Nelson Lowhim's Blog, page 59

ohhh Solid book I just started

But it has 3.5 stars. What's up people. Gingerbread is great and I like a lot more than Mr. Fox and though I liked Her short stories, Gingerbread is striking me as realer than that, even though it has more magic realism, if that makes sense. Well, we'll see if my love for it holds up. It's proven to be the perfect book after Memory Police which I was not a fan of (though I loved the beginning). 
Let's see. I am trying to get a story ready for tomorrow for a reading. I'll share the deets later. 
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ohhh Solid book I just started

But it has 3.5 stars. What's up people. Gingerbread is great and I like a lot more than Mr. Fox and though I liked Her short stories, Gingerbread is striking me as realer than that, even though it has more magic realism, if that makes sense. Well, we'll see if my love for it holds up. It's proven to be the perfect book after Memory Police which I was not a fan of (though I loved the beginning). 
Let's see. I am trying to get a story ready for tomorrow for a reading. I'll share the deets later. 
Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.

Ignore the noise and GOTV please

Lots of circular firing squads (some on the right, though I think that's for show). Don't listen to the GOP in disarray bs, they're not. They always fall in line ( I sometimes think, with Trump being as good as he is at creating a reality TV show for America, he's trying to make it seem like he's confused, when there's a thrust to that chaos). Good for them. GOTV and never look back. Dec 7th is the votefwd.org deadline, btw, so get to letter writing (as I am).

Yeah, sure the right and iTrump are trying to steal the POTUS election, but there's still Georgia that we need to stay on top of.[1]  So, here are some good campaigns for you to spend time on.

You from GA?  Well make sure you're registered to vote.

Votefwd is all about letter writing. Right now it's voter registration and next it will be getting people to vote. So start up!

Fairfight is Stacey Abrams and given that she's mainly behind the GA flip, well, do as she says! The donate button on that page takes us right to this. So splurge some cash. Volunteer nationally or in GA. Seems that you can text and call (non-GA peeps). 

 Then there's the two Senator's campaigns. 

Warnock is here. 

Ossoff's  campaign is here. 

 

PEC has this GA voter registration Drive including some other methods you can use to help. (and PEC here showing letter writing could work though in person canvassing is the best)

Let me know if I should add any!

 

 

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Liberals and Conservatives. Unite to Punch Hippies. Forget that noise and GOTV

Again. I'll note that from a few liberal sites I've been banned because of GOTV posts.  Suppose some would rather just whine than look at solutions. Not surprised, but it's still some saddening shit. Now, I'll mock the right because they're being suckered by Trump who's calling for a rigged election while also saying that any money they send in can be spent on other Trump things.  And yeah that's the outright grift (and the Lincoln Project somehow getting money from liberals too dumb to know a grift when they see it) that we've come to know and love about the right, but dems are also in 1/4 territory of either grifters or stupidity. Here, for example is yet another example of money being left on the table. Why? And for those that didn't (the 100M spent in SC or KY) what the fuck was done with that money besides enrich Dem consultants (those meritocratic elites that are problem everywhere)? Seriously? And now the DNC wants to go hippie punching. Fuck that noise. Especially when GA is near.
 Anyhow, worldwide we have the catastrophes piling up in the ME and elsewhere. Some is Climate Change induced and others are not. This right here is on the African Climate Changes that have greatly affected that continent (some of this is earlier than the current CC so it's not clear it's entirely human induced). 

 

 [1] (both Dem and GOP unfortunately, though with Trump &the GOP there's a definite acceleration of this kind of thinking especially since they essentially deny that CC is even a thing. So yeah there's a difference.) 

 

[2] Also those ODs are back on the menu. Deaths of despair are here. Remember life expectancy has been going down or flatlining for the past 10 years. In America alone. Worst peacetime decline in history. 

 [3] Not that I'm letting go of the dems either. They get 24% of the blame. What's this noise coming from Pelosi?  Sure sure, she's better than the GOP, and so is Newsom, but wtf? Dem loyalists will claim she can't get much past Mitch, but why not at least yell and try? Is there that little fight left in the dems? Absolute shite. At least we have AOC still out there.

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The Future is Now.

I mean all futures become now, but this is pretty cool. Not that i know much about Quantum Computing.  

Named Jiuzhang after an ancient Chinese mathematical text, the new quantum computer can perform a calculation in 200 seconds that would take more than half a billion years on the world’s fastest non-quantum, or classical, computer.

Well that's impressive af.

One limitation of Jiuzhang, Weedbrook notes, is that it can perform only a single type of task, namely, boson sampling. In contrast, Google’s quantum computer could be programmed to execute a variety of algorithms. But other types of photonic quantum computers, including Xanadu’s, are programmable.

 Ah, so it's mainly a small step, but still seems pretty cool. Let's see how the peer reviews go.

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Our Meritocratic Elites. Qanon and the Stupidity of the Right

 Well, I wouldn't call them entirely dumb, but the fact that they look at the likes of Trump (and a few handpicked billionaires who back the far right's cause, aka prepping the world for a second coming and also, for the not so hardcore believers, stealing as much as they can before then) and see someone fighting a Satanic Cabal of Pedos when, in fact, that what they are. Well, I suppose it's how you define Satanic. 

No one was ever charged with human trafficking. In fact, the women providing massages and sex acts—the group that authorities said they were in it to rescue—were the ones who faced the most severe charges.

 Oh and since the rich have tax cuts (and the GOP is not going to help states fund their fall in revenue and are thus the biggest cause for "defund the police" out there) these cities are hurting so they do have to get their money, don't you know?

Mingbi was also required to forfeit $20,000 to the Jupiter Police Department, in addition to the $5,000 cash bond she posted and the other $6,573 in fines and fees she was ordered to pay.

Ah there it is. Make the poor pay because the rich sure as fuck won't. And this during a time when "essential" workers were paid little (though they did get that 1200$ reprieve because of the  Dems, which Trump then took credit for, yippee) but died at higher rates than others while making a mockery of "you're worth what the market says you're worth" tripe our meritocratic elites keep telling us. 

Palm Beach may now be wrapping up its part in this shameful saga. But the actions of the authorities who worked this case shouldn't be forgotten. Ultimately, they illegally spied on citizens, spent years of police time and public resources, possibly ruined multiple lives, and went on a hero's publicity campaign while saving no one and stealing about $45,000 from a few immigrant sex workers.

Yeppers. There you have it. Our society. 

[1] Remember that story I shared  about a man who was "robbed"? Well, he took a couple underaged girls home, but that part was not what people (commentators) focused on. Nope their ire was aimed at just the "horrid" girls. I once again contend that many of my novels, while people lambasted me for making them too cruel (and said I was being unkind to my readers) I only keep reading about the world and contend I made them far less cruel than actual human nature has shown itself to be. This goes doubly so for Gods Fail. I received flack for making a suburbanite American super cruel. In my mind, from all I'd heard and seen in my life, once society's eye was removed they would indeed become that cruel (and I was trying to say something about how such Americans would be in a post apocalyptic world, and none would be like the heroes they think they will be after the fall). But the more I've seen in the Trump years tells me that that book was far too kind and optimistic. I'll redo gods fail 4 to amend that.

 

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Fog of War

The variants one can play (and I'm a chess 960 man myself and wish it could be combined with King of Hill and Fog of War) is only increasing and with computers are downright fun. Fog of war is just that. It changes the perfect information game that is chess into something else. Of course, I'd like it combined with chess960, but in due time, of course.

 

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We Started the Fire. Again.

So Trump wants Pompeo to go apeshit on Iran, but just short of WWIII.  In addition to a remote gun killing a scientist, a drone has killed another Iranian  Commander (comments worth a read on that one). Thing about lashing out like this is one never knows exactly where such actions will lead the other side. Funny how little this is being covered by ostensibly liberal sites here in the US. It is big news, and I'm guessing it only gives more power to the hardliners in Iran (who want to strike back). A lot of this is being done by Israel, but they're not going to do anything without our consent. 

 

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And the Climate Wars Keep Going

Lake Chad dried up, the Sahel (the penumbra of the Sahara) expanding means people are facing worsening conditions for their livelihoods. So 110 killed by Boko Haram. A tragedy of which we will continue hearing and seeing more of. One can only imagine what happens when our American version of this in our "heartlands" starts doing the same (in a more systematic manner than they have already).

 

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Covid and the Conspiracies

When covid started and it was, for those of us in the US, just drone videos of silent and abandoned Chinese cities, many of us, me included, sensed that things would be placed under control as we had some ideas about what this virus was and how to stop the spread. Sure, there would be some push back and some arguments about what exactly had to be done (lockdown being complete, or partial and what kinds of places should be shutdown) [1], but it wouldn't be that bad. Then I rethought it and figured our health system wouldn't be able to handled this and would make the poor suffer, but let's try not to. I did not expect so many conspiracies to be roiling about. This has happened before in previous pandemics, but that it has happened now when we know so much about the virus (it isn't some unknown agent causing death) has made me re-calibrate my priors. And it's not just in the US. In the EU it's the 5G is causing it tripe and in Latin America it's anywhere from 5G to things like ginger can save you from it. 
And here, is one example from S. Asia that shows it really feeds on prior pathologies of the mind (and hatreds). 

In April, when two Muslim women accidentally dropped money on the road, rumors on social media alleged that they were COVID-19 positive and had spit on the bills. Poorly-sourced speculation about the role of Muslims in spreading the virus and accusations of using COVID-19 as a “suicide bomb” became common on social media and traditional media alike.

 Like the memes we all know and love, these fake news pieces tend to follow a similar rut in the mind. take any photo and ascribe any story you wish to it. (yeah I did this a while back[2]) The crazier the story (making sure it plays to old hatreds) the better chance you have of having a viral hit. Sigh. 
Of course, some conspiracies are not like others. Some of these blame a downtrodden group for bringing it in, while others are claiming it's a purposeful spread. Others give a kind of manifest destiny vibe (we're immune bc of our religion or fake remedies and cures) but that all seems a different tier than "Soros plan for culling" or what have you.  All this is in stark contrast to what East Asia and some Western countries have managed to do with this very basic virus. 
Your thoughts on why this is?
 [1] And this is much like Climate Change, in that I expected the GOP to go all in on carbon capture while arguing with Dems about carbon limits, and such an argument is needed, but instead we got full on bat shit crazy it doesn't exist.  
[2] I enjoyed doing this for fiction but now that it's so easy for fake news it too makes me wonder about my place in the fictional and real world.
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