Very shortly now, the following will happen:

Almost every manufacturing job on Earth will disappear.

Cash will no longer be needed to live a full, happy, and prosperous life.

“Work” will be wholly voluntary rather than necessary.

The concept of “ownership” of land will be… Read full post »

Obama has failed us.

 The Republicans are a joke.

What are our alternatives? It is all too easy to argue that we have none. It is all too easy to argue that the country has been rendered ungovernable, that our political flaws and faults run too deep, that the problem is… Read full post »

One of the consequences of the terrible events in Japan will be that Japan will move, rapidly, away from nuclear power.

I've talked with a couple of people who were surprised that Japan (like, say, France) is so heavily dependent on the atom. They have virtually no other power source--not oil,… Read full post »

Dear Mr. President:

 I thought about writing this letter and sending it to you at the White House, but I wanted it to be read by somebody else than just the intern who would open it and myself, especially as that intern would simply make a tally mark in the "naive… Read full post »

As the title says, this is what we know: people on the Internet are nuts.

Anybody reading this probably won't doubt this statement. If you do, take a minute, read any Salon letters column about anything political, cultural, or social. It won't take you more than five letters to find somebody… Read full post »

"The future is the only thing worth thinking about seriously."

 States--as in California and Florida--are dying. Nation-states--as in the US or Italy--are in deep trouble, and are probably dying too.

Effective democracy cannot be sustained where political advantage rules over the public good. Ca… Read full post »

It's too long.

 And I read the story a score of times in the 60s, in various science fiction magazines. 

And I saw it again--Fergully, as my daughter points out, and Pocohantas, and, as the Salon review noted, Dances With Wolves. 

And the CGI still isn't right. It's the best CGI… Read full post »

The first question is the obvious one: why did Tarantino choose to misspell the title of Inglourious Basterds?

The man's not an idiot. Nor does he think his audience is an idiot. So why misspell it?

 And why call his heroes "inglorious" rather than "glorious"? In a movie where the climax is… Read full post »

There's a good , short article by  Heather Michon about e-books in Salon today. Ebooks (I'm just dropping the hyphen, folks, it's annoying) are indeed changing everything, but the publishing industry still doesn't get it.

The closest comparison to what the ebook will do to the publishing industr… Read full post »

We hear a lot, nowadays, from the Right about "socialism."

 Now, anybody with half a brain (I know, this disqualifies a lot of the Right) knows that we're not seeing "socialism" from this White House.

But the real question in my mind is why the Right thinks that the cry of… Read full post »

I am a Corporation, just like you.
I am a Coporation, with rights like a human too.

I am a Corporation. Hath not a Corporation eyes? hath not a Corporation hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the… Read full post »

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen the finale of Lost, read no further!

For a long time, I've thought, "Why Benjamin Linus?"

 Most of the other names have meanings--Shepherd, Sawyer, Kate (kiss me!), Juliette, Hugo, etc. 

 But why Linus? I mean, Peanuts? Torvald? Pauling? None of the c… Read full post »

I changed my blog's name. Nobody will notice--which is the point of the name change. It isn't original (what is?), and it probably isn't even original on this site. But that's okay--I figure nobody is reading me anyway (whine, whine).

 Which is okay, really--because then I can say whatever I wan… Read full post »

 I've been reading a book entitled Freehold by Michael Williamson.

I bought it because I wanted a light, fast read, and I was attracted by the title. I read a lot of Robert Heinlein when I was younger, and you don't write an SF book with a title like "freehold" by accident.… Read full post »

How do you tell the difference between utter hypocrisy and abysmal ignorance?

 Sometimes, as we saw this week with the tax protests, it's all but impossible.

 The fact of the matter is we saw people blaming Obama for the recession. Ignorance? Possibly. These folks, for the most part, know o… Read full post »

I watched Pearl Harbor over the weekend--the Ben Affleck Pearl Harbor.

One of the first things that struck me was how good most of the CGI was. Oh, every once in a while I'd look at a plane or (especially) the long guns on a battleship and think, Geez, that looks… Read full post »

Let's talk about irony.

 The dictionary (sorry, this is where I usually start) defines irony in two ways that are useful: as "incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs," and "witty language used to convey insults or scorn." (Oh Onelook! What would we do withou… Read full post »