Der Furher Says It All

Das ist alles.

(H/T Small Dead Animals)

Hello, Benny of PA!!

The pack has grown by one new member - Benny:

This is Benny on his way to his new foster home a couple of months ago.

He has fit right in. Suzu and Griffin did the obligatory olfactory check (as did Benny), and that was about it for the first encounter.

He's hopped up to join me on the couch a couple of times - he is a serious snuggle-bug.  Seems pretty bomb-proof, not easily startled. Barked as I walked along the side of the house, so I now have the guard dog/alert dog function covered.

He does like to bark when he's excited. He stops if I clap my hand or stamp my foot in front of him, so the should be an easy correction.  He does not like the stairs here, but then who does?  They have narrow streads, and are pitched at a 45 degree angle, so they are a challenge.

But!  He's here, he fits in, and seems to be quite happy!

Benny at home in the office.

New Time Waster...

...Twitter.

I opened an account so I could Tweet when I put up a post.  Sadly, it got out of control in the last month, and I've spent a significant part of my time over there.

Which has to stop.  I stumbled into a potential money-making gig about a week and a half ago, and we met today to start getting our brains around it.  I walked away with a pretty good list of things I need to do.  In addition, I need to get some things sorted out at the office here at home in order to support what I'll be doing there.

Yes, I'm being deliberately vague about what it is.  I think we need to get the proverbial ducks lined up before I make a big to-do about it here.

But I'm optimistic about it.

And I'm saying the (Alan) Shepard's prayer, too.  A lot!

More as it develops.

Guest Post: We Should Control Our Government (Updated - links added)

As I've announced, we have a guest post today from the lovely and talented Sara Hoyt.  
Enjoy!  

The whole subject of gun control baffles me. Of course, those who know me will tell you that this is because my astigmatism is so bad that I can’t hit the broad side of a barn on a clear day – so gun control is at best nominal when the gun is in my hands.

The other type of gun control baffles me too. I grew up in a country (Portugal) at a time when guns were very tightly controlled. I’m not sure what the laws were, but I know that if you were a private citizen and needed a gun for defense, even if you were, say, transporting gold in your car and had received threatening letters, your chances of getting a license to carry were… infinitesimal.

So… My dad taught all my friends to shoot in grandma’s backyard. Guns? Well, I used to be offered guns for sale every time I went into the train station to go home from school. (I guess school made me look like I really wanted a gun. Oh, wait. Yes, it did. Well, you can’t blame me. First, it was an all girls school – I want the idiots who write about peaceful all female planets to go to all girls school, as a girl, for a day – and second this was the school where I studied many things but they were all Marxism.) I never bought any simply because dad had told me that the safest person would be the one I aimed a gun at. (And I knew he was right.) But they were right there. I got offered guns more than I got offered drugs. (Though that might have had something to do with how upset I looked.) This, in Portugal, in the seventies, meant that there were guns available on the street at every moment and for every price.

The idea that government can keep something that everyone knows is available out of the public’s hands is insane. At most they can keep law-abiding (and fearful of trouble) but not out of the hands of criminals and those inclined to mischief.

Which, of course, makes you wonder why it’s such a popular idea over most of the world.

I have a theory about that. The greatest fear the people in charge have – always – is of a peasantry capable of opposing them and imposing their will. (This has been made worse, of course, by the American revolution and our dangerous ideas of a government by the people…)

So while gun control is a really bad idea for keeping the guns out of the hands of bad actors, or preventing crime, or whatever it is, it is a very good idea to keep the civilians from having weapons that could oppose the army or other state-endorsed people. And so, they sell it as saving us from crime, and they keep pushing.

Which is why we shouldn’t let them rolls us. Because it doesn’t do anything we want it to do, but it does render us defenseless in front of the statist leviathan

It is a danger to our life, our liberty and our pursuit of happiness

And though I’m still very bad with guns, my characters use futuristic guns very well in my book Darkship Renegades, just out from Baen, and in the upcoming book – also from Baen – A Few Good Men, the first book of the Earth revolution.

Updated!! Hello and Welcome, Sarah Hoyt!

 Update:  I heard from Sara yesterday.  She apparently had an horrific Christmas, followed by a mad rush to get a manuscript for yet another book - Noah's Boy - to the publisher.  We agreed on a post about gun control.  Hers is a different take, colored by her experience growing up in Portugal.  I'll post it tomorrow, so ya'll come back, hear?!

I was introduced to Sara Hoyt through the P.J. Media blog.  Sara posts there, as well as holding down two blogs of her own, According to Hoyt and Sara A Hoyt.com

Smiling Sarah A. Hoyt!

At P.J. Media and According to Hoyt, she writes thoughtful, profanity free posts on politics and literature.  The Sarah A Hoyt site is devoted to pimping her novels such as Darkship Thieves, and Shifters, as well as her boatload of short stories.  She also is posting a chapter a week of her new novel, which you can read for free here: Witchfinder

She appears here because she is on a virtual book tour for her newest book, Darkship Renegades, the second novel in the Darkship series, which is being released this Tuesday, December 4.

I don't have a clue as to what Sarah may decide to grace leelu's place with, and I'm sure it will be good!  Watch  this space!!

Go. Read.  Enjoy!