Mark R. Kelly
» Founder in 1997 and site-runner for 20 years of Locus Online (Hugo Award winner in 2002). Founder in 2012 and still site-runner of sfadb.com (Science Fiction Awards Database). Retired in 2012 after 30 years as a software engineer for a certain rocket engine factory.
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» Previous Views from Medina Road (2010-2013)
» Blogspot Views from Medina Road (2003-2010)-
Recent Posts
- The Ultimate Cognitive Bias, and Political News
- Distracted by Politics, Again
- AI Is Telling People What They Want to Hear?
- The Fringe Is Becoming Mainstream
- Why Totalitarians Prefer Crackpots and Fools, as We Are Seeing Under Trump
- Nostalgia Bias, and Christian Intolerance and Hypocrisy
- Music as Language
- Short-Term Thinking As the Problem, As I’ve Been Saying
- Nevil Shute: ON THE BEACH
- MAGA and Cultural Stagnation
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Meta
Monthly Archives: July 2025
Sciency Things, and Presidential Pettiness
Tom Nichols on presidential pettiness; How the Trump administration is using a strength of science to discredit it; Ethan Siegel on what we’ve learned for 35 years of the Hubble Space Telescope; A breakthrough in a grand unified theory of … Continue reading
Posted in Lunacy, Politics, Psychology, Religion, Science
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Pat Frank: ALAS, BABYLON
(First published 1959. Edition here: HarperCollins/Perennial Classics, 1999, 323pp, including author biography and publication history by Hal Hager) Next up in the group of apocalyptic novels I read in June, following Butler’s PARABLE OF THE SOWER, is this. It isn’t … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, science fiction
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Stories Mislead You About the Reality of the World
Crime on TV v crime in reality; Conspiracy theories on TV v conspiracy theories in reality; If stories mislead about reality, then what is science fiction about? – – – I’ve mentioned before that my understanding is that there … Continue reading
Posted in science fiction
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Stories, Traditions, and Science
Why does MAGA hate science? Why do right-wing folks think Democratic policies have failed? And Paul Krugman on the top 10 political websites on Substack. – – – A significant essay, for my concerns. Salon, Kirk Swearingen, 19 Jul 2025: … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Politics, Science
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Only Certain People Count
Today’s news about Stephen Colbert; Conservatives have finally managed to cut funding to PBS and NPR; David Brooks on Trump winning the race to the bottom; Sure enough, EPA is firing hundreds of scientific experts; Fareed Zakaria on how Obama … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
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Incompetence, Greed, or Sabotage?
Elizabeth Kolbert on the Texas floods and the administration’s undermining of climate research; How the Trump administration wants to discourage wind and solar projects; Recalling the Scopes trial, 100 years ago this month, and America’s continued antipathy toward science and … Continue reading
Posted in Music, Personal history, Politics, Religion, Science
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Is the universe friendly, or hostile?
David Wallace-Wells on the Epstein scandal, with items by Zack Beauchamp and Shawn McCreesh; How simple-minded Trump characterizes his adversaries as “evil”; How Trump’s economic agenda is driven by simple-minded lies and misunderstandings; How the question “Is the world a … Continue reading
Posted in History, Human Nature, Philosophy, Politics, Religion
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History and Change
Trump keeps a trophy for himself; Paul Krugman on why the Trump administration is killing science; How MAGA needs stories in which they are the heroes; Why Trump fans aren’t forgiving Trump about Epstein; Heather Cox Richardson about Trump’s “mandate” … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, History, Human Nature, Politics, science fiction
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The problem with the world is not evil. It’s ignorance, and delusion.
Two thoughts from Yuval Noah Harari today; Ramez Naam on how AI models converge on “moderately left-libertarian political viewpoints”; Another piece about how people should be held accountable for tragedies; Heather Cox Richardson summaries the Epstein fiasco; WaPo’s Philip Bump … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Human Nature, Morality, Politics
Comments Off on The problem with the world is not evil. It’s ignorance, and delusion.
Responsibility, Certainty, and Doubt
Defunding weather science and disaster response to save money is like cancelling all your insurance policies to manage your household budget; LAT: Robin Abcarian on the implausibilities of expecting Medicaid recipients to replace deported farmworkers; NYT: Peter Baker on how … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Psychology, Science
Comments Off on Responsibility, Certainty, and Doubt
