Linkee-poo is the one, the only one, built like an Amazon

Regarding my post on the Alibi/Hydra publishing contracts John Scalzi pretty much has some similar thoughts. That should come as no surprise, because I learned those lessons at John's bloggery knee, as it were. Although John explains the whole argument more than my snarky post did.

Five tips for working with editors. While mostly from a newspaper's standpoint, still pretty good things to keep in mind.

"You may be a novelist (and not a short story writer) if… Your short stories regularly top out at 8000 words or more, even after you cut them for length." Why, yes. Yes I do. To all six of her points. Well, I guess that settles it. I'm a novelist. Although now I'm making "You may be a redneck novelist" jokes.

Want to remember just how insane the Cold War was? How about this Bloom County comic. Yea, we actually talked in those terms, of "acceptable losses" in a nuclear exchange.

Archeologists may have found the Arkenstone fabled sunstone of the Vikings. And a little on the principle of how it works. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

"And it’s a question because legislators like Rand Paul and the rest of the overpaid, overfed louts in the House and Senate have made it so… Can the President of the United States kill you, an American?… let’s see, he can disappear you,… have the question put to you,… authorize active surveillance and the monitoring of your phone calls and emails and tweets and texts and social media posts without a review by a court of law… authorize the search of your home without a warrant or authorization by a judge… authorize the confiscation of your property if anybody thinks you might be engaged in terrorism… have you and your children strip-searched in the airports and put on a secret no-fly list… can make the library give up a list of the books you’ve checked out… authorize the secret infiltration of your church, your social clubs, or your school, for the express purpose of spying on you simply because you look like you might… be a subversive… can have you snatched off the street in a foreign country and rendered into the custody of another foreign power for interrogation… When legislators… acting in fear and rage and panic, passed the Patriot Act and the Protect America Act and a dozen other laws with secret provisions and draconian authority and have since continued to renew those very same laws, well, they gave the President those powers." Yea, see back in the aughts when the Tea Party was all happy with how the world was going, all those things went on. But it was only when a Black President had those powers that they decided to get upset.

We don't need no stinkin' EPA rules. I mean, it's not like we have 1200 hog corpses washing up in our rivers. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

One strike back at our robotic overlords. In this case, a Cincinnati judge rules that cameras used to enforce speed limits aren't quite kosher. Although the article, and the proponents, kinda mix up the ruling. Part of the judges ruling is, "if you're going to do this, there are rules already in place." (Pointed to by John)

Wealth Inequality Illustrated. What, you thought the election solved this problem? (Grokked from Jay Lake)

This is how you know where the rich people live.

Oh man, even the trees are in on the climate change conspiracy. Although, you know, I remember seeing X-Mas Trees at the North Pole in "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" when I was a kid, so I'm not sure these are "new" trees. Okay, well, the other joke that came to mind was a more obscure "last march of the Ents" gag. (Grokked from Jay Lake)