Lovely music. Horrific scenes.

From

Dragon Drive

Volume 2: Eye of the Storm

Book 1: Dragon From the Void

Part 4: Tribute to Fear

Chapter 4:

Chapter 4: Signs and Wonders


After a while, musing on what he’d told me about himself so far, I asked him, “Monty? Remember when Betelgeuse went supernova in late 2012?”

“Oh, do I ever! I was 10 then, an’ Daddy an’ I was out watching it whenever we could, usin’ our backyard telexcope or binocs. Plus, there was tons o’ stuff about it on the Web. That was a luck thing, if’n you want to call the death of a star ‘lucky’; what was the odds that any of us in this century would ever be witnesses to somethin’ like that? – What made you think o’ that, Sugar?”

“Oh, just – things . . . I guess it’s because both you and I have lived through some of the weirdest years in history. Remember the ‘demotion of Pluto’ bruhaha?”

“Yeah, I do. There was a secret vote by around four percent o’ the membership o’ the International Astronomical Union in 2006 to change the status o’ Pluto an’ other Kuyper-Belt bodies to ‘dwarf planets.’ There was this one guy, Mike Brown, who was a professor of astronomy at Cal Tech, who was against that at first, then changed his mind an’ went with the ones who were for it. They had a secret vote on that, as I recall, just four percent of ’em voting, nobody else even knowin’ about it until after it was all over.”

“That’s right. My friend Professor Cziller, who had all that Scorpionic energy in his natal chart, went ballistic over it – I thought he was going to head over to Cal Tech and do in Professor Brown himself, but wiser heads prevailed, thank heavens, and he finally had his revenge when that decision was overturned in the vote of 2009, which included almost the entire membership of that organization.”

“I remember that! Daddy an’ I had a little party over that, with cake an’ ever’thin! He an’ I both thought that that ‘demotion’ o’ Pluto an’ the other KBOs was about the stupidest thing that anybody ever come up with, an’ we loved seein’ the idjits in the IAU who was responsible for that get royally trumped. I was only 4 when it first come up, in 2006, but I remember it, clear as a bell. Father Kahoku was on the same page, paragraph, an’ line Daddy was when it come to that, too. An’ when the vote come in to overturn the one o’ 2006, he called Daddy to celebrate with him an’ me. He even sent Daddy a crate o’ champagne an’ a box o’ cigars for that. It was things like that that made up for a lot o’ the other stuff that happened when I was a kid. Kenny died that year, 2009, but then this other thing happened, an’ while it didn’t make up for Kenny’s death, it was good in its own way.”( Read more... )

From

Dragon Drive

Volume 2: Eye of the Storm

Book 1: Dragon From the Void

Part 4: Tribute to Fear

Chapter 2: Lonesome Traveler

“He was a specialist, Baby-Girl,” Monty said. “He had this knack that almost nobody else had – he could just look at a malfunctionin’ machine an’ get an idea o’ what was wrong with it an’ how to fix it. An’ 99 times out of hundred he’d be right. He was a crack troubleshooter, one o’ the very best, so they was always sendin’ him from this base to that base to the other base to check out whatever problems they was havin’ with planes or machinery, an’ see whether it’d be easier an’ cheaper to fix ’em or scrap whatever it was an’ get a newer or diff’rent plane or system or equipment to replace the one that wasn’t workin’. He was especially good at gettin’ to the bottom o’ why somethin’ worked most o’ the time, but acted up or just plain quit the rest, not always predictably. When it come to electronic systems aboard Air Force One or somethin’ just as mission-critical, he could practically make ’em sit up an’ beg for ’im, an’ get to the bottom o’ whatever was wrong with ’em inside of a few minutes. Fixin’ ’em could take anywheres from a few hours to several days, but it got done under his supervision far faster’n was possible with anyone else, even techs that’d come out from the companies that’d created the programs or built the systems in the first place.( Read more... )

[Continued from last post]

They remained in Providence for another seven months or so. During July of that year, for a few days Sam went to visit old friends who lived in New York City. While he was there, Benjamin's body was found dumped in an alley behind a kinky-sex club in Boston. At first, Sam was a “person of interest” in the case, but there was no evidence to tie him to the crime, and the police finally dropped the case after a fruitless search for evidence that might have brought a solution to it. The Gruens had disowned Benjamin and driven him from their house several months before, telling him never to come back to Providence, or they would invoke the Great Old Ones and have them make sure Benjamin never troubled anyone again. It was a potent threat, one that had been proved to be the simple truth many times in Ruth’s long career, insofar as her dealings with those who crossed her went, and Benjamin was more than happy to leave the area for good. He’d gone to Boston, where he had friends he’d first gotten to know online in clandestine chat rooms frequented by others who shared his special interests, and they took him in.( Read more... )

From

Dragon Drive

Volume 2: Eye of the Storm

Book 1: Dragon From the Void

Part 4: Tribute to Fear

Chapter 1: Predator


“My parents’ marriage had already begun to go sour by the time I turned 6,” Monty said, “but it really began intensifyin’ by the time I was 9. That year I was . . . you sure you want to hear this, Sugar?”

“Go ahead,” I said, puzzled. He’d already told me so much that was certainly disturbing, to say the least.

“Well, that was when I got raped by Uncle Benjamin, Mom’s brother,” he said.

I stared at him. The effort it had taken to say that was clearly enormous – his face showed terrible strain, and his eyes looked haunted. “Oh, Monty . . .” I reached out and pulled him close, then kissed him.

When we broke apart from the kiss, he was smiling, but his eyes . . .

“You still want to hear it, darlin’? he asked me.

“Do you still want to tell it? If you don’t, I understand –”

“No.” Still smiling, he touched a gentle finger to my lips, closing them before I could utter another word. “No, I think this is one o’ those things I need to get off my chest. Only Daddy, Mom, Mom’s folks, an’ a chaplain at the base in Guatemala ever knew about it, an’ they’re all gone. An’ only Daddy, Mom, an’ that chaplain was anybody I’d ever want to know about it, either. Or did, back when. But this is . . . I need to tell it. You up for it?”( Read more... )

I see that the debate over global warming is (heh) heating up thanks to a news report of a probable hoax behind some alarmists: http://melvin-udall.livejournal.com/778269.html This underscores the reason I became a life member of the National Rifle Association: you want a war with me, well, come and get it. I will also say that one swallow doth not a Summer make -- and while UN climate experts may indeed have faked their data in order to raise the alarm level over global warming, that doesn't say anything about their motives, and doesn't say anything about real, long-term global temperatures. Learn the science, gather real-time data, and then make your pronouncements about whether global warming is real or not, people. Until you do, those who really do have something to say about global warming and what to do about it aren't going to pay you any attention. And why should they? Scientific models that have been rigorously tested and held up under every test always take precedence over opinions -- and all you've got is conspiracy theories and opinions. And don't give me this jazz about "science is just another myth." That is a refuge of the intellectually challenged, who know no more about what a myth really is than what the sciences really are. You are cargo cultists, no better -- and you should have been intellectually competent Americans.

The basic principles involved in global warming have to do with the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at any given time. Look up "greenhouse gases" and "carbon dioxide" to find out how these gases trap heat in the atmosphere. Then consider: there are seven billion human beings alive on Earth right now. Between their hundreds of millions of vehicles using internal combustion for power, countless coal-fired power plants, simple Third World cooking fires, the burning off of rain forest by farmers, and numerous other sources of carbon dioxide, the sheer megatonnage of CO2 in the atmosphere at any time is increasing continuously. None of these facts are hoaxes. Solar heat comes in and gets trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases, and more and more of it is trapped every year. While right now, thanks to a downturn of solar energy, we are experiencing a temporary cooling phase, the CO2 is still there, and doing mischief other than global warming -- for example, the oceans are becoming more and more acidic (less and less alkaline) every year because of all the CO2 they're having to absorb, and the declining pH of the ocean is starting to kill off the plankton that are the base of the marine food chain. Fish are a staple food of a huge number of the world's human beings, so this is beginning to have a major impact around the world.

If you can't be bothered to do just that little bit of research, you're frauds, and why the hell should anyone pay attention to your anti-alarmist rants?

Lately I've seen more and more signs posted on buses by this or that atheist group proclaiming that God doesn't exist etc. etc. This is called "insecurity." Those who are good at what they do don't need to brag -- or be in-your-face about their concerns.

Just watched Arrigo Boito's opera Mefistofele (http://www.amazon.com/Boito-Mefistofele-Arena-Benackova-Francisco/dp/B00005NGA8) on DVD for the umpteenth time. Gorgeous!

My Sun Sign: Aries Mar 20 - Apr 19

Sometimes in life, you just need to stop whatever you're doing and take a step back. Actually, maybe it's two steps back. Yeah, that's good. Keep going. The stars will let you know when you're far enough.

My Ascendant: Virgo Aug 23 - Sep 22

Virgo is often known for its stubborn and headstrong nature. Yes, it is. Yes, it fucking is.

October 13, 2009

Virgo The broken ribs, fractured skull, and dislocated shoulder won't hurt at all, mostly because you'll suffer them after being dropped by drunken pallbearers.

http://www.theonion.com/content/horoscope/nov-17-2009

If Al Gore truly wanted to heal the Earth, he would have done as Francis d'Assissi did in the 13th century: embrace poverty, that he might thereby better embrace and live by the will and love of God. "It is easier for a camel to pass through the Eye of the Needle than for a rich man to enter heaven." It can be done, but it takes total dedication to following the will of God, rather than the will of Man, and especially, of one man, i.e., the mortal self. No Great Work can be accomplished without that shedding of self, that dedication to the Path, and the giving up of all inessentials that are in the way of that Path.

What is true biologically is also true along the peripheries of the mind itself. We possess our own alpine meadows, excoriating heat, and freezing cold. There have been, according to philosophers, political man, religious man, economic man. Today there are, variously, psychological man, technological man, scientific man. Dropped seeds, all of them, the mind's response to its environments, its defense against satiety. He who seeks naively to embrace his own time will accept its masks and illusions. The men of one period may turn completely to religious self-examination and become dogmatically contentious. Our own age, by contrast, turns outward, as if in the flight from self of which its rockets have become the symbol. It has been well said by Philip Rieff that every personality cure seems to expose man to a new illness. I believe it is because man always chooses to rest on his cure.

We have forgotten the greatest injunction of the wise traveler from Galilee. He did not say before the Pharisees, "I know where I am staying." Instead he observed that he knew where he was going. As is true of all great prophets, he left something unspoken hanging in the air. Men have chosen to assume that Jesus had knowledge of his physical fate or that he was bound to some safe haven beyond mortal reach. It seldom occurs to us that he was definitely engaged on a journey. If, in traveling that road, it led incidentally to a high place called Golgotha, it was because his inward journey was higher and more dangerous still.

-- Loren Eiseley, The Night Country (http://www.amazon.com/Night-Country-Loren-Eiseley/dp/0803267355), pp. 72-73

melvin_udall: Liberals finally find their intellectual inferior

http://melvin-udall.livejournal.com/777783.html

MSNB and media matters -- shame be upon you

http://writerspleasure.livejournal.com/756127.html

This shouldn't be surprising. The MSM and liberals in general are ardent supporters of baby-rapist Roman Polanski and the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), so why shouldn't they gang up on a 13-year-old girl?