TONIGHT onThe Catholic Geek: The Supreme Court, and the Little Sisters 04/10

For those who keep track of such things, this will be my 800th blog post. I'll try to do something special for it in a bit, but not today.

The Catholic Geek: The Supreme Court, and the Little Sisters 04/10 by We Built That Network | Politics Podcasts:


Paralegal Dawn Witzke will give an analysis of the Supreme Court case of Little Sisters of the poor versus Obamacare, not only viewing it in light of the oral arguments and the documents in the case, but also in light of recent Supreme Court decisions regarding Obama's presidency in general, and the death of Justice Scalia.

Dawn is a NALA (National Association of Legal Assistants) Certified paralegal and SCOTUS junkie with a BA in Political Science and Sociology from Buena Vista University. She is on the board and helps run Mary's Choice, a pro-life pregnancy resource center in Sioux City, IA, and teaches religious ed to 1st graders. When she's not pretending to work, she is a freelance writer, author and artist. Her articles have been published in national and international magazines and online. She is the author of the Relic Hunter series of short fiction and is currently working on her first novel. In 2015, her short horror story, Children of Whitechapel, placed runner up in the Liberty Island Magazine's Halloween contest. She has designed covers for the Pius Series and The Punch Series as well as her own books. You can check out her designs on her website at author.dawnwitzke.com and check out her premade covers at selfpubcovers.com. Dawn is also a member of CFLA and CWG.

Movie Night: "Pimpernel" Smith (1941)

In 1934, Leslie Howard did a version of the Scarlet Pimpernel that is hard to match today, in part because they had a great cast, and a marvelous Chauvelin in Ramond Massey. And, really, you don't top him as a villain.

However, Leslie Howard wanted to do this again in 1941, and put his own money behind this effort, only taking place in the 20th century, and taking place in World War II.  It's a little bit of propaganda going on here, but this is back when it was done for entertainment, and not quite bashing you over the head with it's "message."

I now present, for tonight's film, Pimpernel Smith.

#SadPuppies Final Victory - Enter: The Dragon

You will not believe what happened.

... Okay, you probably do, especially if you hang out in the Puppy community. And if you cannot believe it, well you may just be a Puppy Kickers and never saw this coming.

Heh heh heh.

Anyway ... did I ever mention that I love press releases? They do all of my work for me.

Now, everyone knows that I love DragonCon. Just look at my reports from any previous years. I have been there, done that, and I only wish it was easier to afford.

However, I may just have to force myself to go down there this year.

You may have heard, DragonCon has just announced The Dragon Awards: Dragon Awards, "a program of fan-chosen awards to recognize outstanding achievement in science fiction and fantasy literature, comics, gaming and filmed entertainment."

Gee, I wonder if that sounds anything like another certain award ... naaaahhhh.

Click here to sign up. Go ahead, I won't mind if you did it this minute and stepped away from the article. Heh heh heh.

Isn't that kind of awesome? I even love the breakdown of the categories. They're so varied and specific, so that different genres aren't competing for the same award. Isn't that something special? Unique? Different?

And considering that this is from a convention that includes such wide-ranging topics, tracks, and over SIXTY THOUSAND MEMBERS, That's not bad.

The funny thing is that this isn't the first time I've heard about it. My fellow Puppies have been anticipating, batting around, and daydreaming about the idea for the last year and a half.

Considering that the Hugos of WorldCon like to call themselves fandom most prestigious award, I wonder what that will make the Dragon? Fandom's most important award? Most representative award? Most kick-ass award? (Seriously, between a plastic rocket ship and a dragon, I'd rather have a dragon on my mantel).

As you can assume, my fellow Puppies are over the moon about this. Even John C. Wright.

But this occurs to me, that means the Sad Puppies have already won. It's over. We can all go home now. Come on, everybody, let's move on. Let's pack up...

What's that you ask? Why declare victory and go home? It's simple: the Puppy Kickers have decided that they would rather burn down the Hugos than let anyone else play with their toys. Fine. I'm sure Vox Day will hand them the matches and splash some gasoline around. And the Puppy Kickers can declare that they drove us off, and clap themselves on the back, and slowly die in obscurity among fewer and fewer people who even know that they exist.

But this? Butcher goes to DragonCon. And Larry Correia. And John Ringo. And David Weber. And the cast of Arrow and the actors from Daredevil, and a whole bunch of really cool people

This will have a selection of authors and books that are fun. Good books, I tell you. And with sixty thousand members, you can be damn certain that no one can or will game this. Or corner the market. It'll be about the quality of fiction, the entertainment value -- I mean come on, they have a category for video games, do you think they're going to be pretentious about books? They'll be logos you can look at, smile, and go, "This? This means quality."

Sad Puppies 3 and 4 had the stated goal that wanted the Hugos to represent good, entertaining, quality fiction. Why? To have an award that was free of politics and personality conflicts, and solely about the work of fiction itself.

Now? Why bother? We don't need to be abused, bullied, harassed or slandered online in order to find an award that's about good books. There's the Dragon. Nobody owns it but the fans. Lots and lots of fans. Thousands upon thousands of fans.

Who needs the Hugos?

To quote Brad Torgersen from his Facebook page.

And so: the final nail in the coffin of the Hugo awards. Looks like the Dragon Award is basically going to be doing everything Sad Puppies was hoping to get the Hugos to eventually do, but Dragon Con is doing it without having to wade through all the histrionic, caterwauling drama that resulted from the self-appointed defenders of Worldcon correctness and propriety throwing the genre's all-time biggest temper tantrum. I raise my glass to this, and predict that within ten years, a gold-foil DRAGON AWARD label on a book is going to routinely replace both NEBULA and HUGO labels.

While I don't know about the Nebula, I'm reasonably certain he's 100% correct on the Hugos.

To heck with the Hugos. If I could get one of these Dragons, that would be awesome. Right now, the best part of getting a Hugo nomination would be the death threats. Yes. Come on, we all know the minute that I get the nomination, we're going to have a sudden surge of how evil conservative racist, homophobic Catholic I am. I'm sure that Entertainment Weekly has a folder somewhere about every bad thing ever said by any Puppy at any time, and they can pull a few quotes out of context. If they ever get around to me, I'll be amused to see what happens.

But a Dragon Award? Oh, hell yes. Please and thank you. I would take that and splash it over every novel from now until Hell froze over. Yeah. That would be amazing.

Now, here's how you apply for the Dragon Award voting. Go, sign up, and vote for whatever your little heart desires. If you actually like Leckie, or Scalzi, or ... I don't know, has Gerrold done anything in the last decade? Whatever. If you like something, vote for it. We don't have to be an organized mass, pooling together, fighting for the shot of just one good novel to slip in between the cracks of political correctness.

Of course, if you feel like it, Honor At Stake is eligible for a Dragon Award. I checked the rules.

And, surprisingly enough, there has already been someone who has suggested that Honor At Stake be under best horror.  I would have taken YA or paranormal, but screw it, I'll take what I can get. And no, I do not know who Alfred Genesson is, all I know is he seemed to like my novel. I'll take it.

But the war of the Puppies -- Sad, Rabid, Kickers -- is probably over. The Sad Puppies have probably won. The Puppy Kickers, I'm certain, will declare victory for getting rid of us. Vox and the Rabid Puppies will probably have inappropriate amounts of fun watching the Hugos flail about in its death throes.

As for me? You must pardon me for right now, I must be going...

I have a DragonCon form to fill out.

CLFA Book of the year a #SadPuppies variant?

I've made mention of the CLFA on my show often enough so that I can say it's no secret. But I'm a part of the organization. So, fun is had by all.

And then there's this.

So, yes, once again I am locked in mortal combat with the mighty Butcher and Correia. I will probably also get my head handed to me.

You might also know a few names on the list: Heimbach, July, and Bova have all appeared on my radio show.  And I've reviewed books by both of the latter.

So, this is going to be amusing.

And ... no ... I didn't answer the title question. It was total clickbait. Sorry about that. But it was honestly the best I could come up with.

Music to write to: DragonForce - Tomorrow's Kings

It's that time again ....

Where I'm too lazy to write a blog.

Though the good news? I'm done with Set to Kill.

You're welcome.

The best of March, 2016

Ever wonder how many hits some of these things get?

Well, I copied this on Friday, after the month was over. This will give you an idea.

Yes, I was tempted to go back and try the Jessica Jones again, even though it would be several days later, but having dealt with embedded images in blogger, I'm not even going to fight it. 

Not surprisingly, the Sad Puppies carry it in half the posts. The "who's rabid" post was linked to by Glyer of 770, John C. Wright, and even Vox Day, which explains why it's head and shoulders above everyone in general, even though it was only posted a 8 days before I copies this graph...

Though I am amused that my Hollywood Nazi post sparked so much interest. But I suppose people were still pissed off over the Oscars at the time. Who knew I could release halfway timely content?

#SadPuppies ask -- who's rabid? Mar 22, 2016, 18 comments	690
The Amazing Idiocy of Stephen Davidson Mar 7, 2016, 8 comments	394
Awesome #SadPuppies News Mar 17, 2016, 7 comments	297
Hollywood Nazis Mar 3, 2016, 4 comments	276
The Evil of the Puppy Kickers Mar 22, 2016, 12 comments	258
Hollywood Racists Mar 9, 2016, 3 comments	253
K List writers, Vox Day, and a few #SadPuppies Mar 29, 2016, 2 comments	209
#SadPuppies Voting in 48 hours (and counting) Mar 30, 2016	185
Set to Kill, Chapter 9 excerpt Mar 7, 2016	158
Review: Jessica Jones Mar 27, 2016, 6 commen

Review: John C Wright's Iron Chamber of Memory

F. Paul Wilson's novel The Keep had impressed me growing up because it was a novel that had started out as Dracula and ended with Lord of the Rings.

John C Wright has managed and even greater trick with his latest novel, Iron Chamber of Memory. In this case, what started out as a romantic comedy, Nora Roberts style, and then, Deaver-like, ended in an epic battle on the scale of Mary Stewart and her books of King Arthur and Merlin. Let's call it a fantasy romance, of sorts. Where's the soundtrack for Excalibur! I need O Fortuna to accompany the knights charging out of the mists!

Trust me, when I say it was epic, I mean EPIC.

You can kind of guess it from the cover.

Eye catching enough?

The description is as follows.

TONIGHT on The Catholic Geek: Wage Inequality and the 1% 04/03

TONIGHT, ON The Catholic Geek: Wage Inequality and the 1% 



Author Tom Knighton will discuss Wage inequality, the 1%, and probably Bernie Sanders. He will go into wage inequality, education regarding wealth creation,what do all first-generation millionaires have in common. And the minimum wage. Tom Knighton is an author and commentator who has been featured on TheBlaze and in works by Judge Andrew Napolitano. He's also the author of the post-apocalyptic Soldiers of New Eden series. In addition, he's a contributor with SamePageNation and TPNN.com.

Music Blog: Nightwish - Dead To The World

Whew. So. The waiting on the Hugo nominations is over.

Now, the waiting on the nomination results begin.

I only have to wait until the month is over... on April 26 ...

Screw it: NIGHTWISH.

Movie Night: On the Double

The Hugo nominations process is over. My inevitable failure is guaranteed (I will either fail to get the nomination or fail to get the award. Granted, given that I didn't think I'd ever get the Sad Puppy nomination, I at least continue to fail upward).

So, time for a movie.

A while ago, I did a "movie night" with The Detective, a Father Brown done with Alec Guiness. I figured that perhaps I should do this every so often, if only to take a break from the drudgery of finding new and strange music while I"m in the midst of finishing a chapter.

So, On the Double with Danny Kaye.  He's a WW2 GI who does a great impersonation of a General ... which makes him a great body double. Hilarity, of course, ensues.