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
Category Archives: Morality
Advance Warnings
Tsunami Alert! Robert Reich on Donald Trump’s cabinet of sycophants and charlatans; Threats against those who defy the “Gospel of Trump”; Heather Cox Richardson look back on the history of business vs the government; How the right perceives the murder … Continue reading
Rogue’s Gallery
A Fox News host for Secretary of Defense. Stephen Miller. Matt Gaetz for…. anything. We shouldn’t be surprised. Evidence that Russia is playing Trump; Trump’s picks for his cabinet are surprising even many Republicans; Why does it take two guys … Continue reading
Factory Settings
The idea of “factory settings” as describing base human nature, and how some people can transcend them; A woman wonders if religion is the only way to instill her child with “scaffolding for spirituality and morality” (answer: no); Richard Dawkins … Continue reading
Posted in Human Nature, Morality, Politics, Religion
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Lies Absurd, and Telling
The latest absurd Republican lie is about cat-eating Haitians, and they don’t care whether it’s true or not, they know it will rile up their base; A Republican suggests that the Great Depression was planned; An article that quotes Republican … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Lunacy, Morality, Politics
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How Beliefs Prevail over Evidence and Reality
Democrats have fixed the economy, but many people don’t “believe” it; CBS News’ Ted Koppel visits a Wisconsin State Fair; The crowd cheers Trump’s latest word salad; How conservatives actually hate American values; And how the mainstream press in America … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Meaning, Morality, Politics
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Alternative Political Realities
I continue to find examples like these fascinating. I know they are extreme examples, and not representative of conservatives in general. But that these claims and attitudes still exist, and are widely circulated, suggests to me that, in the big … Continue reading
Infrastructure, the Constitution, Changing Minds, and Fringe Items
How expanding America’s highways doesn’t solve their congestion; Ten ways the heat is changing us, including impacts on the infrastructure; Another perspective on issues with the US Constitution; Changing minds, appeals to fear, or persuasion; Fringe items about a fake … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Lunacy, Morality, Science, Technology
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Robert Reich, THE COMMON GOOD
Here’s another shortish book I read recently, not a memoir but a book at the intersection of politics, morality, and human nature, which is itself another theme of my reading the past two or three years. It’s by Robert Reich, … Continue reading
Posted in Book Notes, Culture, Education, Morality, Politics
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Human Nature, Morality, Politics
I think the title here is the name for the broad category of my interests. They all blend together. They connect. For today: Would conservatives ever allow a revision of the US Constitution? No matter how dysfunctional it’s become, no … Continue reading
Posted in Human Nature, Morality, Politics
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Preferred Relativism
A story about the right’s “50-year-plot” to wreck democracy, and attendant thoughts about how conservatives reject one kind of relativism, and embrace another; The credulousness of conservatives; Notes from the fringe: vaccines; rationalizing Hannibal Lecter; Democrats are wolves; wives afraid … Continue reading
Posted in conservatives, Morality, Science
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