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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Monthly Archives: September 2023
Fixing the Budget; Civics Education and Constitutions
How to fix the national budget: more tax revenue (not necessarily raising tax rates); Civics education and various ideas for rewriting constitutions. Apropos of this weekend’s events in Washington DC. In some cases there are smart solutions to our problems … Continue reading
Science and Political Items
First, a couple science bits. Let’s start with an intriguing episode of Veritasium. Veritasium: Math Has A Fatal Flaw. Maybe not a “flaw” but an aspect beyond human intuitive understanding: how in any system of mathematics, there exist true statements … Continue reading
Posted in Mathematics, Politics, Science, science fiction
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False Equivalencies, and Books That Cannot Exist
Items today: Biden is old, but sane, while Trump is nuts; Headlines about faith, book banning, and the Biden impeachment; On the street push back from Fox News’ claims that big cities are hellholes; What Trump means by “his people”; … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Music, Politics, Psychology
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Larry Kramer RIP
I discovered today that my long-time friend Larry Kramer — no, not the writer Larry Kramer, but one Charles L. Kramer who lived in Los Angeles for decades, until his move to suburban Austin TX back in 2006 — has … Continue reading
Posted in Personal history
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Rapture, Autism, Economics, Authoritarianism
The predicted Rapture that did not (of course) come true; How some Christians believe autism is demonic, and (of course) why they’re wrong; Paul Krugman on why Republicans cling to “right-wing economics”; Heather Cox Richardson, excerpting her new book, on … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Politics, Psychology
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Executions, Dictators, and the GOP’s Own Reality
Trump and other Republicans float the execution of Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley; this is where Republicans are: executions; How wannabe dictator Trump would take NBC and other news outlets off the air; More about the GOP’s attack on truth … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Lunacy, Politics, Psychology
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Two Political Items, Two Intellectual Items
NYT’s Michelle Goldberg on the legacy of Rupert Murdoch; Responses to conservative dismissals of climate change (with some quotes by Carl Sagan); Veritasium: How knot theory could save your life; Yuval Noah Harari on how history is the study of … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, History, Politics
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Disinformation, Conservative Denial, and Conspiracy Theories
Why would the GOP block research into misinformation? Hmm.; The pattern of conservative science denial: delay, deflect, downplay; CNN on how how conspiracy theories are tearing American families apart; With concluding thoughts about the idea of responsible citizenship. This is … Continue reading
Posted in Politics, Psychology
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Murdoch, Azarian, Reich, and Scientists
Items today: The retirement of Rupert Murdoch, who became wealthy by degrading American politics and appealing to many Americans’ worst instincts; Republican hypocrisy example: John Fetterman vs. Lauren Boebert; with a classic definition: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Politics, Psychology, Science, Social Progress
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Today’s Items about Politics and Culture
Is the attempt to impeach Biden an example of tit for tat, or something else?; How attendees at the Dreamforce conference this week didn’t recognize the right-wing media depictions of San Francisco, and other cities, as ‘hellholes’. Here’s a piece … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Politics
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