Book promos…

Posted on by July 5, 2023

First up is Holly Chism with the third installment of her The Schrödinger Paradox series, Entanglement

As always, click on the cover for the Amazon link!

The blurb-

In the face of extinction, you do what you must, regardless of who stands in the way.

Tom Beadle only volunteered for NASA’s neighborhood watch program when his department said it would maybe help him get tenure.None of them counted on the Neighborhood Watch becoming a mortifying political liability when a malfunctioning probe accidently reveals an asteroid hiding behind the larger outer planets, setting off impact alarms– and politicians looking for blame. When their answer is to defund the Watch program and fire all involved, Tom’s only chance to save the earth is to lie through his teeth and try to deflect the asteroid under cover of harvesting rare not-of-this-earth elements. And even that may not work.

Next up is Fred Hughes with the 6th book in his The Prince of Britannia series, Prince Liberator

The blurb-

The former Earth colony of Serenity is safe from the Mordorian Horde… for the moment. Hazard King’s expeditionary force, battered and bruised, stands guard, protecting the system. But to complete his original mission—to get to Earth and obtain the Black Dragon information he needs to save the kingdom—Hazard will need reinforcements. His mother, Empress Elizabeth, is willing to organize that help, but it will take time.

For the moment, Hazard is on his own.

When Imperial scouts discover a major enemy base in the MT Pegasi System, Hazard’s plans change. The former colony, 90 light years from Earth, is home to a large Mordorian Fleet, a fleet that Hazard must defeat. They not only block the way forward but have enslaved two million humans.

With the majority of reinforcements yet to arrive, and against the advice of his commanders, Hazard attacks the system to open the way to Earth and free the subjugated colony. He is the man the colony needs.

He is… Prince Liberator.

Next is DJ Butler with a follow up to his Indrajit and Fix story- Between Princesses and other Jobs

The blurb-

THEY WANT TO RESCUE DAMSELS IN DISTRESS. THEY HAVE TO PAY THE BILLS.

The continuing adventures of Indrajit and Fix.

WELCOME TO KISH

Indrajit and Fix are the founding partners of the Protagonists, a jobber company in Kish. Since the seven great families of Kish farm out all tasks they and the city need doing, a jobber might one day unblock a well; the next, man a tollgate for the fair; and on the third, hunt down a murderer on the loose, all in a corrupt old city that isn’t so much governed as kept barely in bounds.

Indrajit is a poet of a dying race, looking for his successor. Fix is a failed monk, pining for his lost love. They’re swordsmen and thinkers, heroes in their hearts and in their deeds. They also recover stolen documents, unravel financial fraud, escort shipwrecked diplomats, and hunt in the ruins beneath the city for missing academics. Meanwhile, the criminals they investigate, rival jobbers, sorcerers, spies, assassins, and other mysterious parties get more and more reason to want the Protagonists dead.

Welcome to Kish.

 

Last but certainly not least is Kelly Grayson with a long awaited follow up to En Route, A Paramedic’s Stories of Life, Death and Everything In Between- it drops the 28th of July! On Scene

The blurb-

“Joy and tragedy are flip sides of the same coin. If you insulate yourself against the pain of feeling one, you deny yourself the ability to feel the other.” ~ Kelly Grayson

En Route showed you the beginning, now On Scene gives you an insider’s view into the growth of a man and a medic. No longer the idealistic and often arrogant medic he was, an older and wiser Kelly Grayson continues the stories of a career spent serving humanity at its worst – and best. On Scene brings us more of Grayson’s unique blend of humor and tragedy, pathos and profanity, an unflinching look at what it means to be a paramedic. From the elation of restoring a pulse where there was none moments before to the pain of telling a family that their loved one has died, Grayson shows us the power and the passion of being a responder and the struggle to retain his humanity when the tragedy he sees threatens to burn it away entirely.

TBT…

Posted on by July 5, 2023

I will be the first to admit I haven’t studied D-Day and Normandy all that much…

But this one caught me totally by surprise. I don’t remember EVER reading anything about a sixth beach to be assaulted!

h/t Stretch

Things like this just once again prove the ‘history’ we know isn’t necessarily what actually happened.

As more and more security clearances time out, things are coming out that shake up what we ‘think’ we know about WWII and causing history to be rewritten to take that into account.

Personally, I think the Brits are even worse with SOE, Bletchley Park, and other locations that were then and still are highly classified and those people take security more seriously than Americans do.

And as the years go by, Korea and then Vietnam information will be released, leading to even more rewrites.

The other thing I find interesting is the difference in perspectives between the troops on the pointy end and those sitting behind the lines (with the knowledge) and making decisions. Often the two perspectives are 180 out with the boots on the ground thinking the brass was either stupid or crazy or both… just sayin…

Buyer beware…

Posted on by July 4, 2023

In more ways than one…

In April, there was something was off with “Erica Marsh.”  She seemed too stupid to be taken seriously, even though “she” had a viral series of tweets. Marsh established herself as a liberal account that got eyes, though many were undoubtedly hate clicks. If progressive America had to pick one account to be their voice on this platform, “Ms. March” would be the winner. If not, the deputy spokeswoman for her pervasive spewing of left-wing red meat catchphrases, talking points, and attacks. 

Full article, HERE from Town Hall.

Funny thing is, the account points to a bot linked to Belgium, of all places!

So there ARE people outside the USA trying to influence the election (already, again)…

It is enough to make one wonder what ELSE is out there that’s a bot, a false flag, or an FBI ‘sponsored’ set of leftists…

I don’t have any good answers, other than to be skeptical of anything that seems ‘too good to be true’ on either side of the arguments…

Happy Independence Day!!!

Posted on by July 4, 2023

Read and remember as you enjoy the day!

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

A little humor…

Posted on by July 3, 2023

Gah, sorry the scheduler had the hiccups this morning…

Puns- Love ’em or hate ’em, they’re STILL funny…

Those who jump off a bridge in Paris are in Seine .

A man’s home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.

Dijon vu – the same mustard as before.

Practice safe eating – always use condiments.

Shotgun wedding – A case of wife or death.

A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy.

A hangover is the wrath of grapes.

Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play.

Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?

Condoms should be used on every conceivable occasion.

Reading while sunbathing makes you well red.

When two egotists meet, it’s an I for an I.

A bicycle can’t stand on its own because it is two tired.

What’s the definition of a will? (It’s a dead give away.)

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

In democracy your vote counts. In feudalism your count votes.

She was engaged to a boyfriend with a wooden leg but broke it off.

A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

If you don’t pay your exorcist, you get repossessed

With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.

The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.

You feel stuck with your debt if you can’t budge it.

Local Area Network in Australia – the LAN down under.

Every calendar’s days are numbered.

A lot of money is tainted – Taint yours and taint mine.

A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.

He had a photographic memory that was never developed.

Once you’ve seen one shopping centre, you’ve seen a mall.

Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.

Santa’s helpers are subordinate clauses.

Acupuncture is a jab well done.

The fattest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.

I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian .

She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still.

A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class, because it was a weapon of math disruption.

No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.

A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.

Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.

A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other: ‘You stay here; I’ll go on a head.’

I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.

A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: ‘Keep off the Grass.’

The midget fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.

The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.

A backward poet writes inverse.

In a democracy it’s your vote that counts. In feudalism it’s your count that votes.

When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.

A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, ‘I’m sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.’

Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and says ‘Dam!’

Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can’t have your kayak and heat it too.

Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, ‘I’ve lost my electron.’ The other says ‘Are you sure?’ The first replies, ‘Yes, I’m positive.’

Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.

There was the person who sent ten puns to friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did.

Heh…

Posted on by June 30, 2023

Accuracy… Not so much…

LiG Metrology, Correlated Error, and the Integrity of the Global Surface Air-Temperature Record

The published 95% uncertainty of the global surface air-temperature anomaly (GSATA) record through 1980 is impossibly less than the 2σ = ±0.25 °C lower limit of laboratory resolution of 1 °C/division liquid-in-glass (LiG) thermometers. The ~0.7 °C/century Joule-drift of lead- and soft-glass thermometer bulbs renders unreliable the entire historical air-temperature record through the 19th century. A circa 1900 Baudin meteorological spirit thermometer bulb exhibited intense Pb X-ray emission lines (10.55, 12.66, and 14.76 keV). Uncorrected LiG thermometer non-linearity leaves 1σ = ±0.27 °C uncertainty in land-surface air temperatures prior to 1981. The 2σ = ±0.43 °C from LiG resolution and non-linearity obscures most of the 20th century GSATA trend. Systematic sensor-measurement errors are highly pair-wise correlated, possibly across hundreds of km. Non-normal distributions of bucket and engine-intake difference SSTs disconfirm the assumption of random measurement error. Semivariogram analysis of ship SST measurements yields half the error difference mean, ±½Δε1,2, not the error mean. Transfer-function adjustment following a change of land station air-temperature sensor eliminates measurement independence and forward-propagates the antecedent uncertainty. LiG resolution limits, non-linearity, and sensor field calibrations yield GSATA mean ±2σ RMS uncertainties of, 1900–1945, ±1.7 °C; 1946–1980, ±2.1 °C; 1981–2004, ±2.0 °C; and 2005–2010, ±1.6 °C. Finally, the 20th century (1900–1999) GSATA, 0.74 ± 1.94 °C, does not convey any information about rate or magnitude of temperature change.

Full document, HERE from MDPI and the Sensors group.

In other words, between the measurement errors, the warm bias, and the ‘other’ issues, the ‘accuracy’ of the so called rise in world temperatures is not provable, and is actually questionable if it has risen at all…
As a number of folks have been saying for years! But the ‘models’ show the temperature rising, so that is accepted as fact… in some quarters that have a climate change agenda!
What a surprise! NOT!!!

How to…

Posted on by June 29, 2023

At least win a skirmish with KDP on getting data out of the system…

Okay… if you’re a indie publishing through Amazon, I finally figured out how to get a report for an individual book out of the new ‘dashboard’ for various periods. Maybe everybody else knew this, but I sure as hell didn’t…
Open your reports- Select Royalty Estimator and you get the 1st photo-
In the upper left corner, select Choose a date and you get a pull down menu. Select the interval you want. (NOTE: Do THIS step BEFORE you select a book otherwise you get this month’s data.)
Next select books- DESELECT all books, then pick the book you want data for, and click apply 3rd photo.
Your screen ‘should’ change and you get something like this. It gives you a decent quick look, and if you want a more detailed in depth day by day look, go to the upper right corner and download the ‘report’.
It will download an Excel spreadsheet with a file name something like this- KDP_Royalties_Estimator-+ a long string of numbers. 
This is the bottom of the Excel spreadsheet with all of the different sheets produced for each item. This is really nice if you’re doing an anthology and want to share the data with other authors in the anthology!
There are also a number of other ways to use this, going all the way to the entire history of the book, or you can build your own custom periodicity.
Hope this clarifies at least a little bit of utilization of the ‘new’ dashboard, and I’m gonna use the hell out of this!

Another one…

Posted on by June 29, 2023

Bites the dust… Now they’re after Ernest Hemingway!

Readers have now been warned. Anyone in our enlightened age who is crazy and daring enough to read Ernest Hemingway, an author who is not a person of color, not trans, and not a victim of white patriarchal oppression, will now be waved off by Hemingway’s own publisher.

The UK’s Telegraph revealed Saturday that Penguin Random House, which publishes Hemingway’s novels and stories, has slapped them with “a trigger warning” due to “concerns about his ‘language’ and ‘attitudes.’” Hapless new Hemingway readers are also “alerted to the novelist’s ‘cultural representations.”

Full article, HERE from PJ Media.

This is getting old…

And it seems Randy Penguin is involved in a bunch of these. One wonders why and who is in charge over there…

Just one more reason I’m glad I’m a Z-list indie author!

TBT…

Posted on by June 28, 2023

Sigh… The end of an era… Now folks like me truly are dinosaurs.

Sixty years ago VP-30 got their first P-3As. And on 23 June, the last ASW variant P-3C UIII left NAS JAX for Davis Monthan and the boneyard.

Sadly, I had other things going on and couldn’t make the trek to see it off, but a number of friends did. I did a tour in 30 as an instructor from 78-82, primarily teaching UI and UII versions.

A total of a little over 7000 hours in them over 19 years, and I’m now paying for the ‘fun’ we had back then, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. The things we got to do, the places we got to go, and thankfully no idjits with cell phones recording it all!!! LOL

The P-3 is continuing in service in ‘other’ configurations, with NASA, Customs, and various other nations, so the birds will contribute parts to keep them flying!!!

A little humor…

Posted on by June 27, 2023

OLD AIN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE

Don’t be worried about your smartphone or TV spying on you.  Your vacuum cleaner has been collecting dirt on you for years.

If you can’t think of a word, simply say, “I forgot the English word for it.”  That way people will think you’re bilingual instead of an idiot.

I’m at a place in my life where errands are starting to count as going out.

I don’t always go the extra mile, but when I do, it’s because I missed my exit.

My goal for 2023 was to lose 10 pounds.  Only have 14 to go.

Ate salad for dinner.  Mostly croutons and tomatoes.  Really just one big round crouton covered with tomato sauce and cheese.  FINE, it was a pizza . . . OK, I ate a pizza!  Are you happy now?

I just did a week’s worth of cardio after walking into a spider web.

I don’t mean to brag, but I finished my 14-day diet food supply in 3 hours and 20 minutes.

A recent study has found women who carry a little extra weight live longer than men who mention it.

Senility has been a smooth transition for me.

Remember back when we were kids and every time it was below freezing outside they closed school?  Yeah, me neither.

I may not be that funny, or athletic, or good looking, or smart, or talented.  Uh – – where was I going with that thought?

I love being 86. I learn something new every day and forget 5 other things.

I think I’ll just put an “Out of Order” sticker on my forehead and call it a day.

Just remember, once you’re over the hill, you begin to pick up speed.

Having plans sounds like a good idea until you have to put on clothes and leave the house.

It’s weird being the same age as old people.

When I was a kid I wanted to be older.  This is not what I expected.

Life is like a helicopter.  I don’t know how to operate a helicopter either.

It’s probably my age that tricks people into thinking I’m an adult.

Marriage Counselor: “Your wife says you never buy her flowers. Is that true?

Me: “To be honest, I never knew she sold flowers.”

Never sing in the shower!  Singing leads to dancing, dancing leads to slipping, and slipping leads to paramedics seeing you naked.  So remember, don’t sing!

Here’s a math word-problem: If you’re going down a river at 2 MPH and your canoe loses a wheel, how much pancake mix would you need to re-shingle your roof?

I see people about my age mountain climbing; I feel good getting my leg through my underwear without losing my balance.

So if a cow doesn’t produce milk, is it a milk dud or an udder failure?

Coronacoaster: noun; the ups and downs of a pandemic.  One day you’re loving your bubble, doing work outs, baking banana bread, and going for long walks and the next you’re crying, drinking gin for breakfast and missing people you don’t even like.

I’m at that age where my mind still thinks I’m 29, my humor suggests I’m 12, while my body mostly keeps asking if I’m sure I’m not dead yet.

You don’t realize how old you are until you sit on the floor and then try to get back up.

We all get heavier as we get older, because there’s a lot more information in our heads. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.