Davy stole a Xmas tree from K-Mart last night

Mary Gauthier's "Christmas In Paradise." If you ask me it's 1000x better than "Christmas Shoes" (which I just might have to take out an elf if I hear ever again).


Christmas in paradise under the Cow Key Bridge
where the warm breeze blows so nice
and the landlord forgives.

Unfortunate Ad Placement

During my usual reading far and wide to find you only the best links for the linkee-poo posts, I read where the Discovery Channel is showing Teddy Nugent the door. However, the one ad placement seemed both very appropriate to the meta conversation while inappropriate to the actual article. And I thought I'd share. If you embiggify you should be able to read the text.

Also, no, this article won't be in the linkee-poo.

We're non-union labor

Because of the saccharine holiday music on the office muzak today, a small musical interlude for me.



Please stand behind the yellow safety line until the holiday comes to a complete and final halt.

Linkee-poo is walking in a Winter Wonder… muddy, green field

Tobias Buckell tells how he used Kickstarter to restart his novel writing career. And it looks like he's been successful. Note that Toby had a lot of dedicated readers to begin with, and a good core of people cheering him on. He also took one hell of a risk.

Ken McConnell is releasing his Star Series books as an omnibus edition.

Sigh, turns out the Dr. Jones package sent to the University of Chicago was an eBay product created for a collector that got misdirected. Sigh.

The speed of perception. More analysis (although in just three paragraphs) on how we actually "see". (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Some people have way too much time on their hands. Or making programable holiday display lights on the (somewhat) cheap. I've seen some of the light setups that the uber lightship people use, and considering this all fits in what's essentially a tool box is just amazing. Some people dedicate entire closet spaces (walk-in closet spaces) or half their garage to do similar things (although they tend to put lights everywhere, including on the ground). (Pointed to by Dan)

In other holiday news, free printable wrapping paper. For those small gifts. (Pointed to by Dan)

What if they had "steadi-cams" when we went to the moon? That's film from Apollo 16, which drove the lunar rover. It was pretty jumpy footage at the time, but now it's nice a smooth. Which makes it look even cooler. (Pointed to by John)

The Minimum Wage Machine art sculpture. "The minimum wage machine allows anybody to work for minimum wage. Turning the crank will yield one penny every 4.97 seconds, for $7.25 an hour (NY state minimum wage)." Sometimes art likes to make a statement. Something to think about the next time you go on the late night Taco Bell run. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Oh no, William Shatner, you didn't. But I guess you did. Of course the opposite response would be, "Wasn't his poetry done by app before this?" I wonder how long before we have Spock app as well? (Grokked from Jay Lake)

"Paragould, Arkansas is set to create a new law enforcement unit… will patrol on foot and may have the power to 'randomly ask residents for identification.'" Reality is starting to Godwin itself. (Grokked from Vince)

The Seasteading Concept gets rolled out once more as libertarians look for some place to "Go Gault" in their own ways. This has been done before, it was called Sealand. Sealand had it's own issues, including a few pirate attacks. But mostly the Seasteaders just want to avoid taxes and being a part of the community, or what they call, "choices." Don't forget to read all the way to the bottom of that NPR article to see what usually happens to separatists. But, hey, go ahead. Set up your businesses on the refitted ship. Say, anybody tell you about import taxes? See, you're not a nation that we really need to worry about, and you won't be a part of the international trade communities, so there are no existing trading agreements or protections. Also, will all that concentration of wealth in one area, relatively unprotected… well, you do know that high-sea piracy is still a problem, right? Mostly it's kidnapping for ransom and or property confiscation (ie. nice boats). Oh, and don't forget the drug traffickers who would just love a nice base to launch their smuggling operations from (note the Zetas are highly militarized). And as "being separate", you may ask for help from the Coast Guard (Law of the Sea and all), but that doesn't mean we won't send a bill for it afterwards. Good luck, buckaroos. Do it. I really want to see you try so everybody else with pie in the sky dreams can see what happens. Just wait until the first "assessment" for "shared utilities" after installation costs happen. Oh, and I hope your desalination plant is equipped for the increased acidity of the ocean. Or you'll be replacing that real soon.

"'Yeah, some people are going to say, "Oh, those stupid Arizonans, there they go again,"' (Gila County, Arizona GOP chair Don Ascoli, also one of the Electors for President) said in an interview. 'But, you know, I’d rather be right than popular.'" What if you're neither, Don? It's time to just point and laugh, like you do at the zoo watching the monkeys flinging poo. (Pointed to by Dan)

"As has been pointed out before, GOP extremism in the Congress doesn’t have a Democratic analog." With the facts and figures to prove it. "What’s more, you have to add Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Henry Waxman together to get a liberal counterpart to Ron Paul’s conservatism." Hahahahaha. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

"I’m saying that we are a violent people, we Americans… We glory in violence. We revel in violence. We worship violence." In case you're wondering what I was referring to earlier about "the disease in our society", Jim Wright sums it up pretty well.

"And there’s no such thing as one good bullet." Warren Ellis on the logic fallacy of increasing the prevalence of guns in society as a way of stopping gun violence. (Grokked from Joe Hill)

The Tobias Buckell post on perceptions, insular cultures devoted to exceptionalism, and the prevalence of guns in our culture that lots of people are pointing to.

"Of course, Westboro (Church) denied the charges and taunted Anonymous as incompetent hackers. They claimed their website was protected by God… A few days later, while a Westboro spokeswoman was boasting about how the church foiled Anonymous on a radio talk show, an Anonymous spokesman called in and hacked the church’s website in real time on the air." (Pointed to by Dan)

Eric posts the song he talked about in the comments. "And he can see no reason 'cause there are no reasons. What reason do you need to be shown?"

Tweet of my heart: @neiltyson: If you're always successful at BS'ing it's because you are not hanging around people who are smarter than you.

Alligator Quotient: They're all here in person. Yippie.

West Bethlehem was no place for a 12-year old

Well, it's not exactly a Christmas song, but I like to play it around Christmas as a part of my mix. John Prine's Jesus, The Missing Years.


Charlie bought some popcorn, Billy bought a car
Someone almost bought the farm, but they didn't go that far
Things shut down at midnight, at least around here they do
'Cause we all reside down the block, inside at 23 skidoo.

You're joking me, aren't you

This morning on the way in to work there was plenty of discussion about how the CT State Police might release what they believe is the motive for the Newtown killings. With the heady addition of, "and then we'll know."

Really?

No. Seriously. Really?

This is the motive of someone who shot their Mother in the head several times. And then, just for giggles, went to his old elementary school and shoot the youngest kids there. And now you expect the internal motivations of this person to make any sense?

I understand this is a "search for answers." The reality is, "there are no good answers." Part of the healing process for the nation needs to be to accept that truth. There are no good answers here. Something was going to set this off. Low blood sugar, only getting 3 ketchups at the drive-thru when you specifically ask for 5-8, a low flying airplane, something.

But I'm sure something will come of it and we all feel safe once we ban kids from wearing leather dusters, wearing black, or coming in costume to movies. Because that's what's really responsible. Just like we all have to take our shoes off when we go through the airport because it's the shoe's fault. Thankfully backscatter x-ray machines arrived just in time to avoid making the TSA screening area look like a clothing optional community after the underwear bomber.

Linkee-poo thinks they have too much heaven on their minds, it was beautiful, but now it's sour

Releasing the linkee-poo early as it's has grown very long. Just a short note on the Newtown insanity that has happened over the weekend (see some links at the bottom). If it's because we took God out of the schools, why then in the past year have two people shot up shopping malls not to mention all the businesses that have experienced shootings. And there have been shootings at both Sikh temples and churches. And why aren't there more shootings in schools, then? It's because this is a non-sensicle reason. Also for those idiots who think adding guns into schools is the solution let me remind you pilots can fly with side arms, has that made the TSA screening less onerous? Yeah, both of those sentiments are answers from dip-shits. Those people are part of the problem if you ask me (looking at you Huckabee and Gomert).

Kristen Lamb on being rejected and how to handle it.

Find the tells in your prose. (Grokked from Vince)

One sure fire way to get an agent, start with a deal in hand. Of course there's a lot of prework needed, but then you're already making those connections, aren't you? Now that classes are on break I have been weighing this path. I just need to find those few editor cards I've gathered along the way.

One way to keep track of all your characters' viewpoints is to chart them out. For those writers who love to plan and outline everything, this might help you know where all the balls are that you're trying to keep in the air.

Dr Doyle with some blogs dedicated to words and their study. You know, for people who like those things.

"In America Ron Hubbard, a manufacturer of hi-tech underground survival shelters, has seen his business explode." That's from a story about the Mayan calendar rolling over this coming Friday. While the reality is like a car's odometer rolling over, many people are of the opinion of "ZOMG, it's all going to end." But that line just stopped me in my tracks with a "Wait, what was that?" (Grokked from Jay Lake)

An interesting take on the Green Man iconography. Also with lots of post 1066 English history. Also interesting for how grudges live on. (Grokked from Terri Windling)

The Architeuthis in their natural habit has supposedly been caught on video. Although we won't see it until January. Architeuthis is the giant squid, in case you didn't know. (Grokked from Tor.com)

A Wired article on deciphering the Copiale text. Lots on ciphers and secret orders in there. (Grokked from Terri Windling)

"During an April meeting, Bangladeshi suppliers reached out to retailers of their garments with a plan that would help upgrade their facilities to make them more fire-proof -- other retailers approved the plan -- only to have it fall through when Wal-mart and the Gap refused to pay higher prices to make such upgrades feasible." Ah, good record keeping to the rescue. (Grokked from the Slactivist)

Former Governor Mike Huckabee, I understand that this comes from your focus, but man are you a tool. I mean, it's not even a post hoc ergo prompter hock logic fault. See, if what you said was true there would be school shootings every week. Instead you're using this horrific event to advance your own non-related political agenda. You are lying. And you know you're lying. God has a word for you. It's the same word He uses for Bryan Fischer. Seriously a bookmatched pair of ginormous knobs.

And speaking of tools, "So far Crowder has not sought out police help after he was hit. Adamczyk pointed out he’s instead turned the video into a national conservative media tour." That's the Fox News reporter in Michigan who has video of a "union thug" taking several swipes at him. For the "law and order" conservative movement, this seems strange that he wouldn't report the crime that he has the video of it happening. You know, except that the police would demand the unedited video. The parts possibly showing that Crowder first pushed the union member to the ground would probably be used as evidence against Crowder.

The Slactivist with a good link post regarding the Newtown shootings. Teresa Nielsen Hayden over at Making Light also has some things to say, and some people's comments to share. And Eric has a few things to say as well.

Weekend Linkee-poo must away ere break of day to seek the pale enchanted gold

I'm not sure I'm going to talk about Newtown. What else is there to say after this Onion article? But you know when people talk about how they always thought "it just couldn't happen here"? A few more of these and nobody with any sense of the outside world and history will be able to say things like that. However, you want to know something that puts this all into focus for me? Incidents like this are on the decline, from what I understand. Many people will talk about how we should pass and enforce more gun control, watch out for "aspires", maybe increase public awareness of mental illness and/or increase access to treatment, arm the teachers, and all other silliness. I'm not against some gun control, and I'm all for increased awareness of mental illness and access to treatment, but the real question is what is wrong with us that we need all these guns in the first place? That's the real disease in our society. And why does it take so many deaths of children to get us to face these issues? Not to mention the questions of why these children matter to us, but many of us can ignore the children in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan who have died because of our actions?

Ten New Year's Resolutions for writers. The intern job from hell. Good thing the Dalkey Archive is overseas as we have laws here to prevent such a thing (unpaid internships need to benefit the intern more than the company). You know, if we actually enforced them.

Want you're own planetarium? Don't want to pay the thousands for those really good star machines? Check out Night Shade. Can't beat free.

Ice "flowers" in the Arctic. More proof the world is stranger than we think. (Grokked from Matt Staggs)

"Why? Because we can." Eric with a little snark regarding the HSBC money laundering settlement.

"JIM HENSON: I think Ms. Rand and my character Oscar the Grouch would have a lot to talk about actually. I am laughing out loud at this idea." Bwahahaha. That's a link to an early online conversation between Ayn Rand, Yoko Ono, Jim Henson and Sidney Nolan (ARPANET Dialogue IV). (Pointed to by John)

Tweet of my heat: @tobiasbuckell: These are the people that were being called union thugs and parasites, teachers, heroes: http://stream.wsj.com/story/connec…

Linkee-poo to dungeons deep and caverns old

Jim Hines clarifies the point behind his pose off. Having worked in advertising and design and partially in their distant cousin, fashion, for over 20 years now, what Jim is exposing is only the tip of the iceberg. Fr'instance, Cosmopolitan is a flagship publication for feminism. You've seen the contents, I would hope. Both the ads and the "visual" articles? While some of that can be chalked up to "spiked-heel" feminism, some of it also ties into the self-loathing complexes that feminism was partially about (ie. to stop that cultural shit).

One of my favorite people interviews another of my favorite people. Or Catherine Schaff-Stump interviews Mer Haskell about her writing process (wherein I am name checked).

I should have mailed it to the Marx Brothers! A replica of Dr. Henry Jones' Grail Diary is sent to the University of Chicago. Sometime people with way too much time on their hands do silly things, like Dr. Moreau experiments on Peeps. However, this waste of time I approve of. Making the universe special one package at a time. (Grokked from Chia Lynn)

They don't make 'em like they used to. Irene Gallo on how you paint a 150 foot tall "The Hobbit" movie poster. Out where I live I see the faded remnants of the time when barns were painted to be rural billboards. Doing art this way is sadly going away. Although happily for my friends who work in large format.

Wait, there's a Lone Ranger movie? And Johnny Depp is Tanto? I hate to say it, but the trailer looks like it's a lot of cgi "ooo, don't this look special" stuff, which would be too bad. And, if you listen closely, you can hear the protests already. I like Johnny Depp, but I'm not sure about this one. Also, a little questioning of the physics of that last sequence in the trailer would have gone a long way.

The world's first and only honest resume of a graphic designer. Bwahahahaha. "Skills: All the computer programs known to man, except for Microsoft Word. That is where graphic design goes to lay down and die." Hahahahahahaha. Oh my yes, this. (Pointed to by Dan)

Speaking of, the Creative Group just released their marketing salary survey. Get 'em before your annual review. It's presented as a travel brochure :: rolls eyes :: Whatever happened to "Form Follows Function" people?

All colors are in essence, black. Or all movies are the same, and they're all becoming spaghetti westerns with excellent CGI. Why, because this is the true Hollywood Formula, "Oh, that worked and made us a butt-load of money? More of that, please."

There are huge numbers of (admittedly geeks) who think the Singularity is going to be wonderful. If you don't know, the Singularity has morphed from the moment that technological change occurs so fast, nobody can keep up with it, then it was faster than we could realize (think entire industrial revolution occurring in an afternoon), and finally is now recognized as that moment were we can upload our brains into computers. Personally, I think that's a horrible future and would never consider it unless I was 104 and we were sending a ship to a nearby star and that was the only way to go. One of the many reasons boils down to essentially this. I love programmers. Hell, I was on that course myself. But the vast majority of programmers couldn't get out of a wet paper bag (let alone program their way out) with a map, a light, and a knife. Seriously, if the NYTs, The Paper of one of the US's most integrated and diverse cities, can't get their subscription page right, what makes you think I would trust them with my memories? "Oops, sorry, buffer overload."

Eric deconstructs the latest mind fart of Justice Antonin Scalia. Sometime I wonder just what happened to him since at one point he had to have the intellectual chops to graduate from law school. And at one time he was considered one of the most principled and intellectual of the justices. But for a while he's been going down hill, which most people finally recognized by his intellectual u-turn in dissenting over the Obamacare case (which was argued to the positive specifically along the lines of his previous rulings, at one point it was thought that he might actually be the 5th vote to uphold the law simply because to not do so would involve a theoretical pretzel knot that seemed unsurmountable - but then he just threw out his previous forty years of judicial decisions and philosophy to find against).

Just in case you run into someone who likes to talk about "what the Bible forbids", here's 76 other things banned by the Bible. Conservatives like to forget about "66. Mistreating foreigners – 'the foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born' ((Leviticus) 19:33-34)" Waiting to see if the conservatives who love to talk about "teh gayz 'cause Bible" realize that they also then need to remove restrictions of immigration. 'Cause if they argue Paul's vision in Acts of God spreading the banquet before him nullifies the prohibitions against foods, but not acts, well, yeah, that whole "love thy neighbor" admonition is also an act, not a food. (Pointed to by Dan)

Not sure if this is of interest to anyone else, but the Navy is testing the UCAS aboard the USS Truman. That's the Navy's fighter drone program getting ready for all carrier operations. If you watch the video on that page, apparently the UCAS comes complete with a Kinetics.

"'It's what lawyers call betrayal without remedy'." The fuck the worker campaign continues rolling along. This time Hostess executives took pension money from the employees (and in case you didn't know, the Baker's Union is very, very, big on pensions) and plowed it into operating expenses instead of depositing it in the pension plan. And I disagree with the lawyers, while you may not be able to sue under pension laws (and ain't that grand, you all do know about the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation), if the deal was structured as a $0.30 raise, $0.28 diverted to the pension fund, I would still try to sue under wage theft. Say, you know how the state and local governments talk about their pension liabilities? You know this is how they got those unpaid liabilities, right? They didn't contribute the proper amount to the pension funds for decades and now the bill is coming due. But we're going to screw those employees over as well. (Grokked from Teresa Nielsen Hayden)

And more, "… Hostess’ CEO, Gregory Rayburn, essentially admitted that his company stole employee pension money and put it toward CEO and senior executive pay… If there's no way to recover the money for the Hostess pension plans for workers, then we the taxpayers - through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. - will have to foot the bill to make sure workers get the retirement money they paid in." Well ain't that just kick in the crotch, spit on your neck dandy? Tell me again why we shouldn't tax mother-fuckers like this into oblivion? And there's no longer many laws that could be used to sue or prosecute them. Still feel positive about those Bush Era Tax Cuts? (Grokked from Matt Staggs)

But then, we are always afraid of outsourcing. And damn the costs, don't we all want our WalMart "falling prices"? Not only is worker compensation and safety compromised, the side argument to this is environmental destruction. You outsource jobs because of that as well. (Grokked from Teresa Nielsen Hayden)

Who won the space race? That's an article about how Kazakhstan wants Russia to reopen negotiations on the use of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Russia's main launch facility. But out of 17 planned launches by NASA next year, by my count 9 of them are from Baikonur. So again I ask, who won? (Pointed to by John)

The Red Scare and it's Red Channels. The terrorist watch list of the time. History doesn't repeat, but it often rhymes.

Tweet of my heart: @saladinahmed: What SHOULD come up in coverage of legalization debate: prisons, deficits, public health, Bill of Rights. What ACTUALLY comes up: Taco Bell.

I'm stickin' to the union

Look, okay, you want "Right to Work"? Fine. Here's the deal that should be made. If you decide not to joint the union in a union shop, you are not covered under the union contract and your employer can not use the union contract as the basis for your pay or benefits. Also, you do not accumulate seniority (placing you at the bottom of the list no matter how long you work there, until you joint the union - seniority would start accumulating when you join the union). You are not covered under union rules for redress or position protection. You are not entitled to union representation during reviews or disciplinary matters. Nor are you dismissed for union activities (if you have them in your shop). You are "Right to Work" which means "at will" work. Also protect payroll deduction for union dues and pensions. Seriously, this is why you have a payroll department or service (and if you don't, more than likely you're not big enough to have a union either). Accept those terms, enforce those rules on business, and sure, I'll accept "Right to Work" legislation.

If not, Right to Work is an entitlement program benefiting people who contributed nothing to the program to begin with. And aren't conservatives morally opposed to "entitlements"?

Edited to add You know how in 2010 the Tea Party and other disaffected conservatives voted in majorities of Republic legislatures, governors, and the House of Representatives to nominally put our nation back on fiscal track. And then those new Republican majorities set out to strip women of their reproductive rights, deny gays equal protection under the law, and make futile votes to "Repeal Obamacare"? You know, everything but passing a budget that could work, making tax reform work (that mythical rewritting and simplifying the tax code that's been in the works since, what, 1996), and "righting the fiscal ship of state". So now it appears these two years will be devoted to "how much of the state can we dismantle to give employers their right to screw over their employees as much as possible." This is why whenever any conservative touts how they're "more fiscally responsible" then those tax and spend liberals, I've taken to laughing in their faces. The GOP is no longer focused on the fiscal stuff. They are social conservatives (who really aren't "conservative" as much as "retro") 24/7/365. It was my hope the Tea Party might skew them back to fiscal matters, but they've also been co-opted by social conservatives.

Linkee-poo is standing, stretching every nerve

What the eye has seen can not be unseen. Forewarned. The Jim Hines/John Scalzi pose off with voting opportunities. Thank the gods I have hard cider at home.

Picturing the Hobbit. An Irene Gallo post over at Tor.com. I love her posts, BTW. She has such a great eye. Also, I can't wait to see how Smaug looks in the movie. Jackson did a great job with the Balrog.

Of import to the link to Scalzi's blog in the last linkee-poo regarding working for free, the should I work for free flow chart. They're a little bit more generous than I am (or should I say, "have become in my crotchety old age"). (Grokked from commentator Daughter Number Three)

Kim Neville on tuning out your inner editor. Yeah. I've got that problem.

Matthew Cheney on the new (and old) Red Dawn. And yeah, I remember seeing the original in theater. Glad we aren't all paranoid racists or anything. I haven't wanted to see this movie form the first time I heard they were remaking it. Didn't we win the Cold War?

Ah, the fuck the worker parade continues. No, not about Michigan's "right to have benefits from something you didn't contribute to" law (talk about entitlements). This time it's my home state's Supreme Court being activist and redefining the restrictive workers compensation tort law to mean safety equipment is only that which is on a machine (um, guys, OSHA wants to have a word with you) and a work place can only be sued if they directly intended to harm workers. Um, I think that's called "assault" and if they accomplish it, "battery" and is already covered. But this time the onus is on the worker to prove the company intended to harm them directly. If you can't prove it all you get is worker's comp, disability (if you have it), and a 3 year struggle to get disability from Social Security. You know, those things our tax money pays for. Ohio, we're open for business. Accidentally poison your employees, get them electrocuted by supplying the wrong equipment, or have a vehicle operating outside its design limit crush them? No worries. Come on in and kill us. But hey, jobs!

The conservative amnesia around the Bush Administration continues unabated. This time, the newsletter for a Fox News anchor conveniently forgets they actually did have the meeting that they threw out as a straw man to show how enraged they were at MSNBC getting briefed by the President. Were conservatives all smoking dope during the 2000s, because their starting to affect the opinion of the Bush Administration as hippies have of the 60s. If you can remember it, you weren't there. Seriously, you all know Jon Stewart has a large video library and the rest of us have Google, right?(Grokked from Jay Lake)

Alligator Quotient: You know that monster in Cloverfield? Yeah, like that.

Fell in love with this song the first time I heard it

More from my holiday playlist. This time it's Tish Hinajosa with Arbolito.


Wish she had an official youtube channel I could point to.