THAT WAS THE MILLENIUM THAT WAS Read Online Free Page B

cold and, if not airless, at least extremely air-poor. It's not a stretch to say that Kepler was the first person to think about these subjects in a manner that did not involve a late-night astronomer's BS session, fueled by pea-soup thick German beer ("Wow, what if there were, like, people on other planets, man?" "Shut up, Kepler! Wanna be burned at the stake like your mommy?"). 
    This is perhaps also why, even today, some of the best science fiction writers are also scientists in their right, though admittedly, not of Kepler's caliber: Arthur C. Clarke and Issac Asimov, from the "Golden Age" of science fiction, folks like David Brin who are still writing. Like Kepler, these people are right on the precipice of human knowledge, staring out into the inky blackness and wondering what the hell is going on out there, anyway.
    You may not have read Somnium , but Jules Verne and H.G. Wells sure did. They were in turn read by the Golden Era authors, who were read by this generation's writers, who will be read, barring the best attempts by the bookstores to sweep new science fiction from their shelves, by the next. Everyone who ponders and then writes about little green men, space travel and the infinite mysteries of space (including, dare I say, myself) share in the DNA of his or her imagination a small chromosomal link to Johannes Kepler, and his dream of a voyage from the earth to the moon. For someone who loves science and science fiction in equal amounts, this is a highly satisfying thought.

Best Crackpot Religious Leader of The Millennium.
    Rasputin, and yes, I know, how can I choose Rasputin when L. Ron Hubbard is swinging there, fat and languid, like a low-hanging fruit? Well, for one thing, them Scientologists are a sue-happy bunch. In going after Rasputin, the only people I annoy are the Romanovs, and what are they going to do to me? They're all down a well in Russia.
    Besides, unlike L. Ron and his merry band of celebrity-worshipping Thetans, Rasputin actually had power and influence, though not of any good sort. He was the wrong guy at the right place at the wrong time. At the beginning of the 20th Century, Imperial Russia was like a Jenga tower with one supporting strut too few. Rasputin didn't cause the Tsar to fall, but he sure helped to push.
    Grigory Rasputin was his own walking warning label. The name "Rasputin," wasn't his name, it was his condition: in Russian, it means "debauched one," and it was given to him after he built up a reputation, at a young age, for being a horny little turd. You would think that being known as "Rasputin" would be a detrimental sort of thing -- I mean, just imagine trying to meet people here if your name was "Greg Pervert" -- but we're talking about Russia. If the last millennium teaches us anything about Russia, it is: For God's sake, don't get into a land war there . But secondarily, it teaches us that the Russians really aren't like the rest of us, and you can take that any way you like.
    Rasputin experienced a religious conversion at the age of 18, which one could normally assume would have got him and his horndog ways sorted out. Au contraire . First, he joined a sect known as "Khlysty," which translates, roughly, as "the Flagellants." Not a good first step. Later he chose to pursue the closeness to God that only comes through what Rasputin described as "holy passion less ness," which could only be reached through sheer sexual exhaustion. Or, to put Rasputin's religious philosophy into bumper-sticker form: "Get Laid. See God." This provided Rasputin the theological rationale he needed to hump everything in sight.
    Fast forward to 1903. Rasputin is the toast of the St. Petersburg movers and shakers, who, with that sort of spiritual dilettantism that inflicts the bored upper classes everywhere, regarded him the same way celebrities in the 60s regarded their swami, or regard their favorite motivational speaker today. Sure, Rasputin was illiterate and he only bathed once a month,