Nov. 6, 2012

Ya'll grasshoppers better bring guns this time......

Prediction Election 2012

I've already made this prediction in several other places, but here for the record is my prediction:

Romney will beat Obama at least as badly as Obama beat McCain

Republicans will keep the House, and take the Senate

Aiken will even win in Missouri.

Update 11/6/12:

Well I, and the American people, sure blew that one.

I guess we'll find out if the Chinese will really let us go $20 trillion in debt.

The End of the Beginning?

I just watched the livestream of the launch of the SpaceX mission to the International Space Station (ISS). (As an aside, just how fantastic is that fact? I can stream live high definition video over the internet! I remember taking vacumn tubes out of the back of my TV set to take down to the drug store to replace!) This launch is being almost totally ignored by the MSM and popular culture. However I believe that one day, this will be seen as a turning point, a twenty-first century golden spike if you will. For the first time, a totally private company has launched a reusable spacecraft on a commercial mission. I frankly don't know whether the geek or the historian in me is more excited.

Little Fuzzy

I just got through reading all three of Piper's stories about the Fuzzies in an omnibus edition called The Complete Fuzzy. In a previous post I discussed the Fuzzy books and expressed my opposition to the Scalzi re-boot called Fuzzy Nation. Well, after re-reading the original books I begin to understand.

First of all, I am officially predicting a movie project, probably something CGI dominated like Avatar.

Secondly, the original books are obvious artifacts of their time. The first two were published in the early 1960's, but I'd be willing to bet that they had been originally written in the 1950's, they definitely have a 50's vibe to them. The main "corporate" characters in the book could have come straight out of Madmen, and almost every chapter has a reference to "cocktail hour". The most "objectionable" part to most people however is the relationship between humans and fuzzies. It is pretty condescending and patronizing. ( I seem to remember the Mayhar book dealing with this and attempting to disarm it) I could easily see some Phd writing a monograph comparing the humans to Europeans and the fuzzies to those colonized by the Europeans. I fully expect Scalzi's fuzzies to be much more "mature" and capable than Piper's fuzzies.

Thirdly, Piper's vision of future technology was severely limited. In fact I can see a viable argument that Piper's fuzzy books aren't science fiction at all. I seem to remember Tuning's and Mayhar's books being more science fiction, however they are no longer cannon since the publication of the third Piper book. It will be interesting to see if either Scalzi's book, or the Diehr book include any part of Mayhar's or Tuning's work.

I would also be interested to see if Piper's fuzzies had anything to do with David Weber's treecats. If I ever get a chance to ask to Weber about it I will.

T.D.I.M. - Mar 28, 1980

The number one song on this date in 1980 was Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) by Pink Floyd. This song came off the famous (infamous?) The Wall album. The album would later be turned into a musical featuring extended animation scenes. The clip of the song below is taken from the movie.

T.D.H. - Mar 28

This date was a good date for beer drinkers in the United States. First, on this date in 1836, Frederick Pabst was born in Germany. He would later move to America and marry a Brewer's daughter. He eventually bought into the business. He would go on to greatly expand the business and name it after himself. Pabst would become a major figure in the beer industry and the city of Milwaukee.


On this date in 1899, August Anheuser Busch, Jr was born. He would take control of the Anheuser-Busch brewery from his older brother and make it the largest brewery in the world. He was the grandson of the brewery's founder, and his grandson is currently the CEO of the company. He was the one who introduced the Clydesdale horses to the Budweiser image. He also bought the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team.

American Exceptionalism

I have just finished watching a video on American Exceptionalism by Bill Whittle. Far too often I hear the Left make the argument that there is nothing special about the United States, that we are just one of what will soon be 196 nations. (Man, I remember thinking that 156 was a large number when I was doing M.U.N. in high school)

The Right knows that in fact the United States is exceptional, and has been for most of its history. Everything from the peaceful transfer of power from President Washington to President Adams, (and more importantly and more impressively from President Adams to President Jefferson) to the Berlin airlift to America's efforts to help Japan after the recent earthquake and tsunami. It is a simple, easily understood fact...we are exceptional. History will judge us so too, for many of the reasons that Whittle discusses in his video.

The Left cannot acknowledge that America is exceptional, because their whole ideology is based on fundamentally changing America, which would be idiotic if indeed America was exceptional. A few might attempt to argue that they are trying to make America more exceptional than it already is. My response is to ask them why they are trying to make the United States more like Europe? There are places in Europe that still don't have peaceful transfers of power, especially among political enemies. How many European planes flew into Berlin during that crisis? How many European aircraft carriers or helicopter carriers are off the coast of Japan providing relief?

The simple fact is, our goal should be to transform the rest of the world to more closely resemble the United States rather than transform the United States to look like the rest of the world.

And for those of you who lived in the United Kingdom with me back in the 80's...which UK would you rather live in? The one of the 1980's or the one that exists today?

T.D.I.H. - Mar 27

On this date in 1915, Typhoid Mary was put into permanent involuntary quarantine. Her name was Mary Mallon. She was an Irish immigrant who worked as a cook. She spread typhoid to her clients, there are at least seven recorded instances of the families she worked for coming down with the disease. She denied that she was the source of the disease. She was previously quarantined for a three year period, but released when she promised to no longer work as a cook, and take precautions not to spread the disease. She violated both of these promises. She died while being held, and spent almost thirty years in quarantine. After death, the typhoid virus was found in her organs, and it is presumed that she caught the disease before birth from her mother.

T.D.A.T.M. - Mar 26, 2000

The number one movie on this date in the US continued to be Erin Brokovich. I generally love Julia roberts movies, but this one turned me off from the start, and I have never seen more than a 10 min clip of it. If the clip below of someones ten funniest moments from the movie is accurate, I haven't missed much. It appears to mainly be clips of Julia cussing.

T.D.I.H. - Mar 26

On this date in 1830, the Book Of Mormon was first published. The Book of Mormon is a sacred text of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other smaller related religious movements. The commonly used name to describe these churches, Mormon, obviously comes from the title of this book. Many Mormons believe that this is a historical record of Jesus in the new world, copied by Joseph Smith from golden plates. Other Mormons believe that Smith was inspiried by God to create this book.

T.D.A.T.M. - Mar 25, 1990

The number one movie on this date in the US was Pretty Woman. I have definitely seen this one. In fact if I am channel surfing and hit this movie, I stop and watch it. Again. I think Richard Gere and Julia Roberts had a good chemistry, and I wish we had seen more of Laura San Giacomo. Hector Elizondo was perfect, but I think Jason Alexander was miscast. I think Tom Arnold would have been better in the role for instance. After watching it just now, this is one of those trailers that basically tells the whole movie.......

T.D.I.H. - Mar 25

This date is officially "Tolkien Reading Day". I've read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Once. I tried The Silmarillion, and didn't make it half through. I appreciate the artistic merit of Tolkien. I just think he's boring as hell. The movies were OK though...beautiful cinematography.

T.D.A.T.M. - Mar 24, 1980

The number one movie on this date in 1980 was still Kramer V Kramer. This is some serious cultural domination. Remember at this time most cities only had a dozen broadcast TV channels at the most. Cable TV was in its infancy. The internet as it exists today wasn't even a dream yet.

T.D.I.H. - Mar 24

On this date in 1944, R. Lee Ermey entered the world. He would go on to actually serve in the US Marine Corps, including a stint as a drill instructor. He would go on to gain fame as an actor, primarily by portraying Marine Corps drill instructors. I remember him from The Boys In Company C (package check!), but he became famous for his role in Full Metal Jacket. They actually made an action figure out of him. I bought one for my brother once. (wow! It's selling for $100+ nowdays!) Here is the clip that most people know him by.

T.D.I.M. - Mar 23, 2000

The number one song on this day in 2000 was Say My Name by Destiny's Child.

T.D.I.H. - Mar 23

On this date in 1904, H. Beam Piper was born. He is, in my opinion, one of the most under-recognized seminal authors of American science fiction. I began my love affair with science fiction reading Heinlein, Norton, Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, and McCaffrey. It was only years (and hundreds of used bookstores) later that I stumbled upon my first Piper book. I believe it was Space Viking. I quickly began to scour all the new and used bookstores for anything of his I could get my hands on. Sadly, he committed suicide just as he was on the cusp of becoming the success he should have been.

One small part of Piper's larger Terro-Human Future History universe is the Fuzzy saga. This group of books was both a source of great enjoyment and frustration for me when I first read them. First of all, they were extremely hard to find. People who owned copies of these books rarely put them in used book stores, and they were rarely in print. (I just ordered the book I linked to in my last link...all three of Piper's fuzzy stories in one edition!) Secondly, Little Fuzzy was published in 1962 and Fuzzy Sapiens was published in 1964 (the year piper died), however the third book, Fuzzies and Other People was originally lost and not published until 1984. In the meantime, two authors had written books in the Fuzzy series that were contradicted by the eventual publication of Piper's third book: Fuzzy Bones by William Tuning; and Golden Dream: A Fuzzy Odyssey by Ardath Mayhar. As a fan of the Fuzzy saga, I would love to read sequels to all three author's works, even though some would necessarily be inconsistent with others.

Well, I have partly got my wish. First of all, one of the more renowned modern science fiction authors, John Scalazi has written a book called Fuzzy Nation that is due out this May. This book is advertised as a "re-boot" of Little Fuzzy. I am opposed to such things philosophically. I have no problem with turning to another author's work for inspiration (Such as Flashman originating as a character in Tom Brown's Schooldays) or re-telling the story from another's point of view (such as Grendel which re-tells the Beowulf story from the point of view of the monster) or even writing sequels to another person's stories, either with the author's permission or after they are dead (such as happened twice to the Fuzzy saga as detailed above). However a re-boot is a whole different thing. That is taking the author's vision and altering it. Would we allow someone to paint over the Mona Lisa with their version of it? If Scalazi's book become popular, that is what will have been effectively done. Having said that, I have ordered Scalazi's book, and I hope to enjoy it. In fact I hope he writes several sequels and I enjoy them. (I frequently run out of reading material)

Then today while writing this post I learn that someone named Wolfgang Diehr is writing a sequel that is due to be printed this spring. Fuzzy Ergo Sum is described as a sequel to the original series, so I presume it will be faithful to piper's work and ignore the other two Fuzzy books. I can find very little information on it, it is not listed on Amazon, and the printer appears to be doing very small print runs. In a hopeful sign, the author appears to have worked with John Carr as an editor, who has done at lot of work in Piper's Paratime universe.

T.D.I.M. - Mar 22, 1990

The number one song in the US on this date continued to be Escapade by Janet Jackson. Here is a clip of Janet singing a medley of her songs live, including Escapade.

T.D.I.H. - Mar 22

On this date in 1978, Karl Wallenda, one of the Flying Wallendas, died while attempting to walk a tightrope between two hotels in Puerto Rico. He was 73 at the time. His great grandson Nik and various other members of the family continue to do high wire acts to this day. There is video of the fall available. I will not embed it, but here is a link to it.

T.D.I.M. - Mar 21, 1980

The number one song in the US on this date in 1980 continued to be Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Queen. Here is Robert Plant fronting Queen at the tribute to Freddie Mercury singing the song. He begins by singing a Led Zepplin song.

T.D.I.H. - Mar 21

On this date in 1556, Thomas Cranmer, formerly Archbishop of Canterbury (the highest office in the Church of England besides the monarch of England) was burned at the stake by Mary I of England. This probably had a lot to do with the fact that Cranmer was instrumental in creating the Church of England and in ending the marriage of Henry VIII to Mary's mother, Catherine. Once the Catholic Queen Mary ascended the throne, his fate was sealed.