Today a noted abortionist named George Tiller was shot while attending church this morning. As of this writing, it’s yet clear who was responsible, but it is likely that Tiller was shot because he was an abortionist.
Tiller’s work was an abomination. His murder is also an abomination, and his murderer is guilty of a grave offense. I will be praying for both Tiller and his murderer; both are desperately in need of God’s mercy.
Just saw Up!.
Don’t want to spoil it, so I’ll just say a few words.
Amazing! Stupendous! Moving! Go see it!
(Those of you who are married—bring Kleenex.)
Aha!
The other day I downloaded an e-book, and e-mailed it to my Kindle. Today I got an e-mail explaining that I’d been charged 30 cents for this service.
When I first got my Kindle, I was told that sending documents to the Kindle cost 10 cents each. When the Kindle 2 was released, they changed the policy to 15 cents/megabyte. However, this is the first time I’ve actually been charged.
I’m not complaining, mind you; but since I’ve told everyone that I’d never been charged for e-mails to the Kindle I thought I should also tell everyone that the policy has finally changed.
By comparison, sending a single book through the US Mail costs over two dollars, says my wife the PaperbackSwapper.
I just got one of those Nigerian spam e-mails—you know, where the sender has a billion dollars that they need you to access for them, so please send them your bank account information. I don’t usually bother looking at these, but this time a few winning phrases caught my eye. For example,
My aim of writing is not to know you as i have no interest of knowing you and would not like to know you unless if needs be.
Well, you know, I did bathe this morning. However, the feeling is mutual.
But i am telling you this based on my believe as person who does not like evil or cheating and would not like to be called for explanation as a result of this information i am giving to you below.
Aha. You don’t like cheating, and you don’t want to get caught at it. But you’re going to give me the information anyway.
This information as a result of my recent departmental research, i had to call them to question but they tried to bribe me, but i refused because i am not a cheat. I have to inform you that your! Funds interest at a tune of usd$14.1 million was transferred into a Swiss account provided by a fake lawyer portrayed himself to be your lawyer.I must inform you that the officers involved are always in communication with you , so you should stop talking with them and do not tell them that you are waiting for the transfer.
These people are always in communication with me, are they? What assures you of this?
Since we have an evidence at hand, you are hereby advised to contact the authorized (C.B.N) security and finance company in Abuja who is in control of your payment and the approved lawyer attached to the security and finance company in the name of Mr. Alex Orbed and explain everything to him as your file was sent to him on the 30th April, 2009 and when contacting the lawyer quote your file reference number CBN/PTF/XX/009 he is the straw that breaks the camels back.
O-o-o-o-o-kay. Poor man. For that matter, poor camel.
Alcatraz Smedry is the hero of a pair of truly delightful books my boys got for Christmas: Alcatraz Versus The Evil Librarians, and Alcatraz Versus The Scrivener’s Bones, both by Brandon Sanderson. At least, the spine of the books say that they are by Brandon Sanderson; the narrator, Alcatraz Smedry himself, claims that he is the real author; these books are autobiographical, but were published as fantasy novels to get them past the Evil Librarian Conspiracy. The attribution to Sanderson is just a blind.
You see, we live in a world that is run completely by and for the Librarians. They control what we read, and consequently what we know. And they like it that way.
Did I say completely? I misspoke. In addition to the continents you’re familiar with, all of which are under the Librarians, there are also several other continents collectively known as the Free Kingdoms. The Free Kingdomers refer to our countries collectively as the Hushlands. The Librarians have been trying to take over the Free Kingdoms for centuries, and the odds have tilted in their honor. Alcatraz, a thirteen-year-old raised in the United States, will be key to the Free Kingdom’s salvation. He’s a real hero.
Or is he? According to Alcatraz the narrator, he’s not really a hero; in fact, he’s writing his autobiography to tell people the truth about himself, so they’ll stop treating him like one.
Or is he? It’s hard to tell, as Alcatraz enjoys messing with the reader. (Do not turn to the last page to see how the book comes out. You’ve been warned.)
I read these books aloud to the family at bedtime over the last month; and frankly, they are some of the funniest books I’ve read in ages. Everyone, from Jane and I on down, enjoyed them thoroughly, and every evening the kids (and Jane) were clamoring for more. When the third book in the series comes out in October I’d be in line to buy it even if I had no kids to read it too.
Highly recommended.
Via The Blue Boar, I’ve found an astonishing thing: a new article by St. Thomas Aquinas on the question of whether naps are necessary for salvation.
It’s a spoof, of course…but whoever wrote it has a good handle on Thomas’ style.
Scott asks where I’m finding books, and how I’m getting them onto the Kindle.
Naturally, I buy the occasional book from Amazon. That’s really convenient; the books arrive wirelessly, they are backed up on Amazon’s site, and I can re-download them any time I like.
I also download books from ManyBooks.net and FeedBooks.com. These I usually download to my laptop and copy to the Kindle using a USB cable.
Finally, as I indicated in my previous post I’ve been reading books from the Baen Free Library, and these I arrange to have e-mailed to my Kindle. That’s right; e-mailed. Amazon provides a service whereby you can mail documents to your Kindle’s e-mail address (it has one) and it will convert them and send them wirelessly to the Kindle. In theory this costs something like 15 cents a megabyte, but to date I’ve never been charged. The folks at the Baen Free Library have latched on to this; instead of downloading the book in Kindle format, you can simply have them e-mail it. You need to do a little set-up work: Amazon will only accept e-mailed documents from the e-mail addresses you specifically enable. It’s easily done, and Baen provides a link that tells you how to do it.
Anything else, Scott?
One of the neat things about having a Kindle is that I can download books from the Baen Free Library. I mean, granted, I can download books from there without having a Kindle; but I don’t like reading books on my laptop screen. So prior to heading off on a business trip a few weeks ago, I went there and downloaded a couple of books by authors I’d never heard of. Unsurprisingly, the results were mixed.
I’ll start with the second: Neptune Crossing, by Jeffrey A. Carver. This was rather a disappointment. A spacer on Triton, employed by a firm that’s extracting alien alloys from the icy moon, is nearly out of his mind with “silence fugue” as the result of an accident that ruined his neural data link. While in this state he makes contact with an alien being called a quarx. The quarx has been in stasis in an alien machine for a very long time. The quarx takes up residence within the spacer’s mind, the better to fulfill its mission, which is to save Earth from destruction.
That’s the premise; whether it works out in the end, I dunno, as I gave up on the book about halfway through. By the nature of things we spend most of the book in the hero’s mind, which isn’t all that interesting a place to be. To be fair to the author, this is probably his first book; but I’ve no plans to look for anything else by him.
The first, on the other hand, was a lot of fun. Doc Sidhe, by Aaron Allston, concerns a events in an unusual version of Faerie. It seems that Faerie has been almost completely sundered from our world for some centuries, and has developed along parallel lines. Technology has continued to advance, though in ways naturally different than on Earth. The “Doc Sidhe” of the title is a wealthy philanthropist, one of the few full-blooded Sidhe remaining in Faerie, and the head of the Sidhe Foundation, a sort of high-tech philanthropic and law enforcement group.
The hero of the book is not Doc Sidhe, however, but an Olympic kickboxer from New York who gets transported to Faerie accidentally, and is taken under Doc’s wing. The result is a somewhat gritty romp that I had a lot of fun with. It’s also the first in a series; I’ve been looking for the sequel, but haven’t yet located a copy. (I’ll probably have to look to Amazon.)
I gather the series is in part a tribute to the “Doc Savage” series; but as I’ve never read any of those, I can’t say whether it works or not.
So Jane and I went to see the new Star Trek movie last night. My first thought, when the credits started to roll, was, “Waddaya mean there won’t be another episode next week? I have to wait at least a year?” And the second, as the names of the actors started to go by was, “Winona Ryder? Really?”
Anyway, I liked it.
I’ve just discovered that Julie at Happy Catholic has awarded me the coveted Lemonade Stand Award:
The rules are as follows, so I am given to understand:
1) Put the Lemonade Award logo on your blog or post.
2) Nominate at least 10 blogs that show great attitude or gratitude.
3) Link to your nominees within your post.
4) Let the nominees know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
5) Share the love and link to the person from whom you received your award.
I say “coveted”; in fact, this is yet another of those award memes, where you receive the award, and then turn around and award it to X other bloggers you happen to like, where X is less than the number of bloggers the rules say you’re supposed to award it to. I’m grateful, of course, but I’m tempted to pass the award along to everyone on my blogroll, as a witness to my bad attitude. Unfortunately, there are too many blogs on my blogroll; and most of them are fairly high-profile already.
Instead, I’m going to pass it along to the two blogs I’m learning the most from these days:
Enjoy.
The View from the Foothills 