Category Archives: Library

Pushing it

Posted on December 28, 2011 | Comments Off on Pushing it

“The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature

Well, I did enjoy Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

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Posted in Library, Scribbles

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For whom the bell tolls

Posted on December 25, 2011 | Comments Off on For whom the bell tolls

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

———John Donne

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Summertide

Posted on December 3, 2011 | Comments Off on Summertide

This far-future sci-fi novel is almost twenty years old but it was new to me.

Good stuff, about multiple human colonies, and friendly and enemy aliens in the spiral arm of the Milky Way, all trying to make sense of gigantic Builder artifacts that seem to electromagnetically converge on the planet Quake at Summertide.

The only odd part, especially for the late author Charles Sheffield who usually wrote hard sci-fi, was the superluminal travel via Bose Nodes, apparently some sort of piggyback off the Bose-Einstein quantum phenomenon.

But it isn’t explained and so it’s wave-of-the-hand technology more commonly found in space opera. Nevertheless, it was a thrilling read and I commend the tale to you and have already bought the sequels for myself.

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Posted in Library

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Thanks to all my ebook readers

Posted on December 1, 2011 | Comments Off on Thanks to all my ebook readers

I happily ended November with six more ebook sales for Alamo and Knoxville—including twice as many of the latter. Which brings that one to a total of 91 since its first month in April, 2010—finally edging in on breaking even for the cost of ebook formatting.

Hardly bestseller material here, these single-digit sales months. Haven’t had a double-digit month since 15 sold back in April. Record still 27 for Knoxville alone in August 2010, thanks to a plug from power-blogger Instapundit. It’s a nice lunch-money hobby, however.

Thanks to all my loyal readers, including those who promised reviews at Amazon but haven’t gotten around to it. Several have good excuses, including one in San Antonio who’s seriously ill. Best wishes to him, of course, for a recovery soon.

Still in the works: polishing a Vietnam War novel which loyal-reader Snoopy was kind enough to read and criticize, finishing a Civil War digital regimental still in blog form, and writing a memoir about growing up in the Cold War.

War-Is-Us, obviously. One of these days I may do something different. Meanwhile, coupled with new violin lessons and full-time parenting, I’m busier than before I retired.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Library, Mr. Boy, Rancho Roly Poly, Scribbles

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Obama’s terrorist ghostwriter

Posted on November 27, 2011 | Comments Off on Obama’s terrorist ghostwriter

All politicians lie, that’s a given, but I can’t recall one who ever pretended that he wrote a book by himself, when he didn’t, and to compound the deception caused his name alone to be on the cover.

Except Barack Hussein Obama and his “Dreams From My Father,” the book that made some of the Democrat media (and, frankly, me as well) figure that here was a pol who really was a master of rhetoric. Of course his public speeches as president have put so many people to sleep no one is fooled any longer.

Yet the fiction of his solo authorship lives on, even though it’s been contradicted by celebrity author Christopher Anderson in his 2009 authorized (and fawning) “Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage.”

Wherein the author demonstrates (do a search there on Ayers and Dreams) how unrepentant 1970s terrorist (and longtime Obama neighbor, crony and babysitter of the Obama children) William Ayers contributed substantially to the writing of Dreams.

I suppose the main reason for not bringing all this up now—in addition to making Obama look more of a lying phony than he already does—is Ayers. Just the mention of the name could be toxic as the burlesque Obamalot tries to get re-elected.

The only name that might be worse would be Jeremiah Wright, the One’s racialist Chicago pastor.

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Posted in Library, Obamalot, Scribbles

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Egg Nog vs Skim Milk

Posted on November 18, 2011 | Comments Off on Egg Nog vs Skim Milk

Every time I see some liberal, such as a particular columnist in the Democrat daily, for one, refer to Fox News as “Faux News,” I’m reminded of this quote from Stanford economist Thomas Sowell:

“Watching CNN after watching Fox News Network is like drinking skim milk after you have gotten used to egg nog.”

Which is undoubtedly why Fox News is far and away more popular than CNN—much to the consternation of the Dems, alarmed that one of the six television networks doesn’t toe their political line.

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Posted in Library, Texana

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The real population bomb

Posted on November 5, 2011 | Comments Off on The real population bomb

The imagined population bomb of the past quarter-century explodes, peopling the planet with far more mouths than it can feed and increasing carbon footprints until they plaster every available surface, the resulting global warming raising sea levels, burning up crops, etc.

That’s the Green fantasy, which pols like because it allows them to tax and spend and hire more cronies for enforcement of their new government rules that supposedly will be our salvation. (Yeah, like sugar-filled, fat-free food.)

Spengler (David P. Goldman) has crunched the numbers and gathered the studies and found that, surprise, surprise, the truth is the opposite of the Green version: the real population bomb is going to implode and take more than a few countries (Germany, Japan, France, Greece, Turkey, Iran) with it into extinction, and all within the lifetimes of our children. (Those of us who have children.)

“Population decline is the elephant in the world’s living room…the social life of most developed countries will break down within two generations…The world faces a danger more terrible than the worst Green imaginings…For the first time in history, the birth rate of the whole developed world is well below replacement, and a significant part of it has passed the demographic point of no return.”

Congratulate yourselves, all you people who prefer dogs and cats to children. So far, the USA and Israel are likely to survive this one, much to the chagrin of their bitter enemies. Funny how truth is always more interesting than fantasy. You can pick up a copy of Goldman’s new book on this subject, How Civilizations Die: And Why Islam is Dying Too, here.

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Posted in Israel, Library, Obituaries, Scribbles, The War

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