Happy 250th birthday to the United States Army.
Thanks to all you guys doing what you do, I am free to do this.
Sit here behind a nice computer in a prosperous country and say thank you for doing it.
Thank you for risking your lives so people like me could live in peace.
We would not be where we are right now without you.
Unleash your inner mad scientist! Note the exclamation mark. Science should always have one of those, especially when it follows madness! Dive into a wild anthology of sci-fi tales where telepathy, matter-transmission, and volcano-powered rockets ignite the imagination. Packed with tongue-in-cheek humor, bad puns, and mind-bending ideas, these stories celebrate the joy of questioning everything. From the golden age of pulp to the bludgeoning edge of science, prepare for a fun, thought-provoking ride that doesn’t take itself too seriously—but may leave you asking yourself… Do you want to know more?
Raconteur Press is publishing another anthology this week. This time it is about the crazy hi-jinks involved in mad science. But while you’re waiting for that to come out, you may want to check out From the Brim to the Dregs. That is an anthology filled with the crazy hi-jinks involved with fermented or non-fermented drinks of a dubious and sometimes special nature. These are not necessarily stories about getting drunk, though some drinking is involved.
Now I do have a story in there, which is my reason for pimping it, and it involves a drink that shows a man the future. Assuming a man can remain sane while seeing multiple possible futures at once, that can give him a powerful advantage. What would you do if you could see the future? Would you go to the horse races and place a bet on the winning horse? Start a fight to see your opponent’s moves before they move? Or would you try to talk a pretty girl into letting you kiss her? The possibilities are endless. What would you do if they were all laid out before your eyes?
The war between the Spanish Empire and the Ottoman Empire is one of the great global conflicts of the early modern era, seeing direct conflict in Europe, Africa, and Asia, with the Americas contributing a critical amount of wealth to the conflict. It started a hot minute or three after the Spanish and their Portuguese allies drove the last of the Muslim kingdoms out of the Iberian Peninsula. After the better part of eight centuries of enduring the initial Muslim invasion and the long Reconquista to retake their lands, the Iberians had no intention of allowing another invasion to happen. The Portuguese quickly expanded into the open seas to create a new economic empire covering Southern Africa and Southern Asia and the Spanish walked into the nearest Muslim kingdoms in North Africa with blood in their eyes. Those kingdoms asked the Ottomans for help, and it was on like Donkey Kong.
Their allies in the Ethiopian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire fought sporadic hot and economic wars in Eastern Europe and the Horn of Africa, while the Portuguese and Spanish sailed all over the world to fight the Ottomans and their allies and proxies wherever they found them. Barbary Corsairs. Arabian Raiders. Indian Sultanates. The Sulu Sultanate of the Philippines. They claimed the Americas, found vast wealth there that helped fund their global conflicts, and the sun never set on the Spanish Empire centuries before it never set on the British Empire. The Ottomans maintained effective control of the Eastern Mediterranean despite constant Iberian pressure, but the Iberians fought the Ottomans and their various allies from Africa to Europe to India.
And everywhere the Spanish and Portuguese armadas and armies went, so did their treasure hunters, priests, and settlers looking for new opportunities. It was a mass migration of millions of Spaniards into the new worlds. At least five million Iberians left the peninsula over the next four centuries. That was a statistically significant amount of the total population of Iberia, and it remade the New World, especially after Old World diseases wiped out millions of the native populations in the New World, and millions of slaves from Africa were imported to replace them. Expanding Hispanic populations created the dominant cultures throughout South and Middle America, and as we all know, much of Southern and Southeastern North America also came under their sway.
The Iberian Mass Migration effectively remade the world in their image, and is one of the most consequential mass migrations in known history.
You’ve all seen the screaming toddler in the grocery store. Or the department store. The shrieking spawn of a devil throwing toys or groceries around because his or her mother said “no” to something they wanted. The toddler is giving their parent a Decision Dilemma. They are screaming loud enough the entire store can hear and watch, and making the parent consider their actions. Give in and let the little terrorist have what they want just to quiet them down, or spank them in public and be labeled a child abuser. Or drag them out to the car and have the police called on them for kidnapping a terrified screaming child. The parent has no good choice, but plenty of bad ones, and the toddler is banking on the parent just wanting to shut them up and giving them what they want. That is the Decision Dilemma.
Leftist Democrats have spent the last four years shoveling between 12 and 20 million illegal aliens into America and shipping them off to big cities all over the nation. Giving them food and lodging on our dime, making certain they don’t spend time in jail if they break the law, and otherwise doing everything they can to make the illegal aliens welcome in America. And now Trump has the audacity to want to stop the free stuff and send ICE into these big cities to arrest and deport the absolute worst of them. The gang members. The rapists. The murderers. Murder rates have dropped by something like half in Colorado after the first major push there. And now Trump has sent ICE into Los Angeles to arrest members committing large money laundering schemes and other cartel activity. Sounds similar to the recent drug raid that Leftist Democrats screamed about in Minneapolis. The response in Los Angeles was well-funded “community activists” moving in with pre-printed signs to initiate “mostly peaceful protests” in Los Angeles. This is Leftist Democrat speak for “torch the cars, loot the stores, burn down the buildings, and assault law enforcement officers.”
And this is a Decision Dilemma. Does Trump stand down the military as Leftist Democrats demand while they are telling their activists to keep on “mostly peacefully protesting” and just burn Los Angeles down. Again. After the Los Angeles mayor already oversaw the wild fires that burned Los Angeles down because there wasn’t enough water in the fire hydrants. Or does he send in the troops to stop the little terrorists from burning the city down? We all know how the main stream media and the Democrats, but I repeat myself, will report on either choice. Trump is either the evil man who provoked them into burning the city down to protest his evil ways, or he is the evil man who sent troops to squash “mostly peaceful protestors.” Which makes him even eviler.
This is the Decision Dilemma. As any honest parent will tell you when it comes to negotiating with a screaming toddler, you can never negotiate with terrorists. You either give in to their demands or you spank them until they stop screaming. The old “if you don’t stop crying, I’m going to give you something to cry about.” This is the Decision Dilemma Leftist Democrat leaders have created for us all.
The Martian Affair on Amazon
Forge of War on Amazon
The Audacious Affair on Amazon
Angel Flight on Amazon
Angel Strike on Amazon
Angel War on Amazon
The Family Affair on Amazon
The Thunderbird Affair on Amazon
Wolfenheim Rising on Amazon
Wolfenheim Emergent on Amazon
The Gemini Affair on Amazon