(1) HAIL TO THE CHIEF. This would not be a typical way of celebrating Independence Day anywhere but fandom. ScienceFiction.com compiled a list of the “Top 10 Supervillains Who Have Taken Over America”. At number nine —
- Doctor Doom
Doom conquered the United States in 2099, made himself President and did what you’d expect Doom to do in that position. It’s worth noting that he also became a God of his own universe in 2015’s ‘Secret Wars’, so this President thing isn’t that impressive.
(2) LOWERING THE BOOM. It’s not only the blowing up part that’s dangerous for humans. The wastes are, too. The Verge explains “How Hollywood and the Army are shaping the future of fireworks”.
Another ingredient in fireworks, called perchlorate, helps the fuel combust and makes the colors shine more brightly. But it’s also thought to be toxic, which is why the Environmental Protection Agency regulates how much of the stuff can seep into drinking water.
As with air pollution, it’s not completely clear the extent to which fireworks displays contaminate water systems with perchlorate. But a 2007 study conducted by EPA scientists found that perchlorate levels in Oklahoma surface waters increased by between 24 to over 1,000 times baseline levels after an Independence Day display — and it took from 20 to 80 days to go back down.
Scientists with the US Army’s Armament Research, Development, and Engineering Center (ARDEC) are trying find a cheap, effective replacement for perchlorate. For the military, which uses pyrotechnics to mimic actual battlefield conditions in training simulations, perchlorate contamination of groundwater can shut down training operations. “When soldiers get deployed to real combat theaters, they are less prepared,” says Jared Moretti, a scientist with ARDEC who specializes in pyrotechnics.
(3) A CHANCE TO HELP. In the aftermath of Dwain Kaiser’s death, a GoFundMe has been launched to assist his widow.
We are raising money to help his wife, JoAnn Kaiser, who is in her 80s and lives well below the poverty level. Dwain and JoAnn owned one of the last used bookstores in Pomona, not because they made a enough money to live on, but because they loved educating our community. More importantly, they loved BOOKS. JoAnn is unable to cover the overwhelming expenses she will incur during this time of great loss: funeral, a memorial service, moving, and paying store bills. We reach out to all of you for support. Any assistance you can provide will impact JoAnn’s ability to grieve the loss of her best friend and husband without the burden of wondering how she is going to survive financially. All proceeds will go toward Dwain’s funeral, a memorial service, and moving expenses.
The goal is $10,000, and at this writing they are halfway there.
(4) LORD OF THE RINGS SETTLEMENT. Yahoo! Movies, in “Warner Bros., Tolkien Estate Settle Massive ‘Lord of the Rings’ Lawsuit”, reports the parties have reached agreement.
Warner Bros. and the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien have resolved a rights dispute over “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings,” the two parties said in a court filing.
The Tolkien estate and its book publisher HarperCollins had filed an $80 million lawsuit against Warner Bros., its New Line subsidiary and Rings/Hobbit rightsholder Saul Zaentz Co. for copyright infringement and breach of contract, in 2012, as reported here in “What Has It Got In Its Jackpotses?”
The gist of the suit is that their agreement allows the studio to create only “tangible” merchandise based on the books, not digital products like the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: Online Slot Game.
…The suit also complained the defendants had asserted rights to exploit the books through anything from ringtones and downloadable games to hotels, restaurants and travel agencies.
(5) DC AT SEA. Batman features in the new livery some Italian ferryboats — “Batman jumps on board the new Tirrenia ships”.
Tirrenia, partnering with Gruppo Onorato Armatori and Warner Bros. Consumer Products, has started a great restyling of their ferry ships.
The classical white and blue livery will progressively be substituted by the DC Superheroe par excellende: Batman!
Sharden, docked today 7th April of 2017 at pier 18 of the Port of Civitavecchia, is one of the first Tirrenia ships to wear the new colours: both sides of the ships are different from one another: at one side are Batman and Robin, at the other Batman with his fierce enemy, the Joker.
(6) TRIVIAL TRIVIA
The Department of Veterans Affairs has approved the hammer of Thor (the Norse god of thunder and lightning) as a religious symbol for veteran gravestones. Two soldiers have headstones bearing the hammer.
(7) TODAY IN HISTORY
- July 4, 1865 — Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was published.
- July 4, 1939 — Julius Schwartz ditched the last day of the first World Science Fiction Convention and went with Mort Weisinger and Otto Binder to see a ballgame at Yankee Stadium. He still got to see fan history being made. Baseball fan history.
A very special thing happened that afternoon: Lou Gehrig announced his retirement from the game of baseball. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. It’s something I will never forget.
Gehrig’s famous lines echoed throughout the park:
For the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
- July 4, 1997 – Pathfinder lands on Mars
(8) THE FIRST COUNCIL. Noting with pleasure that the President has reestablished the National Space Council, Jerry Pournelle remembers the final achievement of the original Council of which he was part.
When the Bush I administration took office, most of the Reagan people were replaced by Bush supporters. As a Reagan man – I chaired the Citizens Advisory Council on National Space Policy that in 1980 wrote the Space and Space Defense policy papers for the incoming Reagan administration – my White House access and contacts effectively came to a halt. There were no more Reagan men in the White House.
However, there was the newly created National Space Council, headed by the Vice President, Dan Quayle. Mr. Quayle was not a space cadet, and hadn’t been well known in the pro-space community. Until the day he was asked to be then Vice President George H. W. Bush’s running mate, he was referred to as “the distinguished junior Senator from Indiana”, and generally well regarded; the day after he joined the ticket he became a buffoon not to be taken seriously by the very same news media. However, he took the post of Chairman of the National Space Council seriously, and when the Citizen’s Advisory Council proposed an X project, the SSX, he met with General Dan Graham, rocket genius Max Hunter, and council chairman Jerry Pournelle.
We presented our proposal for the SSX, a 600,000 gross liftoff weight (GLOW) single stage to orbit (SSTO) X Project; as Max Hunter said, we hoped it would make orbit; it would sure scare it to death. It would also be savable; and it could be flown sub-orbital. Of course it was fully recoverable. The preliminary design description was done mostly in my office, with visiting members of the Council working on it.
Mr. Quayle listened to us, and the asked advice from his technical people. He was told that recoverable single stage to orbit was impossible and had been proved to be so in a RAND study. Mr. Quayle then asked RAND to review that study, which they did, and Lo! It turned out not to be impossible after all. It was a possible X Project. Mr. Quayle tried to get it funded; apparently he took us quite seriously. He was unable to get full funding, but he did get Air Force funding for a scale model. Douglas won the competition for that X project, and it was built, on time and within budget, and delivered to White Sands test range for flight testing. It became known as the DC-X (Douglas Aircraft gave all their aircraft, such as the SC-3, that kind of designation).
One big controversy about vertical rocket landings was that it could not be controlled at low altitude and the speeds involved. Another was that it would re-enter nose down, and wouldn’t be able to turn tail down. DC-X flew 10 successful missions, landing and being refueled and flown again; there are plenty of reports on that. On one of those missions it went from nose up the nose down, then back to nose up in which orientation it made a perfect landing.
Alas after the 10th flight the Air Force turned the ship over to NASA. On the eleventh mission, it successfully landed, but a NASA technician had failed to connect the hydraulic line to one of the landing feet, and it fell over. It could have survived that, but due to over vigorous (and needless testing) the NASA test people cracked the hydrogen fuel tank, then welded it and sent it to fly. Falling over cracked that tank and DC-X literally burned on the ground a hydrogen leaked out.
Mr. Clinton won the 1992 election, and in 1993 abolished the National Space Council. President George W. Bush did not revive it, nor did President Obama.
(9) BREAKING OUT. The Verge interviews “Fantasy author Myke Cole on grounding a medieval world with demons in it”.
…For his next act, Cole is changing things up a bit. His upcoming series, The Sacred Throne, exchanges the modern-day world that he’s been using as a setting for a more traditional fantasy realm. The Sacred Throne series is very much a modern-day fantasy thematically, but more on the “grimdark” side of the genre in the vein of authors like Joe Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence, or George R.R. Martin than the more optimistic worlds of Tolkien or Lewis….
Why the change from the more urban fantasy setting from your Shadow Ops series to something closer to traditional swords and sorcery?
This book is super important me. So the Shadow Ops series, when it sold and when it got praised, it was always the authentic military voice. I think I might have been the only currently serving military member writing. At the time I was still on duty to the Coast Guard when that book came out. There’s a lot of retired military guys writing, but I don’t know anyone who is actually active and writing, which is what I was doing. So I kept getting praise for my “authentic military voice.” I was just kind of like, “Okay, I’m glad that people like this, and I’m definitely happy if it sells books,” but the truth is that you start to think “Well, is this a gimmick?” Do people like my writing because I’m a good writer, or do people like my writing because it’s authentic and it’s a military voice? And of course that set me up for kind of growing insecurity, and so it became very important to me to prove to myself that I was a writer with a capital W. That I can do other things.
(10) PRETENDERS TO THE THRONE. They make number one sound far ahead of the other four — “Five Writers Who Could Be the Next Stephen King”.
- Andrew Pyper
The number one writer who could challenge the King for positioning is Andrew Pyper. Pyper’s most recent novel titled “The Damned” is rapidly becoming a massive success. The 2013 novel has already become a best seller. This is number six and by far the most pleasing to his following. The Writer from Toronto has written the horror story and makes no apologies. The book follows “The Demonologist” which established quite a fan base for the writer who is beginning to delve more deeply into horror genre, but without the commercial nonsense that many come to expect. He’s not prone to cliche and you’ll have to read it to find out how he makes use of throwing curves so you won’t really know what’s coming up.
(11) BANGARANGING ON. The Washington Post’s Ada Tseng interviews Dante Basco, who played Rufio in Hook (an orange-mohawked guy who was killed by Captain Hook in the film), and has now made a short-film about Rufio, Bangarang, which is available online — “Remember Rufio in ‘Hook’? The actor is trying to keep his cult character’s legacy alive.”.
Basco has a cameo in the film, but is too old to play the young Rufio. A new generation of kids now knows him better for his voice-over work as Prince Zuko in the Nickelodeon cartoon “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” But he still gets recognized by “Hook” fans every single day.
“I’ve been Rufio longer than I’ve not been Rufio, for sure,” he says. “To this day, it’s a blessing and a curse. Some people have such strong memories of me as a young actor, that it’s hard to see me as anything else. But everyone comes to Hollywood hoping to get a role people are going to remember them for, and I get girls saying I was their first crush, or Asian guys saying Rufio was the first time they saw an Asian kid on-screen that wasn’t nerdy or stereotypical, so I was lucky the character that resonated was cool.”
(12) TZ. John King Tarpinian told me he’d be at home today watching the Twilight Zone Marathon. And Steve Vertlieb made a timely recommendation that I read his 2009 post “The Twilight Zone: An Element of Time”:
“The Twilight Zone: An Element Of Time” is my published 2009 celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the original, classic Rod Serling television series. With original teleplays by Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, Ray Bradbury, George Clayton Johnson, and the visionary pen of host Rod Serling, along with accompanying scores by Bernard Herrmann, Jerry Goldsmith, and Fred Steiner, among others, this tender recollection of the iconic sci-fi/fantasy anthology series may bring to mind your own special memories of the program. Be swept away into another dimension with this sweet remembrance, adrift upon rippling currents of time and space, only to be found in…”The Twilight Zone.”
Here’s the beginning:
For a writer searching for his voice in the midst of corporate conservatism during the late 1950s, the creative horizon seemed elusive at best. Television, although still a youthful medium, had begun to stumble and fall, succumbing to the pressures of financial backing and sponsorship in order to survive its early growing pains. Navigating a successful career through a cloak of fear and indecision became problematic for a young writer struggling to remain relevant.
Rod Serling had penned several landmark teleplays for The Columbia Broadcasting System, including Patterns, and Requiem For A Heavyweight, but the perils of network censorship were beginning to take a toll on the idealistic author. As his artistic voice and moral integrity became increasingly challenged by network cowardice, Serling found his search for lost horizons alarmingly elusive.
(13) HALF CAST. Stewart Clarke in “Second ‘Fantastic Beasts’ Film Starts Shooting as New Plot Details Emerge” on Variety, says that the second Fantastic Beasts film will be set in Paris in the 1920s and will have Jude Law as a young Albus Dumbledore.
The studio offered new details of the upcoming film, which will see Eddie Redmayne return as magical beasts lover Newt Scamander to take on Gellert Grindelwald, the dark wizard played by Johnny Depp, who was unmasked at the end of the first movie.
Jude Law will star as future Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore in the film, a younger version of the character originally played by the late Richard Harris and Michael Gambon in the Harry Potter films. The sequel moves the main action to 1920s Paris, shortly after Scamander’s capture of Grindelwald at the end of the first installment.
Warner Bros. revealed that “Grindelwald has made a dramatic escape and has been gathering more followers to his cause – elevating wizards above all non-magical beings. The only one who might be able to stop him is the wizard he once called his dearest friend, Albus Dumbledore. But Dumbledore will need help from the wizard who had thwarted Grindelwald once before, his former student Newt Scamander.”
(14) MORE THAN JUST DECORATIVE. JJ sends this along with a safety warning, “Totally not a suggestion for Hugo winners with annoying neighbors. Purely hypothetically.”
@LUCIFERwriters fyi a Hugo award is very heavy and pointy and would make an excellent murder weapon. Fictionally. In fiction. Not real life.
— Tara O'Shea (@tara_oshea) July 4, 2017
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, JJ, Steve Vertlieb, Mark-kitteh, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day, the e.e. cummings of filers. clack.]
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First?!?
@5: I wonder what they think they’re doing — will a simple ferry be more exciting, drawing more passengers? (I’d wonder whether other passengers would consider such combative displays a bad omen.)
@8: Pournelle’s recollection is at odds with reality. (Not an uncommon occurrence.) Quayle-in-the-Senate was referred to courteously by habit — I don’t recall hearing what his colleagues actually thought of him — but he wasn’t called a buffoon in the media until he acted like one.
Clickity
11) I’m pretty sure it’s not Robin Williams’ character Peter, but Hook who kills Rufio.
(1) [ZodStalk]
Chip Hitchcock: Pournelle’s recollection is at odds with reality. (Not an uncommon occurrence.) Quayle-in-the-Senate was referred to courteously by habit — I don’t recall hearing what his colleagues actually thought of him — but he wasn’t called a buffoon in the media until he acted like one.
Yes, it certainly reads as though he’s claiming that Quayle was only referred to as a buffoon because he was the Republican running mate, and not because he actually did and said a whole bunch of incredibly clueless and stupid things. I’m glad that he was such an ardent supporter of the space program — but it doesn’t change the fact that he provided a great ongoing demonstration of not being terribly bright. 🙄
Ticky
@Chip
[Quayle] wasn’t called a buffoon in the media until he acted like one.
Mike Barnicle referred to Quayle as an “ignorant buffoon” in the Boston Globe as early as 3 Nov 1988, before the election had even taken place. Gary Stein, in the Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel of 9 Nov called him the “Indiana buffoon”.
Bill: Mike Barnicle referred to Quayle as an “ignorant buffoon” in the Boston Globe as early as 3 Nov 1988, before the election had even taken place. Gary Stein, in the Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel of 9 Nov called him the “Indiana buffoon”.
Since you took the trouble to look that up, I’m sure that you also made the effort to find out what he had already said and done by that point to earn that designation. 🙄
Sarah Pinsker’s story “And Then There Were (N-1)” features a Nebula Award trophy used as a murder weapon. When and if she wins the Hugo, perhaps she’ll write another story.
(8) So Space Defense is a former TV star turned warmonger thing. Okey-doke!
When Quayle was chosen VP, most people went “Who?” Those who didn’t go “Who?” went “Why him?”. Because he wasn’t super-respected before. His habit of making confused and nonsensical statements was what got him laughed at, not for being the running mate to the guy who was expected to and did win the election. Starting with things he said during the convention, and continuing on to “what a waste it is not to have a mind”.
Also, he thought Mars is in the same orbit as Earth, has canals, and has a breathable atmosphere. Yeah, that’s the guy I want heading up my space program! Guess ol’ Redacted forgot that part. (There’s a Quayle-Mars-The Martian-Potatoe joke in there somewhere, work it out yourself.)
(14) Your average Hugo is both a pointy weapon and a blunt object. Put some poison on it and you’ve covered all the bases.
(5) I saw one of these in dock at Genoa at the start of June, but there was a Wonder Woman version nearby that I thought was nicer and remember more clearly.
“There are pixels in them scrolls, there are millions in it”
“My God… It’s full of pixels.”
Or…
“File the pixel bay scrolls, HAL.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mike.”
4) this DOES make me wonder what Christopher Tolkien thinks of Hobbiton.
Dr. Pournelle’s rememberances can, I think (ought to be also, I think) cut a little slack; after all, that administration let him design and launch a space vehicle. Not many of us can say that.
It also let him propose THOR and help gin up the “Strategic Defense Initiative” which has often been credited as a large factor (last straw?) in convincing Gorbachev that the USSR was finished. (Certainly not the only factor and my rememberances are that the USSR was already on the brink and only required a little judicious pushing).
Nevertheless, I’m certain that Pournelle’s view from the inside was different from that seen from the outside.
Nah, I think if Sarah Pinsker wins a Hugo she isn’t likely to add it to her arsenal–the rocket isn’t quite sharp enough to stab anyone with, and might or might not make a good handle for clubbing someone with a base that in some years might make a good bludgeon but then again other years might not. And there’s always the chance the rocket will come away from the base, and then where will you be?
No, Sarah got it right the first time. A Nebula is nice and heavy–it’ll do some real damage if you hit someone in the head with it. None of the other awards have quite the murder potential of a Nebula, in my view. Which isn’t to say you couldn’t come up with a way to murder someone with a Hugo, or even a Locus or a BSFA, but those would probably have to be part of some sort of clever scheme, not just a straightforward weapon.
Not that I’ve spent any time thinking about it or anything.
@steve davidson: that is a common claim for the SDI; it is also commonly disbelieved. My read is that Gorbachev was the first leader young enough not to have been shaped by the huge casualties (24 million?) that Russia took in WWII, and so could behave sensibly when dealing with Mr. My-Wife’s-Astrologer-Guides-Me.
@Ann: Back in the 1970s, an episode of Ellery Queen featured a murder committed with a trophy – in that case, a mystery fiction trophy called “The Blunt Instrument.”
P.S. “Pixelscroll on the Godstalk Express”
“With Fifth, you get eggScrolls”
@Chip that’s why I included a question mark following that statement; the collapse was based on a stew of factors, not any single one; we can throw in the defeat in Afghanistan, Reagan’s hot mike pressing of the button, an increasingly strong NATO, the Polish resistance….
Regardless; very few SF authors have been admitted to such influential advisory capacities (remembering articles and commentary from the era I’m pretty sure that Pournelle and the others on the council were very proud of themselves), and I think it reasonable that Dr. Pournelle’s take-away(s) are far different from most everyone else operating from the outside.
To my mind, the criticism levelled at Qualye at the time was at least justified during a campaign (as was the speculation that he had only been selected because of key constituencies), but Pournelle worked with him in whatever limited capacity and obviously has more intimate knowledge of that experience than others. Doesn’t mean he’s right, doesn’t mean anyone else is, it’s just that in ths particular incidence, I think Dr. Pournelle is entitled to his view.
Most Dangerous SF Award: the David Gemmell Legend Award is a half-sized battle axe, and the Reddit Stabby award is, well, a stabby dagger, so I think those must be the front runners.
I recollect that Dan Quayle was remembered as an avid golfer, preferring to spend more time on a course than his elected seat.
He was very bad at being spontaneous.
Didn’t the Skylark Award actually set things on fire, if it was left in direct sunlight?
@Steve Wright
A bit like when the Walkie Talkie tower melted a car?
@Steve Wright:
Jane Yolen’s best coat being one of the things set on fire
My one experience with Dan Quayle was in the mid 1980s–well before he was VP.
At that time, I worked for a software company which made software to do spelling checking, which we licensed to companies that made word processors. Our partner was Merriam-Webster, the dictionary company, and they told me how then-Senator Quayle had called demanding they change the definition of “Hoosier” in their Third International dictionary.
It seems the senator had given a speech in which he waxed eloquent about how he was a Hoosier (a person from Indiana) and what sort of solid qualities of character and good citizenship that implied. Right after his speech, a Democratic senator read part of the definition of “Hoosier” from the Third International. “v. to really screw something up. n. a person who habitually screws things up.” (Or something like that. I see Wikipedia has something a bit different–but still bad. )
Webster told him that definitions were based on actual usage and that they wouldn’t consider removing one just because someone didn’t like it (if nothing else, foreigners reading English depend on it to know what someone meant AND to know when a word or phrase is vulgar). He then threatened to get the state of Indiana to stop buying any books from Webster.
They still told him no, and, as it happened, his threat was empty. (Good thing they didn’t tell him about the Hoosier boy and the Big Rock Candy Mountain.)
So when George Bush picked Dan Quayle as his running mate in 1988, my reaction wasn’t “who?” but “not that jackass?”
@Mark
The Crime Writers Association awards are known as the Daggers.
The Wikipedia article repeats a number of Pournelle’s claims, as do some other online sources, although they play down the importance of the Citizens’ Advisory Council.
I think the most interesting thing in the Wikipedia article is that a number of folks from the DC-X are now working with Jeff Bezos to produce the Blue Origin rocket. No one is attempting SSTO anymore, though. It does seem to barely be possible, but in no way is it cost-effective. What made the DC-X interesting was the vertical takeoff and landing.
Ann Leckie on July 5, 2017 at 4:52 am said:
I actually got to hold a rocket sans base a few months ago. They are, indeed, very heavy.
However, they unbolt from the base. So premeditated, er, mayhem, could easily ensue. But I’d hold the pointy end and bludgeon with the vanes.
ULTRAGOTHA: The Atlanta (1986) Hugos with the Georgia granite base seem optimum for the purpose.
After that rundown, the next step is to write a “Murder on the Orient Express” type story where ALL the sf awards did it.
That’s what we call timebinding — having the exact same fight over the exact same thing using the exact same arguments every time a certain trigger is dropped into the conversation.
It’s much more important to jump on Dr. Pournelle than to contemplate how a new National Space Council could make itself useful. But before that could happen people will have to jump on Trump who authorized its formation. There’s a rather Zeno-esque quality to the whole thing.
[godstalk]
@Mike Glyer: There’s a rather Zeno-esque quality to the whole thing. Doesn’t that mean that this time there’ll be half the number of arguments there were last time, then next time the number will be halved again, and then….
#6: Veteran’s Affairs seems to have approved Thor’s hammer way back in 2013, from what Google tells me. But if you didn’t already know, then it’s news to you. 🙂
As for Quayle, yes, my memory is that stories of his past idiocy started making the rounds the moment he was nominated.
LOL on Zeno.
@Greg H: So, the stupid was bone-deep. Ironic, him objecting to “Hoosier”, since he’s actually from Arizona and carpet-bagged Indiana with his daddy’s money. Also, what with his famous “potatoe” gaffe, I’m doubly amused that he had prior beef with a dictionary. Who knew?
@Mike: I think we’re not criticizing Jerry so much as making fun of Dan Quayle’s public image.
The problem with a new National Space Council is that space invariably involves a LOT of science, which isn’t highly regarded by the current administration. It also takes a heap of public money, ditto. And intellectual curiosity for its’ own sake, mega-ditto. Unless they can figure out how to run tacky gold-painted hotels on the moon, or seekrit space ray guns to take out CNN.
I daresay a Dragon Award (yeah, yeah) would make a great blunt instrument. Isn’t it a chunk of glass? Kinda tough to kill anyone with a Campbell(notaHugo) since it’s a plaque. You could maybe strangle someone with the Campbell tiara? I’ve hoisted a Hugo or four when pals have let me hold theirs, and some bases make good weapons, some don’t. And the rockets aren’t always securely attached to the bases. As for other awards, Emmys are heavy *and* have pointy bits, so those could do some damage.
I still fondly recall the “Columbo” episode where Robert Culp offs Dean Stockwell with a chunk of ice — in a swimming pool on a warm day in LA. The perfect murder, except of course there’s “just one more thing”.
What lurkertype said. If I thought for one minute that the current GOP had the slightest intent to support science or the space program, I would cheer. Given the current anti-science focus of the party, I (cynically) have to ask what’s really going on.
WRT Dr. Pournelle — I respect his accomplishments. I am saddened by his current willingness to accept Vladimir Putin’s interference and meddling in the election processes of western democracies. While following the link, I browsed the last month of Chaos Manor. Dr. Pournelle asked at one point, why would Putin want to destabilize the USA? Uh, I don’t know, maybe to take his greatest rival off the board? It stuns me that so many conservatives are willing to handwave off this threat to our country.
I get Dr. Pournelle’s fondness for New Gingrich because Newt supported the space program and still has visions of moonbases. But that ignores all the many things that Newt did (and is still doing) to undermine our democracy. Newt is the broken clock that may be right twice a day.
@steve davidson: Pournelle was a blowhard and a fool online back when online was much smaller and such behavior more-than-proportionally rarer. Given his errors about Quayle, I have trouble believing anything he says about his contribution, or about why it died.
@ JJ: The smartest thing Quayle ever did was to retire from public visibility after his term as VP was over. Probably after making enough money on the lecture circuit to keep him comfortable for the rest of his life.
@ Steve D: Yes, Quayle definitely started making a fool of himself well before the actual election. There was a lot of recycling of “dumb blond” jokes, and some (mostly tongue-in-cheek) speculation that he might have been picked for the “chicks dig handsome guys” factor — memorably skewered by Tom Smith with the line “He’s not there to win womens’ votes / No woman is stupid enough!” As many of his worst gaffes occurred while speaking off-the-cuff, there’s some reason to suspect that part of his problem was just being really bad at thinking while speaking, and that he really needed to be kept in a scripted environment.
@ Techgrrl1972: It stuns me that so many people with vivid memories of the Cold War (to hear them talk during the last 8 years) would be so uncritically willing to believe that Russia means us no harm.
@Greg Hullender
Apparently Merriam-Webster eventually caved because the only definition they give in their online dictionary for Hoosier now is:
Definition of Hoosier
:
a native or resident of Indiana —used as a nickname
—
Hoosier
adjective
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Hoosier
@Bryan
You have to look in the unabridged dictionary–the really big one. They don’t give that away for free online, I don’t think.
@Chip Hitchcock:
Pournelle was a blowhard back when he was still just doing the Chaos Manor column in Byte magazine, before most people knew that ‘online’ was a thing.
Certainly there were comments back in the early 1980s about him using a widely-read review/opinion column to get free samples of stuff that companies were trying to sell…
And he got rafts of it. Do you throw shade on reviewers who get free books? When I was a reviewer I rather liked that part.
Mike Glyer sagely notes And he got rafts of it. Do you throw shade on reviewers who get free books? When I was a reviewer I rather liked that part.
And must I note that the ‘free stuff’ is rarely worth anything? For every piece of fiction worth reading and writing up a review, there a bakers dozen that cry desperately for an industrial grade shredder nearby. And it’s even worse in the music end of things.
It’s still worth it for galleys of such things as the Neal Stephennson & Nicole Galland’s The Rise and Fall of D.O.DO. which is a stellar work.
@Lee – Dr. Pournelle is one of many cold warriors who have suddenly decided that Vlad Putin is just a poor misunderstood guy who can be our friend. Pay no attention to all the evidence that he has been working for years to destabilize the western democracies that oppose him trying to retake hegemony over the now-free parts of the ex-Soviet empire.
Look, I get why they are whistling past the graveyard and claiming that there is no evidence that Trump or any of his minions “colluded” with Russia or Putin to screw around with our 2016 election. They are desperate to believe that Trump was elected fairly and his legitimacy can’t be questioned. I get that.
But all of our intelligence agencies have made it plain that the evidence is incontrovertible that Putin ordered and abetted the meddling with our election process. He hates Hillary Clinton, he hates the US. For now, at least, we have not seen any evidence that any US citizens committed treason by conspiring with Russia to make this happen. But the fact that the Russians did it can’t be denied.
Worse, Putin will keep trying and denying that means that NOTHING is being done to harden our election systems, which is a patchwork of 50 different ways of doing things run by people with little to no technical expertise in cybersecurity.
Bryan on July 5, 2017 at 4:10 pm said:
Victory!
I think it’s pretty scummy to support the actions of scumsuckers like patent trolls just because their targets are sometimes Big Business. Most of the time their targets are honest smaller businesses who can’t afford to fight nuisance lawsuits.
Wrong is wrong. The attitude of “wrongdoing is okay with me, as long as the recipient of the wrongdoing is somebody I dislike!” is really morally appalling to me. 😐
@JJ agree re morally appalling circumstances.
(6) There is a very extensive list of approved grave symbols, here’s a link to a version that resembles the handout they gave me when I buried dad.
(14) I had a death-by-trophy incident in my last novel, but it was a sports trophy with a “we’re number one” finger on the top, thrown with great force into the victim’s sternum rather than used as a bludgeon.
@JJ: I have a hard time distinguishing among thieves, except the ones with honor among themselves usually take more from me, in the long run, than the less scrupulous ones.
(5) Wait. The Joker on a ferry? Did they not see the last Bale/Nolan movie?!
Also, Dan Quayle picked a fight with a sitcom character. And lost.