Open Thread

So, the Mirrors series does head towards it’s end: I’m doing revisions to Book VI: Heirs and shortly after that, Book VII: Empress will come out. Then Crimson Blade, Home World and Ghost Tower. There might be some more after that (I planted several story lines in each book that I can pursue if I wish). But, mostly, Book X will wrap it up – that is, all the Bad Guys and Evil Things our four main heroes have to deal with will be, well, dealt with. I’ve already written The Very End where I wrap up the story line for everyone, including secondary characters. So, of course, I got another idea.

I was at work yesterday and when I took a break, in about five minutes a story of science, magic and adventure came to mind – all revolving around people who are Of The Sixteen, those who ain’t and the Terrible Secret the Sixteen hid thousands of years before. It’ll be lots of fun: no spoilers! It was amazing how fast it all came into my mind…Arkan is our hero, helped by Thomas (who has a Secret of his own) and desperately in love with Samantha, who doesn’t realize she loves Arkan. A lot of the outline is already written and I hope to have a first book out in a year or so, even before Mirrors wraps up.

That stuff is a lot more fun than real life.

So, how do we know we’re heading into a very bad recession? Because Team Pudding Brain and the MSM are out there telling us that two quarters of negative growth don’t count as a recession…even though the very same people claiming this were saying as recently as last month that they would. They must have seen the report on Sunday because this drivel started on Monday and I’ve just got to figure its a doozy of a bad report…I mean, a slight drop they’d just pass off as nothing…so, I expect it to be on the hideous side. And keep in mind that ever since Obama (with a temporary reversion under Trump) the Keepers of the Stats have been fudging the economic numbers to make it look as good as possible for Democrats.

How do we know that Democrats are about to get wiped out in November? Two things: they’re pushing out D+12 polls showing Democrats with a slight Generic Ballot lead and they’re working up to a reinstatement of mask mandates in Blue cities and States…so they can justify ballot harvesting and drop boxes again. All this means that they are expecting a 10 point or so swing to the GOP…and you just have to look at 2020 results to see that such a swing means a 35-40 seat GOP House gain. What they’re doing now is attempting to shore up not swing districts, but deep Blue D+8 to D+12 districts…because as we slip into recession and oil supplies foretell another spike in gas prices, Democrats may be in for an historic defeat. As per usual in such things, lots can change – it is months away: but at this point in time, it is getting rather baked in. If the Democrats are lucky and all the breaks go their way, they’ll only lose 25 House seats.

Democrats are insane, by the way – they brought a witch and a furry (if you don’t know what a furry is, do not look it up) in for a hearing on abortion. But they are also stuck – they said that such insane people are legitimate in the debate and now they’ve got to pretend that normal people watching this won’t be disgusted.

McDonald’s is seeing fewer customers. Think about that. Wrap your mind around it and then just know what it means for the economy. People are refraining from a burger and fries because the money isn’t in the budget for it.

Open Thread

Finally released Kings and Queen: Book V of the Mirrors series. To me, it is the best one. To be sure, I think that each book is an improvement over the prior – some of that is because I’m getting better at writing! Remember that when I started this, I merely sat down with a bare outline of part of a story and just got rolling. While not selling millions – it is an indy author thing, after all – people are buying it and I am getting really good feedback on it. It is fun! If you haven’t started the series, pick up Mirrors and get going. You won’t regret it.

On to more boring stuff…

Ukraine war: looks like Ivan got himself a bloody nose and is pulling back from Kiev. But the Russians don’t tend to quit, so I do wonder if this is just a regroup before they try again. Took the Russians 6 months and 3 tries to get Plevna in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, after all. Russians are just awful at anything that requires organization and timing…but they are very good and putting their head down and smashing away until the other side is overwhelmed.

Meanwhile, the Ruble massively rebounded because Putin simply started demanding payment for oil and gas in Rubles. It is hard to sanction a resource-rich nation like Russia. It can cause some dislocations, but those who were buying the resources were buying them for a reason.

I think that regarding the trans debate, the most crucial thing we can do is assert the plain fact that heterosexuality is the norm. Sure, in a human population of 7 billion, you’re going to find lots of variations from the norm, but all the variations combined are going to be a tiny fraction of the whole. Our presumption – our insistence, really – is that any minor who proclaims themselves in any way not heterosexual is mistaken. Only after study by genuinely disinterested third parties can any proper judgement be made as to whether or not there is a genuine variation.

We must bring an end to this current system which socially punishes the norm, provides benefits for the abnormal and immediately agrees with any proclamation of variation from the norm. There’s a poll out that says about 20 percent of youngsters view themselves as something other than heterosexual. This is not biologically possible and probably overstates reality by at least a factor of 10. But because of our current system, many of these kids will be set on a path which will prove destructive. We must put a stop to this – it is genuinely insane and continuing it is not survivable.

Since you guys won’t show up on Twitter, I’ll give you some samples of what you can find there.

Open Thread

October already! Time flies. Of course, the reason why it flies is that as each year goes by, each of them is a smaller percentage of our life. To a ten year old, a year is 10% of life…seems like forever. At my age of 56, it is 1.7% of my life. Bad news: you’re much closer to dying.

But, cheer up! I’m still writing. Actually on the first draft of Book VIII of the Mirrors series. The other day, my granddaughter insisted that I needed a dragon…and this has now started to generate the children’s book, Aleste and the IceCrystal Dragons. Amazing the imagination abilities of children! I’ve ripped it from the Mirrors series with Aleste being the daughter of one of the main characters and so set it in Lontaria. It’ll be Princess Aleste and her two friends as they play with the IceCrystal dragons and thwart the designs of an evil witch yet to be named.

Nancy and Chuck are having some difficulty getting their Graft and Socialism Act of 2021 passed – Democrats came in with this idea that they would just do what they wanted as they had won an astounding victory in 2020. Never mind the fraud! But even if we want to call the election legit, the fact of the matter is they barely won…and unless Pudding Brain remained popular, getting anything large through was doing to be difficult as Purple District/State Democrats warily eyed the 2022 midterms. I’ve loved watching Left Twitter explain that this midterm would be different because Reasons and so those Democrats need not worry. I don’t now if these morons believed it, or simply hoped the at-risk Democrats would. Well, they’re not.

Officially, all problems rest on the shoulders of Manchin and Sinema – but that is just a dodge. They actually represent about 5 Democrat Senators in total and about 20 House Democrats…those most at risk of getting destroyed in 2022 if the Progressives agenda becomes law. Naturally, Democrats have been looking for an assist from the GOP…to get enough Republicans on board to allow cover to these Democrats in peril. But, so far, even people like Romney and Murkowski have shown little interest in pulling Democrat bacon out of the fire. And, honestly, why should they? Sure, they’d get a glowing write up in the Post, but that’s worn thin. They know that it actually harms them with the base to get a glowing write up in the Post. Eventually, something is going to pass – but I bet it is a lot smaller than the $3.5 trillion Bolshevik Boondoggle the Progressives want. There are already rumors out there that Nancy is promising a vote on the Prog agenda in 2022 in return for their votes today. Like that would happen in an election year!

An eco-terrorist has been confirmed by the Senate as head of the BLM: so, look for us here in the West to take huge hits in the timber and ranching interests as this nitwit tries to Save the Planet.

Team Pudding Brain is really determined to end Trump’s remain in Mexico policy, even if it means working around Court orders. This, to me, is where we see Leftist ideology trump reality. The policy is reasonable. it makes sure that real refugees can get in while keeping out the line jumpers and the criminals who prey upon them. But that it was created by the Bad Orange Man is all that matters…it has to go, no matter how popular it was with the public and how horribly unpopular Biden gets on border security. It is like the Democrats want us to have a massive triumph next year in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

Durham seems to be chugging along. Now, I’m confident that Biden’s “Justice” department will sabotage any prosecution…but props to the man for keeping at it.

Bush’s 2004 campaign guy, Dowd, is running for Lt Governor of Texas as a liberal Democrat. A wag asked the other day if any of Bush’s people, including Bush, are still Republican? Honestly, other than Condi Rice and a couple others, not many. We really do know why we kept mostly losing – and why, even when we won, we never got anything: all of our “Conservative” leaders were actually liberals who merely told us what we wanted to hear.

Meanwhile, the Latino vote in Texas and California continues to swing towards the GOP. And I mean, a lot. In Texas, it could lead to a rare political triumph next year…in California, it is just starting to pick up steam. It seems that Latino voters don’t like being called “Latinx”, aren’t in favor of open borders, and would rather have jobs, good schools and police protection rather than carefully crafted pronouns. Make no mistake about it, guys, to really nail down the Latino vote, we will have to go along with some Big State items…but our future depends on a coalition of white rural and Latino/POC urban voters.

Open Thread

I hope you guys like my fiction more than my non-fiction…because I’m definitely liking fiction more! Nearly done with Battles, the sequel to Secrets (last night I did a big bit on the final battle between the good guys and the bad guys; its quite exciting!) and I’m already way into Shadow Army, which takes our heroes six years after Battles and continues the story. Shadow Army came up because the Mrs invented the evil creatures in it…she just suddenly thought about them and before I knew it, I had 25,000 words down.

The Democrats and the MSM (but I repeat myself) are sticking to the 2016 script relentlessly. They are even now on “GOP insiders say Trump is looking for a graceful exit and a symbolic win”. Hey, who knows? Maybe they’re on to something this time…but I suspect they are just churning out what they are told to churn out by the DNC.

I’m thinking we need to ban political polling: just get rid of it. It doesn’t inform any more, if it ever did. It is now a mere tool to drive a Narrative and try to convince people that reality is different from what they can see right in front of them. If we did that, then the Experts would actually have to go out and see what’s happening before they could tell us what they think is going on. Now, they just refer to the polls and call it a day – and call you an idiot if you don’t respect the Holy Polls.

Trump’s White House speech as called a “peaceful protest in favor of law and order”…and as we know peaceful protests can’t spread the ‘Rona, it was all good. And it was also pretty amazing: mostly because of the number of “Blexit” people involved (Black Exit: black people leaving the Democrats. We’ll see how that comes out: there are some indicators that Trump will score pretty high in minority communities. But, unlike the Experts, I think I’ll wait for the votes to be cast and counted before deciding what will happen.

Joe says we voters “don’t deserve” to know his views on court packing. Which, of course, means we know: he’ll pack it in an instant if given the chance. But, it doesn’t poll well: it really is just a tiny minority of really butt hurt liberals upset that Trump got to appoint 3, so they want to appoint 4. Joking aside, it is a danger to the Republic because if they did pack it to a 7/6 liberal majority, that Court would rule any way the Democrats wanted at the moment. Better to avoid that by keeping Trump in the White House and Cocaine Mitch running the Senate. This issue is causing some heartburn for Democrats – in both the AZ and CO Senate races, the GOP incumbents scored pretty heavily in debate by getting both their Democrat opponents to refuse to answer the question. I just have to think that voters aren’t going to like this “you don’t deserve to know” attitude. Could make some tight races flip our way.

Seems like the kooks set up by the FBI in the “kidnap Whitmer” scheme have one thing in common: they don’t like Trump. No surprise: real 2A, Conservative militia types are law-abiding patriots. We will fight if our lives and liberty depend on it, but we’re not lunatics…you know, like liberals are. My view of this is that the FBI got wind of these losers and then egged them on until they broke a law…all so they could blame Trump. As far as that goes, it worked: to the end of time, liberals will assert that MAGA-hatted Trumpsters plotted to kidnap Whitmer.

Secret Open Thread

Did I really wait that long to sign in again? Sorry: been real busy with the book! Secrets I plan to release on September 1st. Battles, the third book of the series (which wraps up this particular story line) I hope to have out by December 1st.

Secrets_Cover

Cool cover, huh? It is not absolutely necessary for anyone to buy Mirrors to understand the story in Secrets…but, it’s helpful. So, if you haven’t got Mirrors, go get it. Serious. Secrets is awesome sauce with a cherry on top. With whipped cream. And some of that chocolate stuff you can pour over. And a really good beer afterwards. And then you get to relax by the pool.

It’s really good.

Anyways…

The stupid is getting worse:

In Michigan, Greg and Kjersten Offbecker have removed the Norwegian flag flying outside of their bed and breakfast, the Nordic Pineapple. The couple purchased the historic mansion two years ago and converted it to a bed and breakfast. They’ve flown the Norwegian flag along with the American flag out front.

Unfortunately, (and because our public education system is mostly hot, stinky garbage), the Offbecker’s have removed the Norwegian flag as far too many people have confused it with the Confederate Battle Flag…

Unsolicited Chinese seeds are showing up in people’s mail boxes. I would burn any such that arrived.

It sorta looks like Kamala will be Joe’s VP pick – though some are still fighting against it. I don’t think anyone on Team Biden really wants here – or anyone who rises above complete non-entity. Everyone expects Biden to kick the bucket long before 2024…and probably most of Joe’s closest aides figure it is baked in, as well. But they’ll want to hold on to power as long as possible, and that means picking a VP that no one wants…so that until Biden’s carcass is carried out of the Oval Office, no moves will be made to replace him.

Don Surber takes note of a video clip I saw: a nurse hand-holding Joe out to the car. And then pulling him away from reporters before he could talk about Corn Pop, again. The man isn’t well.

Trump is doomed! But while he’s doomed, the GOP is far outpacing the Democrats in registering new voters in Pennsylvania. Kinda funny, huh? Do keep in mind that it was voter registration shifts in PA which first clued me in that Trump could win in 2016. It is certainly better to follow such things than polls…but I also noted on Twitter that Nate Silver is already hedging his bets for November 3rd.

 

 

This Open Thread is Awesome

OK, false advertising. But it is kinda nice.

Anyways, I finished Secrets, the sequel to Mirrors and I’m actually working on the third book. By that, I mean I finally had to put a lid on Secrets at about 110,000 words and I’m 30,000 into the third book, already. Being locked down does have its benefits! It is a smashing story of love, magic, war and friendship.

Trump’s Executive Order on hiring could be crucial…but only in a 2nd Trump term. If Biden wins, he’ll undo it immediately (and Roberts won’t say “boo” about it). But if Trump is re-elected then he’s basically allowing himself to hire whomever he wants…and that means as people leave government, he can staff it up with Civil Service-protected hires who are on our side. Especially if we can also win in 2024, this will be Trump’s most important legacy…having people like us actually in there, irremovable, affecting policy for decades to come.

And “our side” is what matters, folks. Our victories are always partial and short lived because after we struggle for ages and finally get our little win, their side is always in there to slowly whittle away what we did. We need people on our side in there, making sure that what we win stays won.

Now, if you’ve been watching the news and social media: first, get the psychological and spiritual help you need. After that: ignore everything you saw. I was getting a little down, as well. But then I heard something about the primary turnout for Trump and…I looked it up. It is astonishing. We’re talking massively more people are turning out for Trump in 2020 than turned out for Obama in 2012. I’m serious: it isn’t just a little increase, it is massive. In some cases, orders of magnitude larger. And it isn’t just in Red States: Blue and Purple States have seen it, as well. What does this mean? After all, in both cases it is meaningless: the nominee is already set. And that’s just it: someone on Team Trump is getting these people to show up. We’ve been told that Team Trump has built a ground game like none has ever seen before…and now it is being tested out in the primaries. My bet: large numbers are former Dems and/or rare voters…ie, people who will not show up in polling, especially if they are doing a likely voter screen.

Now, click on this. This was just Trump driving by. Look at the crowd.

‘Rona panic is again the order of the day: the spike in cases, if it is even real and not merely the result of testing, is clearly 100% caused by the protests…but the Left doesn’t care. They want their panic back because they are afraid of Trump rallies and want an excuse to keep Biden in the basement. This is not the action of a party which thinks it is about to win in a landslide.

This is funny:

Hat Tip: Ace of Spades

Democrats realize they are running a scam.

Open Thread

I finished the first draft of “Secrets” and I think it is really good. And then I immediately went into the third book of the series, tentatively titled “Battles”; partially because I’m just on a roll for writing at the moment but, also, because I want the two books to be very integrated and I’m already modify “Secrets” a little bit as things happen in “Battles”. It is a lot more fun dealing with my fictional characters than real life: though I did have a weird dream the other day where Bryce and Rossalyn were arguing with me about how a particular passage in the book should go. I don’t know if any other authors have conversations with their characters…

But, real life goes on!

The official, official, we really mean it totally Expert and this time our polls are right opinion is that Trump is doomed. He’s isolated. Walls are closing in. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Maybe he is? I don’t really know: no one really does. You can’t rely on anything in the MSM because, as I said a while back, everything they do is designed for the sole purpose of defeating Trump. If they are ever telling the truth in these matters it is only because what is true coincides with what they want. But one smart person I know who follows these things notes that Team Trump is pouring it on in New Mexico. New Mexico went for Hillary by 8 in 2016. Either they’re insane, or they know something…meanwhile, the Democrats are boosting the idea of turning Texas Blue because of this, that or the other reason…but for all the talk of Trump performing badly there in 2016, he did win the State by 9. Can you think of one thing Trump has done which would make the people of Texas who voted for him in 2016 decide that Joe Biden is now the better choice?

And then I saw this video of Trump’s visit to Maine the other day…the streets were lined with cheering crowds of Trump supporters; flags waving, Trump signs everywhere. And it was apparently spontaneous. Let’s see what happens when Trump gets back to rallies.

The Left has gone completely Maoist now – Struggle Sessions included. Don’t know if you’ve seen the video of the Mayor of Minneapolis being forced to leave a BLM rally because he wouldn’t agree to defund the police. And I really love the MSM talking point of this morning that “defund the police” doesn’t mean that they’ll cut funding to the police. Someone at the DNC must have got some poll results! It was laughable on a lot of levels but the really crucial one is that no Democrat will ever agree to cut the pay or benefits of a government worker: that would open up a can of worms they want firmly closed. The Deputy Assistant Director of Diversity Affairs wouldn’t like that one little bit.

All I can say is that my emotions about all this veer from disgust to boredom. That an American would kneel to anything but God is an outrage to the depths of my soul. Meanwhile the rote self-denunciations for being white are just irritating at this point. I’m not typical: in fact, as you know, I’m a little “out there” in my opinions…but I am hopeful that only a small minority of Americans is actually like that. If a majority is, then the nation has been doomed for some time anyway and my hope is for peaceful separation of the parts. And the Left is so deadly dull: they all dress alike, hold the exact same opinions and are impossible to talk to. If we do still have a majority – and November will tell – then we really have to go about defunding the Left…take away their college and corporate sinecures and force them to go get real jobs; that’ll put an end to this as fast as a mandatory 30 day jail sentence would forever end the threat of riots.

We went from “stay indoors to save grandma” to “don’t even talk to grandma until she becomes BLM” rather quickly.

Biden says 10-15% of us are just Deplorable.

Antifa goon beats up an 82 year old man for holding a Trump sign. Do not forget that these people hate you.

Why are we having riots? Because there are some indications that black people are warming up to Trump. Also: the youngsters think this whole riot thing is the hip and cool thing to do…Democrats are now going to try to convince them that the really cool thing to do after a riot is vote Biden. I don’t think that will work.

Book Writing Open Thread

Sorry I’ve been very slack lately, but over the past four days I wrote 38,000 words on Secrets. It just flowed out of me. I reviewed it today and it is really pretty good. No, scratch that; its very good. Having a hard time pulling away from it. Anyways, I hope you guys like it, when I put it out. Probably in a couple months.

The lockdowns were a mistake, in my view. I agreed with them and I fault no one who imposed them: but it is clear by now that the disease is not a super-killer. We needed do no more than a bit of social distancing and a reduction of venue capacity; maybe down to 25% at the start, and then slowly climbing as time went on. What has really driven deaths in the United States is old people and something like 40% of those deaths are in nursing homes…burdened by the orders of Democrat politicians to accept Coronavirus patients. Democrats are keeping up the lockdowns and fear mongering entirely for political reasons at this point: they are convinced it hurts Trump. Maybe it will – but always remember that they put politics in front of the good of the United States.

Meanwhile, Trump says he won’t go for a second lockdown if we get a second wave of Coronavirus. My view: this is the second wave and we’ll find out it got here in October.

The Flynn judge who is trying to act as prosecutor and judge over Flynn has been called out – and now has to explain himself to an appellate court. I believe that Sullivan will be smacked down quite firmly but it is worrisome that this is the sort of person who has been placed on the bench in the United States. This is a mockery of justice – and how many are there like him? I don’t think our Progressives realize what will happen if the broad mass starts to feel that the judiciary is partisan.

An idea has been put out there that no Blue State should be bailed out unless they agree to allow their Red areas to secede and form new States. This idea has merit, in my view.

With some luck, the USA will returned to manned space missions next week. I hope it works and part of why I’m voting Trump in 2020 is that he seems to understand that the United Stats needs to do the big things…that NASA is supposed to get us to Mars, no try to burnish the thin scientific achievements of Islam. A vote for Biden means a return to doing nothing in space…a vote for Trump means we go back to the Moon and go on to Mars.

Writing a Book Open Thread

Still working on Secrets – you all have got your copy of Mirrors, right? – and I’m enjoying it immensely. Don’t really know much about the whole fiction author thing but I do wonder if authors are supposed to fall in love with their characters? Bryce and Fred are just great guys while Celeste and Rossalyn are proving to be very tough and resourceful, at any rate. I’m just under 60,000 words on the sequel and it is coming to its climax; probably another 30-40,000 words to go. I’ve introduced several new good guys and a couple new bad guys, as well (one of which is a woman, to sort of balance it out – all my ladies have proven to be good eggs, so far; so I thought I needed a bad lady). As happened to a much better work, the tale is growing in the telling and, at least for me, three or four books of this won’t be enough. I’ve also had to draw a map of Hadwin’s world – it was getting difficult to orientate what direction everyone was going without it. Now I understand why Tolkien also needed one.

Flynn case dismissed, right? Well, not quite – the judge in the case is proving to be an obvious ally of the Deep State and is now inviting Trump opponents to tell him why he should keep the case going, even though the prosecutor says there is no crime to charge Flynn with, or even anything to start an investigation over. Just amazing. One theory I’ve seen is that they want to force Trump to pardon Flynn – to keep some patina of “he’s guilty” on it all. Maybe – but it also might be sheer, hate-filled bloody mindedness at this point.

Acting DNI Grennell has declassified lots and lots of stuff and this is allowing us, for the first time, to really see the picture of the coup attempt. It is going to be very hard to not vote for Grennell in the GOP primary in 2024, should he decide to run. He’s showing that he’s got the most important Trumpist aspect: guts. And if he can be brave while also being less abrasive than Trump, he might become an unstoppable political force. We’ll see what the future brings.

RSM on the Arbery case. I’m mostly agnostic on the case because, well, if the MSM is pushing it hard (and they are) then someone is lying. There’s no way the MSM would push a true story. At the very least, there doesn’t seem to be an actual racial angle here, though the MSM and its minions are already saying that Arbery was killed because he was black. Maybe the shooters are guilty of murder or manslaughter – that is for a jury to decide and unless they plead out, this will go to a jury and the jury will hear the actual facts of the case: and those facts may end up strongly at variance with what the MSM has been saying.

Open Thread

Been working on the sequel to Mirrors, to be called Secrets. As you’ve all read Mirrors by now (right?) you know that our great heroes, Bryce and Fred, are up to any challenge…but I’ve got Fred in quite the pickle in Secrets and I’m puzzled about how I get him out of it. I’m sure I’ll figure it out. I hope – really, honestly – to have Secrets out early in 2020.

Hillary accused Tulsi Gabbard and Jill Stein (the lady who helped Hillary create the Trump-Russia Narrative, as you might recall) of being Russian agents. And everyone called her insane, right? Nope. I mean, lots of people did – but on the Democrat/Never Trump side its all been silence or, “hey, they are kinda Russian Agent-y”. These people are completely out of control.

As for why Hillary is suddenly worried about our Precious Bodily Fluids, the fact that her illegal server was, well, illegal and a huge security risk might play a role here.

Rasmussen finds that 49% of the American people haven’t been paying attention while 51% believe that the efforts to get Trump are a scam.

Trump’s lawyers go after CNN. Will anything come of it? Unlikely – but it is enormously funny.

Some US Senators – including Marco Rubio – have issued as statement to Activision Blizzard over it’s corporate kowtowing to China. It is an important issue and I’m glad it is being brought up (and under anyone but Trump, it never would have come up). China, of course, threatens dire punishment to any corporation which crosses China. Our job is to punish corporations even more if they kowtow. Enough of this – if you want to be corporate slaves to China, move your operations there.

There’s this group of ladies who dress up like 1940’s pinup girls and they go visit wounded veterans – except the VA says they don’t want them there because, I guess, there’s an a**hole out there who is offended (I can’t imagine any real veteran – even gay or female – being offended by this). We really need to bring a stop to this nonsense.