'Trump has moved quickly to get his team in place'

Books book recommendations Five SF Stories in Which Hope Survives Science fiction has the power to remind us that hope is valuable, and necessary. By James Davis Nicoll | Published on November 26, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share A passage in an old Norman Spinrad Locus interview caught my eye recently. Providing hope is something science fiction should be doing. It sounds arrogant to say it, but if we don’t do it, who the hell will? One of the social functions of science fiction is to be visionary, and when science fiction isn’t being visionary, it hurts the culture’s visionary sense. A bold thesis! Providing hope may not be science fiction’s primary activity, but it’s certainly within the realm of things that SF can do, even under very trying circumstances. At this particular time, that might seem hard to believe… but it’s true. Here are a few hope-filled works—to be clear, these are not books in which no bad things happen; it’s just that the badness does not destroy the dogged belief that things can get better. Child of Fortune by Norman Spinrad (1985) Normally, I would arrange the reviewed works in order of publication but the quotation above was by Spinrad, in reference to this very book, so it gets to go first. The Jump Drive gave humans cheap, convenient interstellar travel. One consequence was the revived custom of the wanderjahr. Many human worlds have adopted the practice, sending their teens off to visit other worlds. Most teens discover who they are in the process. A few never stop wandering. Moussa is upset when her parents don’t give her the funds for a luxury cruise, but nonetheless heads out into space. Initial setback: she blows through her entire budget on the first planet she visits. But she perseveres and adventures ensue! One of which involves what could be called the planet of dreams… or for the unlucky, the planet of no return. This is a rare example of an SF novel in which the challenge is personal growth, not space opera battles or struggles against a big bad. Moussa doesn’t even have to deal with poverty and oppression. Wherever she goes, the destitute are supported, if not luxuriously. We know that she’ll survive, as the novel is written in first person, a recounting of her teen adventures. We can be reasonably sure that she will return unscathed and, one hopes, wiser from her adventures. “The Day Before the Revolution” by Ursula K. Le Guin (1974) Laia lives on a distant, isolated world populated by humans (of a lightly furred sort). She believes passionately in Odonianism, an anarchist political philosophy akin to the teachings of Earth’s Kropotkin or Goldman. The society around her does not find Odo persuasive. The government hasn’t either. Laia has often been a political prisoner. Her fellow Odonians revere Laia, which she finds disconcerting. Following a leader is not consistent with Odo’s teachings. But there is some hope: news arrives of successful revolution in distant Thu. Not every society is deaf to Odo. This story seems to be a prequel to Le Guin’s novel The Dispossessed (also published in 1974). That novel is set partially on an Odonian moon colony, partially in Thu. It’s very clear that Anarres, the moon society, hasn’t turned out quite as Laia or Odo had hoped. Hence the novel’s subtitle, “an ambiguous utopia.” Nevertheless, the novel makes it clear that Anarres is a much better place to be poor (as everyone there is by Thuvian standards) than is Thu. Laia’s hopes have been to great extent fulfilled. A Mask for the General by Lisa Goldstein (1987) Innovative networked computerization made American banking far more efficient in every respect. Therefore, malicious software that might have in the past have been calamitous for a single bank is instead a continental-scale disaster. Chaos ensued until General Otis Gleason seized power. Nine years later, the economy has not yet recovered. Many Americans chafe under Gleason’s obsessive micromanagement and enforced conformity. Thus far, efforts to depose him have failed. Mask maker Layla is convinced that she has the means to force Gleason to relent and restore democracy. Layla is quite mad. The state knows how to deal with lunatics. This isn’t the sort of book where at the last minute the apparent mad person suddenly manifests a glowing aura and fixes everything with the power of heart. It is also not the sort of book that ends with a boot stamping on a human face forever. Layla has no special powers, but she may be the social catalyst that the US needs. The City, Not Long After by Pat Murphy (1989) The prophecy that if “the monkeys were to leave the monastery in the Valley of Peace, they would bring peace to the world,” came true… in a sense. The cataclysmic pandemic for which the monkeys were carriers left the world an emptier, quieter place. Old rivalries vanished when the rivals perished. Decades later, civilization is recovering and the graveyard peace has ended. General Fourstar is methodically conquering community after community. San Francisco is next on his to-do list. This presents the artists’ community of San Francisco with a dilemma: stay true to their principles, which may give them no way to resist, or resist using methods that are anathema. I would not myself immediately think of resisting an invading army with applied art, but artists respond to challenge in an artistic way. Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn (2017) Climate change coupled with pandemics have crashed civilization. Across the world, continental-scale societies have dissolved into a patchwork of small communities. Happily for the survivors, humans hit bottom and rebounded before the human species was extinct. The old civilization is dead, but new cultures are sprouting. Hope! The Coast Road communities are one such new growth. They have government and law, therefore they also have crime. It is Enid and Tomas’ job to travel from town to town, investigating possible crimes and doling out appropriate punishments. The tiny town of Pasadan presents them with a puzzle. Sero’s death was most definitely violent… but was it murder? Finding the answer to that will mean uncovering secrets the people of Pasadan do not want uncovered. People will be people always, some good and some bad, but in this novel the bad find themselves in an attractive post-apocalyptic society. And yet, kindness and the urge to do good are not lost. These works are only a few examples of hopeful books. No doubt readers may be hammering away at their keyboard to remind me of hopeful books I did not mention (in many cases because I had already reviewed those works). By all means, comment away![end-mark] The post Five SF Stories in Which Hope Survives appeared first on Reactor.

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—Sen. Joni Ernst sent Department of Government Efficiency cochairmen Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy a letter Monday with ideas for budget cuts that could save the federal government more than $2 trillion. Trump named Musk and Ramaswamy as cochairmen of DOGE on Nov. 12. In the seven-page letter, Ernst’s suggestions ranged from addressing unused space in buildings to uncommitted spending for COVID-19 relief, with the proposed cuts totaling more than $2 trillion. Ernst has focused on government waste since her election to the Senate in 2014, with a recent focus on the effects of telework and remote work on federal agencies. “When faced with proposals to trim the fat from Washington’s budget, members of Congress from both parties act like Goldilocks,” Ernst wrote. “It’s too little or too big, always too hard, and never just right. But the real ‘make-believe’ of this fairy tale is that it’s impossible to reduce Washington’s budget without causing pain. Most Americans aren’t even benefiting in any meaningful way from hundreds of billions of dollars being wasted.” Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, is seen here Dec. 8, 2020. (Kevin Dietsch/AFP via Getty Images) “While you’re seeking ‘super high-iQ small-government revolutionaries’ for ‘unglamorous cost-cutting,’ all that’s really needed is a little common sense. If you can’t find waste in Washington, there can only be one reason: You didn’t look,” Ernst continued. Billion dollar boondoggles, tele-“working” bureaucrats, and vacant buildings.Let’s stop this waste! @doge @elonmusk @vivekgramaswamy pic.twitter.com/GDXmOBGGkL— Joni Ernst (@SenJoniErnst) November 24, 2024 Three rail projects in California with a combined price tag of more than $135 billion; $213 million in unemployment payments to millionaires; $31 million in pay to government employees with no assigned duties; and $10 billion in inaccurate Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program payments are among the programs Ernst listed as potential cuts. The Iowa lawmaker also said there was more than $1.6 trillion in uncommitted COVID-19 relief spending. Ernst announced Friday she would lead a Senate DOGE caucus to work alongside Musk and Ramaswamy, while Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Fla., was named as chair of a House Oversight Committee subpanel called the Delivering on Government Efficiency panel. “I have a simple message to the bureaucrats who haven’t shown up for work in years and the government contractors and grantees collecting millions to study how fast a shrimp runs on a treadmill—buckle up, because accountability is coming,” Ernst said in a statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “My decade-long mission to make Washington squeal has created an exhaustive list of more than $2 trillion worth of waste, fraud, and abuse that I will work with DOGE to cut. We are going to break down the nonsense that has taken over Washington and put in its place a government that actually works for the people.” Ernst previously questioned USAID over an employee who improperly received “locality pay” for the Washington, D.C., area despite living in Florida, and requested a staff briefing after a second instance of improper locality pay involving another USAID employee living in North Carolina was reported. In an August 2023 letter requesting a review of the issues involved with telecommuting sent to 24 government agencies, Ernst cited a media account of a VA employee who attended a staff meeting while taking a bubble bath. Ernst wrote the Environmental Protection Agency, urging the agency to take emergency action in an Aug. 28 letter sent to EPA Administrator Michael Regan about contaminants that built up in the drinking water of federal buildings left unoccupied by a shift to remote work. She also introduced the Stopping Home Office Work’s Unproductive Problems (SHOW UP) Act, in September 2023 as part of a package of legislation to rein in the “administrative state.” “This is by no means an exhaustive list, and I will be providing many more recommendations soon,” Ernst wrote. “My team and I are ready to help you make some prime cuts.” The Trump-Vance transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF. Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The post ‘Accountability Is Coming’: Iowa’s Ernst Sends Musk’s DOGE $2T Worth of Ways to Gut Government Spending  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. UK’s “censorship law” – Online Safety Act – has gained in notoriety, as it has now become the subject of interest of the US House Judiciary Committee, which has for years tried to shed light on the censorship on the internet, and its actors and factors. So much so that the committee’s members have coined the expression, the Censorship Industrial Complex. While most of the body’s activities are centered around US social media and allegations of the Biden-Harris administration’s involvement in pressuring them to censor speech, no “complex” is considered to be on an industrial scale for no reason. A flurry of third parties – such as “fact-checkers” and “raters” – have been involved and investigated, including those based abroad – notably, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). A member of the Republican-majority committee, Congressman Darrell Issa, now strongly criticized the trends concerning censorship-enabling legislation in the EU and in the UK, singling out the Online Safety Act, and warning that “a tsunami of censorship is heading towards America” from abroad. And that’s just to add to what is already there – Issa called that situation, “malign actors here at home.” As for the UK law, the congressman is unimpressed by its authors and supporters promoting it as a way to protect against hate speech and other online ills. According to Issa, what it does is give regulators a tool to censor free speech, and as such is viewed by Republicans as part of “a broader global push by the Censorship Industrial Complex.” Issa in full, from The Spectator: “The growing attacks on free speech in the US – as well as the UK and EU – pose a direct threat to free people on both sides of the Atlantic. We know that legislation like the Online Safety Act that is said to combat ‘hate speech’ empowers regulators to censor free speech. “Congressional Republicans understand that these threats to free speech are part of a broader global push by the Censorship Industrial Complex, which includes not only the EU, UK, and other nations but also malign actors here at home. We are committed to confronting this growing threat alongside the incoming Trump Administration to fight against these assaults on free speech within our borders and around the world.” The congressman had no problem counting the UK and the EU (with its Digital Services Act) among the places this push emanates from, while also vowing that the second Trump administration, alongside Congress Republicans, intends to “fight against these assaults on free speech within our borders and around the world.” In the UK itself, there are those like Reform Party leader Nigel Farage who couldn’t agree more. Farage, who has close ties with Trump, has made comments about a free speech crackdown in his country. The UK branch of the Alliance Defending Freedom advocacy group also agrees. Executive Director Paul Coleman said that the Judiciary Committee’s criticism and stance on a number of issues “shows that the UK is fast becoming notorious around the world for its censorious practices.” If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post US Republicans Condemn UK’s Online Censorship Law as a “Tsunami…Heading Towards America” appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. A lot has been said about how the outgoing US administration’s focus on censorship (“combating misinformation“); it negatively affected online speech and now a number of federal spending documents examined by a non-profit show the price of that effort – or at least a part of it. A new report prepared by OpenTheBooks details the grants the Biden-Harris administration started giving out as it took over in early 2021, and this doesn’t include the taxpayer money spent internally, by various departments and agencies. The grants figure comes to $267 million – a massive increase (44 times more) compared to the $6.7 million that Trump’s first administration set aside for the same purpose. The grants went toward researching what the outgoing White House chose to consider misinformation, which in many cases resulted in third parties – organization, academia, etc., – promoting and/or censoring speech, opponents of the practice say, effectively (and unconstitutionally) – as government proxies. Covid was one of the major topics covered by this type of “research” and here, the report notes, the approach was both to offer monetary incentives, and to pressure companies operating social networks in order to promote government narratives, but also shut down not only criticism, but even skepticism. To make matters worse – many of these issues whose official explanation was treated as gospel, resulting in people getting deplatformed and demonetized if they questioned these interpretations, shortly after turned out to be anything but “misinformation” – such as the origin of the virus, the efficacy of mask-wearing, social distancing, the safety of vaccines, etc. But, $127 million of US taxpayers’ money in total was used to enforce those narratives, through pro-vaccine advocacy, studies meant to stop “misinformation” on the internet, and the like. One of the studies that received a government grant worth $200,000 ended up being used to go after then-former President Trump as one of the populist leaders around the world who were supposedly preventing “people coming together in solidarity.” The report notes that this paper also promoted “experts” at the expense of allowing people to voice their opinions freely – regarding their own lives (in this case, affected by the pandemic measures). If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post The $267 Million Price Tag on Censorship Efforts Under Biden appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Biology™ Update: Scottish Supreme Court to Determine What a 'Woman' Is

Unless human lifespans are dramatically increased, you will not live to see Pluto's birthday.

Sort of makes sense when they’re chasing you.

It might look odd, but bones are an important source of minerals.

Incoming border czar Tom Homan said if Denver Mayor Mike Johnston (D) is willing to go to jail for interfering with and obstructing President-elect Donald Trump's administration's mass deportation plans, then he is willing to put Johnston in jail.Johnston made those comments last week after declaring he would use the Denver Police Department to stop federal and military assets from entering the county to carry out the deportations. Johnston did not fully walk back that threat, saying he does not want an armed conflict with the U.S. government but that the city will find ways to resist Trump's plan."I'm not afraid of that, and I'm also not seeking that. I think the goal is we want to be able to negotiate with reasonable people on how to solve hard problems," Johnston said.'States and localities should be required, not just to refrain from sabotaging federal immigration enforcement, but to assist with it.'When asked about the mayor's remarks by Fox News host Sean Hannity, Homan said Johnston's terms are acceptable."You are absolutely breaking the law. All he has to do is look at Arizona v. U.S., and he would see he's breaking the law. But, look, me and the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing: He’s willing to go to jail; I’m willing to put him in jail," Homan promised."President Trump has been clear. We want to concentrate on public safety threats and national security threats. I find it hard to believe that any governor would say they don’t want public safety threats removed from their neighborhoods," he added.Homan has previously warned that Democratic leaders who plan on using their office to conceal illegal immigrants and interfere with Trump's deportation plan will be in violation of Title 8 U.S.C. § 1324."They need to educate themselves. They need to review this: Title 8 U.S.C. § 1324. Read about that and don't cross that line, because it’s a felony to harbor and conceal an illegal alien from ICE. Don’t cross that line," Homan said last week.Johnston is just one of the many state- and local-level Democrats who say they will not cooperate with the federal government's operation.Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) on Tuesday said that is still not good enough."States and localities should be required, not just to refrain from sabotaging federal immigration enforcement, but to assist with it as a condition of receiving federal funding. While the federal government cannot simply 'commandeer' state and local officials to enforce federal law, making federal dollars contingent on cooperation with immigration enforcement would be both appropriate and constitutional," he explained.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!