Author: VD

We win again!

Overheard:

VD: Did we win?
Vineyard shop employee #1: Win what?
VD: Did we buy the most bottles today?
VSE #1: What?
VD: Did we buy the most bottles of anyone who took the tour today?
VSE #1: Um… actually, yes.
VD & SB: (high-five)
E: So, what do we win?
VSE #1: What?
E: Don’t we get a prize?
VSE #2: Hold on. (goes and retrieves a bottle, puts it in a gift bag.) Here you go!
Everyone: Hurray! (poses for a picture with both employees.)

All right, so there may have been an amount of wine-tasting involved. A considerable amount, as it happens. Actually, the best part was the five-star lunch at the restaurant owned by the vineyard, where we were the only diners today. Jose, our waiter, put on a truly professional show, complete with a freaking easel and cardboard posters, as well as an unforgettable explanation of how all of the animals who went into the meal were lovingly raised on the premises before being slaughtered. It was more than a meal, it was an education.

Jose: And the core of this next dish is the little lamb from our farm here, whom I raised myself and permitted to sleep in my own bed every night, until this very morning, when I strangled him in the most loving and humane manner you can imagine. We should all be so fortunate as to perish in a manner as quick and painless as little Pepe. (sniffs, brushes away a tear) He is served in a sauce of butternuts and rancid red wine, with potatoes, leeks, and chunks of jamon.

SB: So how did you kill the cuttlefish in the last dish?

Jose: What?

E: Who cuddles fish?

To quote F, you know it’s going to be a great meal when a) there is literally no one else in the restaurant, and b) there are three wine glasses per setting on the table. As it turned out, they ended up bringing a fourth glass per person, thereby raising the level from epic to legendary. Four people, three bottles. And that was before the wine-tasting started.

Needless to say, they got straight 5s on the customer satisfaction ratings. Except for F’s, who simply scrawled BEST TOUR EVER across his form.

Say what you will about Spacebunny and me, but we always win the wine tour. And if you’re a Foundation-level Voxiversity backer, you can rest assured, your European experience is going to be epic. We’ve spent 20 years researching this sort of thing.

Tick-tock

The latest rumor from the deeps: Julian Assange, Sean Hannity, and company are giving Robert Mueller until the 21st to act on DNC/Russia/GOPe collusion. Assange released the hashes to the media for the data dump on the 15th. Either Mueller can do his job and act on information he already has, and that he knows Trump knows he has, or he can try to explain why he didn’t do anything with it when everyone learns what he has been sitting on.

This is NOT to be confused with Three Disclosures that have been separately mentioned and are believed to be of larger scope. It is believed to be possible that it may help lay the foundation for them, however.

For indications of confirmation, look for media reports claiming the Pakistani IT guy now in FBI custody, Awan, to be somehow tied to the murder of Seth Rich. Since he’s already been taken, the guilty parties will attempt to blame as much as they can on him. In any event, this promises to be bigger than the previous Wikileaks release of the Podesta emails.

Dreams of Avalon

This is genuinely exciting. It means that the author of the Alt★Hero series Avalon will be constructing a detailed city map of Avalon in cooperation with a highly skilled cartographer, bringing the fictional city to life in more ways than one. Later today, we will add a reward with various poster options, one of which is a full-color city map of Avalon. If you haven’t done so yet, you can join the campaign here.

Speaking of Mr. Dixon, The Injustice Gamer is enthusiastic, not only about Mr. Dixon’s involvement, but the specific way in which he is involved.

Chuck Dixon knows how to work in parallel with another writer. He also has been burned enough in the industry that if he trusts someone to put his name with a project, the deal is solid. What does his involvement with Alt*Hero mean? From what I’ve gathered from Vox’s postings, Dixon’s stories will be written in parallel, but entirely in a city called Avalon. In fact, that’s the name of the book.

There’s another well reputed book that features a city and its heroes. That’s Astro City, written by very liberal Kurt Busiek. Now, Mr. Busiek hasn’t sacrificed all his talent to preach SJW thought, but there’s been more instances in recent volumes. So, I’m going to hope that in many ways, Avalon will end up being a response to Astro City.

My experience with city-focused fiction has been more literary than comics, but I’m familiar enough with the genre to be stoked about the possibilities this creates. And, by the way, in the event you are a very good illustrator, we’ve decided it would be a good idea to add one more to the Alt★Hero team. If you think you’ve got the necessary skills, please send me a link to your portfolio.

And in case you’re interested, this is a concept illustration of one of our new heroes, Ryu no Seishin, also known as Spirit of the Dragon. She is another of our backer-designed heroes, and was designed by the very woman who will be cosplaying her.

Mailvox: successfully fighting SJWs

HS writes to tell how SJWADD helped her rout an SJW attempting to converge her neighborhood’s site:

Just wanted to send my thanks for your great primer on fighting SJWs.  Today on a social networking site used in my neighborhood I saw an attempt at an SJW convergence.  I instantly recognized the technique from reading your book about SJWs, and used the methods you described to stop it.  Of course she used the SJW argument about “civility” and “inclusion” but I was able to predict and rebut her arguments, and those of her white knight.  My instant fighting back and strong rhetoric encouraged others neighbors to attack her, and she ended up leaving the site.  I’m glad I read your book because I would probably have argued in good faith and not been aggressive, and we may have lost a great tool my neighborhood uses for security, recommendations, and finding services.  It was really amazing to watch how she argued exactly as you said she would, it was like being psychic.  Thanks for your effort in fighting these people!

This stuff actually works because it’s real and it is battle-tested. It’s not all just theory and hypotheses.

Because they haven’t lost enough fans

ProFootballTalk, which should change its name to FlagFootballTalk, has an exceptionally bad idea:

The hit that broke Aaron Rodgers‘ collarbone on Sunday wasn’t illegal. Maybe it should be.

Vikings outside linebacker Anthony Barr hit Rodgers just after Rodgers released a pass, and the two of them tumbled to the turf with Barr on top of Rodgers. That rather ordinary hit broke Rodgers’ collarbone and dramatically affected the entire NFL season, possibly knocking Rodgers out until 2018 and in the process ending realistic Super Bowl hopes for the Packers.

I think it may be time for a radical rule change, one that makes hits like Barr’s illegal. It may be time for the NFL to consider dramatically expand the roughing the passer rules, and treat quarterbacks like kickers and punters: Basically, you can’t hit them at all once they’ve thrown a pass.

I know, I know, you’re going to tell me I’m soft and weak and ruining the game of football, and that we might as well just play flag football if we’re going to do that. And I’m here to tell you I’ve heard it all before.

I heard the same thing when the NFL changed the roughing the passer rules to prohibit low hits on quarterbacks after Tom Brady suffered a season-ending knee injury in 2008: “How can defensive players possibly be expected to avoid those hits?” But defensive players adjusted, and it’s now unremarkable that those hits are penalized.

And I heard the same thing when the NFL implemented the horse-collar tackle rule: “How can any defensive player ever catch a runner from behind?” But defensive players adjusted, and now the horse-collar tackle rule has been adopted at every level of football and is completely noncontroversial.

I believe the same thing would happen if the NFL dramatically changed the roughing the passer rule. Yes, at first it would seem wrong to see defensive players penalized for putting a shoulder in a quarterback’s chest after he throws a pass. But defensive players would get used to it, coaches would get used to it, and fans would get used to it.

And it would make the game safer for the quarterbacks, the most important players on the field. Is it really a good thing for the NFL that Aaron Rodgers might miss the entire season? Are hits like Barr’s really so fundamental to football that we can’t outlaw them for the health of quarterbacks and the good of the sport? I don’t think so.

The NFL already protects quarterbacks far more than it did when I was growing up as a football fan in the 1980s. But the league can do more. Roughing the passer needs to be expanded.

If they’re going to further protect the quarterback, then they need to make it easier for the defensive players to sack them. Either go to two-hands-touch and he’s down or give the quarterback two flags and tearing off one of them means he’s down. As silly as those options sound, they are much better than pretending that it is still legal to tackle the quarterback, but banning most of the ways to actually tackle him.

But I have two better ideas that will fix nearly everything that is wrong with the NFL on the field.

  1. Weight limits determined by position. No more 280-pound steroid monsters running a 4.6 forty. Get too big, you won’t play.
  2. Require quarterbacks to call all the plays with no more interference from the coaches and sidelines.
Of course, neither of these rules changes will fix the problem of convergence of the league’s owners and office, but they would fix the main problem of the on-field product being increasingly boring.

The promised rise of nationalism

It is here. It is now. You may recall that I was one of the very few observers of European politics who predicted this years ago. I said it would take two election cycles for the nationalists to come fully to power. We’re still in the first one.

  • In a recent poll by the Czech Academy of Sciences, the ANO scored 30.9 percent, more than the two traditional heavyweights in Czech politics — the Social Democrat CSSD and the right-wing ODS — combined, who scored just 13.1 percent and 9.1 percent respectively.
  • The takeover of the OeVP in May by “Emperor Kurz” was as swift as it was radical. First he ended the decade-long unhappy coalition with the Social Democrats (SPOe). Then he rebranded the OeVP and its black party colour as a turquoise “movement” tough on migrants and easy on taxes. The strategy of “putting Austrians first” propelled the sluggish OeVP to pole position in opinion polls and Kurz to near-rock star status.
  • The People’s Party (OVP) got 31.6 per cent of the vote, according to exit polls from pollster SORA. Mr Kurz’s party is tough on migration, easy on taxes and widely Eurosceptic after rebranding itself over the last few months to propel its popularity in the wealthy Alpine nation. The 31-year-old is expected to form a coalition with the right-wing populist Freedom Party (FPO), who got 26.9 per cent of the vote, according to the latest projections. 
Of course, as with Brexit, the nationalists still have to deliver and free their nations from both the migrant invasions and the chains of the European Union. But be that as it may, it is clear that they have the democratic mandate of their nations, as well as the duty, to do so.

Taleb calls out Mary Beard

This online relationship between these two intellectuals continues to be highly entertaining:

NassimNicholasTaleb @nntaleb
1/ Many aggressive pseudolibs have smthg highly politically incorrect hidden in them.
-Weinstein demeans women
-Mary Beard is deeply racist
73 replies 83 retweets 299 likes

mary beard‏ @wmarybeard  3h3 hours ago
Could you please take this tweet down.
28 replies 10 retweets 262 likes

NassimNicholasTaleb‏ @nntaleb
Dear Prof. Beard,
I am aware of your attempts (direct & via an overactive mob) at constraining my rights of expression. The answer is no.

About the only way it could get better is if Beard is dumb enough to take Taleb, who never backs down from a fight, to court. I have no doubt that he’d be able to prove his case six different ways and end up with Beard being forced to pay for an official court determination of her own racism.

For crying out loud, all Taleb has to do is cite any of 500 different African-American scholars to conclusively prove that Mary Beard is white, therefore his assertion is true and cannot possibly be considered defamatory.

In fact, this may be an interesting new anti-SJW front in the cultural war.

Kaepernick sues NFL for collusion

Colin Kaepernick confirms league-wide suspicions that he’s more of a pain than he’s worth:

Colin Kaepernick has been waiting patiently for his next NFL opportunity. His patience has now expired. PFT has confirmed that Kaepernick has filed a grievance against the NFL under the Collective Bargaining Agreement. The grievance alleges that the NFL’s teams colluded in not signing him to a contract, presumably due to his decision to kneel during the national anthem in 2016.

Kaepernick has retained outside counsel to handle the claim. The NFL Players Association will remain in touch with Kaepernick as the grievance proceeds; however, Kaepernick’s private counsel will be spearheading the effort.

The filing of the grievance was first reported by Mike Freeman of BleacherReport.com.

Kaepernick became a free agent in March after opting out of the final year of his contract with the 49ers. (San Francisco G.M. John Lynch has said that the team would have cut Kaepernick if he hadn’t opted out.) The Seahawks brought Kaepernick in for a visit, but did not sign him. The Ravens were considering adding Kaepernick during training camp. Owner Steve Bisciotti publicly acknowledged that fans had expressed opposition to the possibility.

The last straw may have been the failure of the Titans to give Kaepernick a tryout after quarterback Marcus Mariota suffered an injured hamstring. The Titans instead brought in Brandon Weeden, Matt McGloin, Matt Barkley, and T.J. Yates, before signing Weeden.

The clever part is that if Kaepernick wins, the Collective Bargaining Agreement will be voided, so even players who don’t support Kaepernick will have an incentive to hope he wins. The not-so-clever part is that it appears highly unlikely that he will win. The fact that nobody wants him on their roster is not indicative of collusion, it is merely a sign that no team wants to anger its season-ticket holders.

Salon’s favorite conservatives

In case you’re looking for an official list of the 25 biggest cucks, this would appear to be it. The only real surprise is that Erick Ericksen and Ben Shapiro are missing from the list.

Liberals in shock over the the 2016 election were prescribed a heavy dose of reality. “Get out of your bubble,” the doctors note illegibly read. It was a hard truth for the American left. They found out the U.S. was not as progressive as originally thought. Their steady diet of MSNBC and left-wing op-eds only reinforced biases and preconceived beliefs. The country’s actual, collective tilt wholly evaded them.

One recommended solution: Search out opposing points of view. Turn on Fox News every once in a while; follow more conservative voices on Twitter. This would be an honorable endeavor for liberals, if it didn’t expose them to pure lunacy on a regular basis.

With every right-wing follow added on Twitter, liberals inched closer to the likes of Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec appearing on their “who to follow” suggestions. A few brave liberals likely made the leap and added Cernvovich and Posobeic to their timeline, only to find their feeds polluted by offensive nonsense.

But what if we told you there are 25 conservatives actually worth following on Twitter? What if we said that there are conservatives that not only dislike President Trump, but also engage in a level of ideological introspection that has surpassed most liberals and offer you a better look at their fellows on the right? Wouldn’t you have to check them out?

Well, here they are, the 25 must-follow conservatives on Twitter. And here are some reasons they like them.

  • an active voice on issues of race and inequality and has appropriately combated the white-nationalist movement fermenting on the right.
  • A former campaign staffer for Jeb Bush
  • An outspoken proponent of immigration and LGBT causes. She also believes in climate change.
  • a critic of right-wing media
  • a strategist for John McCain and John Kasich before becoming a CNN contributor
  • Jon Stewart notoriously relied on him for his analysis and commentary
  • an adviser for Mitt Romney

Kilgore Trout
Atticus Goldfinch
Tim Carlson
Tim Miller
Ana Navarro
Richard W. Painter
Jennifer Rubin
Ben Howe
Brandt
Ken White, Popehat
Haley Byrd
Josh Jordan
Bill Kristol
John Weaver
Tom Nichols
Allahpundit
Kat Timpf
Stuart Stevens
Noah Rothman
Jay Caruso
Rick Wilson
S.E. Cupp
John Podhoretz
David Frum
Stephen Hayes