Totalitarian architecture

Nazi design: Impressive and intimidating. They stripped out the decoration from classical architecture and scaled it up, massively. It does have the intended effect of making you feel the power of the state and its domination.

Soviet architecture was its cousin. Here one architect gives it a gothic twist. (I note his imitation of Monet's studies of Note Dame in varied lighting.)

Both of these have some connection to these other early 20th century designs from around the world. Not that I'd want to live in any places like these, but the Metropolis movie set was pretty impressive. Still, they all dwarfed the human scale. Man was essentially a cog in the machine in some of these visions.

Evidence that Congress is run by would-be Soviet commissars

This is socialist, and I don't see how that can be explained away. Shame on the half of Republicans who voted for it. I actually wish they'd made it a 100% tax, just to have the lines even more clearly drawn.

A question: would a 100% tax violate any part of the Constitution? What about a 101% tax? I'm not saying it does; I'm just curious if there'd be anything legal to stop them. The more I think about it, the more I'm intrigued by the concept of a >100% tax on income...well, "intrigued" in the same sense that a biologist can be intrigued by ebola. Fascinatingly horrible.

Obama's NIC chairman nominee finally gets checked out...

Commentary's Jennifer Rubin reports that Chas Freeman is getting a serious look by the Inspector General. I wouldn't have known that he'd been suspected of not filing some disclosure forms, but what I did know about him was bad enough. For all the anti-Israel talk, it's sadly just what I expect out of these people, and I was prepared for it. What really shocked me were his comments about the Chinese communist government--that they didn't crack down early enough and hard enough on the democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

What is an apologist for totalitarianism--and someone explicitly against a democracy movement--doing in our government?!

Well, now it turns out he's "tied to" the China National Offshore Oil Corporation--owned by the Chinese government. We already knew he was involved in a Saudi-funded organization. So what does Obama do now?

The propaganda waged at the Chinese Olympics

Good grief, what shallowness! But read the article carefully, and note how all of this fakery and deception is considered necessary propaganda to make sure China comes off as impressive as it can. Ugh! A similar report is here.

Pravda on the Lost Cosmonauts

Instapundit had a link to this, the other day. Pravda has gone from being the official newspaper in Communist Russia (yes, I know it was the Communist Party paper, but they ran the country) to filling a niche in post-Commie Russia for news about UFOs, news of the weird, and conspiracy theories. (Incidentally, take a look at this article on the "USA plung[ing] into poverty." (I'm quoting the headline.) How do you like the photo that accompanies it? This, for a story about the percentage of Washington state (only) residents under the poverty level increasing from 10% in 2001 to 12% in 2005. I like the half-naked kids climbing onto the family wagon (pulled by a horse, of course), surrounded by piles of junk. Very illustrative.)

Aaaaanyway. Glenn had a link to this 2001 story about supposed cosmonauts before Gagarin, but who died during their missions. There have been rumors about this in the West for decades, and given the secrecy with which the Soviet space program was conducted, it's not surprising. But nothing's come of them, even after records were opened up. There is, even less surprisingly, plenty of stuff out there on the web about these. The Encyclopedia Astronautica has a whole list of the names that have popped up in the "Lost Cosmonaut" rumors over the years, and they've thrown in Maj. Tony Nelson and Roger Healy for good measure. (Find the link for "Lost Cosmonauts.") The latter two they must have had fun with, as their biographies are done totally deadpan. Mentions Major Nelson's wife, Jeannie Nelson (formerly of Baghdad), as well as some of his career milestones and some problems that popped up along the way. Like when he had bad eyesight, nearly keeping him from a flight, until it mysteriously fixed itself a day later. (One of the kids brightened up when I read this part, and she said, "I know that episode!") Includes his later Space Shuttle career. Longest-serving US astronaut!

I can only hope that Stalin and Lenin and the rest of their murderous crew are spinning in their graves, to find that Pravda now has "Showbiz" and "Style" sections, just like the decadent West! And isn't it interesting that it's Pravda, of all rags, that's trading in Communist cover-ups now?!

A neat, old, science fiction story, and science fiction in the service of ideology

I was listening to the old science fiction series "X-1" on XM radio last night, when they played an episode from 1956(?) entitled, "The Tunnel Under the World." It's taken from a short story by the (still-living) Frederik Pohl about a man who keeps repeating the same day, June 15th, but with slight variations. I won't spoil the entire plot, in case you get the chance to hear or read it, but you can read a summary of the short story in the first link above, which is only slightly different from the radio version. The story is a fascinating one and creepy when you discover the twists and revelations.

Anyway, I was impressed and looked up Pohl when I got home. It turns out that he was high-school friends with Isaac Asimov and that both were early members of a group of science fiction fans called the Futurians. Checking up on what the Futurians were, I found that they were a splinter group from another New York City sci-fi fan club, and they advocated sci-fi fans to push for ideology. Inevitably, this meant communism:

At the time the Futurians were formed, Donald Wollheim was strongly attracted by communism and believed that followers of science fiction "should actively work for the realization of the scientific world-state as the only genuine justification for their activities and existence".[2] It was to this end that Wollheim formed the Futurians, and many of its members were in some degree interested in the political applications of science fiction.

Yeesh! Nothing like the phrase "scientific world-state" to give you the creeps. Especially in the '30s.

Pohl himself was an outright member of the Communist Party, until he was expelled in '39. It was either because, as some say, the Party thought science fiction was escapist and didn't contribute to the building of the dictatorship of the proletariat or whatever, or, as Pohl says, that he rejected the Party line over the Hitler-Stalin Pact. Either way, he apparently remained a true leftist, and his writings display a satire of capitalism and advertising. Actually, I've got to say that the bit that comes through in "Tunnel" is well done and could have been written by a conservative, as well.

There's a whole weird history to this science fiction fan activity, something that I've never gotten into. I enjoy my sci fi movies, but I've rarely read any such books. Funny for an astrophysicist, right? So outside remarks by friends, I'm unaware of what all has gone on in this world. At one level, it seems so trivial (they're fan groups--not necessarily even writers, though many became such), but these guys clearly saw themselves as doing important work, and the Futurians were even claiming it was all in the service of the future "scientific world-state"!

Well, I'd intended to write more about the connections between "scientific socialism" and science fiction, but I'll just have to save it for later. I ought to close this off with the connections "Tunnel" has with other works: Simulacron-3 (1964; made into the movie "The Thirteenth Floor" in 1999) has a similar premise (I'm guessing the writer was familiar with the earlier work), and it in turn influenced "The Matrix" (1999). Interestingly, Stanislaw Lem wrote a short story in 1960 that dealt with some aspects of the same premise. Lem also wrote Solaris, which was made into the George Clooney movie a little while back. I just read the book, which is thought-provoking.

Investigation of Michael Moore's trip to Cuba

Michael Moore's filming a movie about medical care, and he went to Cuba as part of this. But the U. S. government is checking up on him, saying that he didn't have permission to violate the embargo. He brought along some rescue workers from the New York 9/11 attacks who'd gotten sick from the job.

Because, you know, there are no doctors in America. Or these guys couldn't get insurance approval, I'm guessing. And there are no free clinics or charities in America. And flying to Cuba, in violation of the embargo, to go to one of their mediocre hospitals (from what I've read, they are not the top-notch institutions Fearless Leader claims) is the only solution.

Interestingly, Fred Thompson makes an appearance in this article. They mention his National Review article criticizing Moore. Writing these articles has been a great decision; it's laid the groundwork for support among conservatives.