Now reading

Hawksbill Station by Robert Silverberg. Maybe it's just me, but dystopian SF novels based on the twin plot devices of time travel and police states seemed to be all the rage in 1967-8; witness an earlier book I read a few months back.

Flavor of the week turns yet more freakazoid

There's only so much you can say about Herman Cain - none of it particularly good.

First off, consider his less than nuanced take on hiring Muslims in a hypothetical Cain administration or his related inability to respect the rights of a religious body he dislikes in comparison to one that he approves of. Then there's some of the air-filled populist goofiness he resorts to from time to time as well as the support of likeminded individuals of profound strangeness like Bryan Fischer. Oh, and he's apparently yet another guy who the Deity Himself told to run for President.  

But here's the latest pile of misgivings:: that 9-9-9 tax plan of his? It may have been lifted from somewhere quite familiar to computer gamers. Even if it wasn't, there's more than a few reasons to think that a vid-game origin (after all, it might actually stay there) might've been a better alternative.