Xcor, a southern California rocket company, as signed a deal with an agency in South Korea for funding to operate Xcor’s sub-orbital rocket plane. It’s always a good sign when money changes hands,
Here’s the link to the press release…Xcor and South Korea.
And here is some fin commentary at Transterrestrial Musings.
And h/t to Instapundit.
Way back in the 1980’s I first conceived of my fictional character, Seth Jackson, and the universe he inhabits. Seth is an American who has risen through the ranks of the European Star Forces to command a starship. In this universe, Nationalism has not faded away as is so often the case in science-fiction and the Unites States is no longer a dominate power-player.
Part of the themes I wanted to play with back then were the ideas that America without money and without dominance would find itself nearly friendless and alone on the international stage and that Americans would be scorned in general. To get to that situation I had to work out how America might fall by the wayside and become a second rate power.
I looked at two forces that concerned me for the future of my country.
First – the growing sense of political correctness in our culture along with its twin evil, collective rights, and second the out of control spending by a government that didn’t seem to understand that every bill must eventually be paid off. Extrapolating those trends outwards and without and restriction in their growth gave me the future I needed foe the stories I wanted to write. This was not me trying to play prophet, but merely playing with ideas.
Politically in the 1980 I did fear is the liberal faction of our political culture retained control for too long in our government. I didn’t see that faction as putting the breaks on either of those two trends. I myself am much more of a libertarian-conservative. Leave people alone unless that are actively violating the rights of others. I had hopes that the conservative movement in the Unites States, which called for sensible fiscal spending might someday exact that sort of control.
In 1994 the conservatives took power in the legislature, while the liberals retained the executive. For a brief period we seemed to have found a return to intelligent fiscal planning.
By 2000 the conservative took all the executive and were firmly in control of the purse and the spending. They quickly exposed themselves as hypocrites and liars in matters of spending. Our debt ballooned and no spending bill was ever vetoed while the conservative controlled both the legislature and the executive.
Now it is the of 2009 and the liberals have returned to power across the government and spending is on the rise. The Conservatives — who until recently informed us that deficit spending doesn’t matter — are now making noises about being concerned about our spending. Sadly it is the exact same politicians who spent madly when they held the checkbook, so they are no better than a prostitute lecturing us on chastity.
So this blog post was going to be about why I was angry with Turner Classic Movies and their proposed 1st annual Classic Film Festival.
Saturday Morning I awoke with plans of grabbing a couple of checks that needed depositing and walking to my bank to perform said deposit. That plan fell through when I saw that there was a downpour of rain going on and walking anywhere would result in a through soaking that could only be matched by Washington D.C.
So with my sweetie-wife off doing overtime at her job, I sat down and flipped through the channels on the television. I stopped at TCM — Turner Classic Movies — there was one of those short subjects playing about Claude Raines so I watched that and then the commercials for up coming movies. ( I really like that TCM uses the original trailers to promote the movies they show.) Then the devil stepped up and had an offering.
TCM is hosting the first annual Classic Hollywood Movie Festival. They started running down the lists of movies to be shown and I got more and more interested. My interest needle pegged when they said that they would be premiering the lost print of Metropolis. Oh my, I really wanted to see that! (I admit an interest in seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey on the big screen again.)
Then the host – I am certain — revealed that the festival was going to take place in Hollywood, Florida. Damn it man! That’s not Hollywood, not movie Hollywood by any means at all. I was bummed. (I said as much to my ex later that day when I called to wish her a happy Birthday.)
So tonight i sat down to blog about and of course that meant digging up the link to the festival. Surprise, it’s in Hollywood California like it is supposed to be. It’s four days of panels, events, and classic movies projected onto big screens. Man, for a film nut like me this is just great.
Except a cheap 4 day pass current runs $399.00, and that’s going up by a $100 soon. Le Sigh
I have the money. It would be like a really expensive SF con, nut I can’t justify it. There are individual screenings and I may attend one of those.
Sorry about the life posting and blogging here of late. There has been a lot going on in my life and it has been sucking up time and energy and emotional fortitude.
Overtime at work is a factor but the largest issues is that my sweetie-wife’s mum is sick and in the hospital again. My sweetie has driven out to be with her mum. We’re hoping for the best but it is stressful and sleep has been lost.
It’s impacted not only my blogging but my writing as well.
Sorry there is no Sunday Night Movie this week, life got in the way and I simply couldn’t find the time for my weekly film. (Damn shame as I really love watching movies, but life isn’t always skittles and beer.)
Life’s been hectic lately and a bit stressful. It didn’t help today that San Diego got pounded by storms. Record breaking rainfall meant that our highways were locked and crashes were more plentiful than a politician’s lies.
I hope to have more to say tomorrow.
So I spent today setting up my christmas present from my sweetie-wife.
My wife and id usually do not engage in trying to figure out the perfect gift for each other and instead buy gifts from each other’s wish lists.
A few months ago I had commented in the $99 walmart special audio system I owned couldn’t keep up with the high end data and audio coming off the PS# when it played blu-rays. My sweetie-wife offered to buy em a new sound system for Christmas. I did the research, found an affordable system that met my needs, and gave her the information.
This week Fry’s had it on sale for a very good price so my sweetie bought it and I set it up today.
It is a Sony STR Dh 700. I am very happy with the sound I am getting out of this system. (I also had two speakers that some former owner of the condo left behind when he moved out.)
The most frustrating aspect of the set-up was the speaker connections for the front speakers. I had never seen anything like these and my sweetie-wife and I puzzled over it for a few moments before figuring out how to connect the wires in.
Then I allowed the systems to self balance itself. (It has a very nice auto-diagnostic routine to figure out where the speakers are and how to balance them.) After that I went through each component of our entertainment system and made sure all the outputs were the highest quality.
Man this sounds great. I put in blu-rays and got blown away by the quality, but even older DVD with mono soundtracks – like Destination Moon — sounded great.
I have decided to experiment with a more open comment policy. You will no longer be required to register before posting a comment on this blog. You be required to submit a user name and an email address, but membership in the blog is no longer a requirement.
Let me speak for a moment while we’re on the subject about acceptable comments. I have no problem — in fact I like – diverse opinions. However, I will not tolerate troll-like behavior such as name calling, vicious insulting or other form of commenting that are offensive and crude. Such comments WILL be deleted we I see them and repeated posting of such comments will get that IP address banned form the blog.
For those who would cry that this is an infringement on free Speech, no it is not. You can pay the money, get you own blog, and post whatever you want. There are blogs I read that engage in exactly the sort of postings I do not want here. That’s fine and dandy, but here in this space, with my name attached to it, I will be lord-governor of the content.
So I have now read a few books on my Ezreader pro and I’ve discovered another advantage to reading on the eReader vs reading a dead tree edition.
I have a better idea of the quality of the writing than from just the dead tree.
It’s all about the ending. When I read 1633 I was shocked when there were no more pages turns left. The book felt incomplete. Too many loose ends left unresolved and so forth.
With other books I could feel that the author was bringing me safely back down to the end of the story. The arc of the narrative flowed and there was no sudden feeling of where the hell is the rest of the book.
I just finished reading Trading In Danger by Elizabeth Moon. (A book I would not have read had it not been for the EzReader Pro. Mysterious Galaxy had it in e-formats but not dead tree.) Even though the author left many threads open for further stories and novels, the story felt complete. Even though I could not see how many page turns I had left, I could feel the resolution of the ending unfolding. This did not happen with 1633.
I’m currently reading, and enjoying very much, Soulless by my friend Gail Carriger.
In case you were unaware there are fantastic sets of conspiracy believers running about in American politics right now. (Okay there are a lot more than two, but I’m only going talk about these two at the moment.)
Truthers – who believe that the US Government, and usually G.W. Bush specifically, was behind the attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon on September 11th 2001. That the whole idea that it was perpetrated bye arab terrorists is a lie created to justify war.
and
Birthers – people who think that Barrack Obama was born in Nigeria and not in the United States and therefore is ineligible to be president of the United States.
On the web I caught a bit of a argument between some on the right and some on the left as to whose conspiracy nuts were nuttier. Frankly this sort of argument is meaningless. It has all the validity of arguing who would win in a fight between the USS Enterprise and The Battlestar Galatica.
However I did find it amusing to see that the two sets on conspiracies meshed with the political philosophies of their believers.
People on the Left tend to think that government is an efficient capable entity, able to solve all manner of problems with speed and practicality. (And there are many things that government should do and some that government does better than the private sector.) The Truthers, generally on the left, believe that the government is capable of such a grand conspiracy . It would be an amazing military operation to pull off such an attack and not leave clear fingers prints.
People on the right tend to think that private businesses and individuals are more capable and better problem solvers than government. It’s natural that their conspiracy – and Birthers tend to be on the right — would emphasize the power and forethought of the individual. That Obama’s parents certain that there baby would be president someday would take such diverse steps as faking a birth certificate and planting birth notices in local papers to cover baby Barrak’s true birth is simply amazing work that could only be performed by gifted individuals and never by a committee of paper-pushers.
What you believe also reveals more about yourself and your worldview than you expect it to.
In the hub-bud of the convention we should not forget to observe our nation’s birth.
It hard for those of us more than 233 years distant understand the enormous challenge and risk that our forefathers undertook. More than just our Country has benefitsx from that bold declaration of independence. All of humanity profited from our gamble. Freedom is sought throughout the world and it is in that direction that mankind has been moving.