Sentential Links #196

Weekly linkage! Beware!

:: If torture were really as effective as the Thiessen/Cheney wing of the conservative movement thinks, they'd hardly risk resorting to such obvious lies to defend it. They'd have so much good evidence in favor of it that they wouldn't need to bother. But apparently they don't.

:: Nobody knows what his views are on domestic policy, but it seems impossible at this point to imagine a Republican nominee who believes in the rule of law and humane treatment of detainees. And that, in turn, is obviously a sad state of affairs.

:: During the Bush years, Reynolds specialized in accusing Bush’s critics of wanting the country to lose militarily and collapse economically. I wondered why he thought so. Now I think I know: he was merely projecting onto his political adversaries the attitude that he and his friends expected to adopt if a liberal ever occupied the White House.

:: The Democrats may not win, but I'm pretty sure they're going to try. The conservative freakout is going to be something to behold. (I can't wait. They are going to shit their pants but good.)

:: I have been fascinated with curling ever since I first saw it in the 2002 Olympics. (My deep suspicion is that there are no rules in curling, and that is rather some kind of bizarre performance art thing that's only being portrayed as a sport. I further suspect that the medal winners' names are drawn from a hat.)

:: In a fairly empty theater don’t take a seat right in front of me. Especially when there are twenty seats on either side you could choose instead. (Holy shit, nothing irritates me more in movie theaters than when people do this. Actually this general notion can be extended to just about any joint with seating open to the public, but it's particularly annoying in theaters. Now, stadium seating mitigates this somewhat, but still, when someone's got virtually an entire theater to choose from and still sits right in front me, I always think, "Really?!")

:: Boot me!

:: Sex sells. Always has, and always will. And if customers can't buy it from you, they'll go to someone else who's willing to sell it to them.

:: When I was writing about The Door Into Summer, I kept finding myself thinking what a cheerful positive future it’s set in. I especially noticed because the future is 1970 and 2000. I also noticed because it isn’t a cliche SF future—no flying cars, no space colonies, no aliens, just people on Earth and progress progressing. Why is nobody writing books like this now?

:: "Remember kids, when you're attacked by a shark, just punch him on the inside of his mouth, because sharks are allergic to gold rings and their throats will close up.* And stay in school. And don't do drugs. Now, I'm gonna need a whole lotta tartar sauce!"

More next week.