JamesSavik

some body give that brat a swing set or something. Get her out of here.

Modern Problems...

Little Billy's first meth lab- how adorable!

Beware the dark minions... they'll eat all your tuna.

The Season of Leo It was the season of Leo: that hot, blasted part of high summer that makes the world pant for breath. The last week of July and the first three weeks of August, it is a season of fire. The last of the summer, it blazes and rages especially hot here in the south. The well-heeled often take vacations to escape the heat but that was never our way for we are children of the Son and ours is not a life of leisure. This is forbidden kno

A young man must first find courage to be free.

The best books are like a really strenuous workout in the gym- they strain your brain. After a short period of recovery, they make it stronger than it was before.

Red Rising by Pierce Brown is an odd book. At first it has a Northern Ireland/the Troubles vibe and then it becomes a Hunger Games in space thing going on. It's odd but lots of fun.

I've been fascinated by this guy for some time. You see I was around in 1992 when the evil midget H Ross Perot showed up, acted crazy and took the margin of victory away from Papa Bush. I was expecting the daffy billionaire with a bee in his bonnet to make a statement and then fadeaway. When he won the republican primaries, I was surprised. Trump out-republicaned republicans. Mainstream republicans like Cruz, Rubio and Paul were bulldozed. When he won the nomination, I was shocked. No. Not like amusing shocked. More like holy shit, how did that happen shocked. How he beat Hillary Clinton's machine in the general elections is something darned few people saw coming. EVERYBODY has misunderestimated Trump.from day 1. Notice the word I used? Misunderestimated is a Bushism and I used it on purpose. The left made the same mistake with George W. Bush. I had an Uncle who was with the Air Force the very day it stopped being the Army Air Corp and became a stand alone service. Uncle Richard was a brilliant man who served all over the world and retired with 30 years service. I used to love to talk to him because he had been there and done that for all practical purposes everywhere. Many people who listened to his southern accent and not what he actually said would have thought he was just another bumpkin. Bumpkins don’t get to wear Oak Leaves or fly B-52s. I see this quality in Trump. I know you’re laughing but stick with me. The proof is in the pudding. Trump may have had his business ups and downs but he was successful enough to be a billionaire. Billionaires that are morons are quite rare. Trump ran a sophisticated campaign that unseated one of the most powerful top-down political organizations with multi-national reach ever. Trump manipulated the media during the primaries and the general election and had a hostile press eating out of his hands. Have you ever heard of a republican running as a populist? I thought democrats held the patent for that. He did it and, he won with it. Populism is a very sophisticated campaign strategy. It has to be consistent. If he spoke like most politicians- like a lawyer- it simply would not have worked. That’s why his speeches were very simple using ordinary language, unambiguous, declarative and repeated central themes several times. If you saw him as a simpleton, you were dead wrong. He spoke to the people in a way that they would respond. Populists have been using this methods for centuries and it works. Consider the following: Watch any Trump stump speech. It's there. For my final exhibit, consider this famous tweet: Everybody made fun of this. No one knew what it meant. Trump is obviously senile or an idiot, right? The media and the usual celbutards made complete an utter jackasses of themselves, the truth emerges. Covfefe is an Arabic word meaning I will stand. The media, not willing to be made a fool of, says no, it's not so. Native Arabic speakers say different and, he just returned from Saudi Arabia. Whose lying? I'd say it was the people so wrapped up in their own political bullshit and hate that they can't possibly see their adversary in terms other than stupid or evil. It is that sort of blindness that gets you beaten. It jut takes watching a few election cycles to see this very clearly. Both sides have made this mistake and both sides have paid dearly for it. There's more than meets the eyes to Trump. He may look dumb but he ain't. Misunderestimate him at your peril.

Vanguard: the Genesis Fleet by Jack Campbell

A Vietnamese man and a Jewish man are waiting in the Doctor’s office for an appointment and as the time goes on they become more and more irritated until finally the Jewish man says, “I hate you Vietnamese people!”. Shocked, the Vietnamese man says, “What in the world would compel you to say something like that? Why do you hate Vietnamese people?” To which the Jewish man replies, “Because you bombed Pearl Harbor!” The Vietnamese man goes, “You idiot! That wasn’t the Vietnamese, that was the Japanese!” To which the Jewish man shrugs and says, “Vietnamese, Japanese, what’s the difference?” Stunned, the Vietnamese man says, “Yeah, well I hate all you Jewish people!” To which the Jewish man replies in great indignation, “That’s anti-Semitic! Why would you hate all Jewish people?” And the Vietnamese man says, “Because you sank the Titanic!” “You idiot,” bawls the Jewish man, “That was an iceberg!” To which the Vietnamese man replies, “Iceberg, Goldberg, what’s the difference?”

James Savik @ Quora First a million, then a hundred million, then a billion and then I take over. You see Donald Trump is just a distraction. Perhaps I've said too much.

Politics in stories is an easy way to take careful aim and shoot yourself in the foot. Politics of all sorts are so polarized today that half the readers might stop reading if they think you are pushing an agenda or preaching something that they don't like. I can tell you how to NOT do it. Elysium came out in 2013 right in the middle of the Health Care debate. It was preachy and shoving an agenda so hard that the movie was coincidental. It should have advertised as a 2 hour political advertisement. Of course it's not the first or last movie with a rather blatant political message, it was as boring as listening to PRM. The very best way to involve politics in stories is to do it so subtly that the reader never notices. You can read a lot of Heinlein and never quite understand how you became a libertarian. Another big sci-fi author that's hugely political is... wait for it... get ready to froth at the mouth... Ayn Rand. Her message is extremely political and it is science fiction. Anthem takes place in a future so wrapped up in collectivism that there is no concept of "I" (or self). Atlas Shrugged revolves around some revolutionary inventions, their inventors and withholding them because they will prop up the "People's State" which is very busily collapsing.. of idiocy. Of her most famous works, only the Fountainhead does not contain sci-fi themes but it is strong on innovation. I'll bet you've never heard Ayn Rand's work described that way. It's not for the faint of heart or anyone who is not open to considering that some of the basic foundations of our society are lies that run counter to human nature and human progress. Beware. There are dangerous ideas out there and they are just waiting to infect you when you dive off into the unknown. Explore courageously.with an open mind and you'll never know what you'll discover.

Tonight I've got this going on... hamburgers & corn on the cob grilled. baked beans fries Grilled corn on the cob: put butter or margarine on corn, sprinkle on garlic powder. wrap in aluminum. cook on the grill on both sides. What are you guys cooking?

No. Just no.

Old man McDougal was sitting on a bar stool well into his cups. Sean O'Grady sat beside him at the bar and said, "How are you doing McDougal." McDougal took a shot of his drink and said, "Not so good Sean." "What's the matter?" "You have to cut stone for years fore they call you a stone cutter." "You have to build houses for years before they call you a builder." "You have to be in the fire brigade for years before they call you a fireman." The old man took a long pull on his whiskey and said, "But if you fuck one sheep...."