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Linkfest 2020-11-06

We Will Mock the Brave and Wise According to the PBS special on Sputnik, President Eisenhower let the Soviets get ahead in the race to space in order to establish a legal precedent they would have a difficult time protesting. Even now, it is hard to appreciate how many things

The Emperor Ponders the limits of description

Emperor Norton at The Emperor Ponders describes for us the four kinds of text you can write: There are four broad categories of text you can write (exposition, narration, description, and dialogue,) and descriptions are what can give more problems to a fiction or genre writer. To sum up, description

The Long View 2008-01-28: Iraq as Parable; The Grossraum Fallacy

I do find it interesting that John J. Reilly’s comment here on a primary function of government, the promotion of just order: The Iraq War might stand as a metaphor for the whole episode of Movement Conservativism in American history. It started well enough, and it got rid of

The Long View 2008-01-25: Texas Airship; The Parties Implode; Atheist Spirituality

As John J. Reilly says, you should be cautious if you see too many airships; it may mean your timeline has diverged from the main sequence. Texas Airship; The Parties Implode; Atheist Spirituality I have warned in this space, more than once, that airships are a Fortean technology that becomes

Linkfest 2020-10-30

I recently saw a listing of the bar tab from the United States Constitutional Convention, and it reminded me of this series of posts from 2012 on an attempt to drink like a colonial. There was a reason for the temperance movement. Sensor Sweep continues to provide some of the

The Long View 2008-01-24: Ice Age; Democratic Fissure; Nominating Petraeus

There is an article quoted here by John J. Reilly the most effective way to to prevent the Republicans from nominating an attractive candidate for President like David Petraeus in 2012 was for the expected Democrat President to give him a job offer he couldn’t refuse. This is what

Janissaries by Jerry Pournelle Book Review (Again)

I reviewed Janissaries [Amazon link] by Jerry Pournelle in 2011, but I am going to do so again in preparation for the fourth posthumously published volume in the series. This is another book that made a big impression on me, and I want to do it justice. First, the physical