29 May 2014

 Birthdays
Pamela Kwiatowski b. 1994 (Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters)
Gregg Sulkin b. 1992 (Wizards of Waverly Place, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Man on the Moon [TV])
Anita Briem b. 1982 (Journey to the Center of the Earth, Doctor Who)
Elyas M’Barek b. 1982 (The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones)
Justin Chon b. 1981 (Twilight, Innocent Blood, Detention of the Dead)
Chris Violette b. 1981 (Bitten, Lost Girl, My Babysitter’s a Vampire, Diary of the Dead, Power Rangers S.P.D.)
Adam Brown b. 1980 (The Hobbitt)
Steve Cardenas b. 1974 (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers)
Adrian Paul b. 1959 (Abominable Snowman, Eyeborgs, Highlander, Charmed, The Breed, Dark Shadows [1991], War of the Worlds [TV], Masque of the Red Death, Beauty and the Beast)
Rupert Everett b. 1959 (Stardust, Shrek II and III, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)
Wayne Duvall b. 1958 (Evolution, Seven Days, Timecop, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Apollo 13, The X-Files)
Annette Bening b. 1958 (What Planet Are You From?, Mars Attacks!)
Ted Levine b. 1957 (The Hills Have Eyes, Evolution, From the Earth to the Moon)
Cotter Smith b. 1949 (Revolution, 666 Park Avenue, Invasion, X-Men 2, Invader [1996], The Twilight Zone [1986])
Robert Axelrod b. 1949 (Bite Me, Power Rangers Time Force, The Blob [1988], Alien Private Eye, Alice in Wonderland [1985])
Nick Mancuso b. 1948 (Rise of the Gargoyles, Saurian, Mutant X, Total Recall 2070, Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension)
Anthony Geary b. 1947 (Project U.F.O., The Amazing Captain Nemo, The Six Million Dollar Man)
Kevin Conway b. 1942 (Dark Angel, Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace, Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Paul R. Ehrlich b. 1932 (author, The Population Bomb)
Clifton James b. 1921 (Monsters, Superman II, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Werewolf of Washington)
Sebastian Shaw b. 1905 died 23 December 1994 (Return of the Jedi)

Okay, I'll admit it. I don't know the work of anyone on this list younger than Rupert Everett, but they had genre credits listed on imdb.com, so here they are. Last year I had the picture of Sebastian Shaw as the ghost of Anakin Skywalker from the un-remastered Return of the Jedi, but this year the Picture Slot goes to Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich, who gets my vote as the worst of our regular predictors, even less accurate than Ray Kurzweil. I can make a positive statement about Dr. Ehrlich, at least from this picture.

Nice facial hair, doc.

Many happy returns to the living on the list and to Sebastian Shaw, at least you were dead when they made you a non-person.


Movies released
Up released 2009

Predictor: Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich from his 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb

Prediction: From page 161 of the paperback version: "The Paddocks deserve immense credit for their courage and foresight in publishing Famine – 1975!, which may be remembered as one of the most important books of our age."

Reality: This book has pretty much the same message as Ehrlich's, but it has been forgotten for the most part because it was 100% wrong in its conclusions. Searching for it in local library catalogs, it can't be found in the public libraries of San Francisco, Oakland or Berkeley, but it is in the UC Berkeley library.

This is the last prediction from The Population Bomb, but I found a couple more public predictions from Ehrlich not in the book, so he gets a few more weeks before he returns to the ash heap of history.  

Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!

Yet another interruption of our weekly schedule, this one based on an exact date from a speculative fiction novel.

Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!