The Plane. George Saunders. Lying. And AI spam.

Posted on Thursday 15 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Will begin posting more about science fiction; see previous post;
  • That Qatari plane is a white elephant they’ve been trying to dump for years;
  • A piece by the novelist George Saunders about the firing of the head of the Library of Congress;
  • Kyle Mantyla at Right Wing Watch about how Christian Nationalists lie;
  • How the Trump administration is canceling grants to study misinformation;
  • And a note about how some of the spam comments I get to this blog are obviously written by AI.
– – –

I need to get back to posting reports of the science fiction I’ve been reading, not just reports of nonfiction. (I don’t call these posts “reviews”.) I read four sf novels in April, and seven back in October; I just posted about one, and I’ll write the rest up here soon.

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So it seems that Qatari 747 they want to gift Trump (when did ‘gift’ become a verb?) is something of a white elephant that they haven’t been able to get rid of. So why not let Trump pay the maintenance costs?

Newsweek, 15 May 2025: Qatar’s Gift to Trump Is Unsold Plane It’s Been Trying to Dump for Years

Meanwhile, US security analysts are forecasting that it will take $1 billion to take the plane apart and put it back together to meet security standards. And will take years. But such a win! Right MAGA fans?

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John Scalzi, WHEN THE MOON HITS YOUR EYE

Posted on Thursday 15 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

(Tor, March 2025, 323pp)

John Scalzi is one of the most popular of current science fiction writers, even as he’s not regarded, I think, as a *serious* sf writer by the critics or even readers. He’s entertaining, often humorous or even snarky, and he reworks ideas from traditional sf. His most popular works include a series of space opera novels that began with his first, OLD MAN’S WAR, and a pseudo-parody of Star Trek called REDSHIRTS. He writes in a classic sf mode: take a premise, and see where it goes.

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Current Politics as Reflections of Human Nature

Posted on Wednesday 14 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • My daily routine;
  • How Trump would be king and end the rule of law in America, and how this is understandable given base human nature;
  • Paul Krugman on the existential threat of climate change, that conservatives deny or simply do not understand;
  • How the Supreme Court is driving a return to patriarchy, and the conservative drive to preserve the best traditions of the past, which turn out to be tribalistic, pre-Enlightenment, ideas.
– – –

Most of my days are split into three segments. In the mornings after breakfast I spend up to an hour checking some two dozen websites that I check virtually every day, from Slate and Salon and The Atlantic, to Joe.My.God and Jerry Coyne and Big Think, to OnlySky and Right Wing Watch and File 770, plus Facebook and Gmail. From them I collect notable items as links in a running Word document (used to be in Wordpad).

Then I go about my day, working sfadb.com or reading books or writing bits of my own book, or going on walks or hikes and making trips to the supermarket. The parts about books concern issues more abstruse and intellectual and fundamental than the scary vagaries of politics.

And near the end of the day I return to the links I collected in the morning, review them and decide what to write up in the day’s blog post. Most of the time, lately, it’s about the current American political scene. Not every day. But again today.

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We’re Living in an Age of Regression

Posted on Tuesday 13 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • In Trump’s America, it’s every parent and child out for themselves;
  • Who decides who’s Christian? The government?
  • Fox News says the Qatari bribe to Trump is fine because FDR gave three planes to the Saudis… 80 years ago;
  • Robert Reich responds to RFK Jr. about Trump and oligarchs;
  • And Günter Wand conducts the apocalyptic finale of Bruckner’s 8th.
– – –

Another sign of the regressive nature of Trump and MAGA. There is no society; we’re all a bunch of self-interested individuals in competition with each other. Tribalism. So much for the dreams of the Founders.

NY Times, guest essay by Pepper Stetler, 11 May 2025: In Trump’s America, All Parents and Children for Themselves

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Tim Urban, WHAT’S OUR PROBLEM?, post 1

Posted on Tuesday 13 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

(Wait But Why, 2024, 584pp, including 112pp of characters, acknowledgements, notes, bibliography, and bio)

I wrote about this book back in December, before deciding to buy it. Which I did despite some cautionary signs: it’s apparently self-published, it’s enormous, it’s expensive ($50), the only blurbs are by semi-celebrities like Lex Fridman, Andrew Yang, and Elon Musk (!). Worse, upon seeing the actual book, there’s *no index!*. Perhaps a consequence of its being self-published. (Though there are nearly 100 pages of detailed notes, keyed to the main text by page numbers.) On the other hand, he has a “long-form” blog and did a popular TED talk a while back and has some 600K followers.

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Palace in the Sky, For the One

Posted on Monday 12 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Several items today about the Trump administration’s acceptance from Qatar of a $400 million luxury 747, for Trump’s personal use;
  • How Trump shrugs off intelligence briefings; he knows what he knows because he’s smart;
  • How the story of a woman who struggled to get a job at NASA was taken down, and then she was fired, because DEI;
  • Another take on why the current administration is defunding the investments into technology and innovation that have made America great.
  • And so, it’s hard to be unaware that Americans are living in a fading nation.
– – –

The latest example of egregious behavior by Trump that most of the MAGA folks don’t care about is the gift by Qatar of a $400 million tricked-out Boeing 747, to serve as Trump’s Air Force One stand-in. Presidents aren’t suppose to get big gifts like this. It’s in the Constitution: the Emoluments Clause. But clearly Trump and MAGA do not care about the Constitution. And the right lawyers can justify anything.

ABC News, 11 May 2025: Trump administration poised to accept ‘palace in the sky’ as a gift for Trump from Qatar: Sources, subtitled “The luxury jumbo jet is to be used as Air Force One, sources told ABC News.”

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Disconnects from Reality, and a Couple Positive Notes

Posted on Sunday 11 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

On the one hand,

  • A Truth+ movie about ‘Lizard People’;
  • RFK Jr vows to stop chemtrails;
  • Democrats have a ‘dictatorship mentality’?
  • Texas Christians presume to spend a month celebrating God’s promises;
  • Tom Nichols on a witch hunt at the State Department;
  • When rain falls, Trump takes credit; when it stops, Biden’s to blame;
  • Making misinformation great again, on the Internet;
  • How MAGA’s favorite fantasy, The Turner Diaries, is about genocide against racial minorities.

On the other hand,

  • Adam Lee on how if America won’t build the future, China will;
  • How America’s fourth estate — journalism — has and is keeping us advised of the lawlessness on the right.
– – –

On the one hand…

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Talking Points Memo, Hunter Walker, 6 May 2025: President Trump’s Media Company Is Offering Movies About ‘Lizard People’ And Other Wild Conspiracy Theories, subtitled “Among other things, movies on the Truth+ streaming service have suggested Jesus Christ and Buddha are aliens.” (via)

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How the US is retreating into tribalism

Posted on Saturday 10 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • The White House press secretary, addressing the firing of the head of the Library of Congress, is either ignorant, stupid, or lying;
  • How the natalist movement, perhaps led by Elon Musk, relies on endless growth, which is not plausible;
  • To some MAGA folks religious freedom means you can be any kind of Christian you want; Roger Stone would execute anyone who questions Trump; How Trump pleads ignorance about so many things; How a simplistic word search screws MAGA voters; The surgeon general nominee suggests trusting only people you can look in the eye.
– – –

It’s impossible to summarize a substantial book in half an hour, which is why my Bronowski summary yesterday and today leaves me with less than usual time for today’s news items.

From Facebook.

Others have made similar points. The Library of Congress collects *every* book published. That’s its mission. It’s not a lending library. For anyone, let alone kids. She’s stupid, lying, or both.

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J. Bronowksi: THE ASCENT OF MAN

Posted on Saturday 10 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

(Little, Brown, 1973, 448pp, including 9pp (in tiny print) of bibliography and index)

This is a substantial book that was popular in its time but is probably not really recommendable now, simply because it’s 50 years out of date in those sections that impinge on current science. (That’s the first problem.) It was a big deal in the 1970s because it was the book companion to a 13-part BBC TV series (it would have been on PBS in the States) by a well-known erudite mathematician/historian, who hosted and narrated the show as it was filmed in various spots around the world. It followed the similar series CIVILISATION by Kenneth Clark, and was followed by three or four similar shows, including Carl Sagan’s CONTACT in 1980. Television was in its first prestige period, and least with public television, in that it could finance big-budget documentaries like these.

And therein lies the second problem. Continue reading →

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The US Is Becoming a Demon-Haunted World. Not Necessarily Again.

Posted on Friday 9 May 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • The National Science Foundation abolishes its 37 divisions;
  • Yet another Trump sycophant from Fox gains a top position, as DC’s top prosecutor;
  • Loonies: Loomer on witchcraft, Hegseth on homosexuality;
  • How wacko conspiracy theories are now affecting the highest levels of the US government;
  • And recalling Sagan’s THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD, and Asimov’s “cult of ignorance” quote. And how all this is an inescapable part of human nature.
– – –

Once again, the United States is ceding leadership in science to the rest of the world.

Science, Jeffrey Mervis, 8 May 2025: Exclusive: NSF faces radical shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions, subtitled “Changes seen as a response to presidential directives on what research to fund”

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