-
You're right. Here I am joining in the politics again and I swore I wouldn't. Damn drugs...…
26 Mar 2009, 21:10
-
I'd hate it where you are. I like cities. You know - civilization, in the root sense of the word. Absolutely. The only people from whom taxes are extracted by force are the anti-s…
26 Mar 2009, 20:57
-
I'm talking about the gummint going bankrupt, silly boy. If you take that as your given libertarianism almost makes sense. However, it isn't a very exact description of how taxati…
26 Mar 2009, 20:32
-
Sigh. You're just begging to have it explained how the magic Invisible Hand of the Marketplace would somehow make busses affordable. Libertarians are ineducable.…
26 Mar 2009, 20:23
-
This is a formula for bankruptcy.…
26 Mar 2009, 19:42
-
I read the first book and a half. I enjoyed the first one, got bogged down somewhere in the second and never went back.…
19 Mar 2009, 23:43
-
Possibly to the godfather of all generation-ship stories, Robert Heinlein's "Orphans of the Sky." The common greeting on that ship, and one of the last lines of the book, is "Good …
19 Mar 2009, 23:10
-
In what way are the Elves a meritocracy? The Silmarillion, and for that matter the massive "History of Middle-earth," are silent on how the three original Elven-Kings were chosen f…
19 Mar 2009, 19:54
-
However, the point is made at least once (by Aragorn), and so Gene "I hate it when they repeat things" Wolfe is bound to have noticed, that the "benign anarchism" of the Shire is p…
19 Mar 2009, 19:27
-
David, I think you're on the right track. However, I don't suppose Wolfe is proposing any specific answer to the question of what a soul is, let alone whether it can be copied or …
19 Mar 2009, 18:59
-
It is lawful to use violence to protect one's goods and chastity. Jesus never said it wasn't. However, Jesus called men to a higher standard than the Law: He called them to moral p…
18 Mar 2009, 17:49
-
You know, If I wanted to have a lengthy discussion of RKBA politics, there are lists I could go to for that. Can we get back to Wolfe please?…
18 Mar 2009, 16:11
-
I'm familiar with the concept of the Big Lie. The Bush administration used it often enough. I'm not talking about anything but what the Amendment says. It gives a purpose. The giv…
17 Mar 2009, 17:13
-
This is a common myth. In fact, the Second Amendment is the only one of the Ten that clearly states its purpose -- which is that a well-ordered militia is essential for "security" …
17 Mar 2009, 15:25
-
I'd like to but I'm unemployed & can't afford such things.…
13 Feb 2009, 18:49
-
Nice picture. Very surprising music.…
13 Feb 2009, 18:49
-
So am I, but I can't guarantee to show up at a thing. But I might. Depending.…
13 Feb 2009, 18:43
-
Not to be3 fussy, but Severian doesn't "disband" the Guild, he "reforms" it.…
11 Feb 2009, 17:27
-
I hate to post just to say "well said" -- but, Roy, that was well said.…
06 Feb 2009, 23:49
-
David, No; the Cumaean is _not_ named for a witch out of the New Testament. Rather, she is named for the priestess-prophetess of Apollo at Cumae. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cum…
05 Feb 2009, 21:42
-
True -- and "invert" seems gravitically-bound, which would not be applicable to a Being outside of spacetime. Also, the three "vertices" are coequal, so it doesn't matter which way…
05 Feb 2009, 20:06
-
There's a wide space between "critiquing" and (a) calling people heretics and (b) dragging painful stuff like the sexual abuse scandals into the discussion at a point where they ar…
05 Feb 2009, 17:50
-
Somewhat. But where Wolfe maps mostly to "conservative" values, I map mostly to "liberal" values (and I use the scare-quotes because I think neither of us really "is" a liberal or …
04 Feb 2009, 15:51
-
David, "Guardian of the Sacred Texts" is childish and insulting. But I should lay my cards open on the table: I am, like Wolfe, an adult convert to Roman Catholicism. *Independe…
04 Feb 2009, 00:11
-
They opened fine for me. Some of them took a little time.…
28 Jan 2009, 18:20
-
We are in agreement so far. It is necessary, in interpreting Wolfe's work, to acknowledge his positions. To do otherwise is to wilfully misinterpret. I do indeed. It is an *assump…
22 Jan 2009, 23:55
-
Interpretive violence. If that's too strong for you, OK. I have long since given up trying to make sense of this and accepted it as a canonical miracle in the Briahverse.…
22 Jan 2009, 23:01
-
Agreed. Writers are free to create as many Christs as they choose, and to make them theoanthropoi, divine, etc. What is key here is that we are interpreting a work by a writer who…
22 Jan 2009, 22:46
-
Perhaps. But Wolfe takes this as a given, and that is a fact that must be dealt with in interpreting Wolfe's fiction.…
22 Jan 2009, 22:18
-
Bravo.…
22 Jan 2009, 22:17
-
Actually... A person staring at "the skylands" will never be looking at the part directly opposite him/herself; the LS and/or the Shade will be in the way. So s/he will be looking…
22 Jan 2009, 00:27
-
It seems obvious to-me that Mucor's body was intended for one of Typhon's children to inhabit when the Whorl reached its intended destination.…
21 Jan 2009, 16:52
-
To be dead honest, I have no memory of this story whatsoever. I'll have to reread it before I jump in, and I'm in the middle of something else pretty dense right now.…
18 Jan 2009, 18:04
-
Pas was dead: to begin with. He wouldn't have put anyone else in charge of That Embryo, now would he?…
16 Jan 2009, 16:23
-
I got your Severian right here. Haley Joel Osmont. No, think about it, seriously.…
15 Jan 2009, 18:47
-
No - Rowan Atkinson for Incus.…
15 Jan 2009, 17:05
-
There is a strong belief among many on this list that the embryo that grows up to be Silk was intended by Pas to be his own body when the _Whorl_ reached its destination.…
14 Jan 2009, 19:10
-
You're right.…
14 Jan 2009, 18:27
-
I'm going from memory but - doesn't he imply in his report to his superiors that he has sparked the "Silk for Calde" movement?…
14 Jan 2009, 18:16
-
Crane.…
14 Jan 2009, 18:08
-
"Alcalde" is Spanish for "mayor."…
14 Jan 2009, 17:18
-
I don't want to start a whole theological argument, but I think you've reversed cause and effect here. It is not that acting morally allows us to receive Christ's grace; rather, it…
08 Jan 2009, 18:39
-
That's not the Christian belief. The Christian belief is that *Christ* is what (who) sets us free.…
08 Jan 2009, 18:11
-
No cut!…
08 Jan 2009, 03:51
-
It wouldn't make any sense -- except that the human race's successors from the previous version of the universe and their servants and so on (the Heiro* group) guide evolution on a…
30 Dec 2008, 16:21
-
A third possibliity is that the President did not know that Reise, Rosinquist and Rusterman were the same person.…
18 Dec 2008, 17:36
-
Actually, Antarctica is the single strongest argument against my theory that the continents have shifted position noticeably by the time of BotNS: the Megatherian Erebus is named f…
09 Dec 2008, 22:47
-
04 Dec 2008, 23:15
-
There is a Delany list, but it doesn't get into theory discussions very often, alas...…
04 Dec 2008, 21:41
-
I suppose my point was that SF is not (or at least is rarely) about prediction. Rather, it is (more frequently) about contemporary "reality," as viewed through the distorting/magni…
04 Dec 2008, 20:34
Urth Net