No WFC for Me

Just found out that the Australia representative is not coming to World Fantasy Con so neither am I - probably just as well given my voice problems. However, I'm sorry I'll miss seeing marykaykare and papersky and hearing firsthand about the Amazing Train Adventure.

No WFC for Me

Just found out that the Australia representative is not coming to World Fantasy Con so neither am I - probably just as well given my voice problems. However, I'm sorry I'll miss seeing marykaykare and papersky and hearing firsthand about the Amazing Train Adventure.

Republican View of Reality

Scary, scary stuff from a story in NY Times Magazine by Ron Suskind.

Forty democratic senators were gathered for a lunch in March just off the Senate floor. I was there as a guest speaker. Joe Biden was telling a story, a story about the president. "I was in the Oval Office a few months after we swept into Baghdad," he began, "and I was telling the president of my many concerns'' -- concerns about growing problems winning the peace, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and problems securing the oil fields. Bush, Biden recalled, just looked at him, unflappably sure that the United States
was on the right course and that all was well. "'Mr. President,' I finally said, 'How can you be so sure when you know you don't know the facts?'"

Biden said that Bush stood up and put his hand on the senator's shoulder. "My instincts," he said. "My instincts."

Biden paused and shook his head, recalling it all as the room grew quiet. "I said, 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough!'"

.......

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like ... I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can
study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Republican View of Reality

Scary, scary stuff from a story in NY Times Magazine by Ron Suskind.

Forty democratic senators were gathered for a lunch in March just off the Senate floor. I was there as a guest speaker. Joe Biden was telling a story, a story about the president. "I was in the Oval Office a few months after we swept into Baghdad," he began, "and I was telling the president of my many concerns'' -- concerns about growing problems winning the peace, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and problems securing the oil fields. Bush, Biden recalled, just looked at him, unflappably sure that the United States
was on the right course and that all was well. "'Mr. President,' I finally said, 'How can you be so sure when you know you don't know the facts?'"

Biden said that Bush stood up and put his hand on the senator's shoulder. "My instincts," he said. "My instincts."

Biden paused and shook his head, recalling it all as the room grew quiet. "I said, 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough!'"

.......

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like ... I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can
study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Electoral-vote.com as RSS Feed

Thought those of you who are as addicted to checking http://www.electoral-vote.com as I am might be interested to know that you can add it to your Friends list as an RSS feed. Go to http://www.livejournal.com/syn/ and at the bottom of the page, type the URL http://www.electoral-vote.com/index.rss. Then do the usual Friends confirmation.

Electoral-vote.com as RSS Feed

Thought those of you who are as addicted to checking http://www.electoral-vote.com as I am might be interested to know that you can add it to your Friends list as an RSS feed. Go to http://www.livejournal.com/syn/ and at the bottom of the page, type the URL http://www.electoral-vote.com/index.rss. Then do the usual Friends confirmation.