JamesPadraicR

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• Commented on Too Many Thoughts About Genre
  WRT “You got your Magic in my SF!”, see also Hurley’s Bel Dame books. Loved the first one, it’s brutal (which seems to be her thing). I really need to finish reading them....
• Commented on Too Many Thoughts About Genre
  Or perhaps a God-Emperor declares death to the sons of his slaves. The mother of one boy puts him in a basket in the river, which is found by the Emperor’s daughter and raised as a royal, he learns his...
• Commented on Introducing Dead Lies Dreaming
  Absolutely, in context of benefitting a Children’s Hospital, I mean....
• Commented on Introducing Dead Lies Dreaming
  ...can you see any congressman voting against a one-off special copyright extension if someone proposed it? From the current stain of Republicans? Absolutely. Meanwhile, and unrelated, glad I haven’t wasted time/money on a certain SF writer....
• Commented on Introducing Dead Lies Dreaming
  See also William Gibson’s recent retweets about a Russian private jet, apparently carrying a Russian bank exec, possibly on their way to Mar-a-Lago. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1213332048573800453.html & https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottMStedman/status/1213378826291466240...
• Commented on Introducing Dead Lies Dreaming
  Since this is after all a post on books and publishing, and I know Charlie’s been paying some attention to it... I had nearly forgotten about the RWAs self-immolation from last week until this morning when NPR had a story...
• Commented on Introducing Dead Lies Dreaming
  ...with it being *awfully* fast between star systems. Yeah, I liked it, thought it was a fairly satisfying end. Though there were a few cutesy moments, and the hyperspace travel was too instant—all that jumping and they didn’t end up...
• Commented on Introducing Dead Lies Dreaming
  I'm guessing what you hate is militarism sf -- that is, glorification of the ideology of might-makes-right, obedience, discipline, the whole nine yards that get romanticized and packaged and turned into fascism. This. Also the racism substitutes, the alien...
• Commented on Introducing Dead Lies Dreaming
  I think I’m safe in saying most of us Americans are fairly unfamiliar with “The Water Babies” (have heard of it but not read), so just looked it up, and Ick. All the prerequisite Victorian racism & anti-semitism. No thanks....
• Commented on Introducing Dead Lies Dreaming
  It's not my choice of a series title, What would you have titled it? @46: but death was accompanied by lots of crass commercialism, Including commemorative photos of dead babies....
• Commented on Introducing Dead Lies Dreaming
  When you first announced the new title, it reminded me of something, and I finally realized it was Tidhar’s “A Man Lies Dreaming”—which I really ought to find a copy of and read, along with his other books that I...
• Commented on Artificial Intelligence: Threat or Menace?
  Actually the entire religious history of the USA seems to be based on persecuting "Other" religious groupings, Yep, pretty much from the beginning. The Puritans came because of persecution, then did their own against those who came after. And...
• Commented on Artificial Intelligence: Threat or Menace?
  I think the modern Preppers go along with the Neo-Fuedalists who all assume that they’ll be the aristocrats rather than the serfs. As a kid looking through my father’s copy of “The Survivalist Handbook” in the early 80s it was...
• Commented on CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE, Part 2
  Don’t know about mail from the US. This is what I was referencing: U.S. Will Remain in Postal Treaty After Emergency Talks I was a little concerned since I’ve been ordering things from Japan the past couple years, and the...
• Commented on CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE, Part 2
  But Cohen wrote something like 70 verses for that song, and would pick and choose which to sing depending on his mood. Possibly something there that would work, but all anybody seems to sing is the Buckley version, though he...
• Commented on CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE, Part 2
  AIUI, China is still classified as a ‘developing nation’ in decades old treaties with the US, like the one for international mail, that the Rump nearly scuttled, which would have upped postage costs from overseas....
• Commented on CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE, Part 2
  Those of their cousins who stayed disappeared in 1942 ... My great-grandparents and their siblings left the Pale of Settlement about the same time as your relatives, my mother was denied a security clearance in the Army because of the...
• Commented on Creative writing challenge!
  I think Fraud Guarantee needs a mention, presumably connected to the other party in Rude’s call....
• Commented on Normal service will be resumed eventually
  Also here to say “May their memories be a blessing” (however you choose to take that). I don’t know if expecting a loss makes recovery quicker, but may you and your siblings be well....
• Commented on CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE
  the older generation spoke with a German accent and had numbers tattooed on their arms; they were the lucky ones.) Unfortunately they’ll be gone soon, and we’ll be sorely lacking in living witnesses. I occasionally remind people that those “old...
• Commented on CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE
  In reference to a photo all over Twitter: How could anyone resist the urge not to come down the aisle and ‘accidentally’ knock Wee-Smugg off the bench? Also, it seems no matter the lighting his nose casts a shadow of...
• Commented on CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE
  Sorry, late with a reply: Which US state & who is the new Guvnor? That’d be Colorado Governor Jared Polis, he’s got some minor issues, but nothing sane people would recall him over. And at least he’s not a Retrumplican....
• Commented on CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE
  Oh, and as someone else offered a spare room; I’d be tempted to offer ours, but we’re in the middle of Trumplandia. On my way home this afternoon I passed a table set up on the side of the road...
• Commented on CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE
  Rather late, and not entirely sure wtf is going on over there, anyhow... I wouldn’t really expect ‘lizabeth to say No! to anything, but what if she said “We strongly suggest that you do not do this thing that will...
• Commented on Upcoming events
  That’d be Fred Jr., of course it’s all just a rumor, and not like he ended up poor. Just one article that comes up googling: https://bigleaguepolitics.com/koch-brothers-blackmailed-their-allegedly-gay-brother/...
• Commented on Upcoming events
  Oh yeah, meant to add that I’m counting down to the BS hagiographies to start coming out....
• Commented on Upcoming events
  Yeah, just came by to say (because of Charlie’s tweet about it): So the guy who blackmailed his older, gay brother out of his share of the family fortune, and bankrolled the Tea Party, etc. is dead. Ain’t that a...
• Commented on Upcoming events
  I really don’t want to rant on about Donnie’s latest expression of senility (really what else to call his ridiculousness about Greenland? I assume he thinks it’ll go down as The Great Trump Purchase—Believe Me). Or his anti-semitic dogwhistle, basically...
• Commented on Upcoming events
  Apologies, can’t help myself: Old Man Shoots At Clouds Paws@35: Ever used a Dyson Airblade? Aren’t those the dryers that supposedly spew germs all over? I’ve a Dyson vacuum, but it’s at least 10 years old, works well though emptying...
• Commented on Whoops Apocalypse!
  Agreed. My ‘people who don’t know better’ left out ...because they don’t read, to keep it short. That and it’s early here—GMT-7....