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A Sacramento manager of a Bath & Bodyworks store fired an employee for being Wiccan. The manager called in the employee to question her scheduled vacation time, and the employee stated that she had taken Samhein off every year for six years, and that the vacation had been approved almost a year earlier. When asked why this particular week, she disclosed that she was Wiccan. According to the article:
Her manager replied, “that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard, let me ask you where your priorities should have been?” Uberti asked what was so ridiculous and was told, “Well, you will need a new career in your new year” and “I will be damned if I have a devil-worshipper on my team.” Uberti was fired shortly after the phone call.
This kind of discrimination is unacceptable. Don't buy from B&BW and let them know why.
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It's that time of year, when red velvet and white fluff are in season, when pine and mistletoe scent the air, when sleighbells jangle in the distance...and Nebula nominations open.
Now, I've never been nominated for a Nebula. I've rarely even been suggested for one. But I thought I'd list the things I've written this year that are eligible, just in case any of you are SFWA members and want to vote for them. (Plus some little announcements toward the end!
Palimpsest
Obviously, this would mean the most to me--Palimpsest was in many ways an orphaned novel, surrounded by lay-offs and championed not by its publisher but by its readers. I still can't believe Amazon ranked it #1 on its SFF of 2009 list.
Under In the Mere
Sadly, I think this is a hair too long to qualify in the novella category, and is a long shot given how weird it is--but hey.
The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew
I love this story with a great love, and I think some of you did too. If you haven't read it yet, please do! I think I am probably turning this into a novel.
Golubash, or Wine-War-Blood-Elegy
Yay, first SF story ever!
The Anachronist's Cookbook
This got zero attention, mostly because it was only available on an app for the iPhone for a long time. But finally, I have gotten permission to post the story for free on my website! All my issues with steampunk in fiction form!
Proverbs of Hell
This story about love between a monk and a demon just came out in The Stories Between, an anthology to benefit and celebrate the awesome indie bookstore Between Books. It's basically filled with storied by authors who have read at the store over the years, and is GORGEOUS besides. Check it out!
A Delicate Architecture
This was the first YA piece I ever wrote--a Hansel and Gretel story, following the witch's childhood and the root of her obsession with candy.
Thank you to everyone who votes! If you are a voting member of SFWA, I will provide free e-copies of any of these that are not available online on request. Just email me.
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This is what Liberals consider bipartisan debate, compromise, discussion, unity. Remember this when you hear those cuddly catch phrases from them. This is what they ALWAYS mean.
Our future, from Congress to your local school board.
And with a one Trillion dollar slush fund ("stimulus") to work with, they can make sure that within a few years there are a couple of ACORN or SEIU members in every hall to make sure pesky challengers receive a good talking to.
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For months now, America and the world have been trying to force the small nation of Honduras to violate her own Constitution and accept back into office former President Manuel ("Mel") Zelaya, who tried to repeal term limits as part of a bid to make himself a Chavez-style President-For-Life. Zelaya not only sought foreign aid to help reverse the decison of the Honduran legislature, judiciary and military, and encouraged foreign nations to embargo Honduras; he also deliberately triggered violent riots which cost Honduran lives and property, with the clear threat being to start a Honduran civil war. In all this he clearly demonstrated that he valued his own political career above the well-being of his own people.
America, under the feckless Barack Obama, betrayed her Honduran ally. (So did the Organization of American States, but then nobody expected very muich of them). Not only did America suspend aid programs and partially support the embargo, but America turned a blind eye to outright acts of war by Venezuela, Nicaragua and Brazil against a country she was under formal treaty of alliance obligated to defend. These acts of war have included the provision of arms and other materials to the violent Zelayistas by air transport, and (in the case of Brazil) allowing Zelaya to whip up his thugs from within the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa (the Honduran capital).
However the Hondurans, who have repeatedly experienced dictatorship, valued their new democracy too much to give in. Despite human and economioc losses large on the scale of this small nation (with a population of 7.5 million, each casualty is the equivalent to them of 41 casualties in America), the Hondurans refused to submit to the whims of a megalomaniac and foreign leaders.
Now, their courage has borne fruit.
( Find out What has Happened )
If all it takes for evil for triumph is for good men to do nothing, sometimes all it takes for good tor triumph is for a few good men to do something. I salute Micheletti, Vasquez -- and DeMint, who in a dark time for Honduras and America proved that there were still men of honor willing to make the effort to save democracy.
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I've given up the trappings of being metal, that ritualistic body-shaping and hair-growing and fetishistic costuming so that everyone around me would KNOW I was X-TREME. I've quietly settled down since then into jeans and T-shirts, which are what I'm comfortable in.
I am what I am. I know this. I don't care if you think I'm mundane, and I no longer really care to announce my memberships with a tribe to all passerby. You can find out who I am by talking to me.
This feels like a cleaner, saner way to live. At least for the moment.
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In the beginning, there was an A, and it went straight to Z. Such was the way of computerized roleplaying games.
The storylines of RPGs have expanded somewhat since then, but every RPG has an interesting conundrum at its heart: you want to give your players the illusion of freedom, but realistically you need to keep your players pressed firmly against the rails of the plot. Sure, it'd be great if we had an RPG where you had three or four completely separate storylines - a series of noble quests for the good guy who wants to save the kingdom, a series of brutal conspiracies for the evil guy who wants to rule it, and a third series for the whacky guy who doesn't give a crap about the kingdom but wants to seduce nubile, beautiful conquests.
Alas, it's hard to justify creating large, expensive setpieces that won't be seen by two-thirds of your player base, so RPG writers do what Hollywood folks have been doing since movies began: they recycle sets. Whether you're good, bad, or just plain crazy, they have to engineer a plot where you're going to start at the carefully-balanced Shallows of Lakeshore and end up facing down the Big Bad in the very-expensive-to-create Grindguts Cave.
This, in turn, creates a really fascinating writing constriction: you have to create a separate emotional arc for each kind of player you allow. If the PC wants to be a good guy, that's great; everyone loves him, and he'll nobly set out to end the evil in the land. But if the PC wants to be a jerk (which 4.9% of you default to), then not only do you have to give him a motivation for setting out after the MacGuffin, but you have to create a set of separate goals for all your NPCs that explain why they put up with this bloodthirsty wahoo.
In other words, when writing a big RPG like this, you're essentially writing a separate storyline for each kind of playstyle you want to have. That's a lot of words. And if you do that poorly, then you run the risk of having every NPC being a punching bag. If the players feel like the NPCs are going to give you the Staff Of Plot Coupon no matter how they act, then they become less involved.
The way Bioware's gotten around that (at least partially) is to have players in your party have their own motivations. If you act too evil, the good NPCs will leave you, or even attack. Be too much of a nice guy, and that most excellent tank you've spent all that time levelling up will turn on you. Which is also a nice way to encourage a second runthrough.
The other thing Bioware has defaulted to (since it's mostly bulletproof) is to give you a Four-Plot Coupon structure. See, if it's a straight line from the start to the finish, then you run the risk of getting bored/stuck somewhere between A and Z. The standard Bioware structure is to get you past an introductory challenge, then branch off to an "open-ended" segment where you must complete four tasks before you can get to the end game - in the case of Dragon Age, you must do four things to bring the kingdom together against the Darkspawn. Those four tasks are each easily accessible, in a location with their own side quests, so you have the illusion of free will as you pick your choice of plots.
That choice, however, leads to another flaw: you're wandering around in the middle of the game with no ticking clock. Yes, everyone tells you that the Foobari invasion will start any time soon, but realistically you're just meandering and levelling up.
What they've done in Dragon Age to remedy this, however, is really brilliant: they've started tying the tasks together again. Which is to say that when I finished one quest, the only way it could be completed was to get the help of the Circle of Wizards - and when I got to the Circle of Wizards, guess what? They needed my help before they could help me out with my prior quest.
Truth is, I would have gotten to the Circle of Wizards anyway since they were on my Plot Coupon Shopping List. But requiring their help as part of my prior quest made it feel like more of a plot. Now they were a large complication, not a check-off.
BioWare's also started having triggering events in between each of the Plot Coupons to keep the story rolling. For example, when you complete your first Plot Coupons, assassins strike at you on your way to Plot Coupon #2. Complete #2, another mini-quest triggers. This gives the illusion of movement.
It's fascinating, because every RPG has the same core elements: a player, who may or may not be a jerk, must go to various locations, kill monsters, and level up enough to kill the bad guy. BioWare is obviously feeling the restraints on that, and particularly for Dragon Age (I'm just getting to Plot Coupon #3) they're really trying to battle against those shackles. They did that already (most notably in The Twist in Knights of the Old Republic, which cleverly answers an eternal RPG canard), but it's really evident that they're going for broke here.
Dragon Age has a lot of flaws thus far: a hackneyed backstory, NPCs who fucking love jumping in front of you the second you try to open a chest (HAY GUY YOU WANTED TO TALK TO ME, RITE?), some sketchy level design (why, yes, I would like to walk into an ambush of six mages who I can't hurt until they've fired the first six shots!), every NPC is a pinata full of words that you can't really skip past, and of course there's the usual poorly-explained welter of controls. But the story is fascinating to see in its mechanics, because they're definitely trying to break the mold - and it shows, and it's compelling. And for that, I have to give them the long, slow clap.
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Who Needs Mathematicians for Math, Anyway?
The panel found little if any credible evidence supporting the teaching philosophy and practices that math educators have promoted in their ed-school courses and embedded in textbooks for almost two decades.
...
The mathematics educators’ response to the panel’s report came as no surprise. The Montana Mathematics Enthusiast, a journal put out by an NCTM state affiliate, was the first to declare the party line in its July 2008 issue, which featured highly critical essays by five mathematics educators. Issue editor Greer declared in his overview that the panel’s report offered nothing useful, since it had “restricted” itself to scientific research and ignored the “rich reflections” of educators, who, in his judgment, had produced the “deepest work in the field.” Anecdotes over data - and these people want to teach math?
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I enjoyed this.
#4 is certainly something that will cause every Liberal to gasp in horror and outrage. What a crazy concept.
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Pretty standard wing nut rant about having the 9/11 terrorists tried in New York City, lots of Obama bashing ahead But!!!! For the real extra right wing nutty topping on that thread please be sure to check out what Typewriterking's ideas of New Yorkers: "I can see [the defense attorney's] roster of expert witnesses now: Dylan Avery, Alex Jones, Rosie O'Donnell, Ted Rall, Ward Churchill, James Brolin, Dennis Kucinich, Cynthia McKinney, Hutton Gibson, Cindy Sheehan, Charlie Sheen, the fat girl from the Dixie Chicks, Noam Chomsky, Al Gore, Howard Zinn, a bunch of rappers, Jessie Ventura, Van Jones, Anita Dunn, Levi Johnston...And surely Obama will be summoned to the court, but cite executive privilege."
If there's a douchebag-of-the-year prize, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) typewriterking would win hands down.
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If the GOP plans a new Contract with America they should include this.
Tax Day should be change to October 15th.
The financially unwise would get their checks around Christmas. Always nice. It'll save the extra finance costs for those who go into debt waiting for their refund. (Generally the poor and lower middle class)
There would be increased employment pre-Christmas at the IRS.
But here's the real reason.
Let people have to face their income tax filing right before the November elections. Maybe then they'll start to wake up.
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Obama urges Congress to put off Fort Hood probe
"WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Saturday urged Congress to hold off on any investigation of the Fort Hood rampage until federal law enforcement and military authorities have completed their probes into the shootings at the Texas Army post, which left 13 people dead.
On an eight-day Asia trip, Obama turned his attention home and pleaded for lawmakers to 'resist the temptation to turn this tragic event into the political theater.' He said those who died on the nation's largest Army post deserve justice, not political stagecraft.
'The stakes are far too high,' Obama said in a video and Internet address released by the White House"
"Obama said he was not opposed to hearings — eventually. But he strongly pressed lawmakers to hold off until the probes now under way are completed."
Let me get this straight. Obama says Congress should hold off, because OBAMA doesn't want this to turn political? AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAAAAA!
Because, you know, he's the last person ever to get partisan! AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAA! We can trust him completely to have an objective view.
Let's review.
Who do the military and law enforcement answer to? That's right. The Executive branch.
So, say, for instance...
...if the FBI had more than enough evidence to red flag this scumbag as a terrorist but didn't act on it due to incompetence or political correctness (which is almost certainly true at this point)...
... or the Army (whose Chief of Staff said last week that losing their diversity would be a greater tragedy than a traitor and terrorist going on an unfettered ten minute shooting spree on an army base murdering 13 and injuring 20+ more of his fellow soldiers) had more than enough complaints and warning to warrant an investigation but didn't due to political correctness ... ... and they are investigating themselves, then answering to the Executive, there should only be oversight after? Once they've investigated themselves, they then answer to the Obama Administration. Attorney General Eric Holder - dropped the won case regarding voter intimidation by Black Panthers, recommended pardoning Weather Underground terrorists Linda Evans and Susan Rosenberg, Puerto Rican FALN terrorists likewise received pardons due to Holders efforts, key in pardoning Marc Rich, and called America, "a nation of cowards" on race.
Barry Obama - has made obvious over the last ten months he has brought Chicago thuggery and corruption in full force into the White House, puts his ideology above everything, is THE MOST GUILTY of political theater and stagecraft and has made his indifference to these dead soldiers obvious ("I want to give a shout out"), and let's not forget, said he didn't have all the facts but he knew the Cambridge Police acted stupidly. So when the folks it appeared screwed up are allowed to investigate themselves, they're going to report to that crew, and we're going to get the truth? Is there ANYONE besides Modern Liberals gullible or stupid enough to believe this load of crap? Obama wants months or years for a cover up, and for everyone to forget. Meanwhile, he paints anyone who tries to pursue the truth as evil, committing "political stagecraft" with dead warriors. Our President is a scumbag of the first order, vying to be the worst President of the last 100 years. I wish Congress all the luck in their investigation.
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I have never before wanted to watch a movie with friends so badly. Because both E.J. and Keffy are, shall we say, big fans of science, and I would want to be there to watch their heads go splodey when the scientists on-screen explain how the Mayans predicted a thousand years ago that a galactic alignment of planets would cause the neutrinos in the sun to mutate.
Watching their heads blow up might actually be better SFX than the movie itself.
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Eliot Spitzer to lecture at Harvard ethics center
A MADAM is lecturing Harvard on ethics, and rightly so. THAT is how backwards Liberal ethics are.
"'I am greatly intrigued as to what Mr. Spitzer could contribute to an ethical discussion when as Chief Executive Law Enforcement Officer of NY he broke numerous laws for which he has yet to be punished,' the madam, Kristin Davis, wrote in the letter, which is posted on her website. 'As Attorney General he went around arresting and making examples out of the same escort agencies he was frequenting.'"
Harvard is primarily a rabidly Liberal institution. This is their excuse.
"'He's not speaking about ethics. He's here to talk about a research project we're launching on institutional corruption,'"
Oh. Well I guess it's okay for him to speak at the Ethics Center. After all, his crimes as chief law enforcement officer of the state and career hypocrisy are no big deal if the agenda is one worth pushing...
"The talk is titled, 'From Ayn Rand to Ken Feinberg – How Quickly the Paradigm Shifts. What Should Be the Rationale for Government Participation in the Market?'"
In other words, "YAY SOCIALISM!" [progressivism/communism/statism]
(Allow me to digress for a moment... "From AYN RAND"?!? Are these people utterly delusional?!? [Rhetorical question. Most are. The rest are thoroughly dishonest.] Someone tell me exactly when it was our markets were EVER randian! EVER! Progressivism [communism-lite, socialism en route to communism] had already infested this country before she even arrived here. To my knowledge the markets have had government interference since before Rand.
You want to tell me Harvard isn't Liberal? Then explain to me how the title of that lecture goes unchallenged. Anyway...)
I post this primarily to make a particular point.
When Liberals tell you they are bashing a particular Republican because the Republican is a hypocrite, the Liberal is a liar or a fool. Liberals do not care about hypocrisy. In fact they encourage it among their elite. They simply use anything they can to attack the GOP. So when one member of the GOP speaks of having standards such as "family values" and is found having fallen from those standards, Liberals, who take pride in having no standards, celebrate the fall, claiming it's the hypocrisy they hate. This is a lie. They hate what they see as their enemy. To the Modern American Liberal the agenda is all. Hypocrisy is just fine with them.
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| jordan179 |
| 2009-11-14 11:04 |
| Four Presidential Assassinations |
| Public |
 contemplative |
| abraham lincoln, america, assassinations, conspiracies, conspiracy theories, crackpots, crime, james a. garfield, john f. kennedy, political, presidency, william mckinley |
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Introduction
In the 222 year long history of the American Presidency, we have had 43 Presidents (Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms). Of those Presidents, 4 have been assassinated in office -- a bit over 9 percent KIA, which makes the American Presidency a job at one is at a good risk of death through violence (it's also killed at least 2 Presidents, William Henry Harrison and Woodrow Wilson, through stress, bringing the on-the-job death toll to 6 and rate to 14 percent, not adjusted for terms).
Of these 4 known murders, only one has resulted in significant long-lasting paranoia and overarching conspiracy theories. Oddly enough, it is not the one which was verifiably committed by an enemy agent as part of a widespread conspiracy.
That one, of course, was the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
( WHAT Conspiracy? )
Conclusion
There seems to be very little correlation between the degree of conspiracy likely involved in a Presidential assassination and the speculation thus generated. Abraham Lincoln was certainly slain by a conspiracy, yet only moderate speculation resulted as to that conspiracy's roots. Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy were probably all slain by lone nuts, yet there is an immense industry of speculation about the Kennedy assassination. Despite Guiteau's spoken claim to have shot Garfield at the behest of the Stalwarts, little interest exists in following this up (to be true, Guiteau almost certainly did act alone and for private motives); likewise, there is little interest today in the Anarchist assassination campaign which spanned at least three continents, and to whom McKinley fell as at least a peripheral victim.
It is possible, of course, that I am being fooled here by Time. Many still live who personally remember Kennedy's assassination: none live who remember Lincoln's, probably none who remember Garfield's, and very few who remember McKinley's. The Kennedy assassination may bulk disproportionately owing to this reason.
There's also the issue of the changing importance of the Presidency. Lincoln was a crucial man because he led us in our darkest hour; compared to him most 19th-century Presidents between Monroe and McKinley were rather shadowy figures. Garfield was denied his chance at a famous Administration by Guiteau; and McKinley's reputation, though great in his day, was eclipsed by that of his flamboyant successor, Teddy Roosevelt.
JFK, on the other hand, was President at a time when the Presidency had already assumed more imperial proportions, courtesy of Wilson and FDR. His death -- though it historically changed little -- could be seen as changing more. And he benefitted from being the idol of a large generation of teenagers, of both political parties, while Oswald's bizarre political journey offered the maximum fuel for paranoia.
So it is to some extent chance, rather than inherent importance, that determines how well we remember assassinations -- and what fantasies we spin around the assassins.
END.
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When I'm preparing for a trip, I pack my bag full of dense, beautiful books - all those novels I've been meaning to read. And I do read them... ... On the way out. By the time I board my flight back, I am exhausted, braindead, and lazy, so cracking that book of florid short stories just feels like hiking uphill. I can't do it. Fortunately, airport bookshops cater to the braindead. So I spend twenty bucks on some idiot pop "science" book like Freakonomics. This time, however, I've outdone myself. In my lap now is " Rules of the Game" - the bestselling book on how guys can get with beautiful women. "Master the art of attraction!" it claims. And because I want to see what sort of advice seems good to very lonely men, I am going to read it. I feel dumber already. Posted via LiveJournal.app.
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Man, this is even better than Democrats using homosexuals for the gay marriage debate. It's brilliant!
Bombshell: Obama bringing KSM to NYC for trial; former Bush AG Mukasey to respond at Federalist Society this afternoon
"Self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York to face trial in a civilian federal court, an Obama administration official said Friday.
The official said Attorney General Eric Holder plans to announce the decision later in the morning."
The racist, pro-terrorist Eric Holder/Obama Justice Department is going to bring the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks to NYC for federal trial.
This means demands for discovery of classified info, for more bashing at Bush.
It means arguments about whether TERRORISTS caught on FOREIGN soil should receive trials in civilian court.
It means arguments for a change of venue for added delay.
It means perpetuating the arguments about "torture."
It means focus on the outrage of victims of 9/11.
It's a giant bowl of extremist Left screeching, meaning non-Liberals will have to counter it.
It's going to be a circus, giving years of fodder to the Liberal Pravda media and pundits nationwide.
It's a GIANT distraction while the thugocracy in office continues to spend trillions in taxpayer dollars on growing their power base for permanent rule of the country.
This also means increasing the chance of terrorist attack on NYC. Couple that with the Liberalist protection of potential terrorists throughout the administration and military recently made obvious by the massacre at Ft Hood, and the danger skyrockets.
Well, since the Obamunists don't mind using soldier's lives for their political ends ("SHOUT OUT"), why not use terrorists ("TORTURE!") and innocent residents of New York City (Flyover for a photo op), too? In fact, a wave of terrorist attacks on NYC would be a heck of a crisis. And you never want to let a crisis go to waste.
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calm
hopeful![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}