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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Meta
Monthly Archives: February 2017
Max Tegmark: Our Universe Has Finally Awoken
Every year the editor and agent John Brockman, who specializes in works by scientists, hosts an annual question at Edge.org, soliciting hundreds of brief essay responses, and then publishing them in a book. The responses are also posted on the … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
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Links and Comments: Trump’s Lies; Right Wing Media; Christian Education Agenda; Blowfish Fallacy
Slate’s Will Oremus compiled The Lies, Exaggerations, and Obfuscations That Came Out of Trump’s Mouth While He Called the Media “Dishonest”. Bottom line: When Trump or his advisers say things that aren’t true, it’s not their fault; the real villains … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Lunacy, Psychology, Religion
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Rereading LORD OF THE FLIES
Even before the reaction to Tr*mp’s election brought renewed attention to the famous dystopian classics like Nineteen Eight-Four [that’s the proper, bibliographic, title; ‘1984’ is a sort of nickname] and Brave New World, I had contemplated returning to some of … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Evolution, Species Reset
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Zuckerman on Evangelical Immorality
Phil Zuckerman on The Immorality Of Evangelical Christians In The Age Of Trump. Donald Trump has proven himself – by the hour – as a cold, heartless lover of lies and hater of humanity. And 81% of white Evangelicals voted … Continue reading
Anne Fadiman: EX LIBRIS
Here’s a pleasant, ‘occasional’ book of short essays about reading and books — a book about books. The author is the daughter of the famed Clifton Fadiman, an editor for Encyclopedia Britannica, an editor for Book-of-the-Month Club back in the … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes
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Links and Comments: Loyalty, Defiance, Imagined Realities
A revealing piece in today’s Slate: The Only Truth Is Trump, in which William Saleton reveals the subtext of Kellyanne Conway’s response to the Flynn debacle. His points: Loyalty within Trump’s circle is more important than loyalty to country. The … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, MInd
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Links and Comments: Human Biases and Christian Superstition
Friendly Atheist: What Caused the Oroville Dam Crisis? Some Christians Online Blame CA Liberals for Defying God. Here in California our several years of drought have ended (at least in the northern part of the state) in so much rain … Continue reading
Posted in MInd, Supernatural
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A Vision of Possible Futures
Here’s a great video called Wanderers, by Erik Wernquest, that depicts visions of a future in which humanity has “conquered the solar system” in the words of this frame article at ScienceAlert.com. It’s narrated by Carl Sagan, whose introduction alludes … Continue reading
Posted in Human Progress, Space
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Link and Comments: Facts v Emotions
Slate, Jess Zimmerman: It’s Time to Give Up On Facts — Or at least to temporarily lay them down in favor of a more useful weapon: emotions. Yet another article (by a former fact-checker) about how human mental biases deflect … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, MInd
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Reading the Bible: Genesis, 1
This past month I’ve resumed my close reading of the Bible. I began last year, reading overviews of the Old Testament before reading the New Testament itself closely, taking notes on personal reactions, and reading commentaries and noting salient points … Continue reading
Posted in Bible
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