I haven't said much about the Schiavo matter, because I strongly believe that it is none of our damn business. This cartoon pretty well sums up my thoughts and feelings on the politics involved in this.

Stephen Green, Timothy Sandefur, and, surprise of surprises, John Derbyshire, all approach the issue much like I would, so I point you to their thoughtful opinions on this, too.

Just as an aside, my wife and I both have wills and medical powers of attorney, which we prepared a couple of years ago. I plan to pull out the powers of attorney to make sure they still say what we want. I'm pretty sure they address specifically the issue of withholding extraordinary care, including feeding tubes and hydration. But we have also given each other a fair amount of discretion to try what is reasonable (like what Michael Schiavo did for about three years) while granting each other the final say to consent to discontinuing treatment.

If you plan to write an advance healthcare directive or power of attorney as a result of this mess, I would recommend the same approach. Be careful not to be too specific.(*) What I mean is that in addition to granting certain explicit instructions (for the most foreseeable situation), be sure to include a general blanket authority to the person you want to speak for you. If you are married, after the Schiavo case, you cannot count on your spouse presumptively having that power anymore. (Way to strengthen the institution of marriage, conservatives!) If you want your parents or kids or siblings to have input, say so. Having written it down, be sure to discuss it, too. If there is one good thing to come out of this mess, it's that we are all talking about a topic we usually avoid. Take advantage of this moment to get your opinions expressed and memorialized.

(*)Usual caveat applies: I am an attorney, but not your attorney. You should discuss the terms of any legal documents (including without limitation advance healthcare directives or powers of attorney mentioned above) with a qualified lawyer of your own choosing before signing them. My general comments are intended to focus you on some issues that I myself have discussed that I think are relevant to planning.

That's all I plan to say on this.

Update: She (what's left of her) has passed away. May she rest in peace.

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I've been reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to my 8-year old for the past couple of months. Tonight we got to the part where I had to send him to bed or we would have been up all night finishing the thing. As it stands, I've been spending the last hour or so reading ahead to find out what happens. Plus, I've been starting to put together the outline of the Carnival of Recipes, getting it ready for this Friday. Keep the recipes coming to recipe.carnival(at)gmail(dot)com!

So this is it for original content tonight.

Minor Spoiler Alert -- If you haven't read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand or Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, you may want to skip the following.

(More in the extended entry).
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John at SFSignal asks which book got you into science fiction.

I answer the question for me over at GNXP Science Fiction.

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I will be hosting the thirty-third Carnival of the Recipes this coming Friday, on April Fool's Day. I'm flip-flopping among SciFi generically, Heinlein specifically, and April Fool's Day as themes for the presentation.

If you have a recipe that you would like to see featured here, please submit it to Beth, the kind coordinator of the Carnival at recipe.carnival(at)gmail(dot)com.

Thanks!

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A commenter on last week's poll noted that I had been neglecting competitors from some of the (to me) more obscure SF series from the 1990s on. For this week's poll, we'll start to remedy that by pitting the ladies from Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda against one another.

Full disclosure: I haven't seen a complete episode of this series, so I have to rely on hearsay for the following descriptions. I've gotten all images and descriptions featured here from the official site cited above (click on thumbnails for larger pics).

Lexa Doig portrays Andromeda Ascendant (aka "Rommie"), the AI of the starship of the same name:

Brandy Ledford plays Doyle, the ship's loyal android (and she would have been a worthy addition to our earlier cyborg poll!)

Lisa Ryder stars as Beka Valentine, commander of the salvage ship, Eureka Maru:

Laura Bertram portrays the semi-psionic alien Trance Gemini:

You can vote once a day in the poll, so have fun. And remember to check out previous winners in the Gallery.

Results (Posted 5 April 2005):

Andromeda Ascendant (Lexa Doig) 69 of 118 votes for 58% -- WINNER!
Doyle (Brandy Ledford) 21 of 118 votes for 18%
Beka Valentine (Lisa Ryder) 10 of 118 votes for 8%
Trance Gemini (Laura Bertram) 18 of 118 votes for 15%

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Rocket Jones introduces us to some new bloggers today. Of the ones he linked, I particularly liked Pamela (an egoist babe) at Atlas Shrugged, Joe (a gay New Yorker living in the rural South) at aTypical Joe, and Hermitville (an infrequently-updated collection of short stories and monologues).

I've added them to my blogroll, and you should check them out. Also, be sure to check the Munuvian Showcase of New Blogs to discover other such new gems.

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This week's serving of cheesecake features a bizarre-looking civilian transport/cargo aircraft the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, which was derived from a military transport, which itself was derived from the B-29 bomber of WWII:

In the 1960s, some of the 377s were modified to carry the third stage of the Saturn V moon rockets (the Saturn IVB) from its assembly plant in California to Florida. These variants were dubbed the Pregnant Guppy and the Super Guppy:

(Much information on these bizarre planes can be found at this great page. And according to this NASA page, Airbus manufactured a Super Guppy recently and traded it to NASA for transport of space station components!)

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This is way cool. To me, at least.

Check out in the References whose site is cited as "Letter to participants, Reagan's recordings."

(I didn't author the encyclopedia entry, by the way).

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Via Rocket Jones, a very cool site featuring some pictures of lovely young ladies from early in the twentieth century. Even if you aren't interested in the pictures, you should check out the site layout -- the music and interactive interface. If you're not careful, you can even tear pages out of the photo album. As Ted says, this is a really well done site.

NSFW, but in a classy manner.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:27 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Vodkapundit Stephen Green has returned from Mexico. Yesterday, his first full day back blogging, he posted 35 entries. He kept up a similarly fast (if not quite as voluminous) pace today. Wow. Just wow.

Click over and scroll down. And be sure to check out the many lovely pictures he took on his vacation.

Welcome back, Steve.

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I have previously mentioned the adage that a writer needs to write a million words of crap before getting published. I know I have written close to a million words of non-fiction crap on the Internet over the last nine years (some here, some on Usenet and old Listservs), but I would like to experiment now with some fiction.

I'll count this short story I wrote as a first installment toward those million words. Here's the setup: what happens when a citizenry, with the best of intentions, has empowered its government to wage wars on drugs, terror, and lesser evils such as tobacco use? What do you think would happen if that same government were paying for everyone's health care? Don't you think it might take an interest in the lifestyle choices of its citizens?

Thus, the following thought experiment on that theme (very rough, but then it is part -- 671 words, to be exact-- of the million I'm supposed to crank out):
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"FFF" in organ music means "all stops out." And when it comes to this week's poll among Fox's Foxy Finalists, we are indeed pulling all the stops out. So far, we have seen competitors from Firefly, The X-Files, Space: Above and Beyond, and Dark Angel battle it out in three previous polls.

Now we pit the finalists from those polls against one another. It's like March Madness! So vote early and often and check back next week for the winner.

First up is Kaylee Frye (portrayed by Jewel Staite) from Firefly:

Next up is Max Guevera (portrayed by Jessica Alba) from Dark Angel:

Last, but far from least, is Kendra Maibaum (portrayed by Jennifer Blanc), also from Dark Angel:

Check the Gallery for previous winners.

Results (Posted 29 March 2005):

Kaylee Frye (Jewel Staite) 33 of 72 votes for 46% -WINNER
Max Guevera (Jessica Alba) 32 of 72 votes for 44%
Kendra Maibaum (Jennifer Blanc) 7 of 72 votes for 10%

Well, it was close-fought, and after the controversy surrounding the electoral vote in the Ardala/Deering contest, I simply cannot throw this election to my favorite, Alba, as much as I would like to do otherwise.

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John Scalzi wants to read your fiction and non-fiction stories on the theme of SF Cliches. More details here.

(And my first entry at GNXP Science Fiction on this topic here).

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I've written a few legal writing rants, criticizing stuffy, wordy legal writing. This past Friday, I ran across a hilarious Force Majeure clause in a contract. While it may seem like a joke, the rest of the quotation to which this term was attached was perfectly serious.

For those of you non-lawyers, force majeure is an intervening event beyond the reasonable control of either party to an agreement that prevents one or both parties from performing. The most common of these kinds of events are colloquially referred to as "acts of God." Parties usually agree to waive performance by the other party for some period of time during an event of force majeure.

The person who drafted this clause wanted to cover all the bases:

Issuance of a PO or other engagement of [Consultant] services enacts full force of this proposal and constitutes acceptance of the terms and conditions set forth above regardless of purchasing or other corporate contractual policies. In the occurrence of natural events, World War, biological or nuclear holocaust, whereby such events cause delay in travel, installation or other on-site and delivery schedules, customer/client agrees to hold [Consultant] harmless against such misfortunes and pay for reasonable and customary costs incurred by [Consultant] during travel at such instance. In the event of the End of the World, this contract becomes void in its entirety. Should either party survive the End of the World, World War, biological or nuclear holocausts, both are released from any remaining obligations.

I didn't fix any grammatical mistakes; I just deleted the names of the parties to protect the innocent.

Posted by: JohnL at 11:07 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 Damn, that's pretty funny!

Posted by: Eric at March 22, 2005 12:58 AM (g51VZ)

2 I'd laugh if I weren't so appalled. [Consultant] needs to get a competent [lawyer].

Posted by: Chan S. at March 23, 2005 12:47 PM (j8rcN)

3 Dude. I saw one recently somewhere that referenced intergallactic warfare. Now that was creative!

Posted by: RP at March 24, 2005 04:09 PM (LlPKh)

4 I'm 3/4ths tempted to stick that in a contract, simply for the entertainment value. However, I fear that other members of the local bar may not have exactly the same sense of humor that it would play to. >

Posted by: Lysander at March 25, 2005 12:42 PM (ShW/G)

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This week's serving of cheesecake is the Kalinin K-7. This bomber hails from the early 1930s, and foreshadows the heavy bombers that would play such a large role in WWII less than a decade in the future. Looking at its contemporaries, this plane is really a stunning bit of modernism. Unfortunately there aren't many pictures available since the prototype crashed and no others were ever produced. Enjoy:

Images found here and here.

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Nation of Islam firebrand Louis Farrakhan was once-upon-a-time a calypso singer known as "The Charmer." One of his 1950s albums, Calypsos From The West Indies, contained a real gem of a song: Is She Is, Or Is She Ain't?, a song about a transsexual. I kid you not.

Where did I learn this? Well, I first heard it on James Lileks' third online installment of The Diner. I couldn't believe it, frankly, so I googled around until I had confirmed its authenticity.

If you want to sing along with any other of Calypso Louie's hits, click here.

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Virginia Postrel asked this question a long time ago, though I didn't answer her at the time.

Her statement the other day that she's adding a section on Glamour to her website reminded me to finally take a crack at answering her old question.

As a first step in defining glamour, I would point to one woman who clearly exemplifies it: Audrey Hepburn. I haven't seen her in many films, but was struck by her amazing, classically glamourous beauty in Roman Holiday, which my wife and I rented a few months ago.

Her character in the movie is a princess who tries to escape public scrutiny for a day to enjoy Rome as a normal person. The interesting thing is that, even when her character's hair is mussed and she is wearing ordinary clothes, there is an aura of glamour about her. Something of a casual confidence and poise that is hinted at. She appears just as comfortable later in the movie, when dressed in full royal regalia.

So for me glamour connotes more than just flashy or expensive beauty. It encompasses an underlying confidence or ease of manner that shows in all kinds of situations (common and formal both).

How's that?

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Don kinda sorta tagged me with this book meme:

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451. Which book do you want to be?
Ayn Rand's Anthem, hands down. Just read the opening paragraph to grok why:

IT IS A SIN TO WRITE THIS. It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It is base and evil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears but our own. And we know well that there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone. We have broken the laws. The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven!

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Yes. Eowyn in Lord of the Rings, undoubtedly; maybe the cyborg artificial person Friday in the eponymous book by Heinlein.

The last book you bought was...?
Calculating God, by Robert Sawyer

The last book you read was...?
Calculating God, by Robert Sawyer

What are you currently reading?
Six months' worth of back issues of Analog, The Man-Kzin Wars X: The Wunder War (short stories by other authors based in Larry Niven's Known Space universe), and The New Strong-Willed Child by (shudder) James Dobson.

Five books you would take to a desert island...
1. Some sort of How Stuff Works/Simple Machines book so I can make all kinds of cool Gilligan's Island inventions. Or maybe not. Maybe I'll finally get around to reading all of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
2. Lucifer's Hammer, by Niven and Pournelle (SF, post-apocalyptic survivalism, rebuilding civilization. . . a textbook for being stranded on a desert island).
3. Goedel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter. A wonderfully unique literary offering, virtually impossible to describe. I would recommend that Rob read it as soon as he's done reading the Wolff Bach book.
4. Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien. Every re-reading brings new rewards, so this is a natural choice.
5. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Heinlein. (More full-power rugged individualism to keep me going).

I won't tag anyone else with this, but please trackback here if you are moved to contribute your own book lists.

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I haven't really been following this in any way (just saw the headline for this story on Yahoo), but I find myself wondering -- just where is the Federal interest here? And under which enumerated power in the Constitution is Congress acting?

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[Deleted]

Update: I guess I have some shame after all.

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