Monday Book Pick: Phoenix Rising
Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel by Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris
The first in a new Steampunk action/adventure/romance series. Not a bad first outing for the writing team of Ballantine and Morris. Good solid formula adventure, the kind Lester Dent made a very nice living writing during the Golden Age of Pulp. That is a favorable comparison by the way. This novel, which takes place in the 1890’s, complete with airships, Analytic Engines, steam powered bar bots serving beer and a mystery filled “Ministry” protecting the British Empire. This series follows two agents of that Ministry, a studious “Archivist” aptly named “Books” and the uber-field agent, Ms. “Braun”, who wears a bullet proof corset (Ministry issue of course), is a crack shot with her two customer revolvers and has a fondness for explosives.
Stop groaning! The plot flows well and has enough twists and fight scenes to keep you engaged. In all a good, fun read. I’ll be looking forward to the next installment in this Steampunk series.
Yet another example of how Liberals are really, really bad at history
Filed under: American History, Barking Moonbats, History, Politics, RKBA
The current case in point, the so-called “Top Cop” in democrat political machine controlled Chicago claims that current federal “gun control laws” are “racist.”
What makes this interesting is that his statement is actually correct, but his attempt at reasoning is completely and utterly wrong base on actual historical facts.
Yes, so-called “gun control” laws, especially the federal ones, are race based policies designed to deny black (and other minority) citizens their Second Amendment Rights, and the majority of them were passed by democrats.
For the whole story, read The Racist Roots of Gun Control, which was originally published in the Kansas Journal of Law and Public Policy back in 1995.
Here is the executive summary:
The first so-called “gun control” laws passed in the United States were in Southern states right after the end of the Civil War. They were implemented to protect members of the KKK from being shot by citizens the Klan members still considered uppity property when the Klan showed up in the middle of night to string a few American Citizens up by the neck as a warning to other black Americans to ‘keep their place.”
Even before the Civil War, the Tennessee state constitution had the following line in it: ” “That the free white men of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defense.” Note that free ‘persons of color’ were denied the basic Human Right of effective self-defense. They were to be at the mercy of ‘their betters.’ Yes, even then, those who today would be self-labeled “progressives” were closet aristocrats.
Sunday SciFi: NPR’s looking for the Top Five SciFi books
OK, not really, since they are lumping fantasy in as well. So you have crap written by George R.R. Martin listed along really good SciFi. Ya, I am biased here. I am much more of a SciFi fan than a fantasy one, and perhaps GRRM may be able to be write decent Elf porn or whatever passes for mainstream fantasy these days, but his attempts at SciFi that I have read have been utter drek.
You can enter your top five books or series under comments for this NPR story on their quest for summer reading. Fair warning, you have to register to post.
The five I entered were:
- Space Viking – H. Beam Piper
- The Probability Broach – L. Neil Smith
- The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein
- To Your Scattered Bodies Go – Philip Jose Farmer
- The Mote in God’s Eye – Dr. Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven
This list could change on any given day by one or two entries.
Clearly reality isn’t the left’s strong point
Filed under: Barking Moonbats, Obamaspeak, Our Dear Leader, Politics, Video
The left keeps repeating their talking point, that Gov Sarah Palin, who currently is running rings around the mainstream media, is “stupid” and an “idiot.” In the meantime, the left’s anointed leader, Barack Hussein Obama, who they keep referring to as “the smartest President evah!“, can’t string a basic sentence together without a string of ummms when he isn’t reading directly off a teleprompter. Even with his precious teleprompter, he twice referred to Navy Corpsmen as “corpsemen” in a prepared speech honoring Navy Corpsmen!
This is the “genius” who thinks there are 57 states, that Asthmatic kids should get a breathalyzer, and said the Constitution was written “20 centuries ago”.
Clearly, the collected shared reality of rational adults is not the space inhabited by leftists to whom the message is more important than reality.
Monday Book Pick: The Hot Gate
The third in his latest series, which is “old school SciFi Space Opera”. Ya, we got your epic space battle right here, and in case you forgot no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. They have their own battle plans, that is why they are called the enemy. Sometimes you don’t win, but not losing can still carry the day. A damn fine read. May Mr. Ringo continue providing his ‘reader crack’ a pace that destroys laptops but pays for many new ones.
Quote of the Day
“Sometimes you can’t defend the indefensible.”
Obama White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley at a meeting of the National Association of Manufacturers. The topic, “the wholesale assault by Obama on the free enterprise system and the private job creators who make it run.”
Our Dear Leader openly criticizes the ‘private sector economy’, something he has absolutely zero experience with, for not creating new jobs in the harshly anti-business, anti-growth, economic environment created by President Obama and the congressional democrats. Then he sends out his new Chief of Staff to attempt to the “defend the indefensible.”
Kudos to Mr. Daley for having the guts not to stand there and openly and blatantly lie about the effects of the Obama economic policies as other members of this administration have done in the past. I can’t help but wonder if our Dear Leader will toss Mr. Daley under the bus, as he is doing to Kenneth Melson, the current head of the ATF.
Update: Doug Powers points out that it’s the one-year anniversary of Recovery Summer™. How is that working out for you? If you aren’t sure, try this simple experiment. Drive around your local community and start counting the number of empty store fronts. Are there more or less than last summer? How many new businesses have opened up in your local area in the past year? That should a good meter stick to measure the, ahem, “recovery” the Obama economy has brought us.
Quote of the Day: Althouse on Palin edition
“This intense eagerness to get Sarah Palin for whatever it is she might have done on line unfolded concurrently with all the attention that had to be paid to Anthony Weiner for his on-line antics. What we can’t see is the agony the poor journalists must have endured as Weiner’s wienerisms hurt the Democratic Party just when they stood ready to damage the Republican Party with Sarah’s misdeeds. And then — oh, how awful! — they got nothing from Sarah. Nothing but hard work and — urrrgghhh! — good government and — damn! — family values.”
Ponder this…
Howard Aiken said these oh so true words:
“Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.”
One thing I learned in decades of working in corporate America and attending a highly rated graduate business school is that Mr. Aiken understated the problem.
Oh, and yes, to answer the question of the fellow in the back waving his arm and squirming in his seat, the inverse is true.
How is that Hopey Changey thing working for you?
Filed under: economy, Obama Economy, Our Dear Leader, Politics
“Misery Index” Up 62% Since Obama Took Office.
The annual inflation rate for May climbed to 3.6% as price spikes spread beyond oil and food. At the same time, May’s unemployment rate edged up to 9.1%, yielding a Misery Index of 12.7.
That marks the fourth straight monthly increase in the index, which is now 62% higher than it was when Obama took office…
…
Regulation: In just his first 18 months in office, Obama imposed 43 regulations that will cost, by government estimates, $26 billion. And that doesn’t count the avalanche of costly new rules headed our way courtesy of ObamaCare.
…
Taxes: While Obama grudgingly acceded to keep all of Bush’s tax rates in force for two more years, he agitates endlessly for massive tax hikes on the “rich.” His debt plan calls for raising the top tax rates to pre-Bush levels and squeezing an additional $1 trillion out of them under the guise of “tax reform.” All of the tax cuts he has approved have been gimmicky and short-term.
Spending: Federal outlays have risen more than 25% since Obama took office, and they’re on track to eat up almost a quarter of gross domestic product for the foreseeable future — a spending level not seen since World War II. Annual deficits, meanwhile, have topped $1 trillion every year since Obama took office.
Debt: Gross federal debt has climbed more than a third under Obama, topping $14 trillion. His budget plan puts it on a course to reach $20 trillion by 2016.
Don’t expect any “change” in the path to self-destruction that our Dear Leader, Barack H. Obama is bound and determined to drag the country down from him. The American electorate is going to have to force change in November 2012.
Quote of the Day
“Since this is an era when many people are concerned about “fairness” and “social justice,” what is your “fair share” of what someone else has worked for?”
— Thomas Sowell