundo (guhn-doh), San Pedro (Pee-droh)
Oh Jesse, you little minx.
I can say with absolute authority that you don’t. Not on my current near-constant diet of low carb, high protein, with sufficient lentils to maintain dietary fiber.
Hah! I remember my freshman year at Pepperdine – being from Virginia, where there are no Spanish names, I pronounced La Jolla “Jallah” with a hard J. My new friends thought that was the funniest damned thing they had ever heard.
When I visit friends in San Diego, I make a point of actively mis-pronouncing “La Jolla” to everyone I meet. Drives ’em nuts until they realize I’m having ’em on.
I was in Dublin at a Pub right on the edge of the water known for it’s excellent sea food and a Midwestern hausfrau ordered the quesadilla on the menu…I’m not sure why they would even have tortillas there. The waitress came out lilting kay-sa-dill-a in a lovely way, but the woman had no idea she was being addressed because of the L sound.
Worse was when a friend who had grown up literally a stone’s throw from the Mexican border put a hard J on Junipero Serra Blvd. and pronounced it like juniper with an O at the end. There is no way he got through fourth grade without having heard of this guy.
It always bothered me when Austinites in TX referred to Guadalupe st as Gwad a Loop. I blame my 10th grade Spanish teacher.
Y’all would have a blast in Louisiana. Butchered, anglicized french and indian place names.
That’s El Se-f%#cking-gundo.
Winnipeg is great. We used to go there (from NW Minnesoda) to watch Jets vs. North Stars back in high school. About the same distance, but you could drink at 18 in Canada back then.
Friendly Manitoba!
Stopping in Chicago? Or we could come east and have a picnic with you at our favorite New York State Park.
I haven’t 100% mapped it out yet. I just have a timeline for when I need to be where. I’ll let you know once I have a better idea of trajectory (partially dependent on my grandfather’s health).
co has you covered!
I’m not big into fiction and have never read any Russian novels. Saw The Brothers Karamazov for 50 cents at a church rummage sale and picked it up, but haven’t started it yet. Should I?
Currently finishing Ze’ev Chafets’ Devil’s Night, and Other True Tales of Detroit.
The Brothers Karamazov isn’t an *easy* read, but there’s plenty of more accessible “starter” stuff like “Crime and Punishment” (I’m rather a Dostoyevski fanboy, so must curb my enthusiasm).
“Saw The Brothers Karamazov for 50 cents at a church rummage sale and picked it up, but haven’t started it yet. Should I?”
Yes.
I’d recommend Tolstoy’s Resurrection or Anna Karenina.
Finishing up “Going Clear” which is fascinating, though somewhat gossipy in the 2nd half with all the Tom Cruise kookiness , and then will turn to “1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed”
Read that one a couple years ago. Turns out that North to South migration had a detrimental effect on the established civilizations much unlike the current trend of South to North. Spoiler Alert – Climate Change done it, in the Fertile Crescent, with Europeans. Bronze age OUT, Yo!
“The War That Ended Peace”, Margaret MacMillan’s breakdown of the years from 1900 to 1914.
If you want to see how the modern world came to be, read her book Paris 1919, about the First World War peace treaty and how Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George carved up the world with very little concern of the long term consequences. There’s a lot of moments reading it where you go “oh, so that’s how that problem started”. Also, oddly enough, might make libertarians more sympathetic to Keynes, because he was clearly aware of these issues.
I finished “Shogun” yesterday. I have to say the TV adaptation is tremendous. I’m going to start “Run Silent, Run Deep” today. I’m saving “Tai-pan” for my summer trip.
Love the book and the mini-series. They did a blu-ray release a couple of years ago that is supposed to be pretty good.
Thanks. I’ll have to pick it up.
Warning, the books decrease in quality the further in you go. Shogun>Tai Pan> Noble House.
My favorite part, SugarFree, about the whole Codex Alera series was that it was essentially written on a bet, kind of. Butcher was teaching some writing class at a con on world building and got handed the concepts of “Pokemon” and “Lost Roman Legion” and that’s where the whole thing came from.
Yeah, and he mostly pulls it off. I wouldn’t have minded a little more world-building and backstory, but Butcher seems at his best when he’s charging forward.
Recently finished “Shattered” and while the authors wished HRC haters would feel sympathy I just felt like singing “Ding dong the witch is dead, the witch is dead……”
I also finished PJ O’Rourke’s “How the Hell did this Happen”.
Now I am working on non-fiction- “Old Bill Williams: Mountain Man by Alpheus H. Favour
fiction- “Razor Girl” by Carl Hiaasen
Audio- “Castles of Steel:Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea” by Robert K Massie (Unabridged)
“Shattered” was a pretty good read, lots of behind the curtain type stuff. They really should’ve listened to Bill.
But I am eternally grateful they didn’t.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forgotten_Soldier
it might have been recommended by someone here. i got it and threw it in a pile and now i’m reading it.
also pecking at “And Yet”, which may have been Chris Hitchen’s last book.
I also downloaded a stack of “Sandman” comics but i haven’t touched them yet. I don’t really have any good way to read them (CBR reader on a desktop?) I don’t know if they’re the crazy shit SF had mentioned or not or if it was just the same author.
Next on my list. My son read it and proclaimed it good.
The Forgotten Soldier book is very good. The Hitchens is, from the little i’ve read, mostly the same as the rest of his “ripping topics a new asshole”-writing. I don’t think i’ll have an opinion until i’ve finished it and read it again.
imo First-person ‘war memoirs’ i think make some of the best war histories. (as contrasted with the Keegan style academic history, or even the Ambrose style pop-academic history which tries to include lots of different people’s first-person experiences, but never retains the POV of any single one) They can vary between dryly-factual and quasi-fictionalized and still be excellent. I think its because no matter how hard they try to be stoic and just recite the litany of events and statistics and orders/action taken by key characters, they can’t help but include lots of details about ‘how it felt’ and the collective mood and also lots of examples of things going hilariously wrong, as they seem to constantly do in any war-history.
Depends on the first person writer. This is one of my favourite accounts of the Crusades, written by an anonymous member of the gentry, but he’s pretty dispassionate about both the conflict and the politics surrounding it. Lots of entries that seem like he just listed the events of the day and was still processing them.
perhaps it wasn’t a firsthand retelling at all?
It was being pimped by Bohemond of Antioch (who comes off very positively in it) when he visited Europe a couple years after the First Crusade. According to the author’s own account a great deal of it was written during the actual journey to Jerusalem with the help of a scribe and edited afterwards. There’s a lot of odd details that seem to infer that.
Also, as later historians like to sneer, it definitely comes off like it was written by a ‘simple soldier’ and lower nobility.
I will give that account of the 1st Crusade a try. I find reading histories of the Crusade period difficult since most writers wear a big crusaders-bad sacarens-good patch on their arms.
Guy Sajer wrote an excellent book. I read an interview with him in the late Cold War period. He had not softened on his views of the USSR. A good book for young infantry leaders is ‘A Rumor of War” by Caputo which describes his service as a Marine platoon leader during Vietnam.
I am still looking for a good first person account from Iraq/Afghanistan. I have read several from authors I served with and am at best less than impressed since I have my own views of what they describe. Pete Mansoor did a decent job with “Baghdad Sunrise” but probably the best at describing the goat fuck of Iraq from the inside was the book (not the movie) is “Imperial Life in The Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone” by Rajiv Chandrasekaran
In 2003-2004 I had to deal with the CPA almost daily and the book did a decent job of catching the insanity of the effort to establish an Iraqi civil society.
The Gesta Francorum is most definitely not a pro-Saracen account, but the author does praise his opponents a couple times:
“Who will ever be wise or learned enough to dare to describe the prudence, prowess, and valor of the Turks? They believed they could terrify the Frankish race by threatening them with their arrows, as they had terrified the Arabs, Saracens, Armenians, Syrians, and Greeks. But, please God, they will never be as powerful as our men. Indeed, the Turks say that they are related to the Franks and that no man ought by nature to be a knight save the Franks and themselves. I speak the truth, which no one can deny, that if they had always been steadfast in Christ’s faith and in Christianity, if they had wished to confess to the one Lord, and if they had honestly believed in good faith that the Son of God was born of the Virgin, that he suffered and rose from the dead and ascended into heaven in the presence of his disciples, that he has sent the perfect comfort of the Holy Spirit, and that he reigns in heaven and on earth; if they had believed all this, it would have been impossible to find a people more powerful, more courageous, or more skilled in the art of war. By the grace of God, however, we defeated them.”
If you haven’t read it before, Michael Herr’s Dispatches, his war memoir of his time as journalist in Vietnam, is tremendous. Herr co-wrote the screenplay for Full Metal Jacket and used his own book as source material as well as the Gustav Hasford novella. Some of the classics are worthwhile too, like Richard Tregaskis’ Guadalcanal Diary and Ernst Junger’s Storm of Steel. I also love “What I Saw at Shiloh” by Ambrose Bierce, although it’s only the length of a short story.
You can never go wrong with Bierce’s Civil War writings. “Killed at Resaca” is my favorite.
read it a half dozen times. Also read most all of the other things you mentioned there. Its one my favorite genres, tho mostly confined to WWII, Vietnam, Korea, smattering of other things (*I actually thought Jarhead was a great read tho the movie didn’t quite do it justice; it also resonated with the experience of a good friend of mine who fought in Gulf I as a forward air controller) I’ve somehow avoided reading the classic WWI guys (e.g. Graves, Sassoon, Owen), and only a handful of Civil War books (tho i have read all of bierce’s stuff).
As a Marine myself, I was lukewarm on Jarhead. Some of it is interesting, but he sure whined a fucking lot. Also, the tower chief with my detachment in Iraq had actually been in STA with Swofford during Desert Storm and said he was a dipshit. I liked this tower chief, so I was willing to give his opinion some credence.
A Gulf War memoir I enjoyed more was Baghdad Express by Joel Turnipseed. Found him to be a much better writer than Swofford, able to be introspective and even brooding without coming off as mopey and whining.
lol yes i think that was sort of part of the core point of the book. he was not a personality-fit w/ marine corps culture, tho he felt a strong affinity for parts of it. Like any story about “young love”, people discover they’re more in love with “the idea of love” than with the actual person. He was more interested in the idea of being a good marine than its reality.
Phil Caputo’s “Rumor of War”, which covered 2(?) tours he did in the very early days of Vnam, has a similar feel; tho i think you’d probably like it better. He was a smarter guy, and he had more-legitimate reasons to bitch i think.
My Air Team trained with 7th Marine Radio Operators in the run-up to Desert Storm and didn’t see any of the shit he described. Swofford’s whole book sounded like a bunch of exaggerations, scuttlebutt, and Marine myths. The kind of bs bored Marines tell each other on guard duty.
I was at their base camp the day the 7th Marines were told they were doing a foot-mobile infiltration of Kuwait (walking in). Their radio operators were standing there looking at a massive pile of gear and trying to decide what was worth carrying in – a lot of cursing was involved.
Also = when i said it resonated w/ my friend’s experience…
my buddy got recruited to the Air Force academy from Stuyvesant HS in NYC, which is a very odd place for the military to draw people from. He only went (and he was only offered a spot) because he was a superstar baseball pitcher. Halfway though he hurt his arm and lost his pitching spot, and then was later told a rare-allergy he possessed would bar him from ever flying supersonic jets. he basically wanted out of the military ASAP, seeing nothing in it for him, and repeatedly tried to get himself kicked out. The AF still owned him for a # of years. He was convinced by a superior that he might try out the PJ/Pararescue program. he did and he loved it, and just as he got his cute red-beret the Gulf War popped off and next thing he knew he was neck-deep in a hole in the sand and calling in airstrikes on Saddams armor. It only lasted like a week, but he was one of the few people that actually got very up close and personal to the “Fighting” (the air war), while the complaint made by people like Swoffard was that the ‘real war’ was always just over the horizon.
Anyway, i met him a few years afterward at my first job, and he ended up being diagnosed w/ leukemia (AML) very soon later, which he believed was related to the “big blue pills” (anti-nerve agents) that superiors insisted they take. that, plus inhaling benzine from burning wells every day. he died about 6mos after diagnosis. i read the jarhead book a few years later and there were just lots of details that echoed stories he’d told me about the experience. It probably gave me a certain bias towards the writer.
Those pills (Pyridostigmine bromide ) fucked up a bunch of us – as did the soot from the oil fires. I was a PT stud before the Gulf War – after the war I was failing PT tests and wheezing my lungs out whenever I ran.
I was talking about Preacher, by Garth Ennis. Sandman is Neil Gaiman, high-school goth and highbrow literature refs.
Digital comic reading is kind of pain without a tablet. Simple Comic works well on a laptop and it’s free.
somehow i mixed up the two. i think i’ll probably delete them. I also at one point downloaded like 15gb of old X-men comics but haven’t touched them either.
Was not a huge fan of Preacher.
It has severe 3rd act problems and doesn’t finish strongly, either. Ennis’ first Punisher run and The Boys is a better showcase for his mix of comedy, cynicism and gore.
I think maybe previous mentions of this is what prompted that DL instead
Gaiman is too cute by half. He always lets that “SJW” gene dominate his prose, not to say that I haven’t eagerly read everyone of his novels but there it is.
Wait how the hell do you people have time to read books, all my reading time is devoted to here
I have a team of specially trained orphans to scan this place and make them orate significant portions to me from a podium above my swimming pool full of $100 bills.
You actually do your *own* reading? How declasse.
Edrych ar syr bridio ffansi…
I’m reading “The little engine that could”. It’s an uphill battle, but I think I can I think I can.
They put the spoiler right in the title!
Oh no!
The twist ending – it turns out he can’t.
Dreams shattered.
I always imagined it would be funny if there were damsels on the other side of that hill tied to the tracks.
That’s the sequel – “Gravity’s Rematch”
If you want a REALLY funny ending for that engine, read “The Lost Special” — apparently inspired by Lost Engine 115, which you can look up and read about too. And then you’ll better understand the TV serial “Lost” (not the game show).
will do!
Thanks
You have seen this, I hope?
I hoped someone remembered that
You mean “The Little Engine That Could If Only He Were Not Oppressed By Cis-Hetero Patriarchial Shitlords”: A Tale of Horsepower Inequality
I have a weird thing with The Dresden Files series. I really like them at first, but about three quarters through I feel like I’m slogging to get to the end, and when I finish I feel exhausted and have no interest in reading another one. Which is strange for me, because usually I prefer to binge read an entire series at once.
I’ve thought about starting the Codex Alera series, but then I wonder if they will be the same way.
I like the Dresden Files.
Alera is much more straight-forward than the Dresden stuff, and you can tell that he plotted the entire series out before starting. And it’s finished and I really doubt there is going to be any more of them.
Given how long it’s taking to get Peace Talks published, I’m starting to wonder if Butcher isn’t tired of writing them. He was putting them out one a year like clockwork, even while the Alera stuff was being put out. Skin Game came out over two years ago and there’s not even an advance publication date for Peace Talks.
I had gotten used to reading series only after they were finished, because I always seem to get fucked if I don’t. I assume this means the Rivers of London series is now going to grind to a halt as well.
The Wheel of Time series is exactly what you are looking for if you love to binge read.
OK, I feel bad about my joke.
Finished The Hungry Brain. The ending was a bit weak, but still 100% recommended.
The Jungle Book. Not in love with it, but it was worth the read.. er..listen. I consume audiobooks
CTRL ALT Revolt!. It was better than all of the non-cyberpunk-corporate-breakout parts of Ready Player 1, but that’s pretty faint praise. I dislike the up-to-the-minute SJW bashing, even if I agree with it. It distracted from the story. Also, if a blind person can put on a visor to see what is happening in game, why the fuck wouldn’t you hook up a camera too it so you can, you know, just see.
Currently Reading – Days of Rage. About half way through. Seems pretty good so far. The author tries, but he can’t get over the “what the fuck where you thinking” perspective. Which is appropriate. These idiots had to be so detached from reality, living on a college campus. Swimming in a sea of self-importance, made-up jargon, and secret revelations only available to 19 year olds that have been told how smart they are over and over again. Unmoored from the wider culture. Unable to contemplate that the violence they initiate might turn around on them. Blind to the fact that being the soft, chubby children of upper-middle-class American doesn’t exactly prepare you for winning violent confrontation. What a crazy time. Good thing that kind of thing is firmly in our past.
You know what, can we put all the Boomers and all the Millenials on a boat and push it out to sea? Signed – Gen X
Just finished Chasm City and Revenger by Reynolds. Chasm City is highly recommended, Revenger was ok.
Next up, The Train to Crystal City.
The one that stares at me and taunts me, The Open Society and It’s Enemies
Chasm City is so good.
Oddly, I think Reynolds is best when he’s working as a pastichist; he seems to stumble when he tries to break new ground.
Revenger was too much of an attempt to jump on the YA bandwagon.
I have no idea how the Tories are capable of fucking things up so badly.
FYI They had a twenty point lead in April. Jeremy Corbyn is a goddamn moron with massively poor favourably ratings even amongst Labour voters. So of course the Tories had to promote some Big Brother idiocy about internet control to stop terrorism and talk about lifting the ban on fox-hunting two weeks before the election.
*sigh*
If they’d stuck with “Strong, Clean Brexit” and nothing else, they would have pulverized the rest of the parties.
People would have voted for that slogan too, because it reminds them of hygenic toilets and racial purity.
They are professional politicians. With very few exceptions (Daniel Hannan cough, cough!) they are imbeciles who would fuck up getting laid in a Tijuana whorehouse despite showing up with 2 grand in their pockets.
How fucking hard it is to go “don’t rock the boat until after we slaughter Labour in June”? I mean, I get it, they were going to lose a few points regardless due to the terrorist attack because people are morons who immediately blame whoever’s in power regardless of if they could do anything, but throwing on controversial policies out of nowhere, when you have all the advantages, makes me wonder how these people even got to their positions. Jesus Christ you don’t have to be Francis Urquhart to figure this shit out.
If those fuckers end up making it so Jeremy fucking Corbyn is the Prime Minister of England I’m quitting life.
Got a Kindle earlier this month to help break my non-reading habits. Caught up on all the works of a local guy, Scott Kelly. He’s 32-33, been writing novels since he was a teenager. Currently reading Alternative Outcome by Peter Rowlands. Right now it’s in expository mode, but so far so good. I’m getting tired of the first-person perspective, though. It feels a little cheap.
Can’t read from a Kindle. Deadwood for me (OG and all that other nincompoopery that the kids seem so fond of these days).
OT
Yesterday, we had a Memorial Day ceremony on base. One sailor I guess locked his knees or something and collapsed. They carried him off like a sack of potatoes. It was really windy too- one Marine in the color guard lost his hat. In retrospect, it was good the first song played was the Monty Python theme song.
I learned a few things from the speeches. Between 1960 and 1990, about 20k service members graduated from the Vietnamese course. Not sure how many graduated during the war; perhaps half that number. About 300 were killed in Vietnam.
No DLI graduates got killed this year.
Somehow, DLI got a brick from the Hanoi Hilton. It will go well with the rest of the loot, which includes a section of the Berlin Wall.
There is a misguided, romantic view of war; that it is a lethal sport. Our guys with rifles should go fight their guys with rifles. In reality, most of the casualties are from things like indirect fire and booby traps. It’s rare to see the enemy. And victory usually comes from a combination of deception and overkill rather than bravery.
There’s a plaque here for a WW2 linguist. He helped turn the tide of a battle when he translated some captured maps and documents which showed where the Japanese troops and defenses were. The intel was used to blast them with artillery and the positions were taken with very few casualties. That’s the smart way to fight.
For the record, that ‘song’ is a march named “Liberty Bell” – a title that should resonate more with an American than the British. :p
And it is a classic John Phillips Sousa march. For my change of command I asked for the Liberty Bell march and the troops just thought it was another song. However the division commander smiled as the first note were played, that in turn got a smile from me. He later asked me if my choice was deliberate and I told him “yes sir.”
Derp, you are learning the great truth of warfare. It is not a sport and is a deadly serious business where even the best can be killed by blind chance. But working to be the best and smartest MF’er on the battlefield can immensely improve your chances of succeeding, and hopefully making it home with the largest percentage of your people.
Hear Neil Cicerega’s mashup of it with “It’s My Life”, titled simply “It’s”. Available on YouTube and SoundCloud.
I’ve been reading Caverns & Creatures Free in the Kindle Lender’s Library.
Stupid, easy and funny.
Journalists Fantasize About a Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron Gay Liaison
https://heatst.com/politics/journalists-fantasize-about-a-justin-trudeau-and-emmanuel-macron-gay-liaison/
***
His recent meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron at this week’s NATO summit produced a number of photographs featuring the two hunky heads of state gazing at each other in ways that similarly could be interpreted as homoerotic. So, predictably, fans of the two liberals fantasized about a gay love affair between the two.
David Mack, an editor at BuzzFeed posted a series of photographs of the two leaders. Riffing off a popular meme, he wrote: “Find u a man who look at u like these two look at each other.”
***
The left is such a cult in search of a personality to worship. Born sycophants.
Creepy.
Student Protesters Block ‘Unacceptable’ Staircase Because It’s Not Handicapped Accessible
https://heatst.com/culture-wars/virginia-tech-students-protest-a-staircase-by-blocking-it-because-its-not-accessible/
***
Students at Virginia Tech university staged a “sit out” by blocking a newly built staircase because they say it isn’t accessible to disabled people.
The controversial new 20-step staircase was built as a replacement for an old staircase the university closed down due to the construction of a new dorm on campus.
…
Virginia Tech spokesman Mark Owczarski, however, noted that it was hard to build a ramp as the stairs are too steep and the hill has utility lines and steam tunnels. “We are not in Kansas,” he added. “This is not a flat place.”
***
Students expelled for obstructing traffic flows?
Ah, yes, of course – flat Kansas.
Is there a similar study for breasts? comparing ‘total relief’ to average variance, etc.
It’s kind of hilarious to read about snowflakes at Tek, given that their fan base in athletics is about as hillbilly as WVU’s. Silly fuckin’ Hokies.
I’ve been working on ‘Anathem’ for a couple of weeks. It’s great, but also kind of a slog and is taking forever, if that makes any sense. The first 250 pages or so flew by but now I’m reading a couple pages a day. I’m worried it’s going to end up more like Reamde, which I thought had a narrative that really was too loose and went off the rails for the last 500 or so pages.
You mean “Anthem”? Couldn’t be that one, it was a mere novella, and probably Rand’s funniest complete work.
One of Neal Stephenson’s stupid huge books.
Yeah, this.
I went on a Stephenson binge over the winter and finishing his books feels like crossing Flanders Fields in a snowstorm with the enemy trying their best to kill you dead. He has some creative ideas but he couldn’t pull his head out of his own ass if he was suffocating. I feel the same way about the novels of Simmons. For fuck’s sake, dude, get out of the way and let a professional editor take the helm. Nobody wants to read about how smart you are!
The action bit at the end of Reamde got a little complicated – mostly trying to stay up with the geography – but on the whole, I loved it. But I’m a bit of a fanboy for anything by Stephenson.
Haven’t seen anyone bring up the Baroque Cycle lately – how do folks feel about the way it meshes into Cryptonomicon?
Just fine.
But the Baroque Cycle is my second favorite…Cryptonomicon is first.
He can’t write women. There i said it! He writes them the way that Margaret Mitchell wrote about Pacific Islanders.
Students Urge That Class President ‘Be Stripped of Free Speech Protections’ Over ‘Offensive’ Video
https://heatst.com/culture-wars/student-urges-high-school-to-strip-away-constitutional-protection-after-classmates-satirical-video/
***
Outraged high school students told their school board this week that a comedic campaign video made by the class president was anti-Muslim hate speech, and one student urged administrators to “strip away constitutional protection” for his classmate.
The controversy began when a 17-year-old student, who is unnamed in media accounts, ran on the tongue-in-cheek promise that if he was elected as San Ramon Valley High School’s student body president, he’d protect his classmate from terrorists.
His homemade campaign video, which the student briefly posted on Twitter in February, depicted terrorists abducting him from his bed (implying that he had been caught masturbating) and torturing him. The video also depicts several weapons, the East Bay Times reported.
***
Huh. School boards have the power to strip people of constitutional rights? I must have missed that part in civics class.
My high school principal assured me that “school law” reigns supreme in this land and even supersedes the Constitution. His exact words were “you leave your constitutional rights at the door when you step into the school.”
You should have told the motherfucker to write the definition of ‘inalienable’ 1000x and turn it in to you the next day. After the predictable response “Very well, lets see if the judge agrees with you.”
Are you sure he wasn’t parodying?
He was being sincere. Not only did he think “school law” is a thing, but that it even supersedes Bird Law. This is the same principal who went around telling everyone he was a Marine Corps hero in Afghanistan and then a year or so after I got out of high school it came out that he was dishonorably discharged from the Coast Guard, then got fired for routinely searching students he didn’t like. Good times.
Minnesota Mom Loses Legal Battle Opposing Son’s Male-to-Female Sex Change
https://heatst.com/culture-wars/minnesota-mom-loses-legal-battle-over-transgender-daughters-transition/
***
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Minnesota mother who accused school officials, health care providers and doctors of violating her parental rights for letting her daughter undergo a sex change without her permission.
Senior U.S. District Judge Paul A. Magnuson tossed out the suit on Tuesday, calling its claims “meritless,” the Minnesota Star Tribune reported.
Anmarie Calgaro made international headlines last year after she sued her 17-year-old transgender daughter, as well as multiple state agencies for their role in assisting the teenager—who goes by the initials E.J.K— transition from male to female.
“I was not consulted or informed about this in any way” she told the press at the time.
Her lawsuit challenged a Minnesota law that allows minors to access medical care and procedures without their parent’s consent.
***
17 year olds can get sex changes, but can’t buy cigarettes. Yeah, that makes sense.
Indonesia: 140 men arrested in raid on gay sauna
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/05/indonesia-140-men-arrested-in-raid-on-gay-sauna
***
Gays are brutalized and scorned in Indonesia for having “disease of the body and soul.” This is a country that was once deemed “moderate,” but is now enforcing strict Sharia adherence, and Sharia calls for the death of gays.
“Two gay men were publicly caned this week as crowds shouted to ‘hit them harder’….The couple, in their 20s, were sentenced to 85 lashes each by a Sharia court in Aceh province after being filmed by local vigilantes.”
***
I’m sure CNN and MSNBC will be all over this just as soon as they sort out Trump’s Russia scandal.
“Muslims punish gays” is in the “Dog bites man” and “Cop shoots dog” category of stories.
I’m sure CNN and MSNBC will be all over this just as soon as they sort out Trump’s Russia scandal.
Wat? It’s been all over my news feed.
You might want to rethink that. Punishing sodomy with public gay BDSM is exactly what they mean by “perverse incentives”.
*applause*
Aceh being, of course the recipient of vast amounts of relief after the 2004 tsunami.
I spent some time in Sumatra in the 80’s, and I always laughed at the news reports that talked about the ‘moderate’ Muslims of Indonesia. The source of the moderation was an incidental effect of the balance of power between the Muslims and the khufr. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that shari’a is on the upswing here.
The Indonesians I have worked with seemed to be very moderate compared to say some fellas I met outside of Basra. Those dudes were flat out nuts burning with a hate I had never seen before. I hope Sharia does not take hold of Indonesia. I was holding hope it was the common sense end of that Religion.
Indonesia is also where they recently arrested the non-Muslim mayor of Jakarta for blasphemy right before he was up for reelection, because he had the temerity to say that the Koran did not forbid people to vote for non-Muslims.
Source
Really depends on the province. Aceh was given special dispensation for self-gov/shariah in order to quell the rebellion and stop bleeding money/troops/etc from the rest of the country.
East Java is the other ultra-strict region. Most other areas outside Java/Sumatra are fairly moderate – some islands/provinces nearly exclusively Christian/Hindu/animist/etc.
It’s just when you get the imports from Java into a province (like Maluku or Central Sulawesi) that the purges/jihad really begins. Normally don’t even bother with the army because they like to take sides. Marines are really the only group trusted to be even-handed and stop the back-and-forth.
Oh and Ahok got a 2 year sentence. Total BS but the government wanted to avoid riots in the streets and burning down the Chinese quarters – like happened in ’98 and a few times since.
CNN suggest Manchester jihad massacre was “right wing false flag plot”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/05/cnn-suggest-manchester-jihad-massacre-was-right-wing-false-flag-plot
***
A CNN analyst suggested that the Manchester bombing could have been a false flag during a segment Monday night.
During Anderson Cooper’s AC360 , CNN terror analyst Paul Cruickshank admitted that a suicide bomber was more than likely responsible for the explosion at Manchester Arena after an Ariana Grande concert ended. However, he floated the idea that the bombing could have been part of a right wing extremist plot.
“It must also be noted that in recent months in Europe, there’s been a number of false flag plots where right wing have been trying to blame Islamists for terrorism,” Cruickshank said. “We have seen that in Germany in recent weeks.”…
***
“Mr. Cruickshank, citations please, or GTFO”
Hey Mr. Cruickshank could have spent last night being anally violated by a series of farm animals, he probably wasn’t but he could have.
I’m not aware of this book… sounds poorly researched though.
At Real Ood (Black Dog Books) today on Spring St. in Newton I bought:
“A Penny a View…an album of postcard views:…Newton, N.J.” with the intention of reading it soon, then giving it to housemate Steve, who’ll need a lot of magnification for the text but will probably appreciate the pix.
“Contact” by Carl Sagan, which I’ve been meaning to read for some time, trade ed. (thick pocket pb).
“The Clue of the Runaway Blonde” and “The Clue of the Hungry Horse”, collected as “Two Clues” by Erle Stanley Gardner, because how could I resist picking up a used hardback mystery?
What I really want to get into, though, is some Solar Pons by August Derleth. That and finish “The DaVinci Code” that I started in the library of the School for Professional Children a few years ago while waiting for a tutoring client. Hmmm…both derivative works. I guess when you’ve read enough A.C. Doyle and “Holy Blood, Holy Grail”, see how they can be reworked, huh?
I’m halfway thru “Boston Blackie” by Jack Boyle, public domain downloaded from the Gutenberg Project (IIRC) but interrupted by the crash of the laptop I used to use, haven’t resumed on this desktop. I have a Kobo e-reader but hardly use it.
Regarding Sagan’s Contact…. it sucks. I mean really, really sucks. I thought the shitty movie did a better job of conveying his shitty message than the book did.
When you get right down to it, Verschuur was right: Sagan and his faction in the SETI movement basically substituted “alien intelligence” for “God” and were praying that the divine would save them from earthly pains.
I enjoyed both the book and the movie, although not the movie RIGHT after reading the book (although they changed who said a couple of lines in ways that radically changed their meanings in kind of interesting ways), but I was also 14 at the time.
Hilarious.
I’m not dead! I feel like going for a walk!
Well, you will be soon. You’re very ill.
Now that you mention i……
I’m reading The Challenge of K2. Suck on that.
To prepare yourself to climb it, or ski it? 😉
She heard Nick Offerman hangs out at the top.
Speaking of…(link doesn’t work for me, but may be firewall)
Ahaha. I saw that and thought of you. It wasn’t around prime posting time and I meant to put it up the next morning, but way leads on to way and all that.
Nick Offerman did a great job in “The Founder” as one of the McDonald brothers. If you want to see how McDonalds with their blah burgers (but formerly addictive fries) became a sensation it is work the movie time.
LOL. In the dictionary, you’ll find my picture next to “Couch Potato”, not Couch Potato’s pic.
In true Aspy style, I am into the geography, geology and routes up the mountain. I usually read books like this with Google Earth open.
That is my preferable way to experience mtn climbing. Read about it.
I’m always disappointed that I’ll never get a chance to climb the huge fuck-off mountains of the world.
(I have a pressure sensitivity in my brain that would basically make me have a stroke and die if I had to deal with rapid pressure changes)
I tend to get screaming headaches above 4,000 metres or thereabouts. A cousin actually went to Everest a few years back (not to climb, he’s not that kind of mountaineer), but managed to walk/climb up high enough that he has a picture of his GPS reading over 6,000 metres altitude. I just kept thinking about how incapacitated I’d be at that point.
There’s a bit in Into Thin Air where one the Sherpas leading them up the mountain just falls over and dies around the second or third camp. Doctor inspects him, shrugs and goes ‘yep, random stroke due to pressure shift’. And that’s a guy who’s body and people have been acclimatized to high pressure. My sea level ass would be dead halfway up.
“sea level ass” sounds like the opposite of thicc.
Vastly preferable to swamp ass.
Too true, time traveler, too true.
I have been to the top of the andes John. So fuckin’ high that when you look up at noon the sky isnt even blue. It sucked. There is nothing up there and nothing you cant see from an airplane. It’s fuckin’ cold. There is no air. You cant relax no matter how tired or achy you are. There is nothing there. It is the other side of the bottom of the ocean; a desert with nothing interesting in it.
More rewarding: Get a drone with a good camera.
It’s raining men: ISIS pretend to surrender, then blow themselves up. Meat chunks go everywhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4tJ6Q8PlGM
Anyone want to suggest a good scifi series? I remember liking the Enders Game series when I was a kid, but its been so long since I’ve read any fiction – I don’t know where to start.
Do you like Military Sci Fi?
If so try The Prince series (Falkenberg’s Legion, Prince of Mercenaries, Go Tell The Spartans, and Prince of Sparta.) by Jerry Pournelle
Of course Drake’s Hammer’s Slammers, Ringo’s Hymn Before Battle, and C.J. Carella’s Warp Marines books.
I like the first better than the latter ones. I often prefer short stories/novellas to novels.
I do like military stuff, so yes! Thanks for your suggestions!
John Ringo – “Give Me Liberty” trilogy or “Dark Tide Rising” series – or “Last Centurion” one-off.
Check out David Drake’s “RCN” series. It’s basically Aubrey-Maturin books set in outer space. Pretty fun and (by Drake’s standards) non-grim. If you do ebooks, the first book is free.
If you haven’t read him, Poul Anderson’s Van Rijn/Flandry series of stories is amazing. Baen has the whole lot collected in six volumes, sorted by internal chronological orders. Great writing, awesome characters and lots of libertarian ideas in there!
Everything in Larry Niven’s Know Space series. Maybe start with Crashlander and Protector, then work your way up to Ringworld and the Man Kzin Wars. Or just read one of his anthologies like Neutron Star to see if you like him.
Tales of Known Space was how I started.
If you like short stories, it or Neutron Star, or Flatlander(Long Arm of Gil Hamilton + 1 additional story) are good options. I like Protector a lot, but its kind of silly.
The classic is Ringworld and its sequels. Like Pournelle above, those also descend in quality.
Ringworld freakin’ blew my mind when I was a young ‘un.
I always loved Molly Ringworld. But I have a weakness for redheads.
A “butterface” but possessor of a great rack in that strait to video abomination wherein she plays a stalker. She gave up and started writing shitty books.
Following up on other’s comments, everything Niven and Pournelle wrote together is great.
I am also a big fan of Vinge’s Zones of Thought series. A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky are great, I haven’t read the 3rd one (is it out yet?).
Deepness is a virtually unrelated prequel to Fire, so they can be read in either order.
The primary theme of Deepness is “Fuck off, slavers.”
The third one is a direct sequel to the first one (2nd is quasi-connected). Pretty good but nothing compared to the original.
Well, I post this with humility and trepidation following my last venture into recommended reading BUT, I like Thomas Harlan’s, In the Time of the Sixth Sun which is both far future SF and alternate history. In order, “Wasteland of Flint,” “House of Reeds,” “Land of the Dead” and they also, like others mentioned above decline somewhat in quality.
Oh, and Tony Daniel, “Metaplanetary” and “Superluminal.” There’s supposed to be a third but it looks unlikely.
Awesome, this is a heck of a reading list, I’ve got it all on my amazon wishlist. Thanks guys!
Anything by John Varley.
Started with The Gaia Trilogy, moved on to the 8 Worlds books. Good stuff.
SAA soldiers fake surrender and open fire on the terrorists at the right moment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7tbetJwHco
Seems to be a lot of that stuff going on over there. And so we see once more that different cultures have different attitudes about what is acceptable in war.
A musical interlude…..I happened to stumble across this recently. Hadn’t even thought about, let alone listened to, these guys in years. Forgot how awesome this song was.
Ooh, ‘member when progs said confederate flags should only be displayed in museums? I ‘member.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/georgia-civil-war-museum-shuts-down-rather-surrender-its-confederate-flags
***
Rather than comply with a request to remove Confederate flags from public property, a Civil War museum in Georgia is shutting down.
In a Facebook message, board members of the Nash Farm Battlefield and Museum lamented that the venue will shutter on June 1. Museum officials claim the closure was forced by local Commissioner Dee Clemmons’ request that “All Confederate flags be removed from the museum.” The authors take pains to imply that political correctness gone wild is to blame, stating the commissioner’s request was made “in an effort not to offend anyone.”
***
Principal For Troubled Kids Suspended After Pic Surfaces of Him Standing Near Confederate Flag
https://heatst.com/culture-wars/new-orleans-school-principal-suspended-after-a-photo-standing-near-confederate-flag-surfaces/
***
A school principal in New Orleans was suspended after a photograph surfaced showing him standing near a Confederate flag on the day before the city removed the statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee.
…
The photograph was shared on social media and has turned into a viral post in the community. Multiple Facebook users were angered by the picture, assuming Dean was a supporter of the Confederacy and opposed the removal of the statue.
Malik Bartholomew, a Dillard University employee, asked: “Why is this man, a principal of a school of black and minority students, advocating for monuments of hate?”
“The men whose monuments he was supporting were members of the Confederacy and they were against black education.”
Others, however, questioned the suspension of the principal on the basis of one photograph. “He can believe in what he wants,” said Roshonda Smith. “As long as his beliefs don’t spill into my child’s education or well being, do what you please.”
Dean insists he went to the rally just to observe and not to express any stance towards the removal of the statue
“While I understand both sides of this highly charged debate, I went to the Lee monument for all the right reasons,” he said. “I went because I am a historian, educator and New Orleans resident who wanted to observe this monumental event.”
The suspended principal called the social media campaign against him a “fake-news character assassination.”
“People who know me know that I am a crusader for children and I fight tirelessly on their behalf,” Dean said. “In my 10 years of working with large minority populations, I’ve never been accused of racism. I am sorry that my staff, students, friends and family have to witnesses this.”
***
The surest indication of racism – working to educate black children!
I am reading Emma’s War. I had heard about her years ago, but never read the book that was written about her. Proper English girl turned aid worker turned wife of a South Sudanese War lord and ends up dyeing of dysentery in some shit hole village. I am hoping to find something in it to put together with my experiences in that fine country for a submission to this fine site. I don’t read enough though and it is slow going. I am also re-reading Animal Farm (I am pretty sure I read it in high school) in an attempt to discern if Maxene Waters is Napoleon or Snowball. Bernie might fit one of the pigs too.
You guys read to much interesting stuff. My book list is as long as my arm.
My book list is as long as my arm.
Thanks goodness you’re a a T. Rex, amirite?
Midget. I am a midget.
“You guys read to much interesting stuff. ”
I seem to recall admitting on the last one of these articles that my latest conquest in print was “Handbook of concrete construction”.
Latest consumption (videos) is this guy’s work, currently this short series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BhshbSmtgE
I am a blast at parties.
See, I need to read that. I need to poor a slab in front of my shop, but I want to do it in sections with a small mixer I have. I can’t afford to call in a truck. I am wondering about how to do the joints if I poor it in 5 ft by 5 ft sections.
My brother and I did that…poured a slab with a small mixer.
After the first day we used the fucking thing for target practice and called a truck. You may be more patient than we were.
I am sorry. I think you can get the handbook online for free. Google it and see. I tried looking for it and they are all pdf files and I wasn’t patient enough to download them.
How fun. I was just looking for a hand router (non-power) online. I found one at a retailer that specializes in hand tools. Mostly stuff made entirely of steel, brass and or wood. They have this warning on their page.
“This warning is provided to comply with California’s Proposition 65 product labeling law. Each and every product sold by Highland Hardware, DBA Highland Woodworking, may contain chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm. Highland Hardware, DBA Highland Woodworking provides this warning based on its knowledge concerning the possible presence of one or more such chemicals, without attempting to evaluate the level of exposure.”
Everything has become a priority.
The CA warning that everything is going to give you cancer. Yes, I am familiar with that one.
So let me get this straight. You didn’t have the patience to poor a slab with a small mixer, but you want a non electric router? How does such a thing even work? It sounds like torture.
The CA warning that everything is going to give you cancer.
My new ultralight sleeping pad from REI had that warning on it. I’m disappoint I will not be able to eat it, melt it and huff it or throw it in a blender and inject it.
It works nicely. The problem with the mixer is that it is back breaking work and the mixer handles a surprisingly small amount of mix. It takes forever to pour even a small slab. Not only that it had exposed gears (dangerous) and the material wears the goddamned thing out in no time.
I was waiting for links, but I’m too impatient. The entire Trump regime will be worth it just because he’s in Europe telling those cunts to fuck off about climate change. They shout angrily at him and he just blinks a few times before talking about Islamic extremism and NATO allies paying their fair share. You know, shit that is at least sort of relevant to reality.
What? You expected a link? Go fuck yourself. I’m not enacting that labor for you.
I was chuckling at all that too. When talking about Europe, I think it is spelled labour though.
I’ll let myself be castrated before I resort to “our” over “or.”
A fun summer read is Neal Stephenson’s first popular work- “Zodiac.” Unlike the arm breaking tomes he writes now it is short. Set in Boston and Mass and recognizable dialog for the area. He sets out to make his protagonist a bit of an ass and succeeds. The book does describe how to survive bicycling in an urban in a most amusing manner.
I’ve been re-reading Upton Sinclair’s Lanny Budd novels (last time was when I was about 12). Interesting series walking you through Europe from 1913 to the beginning of the cold war. The Socialism push is heavy, but… it’s Upton Sinclair, so what else would you expect?
I’m reading “The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists, and Secret Agents”.
Not great at reading the last few years unless I’m traveling (I can blow through volumes at a time in the airport, etc). Get too distracted with other things….phone/web/etc.
Sooo, currently still partially through Tocqueville’s “America” (title?) and “Road to Serfdom”.
I do plan on re-reading “Camp of the Saints” soon so I can give glibs a real honest-to-god review unlike that crap Shikha was trying to pass off at TSSNBN. It’s a great read.
Reading through Robinson’s Mars trilogy. I’d forgotten the mountains of lefty garbage in it. And the Reds….WTF?
Got Up From Slavery and What the F waiting in the wings…..
I read an enormous amount of sci-fi when I was a youngling and its surprising how little of the derp took hold of my nascent mind.