Archive for the ‘Cylon’ Category
UP@NIGHT, Right Again (Prediction Record)
Nostradamus Vs. UP@NIGHT 
No Contest
It has been over a year and a half since I began UP@NIGHT and my career as a pundit, for lack of a more refined label. I suppose part of the challenge was to see how a philosopher by trade might do in the prediction business. How I would stack up against the pundits in the media. You know, mano a mano.
I thought that it would be fitting and fair to readers, and myself, to look at blogs in which I predicted the outcome of events in the political world to see if my track record was any good. Low and behold, I discovered that if I had been a betting man, I could have made some good money. So, without further ado, and no false modesty, here are the predictions. Roll Over Nostradamus.
The titles are linked to the original blogs.
Correct Predictions:
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Semi-correct, although not a exactly a prediction:
Obama, Spock, and the New Star Trek Nation, June 6, 2008. (UP@NIGHT was one of the first blogs, if not the first, to make the connection between Obama and Spock on the Web. It has now become a commonplace.)
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Incorrect Predictions:
The Twelfth Cylon Revealed, May 30, 2008 (I claimed that McCain is the 12th and missing Cylon on the TV show Battlestar Gallactica. I still hold to the proposition that he may prove to be a Cylon. The new series should reveal the truth.)
It’s Going to be Webb for VP, Probably, May 16, 2008
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Still up in the air:
Obama’s Pragmatism (or Move over Culture Wars, Hello Political Philosophy), December 14, 2008; reposted April 7, 2009 (Argues that Obama is a philosophical pragmatist, not merely a political one, and that his approach will have an impact on the culture wars. See also, Obama: Conservative, Liberal, or Ruthless Pragmatist?, May 7, 2009; Bronx on the Court, Empathy, and Obama’s Pragmatism, May 27, 2009.)
GOP, Inc. to be Permanently Downsized, January 30, 2009
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Leaving aside the Cylon revelation, looks like UP@NIGHT was right about 90% of the time. So I ask you, can you afford not to read UP@NIGHT?
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[First posted December 26, 2009. Reposted January 3rd, 2010 to start off the new year and add "Obama's Pragmatism." ]
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UPDATE, January 22, 2010.
With the unexpected victory of Brown in Massachusetts I am going to have to amend what I claimed above, namley, that health care will not be stopped by a filibuster in the Senate. It wasn’t stopped, but now it would be. Nevertheless, I am not pulling the original prediction about health care (yet). The Democrats can’t afford not to pass it, which was the thrust of the original blog. No one knows what form it will take at this juncture, or when it is going to happen, but the Democrats will get something they can crow about.
The Twelfth Cylon Revealed
The political world is phase shifting, from yellow to at least orange. Just in the past couple of days we have had Scotty McClellan tearing apart the walls of Bush World by revealing truths that we have long known. Bush and Co. have struck back by trying to toss him into the sphere of hell that they reserve for those who are disloyal to the brotherhood. (First rule of Bush World: never speak ill of the inner circle or the gods will strike you down, down, and further down.)
But I am not here to talk about politics. I want to provide a respite. I want to answer a question that I know has been on many of your minds. I know that it has been on mine. Who is the twelfth Cylon?
A couple of months ago, a colleague recommended that I watch Battlestar Galactica. As a born sucker for entertaining Sci fi, whether on the screen or in print, I gave it a whirl. I especially like Sci fi that breaks some of the conventions of the genre. As any BSG fan knows, we are currently in season four. However, because I came late to BSG, I was able to watch the first three seasons on DVD. But now I find myself having to deal with commercial TV, for the fourth season has just begun, and there are no DVD’s. For the solution to one of the biggest mysteries, who is the twelfth Cylon, I must wait months to find out. (For those of you who may not have seen the show, the Cylons are an “artificial” species that human beings created. And they in turn have created Cylons who look and act like human beings, which has led to many trials for both “species.” We have learned who eleven of the human-like Cylons are, but the twelfth is a serious mystery.)
I find this intolerable. I need to know now, not in several months. So employing the finely honed analytical skills that I have developed as professional philosopher, I decided to figure out the answer.
It wasn’t very hard. First, we must keep in mind that we are dealing with a show that prides itself on unexpected twists and turns. It wants to play outside of the box. Second, we must assume that the character who will turn out to be the twelfth Cylon, while already known to the audience, will still surprise us.
The writers have placed clues. The most striking: the executive officer, Saul Tigh, is a colonel. Why is this striking? Because we are on board a starship, a battlestar, in which everyone on board has naval military ranks. (Standard Sci fi fare here.) The Battlestar Galactica is led by an admiral, Bill Adama. It turns out, however, that the second in command–a hard-drinking, uptight, cussing, tough military type–is a colonel. And he is also a Cylon. The trail leads through Tigh, no doubt about it.
BSG has been rife with political commentary. (Sorry, we got back to politics somehow.) And the last shows have only been written recently due to the writers’ strike. We know that one of the techniques that has become commonplace in TV of late is to import political figures into shows. The twelfth Cylon will be such a figure and, get this, he is going to be Tigh’s fraternal twin. (Yes, this will turn out to be one of the most interesting twists in the plot. Up until now, all human-like Cylons have been identical twins. Now fraternal twins will come to the fore….a genetic variation that suggests new possibilities for the species.) You laugh, you scoff. But I tell you that he will be a military person, who, like Tigh, has had trouble with authority. Still skeptical. You will see and believe…..
Behold, I give you Colonel Tigh, a Cylon, and his fraternal twin, the Twelfth Cylon:
