tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post296845265576434179..comments2024-03-28T00:02:35.850-05:00Comments on driftglass: The Day The Icicle Works Closeddriftglasshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09379167083253389153noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post-60821657212761294842008-11-25T14:20:00.000-06:002008-11-25T14:20:00.000-06:00Man, I have not heard of “The Day The Icicle Works...Man, I have not heard of “The Day The Icicle Works Closed” in easily 20 - 30 years.<BR/><BR/>Man, Pohl (and his frequent early collaborator Cyril Kornbluth) sure could write in the late 50's.(Reminds me, I really do need to pull out that Kornbluth "Best of" collection out of my honest-I'm-going-to-read-these-soon pile and crack it open).<BR/><BR/>By the way, I only clued in to your SF savvy a few months back when I picked up your namesake novel by Mr. Samuel R. Delaney (it's further down in that HIGTRTS pile).<BR/><BR/>So, apologies for going off topic, but I am going to chance asking this question. If you or any of your readers would help me, I would be very appreciative.<BR/><BR/>I am still frustrated in not being able to track down a particular science fiction short story collection. Each of the stories dealt with the humorous travails of this one mad scientist who kept on getting things almost right. For example, in one story, he breeds human-sized rabbits to fill out the military's requirement for cannon-fodder. The only problem, all the rabbits are female. (This collection was written probably in the 1950s or 1960s, well before women served in the regular forces.) All the other stories in the collection have that same humorous twist ending. <BR/><BR/>For the life of me, I have NEVER come close to finding out the title or author.<BR/><BR/>Any pointers, anyone?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post-86236791660642535152008-11-25T00:48:00.000-06:002008-11-25T00:48:00.000-06:00The Ringworld is unstable. :o)The Ringworld is unstable. :o)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post-9508706722321434042008-11-24T18:47:00.000-06:002008-11-24T18:47:00.000-06:00WereBear,Funny you should say; I've got about a do...WereBear,<BR/>Funny you should say; I've got about a dozen long quotes from "The Space Merchants" ready to assemble into...something.<BR/><BR/>The general sense of our time that Pohl, Heinlein, etc. had 40-50 years ago is sometimes chilling.driftglasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09379167083253389153noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post-80296686910364824842008-11-24T15:38:00.000-06:002008-11-24T15:38:00.000-06:00Frederik Pohl was a genius.Track down The Space Me...Frederik Pohl was a genius.<BR/><BR/>Track down <I>The Space Merchants</I> and prepare to be amazed.WereBearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17746779803342657146noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post-66323306508336472862008-11-24T11:52:00.000-06:002008-11-24T11:52:00.000-06:00If I'm not mistaken, "The Day the Icicle ...If I'm not mistaken, "The Day the Icicle Works Closed" can be ordered in this anthology:<BR/><BR/>"http://www.amazon.com/Platinum-Pohl-Collected-Best-Stories/dp/0765301458/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227548890&sr=1-1Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post-34221321282794464002008-11-23T16:53:00.000-06:002008-11-23T16:53:00.000-06:00What you talkin' about L&L? I've alwa...What you talkin' about L&L? I've always enjoyed reading you. :o)<BR/><BR/>Thanks!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post-4998840181574382162008-11-23T13:49:00.000-06:002008-11-23T13:49:00.000-06:00Here's your hyperlink, Tanbark.So don't say I neve...<A HREF="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hillary-plays-hardball-1031238.html" REL="nofollow">Here's your hyperlink, Tanbark.</A><BR/><BR/>So don't say I never gave you anything except nightmares. ;-)Mister Robotohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08724938709642010624noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post-82942508361793339782008-11-23T11:45:00.000-06:002008-11-23T11:45:00.000-06:00Sorry the link didn't highlight, but the article i...Sorry the link didn't highlight, but the article is up on today's AW.Com. They're in a fundraiser week. Just click on the bottom of the page and when their headlines come up, scroll down to:<BR/><BR/>"Hillary Demands Purge of Foreign Policy Critics". <BR/><BR/>If you think, as I do, that she has no business being within a mile of Obama's foreign policy, take your blood-pressure meds first; it aint pretty. :o(Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post-25985979886725107142008-11-23T11:41:00.000-06:002008-11-23T11:41:00.000-06:00Obama's problems with Clinton have already begun. ...Obama's problems with Clinton have already begun.<BR/><BR/> Some OT, by OH-SO-RELEVANT, is this piece from AW.Com, in the UK Independent, in which Leonard Doyle talks about Clinton's demands for "accepting" the State Department.<BR/><BR/>http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hillary-plays-hardball-1031238.html<BR/><BR/>That we have to go OUT of the country to find out this, about Obama's dealings with Clinton, is utterly reminiscent of the situation with so much of the reality and truth about the bush administration's mayhem opera. <BR/><BR/>She's insisting that Obama spay-and-neuter the loyal staffers who, during the campaign, were outspoken about her lack of real foreign-policy expertise. <BR/><BR/>She, and she alone, will pick the State Department personnel. <BR/><BR/>None of her contacts or decision making will be filtered or influenced by his foreign policy advisers. <BR/><BR/>What is so depressing about Obama's joining the Clinton rehab posse, is that he has so badly overestimated her power and influence. She is a VERY junior Senator, with no prospects for chairing an influential committee, for a long time. Her campaign against him was a virtual trainwreck, as she tossed away her excellent chances when she took a triangulating shit on her natural constituency, the progressive wing of the party, only to find out that we shit back. :o) <BR/><BR/>It's still not too late for him to leave her in the Senate. Her followers who are so blithely ignoring the horrible decision to give the inside track to State to Joe Lieberman's AIPAC-sister, will be sore pissed if Obama now hangs her out to dry, but that is EXACTLY what she, and they, deserve. <BR/> And, as far as them taking revenge goes; what's she going to do? Publicly claim that John McCain would have made a better commander-in-chief? <BR/><BR/> Indulge in republican-style saber-rattling?<BR/><BR/> Co-sponsor an amendment to make flag-burning a federal crime? <BR/><BR/> They got nuthin', and it's about time that Obama stops "reaching out" to the Clintons, and reminds them of it. <BR/><BR/> Personally, I am sick unto nausea of Clinton-drama, but if he follows up on nominating her, this kind of arrogant shit will be only the beginning. Hillary will be more in the news than the president. In her marrow, she believes that he has something that belongs to her.<BR/><BR/> That he is proposing to reward this Senator who supported the misery in Iraq until she saw that it was ruining her politically, is a travesty of the word "change". <BR/><BR/> For a lot of good progressives, who worked hard and gave money to his campaign, the honeymoon is dangerously close to being over. <BR/> <BR/> And I promise everyone reading this; with the Clinton's, there never was one.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post-45889101059131315142008-11-23T11:33:00.000-06:002008-11-23T11:33:00.000-06:00As others have referenced, I too have always found...As others have referenced, I too have always found the prescience of speculative fiction with regards to current events fascinating...Authors, liberated from mundane plot points and slavish adherence to realism were free to gather universal truisms, observed behaviors and cyclical trends in humanity as the essential glue that bound the stories together and gave the outlandish scenarios continuity and relevance, rather than the conventional stratagem of invented personalities bolted into fictive verisimilitude and allowed to run riot.<BR/><BR/>And so, here we are now living on the event horizon of a calculatedly contrived black hole, designed to keep the serfs in their place perpetually while the new aristocracy clings to their unearned splendor...How will this novella end, I wonder?darkblackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06584075324283109495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post-255406517719824822008-11-23T10:54:00.000-06:002008-11-23T10:54:00.000-06:00Somehow, I am not surprised to hear what you have ...Somehow, I am not surprised to hear what you have related to us about the tax code and how it encourages job-outsourcing. If we had a government that cared even a little teeny-tiny bit about the welfare of the people, not only would the tax codes severely punishing outsourcing, all "corporate welfare" from the government would get cut off to job-outsourcing corporations.<BR/><BR/>It <B>never, ever</B> ceases to amaze me what an utterly, hopelessly, abysmally narcissistic society we've managed to become.Mister Robotohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08724938709642010624noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post-3052815624106999462008-11-23T09:43:00.000-06:002008-11-23T09:43:00.000-06:00call for citizen robespierre,paging citizen robesp...call for citizen robespierre,<BR/>paging citizen robespierre. . .The Minstrel Boyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00697821546165315014noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post-35202229445392228082008-11-23T06:54:00.000-06:002008-11-23T06:54:00.000-06:00Well, at least nobody can say "No One Could Have E...Well, at least nobody can say "No One Could Have Ever Imagined..."<BR/><BR/>O do not know that it is the ONLY reason, but it seems clear to me that the reason the Pukes are stone-walling the big-3 bailout is that they see it as an opportunity to kill of the UAW, the last major industrial union in the country.<BR/><BR/>Would the oligarchs put 3 MILLION people out of work to accomplish this? <BR/><BR/>You figger it out...Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)https://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post-59236818755377479832008-11-23T03:20:00.000-06:002008-11-23T03:20:00.000-06:00I more interested in the "icicle works" part of th...I more interested in the "icicle works" part of this post: once again crushing the misconception that sci-fi is frivilous pulp written for and by boys of teenage mentality.<BR/>At one stage in the nineties I found myself unable to read any <B>literature</B> other than sci-fi since, at that time, it was the only media that had anything to say about the world and the state that it was/is in.Garthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15637097897454660933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post-51706512725165826532008-11-23T00:09:00.000-06:002008-11-23T00:09:00.000-06:00The worse the economy is the better looking the ho...The worse the economy is the better looking the hookers become...ahhh<BR/><A HREF="http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/27846893/" REL="nofollow">except for these people.</A>JayZeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17225308231027466847noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post-35988720992687826432008-11-22T22:22:00.000-06:002008-11-22T22:22:00.000-06:00Yeah, but this story'll run over and over again on...Yeah, but this story'll run over and over again on The O'really Factor from now until the annual war on Christmas breaks out.lostnacfgophttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18144608078707094464noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post-51707331376904776622008-11-22T22:02:00.000-06:002008-11-22T22:02:00.000-06:00Not sure who was the prostitute in that story, aft...Not sure who was the prostitute in that story, after all wasn't it the network that <I>escorted and filmed </I> the young lady to the brothel, in a limousine no less?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post-74036405157959371312008-11-22T19:12:00.000-06:002008-11-22T19:12:00.000-06:00That was truly an amazing piece of reporting. Very...That was truly an amazing piece of reporting. Very moving.<BR/><BR/>Also, ignore Juror #7 above me.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363027.post-1314695745769888812008-11-22T18:32:00.000-06:002008-11-22T18:32:00.000-06:00Aww, come on now fiction is fiction and facts is f...Aww, come on now fiction is fiction and facts is facts :)<BR/><BR/>Besides, if the media is untrustworthy, why should we consider this story one way or the other?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com