response 202 of 298:

Oct 17 23:36 UTC 1999

  Most of the better conspiracy theories do..

response 204 of 298:

Oct 18 17:48 UTC 1999

        Like the one about that project where the government spent billions
researching some obscure physics theories that might have applications, while
a war was going on?

response 206 of 298:

Oct 18 20:25 UTC 1999

Remember, just because you're not paranoid, it doesn't mean that they're not
out to get you.

"Perfect paranoia is perfect perception." - a line from Stephen King's Golden
Years

response 208 of 298:

Oct 19 02:09 UTC 1999

That's what I find to be the most effective argument against most of them.

response 210 of 298:

Oct 19 13:03 UTC 1999

A lot of conspiracy theories fall apart when you realize that no plan, however
ingenious, goes off as planned. Plus, the more people involved, and the wider
the conspiracy, the more likely it's going to be discovered.

response 212 of 298:

Oct 19 15:20 UTC 1999

With the Manhattan project, there were leaks, but those leaks were very
quickly suppressed. Scientists would go to nearby diners and say the wrong
thing. Army officials would very quickly converge on these places and swear
the people inside to secrecy.

As for the Enigma project, the way it was kept secret was by letting the
Germans bomb some of their targets without resistance. It was costly, but it
worked.

I can agree that the government is perfectly capable of doing things in
secret. My point is that world-wide conspiracies can't exist to the extent
that the theorists say because the more people involved, the greater the risk
of exposure. Everyone within a group has their own agenda. They may act with
or against others in the group for the sake of furthering their personal
motives.  Even when a group is in agreement with an agenda, they may disagree
with the means used to carry out a plan.

response 214 of 298:

Oct 19 19:30 UTC 1999

Yes, but in the instance of gas prices, you're dealing with multi-national
corporations with interlocking boards of directors, ensuring that no one oil
company will try to undercut another. On the more local level, gas stations
will compete with other places down the street, but they do agree not to step
on each other's toes too much. They want the appearance of competition.

On to the actual topic though...

I just finished reading Japanese Mythology by Juliet Piggott. I enjoyed the
brief historical overview and the survey of Shinto and Buddhist beliefs. It
also had a decent selection of Japanese myths, legends and stories. It wasn't
very comprehensive though. I much preferred "Myths and Legends of Japan" by
F. Hadland Davis. That book had more stories that were divided into varoius
topics (animals, mirrors, Mt Fuji, etc.). Both are enjoyable reads.

response 216 of 298:

Oct 20 04:29 UTC 1999

Some of the books I read over the summer:
_Borderliners_ by Peter Hoeg. I picked this one up because I loved _Smilla's
Sense of Snow_. I didn't like this one quite as much, because the tone is 
darker and a bit depressing. The story is about an orphaned boy called Peter
who is taken out of a state home (in Denmark) and sent to an expensive private
school called Biehl's Academy. He forms friendships with two other
"outsiders," a disturbed boy named August and a girl called Katarina. (er,
I think I have those names right.) They try to discover the details of the
reason that they have been brought to the academy. There is also a lot of 
philosophical speculation  on the nature of time, and towards the end these 
passages get in the way of the story a bit too much. Still, I thought it was
a very engrossing and thought-provoking book. (I'd like to smack the person
who wrote the blurb on the jacket. It gives away two of the major important
points of the plot.)
Also read _The Woman and the Ape_ by Hoeg. I thought it was awful: a sort of
bizarre pseudo-fantasy plot and a mystery story that doesn't hang together
very much.
I went to hear Ray Bradbury talk at the Chautauqua Auditorium and while
there bought a copy of _Quicker than the Eye_, a collection of stories,
and got it signed. It is a bit of a mixed bag, but because of the several
truly wonderful stories in it-"The Electrocution", "Hopscotch", "The Finnegan,"
"The Very Gentle Murders," (both of which are rather like updated Poe 
stories), "The Witch Door," "Last Rites," and "The Other Highway"-I have
probably missed a few good ones; those were just my favorites-it is well
worth the $12 I paid for it. Ray Bradbury is a great speaker, BTW.
I might write about some others if I can remember them. At the moment I am not
getting to read a lot because of schoolwork. :(

response 218 of 298:

Oct 21 04:05 UTC 1999

Was it the SF-like component of the ending that you didn't like? It seems
from reading the customer comments on Amazon that a lot of people (probably
those who are into mystery novels but not science fiction) think the ending
was a sort of copout. Personally, I think the final mysterious, inconclusive
paragraphs are wonderful. The ending of _The Once and Future King_ (which
I read for school) is a bit like that too. (I loved TOAFK as well).
Another book has come to mind, _Red Shift_ by Alan Garner. Now *this* is
one of the strangest books I have ever read. It is a bit more difficult to
get through than the average "young adult" novel; sometimes I lost track of
who was speaking in the dialogue passages, as there are no cues from the
narrator. There are three interwoven plots: one concerning two teenagers
engaged in a strange sort of romance in the twentieth century, one set
during one of the Roman occupations of Britain and involving a boy in
a Roman legion who has epileptic-like visions, and one set in England's 
civil war. The ending complicates the puzzle of how the plots fit together
rather than clearing it up. I hope to read the book again later and try to
understand it better. 

response 220 of 298:

Oct 21 04:44 UTC 1999

        I actually enjoyed the ambiguity of the close, and the realism of the
core of the sinister "conspiracy" being something relatively mundane.  But
that's just me.

response 222 of 298:

Oct 25 04:02 UTC 1999

The parliament vs. King war, the one that brought Cromwell to power. I was
going to say that, but I thought that "the English civil war" always 
refered , ack, referred, to the same one. I stand corrected :)
I thought the monarchy was restored in a bloodless "revolution"; am I
confusing it with something else?

response 224 of 298:

Nov 30 01:02 UTC 1999

  Because of the holiday I had a fair amount of time to read this weekend
  and because of all of the work *before* the holiday I chose for
  entertainment more than anything else..

  Tim Powers -- "On Stranger Tides"..   John Chandagnac, a puppeteer and
  amateur scholar is sailing to the new world to claim his grandfather's
  estate when his ship is captured by pirates.  Sooner than you can say
  "shanghaied", he's pressed into service aboard by the rather odd pirates
  and soon he's "Jack Shandy", unwilling participant in a power struggle
  between voodoo practicing pirates, a one-armed Oxford don seeking to
  restore his wife's spirit -- to his daughter's body, and other typically
  strange Powers characters.  Entertaining, but not as good as his other
  books.  Powers writes entertaining books filled with strange characters
  who are involved in bizarre plots.  Instead of "On Stranger Tides" I
  would recommend:

     "Last Call": which has a strangely similar plot, but takes place
     in modern times, with sorcerous card sharks taking the place of
     the voodoo-practicing pirates, as they vie to unseat the magical
     Fisher King of Las Vegas and become king themselves.. -or-

     "the Anubis Gate": a time-travelling poet encounters plotting
     Egyptian sorcerers, a body-swapping werewolf, and a killer clown
     who performs awful medical experiments in the sewers of 18th-century
     London..


 -------------


  Sara Paretsky -- "Hard Time"..   Latest in the V.I. Warshawsky series.
  Tough and independent Chicago private-eye Warshawsky manages to tick off
  the wrong people and is soon caught up in a complicated plot that everyone
  else begs her not to unravel.  How is this different from every other
  V.I. Warshawsky novel, you ask?  Clearly it's not, but it's a pretty good
  formula if you like mystery novels.  Nothing new here, but after all of
  the other books in the series fans probably know what to expect.  

  Recommended for fans of the series -- people who haven't read the other
  books will be confused by all the peripheral characters who've been
  acquired in the other books and remain part of the continuity.  Probably
  best to start with an earlier installment..


 -------------


  Dick Francis -- "Second Wind"   Francis could do with a bit of a "second
  wind" (or third, or twelfth, or whatever it takes..) himself.  Having by
  now almost completely mined out his trademark gimmick (every mystery 
  involves horseracing in some way, although in this latest the connection
  is slapped on pretty haphazardly..) Francis is showing the dark side of
  the formula problem.  While fans of the rest of Paretsky's books will
  probably enjoy the new V.I. Warshawsky novel, it's difficult to imagine
  *anyone* particularly enjoying Francis' latest offering.  The plot makes
  little or no sense, the characters' actions are all annoyingly irrational,
  and even the villains have little idea what they're doing.  It's clearly
  not up to the standards of Francis' usually successful (if completely
  predictable) suspense formula. 

  Strong recommendation against.  His fans will probably buy it anyway,
  but I can at least say "I told you so."  Seriously, though, this one
  stinks.  You'd be far better off re-reading any of his previous works.
  Don't say I didn't warn you..