Just an FY:
The Stars Came Back is now at:
#18 15 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Military
#26 22 21 Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Military
#42 35 34 Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure > Science Fiction
Which at the moment translates into 164 183 209 units sold, 4 borrowed.
Whoo-hoo!
UPDATE: now at #1918 in Amazon paid Kindle store.
After people within the IRS basically admitted they targeted political opponents such as Tea Party groups for harassment, the FBI was finally called in to investigate because the behavior by the “impartial” IRS was so egregious. The head of the investigation, who “just happens” to be an Obama donor, decided there was nothing illegal going on, so they dropped the investigation, filing no charges.
I’m not sure how our decent into Banana Republic corruption and political abuse could happen so fast, unless the rot has been going a lot deeper, longer, than I thought, and it just took the Audacity of Dope to really bring it out in such an obvious way. We can only hope for a monumental backlash come election time. If not… time to start milking the system for all it’s worth, bring it down as fast and hard as possible, so the rebuilding can begin sooner.
Whoo-hoo! I got plugged. Er, perhaps I should explain that.
My book, The Stars Came Back, got a plug in the Book Plug Friday over at PJ Lifestyle, part of the Pajamas Media Megaplex. Be interesting to see what effect it has on sales.
So far the book has three reviews – I’d greatly appreciate more from any of you that have read it, particularly if you have written reviews before. Doesn’t have to be magnificent writing (that’s my job), just tell what you liked about it, strengths and quirks, compare it to other better known books or authors you liked. Thanks for your support, now back to our regular gun-news.
Mission of Burma official site. General Wiki info. A punk rock band formed in 1979, disbanded in 1983, sort of reformed later.
Song Background here – apparently a riff on a mistranslation of a statement incorrectly attributed to Hermann Göring.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8piMHsOya4
More free Matthew Bracken stuff. Continue reading
Today only, three Matthew Bracken novels are free at Amazon.
Thought y’all might want to know, being into books more than on a typical day.
Yup, looks like it’s done enough to toss out into the wild. The Stars Came Back is now a genuine product you can buy at Amazon. It should be pretty clean, and the story’s all there, and there are some graphics included, and more at the supporting website, www.TheStarsCameBack.com. It is also a good place to ask questions, find out more, etc. If you DO notice any typos, problems, or whatever, let me know, I can update it. If you like it, positive reviews are always appreciated.
Sorry it’s taken so long, after planning on getting it out last June (or maybe July), but it’s been a very educational process for me. Now I get to learn about taxes, exchanged rates, defending copyrights, all sorts of exciting stuff like that.
A shooting instructor, at the range, with an accordion. Yeah, this should be a hoot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0a5AWtBd1M
I came across this graphic. I thought it interesting. I think their intent was to say gun control causes crime, but my first blush read isn’t that it’s saying gun control causes crime, but that other social changes that cause crime tend to lead to gun control, and then repeal of those stupid laws are usually caused by other social changes that, in concert with liberalized gun laws, tend to push crime back down.![Ayj53JB[1]](https://blog.joehuffman.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Ayj53JB1.jpg)
Got the pic at http://i.imgur.com/Ayj53JB.jpg , just FYI.
The US District Court of Appeals for Northern District of Illinois struck down Chicago’s gun ban. Legalese here, or a plain English analysis here. They said:
The ban covers federally licensed firearms dealers; even validly licensed dealers cannot sell firearms in Chicago. The ban covers gifts amongst family members; only through inheritance can someone transfer a firearm to a family member. Chicago does all this in the name of reducing gun violence. That is one of the fundamental duties of government: to protect its citizens. The stark reality facing the City each year is thousands of shooting victims and hundreds of murders committed with a gun. But on the other side of this case is another feature of government: certain fundamental rights are protected by the Constitution, put outside government’s reach, including the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense under the Second Amendment. This right must also include the right to acquire a firearm,although that acquisition right is far from absolute: there are many long-standing restrictions on who may acquire firearms (for examples, felons and the mentally ill have long been banned) and there are many restrictions on the sales of arms (for example, licensing requirements for commercial sales). But Chicago’s ordinance goes too far in outright banning legal buyers and legal dealers from engaging in lawful acquisitions and lawful sales of firearms, and at the same time the evidence does not support that the complete ban sufficiently furthers the purposes that the ordinance tries to serve. For the specific reasons explained later in this opinion, the ordinances are declared unconstitutional.
I got a Garmin GPS for Christmas, a hand-held one ideal for backpacking. Pretty neat. But then I looked closer, and had a “what the hell?” moment. It has no topo maps. Not even regional low-res 100k maps. Nothing. A few political outlines, major roads, major water obstacles like Lake Washington. You have to buy topo maps as extras. I thought the whole point of a GPS was not to point at a spot in a blank area and say “you are here.” Heck, I can get that with pencil and paper, and know general direction with a compass.
So I went to the Garmin site. They want a hundred bucks for a Northwest 24k topo map. Another hundred for a CA/Nevada topo. Another hundred for “mountain west.” Another hundred for Alaska. Another hundred for 100k US. And so-on. Holy COW! If you get around much, you could easily spend far more on maps than on the GPS unit itself. The unit I received had been bought on sale; any two of those are more than the unit cost.
I dug around a little bit online, and there are some references to using open source (USGS, TIGER, or whatever) topo maps, but nothing very specific or detailed that seemed like the right path. Anyone know any good sourses for free open source 24k topo maps and directions for putting them onto Garmin handheld GPS units? If I can get pointed to some that look like they will work, I’ll try it and let readers know how it goes.
Justin Moore is a country singer. This is from his “Outlaws like me” album.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk4oiUy1LcY
From Reason comes a report of a study about An examination of the effects of concealed weapons laws and assault weapons bans on state-level murder rates. Their conclusion, unexpectedly of course, is that assault weapon bans don’t do squat, and limiting the legal ownership and carry of guns for self defense (or, presumably, other purposes) increases crime rates. I’m sure we are all shocked that enforcing and encouraging defensive passivity and defenselessness encourages criminals, but there you have it.
From Yahoo News I hear that Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK 47, has died at age 94.
I’m at about that point where I need a couple of decent proofreaders. Details over at The Stars Came Back.
A classic from the way-back machine. Recorded more than 80 years ago. A simple tune from a simpler time.
Jimmie Rodgers was a classic country-western singer, sometimes called the grandfather of the “modern” genre, born in 1897, died 1933.
A classic, live version. Originally by Bob Marley, but Clapton made the biggest cover of it. More about it here.
Over at The Stars Came Back I posted a simple AVI that Paul put together of Helton’s first walk through of Tajemnica. He’s been playing with modeling it, doing some various graphic things. May post the “outstanding training value” image sometime soon, too. Getting nearly done with editing (yeah, I’ve said that before, I mean it this time).
It’s been a little chilly around here recently. Nothing serious, just mid-teens at night. But I drive a VW diesel, and they don’t much like the cold. It’ll start and run, but for the first ten or fifteen minutes there isn’t enough extra heat from the engine to defrost the windows or warm the cabin efficiently. If I only have to drive six miles to a school, it’s not good for the engine or oil, bad for fuel efficiency, and not overly comfortable because it’s just starting to get warm by the time I get there. I had a small oil-pan heater similar to this one, but it no longer works, and I need a new oil pan anyway. So I investigated what the possibilities were. None looked particularly good to me for, until I came across FrostHeater, an independently developed aftermarket part that fills a need. (Hmmm, seems I know someone that did something similar. If I could just remember who…)
Basically, it splices into the coolant circulation system with a small pump and a 1kw heater. Put it on a timer, and you get hot water circulating around your engine block starting an hour before you plan on having to leave. Sounds like a pretty good idea, and the reviews I can find are fairly positive. So, I ordered one. When I get it installed, I’ll post how the install went, and how well it works.
