Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

For your amusement:

Anyone with even a superficial knowledge of the life of Clifford D. Simak knows that, for most of the fifty-five-year period during which he was a published writer of science fiction, he was also a working journalist—a newspaperman at a time when that career carried a much higher freight of meaning and importance than it does now.
—From “Introduction” by David W. Wixon in:
Simak, Clifford D.. Good Night, Mr. James, And Other Stories (The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak Book 8) (Kindle Locations 35-36). New York: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy. Kindle Edition.

I see Mr. Bloomberg is going to use his own personal money to pay “America’s Share” to the Paris Accord. I love it when these rich totalitarians (Collectivists, Marxist, Communist, Fascist, Progressiveist, Liberalist, Conservativist, etc., etc.,) go throw away their money on one phony get-rich-quick scheme after another. Y’ll all know what is born every minute.

Fred Reed, one of the most insightful remarkers on the passing parade of silliness (most of the time anyway), explains “journalists”:

Notes of a Reformed News Weasel: Understanding the Vacuity
by Fred Reed
Do you wonder why the legacy media are such puzzled otherworldly twits? Why, for example, they had no idea what was happening in the recent election? Why they seem to know so very little about America or much of anything else?

Some thoughts from a guy who spent a career in the racket:
[Read More]

Should you feel guilty for enjoying the Absolute Idiocy that is the Main Stream (Fake) News these days? It is like something out of The Onion? Or more like something out of South Park? Anyway, it is all High Comedy, and the funniest thing about it all is the actors therein are not even aware they are in a farce. Farcetarians!

Well, enough of that. (Yeah, right!)

So, you ask, Whacha been reading? Lately:

Nevil Shute Requiem for a Wren (Date of first publication: 1955)

Ayn Rand The Fountainhead (Originally published by Bobbs-Merrill, 1943)

Ayn Rand We The Living (First published 1936—this one is a literal horror story.)

Andre Norton Star Born (First published 1957. Sequel to The Stars are Ours! (1954))

Lewis Carroll (pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, 1832-1898) Through the Looking-Glass (First published 1871)

Richard Adams Watership Down (First published 1972)

Rex Stout Four To Go (First published 1957)

CURRENTLY READING:

Thucydides History of the Pelopenesian War (Translated by Benjamin Jowett)
read in conjunctionwith The Landmark Thucydides:
A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War
Edited by Robert B. Strassler
(a commentary and reader's companion) [Publisher’s Website]
Or from amazon.com in: Hardback, Paperback, or Kindle.

The commentary really helps. Note that Thucydides is rough going at first, especially most of Book-1 in which he explains the set-up for the war, most of which involves people and places ya never heard of. Near the end of Book-1 when the “Let’s You and Him Fight” discussion before the Spartans begins, it gets more interesting. After that it goes along better, although still with people and places ya never heard of getting dropped-in at times. Also the maps help… Landmark has included lots of maps. The maps help! Still, the thing can be exhausting.

I find Jowett’s translation the most readable, but the Landmark book includes the Crawley translation (somewhat modernized in language at times it says). That one will get you through it too.