Author: VD

Dissent and the godless Left

Dissent and disagreement with dogma are two things the godless simply will not tolerate:

At this time (September of 2011), Dave Silverman was heading up the Reason Rally Committee. There was still quite a bit of planning and promotion that needed to be done, so Dave asked Richard, Elizabeth, and Sean to make videos to promote the Reason Rally. (The video Richard ended up making is still viewable.) Richard was standing behind the podium, and he asked Dave something along the lines of, “What exactly is the Reason Rally?” Dave started explaining it, and as he did, someone who was waiting in the line outside opened the door to peek inside and we could all hear a lot of noise. I rushed up the aisle and made frantic “shut the door” gestures at the people peeking inside, and they did. As I walked the ten feet back, I couldn’t hear everything Dave was saying, but I heard the name “Rebecca Watson.” Richard suddenly had a very angry look on his face and I heard him almost shout, “No, absolutely not! If she’s going to be there, I won’t be there. I don’t want her speaking.” and then Dave immediately replied, “You’re absolutely right, we’ll take her off the roster. It’s done.” Richard huffed for a moment, Dave continued to placate him, and then he made the video.

I was crushed. I couldn’t believe it. Richard Dawkins was my hero. I looked up to him as a beacon of truth and reason in a world of irrationality. I couldn’t believe he would act this way toward Rebecca. Before I left for the tour, I truly, honestly thought that the whole “Elevatorgate” thing was a miscommunication, and if someone (and I was willing to be that someone) would sit down with Dawkins, they could explain to him why it’s uncomfortable to be propositioned in an elevator by a stranger, and then Dawkins could apologize for the whole thing and everyone could move on. I really just thought it was just ignorance, not malice, that caused Dawkins to act that way.

I think it says a lot about the atheist movement, that a famous speaker can use his position in order to keep someone else off the lineup, and the movement willingly obliges…. I spent two years working for the atheist movement (or to borrow Ashley Paramore‘s term, Big Atheism). I saw a lot of things that made me disappointed in a movement that claims it is dedicated to truth and critical inquiry. I made a lot of excuses for supporting things that I ordinarily wouldn’t have, claiming it all was for the greater good– for the movement, but also for the world.

PZ’s response is downright funny; to understand why, you have to keep in mind that he publicly declared this back in 2012: “For instance, I will not participate in any conference in which Abbie Smith is a speaker. If I’m invited, and later discover that she is also invited, I will politely turn down the offer.”

But now that the atheist feminists are lined up against Dawkins, PZ has changed his tune and claims he will only attempt to impose a speaker’s veto on conferences that are a) insufficiently vibrant, b) lack a sexual harassment policy, or c) “treats attendees poorly”, in his opinion.  Now, PZ has a perfect right to attend, or not attend, any conference he likes for any reason, but this public posturing is simply ludicrous.

To his credit, PZ admits that there is no qualitative difference
between his position towards Ms Smith and Dawkins position towards Ms
Watson and he has abandoned the former. However, he still doesn’t grasp that if it is wrong for Richard Dawkins to use his influence to impose his personal preferences, whatever they might be, then it is wrong for PZ and the SFWA’s pinkshirts to do the same.  This applies to policies and speaker lists as well as people. Of course, few atheists have ever been terribly sound on logic or the concept of universally applied standards.

NFL Week one

This would be your weekly open NFL thread. Like most Vikings fans, I’m looking forward to seeing if Christian Ponder can finally beat a defense daring him to do so.  He has enough firepower at WR and TE this year, so there isn’t any excuse for failing to capitalize on the opportunity presented by the defense focusing on trying to slow down AD.

My expectations aren’t terribly high. If they can make it to the playoffs again as a wild card, they’ll be doing very well.  Denver looked like the team to beat in the AFC even before Peyton went off against Baltimore, while Seattle, San Francisco, and Atlanta all look tough in the NFC.

Dumbing it down and calling it success

Prediction: having embraced the “success is defined by female participation” metric, Harvard Business School will lose its elevated cachet within a decade:

Of all the ceremonies and receptions during graduation week, the most
venerated was the George F. Baker Scholar Luncheon, for the top 5
percent of the class, held in a sunny dining room crowded with parents
who looked alternately thrilled and intimidated by what their offspring
had achieved. 
In recent years, the glory of the luncheon had been dimmed by discomfort
at the low number of female honorees. But this year, almost 40 percent
of the Baker scholars were women. It was a remarkable rise that no one
could precisely explain. Had the professors rid themselves of
unconscious biases? Were the women performing better because of the
improved environment? Or was the faculty easing up in grading women
because they knew the desired outcome? 
“To my head, all three happened,” Professor Piskorski said. But Mr.
Nohria said he had no cause to think the professors had used the new
software, and the subjective participation scores, to avoid gender gaps.
“Sunshine is the best disinfectant,” he said, a phrase that he said had
guided him throughout his project.

Consider how fast the question of “is college worth it” has rapidly followed the rise of women with college degrees. Credentialists never understand that pieces of paper are only indicative of an ability to sit in class and follow orders and that no amount of degrees will ever be an adequate substitute for intellectual horsepower, curiosity, and testosterone-fueled risk-taking.

The primary female psychological objective is risk-reduction.  This is why societies with too much female influence rapidly become not only static, but anti-dynamic, and rapidly begin to decline. It’s also why an amount of female influence is a societal survival trait.

Again?

Obama’s proposed Syrian adventure is turning out to be, as some suspected, yet another war on behalf of Israel:

The dirty little not-so-secret behind President Obama’s much-lobbied-for, illegal and strategically incompetent war against Syria is that it’s not about Syria at all. It’s about Iran—and Israel. And it has been from the start.

By “the start,” I mean 2011, when the Obama administration gradually became convinced that it could deal Iran a mortal blow by toppling President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, a secular, Baathist strongman who is, despite all, an ally of Iran’s. Since then, taking Iran down a peg has been the driving force behind Obama’s Syria policy.

Not coincidentally, the White House plans to scare members of Congress into supporting the ill-conceived war plan by waving the Iranian flag in their faces. Even liberal Democrats, some of whom are opposing or questioning war with Syria, blanch at the prospect of opposing Obama and the Israel lobby over Iran.

In light of the overwhelming public opposition to any military attacks on Syria, it looks as if we’ll soon find out if Congress is truly Israeli-occupied territory or not.  At some point, I hope more reasonable Jews will point out to their elite counterparts that being seen to have ruined the US monetary system and attempting to turn the US military into the world’s largest mercenary force is really not “good for the Jews”.

Watching the elite Jews go about methodically overplaying their hand in the United States strikes me rather like reading the Bible and reaching the part where the Israelites go whoring after pagan gods again despite getting their posteriors very soundly and violently smacked as God allows the Assyrians or whoever to invade them and slaughter their armies. You find yourself thinking: again? Seriously, you’re going to do this again? What is wrong with you?

It’s not that I don’t understand the temptation. Israel’s leaders quite reasonably see this as a win-no lose situation. If the great military power defeats Syria on Israel’s behalf, Iran is weakened and Israel wins. If it screws up and loses, then Israel isn’t any worse off than it was… in military terms.

But what they’re failing to enter into the equation is that American tolerance for being used in this manner is going to run out eventually.  The Jews have already worn out their welcome in Western Europe and Russia. (Seriously, the level of anti-semitism I have observed from the UK to Eastern Europe is off the charts by US standards and that’s not even counting the Muslims.) Neither China nor Japan appear to be susceptible to their patented form of influence-peddling. And yet, many elite Jews appear to be determined to treat their safe haven of America with all the care and respect that a wildcat mining company with 25-year mineral rights to national parkland treats the environment.

Pew’s news IQ

“You answered 13 of 13 questions correctly.”

That doesn’t surprise me.  I consider myself reasonably well-informed. What surprises and alarms me is that only one percent of the 1,062 Americans that Pew surveyed could do likewise.

Take the quiz.

Zerohedge notes a logical connection between the quiz results and the failure of the Fed’s QE:

It is stunning that only 18% of quiz-taking females and 24% of males, and only 32% of those with a college/grad+ education, can identify what the stock market has done in the past 5 years. If anything this is the prima facie evidence why QE has failed: for a program whose primary purpose was to restore confidence in the economy through a rising stock market, even if manipulated through and through, the reason why there has been no confidence restored is because about 80% of the population neither knows nor cares that the DJIA is now just a fraction off its all time highs.

Showcase #7

The OC explains how he got here from there:

Things change. I’ve been getting a heavy dose of this lately, not because of the health issues, but because last month was the 30th anniversary of the release of MIDI 1.0—the industry-standard Musical Instrument Digital Interface—and my inbox has been filling up with related email. Some messages are from old friends I haven’t talked to in years, wanting to reminisce about the glory days. Others are from reporters or grad students, hoping to cadge an interview.

Did I mention that thirty-some years ago, I was on the design team that developed MIDI?

There are many things I don’t talk about but perhaps should, because they helped lay the foundation upon which Rampant Loon Press and Stupefying Stories are built. For example, I didn’t set out to become a writer. I intended to make my mark on the world as a musician, and for many years worked very seriously at it. Before I started writing this editorial I went out to Wikipedia and took a deep dive into the section on Contemporary classical music, intending to write a proper article that puts it all into historical perspective.

But, no. Some other day. The editorial I started to write quickly deteriorated into a series of shout-outs and name-checks. Yep. Knew him. Knew her. Worked with him. Was there. Did that. Did that, too, but would rather not admit it.

I wish I could say there was some epiphany, some brilliant and unforgettable moment when the skies parted and the Minor Gods of Creativity thundered in antiphonal chorus, “No, thou shalt not be a musician! Thou wast meant for a greater calling! Thou shalt become…a science fiction writer!” It would make for a more dramatic column if I could describe that moment.

If it had happened, I would, but it never did. Instead there were only years of slop and overlap, spent in hard work on projects that went off in six different directions simultaneously and therefore never really went much of anywhere, with many tiny points of change that taken together still don’t add up to even one decent low-budget epiphany. Somewhere in there I discovered I was not cut out to sell my soul for rock ‘n’ roll, and that watching my friends who were made to live that lifestyle self-destruct and die young wasn’t much fun. Somewhere else in there I discovered that while I really did like theater (and if you’re at risk of taking me too seriously, you may take a moment now to imagine me in full pancake makeup and period costume, singing and dancing in the chorus line of a production of Mame), I wasn’t cut out for that lifestyle either, and watching my friends who were cut out for it self-destruct and die from AIDS wasn’t any better fun. Somewhere in there I learned to play the arts grants and commissions game well enough to succeed at it, but in the process lost most of my respect for the game itself. Somewhere else in there it became clear to me that my hopes of getting into major recording studio and soundtrack work were about as realistic as my chances of becoming a starting center in the NBA, and eventually—

Check out the stories too.  I thought there was something vaguely Poeish about Anatoly Belilovsky’s “In Vino Veritas”.

Book Review: Tales of a New America I

Tom Rhodes reviews Gunther Roosevelt’s Tales of a New America:

Tales of New America (ToNA) is a series of related vignettes to describe the idea of what/how a new conservative America might look and be formed.  From the description I started out thinking I’d enjoy the book and it would offer additional insight into both libertarian and Christian thought. ToNA starts out feeling like some stereotypical pro-white-supremacist-extremist-christian-conservative Idaho utopia to counter dystopia leftist urban failure and never escapes that stereotype. If I hadn’t promised to review it I wouldn’t have read past the first vignette.  Not because I disagree with the patent facts presented but because I found the means of presentation not only lacking as a literary work, but uncompelling.

If you’re a feminized politically correct irrational thinker you will quickly dismiss the book and the ideas presented as misogynistic patriarchal racism, and use it as proof of your politically correct beliefs about white men. I am not only not PC, but enjoy non-PC writings but although ToNA is politically incorrect but the method it was written seems as though it was purposefully written to piss-off the politically correct thinkers as much as possible, and discredit the politically incorrect ideas it presents.  If I were a liberal trying to write a book to discredit libertarians and Christians, I might write ToNA as a way to discredit objective truth. That said, finding some small nuggets like this make it an interesting if uninspired read

“Okay, Captain. I’ll bite. What was it you wanted me to observe?”

“The milk of human kindness.”

“Huh?”

“You and I, you probably more than me since you’re so much younger, well, we’re going to do a lot of cruel things by the time we’re finished. When the war comes, you’ll be called up. You’ll do things you won’t look back on fondly. It doesn’t mean you weren’t right, but doing the hard things, things that make others suffer — that doesn’t feel good either. So I want you to see that if you get the chance, not stupidly or recklessly, but just a chance, you try to do some good when you can. Something you can look back on and be proud of having done.”

“Those women, I know them. They won’t subvert the Region with the way they live. We’re always going to have such people around. Our own children sometimes. Who knows? There’s a certain level of variation from the norm that we’ll always have. We can be tolerant. We just can’t let people be stupid about it.”

The core of ToNA is to attempt to expose politically incorrect but objective truths.  It accurately describes the differences in how men and women think and behave, and the arguments against universal suffrage are clear and valid. The reading however comes off adolescent and condescending. In the end I found that not only was it difficult to relate to the cardboard characters but I found myself not caring if they succeeded or not.  What both the book and characters lack are charisma.

ToNA attempts to explore harsh truths that most of society doesn’t want to address. It has some insights and wisdom that demand further exploration and discussion.  Although some wonderful nuggets like, “for men like to pretend they’re immune to being hurt, yet nurse grudges forever, and rarely forget a slight.” can be found, overall it is not a convincing read.

Gunther Roosevelt fearlessly addresses race and racism as ToNA’s dominant theme.  A huge contradiction from observable truth undermines the hypothesis he presents. The entire football related sub-story pushes the idea not only are whites as strong, fast, and capable as blacks, but are smarter.  This ignores the observable fact that genetically some races of people provably have better abilities in some areas than others, and implies that whites are superior in every aspect to blacks and only reverse-racism allows the disproportionate distribution of blacks in football and other areas. This obviously flawed position does much to make other valid points appear equally invalid.

The reality that blacks have not and do not maintain modern civilization anywhere they are in control, as is observed from Detroit to Zimbabwe.  ToNA does acknowledge and present interesting arguments to illustrate the more primitive tribal nature to which blacks revert, but the inference that the white race is superior in all things, even in aspects that they are observably as a group less capable, undermines the validity of the factual arguments on racial differences.

Other simple errors like saying Kennewick is south of Yakima, (which is like saying Tampa is South of Orlando), further make any arguments seem less valid.  FYI – Although nominally south, in the drive from Yakima to Kennewick you take I82 east, just as Tampa is nominally south of Orland, you get take I4 west.  It’s a small trifle thing but it generally makes all of the author’s ideas appear poorly researched and thought out, decreasing the overall credibility of the book.

I liked the ploy of using a female character to define female imperative and emotional nature of women and win a debate on why woman’s suffrage is not part of New America.  The clear point that even though a woman can recognize and articulate logical reasoning their emotional desires override rational thought.  The cameo character, Christian psychologist Rhonda Martin, says: “Now, women by nature are emotional and will be ruled by their emotions unless they’re taught to develop reason and judgment in a way that isn’t used simply to support emotion and feeling, but actively challenges emotionalism itself. The fact is, more than likely, that’s not going to happen, so you’ll get plenty of smart women who can argue a million ways ‘til Doomsday over what they want, but never figure out that what they want is just plain wrong.” and foreshadows Kevin’s girlfriend Janet rejecting her own logical arguments and the breakdown of their relationship.

Besides feminism and race the unifying theme of how a society that valued and required individual responsibility, and what it might look like.  I enjoyed the presentation of the idea that even in government people should be accountable for their actions.

“Finally, just as private citizens had always been liable for damages and injuries to others, public servants were also. It tended to make them less arrogant, power driven, and stupid when violating anyone’s civil rights or failing to do their jobs in a timely manner. If a bureaucrat responsible for approving your passport and creating the document failed to accomplish the task by the scheduled date costing the applicant time or loss due to plans being interfered with, that bureaucrat could be sued for triple damages. Threat of serious accountability put a little spring in a public employee’s step.”

Overall as a literary work it was mercifully short, and although the major themes presented are objectively true the delivery reminded me of a lot of “Christian” fiction.  Preachy and ineffective, it fell prey and read exactly like the Hollywood Entertainment vignette.  I’d never recommend Tales of New America to anybody I actually wanted to have a rational discussion on feminism, racism, or libertarian ideas, as it will only make those who expose objective truth look like dumb white Nazi’s.   Even at the paltry sum of $3.99 to purchase Tales of New America, I’d have felt like I wasted my money, at best it’s a 99¢ ebook.


Tom Rhodes is a chemist who formerly worked as a public school chemistry
teacher and computer programmer, is the current vice chair of the
Libertarian Party of Citrus County, and the Chair of the Libertarian
Party of Florida Platform Committee.

A list of false flags

Zerohedge supplies a partial list:

Winter War
In 1939 the Red Army shelled Mainila, a Russian town near the
Finnish border. Soviet authorities blamed Finland for the attack and
used the incident as a pretext to start the Winter War four days later.

Kassa attack
The Kassa attack in 1941 involved the city of Kassa, today Košice
(Slovakia), which was then part of Hungary, being bombed by three
unidentified planes of apparently Soviet origin. This attack became the
pretext for the government of Hungary to declare war on the Soviet
Union.

Operation Ajax
The replacement of Iran’s Anglo-Persian Oil Company with five
American oil companies and the 1953 Iranian coup d’état was the
consequence of the U.S. and British-orchestrated false flag operation,
Operation Ajax. Operation Ajax used political intrigue, propaganda, and
agreements with Qashqai tribal leaders to depose the democratically
elected leader of Iran, Mohammed Mosaddeq. Information regarding the
CIA-sponsored coup d’etat has been largely declassified and is available in the CIA archives.

Operation Northwoods
The planned, but never executed, 1962 Operation Northwoods plot by
the U.S. Department of Defense for a war with Cuba involved scenarios
such as fabricating the hijacking or shooting down of passenger and
military planes, sinking a U.S. ship in the vicinity of Cuba, burning
crops, sinking a boat filled with Cuban refugees, attacks by alleged
Cuban infiltrators inside the United States, and harassment of U.S.
aircraft and shipping and the destruction of aerial drones by aircraft
disguised as Cuban MiGs. These actions would be blamed on Cuba, and
would be a pretext for an invasion of Cuba and the overthrow of Fidel
Castro’s communist government. It was authored by the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, but then rejected by President John F. Kennedy. The surprise
discovery of the documents relating to Operation Northwoods was a
result of the comprehensive search for records related to the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy by the Assassination Records
Review Board in the mid-1990s. Information about Operation Northwoods
was later publicized by James Bamford.

Keep these in
mind as you consider the current casus belli being bruited about by
Obama and the bi-factional ruling party’s representatives in Congress. 
The logic they are presenting is really rather impressive when combined
with the apparent facts. Because al-Qaida affiliated rebels losing the
civil war in Syria mishandled chemical weapons provided by Saudi Arabia,
America must act as al-Qaida’s air force and attack the Assad regime.

How
does this make any sense?  My feeling is that the ruling party is going
to have to come up with a more emotionally appealing false flag before
they can get the votes in Congress.  If I were in charge of designing
it, I’d give the Syrian rebels a poison gas missile or three, preferably
loaded with Zyklon B, have them launch it at an Israeli kindergarten,
then blame it on the Assad regime.

The fact that it
would make absolutely no sense whatsoever for Assad to suddenly attack
Jewish children with poison gas reminiscent of The Very Baddest Thing To
Happen To Anyone Ever In Human History wouldn’t even slow down the
Christian Zionists and Anti-antisemitic White Liberals in their
frothing-mad rush to nuke Damascus.

There is certainly no shortage of evidence that the situation currently being presented to the public is a false one:

“Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., who is aggressively lobbying against a
military strike on Syria, says the Obama administration has manipulated
intelligence to push its case for U.S. involvement in the country’s
two-year civil war. Grayson made the accusation in an interview published
Wednesday by The Atlantic and offered more detail in a Thursday
discussion with U.S. News. He says members of Congress are being given
intelligence briefings without any evidence to support administration
claims that Syrian leader Bashar Assad ordered the use of chemical
weapons.”

And while it could be more of the usual Middle East bluffoonery, as per Saddam “The Mother of All Battles” Hussein,  there appear to be indications that the Iranians aren’t necessarily going to play according to the rules of the Great Game according to the Great Powers.

Alireza Forghani, the former governor of southern Iran’s Kish
Province, threw down the gauntlet last week. Forghani is an analyst and
strategy specialist in the supreme leader’s camp and closely aligned
with Mehdi Taeb, who heads the regime’s Ammar Strategic Base, a radical
think thank, and thus speaks with the blessing of the Islamic regime.

“Hopefully Obama will be pigheaded enough to attack Syria, and then
we will see the … loss of U.S. interests [through terrorist attacks],”
he threatened. “In just 21 hours [after the attack on Syria], a family
member of every U.S. minister [department secretary], U.S. ambassadors,
U.S. military commanders around the world will be abducted. And then 18
hours later, videos of their amputation will be spread [around the
world].”

I’d be a little more skeptical if it weren’t for the fact that there are as many Iranian agents in the USA as Iran felt like putting in place, thanks to the insane immigration policies.

The decivilization of America

Fred Reed reminds us of the civilized society we have lost and explains why we lost it:

This is why as cultures break down, or mix with less civilized
cultures, more and more police become necessary. So do locks, bars,
alarms, cameras and, for the remaining virile, carry permits. Hello.

Here is one reason why multiculturalism seldom works.
Suppose that one culture has a strong work ethic, fairly strict sexual
morality, low illegitimacy, low crime, respect for study and proper use
of the national language. Suppose that another culture is precisely
opposite, or approximately opposite, as for example the Moslems in
France. If the first group is truly dominant, and imposes its
standards—you will do your homework, kid—the second group may
successfully assimilate.

But suppose that the dominant group isn´t really that
dominant and can´t, or won´t, impose its values. How—in a school,
say—do you mix the toilet-mouthed with the well-spoken, girls who
expect to marry before giving birth with fifteen year old single
mothers pushing strollers into class? Or if the courts have decided
that “motherfucker· is an entire language to itself, and that
eradication of the word would constitute imperial culture-abuse? The
effect will always be to lower the civilized group to the uncivilized.

This multi-generational societal devastation is the cost of giving in to the multiculturalist dogma of half-savages like Jemisin and fatherless, clueless hypocrites like Scalzi. McRacist and McRapey don’t understand that what they call racism and bigotry was the basic foundation of advanced civilization.  Civilization depends, it has always depended, upon keeping down the half-civilized, keeping out the barbarians, and preventing both the half-savages and full savages from infesting, infecting, and ultimately destroying the civilized aspects of a society.

Instead of gradually welcoming into society those exceptional Africans who followed the lead of blue-bottomed Brits and naked Germans in graduating from cannibalistic savagery and expecting from them the same rights and responsibilities of a civilized citizen, the Civil Rights movement insanely declared all humanity to be the same, thereby eliminating the all-important distinction between civilized human population groups and savage ones. Once that happened, it was only a matter of time before the enwiggification of America took place.

The Civil Rights movement didn’t merely destroy Constitutional rights, but literally gave naked, albino-eating, baby-raping cannibals the same intrinsic legal rights as highly civilized, highly moral Christian Europeans and told the romantic equalitarian fools to expect even better results than before. The Greeks knew better than that. The Romans knew better than that. The Imperial British knew better than that. And America’s Founding Fathers knew better than that.

Was it an accident? Of course not. There have always been those with the will to power, those who wish to rule unopposed by the will of the people. The Ciceronian cycle predicts the rise of aristocracy across the democratic world, and that is precisely what we are seeing in the elevation of the international corporate executive class and their relative immunity to the laws to which the rest of the population are subject.

Seen from this perspective, multiculturalism and the subsequent decline into vibrant semi-barbarism is merely a demographic application of the ancient strategic principle: divide and conquer.

Don’t worry, we will

Let the record show that we all have permission from the 2013 Best Novel Winner to, and I quote: “talk as much crap as they want about my Hugo”.

Anyone can talk as much crap as they want about my Hugo. Why? Because I had this moment, and it can’t be taken away. 

I don’t get it. What is so special about being kissed by your wife? Anyhow, as I noted, John Scalzi’s defensiveness about his Best Novel award indicates that he knows John Ringo, Larry Correia, and the other observers are correct and he simply did not merit the award. Even many of those who like the guy have been relatively quiet about it; they all know he didn’t deserve it either.

It won’t be long until the 2013 Best Novel Winner finds the award to be downright embarrassing to him.  Notice that no one ever says anything negative about his other Hugo awards, to which he had as good a claim as anyone.  But Best Novel for a derivative, mediocre light SF work such as Redshirts? It’s so laughable that it degrades the award, just as the Best Novel award for The Quantum Rose devalued the Nebula and Obama’s Peace Prize devalued the Nobel. Scalzi’s Best Novel Hugo makes Paul Krugman’s Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences look almost reasonable by comparison.

If the 2013 Best Novel Winner had any self-respect, or even sufficient awareness of his place in SF history, he would have refused to accept the award.  But he didn’t, and in doing so, he gave all of his many critics something with which to club him over the head for the rest of his life.

And we will. Because charity.

UPDATE:The following is from a past award nominee:

“Here’s the thing.  Scalzi entirely deserved his past fan writer Hugos.  Entirely.  His blog is his magnum opus, and he knows it.  He’s said it himself: Whatever is his biggest, most visible legacy in the world.  If he died tomorrow, he’d be known for Whatever more than his books; even OMW.  But it’s precisely *because* he knows this, that he’s insecure about the Best Novel win.  Because he knows that even his *allies* know that it’s not really a Best Novel win.  It’s a best fan writer in another form win.  Basically, a raw popularity win, which has little or nothing to do with how the book measures up against the work of KSR or anyone else.

“Scalzi is well-read.  He knows there were at least 25 other books that never even made the short list which are technically and artistically better than Red Shirts.  He has mewled apologia to this effect, while staunchly brandishing his phallic silver dildo trophy at his detractors and yelling, “My dildo is bigger than your dicks!”  

“So, as long as Scalzi (and his supporters) know in their hearts that Scalzi’s award is not, in fact, based on the merits of the book proper, there will be visible defensiveness on his part, and noticeably quiet reactions on the part of his buddies and hangers on.  Only the true mindless sycophants will declare Red Shirts a winner for its pure merit.  Having read neither Red Shirts nor any of the competitors.  Because Scalzi farts rainbows that smell like honey nut cheerios.”