Parties and Stories

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Tomorrow Camera Girl and I are double booked for parties.  We have a graduation party and a friend’s family party.  And they’re both at about the same time.  So, I suggested that we go to the graduation party for an hour or so and then head to the second one.  Camera Girl spent a couple of days telling me why that was a stupid idea.  And then she told me that we would split up and each go to only one party.

So, then I suggested we start off going to separate parties but then I would come back and pick her up and both of us would go to the friend’s party.  I think she wanted to hit me.  She shook her head and walked away.  I don’t think she understands optimization.

You see if I show up at a party by myself everyone is going to want to know where she is and why I showed up without her.  I’m not the draw.  She’s much more interesting because she’s telling stories about all the stupid things I do.  And when she tells them they’re funny.  Now I can’t tell stories about myself.  It would sound stupid.  I need a straight man to tell the story and then let me weave my defense.  It would be like Costello asking “who’s on first” without Abbott.  It’s just not the same without the cross-talking.

So today I checked my stats on Amazon.  So far, “The Sniper” has sold a total of 303 books (65 paperback copies and 238 e-books) and 3,657 pages on Kindle Unlimited.  On Kindle Unlimited my book is about 210 pages long so 3,657 pages is about 17 copies.  Not bad for about a month on Kindle Unlimited.  But I may have to cancel the yacht.

But the lack of fabulous wealth from my book sales has not dampened my enthusiasm for writing.  In fact, I’ve become much more excited about the sequel.  And what has me most intrigued is not so much the plot or even the new and old characters.  What I’m interested in is injecting more dialog.  Specifically, I want to get some of the characters to tell their stories.  And I know that this is backward.  The author is supposed to show the reader the story and not tell it. But storytelling within a story is an interesting technique that I’d like to try.  And I’d like to introduce dialog between characters about politics, economic policy, religion, traditional family, artificial intelligence, the war between the sexes, energy policy, the future of the human race, space exploration and a million other things.

Of course, I’ll have to be careful I don’t drown out the action under such a heavy soaking of blather but I think it’s time for my world to start exhibiting brains and not just marksmanship.  One thing I haven’t worked out yet is whether I get Connors and Grace to go out on a date.  I’ve been bouncing some stuff off of Camera Girl but I still don’t know whether any of it makes sense.  Oh well, the only way to find out is to start writing and see where it goes.

Antifa in the News, Finally

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So last night I wrote about the crazies who are practicing to be the next Lee Harvey Oswald.

In a related vein, Antifa has been in the news a few times lately.  The first major headline a few months ago was that a group of Antifa who attacked ICE in Texas were successfully prosecuted and sentenced to serious prison time.

Then this week up in Minnesota about a dozen more were arrested for both obstruction of law enforcement but also threats of violence against officers.

So, what we’re seeing is the Trump administration’s decision to brand Antifa a domestic terrorism organization and prosecute its members as co-conspirators is bearing fruit.  If one member has a gun or a knife but the rest of the gang funnel victims his way, he’ll get the lion’s share of the sentence, but they all get to enjoy a part of the jail term.  Nice!

But the latest fun news item came from James O’Keefe.  You remember that intrepid undercover reporter from his hilarious expose on Anthony Wiener and his wiener.  But also, for the work he did exposing ACORN as an NGO scam.  But in his most interesting new work his organization managed to crack into a New Jersey Antifa group called NJ BURN.  They got access to the Signal chat group used by this Antifa cell and managed to identify a large number of the Antifa members.  They were a mix of the usual students and dirtbags but also professors, computer scientists and even politicians.

Well, that’s got to feel like a kick in the head for these guys.  When law enforcement and the general public know that you’ve been supporting Antifa and a whole year of your communications including information on tactics and resources have been exposed, that can’t be helpful for a terrorist organization.  And it’s also kind of embarrassing to get outsmarted by a tiny media company that doesn’t have the resources or scope of the FBI or the Justice Department.

Anyway, my takeaway is that these guys are going to start feeling a lot more heat than they used to and the less radical members with actual lives may decide that going to prison for a few years is more of a commitment than a computer programmer cares to invest into social justice.  But the real breakthrough has been identifying the NGOs that have been supporting the “activists” who wander from city to city acting as the shock troops for these operations.  These organizations pay the rent, food bills, gas, transportation, legal fees and medical costs for the protestors and probably various supplies that they use in their riots.

I hope that in the near future we’ll hear of additional prosecutions and eventually this should put a real damper on the anti-ICE movement and if done correctly might eventually depopulate Portland, Oregon.  But seriously, I once again have to give Trump high marks for working his Justice Department through the maze of left-wing allies that have protected Antifa up till now and prevented these disgusting people from being locked away where they belong, in prison.

The Crazies are Reaching a Boil

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So, the Left has stirred up their unstable radical base and they’re now bouncing off all the walls of their mad houses and will soon be overflowing onto the streets in full force.  Here’s the early information on the nuts in Ohio, California, Missouri and Nebraska who were planning some kind of drone/bomb/sniper attack on the White House during that recent UFC fight there.

As far as I can tell they didn’t have any drones or explosives, just guns and bullets, but there are still more than a dozen other co-conspirators out there and maybe one of them was connected to a source for these more potent weapons.  But even if this plot was more ambitious than their skills and resources warranted, it’s clear that the Left, including the Democrat party and leadership is doing everything in their power to demonize Trump and his administration and nothing to moderate the terms of “resistance.”  They’ve been throwing around the terms fascist, criminal and dictator for years and now they’ve told their constituents that Trump’s policies are destroying the US democracy and must be stopped at any cost.  And the crazies are listening.  And now they’re starting to react at a higher and higher rate.

Well, the FBI and the Secret Service better bring their a-game from now on.  But what the Republicans should be doing is making commercials for the midterm elections emphasizing that Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer are whipping up violence against the president and that electing more Democrats to Congress will make this even worse.

And even though this is an effective strategy it’s also not a lie.  It’s absolutely true that the Left is intentionally agitating these emotionally and mentally unbalanced people in ways that they know will spark this kind of violence.  This needs to be called out and stressed in a way that will alert the voters to the choice they have.  If they don’t want Leftist killers roaming the streets defying law enforcement and assassinating government leaders and conservative spokesmen then they’re going to have to vote in Republicans.  That’s right.  We have to make the case that the stupid party is the lesser of two evils.  And once again that is not a lie.  We can’t tell the voters that the Republicans are good leaders.  We have to tell them that the Democrats are advocating armed rebellion and anarchy.  That should be enough to make the case for electing those Republican idiots.

So how many attempted Trump assassinations have there been five or six?  Well, let’s hope that the Justice Department is competent enough to protect the White House and the rest of the Trump Administration for the next two and half years.  That should give Trump the time to try and straighten out as much of this screwed up federal government as anyone can rightfully expect at this point in our history.  If he lives to get some good things done that might convince America to elect Vance and finally getting a third Republican term might be enough to really break the deadlock and clear away some of the rot.  Maybe.