The Writer's Life 3/3 - Odds & Ends

There are two brief, amusing items in today's NY Post. The Department of Defense is offering cash incentives to computer wizards to try to hack its website so its own people will be able to find weaknesses and flaws. If the frequency with which this happens in films and on TV is any indication, the website will be bombarded... In mid-December the Indian Point nuclear plant shut down because of electrical failure caused by bird poop. Is this incentive for its opponents to begin training flocks for daily bombardment? It would be completely organic, green technology.

From Yahoo News: ConocoPhillips is the first oil company to draw crude from the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, an area the size of Indiana which President Warren G. Harding dedicated as an emergency oil supply for the U.S. Navy in 1923. The company has spent one billion dollars meeting environmental and tribal restrictions to develop the site. It took 12 years. This is great news for everyone but greeniacs.

Also from YN: An Ohio man who killed his roommate and ate part of his brain almost 40 years ago was denied parole for the sixth time. It couldn't have taken much grey matter to reach that decision.

The GOP establishment seems bent on self destruction, jeopardizing majorities in the house, senate, and government mansions in the its effort to derail Trump. Those majorities were sealed by voters in the middle, and the Republicans' petulance risks losing them. Mitt Romney is a fine man, but he lost the general election, and bringing him out to rally the troops against the Donald is a foolish Hail Mary designed to create a brokered convention that would allow the establishment to ignore the will of the people and pick its own candidate. This morning, radio talk show host Mark Simone played a tape of a Romney speech wherein he sang Trump's praises.

The floating book shop had a visit from Political Man today. As Marie was passing, he went into his usual tirade against Republicans, and she shot back: "I hate them all, both sides." He then told me he'd just spent $200 on a marijuana vaporizer recommended to him by his first cousin Lenny Kaye, long time guitarist for the Patti Smith Group.
My thanks to the sweet, elderly Russian woman who overpaid for Judy Blume's Sweet Sisters, and to Natalya and Benedict, who late in the session donated eight dee-tec-teeve novels in Russian. It was a lot colder than yesterday, but the wind was negligible and the sun was only partially obscured, making conditions tolerable.
Vic's Short Works: http://tinyurl.com/jy55pzc

Vic's 5th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/okxkwh5Vic's 4th novel: tinyurl.com/bszwlxh

Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3

Vic's Short Story on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/k95k3nx
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Vic's 1st Novel: http://tinyurl.com/l84h63j

Website: http://vicfortezzaauthor.my-free.website/