The Return Of The Book Posts

Posted on | May 12, 2019 | Comments Off on The Return Of The Book Posts

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Haven’t posted about books since the end of last August, when I started on getting clear of my old apartment and into a new one. That having been dealt with, and my Uber career ended in the process, I’m going to have a lot more time to be browsing through books. Which is good for you, because then you get the benefit of my experience, which fortunately has been (mostly) good. I want to start off with a debut novel by Jeb Sherrill, Storm Dreams, which is an odd fusion of World War I and H.P. Lovecraft’s tales of Randolph Carter and the Silver Key. It’s an interesting little tale with a lot of derring-do mixed thoroughly with speculation about dreams and reality, and the things that exist on the borderline. It was occasionally slow going, but the climax of the book and its resolution were very well done, and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Stephen Stirling’s Emberverse has finally wrapped up, and I managed to finish the last two novels, The Sea Peoples and The Sky-Blue Wolves, during the course of the move. These two books focus on the adventures of Prince John in the Antipodes; in the last novel, which shows signs of being rushed, John and his companions liberate Korea from its mad ruler with the help of some renegade Mongols, and the method used owes quite a bit to John’s horrific sojourn in the nightmare lands of the Yellow King, described in The Sea Peoples. To be honest, I was a lot happier with that book than the final novel; Stirling extrapolates the unhappy future of America under its last Emperors (see “The Repairer of Reputations”, by Robert Chambers) and pulls no punches in describing it as our heroes enter it to save Prince John. This alone, in my opinion, is worth the price of the book.

While we’re talking about sequels, Nick Cole’s Pop Kult Warlord is a worthy sequel to Soda Pop Soldier,* and just about all your favorite characters are back, but the stakes are very different – instead of trying to keep his hide intact in meatspace, and win it for ColaCorp while figuring out what’s going on in the Black, Perfect Question’s already won the Big One, and he’s going to Disneyland! Well, not quite…Disneyland isn’t what it used to be, and the Arab playboy who’s hired him to play warlord for Calistan’s online attack on Mars may be the worst boss he’s ever had. Possibly the last if he’s not careful. In comparison, former Protector Ashok Vadal doesn’t have it so bad – ah, who am I kidding? The protagonist of Larry Correia’s House of Assassins is really in the shit, with practically every man’s hand against him – including his former brother Protectors – the nearly impossible task of retrieving the prophet Thera from her shapeshifting captors, and worst of all, he’s got to do it without his mighty Ancestor Blade, Angruvadal. But Ashok is a Larry Correia hero, which means he doesn’t die easy, and he doesn’t quit. Excellent follow-on to the first book.

Going in the other direction, C.J. Cherryh’s taken her time about filling in the backstory of her Alliance-Union ‘verse – there’s a huge gap between Hellburner, which deals with the training of the Earth Company Fleet, and Downbelow Station, where the EC Fleet flees in final defeat from the Alliance merchanters and the Union carriers. Alliance Rising is closer to the former than the latter – there are still STL pusher ships making the ten-year-long run from Sol Station to Alpha Station, but past Alpha and out to Cyteen, FTL ships carry all the people and the cargo. Now comes long-haul merchanter Finity’s End into Alpha, but with all cargo going to the EC’s Rights of Man, and precious little to the ships and people at Alpha, what could they be looking to buy…or sell? Cherryh has not lost her touch at juggling several plot balls at once, ranging from interstellar intrigue to dockside sleepover romances to bureaucratic infighting to prickly inter-ship (and inter-family) negotiations. I honestly can’t tell where co-author Jane Fancher picks up and Cherryh leaves off, to be honest. Anyhow, if you like her other Alliance-Union space novels, you’re going to like this one.

And I think that’s enough for this month.

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*It’s just 99 cents, grab it before Nick comes to his senses!

Category: Books

FMJRA 2.0: Come With Me, Into The Trees

Posted on | May 11, 2019 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Come With Me, Into The Trees

— compiled by Wombat-socho

SOTD

Rule 5 Monday: The Next Queen Of Westeros?
Animal Magnetism
Proof Positive
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 05.08.17
357 Magnum
Dark Brightness
Proof Positive
A View From The Beach
EBL

Intersectional History
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: I Want To Be Straight
A View From The Beach
EBL

Memo From the National Affairs Desk: Totalitarians Try to Suppress Dissent
357 Magnum
Dark Brightness
Pushing Rubber Downhill
EBL

In The Mailbox: 05.06.19
357 Magnum
Proof Positive
EBL

In The Mailbox: 05.07.19
Proof Positive
A View From The Beach
EBL

More Thoughts on the ‘Red Pill’
Pushing Rubber Downhill
EBL

Crazy People Are Dangerous
Dark Brightness
EBL

In The Mailbox: 05.09.19
Proof Positive
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 05.10.19
Proof Positive
EBL

The Ivy League Is Decadent and Depraved: Never Have Sex With a Yale Girl
EBL

Marianne Williamson Hits 65,000 Donor Threshold, Qualifies for DNC Debates
EBL

Illegal Alien Rapes Dog to Death

Posted on | May 11, 2019 | 1 Comment

Protected by “sanctuary” laws:

Federal immigration officials lashed out at authorities in Multnomah County, Oregon, and local sanctuary laws Thursday after a man residing in the U.S. illegally was set free upon serving 60 days for raping a dog to death.
Fidel Lopez, 52, was convicted on April 8 of sexually assaulting his fiancée’s Lhasa Apso mix so forcefully that it had to be euthanized. He received a 60-day sentence but was released immediately because he had already served that amount of time awaiting trial on the February offense.
But ICE says the county should have notified the agency at least 48 hours before Lopez was let go so they could apprehend him on immigration violations.
“On April 8, Lopez was convicted of sexual assault of an animal and aggravated animal abuse and sentenced to 60 days in jail with credit for time served,” said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokeswoman Tanya J. Roman in a statement. “The Multnomah County Jail did not honor the immigration detainer and released him without notice to ICE.”
ICE picked up Lopez at home Thursday and served him a notice to appear, the agency said, and he will be taken to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma “pending immigration proceedings.”

Illegal aliens are just raping dogs that American dog-rapers won’t rape, I guess. You may be curious about how this crime happened:

Police learned of the case after Fidel Lopez’s fiancee reported to police that she found her small dog whining and hiding beneath the couch on Nov. 18, 2018. Upon moving the couch to take a look at the dog, she found blood and injuries to the dog’s hind end, according to a probable-cause affidavit.
She took the dog to the DoveLewis emergency hospital, where staff euthanized the dog because of significant internal injuries.
The dog was named Estrella, which means “star” in Spanish.
Estrella’s owner asked that a rape kit be done because Fidel Lopez had expressed an interest in bestiality by exposing his genitals to the dog, bragging about watching another person sexually assault a dog and asking if his fiancee would ever consider getting a dog bigger than a Lhasa Apso mix, according to the affidavit.
DNA evidence linked Fidel Lopez to the crime, investigators say.
According to the affidavit, he told police that he had sex with the dog while in bed with her, after becoming frustrated that the dog’s owner — who was his fiancee of 2½ years — didn’t return home the previous night or answer his phone calls. He told police the dog seemed fine. He said he had been drinking.

Your fiancée doesn’t come home, so you rape her dog. Maybe that’s acceptable in some cultures. Stop being such bigots! Check your privilege!

Category: Crime, Immigration, Oregon

Heresy, Apostasy and Hypocrisy

Posted on | May 11, 2019 | 1 Comment

One should not speak ill of the dead, and so I will not name the person whose death at age 37 prompted commentary from Greg Smith, Seth Dunn and Elizabeth Prata. While this person was alive, I never commented about her because I did not wish to publicize her existence, and now that she no longer exists, I have nothing good to say about her.

Clearly it is wrong to call yourself a Christian and advocate teachings that directly contradict the Bible. It’s heresy, and would not have been tolerated by previous generations of Christians, but nowadays anything believed by liberals will find some “Christian” advocates, who will be showered with praise (and book contracts, etc.) by all those institutions that promote liberalism. So if you want to advocate abortion, homosexuality and socialism, and claim to do this as a “Christian,” you’ll be applauded for doing so by, e.g., the New York Times and CNN.

The 21st-century church has many problems, including an appetite for innovation and entertainment. Just preaching the Gospel won’t do anymore. No, you need a rock band and a light show in your megachurch, with lots of different ministries and “outreach” programs. Folks have “itching ears” and “will not endure sound doctrine.”

Meanwhile, Dalrock calls attention to an apostate named Dave Gass, who was pastor of a Southern Baptist church in Missouri until last year. Gass used Twitter to publish a long rant about how his whole life was a lie; he harbored doubts about Scripture for the entire 20 years of his career as a pastor and is now an atheist. Gass’s rant might have been the last word on the subject, except that a deacon in the church told the truth — the real reason Gass left the church was that he had an affair with a married women in the congregation. Gass then deleted his Twitter account.

Hypocrisy, it has been said, is the tribute vice pays to virtue. Sinners don’t want to be recognized as such, so they try to act like saints. Ordinary sin is bad enough, but heresy and apostasy? These are quite strongly condemned, because they constitute an attack on the church as such. It would be smarter, really, for people like this to just quietly leave the church, rather than to teach perversity (the heretic) or to openly denounce their former belief (the apostate). But we can’t expect fools to act wisely, and so these scandals happen from time to time.

Category: Religion

Marianne Williamson Hits 65,000 Donor Threshold, Qualifies for DNC Debates

Posted on | May 10, 2019 | Comments Off on Marianne Williamson Hits 65,000 Donor Threshold, Qualifies for DNC Debates

Two weeks ago, I reported that Marianne Williamson was within 9,000 of reaching the 65,000-donor threshold that the Democratic National Committee had established to qualify for next month’s first televised debates in Miami. On Monday, her campaign sent out an email saying they needed just 3,500 new donors. So you could do the math and see they’d added about 5,000 in two weeks and thus were probably within 10 days or so of hitting the mark. But then late Thursday night, Williamson appeared on Shannon Bream’s Fox News show:

BOOM! The Williamson campaign announced they’re hit the number:

Today we made our goal of 65,000 unique donors to the Marianne Williamson for President campaign!
I am deeply grateful to those of you who took it upon yourselves to help create this significant achievement. Ours has been – and will continue to be – a campaign of ideas that people care about, and that they are willing to stand behind. It takes a certain kind of audacity to take a stand for something truly new. Thank you to those of you who have seen the possibility of a new American beginning and have been willing to invest in its formation.
Now the next phase of our work begins. . . .

What is “the next phase”? Well, among other things, they need to get their poll numbers up. Eighteen candidates have already qualified for the debates by the DNC’s standards, and if more than 20 qualify, polls will be the tie-breaker. They’ve reached 1% in the CNN poll, so at least there’s that, but with five weeks or so until the cut-off date, now the Williamson campaign will have to be spending some of their money.

As of March 31, she had about $500,000 cash on hand, and what can be expected is that the campaign will keep working its list of small donors with emails: “How about another $25 or $50?” Suppose that 5,000 respond to such an appeal for an average donation of just $20 — that’s $100,000 right there. So my guess is that Williamson could easily raise another half-million between now and mid-June, turn that around and spend it on digital ads, thus raising awareness of her campaign enough to boost her poll numbers. If she just got to 2%, she’d be in the top eight, according to the Real Clear Politics average.

Checking her schedule, I see Williamson is going to South Carolina next week, and will have an event May 20 in Washington, D.C., that I’ve already signed up for, before heading off to New Hampshire May 21-23, but I don’t know yet if I’ll be making that trip. Anyway, think back to March, when I first took notice of the Williamson campaign, and now she’s qualified for the debates. Can I pick ’em, or what?

Category: Democrats, Election

The Ivy League Is Decadent and Depraved: Never Have Sex With a Yale Girl

Posted on | May 10, 2019 | Comments Off on The Ivy League Is Decadent and Depraved: Never Have Sex With a Yale Girl

Is heterosexuality even legal at Yale University anymore?

An accused student is suing Yale University for concluding that the brief absence of a condom “during an otherwise consensual encounter” was sexual assault.
“John Doe” alleges that “gender bias was a motivating factor” in the decision against him by Dean of the College Marvin Chun, which resulted in his suspension. . . .
Doe met “Ann Roe” through the dating app Tinder. Shortly after, the two agreed to meet face-to-face in the early hours of December 9, according to the suit. After a fraternity party, they went back to Doe’s place and had consensual sex.
In the 90-minute encounter, the condom failed no later than 45 minutes in and “a new one had to be applied,” according to Doe. They had “unprotected sex for a few seconds” before he put on the new condom. . . .
Roe provided “undisputed testimony” that she gave Doe consent for the entire period both condoms were on. . . .
Roe stayed the night at Doe’s place, leaving on a positive note mid-morning. Throughout the rest of the month, the two exchanged an array of online messages that maintained a friendly dynamic, he said.
Roe changed her tone in January, when she told Doe that she was uncomfortable with the brief absence of protection during their intercourse.

Hold up here. More than a month after the encounter, she “changed her tone.” Like, everything was OK for five weeks, but then for unexplained reasons it wasn’t OK? And then . . .

Two weeks later, Roe filed a formal complaint of nonconsensual “unprotected sexual intercourse” against Doe with Mark Solomon, chair of Yale’s University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct.
Doe believes that university employees cajoled Roe into filing a complaint “that she otherwise did not contemplate filing,” and that the UWC adopted the Title IX coordinator’s “mission of increasing reporting” of sexual misconduct, though the suit doesn’t provide evidence.

You can read the rest. Bottom line is, he got suspended just a few weeks before he was scheduled to graduate because this girl decides retroactively that this brief moment when the condom came off during a 90-minute sexual encounter constituted “assault,” and Yale’s administration just goes along with this? If you’ll read the entire 66-page complaint you’ll find a lot of other reasons not to believe the accuser, including the fact that she claims to have been sexually assaulted more than once before she hooked up with John Doe, suggesting perhaps she has a victimhood mentality. But the larger point is, how can any guy at Yale know he won’t be the next “John Doe,” denied due process and expelled on the basis of a flimsy accusation?

The only safe course is NEVER HAVE SEX WITH A YALE GIRL.

(Hat tip: Instapundit.)