1. DON’T WISH ANYONE A “HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY”
This is not a holiday like Christmas and this day was not created to bring glee! Despite what the day has transitioned to in American culture, it was established to reflect, honor and remember America’s military fallen.
2. DON’T DISREGARD ITS IMPORTANCE.
Sure enjoy the sales, grill some amazing steaks, and find the perfect mattress on sale, just don’t forget to raise a glass in honor of those servicemen and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice.
3. DON’T FORGET WHY IT EXISTS.
This holiday exists for a reason. Use this day to reflect and honor our fallen heroes who paid the ultimate sacrifice for you!
4. DON’T LET POLITICS KEEP YOU FROM RENDERING RESPECT.
Even if you don’t agree with the idea of war, or the reasons America goes to war, or the policies of a particular president who was the Commander in Chief during a specific war, it doesn’t matter. People have defended the people and interests of America for over 200 years, and your right to disagree with the reasons for war should be separate from your opinion of the troops themselves.
Thank you for your consideration on these ideas.
Currently working with the IT folks to get it fixed and back to blogging.
Just pisses me off!
WASHINGTON — U.S. military commands responsible for North America spent millions of dollars meant for COVID-19 relief on space-related data analytics connected to the Pentagon’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control endeavor as well as on office information technology upgrades, a Pentagon watchdog said.
Full article, HERE from Defense News.
The Air Farce once again is doing the loose cannon thing… To hell with the people that work for them, let’s use that money to make ourselves look better!
And once again there is this great ‘software’ system that is going to magically make everything better and allow everybody to talk to everybody. Link HERE. This was tried ten or fifteen years ago and melted down because the Air Force didn’t want to see Army ‘stuff’ on their screens, while the Army didn’t need to see ‘stuff’ that was 250 miles away. And the Navy needed to be able to ‘silo’ battle groups based on locations around the world rather than sending ‘everything’ to every ship… Untold millions were spent on this program and all for nothing…
And please say a prayer for the 19 children and 2 adults killed by that scumbag down in Uvalde, TX yesterday. Little is known right now about the shooter or anything else, but the left is already dancing in the blood of these dead children and calling for MORE GUN CONTROL!
Biden said,
“As a nation, we have to ask, when in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby? When in God’s name, will we do what we know in our gut what needs to be done?”
“We have to act. Don’t tell me we can’t have an impact on this carnage,” Biden added.
Harris said,
“Every time a tragedy like this happens, our hearts break and our broken hearts are nothing compared to the broken hearts of those families,” Harris said.
“Enough is enough. As a nation, we have to have the courage to take action and understand the nexus between what makes for reasonable and sensible public policy to ensure something like this never happens again,” Harris said.
How about actually enforcing the laws already on the books??? The Buffalo shooter should never have been allowed to buy a gun IF the rules had been followed and his mental issues identified and put in the system… With Texas, we don’t know what is the truth yet.
The first international shipment of specialty baby formula has arrived in the United States by a military plane, enough for more than a million and a half bottles.
The first flight of “Operation Fly Formula” landed in Indianapolis weighing more than 78, 000 pounds, as part of the Biden administration’s ongoing efforts to address the baby formula shortage.
Full article, HERE from PJ Media.
Interestingly, the product will be distributed to medical offices and pharmacies, but not store shelves. And will support 9000 babies.
9000 out of an estimated 3.2 MILLION babies under one year old… Link HERE to the birth rates from the CDC.
I have a few other questions…
Who is paying for the C-17 flight time? Or is the USAF just having to ‘suck it up’?
What mission(s) are they not flying to do these (like the who got tagged to fly the Afghanistan evac)? And how much flight time is this taking off the airframes? Especially since they started ‘retiring’ C-17s in 2012…
One other question, how did they do the math to come up with 9000 babies? 78,000/9000= 8.67 ish lbs for each baby. Granted it’s been a LONG time since I’ve had to worry about feeding a baby a bottle, but ‘something’ there just doesn’t make sense.
I would really like to hear from somebody that can tell me how that works out.
For future reference purposes…
Not that I’m seeing more and more of this every day… Nope…
We do away with all the nasty petroleum?
There is just a ‘little’ issue with doing this…
If there is no petroleum, there will be an estimated 6000 products that will no longer be available!
Partial list, HERE from Ranken Energy. And more from Canada, HERE.
And a partial list from US DOE-
Adhesive Air mattresses Ammonia Antifreeze Antihistamines Antiseptics Artificial limbs Artificial turf Asphalt Aspirin Awnings Backpacks Balloons Ballpoint pens Bandages Beach umbrellas Boats Cameras Candies and gum Candles Car battery cases Car enamel Cassettes Caulking CDs/computer disks Cell phones Clothes Clothesline Clothing Coffee makers Cold cream Combs Computer keyboards Computer monitors Cortisone Crayons Credit cards Curtains Dashboards Denture adhesives Dentures Deodorant Detergent Dice Dishwashing liquid Dog collars Drinking cups Dyes Electric blankets Electrical tape Enamel Epoxy paint Eyeglasses Fan belts Faucet washers Fertilizers Fishing boots Fishing lures Floor wax Food preservatives Footballs Fuel tanks Glue Glycerin Golf bags Golf balls Guitar strings Hair coloring Hair curlers Hand lotion Hearing aids Heart valves House paint Hula hoops Ice buckets Ice chests Ice cube trays Ink Insect repellent Insecticides Insulation iPad/iPhone Kayaks Laptops Life jackets Light-weight aircraft Lipstick Loudspeakers Lubricants Luggage Model cars Mops Motorcycle helmets Movie film Nail polish Noise insulation Nylon rope Oil filters Packaging Paint brushes Paint roller Pajamas Panty hose Parachutes Perfumes Permanent press Petroleum jelly Pharmaceuticals Pillow filling Plastic toys Plastics Plywood adhesive Propane Purses Putty Refrigerants Refrigerator linings Roller skate wheels Roofing Rubber cement Rubbing alcohol Safety glasses Shampoo Shaving cream Shoe polish Shoes/sandals Shower curtains Skateboards Skis Soap dishes Soft contact lenses Solar panels Solvents Spacesuits Sports car bodies Sunglasses Surf boards Swimming pools Synthetic rubber Telephones Tennis rackets Tents Tires Tool boxes Tool racks Toothbrushes Toothpaste Transparent tape Trash bags Truck and automobile parts Tubing TV cabinets Umbrellas Unbreakable dishes Upholstery Vaporizers Vinyl flooring Vitamin capsules Water pipes Wind turbine blades Yarn
And a comment from a friend who had to take a child to the ER- “ER visit with a child last week. I just looked at all the tubing, barf bags, oxygen regulators, gloves, bandages, furniture and fixtures in the room and tried to imagine the hospital going back to glass, leather, metal and wood for everything. Not to mention the computers and sensors. Casts would go back to plaster-only.” And this was JUST in the ER. Add in syringes, IV bags, medication, etc…
Hopefully, the idjits in charge actually do a ‘bit’ of research before they continue down this particular path!
How much time do you, as a writer put in on the various ‘skills’ necessary to get your book/story written? How much is your time worth? $10/hr, $50/hr, or???
How many books on ‘how to write’ (insert genre here) have you purchased and do you follow them?
How many hours do you spend in research? Do you go down ratholes? Do you use research to ‘verify’ something you put in the story, or do you do the research first, THEN write the story? Internet, actual books, or for research, or some combination of all three? Do you take road trips to visit locations (if you’re writing based on actual places)?
Do you have a schedule and stick to it? Write daily? Have more than one project going at a time? How do you handle writer’s block?
Outliner or pantser (you write the story as it develops in your head/characters)? Do you ‘argue’ with your characters?
Do you write the entire story first then edit, or do you edit the previous day’s output before writing the next day’s word count? Or some other variation (edit by chapters)? Do you self edit or pay an editor?
Who roofpreads your work? Spouse/SO/family? Asshole alpha and beta readers? Nobody except yourself? Are you a member of a writers or critique group?
Do you do your own covers/blurbs/keywords? How long does that take you? Or do you pay someone to do that?
Do you attend conferences? What tracks do you attend/follow at conferences? How do you ‘justify’ those costs?
How much marketing do you do? FB, blogs, newsletters, Twit, Instagram, other? Do you have business cards, bookmarks, or other swag to give away?
If you’ve made it this far, make a list of how you write, do all those other things, and track the hours you spend on each for something like a week. Now multiply that by how much each hour of your time is worth.
That will give you options if you’re spending too much time on specific tasks (specifically covers and editing). Remember, any hours not writing/researching may not be the ‘best’ use of your time.
Are there a set of answers? NO,THERE ARE NOT! Now that I’ve confused the hell out of you, the real answer is we are all different. Each of us has different ways of doing all those things (or not as the case may be). As a writer, you have to do what works best for YOU! Advice, self help books, etc. are all well and good, but YOU have to develop your own ‘style’ if you will.
This one IS one that has an answer- Can you/do you write to deadlines and word counts if you’re involved in an anthology?
If the answer is yes, then you will probably be invited back to other anthologies. If you can’t, or have to keep asking for extensions, you may not want to try for anthologies.
Failure to meet deadlines and word counts will give you a negative reputation among other authors/publishers/etc.
I seldom recommend stuff, but I WILL recommend the Writer Dojo, HERE. Larry and Steve cut through the BS, offer sound advice (you can take or leave it), and don’t pull any punches. I’ve followed them since they started it, and I have learned a number of very good things from these two guys!
YMMV, IANAL, etc…
This truly sucks…
The Boeing 737 was on a flight from Kunming to Guangzhou when it suddenly went into a steep dive and crashed into a mountainous area in Guangxi, China. All 123 passengers and nine crew members were killed.
The Chinese counterpart to the National Transportation Safety Board, the Civil Aviation Administration of China, did not see any mechanical problems causing the crash, and neither did the NTSB. There were other indications that led American investigators to the conclusion that the plane was deliberately crashed.
Full article, HERE.
Sadly, this isn’t the first time, nor will it be the last time this happens. Prayers for those families dealing with their losses.
I just don’t have the words to express my hatred for people that willingly kill others this way…
How many times must we ‘reinvent’ the wheel???
A couple of different threads in different groups have once again resurrected the proverbial dead horses…
And the ‘new kids’ are determined to show they know better than any old farts/fogies/dinosaurs. Even if said old farts, etc. were there… Sigh…
Of note, all of these ‘wheels’ were dissected, flayed, and buried ten or more years ago (at least once if not more).
One is a discussion about a particular rifle based on an old ad by a well known company (dated to the late 70s) alluding to a military rifle designation. Said rifle was prototyped by a particular company, but never entered service. The company did advertise it with the ‘designation’ it would have had, had it entered service.
Remember how Ruger ‘sold’ the 5.56 range rifle? Said it was a ‘mini-14’ which looked strangely like an M-1 carbine…
This particular kerfuffle around the ad and whether it was real or not, and was put to bed back around 2010, if I remember correctly, But the new kids ‘know better’, hence it reared up again. After probably 25-30 comments, including folks that actually built the prototypes, the new kids finally disappeared… Sigh. But never admitted they were wrong.
Another surrounds a pistol holster that a kid ‘invented’ and crows about how neat his holster is. But it’s a copy of a thirty year old holster, just in a different material. Same same… ‘They’ are honest and upright, and us old farts are just trying to ‘tear them down’…
And a military thread about how us old farts couldn’t find our asses with both hands, a flashlight, and a map, but the new kids can because… superior equipment, better training, more ‘knowledge’, and, and, and…
Of course they skip over the whole knowledge thing, never admitting that what is in the database is stuff ‘we’ collected back in the day, and the TTP they are using today are what we developed over 30 years ago based on thousands of hours of actual interactions with the bad guys.
Nor will they admit the new equipment they are using was, by and large, developed by us old farts after we retired and went to work for various companies. Unpossible! Y’all are out of touch with reality, ‘we’ are the Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) because we say so (even though the entire community has less interactions that probably six or eight of us old farts)!
I’m sure there are plenty more of these ‘reinventions’ going on every day out there, but damn, it gets old… Why do these people not do the research, and when information is provided they refuse to accept it?
Are they that insecure? Or is it because they’ve been coddled to the point that they’ve never failed? Or expect a ‘participation trophy’ for showing up? Or were they never told they were wrong?
I really don’t understand this mentality…
What say y’all? Am I that far off base?
New York lost in court over the latest gerrymandering attempt back in March…
And a special master was appointed to step in and redo the map, since NY is losing a seat this year due to the latest census results.
New York’s court-appointed special master unveiled a congressional map proposal that would wipe out Democratic gains in the Empire State and make apportionment far more competitive than a prior enacted map.
If enacted, the map proposed Monday would likely result in a 15-5 Democrat-Republican split, with six seats being competitive — a significant dip from the likely 22-4 majority Democrats previously procured that had been struck down by a state court in late March.
Full article, HERE from the Washington Examiner.
Frankly, I’m surprised the Dems got shut down since they pretty much control New York, but maybe, just maybe this is a wake up call for John Q. Public to step up and take back control of the government.
I know there are people who say we’ll never see another honest election, but I hope/believe that what happened in 2020 has gotten the silent majority’s backs up and they are tired of being ramrodded by ‘professional politicians’ who only care about constituents at election time, then go back to doing what they want with no consideration of their constituent’s desires.
I’ll be the first to admit I could be wrong, but I hope to hell I’m not…