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)
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Meta
Monthly Archives: April 2026
Skiffy Flix: The War of the Worlds
This is about the 1953 movie, surely one of the best known and highly-regarded SF movies of the ’50s, along with THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, FORBIDDEN PLANET, and perhaps INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. I wrote about the … Continue reading
Posted in Skiffy Flix
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Those Who Do, Those Who Can’t
How some of us reach for the stars, while others are mired in oppressive religious fantasies; How both sides think God is on their side, and wondering what religions are trying to accomplish; Rebecca Boyle on what we’re seeing new … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Human Progress, Religion, Science, Space
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Our Demented Administration
A majority of Americans favor impeachment; Now the Trump administration is threatening the Vatican; Yet more evidence that they’re white supremacists; Revisiting the question if Trump is suffering dementia; Long piece about how Trump is stuck in the era of … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Lunacy, Music, Politics
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Another Nothing-burger Trump Deal
Trump’s ‘deal’ with Iran seems to have accomplished none of his objectives, and is worse than the Obama deal that Trump cancelled; Comments from Robert Reich, Paul Krugman, Media Matters; Which spills over in the contrast between Artemis II and … Continue reading
TACO and Cognitive Surrender
The world worries about presidential insanity and nuclear war until Trump backs down, yet again; AI and “cognitive surrender”; With some perspective about electronic calculators and other forms of new technology over the millennia; And how the surrender of critical … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Human Nature, Lunacy, Music, Politics, Psychology
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Artemis, and the Weirding of American Religion
The Artemis mission, the dark side solecism, the flat earth crazies; Paul Krugman echoes my thoughts from yesterday: will America as we knew it end Tuesday? The weirding of American religion, what with claims of teleportation and demons; Brief items … Continue reading
Skiffy Flix: The Thing From Another World
This is a 1951 black & white science fiction movie set in the Arctic, and it’s one of the most famous of the 1950s science fiction films. (This original version has been eclipsed over the decades by a 1982 remake … Continue reading
Posted in science fiction, Skiffy Flix
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Eve of Destruction?
Trump’s profane threats to Iran; US politicians respond; Seeing resurrection everywhere, in cycles of life and death; Trump killed easy tax filing software to appease big business; Review of a book about how capitalism conquered the world and may destroy … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, conservatives, Lunacy, Music, Politics
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God-Botherers
Ross Douthat and Bart Ehrman debate about the evolution of human morality; I’m not completely on board with either of them, and have a better explanation; Examples of the religiously besotted: who think Christ is the King of America; who … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Religion
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Psychics and Literacy
If psychics are real, why hasn’t even one shown up to find Nancy Guthrie? Pete Hegseth keeps blocking military promotions for blacks and females; And he’s holding a Protestants-only Good Friday service; Big Think on the persistence of intuitive superstitious … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Human Nature, Politics, Religion, Supernatural
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