Monthly Archives: June 2026

Disclosure Day, Initial Take

Posted on Saturday 20 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

First reaction to Disclosure Day, with a link to David Brin’s reaction; then noting the film’s religious themes, its appeal to empathy, and its allusions to past Spielberg films; How the reflecting pool fiasco is emblematic of Trump’s strategy: hire … Continue reading →

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Memories of Green

Posted on Thursday 18 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Trump’s surrender; Trump can’t sell his lies in Versailles; Why people see scientists as oddballs; Vangelis’s “Memories of Green.” – – – Some of us have memories of the before time. Before all this. The Bulwark, Jonathan V. Last, today: … Continue reading →

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Reflecting Pool Fiasco

Posted on Wednesday 17 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

How the reflecting pool fiasco is emblematic of Trump’s manner of government; Facebook’s AMV about how the reflecting pool is a miniature Anthropocene; Why Trump keeps talking about voter fraud: he has specific ideas about the kind of people who … Continue reading →

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America’s Continued Decline

Posted on Tuesday 16 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Michelle Goldberg on the garish spectacle at the White House; Will Leitch about its absurdity; Conservatives are trolls; US science is also in decline; Paul Krugman’s theory of the vulgar class; And music: Hans Zimmer’s “Chevaliers De Sangreal”, a great … Continue reading →

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Practicalities and Prejudices Trump Principles

Posted on Monday 15 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

The voters who believe that Trump defends their values; The DHS head is happy to throw out the Constitution in order to fight the minuscule number of voter fraud cases; Trump’s UFC fight reveals his violent worldview; The problematic latest … Continue reading →

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The Barbarians Are Well Within the Gates

Posted on Sunday 14 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Trump’s cage match, planned for this evening; his attack on the weather service; comments from Bill Kristol and Robert Reich; How MAGA-style Christianity isn’t about Christ at all, what with attacks against James Talarico for quoting Jesus; Abbott’s nonsensical claim … Continue reading →

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They Precede Us

Posted on Saturday 13 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Not aliens. Aspects of primal human nature. Equus. But perhaps Disclosure Day is more of the same. Several links about Spielberg’s new movie Disclosure Day, which I’ll wait to see for another week or two. Will revisit and comment about … Continue reading →

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Asymptotic Progress

Posted on Friday 12 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

How the news about adjusting climate change predictions is good news, and how science is always about increasingly approaching the truth, while never claiming (as religion does) to have found it; Trumps guts a line of oceanic defense; there’s a … Continue reading →

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Meaning, Purpose, Science, Science Fiction

Posted on Thursday 11 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Kevin Kelly’s take on a meaning of life: be the most improbable person you can be; And my provisional ideas about meaning and purpose; Hans Zimmer’s Interstellar. I mentioned Kevin Kelly yesterday, and so I checked out his blog, his … Continue reading →

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Looking Up and Looking Down

Posted on Wednesday 10 June 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Looking Up: Fareed Zakaria on human intelligence and artificial intelligence; Kevin Kelly thinks his 1994 book Out of Control is still mostly right; perhaps technology reached a kind of plateau 30 years ago; Ranked voting works, and people like it; … Continue reading →

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