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
- Five Years Since a Day that Will Live in Infamy
- A Return to the Original Mission: Impossible Presumption
- Where We Are, 4 Jan 2026
- Clear Thoughts About Religion
- Is Reading a Vice? No.
- Ethnic Cleansing and Collective Effervescence
- Where We Are, Here at the End of 2025
- Return from Holiday Trip
- Good News, Two Ways
- Steady Encroachment
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Meta
Category Archives: authoritarianism
Meltdown; Reign of Errors; People Trump doesn’t want to exist; Harari on humans in 1000 years
Details of the Trump/Musk meltdown; The Trump administration’s reign of errors; Such as DOGE firing people and quickly hiring them back; The people Trump doesn’t want to exist; Yuval Noah Harari on how humans won’t exist in 1000 years, perhaps … Continue reading
Posted in authoritarianism, conservatives, Lunacy, Politics
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Substack as the new Royal Society, vs MAGA waging war on the future
Will Substack be the Royal Society of the 21st century? While Trump and MAGA wage war on the future; Robert Reich on *why* Trump and his regime want to destroy every institution in America; And my running theme about the … Continue reading
Posted in authoritarianism, Conservative Resistance, Evolution, Human Nature, Politics, science fiction
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We’re Living in an Age of Regression
In Trump’s America, it’s every parent and child out for themselves; Who decides who’s Christian? The government? Fox News says the Qatari bribe to Trump is fine because FDR gave three planes to the Saudis… 80 years ago; Robert Reich … Continue reading
Posted in authoritarianism, Conservative Resistance, Culture, Decline, Evolution, Human Nature, Human Progress, Music
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Palace in the Sky, For the One
Several items today about the Trump administration’s acceptance from Qatar of a $400 million luxury 747, for Trump’s personal use; How Trump shrugs off intelligence briefings; he knows what he knows because he’s smart; How the story of a woman … Continue reading
Posted in authoritarianism, Conservative Resistance, Culture, Decline, Politics
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Disconnects from Reality, and a Couple Positive Notes
On the one hand, A Truth+ movie about ‘Lizard People’; RFK Jr vows to stop chemtrails; Democrats have a ‘dictatorship mentality’? Texas Christians presume to spend a month celebrating God’s promises; Tom Nichols on a witch hunt at the State … Continue reading
Posted in authoritarianism, Conservative Resistance, conservatives, Politics
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How the US is retreating into tribalism
The White House press secretary, addressing the firing of the head of the Library of Congress, is either ignorant, stupid, or lying; How the natalist movement, perhaps led by Elon Musk, relies on endless growth, which is not plausible; To … Continue reading
Posted in authoritarianism, conservatives, Politics
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Trump 100
Trump’s 100 days, with charts; Even the conservative Wall Street Journal considers Trump’s a “failed presidency”; Now the administration is looking to jail journalists; How MAGA loves public meltdowns; How Hegseth boasts of axing a program as “woke” that was … Continue reading
Posted in authoritarianism, conservatives, Politics
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Tribal Warpaint
How Trump doesn’t want to govern, and rejects the idea of American government as a collaboration; How the idea of consumer choice led to the idea of being gay; Trump and covid.gov rewrite the history, as authoritarians do; How Trump … Continue reading
What Conservatives Mean by the Deep State
Namely, anything that interferes with their agenda, in effect the entirety of Jonathan Rauch’s “constitution of knowledge,” since MAGA conservatives don’t truly believe in the Constitution or our system of government; Robert Reich on the billionaire class, that doesn’t care … Continue reading
Posted in authoritarianism, conservatives, Human Nature, Politics
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The War Against Intelligence
Trump’s rage against smart people; Defunding Harvard will hobble medical research that would benefit people like us; Historian Lauren Thompson compares the Gilded Age to the Trump Age; Trump and Vance praised b conservatives for lying about abortion; Hegseth purges … Continue reading
Posted in authoritarianism, conservatives, Culture, Politics
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