Fablehaven Brandon Mull 2006

A young adult (YA)   fantasy.  Must be doing well, I think the author got four sequels published.  Kendra and Seth get sent to their grandparents place while their parents go on a cruise with a lot of family members.  The children are not enthusiast about spending a month with grandparents they hardly know.  The place turns out cooler than expected, a sanctuary for magical creatures, fairies, satyrs, a witch and others.  Seth doesn’t listen well and gets turned into a walrus and later imprisoned in a huge glass jar for ignoring plain English instructions from his grandfather.  After Seth opens a window on Midsummer’s eve (after he was told not to) a bunch of evil creatures fly in, wreck the house, and kidnap all the adults.   With as lot of wandering around and guessing, Kendra comes up with a save for all the fallen. 

   We never hear of a mission that Kendra and Seth are supposed to go on.  No scene where Gandalf explains the power of the Ring to Frodo.  Far as I could see all Kendra and Seth wanted to do was wait for their folks to get back from that cruise and take them home again. 

 

  Not as good as the Rick Riordan YA fantasies.  

Biden is not showing up well

 They had Biden on TV this afternoon.  He spoke for 4 minutes and answered questions for 17 minutes. He did himself a lot of harm with me.  He told lies, he showed frightening ignorance of Afghanistan, he showed a touching belief in the word of the Taliban.  He was evasive on the matter of getting our supporters out.  How did we ever elect this turkey??

Big Pharma loves the idea of a booster shot for Corona virus vaccine

 They have already sold 150-200 million Corona virus shots.  Add on a booster and they can sell another 100 million shots.  Nice work if you can get it.

The claim has been made that the new delta variation is slipping by conventional vaccines.  I want to see real evidence of this before handing big Pharma a 100 million shot good deal.  Data that has been published shows only 10 thousand "adverse reactions" over the 150 million or more shots given.  That makes the vaccine 99.99% effective.  Few things work that well in the real world.  

  And, I want to see data on the adverse reactions.  Are we talking about a real corona virus case where the patient runs a fever, feels bad, and gets hospitalized?  Or are we talking about cases where a new and poorly tested medical test shows a positive reaction on an other wise well patient?  False positive anyone?

We ought to get our people out of Afghanistan

 Native born Americans, Afghans holding US passports, Afghans who have helped us, we owe them.  We fly in enough infantry to secure one or more airports, and hold open roads and streets leading to the airport[s].  We fly out anyone who has any kind of paper work, or who just wants to leave.  They will make loyal citizens.  We tell the Taliban if they interfere we will kill them.  For that matter if they show their faces we will kill them just for grins and jollies.  

   Too bad Biden lacks the stones and the brains to do this.  I am so glad we elected that turkey.

Dodging shameful questions.

 That video of USAF transports taxing out with desperate Afghans clinging to the aircraft and falling to their deaths after take off is the most shameful stuff I have ever seen. The "journalists" are questioning a Pentagon snivel servant back in DC.  No "journalist" reporting from Afghanistan.  No interviews of US military commanders from the combat zone.  Pentagon weenie dodges every question. 

Charlie Wilson's War

 

If you want a good fairly recent story about Afghanistan you will enjoy Charlie Wilson’s War.  Charlie Wilson is a hard drinking, trouble getting into Texas congressman.   On a trip to Pakistan they fly Charlie up to an Afghan refugee camp.  The poverty, the misery, and the willingness to fight won Charlie’s heart.  Back in DC he hooks up with Gust somebody or other, old gutsy CIA agent.  Charlie produces the money; Gust turns the money into weapons and gets them to the Afghans.  Cool shots of ultra modern American surface to air missiles going into Afghanistan on mule back.  Despite being light enough to man carry, they had enough punch to take down anything the Russians were flying.

   After victory, Russians driven out, Charlie was unable to get all the Afghan factions to join a single Afghan government.  We decided the Afghans were too childish to spend time or money on and let the place go to pot.  We gave to place away to Osama Bin Ladin who used it to train up his troops to do 9-11.  That did get our attention.

So where have I been these last ten days??

 

   At death’s door.  Wednesday last I noticed a LOT of blood in my stool (poop to you ordinary mortals.)   I went to see my doctor.  I drove over to Littleton and parked in the first row of cars.  I nearly failed to make the emergency room door.  My knees just buckled leaving me on hands and knees in the rain.  Fortunately some Littleton people saw my troubles and brought a wheel chair. Dr Silva had me admitted.  Things went down hill and the last thing I remember was the helicopter ride down to  Dartmouth Hitchcock Saturday night.  The rest of that week is blank.  By Thursday I was recovered enough to telephone my children. 

   They never did figure out what hit me.  After 10 pints of red blood, the bleeding out my fanny stopped.  There were a couple of exam experts who wanted to run some kind of camera down my nose to look around.  I suggested that since the blood was coming out my fanny they ought to start there and do a colonoscopy.  Look around the place that patient is having trouble first.  The exam experts didn’t listen to me.  I am pretty sure they did the nose thing AND a colonoscopy.

   To my great joy they let me out of stir on Friday (two days ago).  I am home.  My brother John Starr drove me home.  I would not have survived without his support.