Just about sums up how some politicians allegedly think

A Dork Tower from almost twenty years ago does a really nice job of summarizing how many people from a certain political party seem to think. Unfortunately the site seems to block direct links to images, so here's a link to the page.

http://www.dorktower.com/2001/03/13/comics-archive-119/

Good ol' Texas!

"I think we need to focus more on memorials before we start the politics."
-- Texas Gov. Abbott on El Paso shooting, the fourth mass killing in a week

Because that we we never have to start the politics!

"Has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud -- I repeat the word 'fraud' -- on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime."
-- former Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger on the Second Amendment, 1991

Notes from the constitutional conventions clearly show that the attendees intended that the second amendment was meant for state militias, as in National Guard. Hunting: sure, why not. But that doesn't matter, 'cause AR-15s are fun!

Meanwhile, Texas will be LOOSENING their gun laws! New laws will be going into effect in four weeks that were passed during their now-ended legislative session.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/many-call-tighter-gun-laws-texas-set-loosen-n1039481

I wonder if you can take a pistol on a tour of the Texas Legislature when they're in session? For some reason I suspect not. As always, what is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander.

A couple of nasty things happening to libraries

Macmillan Publishing is trying to screw up the way that ebooks work - they want to restrict libraries to purchasing ONE COPY of new ebooks for TWO MONTHS after the book comes out! From the CNN Op Ed: "Librarians to publishers: Please take our money. Publishers to librarians: Drop dead.

That's the upshot of Macmillan publishing's recent decision which represents yet another insult to libraries. For the first two months after a Macmillan book is published, a library can only buy one copy, at a discount. After eight weeks, they can purchase "expiring" e-book copies which need to be re-purchased after two years or 52 lends."

It's crazy. Libraries don't pay just full retail price for books: we pay MORE. And ebooks, we pay more than that even! And then, as she says, we pay it again, just so we can continue lending it. Macmillan apparently thinks that each library getting only one copy of an ebook is OK because, since ebooks are digital, a person in the LA County library district, where one copy of the ebook is servicing 1.something million patrons, someone could borrow that ebook from a library in, let's say Vermont, where a library might serve a thousand patrons.

One problem with that: libraries don't lend ebooks outside of their lending area. There are services that they subscribe to, like the Alamogordo library buys in to Libby as do many libraries, but Alamo is still paying for its copies within Libby - Libby is just a distributor. I can't borrow books - physical or electronic, from the Phoenix Public Library, because I'm not a Phoenix or Maricopa County resident.

Macmillan is being idiotic and leaving a lot of money on the table.

Opinion piece by a Vermont Librarian: https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/02/opinions/libraries-fight-publishers-over-e-books-west/index.html

The American Library Association's condemnation: http://www.ala.org/news/member-news/2019/07/public-library-association-condemns-macmillan-publishers-library-lending-model


In libraries and audiobook news, an embargo is being launched against publisher/distributor Blackstone. For six months, many libraries are ceasing new purchases. Blackstone is entering into a new agreement with Amazon, and wants all libraries to get their material through Audible. The problem is that there's lots of issues with licensing. It's just like if you lose a paperback that you checked out from a library, they're not going to charge you $7. They can't go to B&N or Amazon and buy a replacement, it has to come from a publisher or jobber to be licensed correctly so we have the rights to lend it indefinitely.

Big freakin' mess.

One of the reasons I quit doing film programming for science fiction conventions was they started going to Blockbuster and just grabbing videos off the shelf for the film program. Not correctly licensed, and they could have gotten in BIG trouble with distributors for that, and I couldn't be part of it.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/80658-citing-embargo-libraries-plan-boycott-of-blackstone-digital-audio.html

I finally did something today that I should have gotten done eight months ago!

[looks sheepish]

I took down our Christmas tree!

Good thing it's artificial!

[laughs]

My wife didn't want to mess with it because she swore it would not go back in to the box. We may have guests coming for a day or two next week, and I wanted it down. And as a bonus, it lets a lot more light into our main room as it was close to the patio door which was the main venue for light coming in.

Normally I would not let it stay up so long, but at the beginning of the year I started working at the library as part of a class to complete my degree, and now I'm actually working there. And heaven forbid my wife do actual housework. So today I was working on our guest room and this was among the things that I did. I still have more work to do to progressively improve our house, but Terry's seen it before in the shambles that it is, so he won't be too surprised that it's largely the same as before. I'm hoping that I can get some boxes out to our shed Monday and Tuesday as we're supposed to get hammered by rain later in the week.

I swear I won't let it stay up so long next year!