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'The GOP has gotten much better at messaging'

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Books Front Lines and Frontiers Planetary Romance Goes Interstellar: Almuric by Robert E. Howard and Beyond the Farthest Star by Edgar Rice Burroughs Our heroes are transported to strange, hostile worlds and must fight to survive in these tales, written by two masters of adventure fiction. By Alan Brown | Published on May 28, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share In this bi-weekly series reviewing classic science fiction and fantasy books, Alan Brown looks at the front lines and frontiers of the field; books about soldiers and spacers, scientists and engineers, explorers and adventurers. Stories full of what Shakespeare used to refer to as “alarums and excursions”: battles, chases, clashes, and the stuff of excitement. Today, I’m looking at a pair of planetary romance books by two masters of adventure tales. The first book is by Robert E. Howard, famed creator of the barbarian Conan, and is one of the rare tales where he takes his protagonists to another planet rather than into the distant past. And the second book is by Edgar Rice Burroughs, equally famed creator of Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, and others, and is set beyond our own solar system, in a planetary system that seems tailored to provide non-stop adventure. I found my copy of Beyond the Farthest Star a few years ago at my favorite used bookstore; it’s an Ace paperback from their seventh printing, published in 1979 with a cover by Frank Frazetta. It collects two related stories. The first story was entitled “Adventure on Poloda,” and originally published in Blue Book magazine in 1942, while the second, entitled “Tangor Returns,” was not published until years after Burroughs’ death, and copyrighted in 1964. My copy of Almuric was published by Berkley Medallion Books in 1977, and while the cover painting is uncredited, it looks like the work of artist Ken Kelly. I am pretty sure I bought it when I lived in Sitka, Alaska, from a little bookstore across the street from the iconic Russian Orthodox Church in the center of town. It reprints a story that was first serialized in Weird Tales magazine in 1939, and first published in book form by Ace Books in 1964. There is some dispute regarding the authorship of Almuric, which was not published until after Howard’s death. Some speculate it may have been written by fellow writer Otis Adelbert Kline, Howard’s literary agent and an editor of Weird Tales magazine, or perhaps rewritten from an early draft or outline by Howard. About the Authors Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) was a Texan author who started his professional writing career at 18, and by 23 had become a full-time author. While largely known for his pioneering work in the sword and sorcery genre, he also wrote tales of suspense, adventure, boxing, horror, western adventure, and even planetary romance. I’ve reviewed Howard’s work before in this column, looking at his Conan tales here, and his Kull tales here, and there is more biographical information in those reviews. You can find work by Howard available to read for free at Project Gutenberg. Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) was one of the most popular authors of the early 20th century, making an indelible mark on both science fiction and adventure fiction. I’ve looked at his work in this column before, including A Princess of Mars, the book Pirates of Venus and the rest of the Venus series, and also Tarzan at the Earth’s Core and the other Pellucidar books. All those reviews contain more biographical information on the author. You can find much of Burroughs’ work available to read for free at Project Gutenberg. Planetary Romance Beyond Our Solar System Planetary romance is a distinct sub-genre of science fiction, and was especially popular in the early days of the genre. While early space opera tales were often set in space, and spent a great deal of time describing how people got to other worlds, planetary romance was distinctive in skipping the journeys and moving the story directly to distant worlds, where the authors could imagine all sorts of exotic settings for adventures. During the golden era of planetary romance, the authors generally utilized the worlds of our own solar system, which were often imagined as having similar conditions to what we have here on Earth, especially a breathable atmosphere. Venus was depicted as hot and wet, Mars as cold and dry, and Mercury as tidally locked to the sun, with only a thin habitable region between its light and dark sides, but even asteroids were often described as having an environment where a spacesuit would not be required. That consensus view of the solar system, however, collapsed in the era of robot probes beginning in the 1960s, which showed that the worlds around us were far stranger, and far less hospitable, than had previously been hoped. The reaction of the science fiction community was for the most part to take planetary romances to planets that orbited other stars, which could still be imagined as earth-like worlds. A famous example of this is the Skaith trilogy by Leigh Brackett, who starting in 1973, sent her planetary romance hero John Eric Stark to a dying world orbiting a distant red sun (see my reviews here, here, and here). And she was not alone, as science fiction books that portrayed Earth-like worlds moved out to other stars. Even before the era of robot probes, however, there were planetary romances set outside our solar system, including the two books under discussion today… Almuric The novel opens with a forward written by Professor Hildebrand, a scientist who has discovered a portal to a far-off world he calls Almuric. And it is through the professor’s eyes that Howard first describes Esau Cairn, a character right out of Howard’s boxing and contemporary adventure tales. Cairn is a powerful man who falls into the orbit of a corrupt political boss. When that boss tries to break Cairn, as he has broken so many others, Cairn kills him in a fit of rage. Hunted by the authorities, Cairn goes to Hildebrand for help and is sent through the professor’s portal, at which point the book shifts to a first-person narrative from Cairn’s perspective. He finds himself naked on a grassy plain, and soon encounters a powerful warrior. They fight, Cairn knocks his opponent out with his powerful fists, and takes his knife, belt, loincloth, and sandals. Rather than fight others he sees approaching in the distance, Cairn heads into the nearby hills. He faces many fierce beasts, although the creatures are disappointingly similar to Earth beasts, with Howard not taking full advantage of having a whole new world to explore. Cairn thrives in this primitive environment, finding that its challenges stimulate him, and feeling more alive than he ever did on Earth. He finds a man being attacked by a large saber-toothed leopard, rescues him, and binds his wounds. But, pursued by others who misunderstand Cairn’s actions, he again runs for the hills. He learns to make fire, fully conquering his environment. But Cairn is lonely, and approaches a nearby stone castle. He is shot by a primitive carbine and taken prisoner. He finds that he can understand his captors, although it is not clear whether they speak English, or if he understands their language through some unexplained mechanism. He finds that while the men of his world are large, shaggy, and barbaric, the women are small, slender, and beautiful. Cairn develops feelings for a woman named Altha. They recognize his dagger, but doubt his story that he won it from its previous owner in a fair fight, and force him to face one of their mightiest warriors in combat. When Cairn wins this and several other fights, he is accepted as a warrior of their tribe. The common enemy of the warring humans of Almuric is the Yaga, a race of jet-black people with giant bat-like wings. Cairn is out hunting when he sees Altha, who has run away from home, and saves her from a giant beast, only to have them both be captured by the Yaga. They use the human women as slaves and food, and are intrigued by Cairn’s smooth skin. They take him to their queen, who is the only female Yaga who is allowed to keep her wings. This practice of female wing amputation is explained as a means used by the males to control the females, but that seems to clash with the fact that they obey a woman ruler, and the contradiction made my head spin. Cairn and Altha endure all sorts of trials and torture at the hands of the Yaga. As often happens in sword and sorcery tales, the queen develops feelings for Carin, and he uses his favored status to find out secrets about their fortress and escapes. Cairn then unites the warring human tribes, and leads them against the Yaga. What follows is a headlong rush of battles—a bit too rushed, and lacking the vivid and evocative descriptions that usually bring action scenes to life in Howard’s work. While the book starts out with passages that feel like pure Howard, the rushed battle scenes and a jarringly sunny ending leads me to believe those who suggest that the story was finished by other hands. Beyond the Farthest Star Like many Burroughs tales, the story begins with a framing device, a typewriter that operates itself to tell the tale of an Allied aviator who dies in a dogfight with German fighters (although we are not offered any more information about his past, or even his name). He awakens, naked and alone, in a garden, to be discovered by a young woman dressed in a skintight outfit that appears to be made of red sequins. A group of men appear, dressed similarly but carrying sidearms, and take the protagonist prisoner (the scene reminds the reader of a similar encounter in Pirates of Venus…not the only time this book recycles ideas from previous Burroughs works). The mysterious aviator is put in the hands of a psychiatrist, who gives him the name Tangor (which means “from nothing”), teaches him the local language, tells him he is on the planet Poloda, 450,000 lightyears from Earth, and eventually begins to believe his story that he comes from another world. Tangor volunteers to help Unis in their eternal battle with the Kapar, and is soon accepted into their air forces. Burroughs describes an interesting world, gripped in endless war, where many live underground, and buildings on the surface retract into the ground when the enemy attacks. The entire economy is dedicated to the military effort, and those odd costumes are the only thing people wear in order to save resources. “It is war” is a fatalistic litany repeated by the inhabitants as they accept their fate, a depiction influenced by real-world events from the time Burroughs was writing the tale, where the world being drawn into another World War, with the carnage of the first still fresh in everyone’s minds. Tangor soon becomes a pilot, and a successful one, in aerial battles that dwarf anything he’d seen on Earth, featuring combatants numbering in the tens of thousands. Tangor is shot down twice and has to make his way through dangerous wilderness and neutral territory to return to safety. And then the story shifts from aerial adventure to espionage. There is a woman who wants to defect to the Kapar, and tries to convince Tangor to join her. But Tangor goes to the authorities, who want him to play along in order to spy on a Kapar effort to develop a longer-range power transmitter that will allow trips to other worlds. It turns out Poloda is one of a number of worlds that are strung around its star in a torus of atmosphere. The Unis authorities think that fleeing to one of those worlds could break the cycle of endless war. While improbable from a scientific standpoint, this is a fascinating stage for further adventures, and you can see Burroughs laying the groundwork for a whole series. Tangor accompanies the woman to Kapar, where the enemy are suspicious and imprison him. There are a lot of twists and turns, but he is eventually enlisted into their research effort, finds the secret of long-range power transmission, steals an experimental craft, and escapes back to Unis. The book ends here, and unfortunately, the series does as well. Burroughs soon thereafter volunteered to serve as a war correspondent, and after the war, failing health prevented him from writing further. We will never know what adventures Tangor might have had after this one. Final Thoughts Almuric and Beyond the Farthest Star are solid examples of planetary adventure, although neither takes full advantage of the possibilities of being set in a whole new solar system, on worlds that could have taken any form at all. Neither Howard nor Burroughs does much more than give us more of the same type of tales they had already been writing, but in a new setting. And now it’s your turn to chime in: If you’ve read these two books, or would like to discuss any work by Howard or Burroughs, here’s your chance to comment. And I’m always interested in hearing about other planetary romance stories you may have enjoyed.[end-mark] The post Planetary Romance Goes Interstellar: <i>Almuric</i> by Robert E. Howard and <i>Beyond the Farthest Star</i> by Edgar Rice Burroughs appeared first on Reactor.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The EU has announced a guiding framework that will make it possible to set up what the bloc calls “Hybrid Rapid Response Teams” which will be “drawing on relevant sectoral national and EU civilian and military expertise.” These teams will be created and then deployed to counter “disinformation” throughout the 27 member countries – but also to what Brussels calls partner countries. And Ireland might become an “early adopter.” For a county to apply, it will first need to feel it is under attack by means of “hybrid threats and campaigns” and then request from the EU to help counter those by dispatching a “rapid response team.” The EU is explaining the need for these teams as a result of a “deteriorating security environment, increasing disinformation, cyber attacks, attacks on critical infrastructure, and election interference by malign actors” – and even something the organization refers to as “instrumentalized migration.” The framework comes out of the EU Hybrid Toolbox, which itself stems from the bloc’s Strategic Compass for Security and Defense. Mere days after the EU made the announcement last week, news out of Ireland said that the Department of Foreign Affairs welcomed the development, stating that they will “now begin on operationalizing Ireland’s participation in this important initiative.” The department explained what it sees as threats – there’s inevitably “disinformation,” along with cyber attacks, attacks on critical infrastructure, as well as “economic coercion.” Ireland’s authorities appear to be particularly pleased with the EU announcement given that the country doesn’t have a centralized body that would fight such a disparate range of threats, real or construed. The announcement about the “reaction teams” came from the Council of the EU, and was the next day “welcomed” by the European Commission, which repeated the points the original statement made about a myriad of threats. The Hybrid Rapid Response Teams which have now been greenlit with the framework are seen as a key instrument in countering those threats. Other than saying that the EU Hybrid Toolbox relies on “relevant civilian and military expertise,” the two EU press releases are short on detail about the composition of the future teams that will be sent on “short-term” missions. However, it revealed that “rapid deployment to partner countries” will be made possible through the Emergency Response Coordination Center (ERCC) as the scheme’s operational hub. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post European Council Approves “Rapid Response Teams” To Combat “Disinformation” appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. A former Biden administration official has declared that disinformation around elections is “becoming the norm rather than the exception.” Samantha Vinograd, until recently of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), also asserted that these days, because of what she considers to be election disinformation, “there is an unprecedented level of physical threats” while the US information ecosystem is “incredibly vulnerable.” Dramatic and alarmist statements like this may be necessary to justify the rest of Vinograd’s message, which in effect attacks free speech, as it is legally protected in the US. Appearing on CBS, Vinograd – who was until last December Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Counterterrorism and Threat Prevention – warned that the First Amendment might protect free speech, but that engaging in free speech is apparently not “cost-free.” The Face the Nation hosts framed the problem as, essentially, federal laws (the Constitution) protecting speech, but the damage being done at the state level – and then what states, who organize elections, can do to fix that “problem.” Spreading lies about candidates, as they put it, was given as an example of legal, protected speech becoming an issue by having the ability to create “a threat at the state level” – and asked Vinograd who she thought was supposed to correct the situation. Vinograd – who has been bouncing between various administrations (including those of Bush and Obama, and private companies like Goldman Sachs and Stripe before landing at Biden’s DHS) – seemed to suggest that Big Tech (i.e., social media companies) should be assisting the government. The federal government said Vinograd, “should not be the omnipresent fact checker for the American people.” And even though, according to her, the government is debunking information about elections that is deemed to be inaccurate, social media companies “should be thinking about what kinds of election disinformation violate their terms of service.” It’s difficult not to take this as a not-so-veiled added pressure on social platforms to not only continue with censoring content but perhaps expand it in terms of what qualifies as election disinformation. Either way, Vinograd is in favor of enlisting “every American” to help out as well (although it is not clear in what specific way), invoking even the concept of patriotic duty. And Vinograd did not miss the opportunity to assert that election misinformation threats are now of such magnitude as to present a national security issue. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Former Biden Homeland Security Official Criticizes Free Speech, Cites “Disinformation” Impact on Election Security appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Behind the Scenes, Democrats Are Freaking Out About Joe Biden

One of the most prominent features of supermassive black holes that are actively feeding is a jet of plasma. The jet can move at almost the speed of light and extend for many millions of light-years in some cases. New research shows that the jets are not stuck in place, but they can in fact change direction, sometimes even wildly.Researchers combined observations in X-rays and radio waves to spot potential changes in the directions of the jets. The fact that a change might happen is not an obvious fact. Once a black hole is accreting, it can release these powerful jets. The material falling into a black hole will arrange itself into a disk around it. The jets are influenced by the black hole's spin and direction, but not always.The spin itself is difficult to estimate – a brand new approach used a destroyed star – but depending on the size of the disk, the direction of the jet might not align itself with the rotation of the black hole, meaning it can change significantly. In the 16 cases observed by the team, there was significant variation.The old cavities and the current jets int his x-ray and radio images.Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Bologna/F. Ubertosi; Insets Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLBA; Wide field Image: Optical/IR: Univ. of Hawaii/Pan-STARRS; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. WolkThe radio observations are more detailed and can be used to work out the current direction of the jet. The X-ray observations are not as detailed, focusing on an area about 30 times wider, but they are crucial because they look at hot gas extending hundreds of light-years around the galaxy hosting the supermassive black hole. Researchers can see cavities in that gas that the jets carved millions of years ago. If the cavities are in a different direction, the jet must have moved.And some have moved significantly. The comparison between the X-ray observations from NASA’s Chandra and the radio images from the Very Large Baseline Array (VLBA) show that the beams of galaxy Abell 478 changed direction by about 35 degrees. The ones of galaxy NGC 5044 changed direction by about 70 degrees.“We found that about a third of the beams are now pointing in completely different directions than before,” lead author Francesco Ubertosi of the University of Bologna, said in a statement. “These Death Star black holes are swiveling around and pointing at new targets, like the fictional space station in Star Wars.”There are some that changed direction by almost 90 degrees, and they did so in between one to 10 million years. Given that these objects are 10 billion years old (10,000 million years), this is a very quick change.“These galaxies are too distant to tell if the beams from the Death Star black holes are damaging stars and their planets, but we are confident they are preventing many stars and planets from forming in the first place,” said co-author Ewan O’Sullivan, of the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian.The study is published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Along with bonobos, chimpanzees are humanity’s closest living relatives, with a genome that is strikingly similar to our own. Yet chimps don’t drive cars, speak Danish, or play the clarinet, so if we’re so genetically alike, how can we be so different in our appearance and behavior?How similar are we really?Humans and chimpanzees are thought to have split from a common ancestor around six million years ago, which is pretty recent in evolutionary terms. In the mid-noughties, scientists succeeded in sequencing the genome of a chimp named Clint, revealing that, in absolute terms, the species’ genetic code is 96 percent identical to ours.However, much of this difference is accounted for by duplication, whereby sections of the genome are simply repeated in one species but not the other. In terms of actual genes, though, we’re 98.8 percent alike, meaning only 1.2 percent of our genetic code is not found in chimpanzees.That doesn’t sound like much, but when you consider that the human genome consists of around three billion base pairs – or bits of genetic information – then this small percentage adds up to around 35 million discrepancies between the two species.Where are the differences?Many of the differences between the human and chimp genomes can be found in regions that account for transcription factors, which act like genetic switches that tell different genes when to become activated and when to remain dormant. In other words, much of our human-ness has nothing to do with genes that are specific to our species, but is attributable to the fact that the genes we share with chimps are expressed in a unique way.For instance, the genes that code for the neurons in each of our brain regions are pretty much the same as those that are found in chimpanzees, but their pattern of activation ensures we develop more of these cells – and therefore larger brains – than other primates. All that separates us is a small section of the genome that controls the degree of cell division within the nervous system, rather than the actual genes that code for the creation of different neurons.In this way, genomes that appear almost identical can produce wildly different phenotypic characteristics. The genes can be the same, but subtle differences within the parts of the genome that control gene expression can totally transform the end product.Human genesScientists are still sifting through the data to try and figure out exactly how the 1.2 percent of our genome that is uniquely human actually works. So far, they’ve managed to identify certain sections that appear to code for particular characteristics.For example, a gene called ASPM is likely to be related to neurogenesis and brain size in humans, while another called FOXP2 may be associated with speech development. Yet another, called KRTHAP1, influences the pattern of keratin expression in the human hair follicle and may therefore account for differences between our hair and that of our more hirsute apelike relatives.Many of the genes we don’t share with chimpanzees are related to immune function and result in significant differences in disease susceptibility. For instance, chimps are resistant to malaria and certain flu viruses that we humans struggle with, although we’re better at dealing with tuberculosis.Looking at the bigger picture, the minor differences between the human and chimpanzee genomes are a perfect demonstration of the wonderful economy of DNA: rather than requiring a complete re-draft of the code to create a new species, all it takes is a few minor tweaks and you’ve transformed a chimp into a person.

Astronaut training is pretty rigorous, involving trips to neutral buoyancy labs to simulate to simulate microgravity environments, and learning how to operate and maintain space station modules. But, according to former NASA astronaut José Moreno Hernández, there is another, less talked about training session: the pee and poop module – and it comes with its own fairly disgusting exam.During the early days of the Apollo missions, NASA didn't think about peeing and pooping too much. When the first American man went into space, they made no plans at all for if he needed the bathroom. The trip was only supposed to be short, so they figured he'd be able to hold it. However, due to delays prior to launch, he ended up having to wait on the launchpad for hours and ended up having to pee himself.For longer space trips, NASA had to figure out a better system. Before Apollo 12, the main way astronauts went to the toilet was into collection bags. For peeing, this involved inserting your penis into a tube with a rubber, condom-like end. This had its own problems in that the sheaths would often fly off in space, largely due to a sizing problem.For pooping, astronauts would take a fecal bag and use a "finger cot" to position it over the anus.For excursions outside of the spacecraft, astronauts would have to use the fecal containment system (FCS), which is a "pair of underpants of absorbent material worn under the liquid cooling garment." This is a fancy way of saying that when man first walked on the Moon he was wearing a diaper. Thankfully, the toilet situation has moved on somewhat since the early days – at least inside spacecraft – not least because they had to adapt to accommodate female astronauts, for whom a sheath would be somewhat impractical. Now they have an advanced bathroom facility on the ISS. The latest space toilet technology costs a whopping $23 million, in fact.The problem is that in the microgravity environment on the ISS, liquids and solids tend to float where they are without another external force acting upon them. This is a particularly annoying problem when those solids are poop and pee. Gravity on Earth directs pee and poo into the toilet, where it rests until we send it on its final journey. In space, that doesn't happen, so pee and poo need to be guided by air flow.In short, you get a vacuum hose for your pee – but for your poop, you only have a small area to aim into, as creating a normal-sized toilet opening would require too-large of a motor in order to power the airflow. Commander Chris Cassidy explains in the below video how the systems work. "You better have good aim," astronaut José Moreno Hernández told Metro of the toilets. They take some getting used to, with the astronauts required to practice before they go to space."And I kid you not, there’s a class – we take potty 101," Hernández added. "You take a class on going to the restroom and they won’t check you off until you can do a number one and number two."To get to the ISS, there are many requirements. But all must pass the poop test.