Some might argue that Gravity’s Rainbow is not science fiction, being instead a turgid and pretentious turd laid by the biggest charlatan in English-language writing in the years between Joyce and Eggers. Those some are stupid people. It’s fiction about science, and it kicks ass besides, so I’m fine with it.

The Sterling book, by the way, is touchingly dated in its details. It was written just as computers and faxes were beginning to make speedy communication easier, and the book displays a strange-seeming reverence for and love of the fax machine.

From the obvious files

The Federal Trade Commission just released a study which finds that approximately 96% of business-offer spams make false claims.

Two thoughts immediately leap to mind. First across the line is sorrow at the notion that the US Government needed to spend money on a study that, in the year 2003, concludes “In one way or another, a great deal of [spam] appears to contain important information that is false or deceptive.”

Well, no shit.

Stumbling across the finish line in second place is an ardent desire to determine exactly which 4% of the penis enlargers, Nigerian royals, and lonely college chicks are not making false claims, thereby ensuring me a legendary future career in pornography, philanthropy, and philandering.

Everybody knows you can never be too rich, too thin, or too well-hung.

[pre-emptive update] I’d imagine Goodwife Two-Cents would like to have some input on this point, so I will forestall her most obvious objections by pointing out that a) You said it was OK last time, b) no, c) no, d) never!, e) only with your approval, and f) any money gained from Nigerian royalty would go straight to those poor exhibitionist college girls, who would then be able to afford a proper dating service, and could also perhaps buy themselves some self-respect. I love you, schmoopie.

[the above with apologies to many people, first among them, Geek Lethal.]

I’m back. Burned.

Not literally, but figuratively. Spending three days in the presence of Buckethead is apparently like having your brain sucked out through a straw. Maybe it was the tequila. No, it was probably driving through Connecticut twice in four days.

Worse, I am feeling EXACTLY NO urge to opine, pontificate, conjecture, or fulminate. I know what a terrible burthen I do carry, to be the sole light in the darknefs in which ye readers live. But not to worry, ye unwashed, as I wait for my hortatorial and difsertative prowefs to return from the far reaches of nowhere in particular. Perhaps I can moralize in the interim.

Friday, April 25, 2003

Know thy enemy: The Iraqi Republican Guard

On occasion, our troops may pause to wonder, “Who were those guys we just killed?” To help in that query, I’m starting a new feature where my crack research staff find all the important information you need to know about America’s enemies. Our first subject: the Iraqi Republican Guard

FUN FACTS ABOUT THE IRAQI REPUBLICAN GUARD:

Amusement in our Nation’s Capitol

This morning, I saw a man in a Hell’s Angels jacket, using a walker.

A man in a very nice suit was standing outside a Starbucks with an empty cup. I put a quarter in his cup. He was sputtering when I turned the corner.

Overheard a small child pointing at some protestors and asking her mother, “What are the strange people doing?”

Top Five Lists

My mom asked me to give her a list of my favorite science fiction novels, so that she could read them. (Bless her. The only way my dad would read a science fiction novel is if I wrote it, and even then it’s a toss up. (Too focused on history. Sheesh.)) So, here is the top five list I prepared for my mom:

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
Player of Games, by Iain Banks
The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester
Mote in God’s Eye, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
The Dosadi Experiment, by Frank Herbert
Dune, by Frank Herbert
A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge
A Deepness in the Sky, by Vernor Vinge
Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
Cryptonomicon, by Neil Stephenson
Sundiver, by David Brin
Startide Rising, by David Brin
Lest Darkness Fall, by L. Sprague de Camp
American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Mother of Storms, by John Barnes
Killing Star, by Charles Pellegrino and George Zebroski
Doorways in the Sand, by Roger Zelazny
The Greks Bring Gifts, by Murray Leinster
Pebble in the Sky, by Isaac Asimov
The City and the Stars, by Arthur C. Clark

There are probably a couple more, but that is the core of it. The two novels by Neil Gaiman are not strictly sf, but they are very, very good. I have never been able to narrow this list down, this is about as short as I can get it. My top five list, it is large, it contains multitudes.

[Update]

It was brought to my attention over the weekend that I had foolishly left a few deserving novels off the list:

Canticle for Liebowitz, by Walter Miller
Hyperion, by Dan Simmons
The Earth Abides, by George R. Stuart

I left Stephenson’s Snow Crash off the list, despite the fact that I truly love the book, because I think the other two are better, and didn’t want to load up too much on any one author.

PS, we are not luddites.

Thursday, April 24, 2003

From George Will

An old baseball joke: A manager says his team needs just two more players to become a pennant contender. But, he says, “The players are Ruth and Gehrig.”

Iraq needs only four people to achieve post-Saddam success. Unfortunately they are George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Marshall.

Now that is a pessimistic conservative take on the possibilities in Iraq.

Sadly

Our beer-soaked, all night “strategic planning” sessions will only be attended by two thirds of the ruling troika.

Dearth

Light/no posting for several days. Buckethead, put the beer on ice, lock up the dog, and childproof the terlets: the Two-Centses are coming for a visit!

Christopher Hitchens arrested in domestic abuse scandal

Apparently, this is not the first time Hitchens has had a run in with the police.

Hitchens’ run-ins with the law have not been restricted to Sparta city limits. In May 2002, he was arrested for drunkenly singing 1930s union songs while driving a stolen riding lawnmower through the streets of Boston, where he was attending an international women’s-rights conference. Hitchens accused police of “atavistic, morally reprehensible Stalinist scare tactics” before being bailed out by conference organizers the following morning.

Sounds like something A few people I know could do.

From the bleat, on Rick Santorum

While Johno was right to point out that the paleo conservative segment of the right is unlikely to raise a ruckus about the Senator’s comments, Lileks points out that the flipside is even more unlikely:

if anyone insists Santorum should suffer consequences for his speech, they are denying his First Amendment right to dissent! A chilling wind is blowing across America! If anyone disinvites him to an event, the black cloak of Ashcroftian Throat-Chokery has been draped across another dissenter! If you don’t buy his book, Joe McCarthy cackles from his personal pit in hell!

Don’t worry, Rick; Tim Robbins will be the first in line to support your right to speak your mind.

Of course,

You just ad hominemed him. I just thought the quote was funny. Didn’t think that the article was quite that bad - and it is a normal thing to try and analyse what the opposing camp is thinking, from your own perspective. And do you deny that there are a lot of people in the world who are just batshit crazy? I think suicide bombers would fall into that subset of humanity.

And speaking of batshit crazy, Gov. Dean was asked if the Iraqi people are better off now than they were under Saddam. He said, “We don’t know that yet. We don’t know that yet, Wolf. We still have a country whose city is mostly without electricity. We have tumultuous occasions in the south where there is no clear governance. We have a major city without clear governance.” Aside from the tortured english, how anyone can imagine that a nation might not be better off without someone like Saddam murdering, torturing, raping and oppressing them is beyond me. It is natural that immediately after occupation, and after the removal of an odious regime, there would be disorder. However, the power is coming back on, and order is being restored. I think Dean is a little to eager to jump on the “Oh sure, we won the war, I always knew we would. But now we’re screwing up the peace” bandwagon. It is simply to early to tell.

Wednesday, April 23, 2003

David Brooks

Ah, another ad hominem shouter. Racist, too. Fine. If everybody just wants to shout at each other, describe what the opposing camp thinks without consulting them, and then call them stupid, go ahead. I tried. Now I’m giving up.

Constitutionalism in Europe?

Not today, because I am working on a secret project.