Fatal Attraction

I don't generally make it a point to buy books the day they're released, but there are exceptions and one of them is F. Paul Wilson's "Repairman Jack" series. I thought that Fatal Error was due out October 1st; turns out the release date is October 12th. Not to worry ... I pre-ordered it.

One reason I usually wait is that I'm a cheapskate. I hate to say it since a number of my friends are authors, and authors don't make bank on used copies of their books, but I almost always buy used.

On the other hand, it's often the case when I buy used that I'm simply replacing something I bought new: I lost it, or loaned it out, or read it until it fell apart. So the author made his buck the first time around; the second, he's going to have to settle for the fact that if I liked the book enough to buy it twice, I'm probably going to tell everyone about it.

For example, the new F. Paul Wilson novel came to $17.15, and I pre-ordered. Being, as I mentioned, a cheapskate, I decided I'd rather round out my purchase to $25 and get free "Super-Saver" shipping than end up popping $22 for that $17.15 book. Sooo ...

I've said it right here before, and I'll say it again -- if you haven't read Ken MacLeod's Fall Revolution cycle, you need to. I've read each of the four novels at least twice, and three of them more than twice. I was able to find used "fulfilled by Amazon" (and therefore eligible for that free shipping deal) copies of Fractions (an omnibus edition of the first two novels in the cycle, The Star Fraction and The Stone Canal) and The Cassini Division (the third novel). That got me over the $25 mark. Instead of one book for $22.xx including shipping, three for $28.xx. Good deal. Now I just need to keep an eye out for a good deal on The Sky Road, the fourth novel in the cycle (that one is in the "read until it's falling apart" category).

I need to get all the F. Paul Wilson stuff in one stack and figure out what's missing and what I need new copies of -- I foresee a complete re-read of the "Repairman Jack" books leading up to the release of the finale (Nightworld). Actually, what I really need is a stimulus grant to hire a curator for my damn library.

No, Andrew, We Aren't

"At war," that is, assuming that Andrew Sullivan means the government of the United States (a reasonably safe assumption, since the topic under discussion is the limits of executive power within that system of government).

The US Constitution delegates the power to declare war to Congress. Congress hasn't exercised that power since 1941.

No, the "authorizations to use force" passed by Congress after 9/11 were not declarations of war. They included "war powers reservations" to make it clear that they weren't declarations of war, and Congress overwhelmingly voted down resolutions declaring war on e.g. Afghanistan and Iraq.

If you want to argue that the US is in a state of de facto war, or that the current situation is morally equivalent to war, knock yourself out. That's irrelevant to what powers the executive branch possesses in time of war, because that's a legal matter -- until and unless Congress has declared war, the US is not, in any legal sense (the Constitution being "the Supreme Law of the Land"), at war. Period.

Rather a bit "man bites dog"

It's not very often you'll see me commend a local police department, but I have to hand it to the Jennings, Missouri PD. They did a good thing:

The city of Jennings has asked St. Louis County police to take command of its Police Department in the wake of a federal and state investigation into missing public money that was meant to pay for drunken driving checkpoints.

Jennings Mayor Benjamin C. Sutphin said grant money totaling tens of thousands of dollars was paid to several city officers in recent years for overtime work on sobriety checkpoints that was never performed.

"The officers got the overtime pay, but they never did the overtime work," Sutphin said. "The department did not conduct a single DWI checkpoint over a period of 2½ to three years."

I suppose I could work myself into a snit over the "waste of taxpayer money" and that sort of thing, but I'm choosing to see the glass as half full here.

First of all, that taxpayer money was going to be spent whether the Jennings PD took it or not. It's US Department of Transportation grant funding, handed out by the Missouri DOT. It's not like Barack Obama was going to send everyone a partial refund of income tax if Jennings PD turned down the loot.

Secondly, any other police department would likely have actually used that money to conduct the blatantly unconstitutional "DWI checkpoints" it's earmarked for. If we're going to pay cops, I'd rather we paid them to go home and watch TV than to cruise the streets hassling the serfs.