Zorral

Yet Starlink is being used by many for military purposes. He gets to decide who gets to use it and who he shuts out. That's pretty goddamned military and political and arbitrary to me. Capitalism reigns. Yay capitalism and its billiionaires who get to decide whether you have water, air, or a country. So. What. It is what it is and as an essential global communications network, it is also a military resource, tool and weapon. I didn't knock you down and pull off your clothes by design to rape you. Rape just . . . happened. And then got paid by somebody. And, anyway, it was YOUR OWN FAULT. Gimme a frackin break.

Musk Shut Down Ukrainian Attack After Chat with Russian Official https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/musk-shutdown-ukrainian-attack-after-chat-with-russian-official

With this shyte putting up with it she ain't! Georgia Prosecutor Sharply Rebukes House Republican Investigating Her The prosecutor, Fani T. Willis, accused Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio of trying to obstruct her prosecution of the racketeering case against Donald J. Trump and his allies. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/07/us/fani-willis-jim-jordan-trump-georgia.html?

I myself repaid an advance because the editor turned out not to have understood anything about the book in the first place. Got a different publisher. Others have pulled their books, and repaid the advance, particularly more latterly in YA fiction particularly, because of accusation about cultural appropriation and cultural deafness and so on and so forth. They were abused throughout media -- so easy to do in the daze of the twitmonster -- and wanted to rethink. The Guardian in particular seems to keep track of this. Also most publishing contracts have clauses now in which the advance must be repaid in the case of conditions of moral turpitude or, you know, whatever. These clauses also include that in the case of lawsuits the author is responsible for the legal costs. Of course there are always the Judith Regans who want books by those who have committed and / or believe horrors. Moreover, for a new author it is seldom that a contract will be for an entire trilogy from the gitgo. That Rothfuss got as much as he did for a first novel, from someone with no track record whatsoever. But I can personally vouch that Betsy and the entire DAW team were in awe and had their sox knocked off, and fell madly for the partial and outline. They were so knocked out they did what they don't do -- they sent it to friends to read, because they knew their friends would love it -- which I did. To see Betsy and Sheila behaving this way was amazing. Usually, even when editors do like something, particularly when it is a first time writer -- they are canny and low key. "Did you like it? Tell me," cries insecure author, "did you like it? Why did you like it?' And editor says, "Of course I liked it. I bought it, didn't I?" Beyond that, no agent worth her cut would allow three books to be locked into a single contract that treats three books the same, because, if, for instance, as Rothfuss's first novel did -- sold like hotcakes, got endless glowing reviews from pros and fans alike, won and got nominated for numerous awards, the author would be locked into contracts with advances -- and royalties rates -- far lower than what the work was worth. And who knows how other rights and license fees would be scaled?

Hot, filthy, steambath. This entire week has been awful, with every succeding day more horrible than the one preceding it.

Not so. Quite a few in-depth reports of this running currently in the main stream news media, from the NYT to the WaPo. One of them in the WaPo has a gift link, so you need not subscribe.

Woo -- three texts this morning from friends in three different parts of the US telling us they got covid -- one of them just home from visiting here last week, and with whom Partner hung out a lot in music venues. Haven't heard from so many people contracting covid as we are now since the first year of the pandemic.

Funny that when a government privatizes its military operations those to whom the government's outsourced start to believe they can and will set policy. Both the US and Putin have been learning this lately it seems. This is a shared article, subscription not needed to read. https://wapo.st/3P7FAUw After Prigozhin’s Death, a High-Stakes Scramble for His Empire A shadowy fight is playing out on three continents for control of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s sprawling interests as head of the Wagner mercenary group. The biggest prize: his lucrative operations in Africa. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/world/europe/prigozhin-wagner-russia-africa.html

Nothing is making a story/plot here -- I gave up about half way through the first episode of this new season. Nor was there a glimmer of memory about anything from the first season other than landscapes. Have no idea who is who or why who is who. Fhew!

If only because he/they then can turn around and sell it to somebody else, and somebody else will buy them for sure. Though . . . there are fewer and fewer somebody elses in publishing all the time.

Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro convicted of contempt of Congress https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/07/politics/peter-navarro-contempt-of-congress-january-6-committee-subpoena/index.html Quite a week in the courts.

Very hot, like all the previous week and tomorrow too. We are also suffering nearly Orange/Bad AQI -- haven't had that in a very long time. 'They' are advising we ration our a/c. In the meantime far too many a/c window units for the university's dorms have, um ... failed. I.e. aren't working. Very bad for the school's profile -- and these are new units. Somebody did a very bad procurement job. Or ... something . . . . The shops and office building all have their doors open and are a/c-ing the streets as usual. At home we're set at 78°, with the money saver on. But I am utilizing my teeny personal a/c unit, that sits on my desk and is powered by jacking into the computer. It's just great!

From me as well! Thank you. Also hoping Jace has been sprung.

What You Get When You Go Into Business With Elon Musk Approving sketchy loans. Swallowing weird deals. Giving him whatever he wants. https://slate.com/technology/2023/09/elon-musk-spacex-loan-twitter-tesla.html

BTW, Peter Robinson's When the Music’s Over (2016) #23 in his DCI Banks series, p. 234 provided the purrfect quote for my article's thesis as to a long series, with a consistent, thoughtful, intelligent protagonist's perspective can offer insights into the history of the non-fictional world out of which the fictive series emerges. Banks remembered lines from another of Linda Palmer's poems: "In no time at all, we alter what we / see--not nature, but nature exposed / to our vision." She was right about the constant Dance of memory and imagination, perception and creation, history and fiction. How easily the one was transformed into the other, or by it, sometimes to such an extent that we actually believed a thing had happened the way we remembered it, when it hadn't happened that way at all. He gave up pursuing the thought. It wasn't a fruitful line of inquiry for a detective." After reading the paragraph's last sentence I barked laughter, which I'm sure many other readers of the DCI Banks series did as well, because the entire series is about that! As ever, Robinson finds ways to enjoy himself as a writer, and never take himself/Banks too seriously (except the older he/they get, the more seriously he seems to take himself as a genius of pan-musical knowledge ).

https://www.thedailybeast.com/musk-secretly-used-starlink-to-foil-ukrainian-drone-attack-on-russian-ships-report?

Elon Musk secretly ordered SpaceX engineers to switch off the Starlink satellite communications network near the coast of occupied Crimea in order to thwart a Ukrainian surprise attack on Russia’s naval fleet, according to a report. The incident last year is reported in Walter Isaacson’s upcoming biography of the billionaire titled Elon Musk. With the comms down, the Ukrainian submarine drones packed with explosives “lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly,” Isaacson writes, according to CNN. Musk was reportedly motivated to foil the attack out of concern that a strike on Crimea would constitute a “mini-Pearl Harbor” and lead to Russia retaliating with nuclear weapons. The SpaceX boss apparently began to question his decision to support Starlink being used for Kyiv’s military communications when Ukraine started to use the tech in offensive operations against Russia. “How am I in this war?” Musk asked Isaacson. “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes.” CNN Exclusive: ‘How am I in this war?’: New Musk biography offers fresh details about the billionaire’s Ukraine dilemma https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/07/politics/elon-musk-biography-walter-isaacson-ukraine-starlink/index.html

The Dungeons & Dragons Players of Death Row For a group of men in a Texas prison, the fantasy game became a lifeline — to their imaginations, and to one another. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/31/magazine/dungeons-dragons-death-row.html

How Covid Affects the Heart Three years into the pandemic, the short- and long-term risks are becoming more clear. "... heart-related deaths also increased dramatically in younger adults. In fact, a study found that the sharpest rise in deaths from heart attack during that period occurred in 25- to 44-year-olds." https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/07/well/live/covids-heart-health.html

Marc Anthony Receives His Hollywood Walk of Fame Honors After Globalizing, and Then Revolutionizing, Salsa Music After 30 years as a superstar singer and actor, Latin music legend Marc Anthony gets his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Um, also movie star! https://variety.com/2023/music/news/marc-anthony-hollywood-walk-fame-star-ceremony-latin-salsa-music-1235715335/

Humor! A Letter to Kenneth Chesebro on Pleading Guilty https://www.justsecurity.org/88068/a-letter-to-kenneth-chesebro-on-pleading-guilty/#:~:text=Dear Mr. Chesebro%3A,grave threat to your liberty.

Patrick Rothfuss Is Hosting a Twitch Series (With Guest Authors!) to Promote Latest Publication https://www.tor.com/2023/09/06/patrick-rothfuss-twitch-series-narrow-road/

Got enuff of blood, body parts and extreme gross in the first two seasons, with the second one outdoing the first and, clearly, they are going for the third season to outdo the second one.

Millennia prior to the Roman Republic and the empire. Who were not Caananites in first place. One of the reasons the Romans were horrified by Carthage is it did human sacrifice -- though archaeology is currently divided, it seems, as to whether or not Carthage did indeed perform the sacrifice of children. Recall, in all ages, one of the reasons always trotted out to justify one group's hatred and desire to conquer another is -- 'the children!' Most recently recall the totally, professionally manufactured death of preemies to steal the equipment in the first Iraq war, which Congress bought at their hearings, full sinker. To be embarrassed (as much as politicos can ever be embarrassed) when the facts of this phony video etc. came out.

How often do you think publishers issue contracts to new writers for more than one book at a time? How often do authors plan and expect to have their projected series to be published in full, yet, due to sales, change of editors, whatever, the publisher doesn't pick up the next one? This is the publishing business you are talking about, not a religious order. Or the cops, or politicians, or, or, or -- none of whom fulfil all the time their social and spiritual expectations either.