'these actions build on the President’s record of criminal justice reform'

'The FBI screws up on both sides'

TRUMP IS ONCE AGAIN TIME'S MAN OF THE YEAR... Time Magazine Names Donald Trump ‘Person Of The Year’ He was selected over finalists including Vice President Kamala Harris, billionaire Elon Musk, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales. This marks the president-elect’s second time receiving the honor. He was previously named “Person of the Year” following his 2016 election victory. Thirteen U.S. presidents have received the title, including President Joe Biden.

Books Mark as Read Small Press SFF Might Sometimes Be Harder to Find — But It’s More Than Worth the Effort It’s a classic underdog tale, and who doesn’t love rooting for that? By Molly Templeton | Published on December 12, 2024 Photo by Bruno Martins [via Unsplash] Comment 0 Share New Share Photo by Bruno Martins [via Unsplash] One of the most interesting books I read this year, I read two weeks ago because of a post on Bluesky that I just happened to see. The book had come out in August, but I didn’t hear of it until the last week of November. Because of an assignment, I spent months this year searching for science fiction new releases, combing through various websites and resources, asking for recommendations, talking to other readers and writers. Still, it was the random luck of social media that brought North Continent Ribbon into my awareness. Ever since then, I’ve been thinking about small presses, and how we do—or don’t—find their books. They aren’t always on bookstore shelves. They don’t get the media attention many major publishers’ releases do. Distribution is a huge issue, and maybe more pressing than ever in the wake of Small Press Distribution’s closure. Many small presses can’t afford to spring for inclusion on some of the (not cheap) sites that other bigger presses use to reach booksellers and reviewers, like Edelweiss and NetGalley. Awards nominations are a matter of awareness: if nominators don’t know about the books, they’re not talking about them or writing them on those all-important little ballot lines. Small presses are in some ways facing a version of the same thing any book publisher is: nearly vanished books coverage in major media, endless competition for everyone’s eyeballs, the vagaries of trends, the limits of distribution, the foibles of that one retail website I wish we never had to talk about again. But they’re doing it with smaller staffs and fewer resources. They are the classic underdog, and I feel like SFF readers could do a little more rooting for them. It’ll take a little effort on our part. It’s effort well worth making. First, a word about terms. If there is a firm definition of what constitutes a small press, I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know that anyone could get people to agree on it anyway. To my mind, a small press is always independent, but an independent publisher is not necessarily a small press. Self-publishing is its own thing, different from small press publishing. The term “micropress” has also come up, and the best I can do in terms of defining small vs. micro is that micro tends to be a single person, and small more than one. But I do not know the number of staff at most presses! So I’m using small to cover presses that range from Stelliform (one person) to Tachyon (no idea; definitely more than one). Forgive the imprecision. There are a few smaller presses I think are moderately well-known among SFF readers. Tachyon is one; they’ve been around since the 1990s and have had books on plenty of awards lists. You might know Subterranean as the publisher of special editions, but they also publish original work. Small Beer Press published Kelly Link’s first collections, and so many other excellent books as well. There’s so much more out there to find. There’s Neon Hemlock, the publisher of North Continent Ribbon, which publishes “speculative fiction, rad zines and queer chapbooks.” There’s Tenebrous Press, which published Dehiscent, a slim little novella I haven’t been able to get out of my head. Meerkat published The Ragpicker, about which Kerstin Hall had a lot of very good things to say. ECW published Premee Mohamed’s The Annual Migration of Clouds and Suzan Palumbo’s Countess (about which Alex Brown had many good things to say). There’s Stelliform, which published the winner of the 2023 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, Arborealtiy. There’s Atthis Arts, Undertow, Rosarium, Aqueduct, Luna Press, Psychopomp. There are so many more I’ve not yet heard of. Anyone who reads small press work will cite their own favorites. And because the world is so wide, and publishing so specific, and distribution so complicated, you may or may not have heard of them. It’ll take more work to find their books, maybe. But it’s also kind of fun. If you have a certain kind of temperament—the kind that liked hunting down obscure albums in the pre-internet age, say—it may be a familiar sort of work. It is the work of trying to find art outside the larger corporate sphere.  (This is not to say anything against art published within the larger corporate sphere—where there are also, always, authors who don’t get the support they need or the visibility they deserve. But the two things are often quite different, for authors and for readers.) Part of the reason it takes more work is the matter of distribution, which is complex and virtually impossible to distill into a brief paragraph, and also entirely possible to be wrong about, because there are so many different ways it works. Distribution is how a publisher’s books get to you. Big publishers have their own distribution networks, but one way or the other, the book has to get from press to retailer to you (or directly to you, if a press sells straight to readers). Where things get complicated is in terms of discounts (which is how the retailer makes its money) and returnability (most books can be returned, but sometimes not) and more. When Small Press Distribution closed, it threw a wrench in the works for a lot of small presses.  Other distributors, like Asterism, have stepped up to try to fill that space, and other options, like IPG and Consortium, already existed. But it is still, generally,  less likely that you will find a small press book on your local bookstore’s shelves—or at your library. Most indie stores will special order them for you, a service you should absolutely use if you feel so inclined. You can absolutely request your library carry a small press book. Both of these things are really good for the books, all told. First you have to know they exist. I have not always been great at finding small press books, for what I hope is a relatable reason: there are so many books to read. I am not lacking for reading material and I probably never will be. But I do care about this whole fraught complex system of smaller-scale publishing, and lesser-known authors, and making sure that I’m not just reading books published by massive multinational corporations. So I asked two people who are really up on small press work for their suggestions about how to go about finding and keeping tabs on it.  Alex Brown said something that I hadn’t thought of at all: “I find most of the small press publishers I read through short speculative fiction. Many short spec fic authors pop up in anthologies and collections from small presses.” Alex writes a monthly Short Fiction Spotlight, which is absolutely full of good places to start on this front. If you tend to read mostly novels and novellas (as I do), this is an excellent shortcut. A cheat sheet, in the best possible way. Alex also says, “Following authors and small presses on social media is another way I find them, because they often share announcements for each other.” Watching authors cheerlead for each other is, I think, one of the great joys of social media, which is itself a powerful tool for small presses—and for finding their work. Conversations like the one I mentioned at the start of this column are invaluable. If an author you like mentions a book you haven’t heard of, published by a press you aren’t familiar with, why not go look them up?  I also asked Tobias Carroll, who puts together regular posts about small press speculative fiction, where he finds the books he includes. He has a lot of tactics, including keeping a running list of interesting-sounding upcoming books that he sees mentioned online, keeping another list of presses with active “upcoming releases” pages, tracking distributors’ pages, and checking in on various publishers’ websites to see what’s new. This is not to say that every reader ought to be doing every one of these things—though if you have favorite presses, by all means keep tabs on them!—but both Toby and Alex’s answers demonstrate that there is no single, simple answer to “How do I find great small press SFF?” There are a million more answers than these, and I’d love to hear yours!  I think, overall, the first thing you’ll need is curiosity. The second thing you’ll need is a willingness to look around—to find small-press readers and writers on social media, to figure out who’s doing the work that you’re most interested in, and then to keep paying attention. It has always taken more legwork to find the artists working outside of the best-known systems. It has always been worth it.[end-mark] The post Small Press SFF Might Sometimes Be Harder to Find — But It’s More Than Worth the Effort appeared first on Reactor.

One question emerging from the presidential election exit polls is the disconnect between black men and women and Hispanic men and women. Donald Trump received support from 21% of black men and 7% of black women, a disparity of 14 points. He got support from 54% of Hispanic men and 39% of Hispanic women, a disparity of 15 points. There was also a disparity in Trump’s support among white men and women, but much smaller—7 points. So why is Trump having far greater success among black and Hispanic men than black and Hispanic women? It’s clear that the major issue that drove the vote in this election was the economy. A Gallup poll done in October showed the economy as the number one concern of voters. Per exit polling, 68% said the economy is “not good” or “poor” and 31% said it is “excellent” or “good.” Of the 68% saying the economy is not good/poor, 70% voted for Trump. Per a Gallup poll published last March, 27% of black women under 60 said they are planning to start their own business in the next 12 months, compared to 14% of Hispanic women and 5% of white women. In the same survey Gallup asked, “Would you be interested in starting a business if you had the resources?” Among black women, 57% said yes; among Hispanic women, 55% said yes; among white women, 38% said yes; 51% of all U.S. men and 44% of all U.S. women said yes. The entrepreneurial aspirations of Black and Hispanic women are among the highest in the country. Per Gallup, “while just 13% of men under 60 say they lack the financial and/or nonfinancial resources to start a business, a third of women in this age group (33%) say the same.” Gallup continues that improving access of women to capital is important “when women-owned businesses still make up only 22% of employer businesses in the United States.” I think that these entrepreneurial-driven black and Hispanic women should care a lot about a healthy and growing national economy. Nothing is more important for business success and raising capital. I would urge these women to listen to a recent interview done with one of the country’s greatest entrepreneurs, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, done at The New York Times DealBook Summit. Bezos has never been known as a conservative or among the backers of President-elect Donald Trump. He owns The Washington Post, which is a left-of-center paper. However, in this interview, Bezos speaks positively about the election of Trump and specifically talks about the importance of deregulation to improving the economy. “He [Trump] seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. … If I can help him do that, I’m going to help him.” He also observes that our country “has the best risk capital system in the world … You can raise $50 million of seed capital to do something that only has a 10% chance of working.” Bezos discusses his own experience, starting from nothing, building a business in a world of new technology and becoming one of the wealthiest individuals in the world. He describes raising his first million dollars for Amazon by meeting with 60 venture capitalists, of whom 22 agreed to put up $50,000 each. Bezos emphasizes that the way out of our economic problems is economic growth. And here he emphasizes the importance of deregulation and gives a vote of confidence to Trump. So why, when there is such disproportionate entrepreneurial spirit among black women, did only 7% support the candidate who one of the nation’s most successful and legendary entrepreneurs says will deliver the economy the nation needs? Certainly, black and Hispanic men are getting the message. It’s time for black and Hispanic women to get it and start focusing less on identity politics and more on what experience tells us will work. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post What’s Going On With Black and Hispanic Women? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The US State Department looks set to shut down the Global Engagement Center (GEC), which has for a long time faced accusations of deviating from its stated role abroad, and instead engaging in, and facilitating censorship at home. This has been revealed in a filing in the Daily Wire v. US Department of State case, in which the latter informed the court that members of Congress were told last Friday about the upcoming move. However, even though GEC as such is “substantially likely” to cease operations on December 24, the idea seems to be a simple reshuffle – as both the funding and the staff would continue their work in other State Department offices and bureaus. According to a spokesperson, this development is the result of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) not providing for an extension of GEC. And now the State Department is “hopeful that Congress extends this important mandate through other means before the December 24 termination date,” said the spokesperson. That mandate, on paper, is supposed to be directing, leading, and coordinating the US government’s “countering of foreign propaganda and disinformation” – in foreign countries. And the State Department continues to maintain that this is in fact the role of GEC and that it is critically important for that work to continue. But critics say that the office, which was created in 2016, in reality, represents a central component of partisan censorship targeting Americans – particularly conservative and “disfavored” voices. As evidence of this kept mounting, Republican members of the House of Representatives first investigated the activities of this office, particularly the way it was handing out grants (the suspicion is that GEC “delegated” censorship to third parties in order not to openly violate the Constitution). Now, House Republicans have decided not to approve the planned 8-year extension of GEC. One of those controversial grants, worth $100,000, went to the Global Disinformation Index – a UK-based group accused of compiling a list of conservative media that advertisers were supposed to boycott and thus deprive of revenue. But even if GEC will no longer exist as such, the intent is clearly to reassign employees and keep funding their work. What that work will actually be going forward, should depend on the incoming administration’s new State Department. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post State Department to Shut Down Controversial Censorship Hub but Critics May Call It a Rebrand appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

The signal took 23 hours to reach Earth.

Cometary collisions might not just be tales of destruction, but also creation.

Two American companies have joined forces to create an electric motor powered by a nuclear reactor. While it currently takes more than a year to fly to Mars and back, a new nuclear electric engine could make the trip in just a couple of months or more. Two American companies have partnered to develop a powerful nuclear engine based on existing technology that will make space travel much faster, Phys reports. Ad Astra and SpaceNukes have announced a partnership that will enable rapid manned and unmanned missions to Mars and the far reaches of the solar system. The two companies said they have begun work on a new nuclear electric propulsion system based on Ad Astra’s VASIMR electric magnetoplasma propulsion system and SpaceNukes’ Kilopower nuclear reactor. Fast flights to Mars and to more distant worlds of the Solar System have long been a dream of the world’s space agencies. But this requires powerful rocket engines. Ad Astra has long been developing its VASIMR electric magnetoplasma engine. But it requires a lot of energy to carry out fast flights into space. Therefore, it was decided to use the Kilopower nuclear reactor from SpaceNukes, which will create this energy. VASIMR stands for VASIMR, a type of electric ion propulsion system. Ion thrusters are the most well-known form of electric propulsion. They are not powerful enough to propel a spacecraft into space, but once in space they are highly efficient and very fast. The problem is that ion engines need a lot of energy to ionize the fuel and get to high speed. This energy can be obtained using huge solar panels or using a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, which has been used for many years to power various spacecraft, including Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. But such a generator cannot power very powerful propulsion systems. Therefore, a nuclear reactor is best suited for this purpose. The new nuclear electric motor is expected to have a power of at least 100 kW before testing begins later this decade. The motor’s power will then be increased during development, with a view to introducing a fully-fledged version in the early 2030s. With this engine, it will be possible to reduce the round trip time to Mars, which currently takes more than a year, to a couple of months or a little more. With this nuclear engine, it will be possible to carry out both unmanned and manned missions to Mars. The developers of the nuclear engine believe that it will also help to significantly reduce the flight time to the outer part of the solar system. This will allow for quick access, for example, to the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, which have hidden oceans under the surface and may be suitable for life. Nuclear electric engines have numerous advantages over traditional rocket engines. They are much more efficient, using 10-100 times less fuel, and most importantly, they allow for very high speeds during space flight. The post Reaching Mars in Two Months Will Soon Become a Reality appeared first on Anomalien.com.

More than his contemporaries, NBC’s host Seth Meyers thinks of himself as more of a thinking man’s comedian who wants to discuss policy and real issues. However, on Wednesday’s Late Night, Meyers accused Donald Trump of lying during the campaign about helping working people but only ended up proving he doesn’t know how tax cuts work. Meyers introduced two clips by declaring, “Now, if you had to guess, what do you think would be the top priority of the wealthiest administration in history? If you guessed ‘Lowering prescription drug costs and reining in corporate price gouging,’ you gotta get better at guessing because that was a really bad guess. Obviously their top priority is tax cuts.”     In one clip, a local news reporter recalled, “Trump and Republicans in Congress setting an ambitious 100-day agenda. At the top of the list. A plan to renew about $4 trillion in expiring GOP tax cuts” while in a second, RNC Chair Michael Whatley added, “We want to see the Trump tax cuts get extended, so that's obviously going to be a priority in the first year.” Meyers pretended to be shocked, “Oh my god, they're not bringing down the cost of groceries. They're just giving themselves a tax cut. Do you know what this means? Donald Trump lied. Now I'm starting to think someone else invented the word groceries. I believed you, and now I look a fool. I'm out here with egg on my face, which we all know is a grocery. Oh, the irony.” Whatley clearly said “extended,” which means that if Republicans do not act, taxes will go up. If they do, taxes will simply remain the same, and that is true of everybody, not just rich people. However, Meyers showed his ignorance, “Now I know what you're thinking: How does giving a $4 trillion tax cut to corporations and the wealthiest people in America bring down the cost of groceries? Well, it's very simple. And I mapped it all out here.” After briefly displaying a sign that read “It doesn’t,” Meyers rolled on, “So, how are they going to pay for the $4 trillion in tax cuts? If you guessed "Cutting defense spending, tax loopholes, and corporate subsidies," you in general need to stop guessing, because it's not your thing. Get your [bleep] together, man, when it comes to guessing. Obviously they’re going to cut programs working people depend on.” Meyers would then accuse Republicans of lying about not touching entitlements, but despite what anyone might say about everything being on the table for cuts, the truth is Republicans have very narrow majorities, and when they had larger majorities in Trump’s first term, they did not reform them. Here is a transcript for the December 11-taped show: NBC Late Night with Seth Meyers 12/12/2024 12:47 AM ET SETH MEYERS: So, Trump's cabinet of billionaires is gonna enforce loyalty among Republicans. Now, if you had to guess, what do you think would be the top priority of the wealthiest administration in history? If you guessed "Lowering prescription drug costs and reining in corporate price gouging," you gotta get better at guessing because that was a really bad guess. Obviously their top priority is tax cuts. REPORTER: Trump and Republicans in Congress setting an ambitious 100-day agenda. At the top of the list. A plan to renew about $4 trillion in expiring GOP tax cuts. MICHAEL WHATLEY: We want to see the Trump tax cuts get extended, so that's obviously going to be a priority in the first year. MEYERS: Oh my god, they're not bringing down the cost of groceries. They're just giving themselves a tax cut. Do you know what this means? Donald Trump lied. Now I'm starting to think someone else invented the word groceries. I believed you, and now I look a fool. I'm out here with egg on my face, which we all know is a grocery. Oh, the irony.  Now I know what you're thinking: How does giving a $4 trillion tax cut to corporations and the wealthiest people in America bring down the cost of groceries? Well, it's very simple. And I mapped it all out here. [Holds up a sign that says “It doesn’t”] So, I feel like maybe we didn't need a whiteboard for that. So, how are they going to pay for the $4 trillion in tax cuts? If you guessed "Cutting defense spending, tax loopholes, and corporate subsidies," you in general need to stop guessing, because it's not your thing. Get your [bleep] together, man, when it comes to guessing. Obviously they’re going to cut programs working people depend on.