So rarely does the universe provide such an enlightening conflation of shallow facile consensus political wisdom, along with elitist literary snobbery as we have in this column by Maureen Dowd. Dowd has gotten the memo, that Christine O’Donnell is the designated political chew toy for this political cycle. O’Donnell is Read more…
Two unrelated things that I came across recently that should have some serious implications to anyone writing near-future SF. The first post is actually kind of obvious, in fact it touches on one of the central themes of the singularity. However, it hits a point that I don’t think is Read more…
Returning to my occasional bout with politics on this here blog, I thought I’d mention the somewhat wry amusement with which I’m watching the complete misunderstanding of the whole Tea Party thing. Even among allies of the movement, small and large-L Libertarians such as myself, saw the nomination of O’Donnell Read more…
I tend to write libertarian-themed Space Opera, which means that when I read this recent blog post by Charlie Stross, I had a bit of a reaction. Here’s the money quote: “In other words: space colonization is implicitly incompatible with both libertarian ideology and the myth of the American frontier.” Read more…
But I decided to stop doing it here. Frankly, most of the people coming to this site are a lot more interested in my thoughts about writing and fiction than my political ravings. And while I may have a few fans for my rants, it seems that it might make Read more…
I love conspiracy theories, but the latest article on such by Newsweek has left me a little cold. Not a single black helicopter to be had. And how does questioning the maternity of Sarah Palin’s kid rate high enough to be on a list with Goldman Sachs looting the world? Read more…
Remember Rollerball? The original 1975 version with James Caan? One of the interesting premises of the movie was the collapse of the nation-state in favor of the corporation. That premise was somewhat prescient, anticipating one of the main tropes of cyberpunk by almost a decade. The idea is commonplace now, Read more…
I recently read a rather interesting sfnal riff on Obama’s state of the union speech, based on an administration reference to a “New Foundation”: But I recall reading here or somewhere that Paul Krugman and several other leading economic and legal academic-policymakers had come to their professions wanting to be Read more…
I’m not up for much of a blog post for reasons I won’t go into, but since I opine on politics, and the Massachusetts senate race is probably the biggest political story for this half of 2010, I should probably make a comment about it. To every Republican and Democrat Read more…
Enough with the holiday cheer. Here’s a list of ten things that I’m getting paranoid about for the coming year. The Obama administration has modified a long-standing executive order so now agents of Interpol have full diplomatic immunity. i.e. We have now a class of law enforcement in this country Read more…