Glibertarians.com 2018 Archive

Category: Entertainment

  • What Are We Reading

    What Are We Reading

    OMWC

    One of the few benefits of the pain-in-the-ass called “relocation” is the occasional discovery of something one possesses but had forgotten. In my case, it was one of my favorite books from my childhood, covers missing, pages yellowed and tattered, thumbed through to nearly the point of collapse, but still readable and delightful. Curtis MacDougall‘s Hoaxes is a classic, ranking with Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and Randi’s Flim-Flam in the category of “books to help you develop a healthy cynicism.” Put aside MacDougall’s idiot politics, the guy could write and do real research.

    SugarFree

    The menu that Cracker Barrel Typhoid Mary handed me. Ugh.

    Riven

    Ah, so when we last left off, I was just fixing to read Grave Peril, the third book in the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. Since then, I’ve finished that book–and Summer Knight, Death Masks, Blood Rites, Dead Beat, Something Borrowed, I Was a Teenage Bigfoot, and Proven Guilty. I’m currently about hip-deep in White Night, which isn’t as Christmasy as the title had initially led me to believe, but then I’ve had Christmas on the brain since Halloween, so… Maybe that’s not on Butcher. Also reads but timeline-ambiguous: Vignette, A Fistful of Warlocks, B is for Bigfoot, and A Restoration of Faith. Clearly very easy and whimsical stories to read, they’re entertaining and just-distinct-enough from each other that I will likely read the entire series right into the dirt. As long as Butcher keeps writing them, I’ll keep reading them, and I think I’m about halfway through the entire catalog at this point, if I include all the sundry shorts. … So he’s got another month or so to write the next one before I get to the current end of the series.

    mexican sharpshooter

    My reading once again, has been limited by what I read my four year old.

    This month’s entry is Shel Silverstein’s classic, The Giving Tree.  It is a touching story on the surface, but upon closer examination is a cautionary tale about the moral hazard of the welfare state.  The story begins with a boy playing with a tree but inevitably, time plays its terrible curse upon the boy and the tree.  The boy grows and no longer has interest in the tree.  The tree notices the boy coming by less often, but when he does, she finds the boy is missing something.  The boy first has no money, but the tree offers the boy her apples.  Now this is act of pure kindness on the tree’s part, and also an important lesson missed by the boy.  The apples you see, were meant to be sold in the market for a profit so the boy was able to have spending money.  Given the utter lack of overhead costs incurred by the boy, any apple sold was sold for a profit.  The boy then makes the mistake of spending all his money foolishly.

    His mismanagement of the tree’s gift is evident because the next time the boy comes to the tree for help, he is in need of a house.  Perhaps he knocked up some girl and needed a house.  Who knows?  Ultimately, if he had been a better steward of the tree’s gift of her apples, he would have used the profits from the apple sales, and applied those towards the startup for another, more profitable venture.  At the very least, the profits could have been used towards a down payment on a house. Given he had no money tells me it was spent on women and booze, because he now had a family and was once again asking the tree for help.  She offers her branches to build a home, and probably a shabby one at that.  Apple trees aren’t exactly known for their high strength wood, unless this was some kind of magic tree.

    Clearly, the boy made a mistake in who he married, because the next time he comes to the tree for help he wants to get away and have an adventure.  Between his debts and his dilapidated home, I would want to get away from everything too.  The tree once again offers the boy help by allowing him to chop down her trunk, and use it to make a boat.  Boats are nothing more than a hole in the water filled with money if you ask me.  The tree apparently was happy, but not really.

    Behold! The Welfare King upon his throne.

    The story concludes with the boy comeing back to the tree as an old man.  Surly, broken down—he can’t even chew on apples anymore out of disgust for his poor decision making.  The tree inevitably offers the only thing left she can as a stump, and offers the boy a place to sit his lazy ass down.

    The lesson here is the moral hazard of the welfare state.  The tree gives selflessly, and the boy takes advantage of her generosity by stealing everything she is worth—even in death.  A better course of action would have been to give the boy the apples as a loan.  How do you pay back a loan to a tree?  I don’t know, maybe the tree could’ve loaned the apples with the stipulation the boy plant a dozen of those apples somewhere.  Something, anything really to instill upon the boy the apples he is selling to spend on hookers and booze was not his to begin with.  The smartest course of action, being that he could clearly sell apples, is to plant more trees. Then the tree wouldn’t be so damn lonely for one, being surrouded by other trees, but the boy would have a larger supply of apples to bring to market.  Perhaps even plant a few more trees, and entire orchard of trees, and become de facto king of the magical apple tree forest. That never occurred to the creepy bearded, bare-footed Silversteen.  Obviously, because he wanted you to believe it was better to give everything to everyone, especially the undeserving.

    Ayn Rand would’ve had an epic, 96 page field day with this.

     

    jesse.in.mb

    Coming off a rough few months and finally getting a chance to do some reading. I finally finished the Lies of Locke Lamorra which I mentioned a quarter ago. It got better after where I was at before, but I’m not sure I’m going to pick up the next book in the series. There were open questions, but the tale itself comes to a satisfying close.

    Jeff Wheeler’s Storm Glass is another first book in a series. I *might* pick up the next one. The blurb made it sound like an impressively hamfisted parable for modern socioeconomic disparities set in a roughly steampunk (English, not wild-west) setting, but it was more enjoyable than the blurb made it sound.

    The Shadow & Bone trilogy (also apparently called the Grisha trilogy) is again a vaguely steampunk set of novels reminiscent of The Legend of Kora. The setting is overtly Russian and at about the end of the tsarist era, but in this universe some people are born to manipulate aspects of the world around them and some people are just fodder for the constant wars at play. There were a few points in the series where the story faltered, but the cadence kept me reading and I put down 2.5 of the books in a day-and-a-half.

    Currently reading Roadside Picnic, but I’m barely through the foreward so it’ll have to wait until next time.

    SP

    I have been reading self-help and how-to books this month.

    ”How to Relocate AGAIN and Stay Married”

    ”Creative Arson: When You REALLY Can’t Pack One More Box”

    ”Toss It! (Grandma’s dead, she’ll never know you gave her ‘heirlooms’ away)”

    “How to Get Moving Quotes Without Talking to Humans”

    “Nobody Needs 23 Kinds of Wine: Throwing Packing Parties to Reduce Your Cellar”

    ”Do the Math, Or Is it Cheaper to Replace All Your Household Goods Than Move Them?”

    “Ikea is Everywhere: Why Move Your Furniture?”

     

    Brett L

    I read to unwind, and after a hell of a month of November, I dove into a whole crapload of books this month. Not all of them great, but several pretty quality reads.

    I started with Gears of the City by Felix Gilman. I’ve had a pretty serious literary crush on Felix since reading The Half-Made World. Gears is a sequel to his 2007 book Thunderer. in the first book, a man named Arjun came to The City looking for his God, who had left Arjun’s monastery quiet and empty. The City contains hundreds of gods, and Arjun gets tangled up with two in particular, one a god of rot, water, and death; the other a god of flight, wind, and freedom. Many hijinks ensue and we leave the first book with Arjun going to The Mountain to look for his god. But the The City and The Mountain are mystical places, not really fixed or Euclidean in space or time. The second book picks up with Arjun having been spat out by The Mountain with a hazy set of memories. Short version is, the first book is great, the second one’s reach exceeds its grasp. I really wanted to love it, but it tied up too many things too neatly. Still loads of great characters and imaginative encounters, just not as sexy.

    After that came something lighter — the 4th installment of Drew Hayes’s NPC series (officially Spells, Swords, & Stealth series according to Amazon, but the first one was NPCs). Anyhow, this is I guess, LitRPG genre? There are two interwoven stories in the series. One is that the characters in the DnD-style game are actually in existence somewhere and controlled by people in our plane. The other is a group of NPCs who form a party to save their little town. I think its a fun series. Has some original twists and turns. Hayes does a good job between just shrugging his shoulders at some things (adventurers take stupid risks. its what they do.) and really nice world building on the other. Some of the characters include a gnome paladin of the god of minions, a half-orc wizard, and a former player-controlled character who should have died on a natural 1 roll but instead became an NPC.

    I also read the first two books of the Books of Babel series, Senlin Ascends and Arm of the Sphinx. The first book was wonderful steampunk. The second was not as original or lyrical, but moved the story along. A slightly older schoolmaster named Senlin takes his new bride to the Tower of Babel for a honeymoon (think steampunk technology, trains, some electricity, lots of steam engines) and immediately gets separated in the crowd. Thereafter begins his quest to reunite with his wife, in which he discovers that his morality is fluid, and he will do whatever it takes to get back to her. The second book takes Senlin to the mysterious Sphinx who seems to run and repair all of the automation for the tower. Senlin makes a deal to get closer to finding his wife.

    I also read a short story from Mark Lawrence in the Nona Grey universe called Bound. Lawrence continues to be one of my favorite writers, but $3 for 16k words is at the edge of my price range for anybody. Only read it if you are caught up on the Jorg/Red Queen and Nona Grey books and are waiting impatiently for the next book to drop.

    Finally, I started the Expanse books by James SA Corey. I don’t know why I hadn’t read them before, since space opera is absolutely my jam, but I had not. Nor have I watched any of the series on Syfy/Amazon. I really feel cheated that I haven’t been reading this all along. Although given the sheer number of novels and novellas in the series, it would be great if someone could tell me when to pull the ripcord so I don’t become bitter and disillusioned.

  • The Glibening, Part Five: Jinkies

    The Glibening, Part Five: Jinkies

    The Glibening, Part Five:

    Jinkies!

    by Tonio

     

    Previously…

    Suddenly, Gilhooly and Kestrel found themselves in a circular domed chamber lit by tasteful indirect lighting reflecting off the underside of the dome. Protruding from the walls of the chamber were seven cocobolo wood columns, each carved into a minimalist representation of a squirrel standing on its hind legs. At the center of the chamber stood a rectangular larvikite plinth topped by a thick crystalline box; inside that box were two human brains. Each brain was floating in its own personal cube full of straw-colored fluid, with myriad strands of what appeared to be black thread connecting the stem of each brain to the bottom of the cube, perhaps to unseen machinery below. The brains still had eyes attached and the eyes were fixed looking outward in the direction from where Gilhooly and Kestrel had appeared. One brain pulsed with orange light, the other pulsed green.

    Gilhooly and Kestrel had been here before, and didn’t like it. They approached the brain aquarium with trepidation, halting a yard away from the plinth.

    “To say that the Squirrels are angry is an understatement,” said the green brain pulsating in time with the dialogue. There was no actual sound within the chamber, except for the sussuration of the life support system which kept the chamber at a perfect three hundred ten kelvins at Earth normal sea level pressure, etc. Gilhooly and Kestrel didn’t hear the brains so much as they were painfully aware that the brains were streaming directly into their auditory cortices through means unknown.

    “Dmitri Gilhooly, Regina Kestrel, you have failed us,” pulsed the orange brain.

    Gilhooly and Kestrel remained silent. They had learned the hard way that it was unwise to say anything unless directly asked by the brains.

    “But Charles, is it the Humans who have failed us, or the Fabricians,” asked the green brain.

    “A fair point, David.” conceded the orange brain.

    “But you told us to slowly ease Gilhooly and Kestrel out and replace them with younger, more millenial-friendly staffers.” Said a new, petulant voice. “I had to endure years of of baby powder and Jean Nate perfume. If you had let me ride that girl I could have kept her under control.”

    Kestrel glowered but said nothing.

    “Shut up, Xylpig. We should be grateful to the Humans for providing us with employment and purpose,” said an exasperated voice. “I thought Jane’s complaints about the Squirrels were just part of her youthful exuburance and would come to nothing. I was wrong.”

    Gilhooly tried to relax in case things went poorly. He looked at the plinth and defocused his eyes losing himself in the reflections coming from the stone. Even though he was standing still, the minute autonomic movements of his body shifted his vision just enough that the lights shimmered like stars in the night sky. He thought he could discern a familiar pattern of several bright lights, but he couldn’t quite place it.

    “Xylpig, you could learn much from the contrite example of Korb,” pulsed the green brain.

    Xylpig yelped and twitched, causing Kestrel to cough most unpleasantly.

    “Indeed, our patience wears thin with all of you,” pulsed the orange brain. “You’re going back there and you’re going to clean up the mess you made.”

    “Don’t fuck it up. We need for Thought! Magazine to remain respectable.”

    “If you do we’re going to reassign you Fabricians to duty as santorum towels for Senator Lucius Greene.

    “No taint of scandal from this. You know how long it took you to live down the intern incident.”

    “Now begone.”

    The brains flashed in unison and Gilhooly and Kestrel disappeared to the accompaniment of a bright trumpet note. The lights in the chamber dimmed at a tasteful rate until the only remaining illumination was from the brains themselves, and the shimmering reflections from the plinth.

    “You said ‘taint,’” giggled the orange brain.

    “You used ‘duty’ and ‘santorum’ in the same sentence,” snickered the green brain, “and not one of those maroons reacted.”

    “They were trying not to think about it.”

    “Except the humorless one; it didn’t even register with her.”

    “Well David, what nefarious scheme should we advance next?”

     

    You know you've seen this before.
    Stars in the night sky. The human mind, craving order and structure, groups these into patterns.

     

    Ramesh and Murphy rode in silence. Murphy turned right onto Sixteenth Street. At the next intersection Murphy came to a rolling stop before whipping across traffic to turn the wrong way onto Fifth Avenue and parked in front of a fire hydrant, nose to nose with an NYPD cruiser.

    “Buck up, kid. Your boss has a hardon for these people. That 911 call lets us waltz in there without having to get a warrant. We’ll do a little meet and greet with the Officer in Charge and get up there ASAP.” Murphy and Ramesh got out of the car.

    More government vehicles with flashing lights pulled up in front of the building. A white Dodge Sprinter van with magnetic signage for Sunshine Cleaning Services crossed behind them down Sixteenth. A uniformed officer approached them as if to shoo them away. Murphy opened his sportcoat to show his badge hanging from his belt.

    “Who’s your friend?”

    “US Attorney’s Office,” answered Murphy. “Where’s the OIC?”

    The uniformed officer pointed towards a large black man in an NYPD uniform with sergeant’s stripes huddled in the leftmost entrance of the building with his back toward the sidewalk, talking on a walkie-talkie.

    Ramesh remembered that he had a badge and pulled out the badge wallet and hung it over his belt so the badge was facing outwards, just like Murphy. This is as close as he had come to actual police work and he was kind of enjoying it.

    “And we got ‘friends’ on the way,” said the radio in the hands of the big cop.

    “State,” asked the big cop into the radio.

    “Feds. That scumbag Murphy from Liaison is escorting some fed guy.”

    “Why are the feds interested in a crazy girl?”

    “It’s the magazine they’re interested in, not the girl. I’m on my way down.”

    “Roger that, ell tee.”

    “Carmody out.”

    “Shee-it.” The big officer turned to see Murphy and Ramesh standing behind him. “Murphy,” spat the big cop.

    “Brown,” said Murphy. “this is Deputy US Attorney Ramesh Gupta. His boss has a hardon for the magazine and asked if Ramesh could come down and have a look. Ramesh, this is Sergeant Mike Brown; this is his precinct so it’s his show.”

    “‘My show,’ my ass,” thought Brown, deciding that his day couldn’t get any worse. When Liaison showed up with a fed, particularly a civilian, it meant that the mayor wanted to suck up to someone. The federal guy had ‘ivy league puke’ written all over his ass. And his boss was on the way to micromanage everything. The feds loved procedure, so he was going to give it to him good and hard, stalling him until the ell tee got there.

    “Mr. Gupta, we have two officers on their way up there now to assess the situation. If they say the scene is safe I’m going to send up the EMTs. You and Sergeant Murphy can go up if the scene remains safe and the EMTs say it’s okay. It’s a new day, Murphy – no more interfering with treatment unless someone’s life is at stake. Some new federal thing.” Getting in a jab at the feds felt good since fedboy had ruined his day by turning a routine crazy girl call into a three-ring circus.

    “They know to hold off on the thorazine, right,” asked Murphy.

    “I will request that, but you know how they can be. I don’t know this team, but one of my guys says they’re okay.”

  • Poll: Favorite guilty pleasure movie

    Poll: Favorite guilty pleasure movie

     

    OK, you guys, must be R-rated or lower. Think of our Family Friendly Certification!

    For a large number of you, the answer should be that horrible movie with the giant rubber fish.  But, sadly, none of you feel at all guilty about liking it.

    So, come on, you can tell us. We won’t judge you.

    OK, I couldn’t even type that without cracking up. But….

    What movie do you feel most guilty about loving?

     

     

     

  • IFLA: The Horoscope for the week of December 9 — a Tutorial

    IFLA: The Horoscope for the week of December 9 — a Tutorial

    This week, the signs are simple and clear.  So simple and so clear that I’ll be giving a free tutorial on how to read them.

    Alignment the first:  Sol-Jupiter-Luna.  Sol = life, growth, benevolence.  Jupiter = government, rulership, mirth.  Luna = change, water, femininity, secrets.  An obvious reading would therefore be “prosperity for the ruler of water” or more plainly “Aquaman will have a good opening weekend.”  However, we can safely rule out this interpretation because Aquaman does not open this weekend.  But it should have.  This is what Warner Bros. gets for not having an astrologer on staff.  *koff*I’m available*koff*.  Since the naive interpretation is out, we need to go a bit deeper.  In this case, having both the Sun and Moon together being the greatest lights serves as a source of auspicity, trebly so with Jupiter being involved.  If the moon were full, this would be the maximum positive good luck arrangement, if the moon were new, this would indicate perfect social stability.  Neither are the case here.  The moon is a waxing crescent, but waxing is good.

    Alignment the second:  Sol-Saturn-Venus.  The sun is still the same here, but we’re adding Saturn (time, ending, cannibalism) and Venus (love, peace, rumpy-pumpy).  There are two classic interpretations of this based on the typical reading of Saturn as “ending.”  The gypsy one (better in my opinion since it acknowledges Sol) is “a windfall resulting from the death of a female” though it can also obviously mean the figurative death of a woman e.g. the departure of someone at your employer leading to your promotion.  The more modern (and in my opinion lesser) interpretation couples Venus and Saturn to mean “the end of relationship” while nodding at the sun “to your benefit.”  This seems a bit wishful thinking to me.  My modern-modern interpretation notices that Saturn is another name for Chronos (the legendary anthrotheophage) and concludes that the only way Saturn could have an effect on such a beneficent construction as Venus-Sol is obvious:  oral sex.

    The relationship between the alignments:  if these two were at 90 degrees, they would be opposing each other. There are important meanings at 30, 45, and 60 degrees as well.  Actually, some poor sod actually spent his life correlating angles with historical events and came up with a table for everything, including the angle these two are at (~55 degrees) but I don’t have it at hand so I won’t worry about it since it’s not a cardinal angle.

    Venus and Mercury in Scorpio – Venus does not always refer to sexual love.  But if it’s in Scorpio, it does.  Scorpio is the scorpion; it hides under rocks, it has secrets, it is easily pissed off.  It’s the earth counterpart to the water sign of the crab.  On the human body it refers to the genitals for reasons I’ve never understood (except maybe the analogy of sticking something into a crevice and becoming poisoned).  Mercury (which is no longer retrograde thank the stars)  is a sign of change, but it is also the messenger of the gods.  So this particular conjunction is less about actually having sex, but more about news of sex.  So, porn.

    Mars in Pisces – God of war, fire sign meets the fishes, water sign.  Pisces is one of the plural signs, indicating duality, contradiction, and spirit.  Since neither of these signs are involved in anything else, the meaning of this is that the skies are trying to confuse you.  Don’t let them.  Ignore astrologers, they are going to be wrong.

    Saturn and Luna in Capricorn – we’ve already talked about Saturn and the moon, so we just need to talk about Capricorn.  Capricorn is kind of odd.  Everyone has different interpretations — some say it is a crocodile, some say it is a goat, some say it is a fish-goat hybrid, some say it is the god Enki.  And because of that, there are lots of different attributes associated with it.  However, everyone agrees that it is an earth sign, and probably the heaviest, most negative one at that.  Saturn’s metal is lead, so combining those two results in immense stasis, but but not the comfortable, nesting, homeostatic stability kind, more of the oppressed, nothing ever changes, there is no hope kind.  This is kind of why I gloss over it most weeks.  But, there is a glimmer (literally) of hope.  This week the waxing (good luck) moon shows up.  The crescent moon is the least powerful, but in this extremely slim crescent form it represents new life/rebirth.  So, for those of you in the darkness, look carefully because there will be a light.

    Jupiter and Sol in Sagittarius – Sagittarius is the archer, and represents the civilian/peaceful use of weapons as opposed to the warrior/military aspects of Mars.  Sagittarius is also the centaur, representing the aspects of the astrologer, such as wisdom and having an enormous penis.  Leo is the sexual partner you’re with because they seem like what a partner should be, Scorpio is the partner you crave, Sagittarius is the partner that make you orgasm in ways you didn’t know were possible and how the fuck did they do that?  Also, watchmakers.  Obviously, your watches are going to run great this week.  Well, sort of.  See, on Monday, Jupiter is going to go retrograde.  What this means is that while currently it’s best to do things as if you were a devout Taoist or Confucian, starting Monday, that path is going to lead to heartache.  Instead, violate teleological norms and you’ll have better luck.  “Explore” a little.

     

     

     

  • The Hat and The Hair-Animated Episode 11: Pardon Me

     
     
    Thankful for these episodes?

  • The Glibening, Part Four: Hardboiled Dick

    The Glibening, Part Four:

    Hardboiled Dick

    by Tonio

     

    Previously: Part One, Part Two, Part Three

    Ramesh’s iPhone emitted the special chirp which meant that Google Alert had turned up a new hit from one of the websites his boss deemed troublesome. Crap. He grunted, then flinched as the cold water splashed up into his anus from the toilet bowl; he was glad he had pre-flushed and tried not to think about what germs were lurking in the water of the public toilet. Someday he hoped to have a corner office with a private toilet like his boss. Ramesh quickly cleaned himself and stood up. He raised his trousers, slid his arms into his suspenders, then buttoned and zipped his pinstriped trousers and put on his suit jacket. He pressed the flush handle with his shoe and exited the stall quickly before the toilet overflowed.

    Practicality necessitated that public restrooms should have poop knives, but the security requirements of a federal courthouse prevented it. He walked from the innermost stall to the sink nearest to the door. As he reached the sink he heard water splashing onto the tile floor from the stalls behind him. Ramesh hurried through washing his hands – he counted to twenty as always, but much more quickly than normal. His phone kept chirping, not a good sign. He reached for a paper towel and dried his hands while looking back in the mirror at the stalls to check whether a stream of water was flowing his way – fortunately not. Finally he dried his hands and exited to the public corridor before checking his phone. A livestream from the Thought! Magazine commenters mocking the boss was going viral. He was going to be livid about that.

     

    A collection of old kitchen knives such as are commonly repurposed as “utility” knives.

     

    Ramesh quickly swiped through the door into the private corridor of the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. He walked down the corridor and into the conference room where the Multi-Agency Task Force on Political Subversion met. The weekly meeting was about to start and the boss was chatting with the New York State Police representative.

    “Sir?”

    “What is it, Rami?”

    “The chippertarians just put up a snarky YouTube video taunting you. It’s like a really bad Bollywood musical number. There is nudity. It’s going viral; over eight hundred views in five minutes.”

    “Well, put it up on screen.”

    “Really?”

    “We’re all friends here, and have seen far worse.”

    Ramesh sat down at the crappy old computer and brought the YouTube page up on the projector.

    “It’s like the Christmas pageant at a retard school.” Coyle from the Port Authority police was his usual charming self.

    “That reminds me of some off-off-off-Broadway crap my wife dragged me to last year,” said the state police representative. “The theater smelled like piss.”

     

    Let Preet now come with,
    Subpoenas by the pound,
    Ken shall show that mutton-
    Head the law more sound.

     

    Someone stifled a snicker, which came out like a sneeze. Ramesh suspected the state attorney general representative.

    The chorus line mooned the camera. Ramesh looked nervously at his boss who grimaced slightly but remained silent.

    “Damn.”

    “Jesus.”

    “Where is this coming from, Rami? I mean physical location?” asked the FBI man.

    “I don’t know, Agent Waters.”

    “I’ll find out. Can you text me the link?”

    “Here’s the URL.”

    “Got it.”

    The production number ended and the screen went to the static text “Fuck Off, Slavers.”

    “A human pyramid with a swastika on top. Fucking Nazis.”

    The boss looked at Ramesh and nodded ever so slightly at the NYPD man.

    “Sergeant Murphy, the swastika is an ancient Hindu symbol which pre-dates Hitler by centuries, and the gentleman wearing the swastika headgear is dressed in the traditional manner of a village shaman of Gujarat in India.”

    “Goddamn.”

    As far as Ramesh could tell, Murphy’s only job was to go to inter-agency meetings and report back to his captain on what other agencies were doing without letting the other agencies know what NYPD was doing.

    “Nice friends you have there, Preet.” The state attorney general representative hated his federal counterparts with a passion. “Seems like you could go all Meese on them because of the mooning – I bet a frame by frame analysis would reveal something other than butt cheeks. A hundred dollars says they don’t have any proof of age forms or a designated Custodian of Records.”

    “Guess what just came in to Manhattan 911?”

    “Holy Shiva,” thought Ramesh. Murphy offering up anything was like Justice Thomas asking a question during oral argument.

    “What is it, Mr. Murphy,” asked the boss.

    “A call from a distraught young woman at Thought! Magazine. Says she’s the receptionist. And she’s batshit-crazy, or drugged. Claims someone was eaten to death by squirrels.” Murphy rolled his eyes. “Dispatch sent out an ambulance and a black and white. They are en route.”

    “Today is our lucky day. Rami, get over there. If that’s okay with our NYPD friends, of course,” said the boss looking at Murphy.

    “Of course, Mr. Bharara. Our federal friends are always welcome.” The NYPD might hate the feds on their turf, but the real enemy was the state. Goddamn Albany pukes trying to tell the mayor of the greatest city in the world how to run things. The mayor had more guns than the governor, but nowhere near as many as the feds.

    “Switzerland, Mr. B,” said the FBI man looking up from his phone. “Those sons of a bitch are routing through Elektron AG. We could find out more, but then our state and local friends couldn’t come to the party.” The FBI man knew that the NYPD particularly hated being called locals.

     

    The grim facade of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan federal courthouse in Foley square.

     

     

    “Rami, why are you still here?”

    Murphy stood up. “C’mon, kid, you can ride with me, that will be quicker.”

    Ramesh got up sheepishly and headed for the door on Murphy’s heels. So, he was to have a minder to make sure he saw nothing that NYPD didn’t want him to see.

    “Where are you parked, Sergeant?”

    “Down in the LEO parking spots next to the prisoner transports.”

    “It will be faster to take the private elevator.” The courthouse had two small private elevators used by judges and prisoners alike, but you never saw anyone else; each elevator trip was direct end-to-end with no additional stops.

    Ramesh used his ID card to unlock the elevator call button. Murphy was on his cell phone.

    “Manhattan Dispatch, this is Sergeant Murphy of Liaison, badge number sierra golf tango eight six four two zero. I’m en route to the ten sixty eight at one ten Fifth Avenue. I’ve got a Deputy US Attorney with me. Instruct onsite units to have EMS hold off on the thorazine until we can talk to the caller… about ten minutes. Thanks. Bye.”

    The elevator car arrived and they boarded; Ramesh pushed button P1.

    “One ten Fifth Avenue,” said Murphy, “that’s the Vandersnatch Building, built on the foundation of the old Vandersnatch mansion that got torched back in the twenties by Frumius Vandersnatch’s crazy granddaughter.”

    “You know the city well, Sergeant.”

    “I worked security details there in the eighties. It’s a lotta snooty magazines there.” Murphy slicked his hair with his hand. “I was with Celebrity Protection Unit then, kid. Got some prime pussy. Perk of the job.”

    Ramesh fumed at being called “kid” by a man he suspected of being a braggart and a hack.

    “I used to date Morgan Fairchild back when she was just a soap opera star here,” said Murphy as he hitched his belt up. “Met her on duty.”

    Ramesh was glad when the elevator slowed down and the car doors slid open with a ding.

    Murphy exited first and strode over to the security checkpoint.

    “Hey, Chris. Here to get my pistol back.”

    “Sarge, Mr. Gupta.”

    “I’m taking Ramesh downtown to an unfolding incident,” said Murphy as he fished a key with a round metal tag out of his pocket and opened one of the deposit boxes for visitors’ guns. Murphy removed his Glock and slid it into his shoulder holster under his suit.

    “Have fun, Mr. Gupta.”

    “Thanks,” said Ramesh, already disliking Murphy’s company.

    Ramesh followed Murphy to one of the many cop cars in the deck, a white unmarked four door.

    “Buckle in and hang on once I hit Centre Street.”

    Ramesh couldn’t imagine not fastening his seatbelt, and was surprised to see that Murphy didn’t use his. Murphy started the car and backed out of the parking space and headed up the ramp and onto Pearl Street, the private street for the Manhattan court, cop and jail complex. He waited for the vehicle trap to go down and turned right on to Centre Street and activated the blue flashing lights in the front windshield of the cop car. Ramesh had always wanted to be a policeman, but Professor Gupta had other ideas so Ramesh went to Hazelwood Country Day, then Woodberry Forest, William and Mary, and finally UVA Law, all on full-ride scholarship. Deputy US Attorney was as close as he could get to police work without inciting the considerable ire of his extended, degree-heavy family.

    As they approached the intersection with Worth Street, Murphy sounded the siren. A man in a wheelchair worked his arms furiously to propel himself out of the crosswalk onto the relative safety of the sidewalk outside Thomas Paine Park.

    “Them wheelchair guys got some guns on them,” said Murphy. “Do you lift, kid?”

    “I do some reps on the machines.”

    “Better than nothing. Of course you federal prosecutors don’t collar a lot of perps. The ladies like it, though. You married?” Murphy turned left onto Leonard Street.

    “No.” Ramesh was dreading the forthcoming trip “home” to his grandparents’ village in Gujarat to marry a girl he barely knew.

    “Lucky you.”

    Murphy sped down the street with lights but no siren. A bike messenger rode in the right lane. Murphy eased off on the gas and drifted rightwards until his driver side tires were straddling the lane markers for the right lane. Twelve feet behind the cyclist he activated the siren for a brief whoop. The bike messenger raised his left hand with the middle finger already extended. Murphy simultaneously accelerated and did a quick wheel movement, swiping the cyclist with the side of the cop car and launching him curbward. Murphy then quickly swerved left, tires squealing, to move out of the curbside lane to avoid the rapidly approaching Jersey barrier closing the lane for a construction site. Ramesh turned to look at the speedometer, it was approaching forty and the needle continued moving to the right.

    Murphy looked out the rearview mirror, then the side mirror. “Smooches, punk.”

    When Ramesh could no longer see the messenger he turned and looked at Murphy. “You struck and injured the cyclist,” Ramesh said with a mixture of disbelief and loathing.

    Not just any cyclist, kid, a bike messenger – they’re like rats on wheels. And I personally know that the little anarchist punk once busted a cop car window with his bike lock. Few scratches, maybe a couple stitches – he’ll be fine. You have to consider the totality of circumstances. Not all justice is dispensed in the courtrooms.”

    “How will you explain that?”

    Murphy said nothing and reached for the Motorola radio mic, moved it to his face and mashed in the button and started talking.

    “Dispatch, this is Sergeant Murphy with Liaison, over.”

    “This is Dispatch, go ahead Murphy.”

    “I’m on Sixth between Prince and King and there’s a cyclist down. He was riding erratically and weaved into my lane as I was transporting a VIP with lights and siren… Yeah, an ambulance, too. Make sure they charge him with interference before EMS loads him up. And not wearing his helmet, poor kid …Probably. You can’t charge them if they’re not. Murphy out.”

    To be continued…

  • I Love to sleep: the Horoscope for the week of Nov 4

    This week starts off really well by giving me an extra hour of sleeping, though in reality the whole idea that the gubbmint can dictate what time it is seems like one of those Canute-levels of arrogance that is unfortunately too common among the priestly caste.

    The big news is Venus(retrograde) being her bitchy self, but the rest of the sky working to keep her contained.  Specifically:

    She’s in alignment, but with the Sun (which is directly opposed to the anti-libido of V(r) and with the moon (which diffuses and deflects her retrograde effects).  Even better, in opposition to that alignment is Mercury (signifying oppositional/negatory change) and Mars (which is the counterpart to Venus and so puts the kibosh on the retrograde aspects.)  Furthermore, Venus(retrograde) is trying to pull her crap while being in Libra.  Libra, being the scales of justice, is having none of this backward-ass motion shit.    Venus(retrograde) is a terrible sign, but with everything else going on this week, she can just go pound sand.

    I know 11/12ths of you are getting irritated at all the attention that the universe is giving Scorpio, so I’ll get it out of the way first.  Congratulations on surviving your dry spell.  With Venus(retrograde) moving off into Libra, your home life should begin improving immediately.  And I do mean home life — having the moon conjoined with Jupiter indicates that any problem you are having with extramarital partners will lag behind your spouse resolution-wise.

    We’ve already talked about Libra having to play host to Venus(retrograde).  Ordinarily, this would be bad, but as mentioned above, all the celestial censors are doing their part to shield you.  So good news!  Your week isn’t going to suck as the primary signs would indicate!

    Aquarius still has to deal with Mars for another couple of weeks or so.  Expect less belligerence starting about Nov 15.

    Saturn in Capricorn is good for achieving your Glibfit goals.  Start making room in your waistband for Thanksgiving dinner now.

    Mercury in Sagittarius is an auspicious time for hunting.  Also, this indicates that I’ll finally be able to get my father’s pistol out of gun-jail.  About fucking time.

  • I Fucking Love Astrology: The Horoscope for the Week of October 7

     

    So, there’s a good news/bad new thing going on in the sky.  It’s a situation when the signs are saying different things, so you have to know which sign applies to whom.  There is some really bad news going on in Scorpio but there is some stellar protection against it.

    That protection comes from a couple of alignments.  Most importantly, we are aligned with Venus and Jupiter.  So this means you’ll be able to keep your house in order, and your domestic bliss won’t be any more troubled than whatever your default situations is.  The other also has to do with Jupiter, this time in alignment with the Sun and Mercury.  So again, lots of positive for domesticity, and good news for rulers.

    Nothing but good news (literally, Mercury is acting as the messenger here with the Sun) for Librans.  However, Libra is a bit selfish, and keeping all that good news contained for itself.

    The moon is in Virgo, so expect emotional instability

    So Scorpio is the sign that rules the fun bits.  And in Scorpio this week is Venus, the planet of love and sexuality.  Good combo, right?  Wrong.  Because Venus has gone retrograde.  Now the rest of us are shielded by that pulse of anti-sex force, but those of you who are actually born into Scorpio are going to catch the full force of it, resulting in a dry spell that should last until… nearly November without other intervention.

     

  • Friday Night – Links After Dark

    It has been a long week. A long week of nothing but Brett Kavanaugh news. Having told my news feed I didn’t want any stories tagged “Kavanaugh” twice, it started floating stories about “Supreme Court” “Law” “Dr. Ford” all of which got banned 1-2 times. Eventually it just started floating 6+ stories a day tagged “TRENDING” and occasionally “Anita Hill” which got my phone put in airplane mode for the past two days.

    Now that I’m avoiding news. I’m trying my best to fill my online time with pictures of Hemsworth brothers shirtless, but even the celeb gossip rags have nothing for me because they’re all talking about people I’ve never heard of or have purposefully forgotten. Except for dear, sweet Gwyneth Paltrow who is getting married to someone I’ve never heard of after being badly abused by the CA government for misleading consumers with vaginal rejuvenation eggs. Luckily she takes everything in stride.

    And just to convey my disdain for this week more completely: a musical number

  • What Are We Reading – September 2018

    SugarFree

    I spent the month reading The Complete Chronicles of Conan, a volume issued to celebrate the centennial of Robert E. Howard’s birth. It not only collects the published stories but also the fragments and notes from Howard’s archived papers. The stories are arranged by publication order, my preferred way to read them, and were taken from the original publications with comparisons and corrections to Howard’s final drafts where still extant.

    Re-reading the Cimmerian’s adventures is like going out drinking with an old friend: you know all the stories but the pleasure of hearing them again cannot be dismissed. I also re-watched the 1982’s Conan the Barbarian, one of my favorite movies, the terrible Conan the Destroyer and the aggressively mediocre 2011 reboot (although I thought Momoa made a pretty good Conan.) And, to complete a total Conan emmersion, I re-read all The Savage Sword of Conan issues edited by Roy Thomas. So much barbarian action…

    Web Dominatrix

    When I’m not whipping websites into shape, I am a business consultant to service providers, so most of what I read is related to business. I just finished Scaling Up by Verne Harnish, founder of the Young Entrepreneurs’ Association. The book is all about how to scale a business and what a lot of companies get wrong.

    I really like that this book draws a distinction between starting a business and scaling a business, both two very different processes, but many “business gurus” lump them together.

    There are many concepts in this book that aren’t a great fit for service providers, though the author indicates these strategies could be used for any business. For example, the author says there are four areas in which one needs to optimise their strategies and systems, and one of the areas is “routine.” As a systems strategist, I would argue that routine execution needs to be built into each strategy and system, and not treated as a separate system itself. If each system isn’t designed to be implemented, then ultimately the system won’t be as effective.

    But I digress.

    All in all I would recommend this book for any business owner to read, but keep an open mind and think about where you can improve upon these concepts instead of merely accepting them as commandments written in stone.

    SP

    I’ve generally been a fan of Michael Connelly, dipping into his work here and there over the years. I realized a couple weeks ago that I’d never read the early Harry Bosch books. So I’m correcting that with The Black Echo: A Novel (A Harry Bosch Novel Book 1). I like to read series in order, so I can only imagine I first picked up a mid-series book laying around someplace way back when and didn’t realize at the time that it was, in fact, part of a series. Now, I will, of course, proceed to binge-read the complete Bosch books (in order). (Update: I’ve just moved on to Harry Bosch Book 2.)

    In the car while driving this week, I started listening to Ken Follett’s A Dangerous Fortune. The narrator, Michael Page, has a wonderful voice, and that’s improving the story considerably.

    Also, I’ve been trying to follow jesse.in.mb’s marvelous example and pare down my physical book collection. HAHAHAHAHAHA. I crack myself up!

    This week I did manage, though, to take a box of about 3 dozen books to my Dad, from whom I received my voracious read-anything-all-the-time habit. He’s read everything in all the libraries of his county, so we try to keep him supplied with interesting works. This time he received all my Rick Riordan Tres Navarre books (all now available on Kindle if I want to revisit them periodically), along with a bunch of others.

    Oh, yeah, and I am reading my constant companion: my pharmacology textbook.

    jesse.in.mb

    Slow month for me. I put away a trio of novellas by romantic fiction author Illona Andrews (it’s actually a husband and wife effort. Their Innkeeper novels are a foray into urban fantasy without erotic content and they were breezy literary candy. The downside is that Amazon now thinks I’m a randy heterosexual hausfrau. I’ll live.

    I set aside a copy of The Lies of Locke Lamora at 1/5 of the way through, I was having a hard time maintaining interest.

    On the audiobook front I listened to Ken Lozito’s Genesis, which was entertaining enough although some sections seemed like filler. L.T. Ryan‘s Noble Beginnings is a big ol’ no for me. It’s 6 hours of uninspired fight scenes read in a clipped tone. I’m reminded of Homeric poetry in the way the author used a series of stock phrases without alteration over and over again. Various characters “hitched up [their] shoulder[s]” 27 times and shrugged once…at the end. I’d kind of assumed the author was unfamiliar with the word.

    Not Adahn

    I had thought about going on a rant abut how Catalyst Games has completely cocked up FASA’s Battletech, when I received a Mysterious Package in the post. Opening it, I discovered the following cookbook:

    I assume that this was written by UnCiv, and forwarded on to me for a review prior to a second edition, or perhaps for an additional cover blurb. It is somewhat distressing that my post box location was so easily obtained, but that was a risk of becoming known to the Glibhedrin.

    In any case, this is a wonderfully useful addition, as it allows me, through judicious variation of my orphan’s food supply to engage in carrot-and-stick motivation techniques, without the expense of obtaining carrots! My only criticism, minor as it is, is that in an effort to pad the book’s length to a full 28 pages, our UCS has engaged in excessive extravagance in his ingredients list on a few recipes. Butter, really?