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: July 2022
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
We watched the entire 10-episode run of the latest Star Trek show, “Strange New Worlds,” which finished late last week, and it was OK.
Posted in Star Trek
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Intercessory Prayer and Science
About a month ago I put together a post in part about how belief in prayer reflects a fundamental inability to understand cause and effect in the real, actual, physical world; that post is here. I had a current link … Continue reading
Kids These Days, Bauerlein and Will Style
Beware cranky old men complaining about kids these days. Surely George F. Will, a renowned (conservative) political commentator, knows better. Washington Post, George F. Will, 8 July 2022: How millennials became aggressively illiberal, censorious young adults
Posted in Culture, Technology
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Ensoulment and Miscarriages
Here’s a nice essay that observes how the prevelance of spontaneous abortions — miscarriages — doesn’t seem consistent with the theological position of “ensoulment,” the notion that God inserts the just-feritilized embryo with a soul.
Fiddler on the Roof
Over the past couple evenings we’ve watched the movie version of a musical I had never seen before, in any form: Fiddler on the Roof. I was aware it was a big-hit musical, back in the 1960s or ’70s, in … Continue reading
Posted in Movies, Music, Social Progress
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Failed Policies? Or Disingenuous Ones?
Republican policies have failed the nation — Thom Hartmann explains how. Republican positions have been wrong, wrong, wrong — David Brin explains why. Or have they? The rich are getting richer, and the fundamentalists are getting their way. Perhaps it’s … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Politics
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The Gun Nuts, Like the Terrorists, Are Winning
The terrorists of 9/11 won by not destroying the country, but by instilling a paranoia in American society that entails those excruciating TSA lines to board airplanes that involve taking off shoes and belts. By millions of us, every day. … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Politics
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Climate Change Denial and Christian Nationalists
Today, links about the threats, to American democracy and the survival of the planet, from conservatives, especially the religious ones. NYT, Paul Krugman, 4 July 2022: Another Step Toward Climate Apocalypse
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Religion, Science
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Independence
It’s always struck me that America (that is, the US) stands defiantly independent against the rest of the world, secure in its self-righteousness and uncaring or even contemptuous of what other countries think about it. After all, they’re not the … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Politics
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The Blue Nation and the Red Nation
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.” — variations by Bertrand Russell, William Butler Yeats, and others.
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Politics
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