Rant…

This one came over the transom from the mil email chain, but I DO agree wholeheartedly with it!

I’m getting old and I’ve worked hard all my life. I have made my reputation, the good and the bad, I didn’t inherit my job or my income, and I have worked hard to get where I am in life. I have juggled my job, my family, and made many sacrifices up front to secure a life for my family. It wasn’t always easy and still isn’t, but I did it all while maintaining my integrity and my principles. I made mistakes and tried to learn from them.
I have few friends & have mostly been a loner except family, but have served & worked with good people from every walk of life. I have helped many that I could, mostly family. So, I’m tired of being told that I have to “spread the wealth” to people who don’t have my work ethic. People who have sacrificed nothing and feel entitled to receive everything.
I’m tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it themselves. I’m really tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which, no one is allowed to debate.
I’m really tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of all parties talk like their opinions matter to the common man. I’m tired of any of them even pretending they can relate to the life and bank account that I have. I’m tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.
I’m upset that I’m labeled as a racist because I am proud of my heritage. I never stole any ones land, the government did that… I’m tired of being told I need to accept the latest fad or politically correct stupidity or befriending a group that’s intent on killing me because I won’t convert to their point of view.
I’m really tired of people who don’t take responsibility for their lives and actions. Especially the ones that want me to fund it. I’m tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination, or big-whatever for their problems.
Yes, I’m really tired. But, I’m also glad to be in the twilight of my life. Because mostly, I’m not going to have to see the wretched, depressing world these young useless idiots are creating.
And lastly, because even though I shouted from the rooftops, no one listened or seemed to give a crap. You reap what you sow, and so do your children. No one is entitled to anything. You have a choice to work, a choice to stay off drugs, a choice to make something of yourself. I have nothing to do with your choice. That’s all on you. You are entitled to what you earn.
There is no way these thoughts will be widely publicized, and the politically correct police censors will try to shut us up, as usual.
This is even worse for those of us who try to write and publish our work. If we don’t ‘toe the line’ of the sensitivity readers and the thought police, we get one star reviews, people telling others NOT to buy our books, or saying we are (insert latest ist term here)… Anything to shut us down/keep us from making any money.

Book promo…

Another anthology from Raconteur Press is out- Space Marines

Click on the cover for the Amazon link!

The blurb-

Americans have always romanticized space travel. We are a people who, good or bad, have ever had their eyes on the horizon, and when we conquered our own horizons, we turned to the horizon of space. We have elevated intrepid astronauts to the status of American heroes, and as a nation we mourned the loss of the crews of Apollo 1Challenger and Columbia.

Astronauts, however, are not our only national heroes; they are preceded in that honor by the Marines.

Marines have a credo, Semper Fidelis. It means “always faithful,” and Marines have honored that credo throughout our nation’s history. They have remained faithful to their mission, to their country, and to each other. It is easy to admire such men, which is why we so love stories about Marines; they embody the faith, nobility and honor to which we all aspire.

In this volume of stories, the Marines were sent to space to do what Marines do. And some of them made it home to tell their stories and figure out what’s next.

Yes, I have a story in this one too! 🙂

And LawDog has finally gotten his second novel fixed and back up- The Africa Files

The blurb-

Africa is different.

Most people who grew up in the Western world don’t realize just how different.

In this volume, LawDog relates stories of growing up in West Africa, including run-ins with the flora and fauna, a younger brother, their engineer father and redheaded mother.

The Africa Files isn’t just a collection of childhood shenanigans, though there’s a lot of that, but also a fond recollection of a time and place that shaped a Texas lawman.

Note! These are the only authorized copies of his work! The other books under D Lawdog are not his, and he doesn’t get a penny from them (although they owe him money for them AND the audio books)…

Last, but not least, Kal Spriggs has the fourth book in his Eoriel Saga out Sorcerers of the Black Fortress

The blurb-

The enemy you don’t see is the one waiting to stab you in the back.

Aerion Swordbreaker has helped to overthrow the usurper and restore Lady Katarina to rule over the Duchy of Masov. In the process, he’s recovered the Starblade, a weapon and symbol of extreme power. But it has been broken for a thousand cycles, and repairing it may be beyond the powers of the greatest wizards who ever lived. This is an impossible quest, but that’s nothing new for Aerion and his companions.

Across the continent of Eoriel, ancient powers stir: gods, demons, and powerful spirits. Some are driven to help, but others will oppose his efforts at all costs. And close at hand, closer than he realizes, there are forces within the Duchy of Masov that will stop at nothing to kill him and destroy the Starblade. Because it represents the High Kings as a symbol of justice that must be removed.

An alliance is forming, of powers dark and terrible, and they’ve chosen their champions with care. The sorcerers of the Black Fortress have returned and they’ll send their monstrous creations across the land, scourging everything in their path, to ensure that Aerion’s quest fails and the era of the High Kings never returns.

This is a great series and Kal has put a lot of work into the world building and character development in it!

Lastly, I’d like to thank those who have bought and posted reviews of Nothing but Time! 

Still hanging around in the top 25 short reads after a month is DAMN GOOD!!! Thank you!

Y’all have a great weekend, and enjoy ‘spring’ if you can!

YGTBSM!!!

Take your BP meds, maybe duct tape your head to keep it from exploding…

Just listen to this…

Whatthehell???

These people truly DO NOT have a grip on reality! How the hell is this supposed to happen?

How far is an electric tank going to get on each charge? A mile???

This will literally KILL our troops if they have to fight on land! I…

Gah…

This one…

Is just flat weird!!!

Kamil, a virologist at Louisiana State University’s (LSU’s) Health Sciences Center Shreveport, says he quickly struck up a friendly relationship with a Steven Meyers, who used a gisaid.org email address. The two often exchanged emails and talked on the phone, sometimes for hours, about the pandemic and data sharing—but also about music, beer, and Saturday Night Live. Meyers said he had previously worked at Time Warner and had changed jobs after his boss at that company, Peter Bogner, launched GISAID in 2008. Meyers was born in Germany and living in Santa Monica, California, just like Bogner, whom he would call “our big boss” and “the Big Cheese.”

Full article, HERE from Science.org

And this is before AIs get in the game…

Paranoia, or ‘separation’ from reality? I have no idea!

One last payoff???

Sure sounds like it to me…

The National Park Service broke agency rules to send an exorbitant share of park maintenance money to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s district, including the entire $200 million pot of money that Congress included in last year’s budget-climate bill.

Director Charles F. Sams revealed to Congress that higher-ups at the Interior Department ordered him to ensure that the Presidio, a park in Mrs. Pelosi’s district, got the money. He was told they had concluded it was Congress’ intent when it allocated the $200 million — even though the law didn’t say that.

Full article, HERE, from the Washington Times.

If that isn’t bad enough, there is this one…

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s name will soon appear on a federal building in her hometown thanks to an item slipped into a massive must-pass spending bill that Congress is rushing to approve this week.

Tucked away on page 610 of the 1,455-page tome is a provision to rename the federal building located at 90 7th St in San Francisco, California, as “Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building” to honor the California Democrat who is stepping down from her longtime leadership post.

Full article, HERE.

I can’t help but wonder how much of that $200 Million is going to end up in Pelosi’s pocket…

We REALLY need term limits to stop this kind of crap!!!

A little humor…

To start your week!

1 – I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
2 – Borrow money from pessimists — they don’t expect it back.
3 – Half the people you know are below average.
4 – 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
5 – 82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
6 – A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
7 – A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
8 – If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.
9 – All those who believe in psychokinesis, raise my hand.
10 – The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
11 – I almost had a psychic girlfriend, ….. But she left me before we met.
12 – OK, so what’s the speed of dark?
13 – How do you tell when you’re out of invisible ink?
14 – If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
15 – Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
16 – When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.
17 – Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
18 – Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.
19 – I intend to live forever … So far, so good.
20 – If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
21 – Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.
22 – What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
23 – My mechanic told me, “I couldn’t repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.”
24 – Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?
25 – If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
26 – A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
27 – Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
28 – The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.
29 – To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
30 – The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
31 – The sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up.
32 – The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.
33 – Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don’t have film.
34 – If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.
35 – If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work

Ummm…er….

Whutthehell did I just hear???

In a recent House of Representatives hearing, purple-haired Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) lamented the lack of crash test dummy gender equity.

Full article, HERE.

Yeesh… Really? And this person is a representative in Congress?

Sigh. What is this country coming to? They’ve been saying man/woman is a construct and you can’t discern from a skeleton whether it was a man or a woman (yes, really pushing new archeologists on this one), children should be allowed to ‘choose’ their sex (with the help of the schools), and now this?

I’m glad I’m old and won’t have to see the end of this mess… Grrr…

Postcards stories…

A group of us were sitting in the bar at a con, talking about different lengths of ‘stories, and Ben Yalow brought up Fredric Brown (Bio HERE). He was a master of the ‘short’ short story, as little as a single page or even shorter.

That kicked off the Three Moms of the Apocalypse and they started plotting… Which is always ‘interesting’ for versions of interesting, and your proximity to their plotting…

They decided to do a challenge- Get a graphic prompt and write a 50 word (Exactly 50 word) short story. And… away they went!

The first one was from entries at Marscon- Postcards from Mars

Click on the cover for the Amazon link!

And the second was from Louisiana’s Steampunk World Expo in Lafayette- Steam Powered Postcards

The blurb-

Can you tell a story in exactly 50 words? The Three Moms of the Apocalypse went to Louisiana’s World Steampunk Exposition and Makers Faire in Lafayette, LA and issued a challenge.

Tell us a story that could fit on the back of a postcard. Use 50 words, no more, no less. We’ll provide the postcards.

The response to this challenge was huge!

So many wonderful authors decided to take up the challenge that it was a real struggle to pick the 20 best stories.

Steam-Powered Postcards, the second Postcards anthology from Raconteur Press, contains our favorite stories, the pictures that inspired them, plus a few exciting extras. We hope you enjoy the stories as much as we did and maybe take some inspiration to try one for yourself!

I finally got a story that was acceptable, but I’ll tell you trying to write a coherent exactly 50 word long story is…HARD!!! 🙂

My prompt-

And my ‘story’…

The ladies are continuing to do these, so feel free to jump in on them, even if you can’t make the cons! You can find the lead ups on the North Texas Troublemakers Page on FB HERE.

Charleston, South Carolina

On April 21, 1775 the ‘rebellion’ came to South Carolina in the form of preemptive ‘actions’…

Thursday, April 20th, 1775, the members of the General Committee of the South Carolina Provincial Congress convened in Charleston. After discussing the latest news received from England, and the intelligence contained in the private mail stolen from the post office the preceding night, the president of the Provincial Congress, Colonel Charles Pinckney (1732–1782) appointed William Henry Drayton (1742–1779) to head a “Secret Committee” to execute a series of preemptive covert actions.

Around 11 p.m. on the evening of Friday, April 21st, a silent party of rebellious Americans, dressed in their normal civilian clothes, convened at the corner of Broad and Meeting Streets to remove as many of the government-owned weapons as possible from the attic of the State House at the northwest corner of that intersection. On the opposite side of Broad Street stood the town’s Watch House, or police station, but the rebel thieves encountered no resistance. Did they break open the door to the armory?

Over a period of several hours, they quietly removed at least 800 muskets with bayonets, 200 cutlasses, all of the leather cartridge boxes, and a quantity of match and gun flints. Imagine a bucket brigade of rebels stretching from the attic of the State House, down the stairs, out the north door of the building, and into the courtyard. Waiting there was probably a queue of carts or wagons ready to shuttle the weapons off to multiple secret hiding places, so the entire cache would not be found if the authorities suddenly interrupted the scene.

Who were the men who participated in this raid on the State House armory? In his 1821 Memoirs, John Drayton provides a list of “respectable gentlemen” who “attended” at the State House on that evening, “among whom were Colonel Charles Pinckney, President of the Provincial Congress—Col. Henry Laurens, Chairman of the General Committee—Thomas Lynch, one of the Delegates to the Continental Congress—Benjamin Huger, William Bull, and William Henry Drayton. To this list of “gentlemen,” Joseph Johnson, in 1851, added the names of several “mechanics,” or tradesmen, including Daniel Cannon, William Johnson, Anthony Toomer, Edward Weyman, and Daniel Stevens.

Down by the Cooper River, operatives were making preparations to steal the government’s supply of gunpowder from the nearby magazines. Under cover of darkness, two groups, perhaps numbering six to ten men each, embarked in two large rowboats from some point on the Charleston waterfront—probably from the town’s northernmost wharf, owned by Christopher Gadsden. The route from Gadsden’s wharf up the Cooper River to the magazine at the head of Shipyard Creek on the Neck was approximately four and a half miles. The route from Gadsden’s Wharf to the magazine at Hobcaw Point, up the Wando River, near the mouth of Molasses Creek, was almost exactly three miles. To economize their rowing efforts, the two crews probably coordinated their respective journeys with the changing tides. The incoming flood tide would have facilitated the trip from the wharf upriver, while a few hours later the ebbing tide would have carried the powder-heavy barges back downstream to Gadsden’s Wharf with a minimum of effort.

William Johnson and Edward Weyman, a member of the Secret Committee, took part in the expedition to break into the magazine next to Robert Cochran’s shipyard. When they arrived at the target, however, they found the magazine empty. It appeared that Captain Cochran had divined their mission and preemptively removed the powder and hidden it nearby.

Needless to say, the Lieutenant Governor, Bull was not happy- Issuing the following proclamation on the afternoon of Saturday, April 22nd, offering a reward of £100 sterling to “to any Person that shall give Information, so that he or they may be brought to condign [formal or fitting] Punishment, hereby strictly commanding all his Majesty’s Justices of the Peace, Constables, and other Civil Officers, to use their best endeavours to make discovery thereof. . . . GOD Save the KING.”

That reward was never collected…

The Gunpowder ‘incident’…

Not knowing what had happened the day before in Lexington and Concord, MA, on April 20, 1775, Williamsburg, VA was the site of the infamous Gunpowder Incident…

The incident that pushed Governor Murray to action may have been Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech, delivered on March 23, 1775. All the soldiers in Virginia had been sent to Massachusetts after the powder alarm (Royal Governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, confiscated the colonials’ supply of gunpowder in Charlestown)  but there were still several Royal Navy ships in the area. Governor Murray secretly brought 20 marines on shore on April 19 and ordered them to confiscate the gunpowder in Williamsburg the following night.

Powder Magazine, Williamsburg, Virginia

The Powder Magazine in Williamsburg still stands today.

On the evening of April 20th, the marines began removing the gunpowder, but local citizens noticed and sounded the alarm. Peyton Randolph, the Speaker of the House of Burgesses and first President of the Continental Congress, had to persuade the gathering crowd not to burn the governor’s mansion down. The local council demanded the return of the powder, explaining it was their property and not the property of the royal government. Murray said he took it because he didn’t think it was safe where it was located because of rumors of a slave uprising. The crowd then began to disperse.

Over the next month, there were various marches, including threats on both sides, with Murray actually threatening to burn Williamsburg! The government was finally convinced to pay £330 for the confiscated gunpowder, via a landowner, but that was effectively the end of British rule in Virginia. Murray actually left for good in 1776, after moving aboard ship ‘in fear for his and his family’.

And things went downhill in a hurry…