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 (2003-2013)
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- Here’s a New One: Terrain Theory
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Meta
Category Archives: Politics
More Items from Recent Weeks…
Hemant Mehta’s summary of the “Project 2025” plan by conservatives to turn the nation into a Christian theocracy; The trend in the US of the nonreligious; How drug use doesn’t cause homeless; it’s usually the other way around; and conservative … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Music, Politics, Religion
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Deep Questions and Tribal Answers
Science fiction and philosophy; The next frontier of book bans; Ken Ham rues the difficulty of indoctrinating children; Paul Krugman on voters, and why conservatives still think the economy is bad. Big Think, Jonny Thomson, 3 Oct 2023: Apocalypse philosophy: … Continue reading
Posted in Philosophy, Politics, Religion, science fiction
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Evens and Beginnings
Veritasium on cognitive ease; How the world views the US’s disarray (due invariably to Republicans); How a century ago in France, smelling bad was a good thing; how standards about hygiene have changed; Two WaPo pieces about the decline of … Continue reading
Posted in Music, Politics, Psychology, Religion
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How Politics and Religion Are All About Human Psychology, Chapter 5,271,009
How dumb fascists can be dangerous, re: the Biden impeachment hearing; About The Shepherd of Hermas, an obscure Christian text, once popular, now forgotten; Why Trump wants Gen. Milley to be killed, and Trump’s belief in his superior genes; David … Continue reading
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Politics, Psychology, Religion
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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
Posted in Conservative Resistance, Politics, Social Progress
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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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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
Comments Off on Two Political Items, Two Intellectual Items