An insightful essay for the 21st century, on the 200th anniversary of the first modern science-fiction novel.
College
…does not make you a better person.
I’m reading a review copy of an interesting new book from Bob Zimmerman on the history of slavery in America. One of the points he makes is that one of the things that created the cultural environment for it was the nature of how the Cavaliers founded Virginia, with the class bias and denigration of physical labor they brought from England.
The Left And Trump
Why they so despise him:
The far-left faction of the Democrats, led by congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib, have with this big, very white, rigorously politically incorrect billionaire, what they believe, tactically and by uncontainable impulse, is the target of their political dreams.
Mr. Trump is the personification of every policy they hate and every human trait they despise; to them, he is a monster of ignorance, greed, bombast, bellicosity, and racist bigotry. They are like World War II movie submarine captains seeing a thousand feet ahead of their periscopes a giant enemy oil tanker, inching through still waters.
Their hate is real, but their impression of the target is a chimerical mirage. In pursuit of him it is acceptable to say publicly “impeach the motherf***er,” to claim adequately outfitted border detention centers where illegal migrants are fed Big Macs are “concentration camps” where children are forced to drink from toilets, and to demand a green terror, unpatrolled borders, free health care for everyone, doubled income-tax rates in the high and corporate brackets, trillions of dollars for reparations to nonwhites, and legalized infanticide.
All four of them qualify as anti-Semites. As has been widely mentioned, the president is doing what he can to help make these four the best publicly known face of the Democrats. They are, to adapt other lavatory images, drinking their own bathwater, and the president will hang their insane ideas around the Democrats’ necks like a toilet seat.
Conrad Black has a way with words.
Mueller’s Dissembling
Seven times he feigned ignorance in his testimony.
You wouldn’t think he’d deliberately want to look so frail and clueless.
[Wednesday-morning update]
I hope that Durham gets into this. It should be in his purview, even if Mueller thought it wasn’t in his own.
Trump’s Attack On Baltimore
A friend of decades was murdered there a couple years ago, stabbed in the neck while walking her dogs. There remains no suspect, and no motive.
[Update a while later]
Yes. It is (as always, since the founding of their party) the Democrats, not Trump, that are the racists.
[Wednesday-morning update]
Al Sharpton is on his way to save Baltimore from Trump.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Trump is absolutely right about con-man Al Sharpton.
One of the many reasons I can’t take Democrats seriously on race is the fact that they feel the need to kiss that corrupt grifter’s ring to get their party’s nomination.
[Update a few minutes later]
Trump has forced the Democrats to defend Al Sharpton. His superpower is to show them to be the corrupt anti-Semitic racist grifters that they are.
ISS R&D Conference
I’m taking a red eye to Atlanta tonight to attend it. I’ll be taking laptop, so I’ll probably be blogging, but I’ll have a lot of networking to do there. Also, it will be the first time I’ve ever been in the city. I’ve been through Hartsfield a lot, but never in Atlanta proper.
[Monday noon update]
Arrived about 7 AM, and was able to get an early check in, so I got a few hours sleep.
My first impression is that Atlanta seems to have recovered somewhat from the war, but it’s had 155 years.
Another Life
Bryan Preston isn’t impressed with the latest SF series, despite Katie Sackoff:
…in Another Life, only Sackhoff’s Niko and her AI sidekick (Samuel Anderson) are fit for this mission. The rest fill every negative millennial stereotype in the galaxy. They are whiny. They are grouchy. They scream obscenities at each other — all the time. They never fail to crack under the least amount of pressure. One is immediately mutinous. Another cannot ever think before opening their pie hole and saying things any rational adult knows they will immediately regret. Collectively, they perpetually can’t even.
But they’re sent out to save humanity anyway.
Ouch.
The Week In Pictures
These are hilarious.
Motion Smoothing
…is ruining cinema.
When we rented a place down in Julian a few months ago, I noticed that the movies on the large-screen television looked like soaps. It was an interesting effect, but now I wonder if that’s what I was seeing. I haven’t noticed it on our newish LG, but I think I’ll look at the settings and experiment. Sounds like it’s good for fast-action sports, but bad for drama.
Hopper Hopped
Eric Berger was there last night.
And if you have the time, a good explanation of the Raptor engine design.