Month: May 2026

31MAY2026 – Quote of the Day

photog 1 Comment Quote of the Day ,

There is no wealth but life. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest numbers of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest, who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.

John Ruskin

Antifa and the Hidden Hand

photog 5 Comments Current Events, My Fiction, photog's Corner, Trump , , ,

So, I saw this article:

Bessent says IRS and FBI investigation into antifa has made ‘substantial progress’

“What to know

  • Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed progress in the IRS-FBI antifa investigation.
  • New IRS guidance will hold grant-making organizations responsible for violent recipients.
  • Antifa is labeled a militant anarchist organization by the Trump administration.
  • The executive order cites antifa’s violent activities and attempts to overthrow the government.

The memo and the antifa executive order targeted the tax-exempt status of foundations funding civil society groups. The memo instructed the IRS commissioner to ensure that no tax-exempt entities are directly or indirectly financing political violence or domestic terrorism.”

So, the gist of this investigation is identifying NGOs that are providing funds and other aid to antifa and use it as a reason to strip them of their tax-exempt status and then prosecute them for the aid they’re providing antifa in its illegal activities.

It sounds like a good strategy.  Of course, the various antifa legal fronts will challenge all this in every commie-sympathizing jurisdiction (NY, CA, D.C., OR, etc.) but the Supreme Court has been very supportive of the administration’s attempts to go after rogue elements of the Left so there’s a good chance all this will move forward.

Based on the assassination attempts against Trump, Charlie Kirk and that healthcare CEO, these antifa psychos are extremely dangerous and need to be defunded, rounded up and put away for a very long time.

On an unrelated and much more positive development my Kindle Unlimited page views have continued to increase:

Tonight, has been the highest page count to date (407 pages) and that curve looks pretty encouraging (so far).  I won’t try to make too much soup with such a little bit of meat but we authors have to take our solace where we find it.  Now, I’d prefer that it was 407 million pages but we all have to start somewhere.

Now based on my years of experience extrapolating curves based on limited data it’s obvious to me that the next data point will be 800 pages followed shortly by 1,600 pages and by obvious curve fitting this will turn into an asymptote by June 7th at which point the number of pages will reach infinity and Amazon will have to proclaim me the new James Patterson.  Of course I shouldn’t say this quite yet.  You never know.  I could be wrong.  It might take all the way until June 15th for all of this to reach its crescendo.  So, I’ll just bide my time and maintain a humble façade.  I’ll practice my gracious acceptance speech, “Oh no, I’m not worthy!  I’m not worthy!  I’d like to thank all the little people.  If I’ve seen farther, it’s not because I’ve stood on the shoulders of giants but rather, because I am a super-giant.  And I want to cast aspersions on those who tried to hold back my reputation.  All those who claimed I wasn’t greater than their favorites; all those fanboys of Shakespeare or Tolstoy or Tolkien or whomever!  Bah!  Tired hacks and amateurs.  Their memories will be swept away like chaff from the wheat in the glorious sunshine of my new day.”

Or something like that.

29MAY2026 – OCF Update – This’N’That

photog 2 Comments Book Reviews, Current Events, OCF, photog's Corner, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews , , ,

So, I’m a week in on the Kindle Unlimited program and I’ve got about a thousand pages sold.  Now that’s like five books worth.  Which is not much but the curve has been increasing for the last five days so I’ll keep an eye on this for a few weeks to see if it goes anywhere.  If any of you guys currently uses Kindle Unlimited explain how it works.  Do you read it on the website one page at a time or how does it work?  It seems kind of clunky to me.

So, Camera Girl and I went to the Dunwich Spring Middle School Concert which includes both band and chorus sections at both the upper and lower levels.  This is a remarkable experience because the range of accomplishment varies from fairly good to nonexistent.  But realizing that the teacher has managed to get these children to even organize into an orchestra is almost inconceivable.  The choral songs aren’t mostly to my taste.  They tend to try to introduce a foreign language song that doesn’t translate to an American audience.  One exception was Wimoweh (The Lion Sleeps Tonight).  The Tokens version is a favorite of mine so I was excited.  But something went wrong with the arrangement.  As is typical in these school choruses the ratio of girls to boys is seven to one.  So, the deeper voices are always practically missing in the song.  But Wimoweh famously has a towering falsetto section and of course all those girls should have been able to translate it into a powerful soprano part.  But instead, they had the three boys with their barely audible tenor voices whispering through this part.  Oh, the pain.

But the highlight of the evening was the band giving their rendition of the theme to “Jurassic Park.”  And the kids did a serviceable job of John Williams’ Fanfare for the Common Dinosaur.  But the funniest thing was a kid sitting behind me.  He must have been three years old and he started exclaiming loudly, “Giraffic Park, Giraffic Park!!!” at the top of his lungs and all the parents in the front rows started laughing.  But the Conductor/Music Teacher never missed a beat and her band performed the miracle of producing a recognizable version of the popular melody.

I’ve started reading “Project Hail Mary.”  My oldest grandson has loaned me his copy and I’m treating it with kid gloves since I remember what it was like when I had a mint hardback copy of an sf favorite.  I’m a hundred pages in and it’s interesting.  It’s definitely a millennial book.  There’s a difference in the voice.  It’s a kindler, gentler voice.  There’s much more emotion.  Now the protagonist is a Middle School teacher so you can say this is just the consequence of this particular character.  But the choice of the character is part of this younger generation of readers and writers.  Well, the book is good so far.  It’s inventive and well-paced and has an interesting manner of unfolding the story.  It starts in the middle and flashes back to the beginning but one flash at a time.  Weir has come up with an interesting twist on an interstellar drive.  It dovetails with the crisis that is forcing the need for a trip to Tau Ceti.  Now I don’t think it’s a particularly plausible mechanism but it is entertaining for sure.

Well, that’s enough.