Weird: The date on this thread is Sept. 27.

That it is. And my RSS aggregator didn't even pick up Open Thread #50 until this one came along and dislodged it.

Space-time continuum restored. Will soon be plenty to see here, please move along.

Paratime Custodial Services

Apologies if this has been posted before, but here are Coyote's Ten Commandments.

In a fight between Smoot-Hawley and Sarbanes-Oxley, who'd win?

Theresa, I'm writing a post referencing your famous post about the business scam where the crooks "buy" a sound business (owner-financed), run up incredible bills for items that disappear, and abscond themselves when the business is hollowed out and crushed by debt.

What was that again? I'd like to link to it.

Apologies for the misspelling.

I thought that one of Coyote's commandments was "If you can't eat it of f*** it, pee on it so no one else can."

But that might have been from LevityCuss.

*** You see, 'kay?

Josh Jasper: In a fight between Smoot-Hawley and Sarbanes-Oxley, who'd win?

Well, last time I checked, Sarbanes & Oxley are still alive, so that gives them an edge.

If you string the four names together, it sounds like a WASPy law firm.

Random brain-fart, cross-posted from my own blog comments:

Given all the shit stirred up by the Mundane SF Manifesto, and given that all good SF movements (especially controversial ones) require a vehemently opposed, er, opposition, it seems to me that it behooves us to write a manifesto for an anti-Mundane movement.

I hereby volunteer the name "Dieselpunk".

Dieselpunk isn't Infernokrusher; you can write Dieselpunk that is functionally mundane SF. The key to Dieselpunk is that it's intermediate technology SF -- SF with mid-twentieth-century engineering values. The iconic power plant would be the Napier Nomad, an afterburning two-stroke supercharged diesel engine; representing as it does the ungainly chasm between black soot-spouting Victoriana and sleek turbocharged modernism, this hapless dromedary of an aviation powerplant drives us headlong into a future populated by such weirdness as airliners descended from the Convair B-36, over-the-counter heroin™, and of course a self-contained nuclear powered version of the Bagger 288. "Sky Captain" might well be the prototypical Dieselpunk movie; Albert Speer designed the monumental architecture: and Thomas Dolby wrote the soundtrack ("She Blinded me with Science", "The Golden Age of Wireless", "Budapest by Blimp" ...)

The DP manifesto should ideally result, if followed, in a form of fiction that matches the requirements of mundane SF while being, like, fantastical and fun to read.

We can have custard pie fights at conventions ...

Any takers?

A ban on smut? The horror!

"We can have custard pie fights at conventions ..."

Ever clean up after one of those?

Stefan: it's not so bad if you're allowed to use tongues.

Uh oh, I better hide from Smoot et al.

Charlie, I think that's better known as Brezhnev-era Soviet literature.

Still, better than chickenhawkpunk.

What would happen if an open thread started numbering over 400 posts? Is this one of those flaws with database design where, when you test a program with a small-sized data pool, everything is OK, but reach beyond a certain size and everything will pretty much freezes up?

"it's not so bad if you're allowed to use tongues."

On a hotel carpet? Custard pies are not precision munitions . . .

Charlie (if I may call you that way)... When is Accelerando coming out in paperback? I read those great reviews in places like Locus then I found that it's a hardcover. Argh.

Serge: July next year. But you don't have to wait.

Chickenhawkpunk?

One thing I never understood is calling 'chickenhawk'someone who's a big supporter of wars as long as he/she doesn't risk having to actually wage war.

Why is that? Well, remember those old Foghorn Leghorn cartoons from Warner Bros? He often tricked a very young and very small hawk, self-described as a chickenhawk, into thinking that this BIG dog yonder really was a chicken. And the little guy went after the big dog.

Serge -- no, it just gets cumbersome to read and slow to load.

That 's happened to me too, Jeremy. It's like early this year when I spent weeks setting up a bunch of programs, tested them to take out all goofups. I then moved everything to the superduper test environment and the programs were now crawling. I basically had to rewrite the programs. Not a total waste of time, but...

Serge, a chickenhawk is an older person who turns runaway kids into child prostitutes. They suffer and he collects his pimp money.

Thanks, Charlie. I may go for that, but of course I'd buy an actual copy of the book. Does it look like the honor system actually works? I certainly hope so.

Huh, Harry? I've never come across that use in North-America. Is that a British use for 'chickenhawk'?

errr... Rhyming hurts

I'm jonesing for a TNH garden report, please.

Serge, you must not watch cop TV shows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chickenhawk_%28sexuality%29 mentions this usage briefly.

That doesn't mean the political meaning of the word comes from the runaway/prostitution meaning. It might just be a fun thing to say.

Hmm... I watch Special Victims Unit and Criminal Intent, and I used to watch Law & Order until Jerry Orbach died, but I don't remember ever hearing the expression in that context. Well, I guess that meaning of 'chickenhawk' could apply to our warmongers.

The sexual-predation meaning of "chickenhawk" goes back to the Seventies, and seems to have originated on the US West Coast, specifically in LA.* There's some evidence that it also meant "pro-war, as long as someone else does the actual dying" during Vietnam -- Wikipedia has a long entry, which is interesting more for what it displays about the strengths and faults of the wiki system; lots of contributions by people who are highly knowledgeable, along with some doo-doo from doo-doo heads. (Favorite being the guy who doesn't know the difference between entomology and etymology.**)

*This leads into Jackson Browne lyrics, but it's a long story.

**With West Nile out there, can it be long before the gummint calls for the abnihilization of the entom?

Confusion is understandable if you're trying to understand Treebeard's lecture on the taxonomy of insect names.

Emphyrio, the blow-out post is here, and there's another nice piece on the same idea here.

"*This leads into Jackson Browne lyrics, but it's a long story."

As a confirmed Jackson Browne fan of long standing, I'd like to hear that story.

As this is an open thread... Has anyone else read the latest Discworld book? "Where's my Cow?"

We were laughing out loud in the book store. I particularly like the award listed on the cover.

Serge, a chickenhawk is an older person who turns runaway kids into child prostitutes. They suffer and he collects his pimp money.

Uhhhh...no. A chickenhawk is a guy who chases sexually mature, but legally underage boys ("chicken"). This is different from a pedophile, who chases actual children, often without regard to their sex. At the sleazy end they'd be the customers of your pimp, but that use of 'chickenhawk' is simply incorrect by anything I know.

I've spent the past week watching Firefly episodes. Had never seen them til the Serenity movie got me motivated. I am absolutely charmed. And despondent that there probably will be no more. how can they do that? I still want the back story on the romance between Zoe and Wash and more on Book's background and tons of other stuff. If you could make another episode, what would you want it to be about?

Linkmeister: Browne's "Boulevard" has the lines

Down at the Golden Cup
They set the young ones up

...which refers to the Gold Cup coffee shop in LA, which was a prominent location for the activity (which, as Xopher notes, is picking up rather than pimping the lads, though the lyric doesn't make that clear).

Sometimes I fret over the stuff that's rattling around in my head.

Attention typophiles: Cheshire Dave has produced his second feature, Etched in Stone. It's a QuickTime movie, and a little long, but don't miss the credits.

If you don't know his first masterpiece, catch up now: Behind the Typeface: Cooper Black.

Xopher, the term has both meanings. I can understand that you haven't heard it before, but it's true.

Serge: One thing I never understood is calling 'chickenhawk'someone who's a big supporter of wars as long as he/she doesn't risk having to actually wage war.

It's just that simple. Yes, there is a bird called a 'chickenhawk' -- but as a political label, it's not derived from the small raptor, but from "chicken" + "hawk" : one who is in favor of a war, as long as they themselves are not placed in any danger.

Harry: as Terry Pratchett pointed out, dead people have considerable advantages over live people in anything dangerous; see, e.g., zombie steeplejacks.

The commandments are fun, but they leave out Coyote's first lesson (which is going to be a button sometime): "The Great Spirit is not a shitter." (See Coyote Blue, IMO the best thing Christopher Moore has done.)

hrc -

Yeah, now you know how I felt two years ago. I loved Serenity, but part of me is still sad that Whedon couldn't continue his story through TV, in such a way that I could spend an hour (or 42 minutes) a week with that crew.

If I won the metaphysical lottery and could grant Joss 4 more seasons to explore his universe, I would like to know more about Inara - why, exactly, did she condescend to join such a questionable crew? What was she running from?

Also, I'd like to know who Vera was, before she was a gun.

Oh, and I'd make Jewel Staite gain back that 15 pounds.

But you know what they say.... if wishes were horses, we'd all be eatin' steak.

But you know what they say.... if wishes were horses, we'd all be eatin' steak.

I consider myself reasonably to obsessively well read, and I can't even parse that "saying".

I humbly ask for a clarification.

Ah, it's just a direct quote from Jayne, the resident Big Dumb Brute of Firefly/Serenity. I believe the original cliche was something like "if wishes were horses, beggars would ride."

My other favorite Jayne line also makes little sense to those who haven't seen the series; "...that's why I never kiss 'em on the mouth!"

Sorry for the interruption - I'll just be giggling quietly in the corner!

So far I've missed radishes as the source of Doozer construction material, and now a quote from "Firefly". Clearly my DVD rememberizer unit is on the fritz today.

From AP via Earthlink (this really belongs somewhere else, but I don't know which thread it should go into):

Engineers: New Cause of New Orleans Flood
October 07, 2005 8:33 PM EDT
NEW ORLEANS - Much of the city flooded not because water rushed over the tops of levees, but because two of the storm barriers that ring New Orleans actually shifted and then collapsed, a team of independent engineers said Friday.

The preliminary analysis contradicts initial reports by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which said water may have pushed over the top of the levees, eroding the earthen embankments that support the flood walls.

The independent engineers said the shifting of the barriers was understandable and did not assign blame or speculate about design flaws that the storm surge from Hurricane Katrina may have exposed.

"Levees tend to be built in very difficult situations on poor site conditions because you're essentially turning marshy land into land you can stabilize and do things on," said civil engineering professor Raymond Seed, who led a team from the University of California at Berkeley.

The California team worked with the American Society of Civil Engineers and Army engineers for several days this week before releasing the findings. More research is planned.

===
It goes on to say that part of one of the levees was moved thirty-five feet. That's impressive.

Does the "PBF Easter Bunny" particle lead to where it is supposed to? I figured it was a Perry Bible Fellowship cartoon, maybe, but the link left me a bit confused.

Sometimes I fret over the stuff that's rattling around in my head.

You play it on guitar?

I went to the US Coast & Geodetic Survey looking for information about the earthquake in Pakistan, and found instead this utter obscenity:

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1004

Geospatial Consolidation Begins: USGS’ Public-Private Competition official
Released: 10/4/2005 7:24:48 AM

Contact Information:
U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey
Office of Communication
119 National Center
Reston, VA 20192
Denver Makle - dmakle@usgs.gov
Phone: 703-648-4732

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The USGS announced today the start of the public-private competition that will determine current and future functions; and the number of personnel required by the National Geospatial Technical Operations Center (NGTOC) at the Denver Federal Center, an all government campus, located in Lakewood, Colo.

Official notification has been posted in Fed Biz Opps. The study will be completed within 12 months.

The study was informally announced, Sept. 15 when the USGS communicated intentions to consolidate the functions and operations currently performed at its mapping centers and other distributed sites to the Denver Federal Center, in Lakewood, Colo.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The USGS serves the nation by providing reliable scientific information to describe and understand the Earth; minimize loss of life and property from natural disasters; manage water, biological, energy, and mineral resources; and enhance and protect our quality of life.

Yeah, sure, accurate reliable available information, I'm surprised it's not moving to Rick Santorum's home state and being handed over to a newly created branch of AccuWeather or Halliburton or some such, which will make sure that only information that has been edited to fit Republicrap propaganda and is available to the public for subcription via private industry sellers only....

BUSH OUT NOW!!!! And all his "initiatives," too, AND every court appointment he has made be nullified!

Thanks for the clarification about the Browne lyric; that one went completely over my head when I heard the song.

And the latest hackorama news,

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsChannel.aspx?type=politicsNews

Bush's pick for Justice Dept. job withdraws name

Fri Oct 7, 2005 5:12 PM ET

By James Vicini
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Timothy Flanigan, who faced more questions from Senate Democrats about his links with indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, has withdrawn his nomination for the Justice Department's No. 2 job, according to a letter to President George W. Bush released on Friday.

Flanigan, a senior lawyer for Tyco International Ltd. who had been chosen by Bush in May to be deputy attorney general, cited the continuing uncertainty over when he might be confirmed...

Tyco, that's the company that had the CEO and at least one executive living lifestyles of the rich and corrupt, who are now inmates with years of jail time ahead of them. Someone having been a lawyer at Tyco is not much of a recommendation, even without the Abramoff additional taint.

========

In another branch of the government, a second person resigned from FDA activities proteting the (mis)handling of the drug Plan B, which an advisory panel recommended overwhelming for over the counter availability.

Ncellist: Those are excellent questions that need answerin' Another one for me is what exactly is the background of the Shepherd, Book?

And I'd like to meet Jayne's mother sometime.

I have blogged a fair amount of detail on the 7.6 magnitude earthquake centered near Islamabad: http://www.kathryncramer.com/kathryn_cramer/2005/10/my_kids_meet_wo.html

Ooops. Wrong URL. It's HERE (http://www.kathryncramer.com/kathryn_cramer/2005/10/islamabad_earth.html)

Moving to Denver?

Does the USGS know something about sea levels and global warming that we don't?

Bird Flu Spreads to Romania.

They're not sure that it's the H5N1 strain yet, but it's knocking on the gates of the EU.

I thought Jayne was talking about horse steaks (they're expensive, but surely once he joined Mal's crew he'd have some real ill-gotten gains...) And Book has a conversation with Mal in the movie that cleared his origins right up, for me anyway.

I made a guess about Book's past based on that conversation as well. That and the incident from Firefly with his ID card and the result it produced.

Speaking of Firefly/Serenity... The other day my wife and I were watching an episode of Canadian cop/coroner show Da Vinci's Inquest. I understand that this show has been going on since about 1998, and that this was one of the early episodes. Anyway, there was this scene where the main character is having the 'talk' with his 17-year-old daughter. My wife says that the girl looks like Serenity's mechanic. I stare for 5 secs and pointed out that it actually was her. Heck, she looks exactly the same as soon, same hair style, same voice.

Where would I have taken Firefly if it had gone on? I don't know. But yes, I would have done more with Inara.

About Jayne... He's pretty much the crew's Dr.Smith, but with a rocket launcher. And yet, late in the movie, when they're about to crash, Mal tells them to strap down, and Jayne makes sure everyone is properly secured before taking care of himself.

Back to Da Vinci, one of the main characters is this old cop. And I thought he too looked very familiar. Canadians posting on this site might be able to confirm: he was the main guy in 1977's Sidestreet, wasn't he?

Sort of going back to Talk-like-a-pirate Day... John had suggested that what we have come to think of as piratical talk came from an early Fifties movie about Blackbeard. Still one wonders why the actor himself chose to talk like that. A friend from the USA currently in London commented on her site that people over there have a tendency to drop the R's at the end of words. I then asked her about Talk-like-a-pirate and the obligatory "arrr!". Here's what someone posted in response:

"Pirate" is an exaggerated version of South West English dialects, in which the "R"s are most definitely still pronounced. Most of the pirates came from that part of the country, because it had the best access to the Atlantic. The speech of those parts was heavilty influential on many American dialects, for the same reason.

When I was growing up in Quebec City, I found myself in the enviable position of having access to lots of British adventure shows that nobody in the USA appears to have heard of. Anyway, it IS starting to look like Christmas. I just found that one of my favorites of that era has been released in DVD. Ladies and gents, I give you The Champions.

(I can't remember if I posted this here or not - I know I sent it to someone, apologies if here!)

Serge: The problem is, there's still a big gap between "seafarers talking West Country" and "Robert Newton picking up the accent". The best "re-discoveror" candidate I've found was Jeffrey Farnol, a rather prolific novelist c.1910-50 (among other things, he and Heyer apparently set off the Regency romance genre). It seems, though I haven't been able to check this, that he was the first person of recent years to start portraying sailors of the period with That Dialect. Prior to this, fiction and films alike seemed to just use conventional English.

Then again, Newton was born in Dorset, and had played a Cornish wrecker on film before; it could just have been him hamming it up with an accent he knew well rather than any intended "accuracy". He died fifty years ago, sadly, so who can say?

Speaking of pirates, I was at the library last Sat and picked up this fantasy book Fitcher's Brides. How nice to see PNH's name in the dedication and cannot wait to start it this weekend.

Back to Serenity: Kevin Drum at washington monthly has a note that mentions that Joss Whedon made the movie under budget to make a point. He's a fan of the movie and reviewed it last week.

Good point about pirates, Andrew. I wonder though if Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribeans might have been influenced by Newton's movie. More people know of that ride, or have been on it (yours truly included), than they do of the movie. But that would still make Newton into the First Cause.

Saw Serenity last night, never having seen Firefly. Loved it. I am in love with Jayne.

The speech of those parts was heavilty [sic] influential on many American dialects, for the same reason.

This may be true, but it's also the case that during the early settlement of the colonies, most of Britain still pronounced the r's. R-loss in Britain has been a gradual process, started sometime in the 18th century.

Chickenhawk: In the political arena, I took the word apart, as in a chicken masquerading as a hawk. In the sexual arena, that same practice works, as in a hawk masquerading as nothing more than a barnyard chicken.

on another note, hilzoy over at Obsidian wings thinks TNH should have been nominated for the Ig Noble prize in literature for her poem last summer:

obsidian wings

Lila,

Saw Serenity last night, never having seen Firefly. Loved it. I am in love with Jayne.

Get "Firefly" and watch "Arial" and then see if you still feel the same.

You might. My husband really likes Jayne, despite "Arial," and would like to go around saying "No ruttin' way" all the time.

The important thing about Jayne is the _arc_ that "Ariel" is the keystone of, not just "Ariel." Watching that out of context is no good.

I didn't like Jayne at the start of the show and ended up really enjoying his character.

I think that person and the one who seconded it, don't comprehend what the IgNobles are supposed to be for. Sigh.

Hey idiots, what Teresa did is called -satire-.... They are of the same ilk of the people who were citing Augustine's Law about Based on straight line projection of the cost for fighter planes, in the year 2020 there will be one fighter plane in the US military inventory, the Air Force will have it for half the year, the Navy for the other half the year, and the Marines will have it on leap days" as critique by an external observer and critic, when Norman Augustine actually was the Ultimate Defense Contractor Insider--someone who had spent time working for the government I think, and rose from engineer through engineering manager to President of Martin-Marietta and presided over the merging of Martin-Marietta and Lockheed into Lockheed-Martin, largest defense contractor in the USA, as CEO.

Gobble, gobble, gobble....

Kate Nepveu,

I enjoy Jayne's character--"Jaynestown" is my second favorite episode, though the fact that "Arial" comes AFTER "Jaynestown" shows that Jayne still didn't get it--but as much as I like watching Jayne, I don't think he's anyone I'd want to have to deal with in real life.

Serge: Yeah, Newton as Long John (and to a lesser extent, later as Blackbeard) seems to be the proximate cause of this - I think it shot into popular culture (ie, every other pirate movie) from him in 1950, and thence through Disney again, and PotC as you say - bear in mind his Treasure Island was a Disney version itself! It's just interesting to try and figure out how he got it.

I guess the thing to do would be read a bundle of pulp pirate stories from about 1880 to 1940, and see when it started appearing as a cliché... when I have a spare year, perhaps.

Paula, I think hilzoy knew very well what it was about--the Ig nobles that is--and she was trying to make a joke. But obviously humor is in short supply in places.

My roommate is in love with Jayne as well, and it's kind of disturbing.

Actually, Adam Baldwin brought as much to that role as Joss - Baldwin was the one who decided that Jayne likes women. All of them. As Gina Torres says, "...Jayne loves women. Maybe not in the way we want to be loved all the time but he loves them all equally... whores, girls, he loves them all."

There are moments in the series and film where he won't listen to Mal, but he will listen to Zoe. And don't forget in "Heart of Gold", where he dressed in his finest to go meet the whores. (yes, I consider this pro-chick, and kind of charming.) In the film, V qba'g guvax vg jnf na nppvqrag gung ur jnf gur bar gb pnyy sbe fuhggvat bss gur ivq bs gur jbzna ba Zvenaqn. (that was hardly a spoiler, but I want to be careful!)

No, it doesn't make redeem him and make him a saint, and unless I were Zoe, I wouldn't want to have him around, but it at least it kept Jayne from being your typical Big Scary Guy With Gun. Joss has also noted that Jayne is the "greek chorus", who says what the audience and other characters are thinking.

He's a pit bull, but he's pretty well trained.

As for Book, I think the couple of lines from the series and the film establish enough - that Book has a pretty dark past (V crefbanyyl guvax ur jnf na bcrengvir.) But I am just as interested in how and why he became a Shepherd.

And may I say that between Sereity and the linguistics of pirates, this thread reminds me of why I love Making Light!

There's a new thread at Pandagon about disemvowelling. So far, a couple of ex-Making Light/Electrolite trolls have surfaced to complain about the technique, amusingly enough.

A chickenhawk - the bird - preys on chickens, right? The sexual meaning comes from this, I suspect. The military meaning presumably comes from pro-war (hawk) + cowardly (chicken) - but someone said that already.

As for pirates, I understood that Robert Newton came from Bristol, where the accent is at least vaguely similar to the traditional pirate accent (only toned down a lot). Possibly he just chose an accent he was familiar with; or maybe he knew about the seafaring (and piratical) traditions of Bristol and the south west. But isn't the locus classicus of all this Stevenson's Long John Silver? Squire Trelawney at least has a stereotypically Cornish name.

I can't remember whether Stevenson gave Long John Silver a west country accent or not, and the only quote I can find online (with my dial-up) is: "And now, shipmates, this black spot? ‘Tain’t much good now, is it? Dick’s crossed his luck and spoiled his Bible, and that’s about all" (Ch. XXIX, p. 289).

Mind you, that site also features an ad asking if I'd like to invite Robert Louis Stevenson to speak at my next meeting. I sure would, but I doubt he would turn up.

candle: There's lots of stereotyped speech in Treasure Island (of the "The lubbers is going about to get the wind of me this blessed moment ... I'm not afraid on 'em. I'll shake out another reef, matey, and daddle 'em again." variety), but not much in the way of actual "Arr, Jim lad, thar she be" - it's sort of half there. Archaic, yes, blatantly West Country somewhat less so. Plenty of ayes, but that doesn't say much.

(Not a "scurvy" anywhere, either. Wonder when that joined the set?)

Michelle K, my copy of Where's My Cow? came today and I don't think I've ever seen a book with the OOK! Children's Winner of the Ankh-Morpork Librarians Award before. (Gold medallion, two partially unpeeled bananas)

Marilee,

I *know* I haven't seen that award before. It was the deciding factor on whether I really wanted to buy the book.

nerdycellist,

I don't think Jayne is anti-woman, (though he didn't seem opposed to treating Saffron as property). I just wouldn't want to have to deal with him.

And now I really don't want to wait until tomorrow before we go see "Serenity" again. (sigh)

Not one "scurvy" In Treasure Island, Andrew? No timber-shivving either?

According to Amazon, Blackbeard was released on DVD in July 2003. But also according to Amazon, the DVD will come out at the end of this month. Either way, it costs about $15. I'' subtly suggest it to my wife as an Xmas present.

You know, it'd be neat if someone made a movie out of Tim Powers's On Stranger Tides. On the other hand, people would think it's a ripoff of Johnny Depp's own piratical adventures.

Serge: At least in the Gutenberg version, not a scurvy or beliking (or even a splicing) in the lot. Six shiverings of timber, though (and, oddly, one shaking), three messmates (none hearty), and four keelhaulings (though it should really only count for two). Some in, some out... I wonder if I can persuade an aimless literature student that tracking this stuff through the turn of the century is worthwhile. Heh heh heh.

Incidentally, I recommend you find a copy of George Macdonald Fraser's Pyrates, if you haven't read it before; you'd probably like it. A wonderful pastiche of the entire genre.

Thanks for the recommendation, Andrew. I'll look for it when I'm done with Quicksilver. I think my wife also has Captain Blood and/or The Sea Hawk. So many books, so little time...

And my many thanks for your own answer, candle.

Can anybody remember how Albert Salmi played that Long John Silver character in Lost in Space? Probably sounded like your standard Albert Salmi. I seem to also remember Malachi Throme playing Blackbeard's Ghost in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Both of these confirm that, thru his various shows, the late Irwin Allen was trying to tell us that the Universe is a Loony House.

Re the sexual meaning of "chickenhawk"--I suspect the term "chicken" for underage male prostitute has something to do with it.

Re Jayne--well, of course I have seen only the movie, but when I tell you that I have previously fallen in love with Severus Snape, Methos (of Highlander fame) and several of Steven Brust's protagonists (especially James Cobbham), you will perhaps detect a pattern ....

I think it may have something to do with wanting them on MY side.

Mind you, that site also features an ad asking if I'd like to invite Robert Louis Stevenson to speak at my next meeting. I sure would, but I doubt he would turn up.

Tired of Celebrity No-Shows?
Call The Commendatore
On Time And Ready to Party Since 1787
Dateless? Ask for Elvira*

*probably not the one you are thinking of, but still darn cute

Not because it had to be done, but because one could:

http://googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=Smoot-Hawley&word2=Sarbanes-Oxley

I was working on an infernokrusher story this afternoon, mostly shredding pages and stubbing out matches on misplaced punctuation marks, when it occured to me to wonder: do "Roy Orbisson in Cling Film" stories qualify as slipstream or do they require a genre all their own?

Rejected by McSweeney's "Lists", so I'm posting it here:

Suggested Names for Intelligent Design Bills:

Trofim's Law

Global Laughingstock Initiative

No Child Left Secular

Equal Time for Unbelievable Bullshit Measure

Last Nail in the Coffin for Public Education Act

Irreducible Complexity Sophistry Initiative

Created for Excellence and Metric Elimination Bill

National Irrelevance Act

Grr, Stefan, I nearly had to clean off the computer screen!

Regarding the IgNobles--they seems to have mutated somewhat in intent over the years, alas. Mea culpa.

I noticed today that an unrequited seeker after consolation might voice the following complaint: "There's no 'there there' there!"

Here is the earworm for today:
Maybelle Carter is singing,

Chewin' chawin' gum,
Chawin' chewin' gum.

GOOD LORD!

All Quiet on the Smurfy Front.

'The people of Belgium have been left reeling by the first adult-only episode of the Smurfs, in which the blue-skinned cartoon characters' village is annihilated by warplanes.

The short but chilling film is the work of Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund, and is to be broadcast on national television next week as a campaign advertisement.'

I vaquely recall people dressed as "smurf slayers" gadding about at conventions. Little did they know their fondest dreams would someday be realized . . .

I didn't go and open up the PDF to see what the report says (have I lately made the comment about how much I detest PDF?....), however I have certain suspicions about what's in the report...

http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2005/1217/

Undiscovered oil resources in the Federal portion of the 1002 Area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: an economic update
Published 2005
Online only
Version 1.0

by E. D. Attanasi

Abstract
This report updates an economic analysis of the U. S. Geological Survey’s 1998 petroleum assessment of the Federal 1002 Area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (Attanasi, 1999). Whereas the 1998 geologic assessment evaluated Federal and Native lands in the 1002 Area and adjacent State waters (Bird, 1999), the economic analysis (Attanasi, 1999) published at that time, as well as this update, considered just the Federal part of the 1002 Area. The update includes newer field development practices based on horizontal development wells and alternative area development schemes, as well as an update of the 1996 base costs to a new base year of 2003. However, no changes were made to the 1998 geologic assessment.

Report
This report is available in Adobe Acrobat format.

Open-File Report 2005-1217 http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2005/1217/pdf/2005-1217.pdf [685-KB PDF].

Stefan: unfortunately, none of those make a clever acronym, so can't really be used as the names of a law any more.

Try:

New Order for Construction of Less Useful Education (NO-CLUE) Act.

I don't recall if Rafael Sabatini made a big thing of the accent, but Captain Blood and several of his other lead characters are from the West Country. even if they're educated men.

Treasure Island starts in Cornwall, and the ship is crewed in Bristol. Again, the accent is at least implicit.

And there's Penzance. With express rail service from London.

I'd suppose it was the films which fixed the actual accent. Though there were writers who dived headlong into accent and dialect, enough that they were a target of exaggerated humour.

Or

Rendering Equal Time Against "Reality Dominated" Science (RETARDS) Act

The Smurf Slayers were in the masquerade of 1983's worlcon, in Baltimore, Stefan. Or was it at 1982's worldcon? Either way, the smurf-head ripping got a lot of applause.

Another colorful movie pirate is Captain Leech in The Black Swan, from yet another Sabatini story. Not as over-the-top as Newton's Blackbeard, but it gave the actor the chance to ham it up. It took me years to recognize that rough-talking character as being played by normally suave and articulate George Sanders.

Is there a 'category' in English to describe the kind of historicals that Sabatini and others cooked up? In France, stories like Prince of Foxes or Dumas's The Three Musketeers would be referred to as 'romans de capes et d'epees', which translates as 'novels of cloaks and swords'. I can't think of any equivalent. Or did 'cloak and dagger' originally mean something other than it now does?

And of course 'punk' once had the additional meaning of 'prison catamite'.

I'm kinda proud of 'chickenhawkpunk'. It captures a certain dynamic of that subgenre better than 'carnography' or 'backswing fiction' (where most of the population is killed so the heroes can show off their mighty backswing; either Andrew Wheeler or James Nicoll coined this one, I can't imagine in response to what book).

And 'SF for the 101st Fighting Keyboarders' is just too long.

Serge: try swashbuckler for that genre.

Has anyone heard this horrific radio interview with an American 'intelligence officer'? He described tortuing detainees in great detail, and the DJ thanks him for his service. It's shocking, and I can only hope it's not true.

http://mediamatters.org/comments/latest/200510070011

Sorry, I didn't make the link live:

http://mediamatters.org/comments/latest/200510070011

Thanks, Naomi.

Dilemma:

$1,000 to Habitat for Humanity to help displaced Gulf-Coasters

Or:

$1,000 to Southern Asian earthquake relief

?

Now this is what the Scarecrow of Oz really needed:

a knitted human brain

(via trufen.net)

Now this is what the Scarecrow of Oz really needed:

a knitted human brain

It's an impressive piece of work. I notice it has a convenient zipper for getting a correct outside view. (What can be done with I-cord!)

Just keep the cat away . . .

As I recall, the Wizard gave the Scarecrow Bran Brains. Presumably he'd have to change them out once in awhile, or they'd get mildewed and full of weevils.

Off subject -- but this is an open thread... I just heard on NPR that Senator Arlen Specter (I hope I have spelled his name correctly but I'm not sure), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is considering calling Dr. James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, to testify about phone calls he may have received from Karl Rove assuring him that Harriet Miers is indeed a good conservative and will adjudicate issues the way Dr. Dobson would wish her to, especially such issues as abortion....

Specter sounded quite pissed off in the little clip I heard. It's really hard to say "completely improper" with your jaw tightly clenched.

On subject: Aargh, okay. I'll go see Serenity. Promise.

There is a small but increasing possibility that Karl Rove will be, ahhhhh, spending more time with his family.

Where's Mount Doom when you need it?

Ah Bruce, your knitted brain reminded me of an exhibit by Elaine Reichek that the Center on Contemporary Art hosted almost 20 years ago in Seattle. There were pictures of dwellings from around the world, grass houses etc. Reichek had knitted copies of the houses then hung them collapsed next to the photos. Wonderful wonderful exhibit about home.

Rove and Dobson don't believe in separation of church and state. Focus on the Family and Dobson's other enterprises IMO should be stripped of non-profit religious status, they're involved in active lobbying and political involvement...including a religious bigotry scandal at at least the Air Force Academy, conveniently near Dobson in Colorado Springs, CO.

I don't think Rove should be "spending more time with his family," I think he should be in the federal pen, and his buddies George, Dick, Scooter, etc., also resident at Ft Leavenworth, is it?

Paula, there are lots of Federal prisons; Leavenworth has the rep of being one of the least pleasant. Portsmouth Naval Prison is/was not much better.

When I was in Navy radio school one of the instructors would threaten us with Portsmouth should we be too free with material we saw by virtue of our soon-to-come Top Secret clearances. "Making little rocks out of big rocks" was the way he put it.

Thanks for the Vinnytsia Particle.

I don't think Rove should be "spending more time with his family," I think he should be in the federal pen, and his buddies George, Dick, Scooter, etc., also resident at Ft Leavenworth, is it?

Just a small point. The Federal Penetentiary is in Leavenworth. The US Military Disciplinary Barracks is at Ft. Leavenworth. Just two of the four prison complexes located in the Greater Leavenworth Area

Anyone interested in Pirates (or rather Pyrates) should read "The Pyrates" by George Macdonald "Flashman" Fraser. Terrific stuff. DO NOT READ WHILE EATING OR DRINKING. Includes any number of extras falling in the water and exchanging period dialogue and exclamations like "Burn me wi' a handspike!" and "Belike!" as well as large amounts of Defoe, Stevenson, Farnol, Sabatini, Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone etc. And, yes, they all speak authentic Pirate; and, yes, this is basically West Country.
(The source of reference for landside West Country is of course The Wurzels, England's leading Scrumpy and Western band. Their hit "Oi've Got A Brand New Combine 'Arvester" is still popular.)

Completely unrelated - 'Chickenhawk', to add to the confusion, is also the title of another book, by an Army Huey pilot called Mason, about his tour in Vietnam. Halfway through the book he explains that it was a term the pilots used about themselves - they were terrified when they were on the ground (thus chickens) but the fear vanished as soon as they actually got into combat (thus hawks). Read that one too, it's great - like Catch 22.

Captain, we are most assuredly adrift between the topics, but is this not the purpose of keeping an open thread?

For those who are fond of Macdonald Fraser's The Pyrates, i would point out the existence of Caryl Brahms & S. J. Simon's novels No Bed for Bacon and Don't, Mr. Disraeli! (the latter described as "not a book set during the Victorian Era, but during its literature." I rather think Fraser must have at least read these (they came out in the early Forties). No Bed is probably the better of the two, but not by any great margin. They are both after the fashion of historicals, but with side turnings into anything that the authors found worthy of inclusion (at one point in Disraeli, a Victorian parlourmaid is chased across a, what else, parlour by Harpo Marx, and at another, an inept draper's assistant explains that his incompetence is of no concern, as he shall shortly become H. G. Wells.

That sort of thing.

I hesitate to criticise our Gracious Hosts, but is there any good reason why Making Light is giving link-fu to the so-called "Institute for Historical Review"?

(Anyone who doesn't recognise the name should follow the "Vinnytsia" particle and take a look at their home page.)

Don't Mr Disraeli is fine stuff - the line that sticks with me is the explanation of the origin of the great feud between the families Clutterbuck and Shuttleforth. It seems that the Clutterbuck and Shuttleforth patriarchs had been in business together in Mincing Lane (or it may have been Leadenhall Street) but "fell out over the sale of opium to the Chinese. Mr Clutterbuck thought it was immoral but profitable; Mr Shuttleforth thought it was unprofitable but patriotic. The firm was dissolved..."

That line is perfect - reminds me of 1066 and All That's mnemonic that during the Civil War the Cavaliers were Wrong but Wromantic, and the Roundheads were Right but Repulsive. (English Civil War, that is. Well, American too, I suppose.)

I love the Dieselpunk idea (three threads at once! Heh!); I think a lot of Heinlein qualifies. I have been rereading some of his juvenilia, and in 'Space Cadet' there is a reference to the theory that the asteroids were formed when a planet broke up. In Heinlein's 2080 this has been proven, by a Professor Someone using 'the giant strain-free computer at Terra Station [an orbiting space station].' The phrase 'strain free' puzzled me for a bit, and then I thought - of course. In Heinlein's world, you put your computers in free fall, because then there's no gravity to put strain on all the cogs and shafts and cams, and they can run better. Babbage in Space.
(Later on the characters do a manual landing on the surface of Venus, because 'it was not worth cutting a cam for the automatic pilot'. Cutting a cam! I love it!)
Nuclear power counts as diesel punk - as long as it's old and clunky and dirty. Orion is definitely in. Otherwise I'm just not playing.

If ajay is going to pick up on old threads...

Back around 1977, Alejandro Jodorowsky started work on the first movie adaptation of Dune. It was THE thing that people talked about back then. Heck. They had Moebius designing the costumes, Chris Foss working on the spaceships. Then the project collapsed, for reasons I'm not sure about. I did some googling about it a couple of years ago and did come across stuff about the project on some French site. I'm not sure I'd have cared for it, especially coming from Jodorowsky. But visually, it would have been stunning.

And Baron Harkonnen was to be played by Orson Welles.

Eee. Having Googled for Jodorowsky's Dune, all I can say is "No more drugs for that man."

Yeah, Julie... I saw only one Jodorowsky movie and that was enough for me. By the way, Ridley Scott also worked on his own version of Dune.

While in the dept of adaptations that never were... Before Bakshi didLord of the Rings in 1979, a few people had tried. And failed. Maybe because they attempted to cram the whole story into one big movie. And very few people made looooong movies in those days. Except for the Soviets. Hmm... A marxist approach to LoTR... Anyway, among those who did try was John Boorman. I wonder if that's what led him to doing Excalibur.

About MacDonald-Fraser's The Pyrates... Is it a parody of pirate stories that, in spite of everything, shows some affection toward the source material? I know, it's probably a silly question, considering the author.

Serge: yep, that's the one. "Pirates and blue water took hold of me at a young age and have shown no signs of letting me go" he writes in the Afterword.
And Dieselpunk is actually on this thread, right up at the top. It's a Strossism. He's probably been reading Dan Dare or something. You can tell it's him even without the name at the top because he mentions the damn Convair NB-36 again.
Mr Stross - you know there's a film about those beasts with Jimmy Stewart as a pilot? Called 'Strategic Air Command'. Sort of thing they show on BBC2 at 2.30 on weekdays. Not much plot but bags of 1950s aviation. Take a look.
The warbirds of that period were just beautiful - B-36, Vampire, Canberra, Tu-95... lovely objects.

Thanks, ajay. I usually stay away from parodies if they don't have at least some affection for what they're sending up. I guess a trip to my local Borders is in order. (This time at least I know where to look for MacDonald-Fraser. For some reason, they have his books not under letter 'M' but under 'F'.)

Serge: re Boorman and LOTR, apparently so.

Since Dune crept into this Open Thread from the previous one, I might as well mention that the Locus Online "front page" has a very recent photo of Jack Vance, along with Grania Davis, as recipients of the Bay Area's Norton Awards -- named after the Emperor, of course! (BTW, as a long-time Bay Arean, I named my cat Emperor Horton. It suits him nicely.)

Interesting, Julie. Boorman's version of LoTR would have indeed been different. I mean, Frodo being seduced by Galadriel?

Serge: It's MacDonald Fraser, no hyphen, so it's hard to tell at a glance if he's George M. Fraser or G. MacDonald Fraser. (the latter, I believe - so should be under F, but a not unreasonable error)

Sometimes, one stops, looks around and remembers that some things weren't always around and in fact appeared in the very recent past. AIDS is one example. And this...

"...Once again it appears that truth is stranger than science fiction. The September issue of High Times contains a Tom Disch story about a Catholic 'hit squad' that attacks women who have had abortions. When the issue appeared in August, the news media were running items about a Florida anti-abortion group called the 'Army of God' which claimed responsibility for burning several clinics..."

Locus, October 1982

Google picks up more details on Boorman's vision of LOTR in a discussion thread whose original won't load, but if you search on the strings "tolkien forum" "boorman's 70s script", the cache is more or less readable despite annoying italics and sheer WTFness:

Arwen is something of a spiritual guide to the Fellowship -- a sort of guardian angel. She makes two appearances soon after the Fellowship leaves Rivendell. The first is brief: she shows herself to the Company from afar. The second takes place as Aragorn and Boromir come to blows over the fate of Narsil. (Boromir wants to take it to Minas Tirith. Aragorn refuses, and Boromir snatches away one half of the sword.) When their blades meet, Arwen appears, declaring that they shall each bear one half of the sword. They bow, presenting the blades. She kisses the swords, drawing blood. She then kisses each of the men. Both men are moved; and Boromir, weeping, kisses Aragorn, cementing a blood bond.

Chickenhawk: In the political arena, I took the word apart, as in a chicken masquerading as a hawk. In the sexual arena, that same practice works, as in a hawk masquerading as nothing more than a barnyard chicken.

Yes, but that's a folk etymology. In reality the term is based on the raptor that hunts chickens.

Re the sexual meaning of "chickenhawk"--I suspect the term "chicken" for underage male prostitute has something to do with it.

Well, to me "chicken" means underage gay boys generally. They need not be prostitutes. When I turned 18 (LONG ago) I referred to the event as "hanging up my chicken badge." No, I was never a prostitute.

In American gay slang, especially back in the 60's, it's common to refer to potential sexual partners as food. Frex "Seafood" was a sailor; "Angel Food" an airforce guy, etc. (Also, some gay men refer(red) to going out to look for a sexual partner as "hunting.") I'd have to look up the etymology of 'chicken' in this sense, but I suspect it has to do with the appearance of a plucked but uncooked chicken...not unlike the appearance of a naked adolescent boy IIRC.

OTOH there was a sign in the Village for YEARS, in a butcher shop window; it showed a cute red-haired boy about 8 years old, holding a drumstick bigger than his head, and was captioned "Take home a tender young chicken today." I suspect irony on the part of the shop owners, given the neighborhood.

I've never heard of 'chickenhawk' in the sense you mean. Those people are just called "pimps" in America as far as I know. Or "human traffickers."

At any rate, I guess some people I know should be careful about talking about their "chickenhawkish tendencies" (by which they mean they're attracted to very young g