Was The Postman ripped-off? Excellent Fan-Fic! And more news from the science fiction horizon!

I've been reticent to leap angrily, ever since a wave of messages told me to look into the impressive new Kojima/Sony hit “Death Stranding” — likely to be Game of the Year --  commenting on its “obvious connection” to one of my most beloved works. Many - perhaps a third - of all major reviewers have also remarked on a family — or clone — resemblance, at the most basic levels of character, story arc and meaning. Not wanting to seem greedy, resentful or unfair, I chose to exercise some reserve. I haven't posted on my main blog about it.

But finally, the surge of references to my post-apocalyptic novel "The Postman" just got too massive. So I posted on my site for occasional reflections, on Medium. (https://tinyurl.com/KojimaPostman)  Check out my history of not being litigious... plus enumerated reasons why - perhaps - I should make an exception this time.

Your thoughts are welcome.

== Fan-fic that’s worth something… even “canonical” ==

I finally got around to reading Stephen Collings’s fan-fic contribution to Isaac Asimov’s epic Foundation and Robots Universe -- Foundation's Resolve -- and I must say I was pleasantly surprised, all the more so reading further into the book, as SC’s authorial skills evidently improved. The plot is intricate and highly Asimovian-logical, offering up a Galaxy that’s riven by intrigue among many competing forces, most of them already present in Isaac’s cosmos, such as the ageless/powerful servant robot Daneel Olivaw and Hari Seldon’s beloved consort Dors Venabili. Central to the story is a 25,000  year collision of robot factions, between those who would ‘serve humanity’ by controlling Homo sapiens (for our own good) and others seeking to return mastery to the creator race.

Incorporated from Asimov’s final novels are the character Golan Trevize (“the Man Who Is Never Wrong”) and the macro-mind entity Gaia. Collings also strove — with much success — to continue forward the plot-propelling characters and development crafted by Gregory Benford, Greg Bear and myself, in the Second Foundation Trilogy. Especially significant — at least to me — was the  way he heeded the fundamental logic that we related, following Isaac’s own explicit cues, for why Gaia/Galaxia cannot be “the” human end state, but merely one of many options in a diversity we’ll desperately need.’

There’s been no sign that the Asimov Estate will want more entries in the series… (before her passing. Janet Asimov expressed great pleasure in my own capstone contribution, Foundation's Triumph, which sought to tie together so many loose ends, even from obscure titles like Pebble in the Sky and The Currents of Space.) But if they ever do, I have notes that should be helpful. Moreover, I would not mind at all if Mr. Collings’s meticulously faithful and logical Foundation's Resolve were deemed “canonical,” helping guide future creators in this magnificent, sprawling playground.

== Miscellaneous News ==

An excellent profile of my colleague Ken Liu, who has been foremost in translating and discovering and bringing western awareness to the wave of fantastic Chinese science fiction authors who a boldly taking the genre in new directions.

"Author and futurist David Brin talks with Jim Rutt about optimism, ritualized combat,The Transparent Society, and the search for life in the universe. Beginning with the case for optimism, Brin takes on "Star Wars" and talks up "Star Trek" before dropping back to Adam Smith and Karl Popper. Those thinkers provided the intellectual framework for an "intensely regulated" capitalism that brought tremendous wealth increases for the middle class. He's wary that it could all be lost if people cling to righteous, divisive politics. Winner of Hugo Award and Nebula Awards, an acclaimed futurist, Brin advocates for compromise, cooperation and transparency that allows people to assess the data, participate in the discussion, and in processes for sustaining order. If that doesn't work, there's always outer space! Brin and Rutt end the interview with a discussion of SETI and the search for life in the universe."

A fun little essay on great old PS2 (or dreamcast) games that ought to be rebooted for PS4! And one favorite? ECCO THE DOLPHIN: DEFENDER OF THE FUTURE. Whose storyline and narration I wrote. "The story is dramatically narrated at key points and is brilliant in its absurdity. The alteration of the past and its gradual recovery by Ecco’s deeds make for some interesting world-building. Later stages feature abandoned underwater buildings and machinery in polluted waters. This is in stark contrast to the first chapter’s levels, where underwater exploration is tranquil and bursting with colour." Right on. Ecco forever!

The Science of Rick and Morty: The Unofficial Guide to Earth's Stupidest Show, by Matt Brady, is all about the real science in the most popular animated show on the planet (viewership may be inflated for dramatic purposes) - from the multiverse to cloning, living in a simulation to uplifting animals, including Snuffles and the other dogs of earth C-137. The series may play fast and loose with some (or a lot) of science, but it also gets some really big concepts into viewers heads – and how the show-runners are having fun messin’ with you!

Would be writers! Remember to have a look at my extensive essay of advice for new colleagues. Also, to do the workshopping you need, to get skills, well, you could do it the way I did and recruit a bunch of area locals to meet two Saturdays a month and critique each other’s works… or take a creative writing class where at least you’ll learn from the confusion of your classmates… and recruit the best ones for your private workshop.

Or else be modern and use Critters! A large number of writers get the workshopping they need via Critters, which is one of the groups that gets organized via critique.org.You earn the right to be critiqued by critiquing others.

Truth in advertising: Media and politics

Media has an outsized role in the coming election. ‘We Have A Big Responsibility': Facebook Rolls Out New Election Security Measures. Meanwhile watch AOC ask Mark Zuckerberg if she can run fake Facebook ads, too. Zuckerberg’s answer on whether Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can falsely claim Republicans voted for the Green New Deal: Probably.

Huh, I spoke at Facebook soon after the 2016 mess and offered FB executives simple, elegant ways to help solve the factuality problem without acting as an unpopular policeman of diverse opinions. They used none of my proposals, all of which would be far better than all of the things they are trying.

Make no mistake. Second only to toppling Pax Americana and wrecking our standing in the world, the top goal of the Putin-Murdoch-led world mafia is to destroy the impartial rule-of-law, enforced by independent civil servants... 

...the very same "deep state" that Trump and every other gopper rails against. They openly call for an end to civil service protections, so that these offices can yet again be filled by "spoils" -- by party hacks or those who are terrorized by party hacks. You need to know the history. This article helps proivide background.  

And sure, there's another argument, that civil servants can become a stodgy, cloying influence, hampering governmental agility, acting to protect their own institutions... see that problem revealed in the hilarious British comedy series "Yes, Minister." It's a legitimate complaint, when made by reasonable-sane-adult conservatives or libertarians (when such existed outside of Utah.)

Only note that it was Democrats who saw that the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) had become "captured" by oligarchs, as was the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), both of them destroying competition in railroads and air travel... and Democrats demolished both cloying - obsolete agencies! They broke up AT&T. Al Gore both reduced bureaucratic paperwork by 20% and pushed the bill that unleashed the Internet, and Clinton unleashed GPS. 

The only industries 'freed from bureaucracy' by Republicans have been WallStreet/finance and resource extraction (oil/coal) Gee I wonder why those?

When we again resurrect the extinct species -- reasonable-sane-adult conservatives or libertarians -- they'll be welcome at the table, demanding least-bureaucratic approaches to 21st Century problem solving. But first we need to defeat mad-traitors who seek to destroy the civil services, intel and FBI and military officer corps, our science, fact-professionals and alliances.

== Volatile Politics ==

Market volatility has leaped immensely, reacting to Trump’s sudden blurts and trade wars, as often against allies as adversaries. According the economics analyst Bob Cesca, the top five biggest single-day point declines in the history of the Dow have occurred on Trump’s watch, and all have occurred since February, 2018. “Sure enough, someone — or a connected group of someones — has been making super-colossal trades just prior to Trump’s announcements about the trade war.”

My friend Joe Carroll suggests we go back to the font of most American wisdom - Mark Twain - and ask,,, “Have we been warped in much the same way that Twain portrays in his story: “The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg”? It would not surprise me to learn that Putin read it, back when he was a devoted communist studying American weaknesses at the KGB Academy.

China’s very special agent from Macao, charged with helping to control the Republican Party and use it against us, is now applying pressure to make a trade deal favorable to Beijing.  

Elizabeth Warren appraises the problem of lobbyist power over Congress and legislation. While your average leftist may reflexively attribute this to the corruption and venality if legislators or “corporatist Democrats,” Warren — having worked alongside many of those maligned colleagues — knows it is much more complicated. “While a big part of the problem is a broken campaign finance system, members of Congress aren’t just dependent on corporate lobbyist propaganda because they’re bought and paid for. It’s also because of a successful, decades-long campaign to starve Congress of the resources and expertise needed to independently evaluate complex public policy questions. How has Congress filled that gap? By turning to lobbyists.”

Zeroing in on a problem that has gown worse every year since Newt Gingrich destroyed the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, Warren explains: “Republicans eliminated an independent office of experts dedicated to advising Congress on technical and scientific information. Congressional staff salaries, for most roles, have failed to keep pace with inflation, making it harder to attract and retain staff with scientific expertise. And the committees focusing on science and technology have seen their staff levels fall by over 40% over the past few decades.”

Warren’s plan to end Washington corruption is worth your time and attention. It’s one reason why I am dedicated to having her be in one of the two top slots of the 2020 ticket… and I am leaning evermore toward that being #1… though in that case I hope she’ll appoint an experienced governor to be her #2. And maybe try some of the methods I prescribe in Polemical Judo.

== And... ==

Two articles you should add to your quiver, when you hunt and reel in your smartest RASR… one with enough neurons he or she might yet be hauled back from treason and darkness. The two words they fear most at Fox are not “Elizabeth Warren.” 

The two words that send every Foxite fleeing are “Ocean Acidification.” Because they have no blithe shrug-answer for it. None is possible. You can demonstrate the phenomenon with a glass of water, a drinking straw and two swimming pool test strips. Only human generated CO2 can be causing this disaster. 

Then follow with: “'We Should Be Worried': Study Confirms Fear That IntenseOcean Acidification Portends Ecological Collapse.”

And then this from Fox News itself! “Ocean acidification was the final straw in the Cretaceous (dinosaur) extinction” A different cause, but similar lethality.

Mark Zuckerberg has offered to toss scraps to the New York Times and other sources of real journalism. That’s not an answer. This article asks: ”Are News Bundles The Future of Journalism?"

No, they aren't. In response: My article "Beyond Advertising: Will Micropayments Sustain the New Internet?" has received a lot of attention as the failures of an advertising-based Internet are becoming ever more apparent and as news media get starved into oblivion.

== And finally, a full-on rant! ==

Ready? Take a deep breath and here goes...

The blatantly extortionist withholding of appropriated aid to Lebanon ended quietly as the Ukraine thing unfolded. But what was Trump extorting? Not 'investigations' of never-stated crimes by Hunter Biden. Could it have been actual emoluments in some form? And while we await John Roberts's betrayal - desperately stopping the tax records and Deutsche Bank revelations from reaching Congress -- we must wonder: when will a log break from the jam and unleash the revelations river? Some brave settlement victim defying Trump to enforce his "Great Wall of NDAs? 

Or maybe Epstein's "insurance" files? Giuliani's? David Pecker's safe? A brave Graham-lover stepping up? Some Koch-scion or conscience-driven Helvetian who realizes that $billions will be useless in a world awash in tech-savvy refugees and streets filling with tumbrels?

My money is on "Little Rocket Man," who is volatile enough not to link arms with others in the Putin-Fox-Saudi-mullah-dominionist cabal, desperately plugging every leak and loose log. If Kim does something to his "lover" in the next few weeks, the dems need to be ready with a unified howl of derision and "kissy" sounds at rallies to mock "we fell in love" Trump's adoration of a mnurderous communist tyrant.

What depresses me is that the dems never agree on unified talking points, while every gopper receives instructions from Rupert Murdoch, every single morning, and has for a decade. Just a few such unified memes would do wonders! 

Example: The one common element in every Republican "defense" is "Don't look! You should never have looked! We don't want to look! No one should know!" It is the distilled essence of their attacks on the "Steele Dossier," on Strzock & Page. On "FBI spying." On Schiff's committee proceedings... it is the root of every single whine.

Mock that! A faux cringe (hands up to divert sight) and a cry "Don't look!" 

If any THREE dems did it, the media would catch on.

The "culture war" underlying civil war

== A Growing Gap ==

The gap between the richest and the poorest U.S. households is now the largest it's been in the past 50 years.  The income gap grew wider in nine states: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Kansas, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Texas and Virginia. “When asked why the rising economic tide has raised some boats more than others, Rodgers lists several factors, including the decline of organized labor and competition for jobs from abroad. He also cites tax policies that favor businesses and higher-income families.” But there are types of inequality. The middle class in California is not in the same collapse seen in many other states. Rather, the disparity rises there because poor folks come to California, and at the other end many people get rich developing actual goods and services that raise up ‘boats.” I wish these statistics parsed out that kind of wealth disparity (which also needs solving!) vs. the gap between parasite professions, inherited wealth, organized crime and cheaters on the one hand and working class folks. That is the much worse disparity that matters and will lead to revolution.

Why do evangelicals support Trump, a man who has bragged about sexual assault, lies perpetually and once admitted he never asks God for forgiveness? Recall the scene where Clintons and Obamas and Bidens and Sunday School teachers Jimmy & Rosalyn Carter all recite the Apostles' Creed largely by memory while the Trumps stand, bored and silent, then leave early. While rich televangelists preach a prosperity/Dominionist gospel that's opposite to Jesus's teachings, they blasphemously extol as "God's Chosen One" a tool of communist and salafist dictators who is the most opposite-to-Jesus human you can find.

“Trump's lack of knowledge of the Bible is also well-known. Nevertheless, many evangelical Christians believe that Trump was chosen by God to usher in a new era, a part of history called the "end times." Read this, if you don’t already know about this monstrously hypocritical and viciously hate-drenched cult, which eagerly supports Israel so that a final war can then ensue in which most Jews will suffer horrible death and eternal damnation… fanatics who pray daily for an end to all democracy, all science, curiosity, human ambition and accomplishment, praying also for events that would end the United States of America. Plus an end to the birth or joy of any new human children. Yes, all of that, explicitly… and Mike Pence avows openly to praying for all of that, daily.  

But back to the question: ‘Why do evangelicals support Trump?” Most fundamentally, it is because he enrages the people they hate most — smartypants, university modernist fact-people plus atheist/agnostics… but  above all those sincere religious folks and Christians who believe in a loving God who is not a viciously sadistic lunatic.

Now let me demur a bit. “Evangelical” is too broad a term and it lumps sincere “red Letter Christians” — those who like Jimmy Carter emphasize  the words of Jesus as printed in red, in many New Testaments, conflating them with the dominionist horrors who emphasize the brutally sadistic Book of Revelation, which is opposite to Jesus’s teachings in every conceivable way. “Fundamentalist works. But the dominionists who want our “stuff” are the true loonies.

== Will resistance turn into rebellion? ==

The 'Reasonable Rebels" by Eve Fairbanks, in The Washington Post, asserts that all of those who claim there is a moderate reasonable right are cloning, almost verbatim, the vernacular of Southern antebellum intellectuals, those proslavery rhetoricians “who talked little of slavery itself. Instead, they anointed themselves the defenders of “reason,” free speech and “civility.” The prevalent line of argument in the antebellum South rested on the supposition that Southerners were simultaneously the keepers of an ancient faith and renegades — made martyrs by their dedication to facts, reason and civil discourse.

“Josiah Nott, a surgeon who laid out the purported science behind black inferiority, held that questions like slavery “should be left open to fair and honest investigation, and made to stand or fall according to the facts.” They claimed that they were the ones who truly had black people’s best interests at heart, thanks to their more realistic understanding of human biology. “No one would be willing to do more for the Negro race than I,” John Wilkes Booth wrote shortly before he assassinated Lincoln.”

“The most important thing to know about them, they held, was that they were not the oppressors. They were the oppressed. They were driven to feelings of isolation and shame purely on the basis of freely held ideas, the right of every thinking man. Rep. Alexander Sims (D-S.C.) claimed that America’s real problem was the way Southerners were made to suffer under “the sneers and fanatic ebullitions of ignorant and wicked pretenders to philanthropy.””  Fairbanks captures the whining tone of persecution that pervaded nearly all Southern writings of the time… and meanwhile she commits a dishonesty of her own, by spreading the tar of that hypocrisy over to sentiments she dislikes, in the modern discourse.

Her parallels with the “reasonable right,” raise interesting questions and I have no problem with poking away at those folks who — nowadays — claim liberals are persecuting them. The problem is that we cannot afford to drive away potential allies in the current fight, even those who have been slow and tepid and unhelpful, till now.

I agree with her far more than I disagree! “One reason slavery was not abolished in America through the political process, as it was in Britain, is that abolitionists were rhetorically straitjacketed by the proposition that they were the hard-liners who sought to curtail freedom. When the Charleston Mercury wrote that it was the “duty” of Northerners to “prove” that they were willing to defend Southerners against “fanatics,” Northern newspapers reprinted the editorial. Northerners, not Southerners, had to watch what they said and strain to compromise so they didn’t confirm the dictatorial notion Southern rhetoricians had implanted in the public mind.”

But today I see what Lincoln feared. Nearly daily, I read some new figure appealing to antebellum reasoning. Joining the 'reasonable right' seems to render these figures desirable contributors to center-left media outlets. That’s because, psychologically, the claim to victimhood can function as a veiled threat. It tricks the listener into entering a world where the speaker is the needy one, fragile, requiring the listener to constantly adjust his behavior to cater to the imperiled person.

== Justifications for repressing us “mud-sill” members of the mob ==

Interesting recent research shed light on both ubiquitous surveillance and some mythologies about basic human behavior, like the “bystander effect,” the notion that neighbors or strangers won’t help, during situations of danger or conflict. A 2019 study in Holland showed that bystanders by and large do step in or engage, in order to resolve problems erupting nearby. at a more heroic level,  Rebecca Solnit, in A Paradise Built in Hell, shows that time and again our fellow citizens show pluck and guts in any crisis, as happened on 9/11, when 80 average folks rose up against hijackers aboard flight UA93. 

  

I tried to apply this notion of active citizenship in my novel The Postman, a theme that Kevin Costner successfully conveyed in his film adaptation. For all its many faults, Costner’s film kept true to my core message: that civilization’s miracle will never be preserved – or restored after any breakdown – by some lone hero. Its only chance will be a collective and widespread revival of faith in ourselves.

All of this runs counter to the dangerously toxic mythology spread among the dumber members of today’s elite aristocracies, who are encouraged by sycophants to view themselves as inherently superior to the mob of mere citizens out here, a rationalization for cheating power grabs that boringly goes back thousands of years of failed feudalism.

For years, I’ve described how our ‘culture war’ is not about “left-right’ or religion or any other surface issue. Racism is a major part, plus very different attitudes toward symbolism and feudalism. But the real struggle goes back to 1778 and we are in Phase Eight. I’ve also touted novels that starkly depict our current “civil war” going hot. First Sean Smith’s novel, Tears of Abraham and more recently Craig DiLouie’s Our War. Since the latter novel came out, an impeachment inquiry was launched, and right-wing media and militias have labeled it a soft coup by the Deep State, threatening civil war, while even the president himself indirectly threatened he’d refuse to recognize the results if removed from office. This all mirrors the setup of Di Louie’s novel. Beyond that prescience, Our War  portrays a tragic added factor, use by both sides of child soldiers.

And yes, those chapters on Civil War are in POLEMICAL JUDO. Order now.

== And finally ==

As talk spreads of a new American Civil War, you should compare these modern justification to the “mudsill theory” spread by pre-confederate slave holders.  That there must be, and always has been, a lower class for the upper classes to rest upon. 

The term derives from a mudsill, the lowest threshold that supports the foundation for a building. The theory was first used by South Carolina Senator/Governor James Henry Hammond, a wealthy southern plantation owner, in a Senate speech on March 4, 1858, to justify what he saw as the willingness of the lower classes and the duty of non-whites to perform menial work which enabled the higher classes to move civilization forward. "In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. ... It constitutes the very mudsill of society." Efforts to reduce class or racial inequality, under this theory, inevitably run counter to civilization itself. Northern soldiers fighting in the Western Theater of the Civil War turned this derogatory term into one of self pride, as in "Western Mudsill".

Of course very few of the tech billionaires ascribe to this idiocy. As beneficiaries of Enlightenment Civilization, many of them are too busy, working side by side with middle class engineers, to listen to drivel from flatterers. So it's important that we make a distinction between those who got rich helping creators to deliver goods and services and those who are various forms of parasite, from gambling moguls and mafiosi to petro princes and oil-boyars to Wall Street lampreys and inheritance brats and KGB shills. I'll give this to that Steyer guy. An egomaniac? Maybe. But he is fervent on our side.

Space News - is Planet X a black hole? And those Russian rocket explosions... and more...

Planetary Radio gives you an hour-long podcast on solar system news! Especially glimpses of the weird and wonderful projects we’re funding at NASA’s Innovative and Advanced Concepts program (NIAC). Plus a tribute to Alexei Leonov. Matt Kaplan is a terrific and engaging host…. and the projects truly are worth your tax dollars! (Well, most of them ;-)

Separately, at the recent Starship Conference in San Diego, Matt Kaplan, the Voice of the Planetary Society, interviewed me for Planetary Radio.  

Need more Brin-blather about what might be going on out there? Let’s move out from the mere solar system. “Should we be revealing ourselves to the cosmos? What if the first aliens to discover us do so thanks to our own transmissions, and, more disturbingly, what if those aliens are less than benevolent?” On StarTalk All-Stars, astrobiologist and host David Grinspoon also tackles METI, or “Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence.” With co-host Chuck Nice, Dr. FunkySpoon invited David Brin, the Hugo award-winning science fiction author, scientist and NASA consultant who was on the committee that drew up the protocols for what to do if we do make contact with aliens. 

You’ll learn why the “barn door excuse” – that we’ve already sent out radio and television transmissions that may have sealed our fate – is scientifically incorrect, but why new plans to send planetary radar focused beams into space would pump up the volume exponentially. We discuss whether the general public has the right to determine whether we broadcast our presence to the universe, or whether a “scientific elite” gets to decide humanity’s fate. 

One proposed theory explaining the "Fermi Paradox" is that civilizations reach a "competence limit," especially if they do what elites always do in feudal-oligarchic-despotic societies -- crush the corrective light of criticism.  Want a daunting example? Here's an interesting dissection of the kinds of "nuclear rocket that Russians may have been testing in Archangelsk, before that recent, horrific explosion. And yes, such desperation plus incompetence combinations are really scary.

Note also it was one of three disasters just that month! Watch this amazing footage from the munitions dump going off in Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. And then ponder how that gangster mafia is on the verge of ruling the world.

== Planet "X"?  Or a hole? ==

A new paper suggests the gravitational pull that we’ve long associated with a missing Planet X could come from a primordial black hole – a type of small singularity that scientists have theorised formed during the Big Bang. "We advocate that rather than just looking for it in visible light, maybe look for it in gamma rays. Or cosmic rays."  Or else maybe the distortion of background stars? Or Hawking Radiation? 

On average, the mysterious body is calculated to orbit the Sun 20 times farther than Neptune, every 10,000 to 20,000 years, versus Pluto's 248 years. Far-out!

Another possibility…. A wormhole gateway? For alien lurkers? Or waiting for us, as in the Expanse

More mundane (slightly.) Scientists have discovered what could be the largest neutron star on record.  Starting at  around 1.4 solar masses, more recent measurements have revealed increasingly huge examples.  This one is estimated at 2.14x solar mass and 20 km across. Once a star reaches 2.17 times the mass of the sun, that star is doomed to collapse into a black hole. This suggests that J0740+6620 is "really pushing that" limit, providing an amazing laboratory for gravity radiation and stellar evolution, plus the possibility of something dramatic.

  

The second verified interstellar visitor object is more active than ‘Oumuamua. It’s cometary activity will be visible for months, allowing analysis of many elemental/chemical traits. Astronomers will attempt to compare C/2019 Q4's shape to the (arguably) cigar-like structure (or even odder) of 'Oumuamua, which looked different from anything we've yet seen in our solar system. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, expected to come online next year, should be able to spot large numbers of interstellar objects as they fly through our solar system.

Another spectacular new ‘eye’ (among many) is , the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) on the Mayall Telescope in Arizona, is a huge leap in our ability to measure galaxy distances – enabling a new era of mapping the structures in the Universe. See the amazing new map of the filamentary nature of our universe.

Dust from a huge asteroid collision out there might have obscured enough sunlight to trigger the Kirschvink or Iceball epochs on Earth, about 466 million years ago.

== A few curiosities ==

The mass of the proposed superheavy gravitino lies in the region of the Planck mass—that is, around a hundred millionth of a kilogram. That’s immense. In comparison, protons and neutrons—the building blocks of the atomic nucleus—are around ten quintillion (ten million trillion) times lighter. Their large mass means that these particles could only occur in very dilute form in the universe – “one actually wouldn't need very many of them to explain the dark matter content in the universe and in our galaxy—one particle per 10,000 cubic kilometres would be sufficient.”  This has another effect. It means these particles needn’t be invisible to EM interactions… they could interact with light and matter relatively normally and still not have been detected till now.

If so, interplanetary space contains them sparsely but everywhere. Might 4.6 billion years of collisions with Earth left ‘tracks’ in old rocks? (Much as my gravity laser beans do, in Earth?) Might these present obstacles to fast ships, and hence help to explain the Fermi Paradox?

And finally... Though almost desperately fluffy, the “In Search of” shows can be amusing and occasionally interesting. Here’s one about aliens where I go along… 

Heh!  NIAC has even funded some Mach Effect studies.  I think just to keep a reputation for openmindedness that keeps the better minds hanging around. 

Breaking the "Great Wall of NDAs" and Republican defectors - and more

Below I'll offer on-blog a riff about the "real Kremlin plan" that blew up likes and shares on FB. Plus a suggestion for Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg and other "good billionaires." But first a reminder!

My e-book about our current political/social crises - Polemical Judo -  offers perspectives on our crisis - many that you’ve never seen. Over 100+ tactics to help defend our Great Experiment. Now in both e-book and paperback.  More ideas, meme-weapons and  perspectives than you could shake a stick at. See the intro and Table of Contents plus Chapters One and Two as well as Chapter 16 posted online.

Verifying what you already know about my ego, I believe we’re more likely to win this fight for the heart, mind and (yes) soul of civilization, moving forward with sapience and sense, if any of the 100+ now-unused tactics in this book get picked up by someone with position and sagacity to wield them well. Tell someone! Thanks and good luck to us all. 

== Electoral Updates ==

A federal appeals court has held that members of the Electoral College have a constitutional right to vote for a different presidential candidate than the one they swore to support — and whom the voting public in their states actually chose.

“Inventing a right to be a faithless elector invites chaos, elevates formalism over democracy, and shows how indefensible originalism is when applied to evolving norms of democracy.”

Meanwhile voting machines in Texas and Mississippi, where there are no paper audits possible (as in many red states) dry runs for next year's tsunami of cheating are already underway, with machines made by notorious right-and-russia-connected companies blatantly switching votes before the voter's eyes. See videos of it happening - in Missisippi and in Texas! But don't worry. They'll fix the "blatantly" part and hide it from the voter in the booth. Problem solved.  

Better yet, watch John Oliver's excellent exposé on voting machines.

Spread the word. ONE RICH DUDE could fix this! By offering a $5million whistleblower prize - plus guaranteed protection and hero status - for the employee of any company who brings forth proof of cheating. If proof doesn't appear, you don't pay! (But you'll still instill fear in those bastards.) If you do wind up paying, you become a hero for saving the nation.

See my Henchman posting about how this could work. Or the chapter in Polemical Judo.

== the Bloomberg example ==

If Michael Bloomberg truly wants to fight Trump - and be viewed as a hero, not an egotist - there’s an approach that’s cheaper, more dignified and likely far more effective than running for president. Let him - or any other civilization-loving zillionaire - offer to pay the legal expenses of anyone who’s thinking about breaking a Trump Non Disclosure Agreement. Trump has openly bragged about his Great Wall of NDAs.

Better yet, offer to pay the NDA's disclosure penalty. Yes, many rich dudes have NDAs and might fear the resulting releases aimed at them.  So? Make that a feature, not a bug, by openly embracing transparency and being seen as a hero.

Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal are just the crust we see. Breaking through Trump’s mythology of vengefully-enforced coerced silence just a couple of times might shatter the whole edifice, unleashing a tsunami of revelation.

Or see elsewhere my much broader proposals for subsidies for whistleblowers and or repentant henchmen!

== International tensions ==

Regarding the recent attack on Saudi oil: If this is what some tribesmen can do (possibly with help from Iran and Saudi shiite rebels) can you imagine what will happen when the worldwide oligarchic putsch finally awakens a hundred million "boffins" to the war being waged against them? The one common thread across the Fox-Putin-Trumpist-Saudi right and the Maduro-Kim-Putin left is not racism... it is all out suppression of fact professions, from science, journalism and medicine to the "deep state" civil servants and intel/fbi/military officers, the ones most vested in our Great Enlightenment Experiment.

Yes, those are the ones standing in the way of a return to 10,000 years of inheritance feudalism. But you aristos are doing what your predecessors all did, surrounding yourself with flatterers instead of advisors who can warn you -- that the "boffins" are waking up. And when they do, those who know genetics, electronics, nuclear, bio and cyber won't be limited to tumbrels and guillotines. And they will know where to find those mansion holes in the desert or mountains or under the sea.

The smart rich know better. And if you don't then you should wake up and get better advisors. Here's a hint. If they flatter you, then they are your guides to the guillotine.

== Moscow Mitch “defends minority party rights! ==

Sorry but it just keeps on coming. Now "Moscow Mitch" defends the filibuster... which is great news because it suggests he foresees a collapse in GOP Senate ownership coming! While his op-ed overflows with lies and hypocrisy, I have a special take on one aspect, one of 100+ "agile moves" you'll find in Polemical Judo.

Simple: grant every *individual* member of Congress one compulsory subpoena per term -- the ability to summon testimony from any person before one of the member's sub-committees, for three hours. Think about it. Pelosi and Schumer can afford that. It would not block legislation. Some mad-rightists would use it to annoy. BFD. Most Republicans would hoard theirs for use in some way that impresses the home district.

Above all, if gopper reps used theirs, it could establish a firm precedent for when -- not if -- dems are back in the minority! Think how valuable that would have been, during the 24 out of 26 years the GOP owned Congress. Especially 2017-2019, when that rule would have peeled away Trumpian travesties.

Pelosi could do that now! and demolish forever any accusations that "Democrats run roughshod over minority party rights." (Indeed, has she read my blogs? Because the new impeachment hearings have been generous with minority subpoenas.)

== Where are the GOP defectors? ==

I've been (as you know) tracking signs of an underground movement by retired or retiring GOP figures, simmering and trying to scheme for the "salvation of US conservatism." I doubt Gov. Weld (the only one with guts to step up, so far) is part of it. Nor would be the stand-up Schindler-figure, Justin Amash (resembling Oskar Schindler, a creep who refuses to sink alongside his comrades into outright evil.) Certainly Romney is scheming - that's a given, no matter what else! But the flood of recent Texas retirees? Who knows?

The figure we aren't seeing, who is doubtless talking to desperate zillionaires is - of course - Paul Ryan. (Remember him? You will, soon.)

Deterring all of this, of course, is the 88% approval rating of Trump among Republican voters. Left out of those polls? The plummet in self-identified Republicans, nationwide, threatening the zombie implement that has served Murdoch and Putin so well. (And yes, I deeply worry what will happen when Two Scoops is seen by them as more a liability than asset: Don't eat anything fed to you by your commie pals, Don, lest you be more valuable to them as a martyr.) (God bless the U.S. Secret Service!)

Also, just how *brittle* is that 88% gopper support? I recall Watergate, when Nixon's devoted backing collapsed, like sediment raining from a supersaturated solution, or like sentiment draining from tens of millions of Republican women.

Final thought: the GOP masters should ponder deeply the fate of the Junkers-caste 1930s Prussian oligarchs, who thought they could control a populist beast they helped stir into hydrophobic frenzy. Surprise, surprise! In its froth, the beast threw its riders and a gifted svengali leaped aboard, grabbing the reins. (Remember the line from Cabaret: "Do you still think you can control them?")

The beast is not to be blamed as much as the beastmasters who crafted this outbreak. You who thought you could control this weren't as smart as you thought you were. And the smartaleck "fact-people" you've waged war against are not as stupid as you envisioned.

History would have predicted this. If you bothered to learn any.