It’s been thirty-five years now. Pound for pound, I imagine the IDF is still the toughest fighting force in the world. They can’t afford not to be.
“That’s Racist!”
Jonah Goldberg has (I know, typical for him and me and other racists) a racist column today.
The leftists’ lament: “Oh, epithet, where is thy former sting?”
Heinlein, Fascist
The LA Times interviews some young idiots in fandom:
As the literary and academic worlds open to science-fiction and genre writing, Heinlein lacks the cachet of J.G. Ballard, Ursula LeGuin, Octavia Butler, Neal Stephenson, cyberpunk pioneer William Gibson and others. Films based on Dick’s books, good and bad, keep coming. But Heinlein’s film adaptations, in the last half century, since 1950’s “Destination Moon,” culminated in 1997’s “Starship Troopers,” widely disliked by his fan base.
Non-SF writer William Burroughs probably has more influence inside the genre’s literary wing than Heinlein, who won four Hugos (the award voted by the fans), sold millions of copies, and was termed the field’s most significant writer since H.G. Wells.
“His rabid fan base is graying,” said Annalee Newitz, who writes about science fiction for Wired and Gawker. “To literary readers, the books look cheesy, sexist in a hairy-chest, gold-chain kind of way. His stuff hasn’t stood the test of time,” because of characters’ windy speechifying and their frontier optimism.
“Here at the store I actively resist promoting him, because he was a fascist,” said Charles Hauther, the science fiction buyer at Skylight Books. “People don’t seem to talk about him anymore. I haven’t had a conversation about Heinlein in a long time.
And you’ve obviously never had an intelligent one.
Barack Obama’s Gun Control
…out from under the radar.
And as a bonus, a little history lesson — just how boneheaded was the “assault weapons ban”? Consider the source.
I Did Not Know That
Shari Lewis co-wrote Star Trek episodes? Does Lileks know this?
I watched it last night before going to bed. I didn’t think it was particularly well written.
[Update a few minutes later]
Speak of the devil — he has a fresh review of the first episode of TNG.
It holds up, with some caveats. Still seems odd that Geordi had to wear that thing; surely they’d fixed blindness by then. Picard dismissing WW2 as those stupid days when humans fought over stupid things was an eye-roller, and reflects poorly on his historical knowledge. The limitations of Troi are on display from the get-go: SHE FEELS PAIN. GREAT PAIN. And later, she senses that the creatures are very, very happy. The graphics look cheap, and the bridge is lit wrong, but they’d figure that out. My main problem: it is ridiculous to attempt a saucer-separation at warp speed. Once the saucer exits the warp field it will have a catastrophic deacceleration, and don’t tell me the inertial dampeners can handle it. They’re designed to minimize fluctuations in normal-space speed and compensate for power rerouting when the shields are absorbing energy weapons. I mean please.
Didn’t Picard also have one of his many surrenders of the Enterprise right from the get go?
Well, he was French.
Irony Challenged
Obama uses bully pulpit to call for an end to political rhetoric.
Isn’t there an old saying about pots and kettles?
Fiction For Freedom
Congratulations to Sarah Hoyt, who has won this year’s Prometheus . Here’s the press release.
Here’s a list of previous winners. I’m struck by how few of them I’ve read. Perhaps I should rectify that.
The Case For Higher Taxes
The conservative/libertarian one. Time to make those people pay their fair share.
If We Are In A Computer Simulation
Some questions.
Extradite The War Criminals
“I think we should at least try to prove that what happened in Mexico must be sanctioned by Mexican laws and under our sovereignty,” Creel told us. “What can’t happen is that this now ends on an administrative sanction, or a resignation. No, no, no. Human lives were lost here. A decision was made to carry out an operation that brought very high risk to human lives.”
Mexico doesn’t completely understand Operation Fast and Furious, the American plan to help send assault rifles and revolvers to Mexico as a means of exposing the gun trafficking rings that operate along the border. The project lasted 18 months and allowed some 2,500 guns to be illegally sold to suspects the U.S. government knew to be front men for the cartels.
Let me explain it to them. The administration wanted to impose new gun controls, but needed an excuse to do so, so they perpetuated a lie that most of the guns entering the Mexican drug wars came from US gun shops, and then implemented a murderous policy to attempt to make it true.
I hope that Eric Holder is one of the people extradicted.