DARTH VADER, storm troopers, more DANCING

Posted on August 31, 2019 by Laer Carroll

Want to see Darth Vader & Storm Troopers dancing? (And some cute girls and guys?) Watch!

The tune is from an album by the UK band Status Quo. Video by videditor KM Music in Thessaloniki Greece. One of my favorite YouTube channels.

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RESPONSIBLE GUN LAWS

Posted on June 3, 2019 by Laer Carroll

I’m a gun owner and fan from way back. My first gun was a Winchester-like BB gun. The second I got when was I was 17 – a Colt .45 1911 pistol which I customized with Goncala Alves grips. I recently sold it to Gunworld.com as a trade-in on a Glock 19 pistol.

I also carried a pistol as a military policeman, and have experimented with sniper rifles at gun shows. All this and more experience shows up in my books. This includes my Super Olympian books where the heroine is a three-sport Olympic athlete – and a superhuman. And in the forthcoming The Star Woman, whose heroine is a Marine sniper – and another superhuman.

Some of my fellow gun enthusiasts carry our love of guns to silly heights, romancing them, overstating their usefulness, and resisting fanatically any attempt to regulate them. I’m an engineer. I deal in facts. Though I regularly practice at my favorite gun range, firingline.net, there are a few facts that only the fanatics would dispute.

  • Pepper spray is usually a more practical self-defense option than a gun. HERE are some pointers for those who want to buy them. I suggest three PS devices: one on you, one in your car, one in your home.
  • Talent, skill, and control are more important aspects of gun use than the weapon itself. A deadly shooter with a .22 long target pistol is more dangerous than an AR-15 “fun” shooter – or a drugged-out gangbanger.
  • No civilian has a use other than fun for a military-grade gun.

A responsible gun-lover and gun-owner owes it to keeping our right to bear arms to resist both the far-right and the far-left efforts to institute totally free or totally nonfree gun ownership. We can do this by pressuring the NRA to cease its efforts to totally resist RESPONSIBLE gun laws. And to join organizations such as Gun Owners for Responsible Ownership.

Click image for more info.

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to: JEFF BEZOS, subject: LUNA CITY

Posted on January 20, 2019 by Laer Carroll

I’m an aerospace software and systems engineer, working most recently at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and Boeing’s Phantom Works. I am now retired and spend much of each day writing, mostly fiction.

I am also one of many diverse professionals who study, think, and discuss how to colonize the Moon. Here are some ideas your own engineers may not have suggested to you.

BUILD WITH TELEROBOTS – Drones remotely operated from Earth are most cost effective. “Deaths” among them are not tragic, they need no air or water or food or habitats, they need not be returned home.

BUILD WITH PREFABBED PARTS – Construction on the Moon can be done faster and better by doing the hardest work here on Earth.

USE LOCAL MATERIALS – Lunar rocks and soil contain useful minerals which can be extracted in several ways. These include oxygen and the metals iron, calcium, aluminum, and magnesium.

USE VR/AR HEADSETS – “Vears” are an infant industry slowly ramping up to a big business. Remote operation of drones and viewing of the Moon by long-distance “tourists” is a way to give Earth-bound humans a better way of visiting the Moon.

Putting people on the Moon is a practical near-term goal. Putting them on Mars is not. It’s time to build a moon base, or better a moon city.

After the base or city is built it would be covered by a thin layer of dirt to protect it from meteorites and extremes of heat and cold. Artwork by Chris Butler, available in several different versions at his web site.

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WOMEN with SWORDS – hypnotic

Posted on July 26, 2018 by Laer Carroll

The title says it all!

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TEACHABLE ASSHOLES and the MeToo movement

Posted on July 10, 2018 by Laer Carroll

I was brought up to be an asshole. A lot of men are. The main issue of the #MeToo movement for each of us men is: Are we teachable assholes? Or unteachable?

The unteachables are and forever will be rapists or wannabe rapists, abusers, harassers, sexual bullies.

Many if not most men are taught that being an asshole is the proper way for us to live and relate to other men and to the “weaker sex.” Here are some of the messages that bombard us as we grow up. Few of them are noxious alone. Together they are a poison cocktail.

Big boys don’t cry. (Only weaklings, like gur-uhls, show their emotions.) This makes sense in a warrior or predator culture, where the slightest weakness will be pounced on and exploited.

Women are the weaker sex. They like strong men. They like take-charge men. They like leaders, not followers. Your job is to turn a girl’s No to a Maybe, a Maybe to a Yes. Then fuck ’em and forget ’em.

You’ve probably heard these and similar messages, maybe even (click HERE to continue.)

 

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LAER’S POLITICS – complex, not red or blue

Posted on April 16, 2018 by Laer Carroll

In these highly political times I’ve decided to openly declare my politics. They are complex, because the universe is complex. They are NOT binary: black or white (or red or blue). Or liberal or conservative.

I am liberal AND conservative. AND moderate, a rare bird in these divisive times, where you must be one or the other.

On most SOCIAL issues I’m liberal. On ECONOMIC issues I’m moderate. And on most DEFENSE issues (personal and national) I’m conservative. My personal flag is red AND white AND blue.

At the base is defense. At the personal level, I interpret the 2nd amendment right to bear arms as applying to personal defense, not as applying to militias as the founders viewed it. I also believe that for every right come responsibilities, the chief among them to act wisely. (To see more click PERSONAL defense.)

At the national level, I support a leaner and more effective defense. I believe we need to focus less on hugely expensive weapons, and more on ground troops and cyberwar. (To see more click NATIONAL defense.)

After our physical survival is assured we must consider our fiscal survival. Economies are cybernetic systems. History has shown that massive top-down control of economies (socialism) is largely a failure. Bottom-up controls (capitalism) is much more effective. But only if some top-down controls ensure certain endemic ills of capitalism are prevented. Small businesses, for instance, like all infants, must be protected from big-business predators. (To see more click ECONOMICAL issues.)

Physical and fiscal survival supports our spiritual and social health. Racism is an evil we must aggressively fight – BUT with firmness not fanaticism. The same goes for religious intolerance and sexism. I am a feminist, because feminism is at its base about fairness. Not just to the women in our lives, but also to men. We have also been victimized by paternalism though obviously less so than women. (To see more click SOCIAL issues.)

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JENNIFER LAWRENCE being star struck at Comic Con

Posted on July 24, 2013 by Laer Carroll

Not science, science fiction, or technology related.  But I couldn’t resist linking to adorable Jennifer Lawrence being star struck at Comic Con over Jeff Bridges.

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REAL GENIUSES: What are they Like?

Posted on January 1, 2013 by Laer Carroll

Science fiction writers often write about geniuses and other very bright people.  If you’re satisfied with all the stereotypes about them, read no more.

But if you’d like to know what they are REALLY like, go to this newly posted article.

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