Pilot's Log

Sagittarius Horoscope for week of June 9, 2011

You're in a phase of your astrological cycle when you're likely to be as attractive and endearing and in demand as it's possible for you to be. I am not making any absurdly extravagant claims here -- am not implying you'll be as charismatic as a rock star and as lovable as a kitten -- but you will be pushing the limits of your innate allure. I bet your physical appearance will be extra appealing, and you'll have an instinct for highlighting the most winsome aspects of your personality. To help you take advantage of the potential that's now available, please add the following word to your vocabulary: "concupiscible," which means "worthy of being desired."

One of my brother's thespian friends said, "Don't keep all your concupiscible giglets in one clackdish."

"People who fixate their minds on the evils of others blind their minds to the virtues of others--and from the evils of their own minds."

Sagittarius Horoscope for week of November 26, 2009

The surest way to beat the system, my dear, is to elude it and erect your own system. The strategy most likely to leave your competitors babbling in the mirror, sweetheart, is to go completely over their heads. That doesn't mean, darling, that you should be a remote and grandiose narcissist who listens to no one but yourself. Smile sweetly as you describe why your way is the best way, you gorgeous genius. Enlist worthy collaborators through the irresistible force of your guileless charisma.

Well, it's better than my Book of Tepid quote for today: Just because something is a necessary evil, doesn't oblige me to stay silent on its evilness.

"Don't underestimate the Republican AND Democratic national parties' ability to provide an unending supply of scumbags to replace those voted out of office and perpetuate the status quo for their big-money masters."

Take care of the velocity and the trajectory will take care of itself.

FP

PS: Producers Are Money-Grubbing Scum.

Quoting myself, because of something another LJ user said:

"On the Pledge of Allegiance: I'll try to remember all that I have 'said' in previous mentions of the subject...

"1) The idea of the Pledge in the first place was to indoctrinate the young of our nation into Federalist sentiment as opposed to state or region or RACE. It came out of the Reconstruction, as a way of reunification through ritualized socialization. The under God phrase was inserted in the 1950s as a response to the preceived threat from Communism. So I find it horribly ironic that many of the defenders of the under God phrase are in fact anti-Federalists and racists.

"2) In many Protestant churches, Sunday School children are made not only to Pledge to the American flag, but to the flag of their sect or their sect's youth organization. I consider this practice to be a method towards forced fealty rather than instilling or recognizing faith.

"3) Many of the radical Protestant faiths were forced out of Europe to America because their RELIGION forbid them from making loyalty oaths to the king. And these radical sects are the ones that eventually formed the Evangelical movement here. So I consider their attempts to enforce a fealty to God in secular America particularly hypocritical."

PS: In honor of the_gneech,

--Dr. Israel Khang

From March of 2002:

"Hi.

I noticed that the local library where I am still has a copy of the 1981 Book of Predictions (from the series that included the Books of Lists). So today I took a peek inside to see what was being predicted and by whom, and what should have happened by now. There were some surprises.

1) More than one expert predicted the fall of the Soviet Union. One prediction was within one year of when it really happened.
2) Somebody predicted a scandal in the government of the U.S. that resembled what happened with Oliver North and Iran-Contra.
3) Somebody predicted that a high-profile televised court case would oust the soap operas from the TV networks.
4) Many of the predictions involving the prevalence of the computer chip and related media have come to pass, including E-Mail, hand-held phones, and PDAs.

On the other hand, we have a pile of prophesied events that did not happen, and things that have not yet come (if they ever do):

* Passage of the Equal Rights Amendment
* Emergence of large-scale Solar Power
* Collapse of the Public Education System
* Collapse/Reform of Agriculture System (factory-farms cease to exist because of high costs, replaced by smaller, more efficient farms and hydroponics)
* Permanent Fuel Rationing laws imposed
* Nuclear War, or a large-scale conventional war in North America
* Global Government, preluded by the merger of the United States and Canada into one nation
* Permanent colonies in Earth orbit and on Luna
* Economic Depression triggered by a massive corporate bankruptcy domino-effect. This and increasing automation drive almost everybody out of work.
* Legalization of Marijuana (starting with the South American nations, then individual states in the U.S.)
* De-Urbanization...city centers are razed and the space turned into more modern living area ala Suburbia
* Nationalization of all police, medical, emergency and social services.
* Laser weaponry becoming widely available, replacing firearms in most militaries
* Powered armor for infantry soldiers
* Bullet trains in the U.S.
* Nuclear families fall out of practice, replaced by people either living alone or families merging into extended clans
* Mass extinctions of animals, including whales
* Undersea habitats
* Passenger space travel (space shuttles being put into series production)
* First war in space, fought almost entirely by automated defense satellites
* 3D TV
* Bionic organs becoming commonplace
* Hovercar vehicles leading to the decline of asphalt paving
* Contact with extraterrestial civilizations

And this is just scratching the surface."