Monday, April 22, 2019

Happy Earth Day, Frank Herbert

Repeating the blog from 2015:

Here is a much younger me in 1980 with my friend Frank Herbert. Sure, Frank's Dune, along with his other science fiction, eerily foresaw our current geopolitical battle lines, where technology became sufficiently advanced that one individual could wreak havoc on the entire planet. But his justifiable concern for Planet Earth, and his Philadelphia speech on the first Earth Day in 1970, is also appropriate for today. Ignoring the shrill rhetoric on both sides of the ecology argument, Frank's agenda was apolitical and common sense. We had many high-bandwidth conversations about everything from technology to religion to politics. Sure, he talked me into running for the U.S. Congress back in 1978. It might have been interesting, had I won and tried to live up to his vision of me as his "Tactful Saboteur" Jorj X. McKie. Who am I kidding, though? I'd probably be in jail today, having slipped a thumb drive past the capitol's legislative firewall and wreaking havoc on the Beltway Bandits' meal ticket.

Happy Earth Day, Frank.

Sincerely, Rick Jorj X. McKie Bennett.

Thursday, April 11, 2019

Personal appeal to Ukraine government

Since I started this blog in 2011, the most popular single audience outside the United States has been Ukraine. To wit:

Pageviews by Countries

Graph of most popular countries among blog viewers
Entry
United States
Ukraine
France
Russia
China
Germany
Israel
United Kingdom
United Arab Emirates
Canada

Ukraine has hit this site tens of thousands of times. I think I'm trusted. So, Ukraine claims to have evidence of 2016 election tampering, but complains that nobody in the U.S. government is interested in reviewing the information.

The plea. Post it here. I'll publish it. Of course, I'll insist on authentication of the source being the Ukrainian government and not some misinformation hackers.

Please accept this invitation from…The Destroying Angel.