Author: VD

The extent of Facebook spying

Or, at least, this is what they’re willing to admit to for the present:

For the six months ending December 31, 2012, the total number of
user-data requests Facebook received from any and all government
entities in the U.S. (including local, state, and federal, and including
criminal and national security-related requests) – was between 9,000
and 10,000. These requests run the gamut – from things like a local
sheriff trying to find a missing child, to a federal marshal tracking a
fugitive, to a police department investigating an assault, to a national
security official investigating a terrorist threat. The total number of
Facebook user accounts for which data was requested pursuant to the
entirety of those 9-10 thousand requests was between 18,000 and 19,000
accounts.

And, of course, the fact that they’re handing over about 40,000 accounts per year doesn’t eliminate the NSA’s widely rumored backdoor access.

PZ tries to cover his ample posterior

Our favorite professional biologist is blushing behind his beard.  He knows he was caught out, so now he’s trying to make up for it by quickly posting again in order to claim that I’m capitalizing improperly.  Never mind that he completely exposed his chunky backside by completely failing to grasp the reference to human subspecies rather than species.

Pure what? What is a “pure” human? Every single person on this planet belongs to the same identical species, Homo sapiens,
so his distinctions by differences in alleles is irrelevant. I must
also mention that his habit of capitalizing the binomial name is a bit
irritating. We teach a class in science writing here that hammers on a
lot of the scientific conventions, and we literally tell our students
that one of the first signs you’re dealing with someone who doesn’t know
basic biology is that they get the punctuation wrong.

The existence of individual variants, even regional patterns, is an
expected aspect of the genetic complement of a population. A species is
not ever assumed to be genetically homogeneous, so it’s ridiculous to
point to one member with a particular admixture of genes within a group
and say they’re more a member of the group than someone else with a
slightly different genetic complement. It’s pure typological thinking. Theodore Beale has a crude version of
19th century biology (to be generous) rattling around in his head, and
he thinks it makes sense.

The amusing thing here is that PZ doesn’t realize that he’s denying evolution by natural selection here.  Notice that when push comes to shove, the left-wing scientist will throw his science overboard rather than surrender his religious devotion to progressive propaganda.

I’m assuming Myers is not actually dumb enough to fail to grasp the distinction between species and subspecies, so what he’s doing here is playing games by conflating the two in an attempt to gloss over his errors.  I never said anything about “pure human”.  I referred to “pure Homo sapiens sapiens“.  What does that mean?  It means not Homo erectus.  It means not Homo floriensus.  And it also means not Homo sapiens sapiens mixed with Homo neanderthalensis or Homo denisova.

This is a very good example of what I mean when I say that correctly applied logic is capable of trumping credentialed expertise.  Appealing to punctuation in a futile attempt to convince third parties that he really does know what he’s talking about after an error of this magnitude only underlines how haplessly inept Myers is. 

Mailvox: the undead corpse

FeministX offers her condolences, rather less sarcastically than I would have expected:

Vox, I can see that your membership in SFWA was meaningful and important to you. I am sorry that you are being sidelined from an organization that was valuable to you because you expressed an intellectual opinion. I know this must be very frustrating because even good arguments will not help you gain understanding from your opponents.

Thank you.  I very much enjoyed SFWA back in the day, and having the opportunity to get to know writers such as Gordon Dickson, Joel Rosenberg, David Feintuch, Lois McMaster Bujold, Pat Wrede, and Raymond Feist.  I belonged to it for nine years without so much as exchanging a cross word with anyone.  Even then, however, there were some signs that the equalitarians in their midst were fitfully stirring and seeking to take control of the organization from those they derided, and still deride, as “a bunch of beardy old middle-class middle-American guys”.

Looking at the organization now makes you think of seeing your cousin lurching toward you with his hands outstretched, his throat gashed open and his head lolling down on his chest, moaning “braaaains”!  It’s rather ghastly.

Rabbit reviews

As we saw with Dr. Helen’s new book, one can always tell when the warren is hopping mad about something, because immediately they start throwing money at charities and “reviewing” books.  Icefog, for one, has been a very busy little rabbit.  It’s really remarkable how many books she managed to read through in just one day!

It would certainly be fascinating to discover this “reviewer” is an SFWA member given Amazon’s review policies.  And it’s interesting to learn that GoodReads is even more prone to fake reviewery.  Of course, as always, I look forward to the usual suspects whining “but how do you KNOW they’re fake reviews?”

A throne of garbage

June 14, 2013

Where to begin? This is tripe by any other name. There’s really no
story, and the language is infantile. When writing this the author must
have worn out his thesaurus, as this wordy little book looks like every
sentence is gleaned from Roget. The dialogue is hopeless, and the
characters laughable. Unless you can find nothing whatsoever to do with
your time, do anything other than waste it on this book.

A waste of $2.99

June 14, 2013

Yes, I know it’s just $2.99, but surely you can find something better to
spend it on. This author, self-avowed racist and mysogynist does not
deserve you money, however paltry the sum.

Author dimentia

June 14, 2013

There is no evidence inthis book that the author is capable of writing a
book, or even successfully pretending to without significant external
support. Perhaps his writing should be taken with at least a small grain
of salt. It is not that I, and others, do view him as human, (although
genetic science presently suggests that we are not equally homo sapiens
sapiens), it is that I do not view him as being fully civilized for the
obvious reason that he is not.

Infantile writing

June 14, 2013

The quality of the writing in this weak attempt at wrting is truly
pathetic. It shows what one man with a thesaurus and an elementary
understanding of the English language can accomplish. Save your time;
save your money. Do anything other than read this trash. 

I post these here in case they are removed by Amazon, because they serve as evidence that NK Jemisin’s false and malicious claims about me have already led to real and material damages.  They also show that SFWA has abetted those claims by permitting her to break Forum confidentiality without reprimanding her in the manner that I, and other members, have previously been reprimanded for doing the same.

In addition to those damages, there is the serious emotional trauma that I have suffered due to the multiple threats of violence being directed against me, in some cases by SFWA members, as a direct result of Ms Jemisin’s breach of confidentiality.  There are even indications that certain parties are concocting an organized plot to physically assault me involving an SF author with highly trained martial arts skills, the threat of which now renders me unable to attend professional conferences and materially harms my ability to secure future book contracts.

“And there is white-hot anger, so fierce you become the eye within the
maelstrom of your own rage, calm as your pulse exceeds the beats of a
marathon runner, calm as your fingers grasp and clench, calm as you grip
your aggressor’s throat and squeeze.  This last I feel for Theodore Beale.”
 – Foz Meadows, June 14, 2013

“You are a better person than I am; I can think of another response to Beale. Because I am incapable of stripping myself of irony, it’s a solution he’d approve, because he is not as fully civilized as I am. I’m sure it would be a lively, if sparsely-attended, wake.”
– Rafe Bronx, June 14, 2013


“Ignoring it hasn’t made it go away, and it never will. That has become undeniably apparent between this and the Sarkeesian
mess in the gaming community, and I have gone past the point of anger to
disbelief to exhaustion to numbness and back to blinding white-hot
rage. Time to put on the shitkicking boots.”
– Samantha, June 14, 2013

“There is
something….spectacularly unpleasant about him. He strikes me as someone
who is just itching for a really thorough arse kicking. I think it would
actual count as a medical intervention and possibly do him a lot of
good.”
– Louis, June 14, 2013

“I also can’t wait for the day when Theo literally gets his ass kicked by
a progressive SF author / martial artist like Matthew Woodring
Stover… just wait”
– Educated Professor, June 14, 2013

“i really would just love to meet up with him and deliver my personal
feelings in a direct and nonverbal way. ugh. the bad taste in my mouth,
make it go away.”
– Mark Monday, June 13, 2013 

The very troubling thing here is that SFWA has a history of turning a blind eye to threats of violence made by its members.  Just to give two of several examples, it took no action of any kind even though I complained to the SFWA Board about the following threats, one made by one of the organization’s own board members, the other made on the SFWA President’s own blog.  I cannot post more due to the forum confidentiality rules.

“Ah, yes. Mr. Beale. When I decided to run for re-election as SFWA
South-Central Regional Director, someone asked me what I would do if Mr.
Beale won the Presidential election. I replied, “Ask my friends to
start a bail fund.”
– Lee Martindale, SFWA South-Central Regional Director, February 1, 2013

“Whever I think “alpha male”… my daydream quickly becomes a Sweeney Todd
nightmare in which I’m serving the remains to my dinner guests,
disguised as some sort of heavy-seasoned stew beneath puff pastry,
because I wound up killing said Alpha Male in sheer exasperation before
sundown and need to get rid of the body….”
– Laura Resnick, SFWA member, August 17, 2012

PZ Myers, professional “biologist”

Now, before you read this, keep in mind that PZ Myers is actually employed to teach college students biology:

Keep in mind that Jemisin is black. Here’s Theodore Beale coming right out and saying that while she’s human, she’s not fully equal to a white man, himself (and please, his invocation of “genetic science” is reeking bullshit).

The amusing thing is that Myers not only didn’t understand what it meant when I pointed out that NK Jemisin and I are not equally homo sapiens sapiens, he also doesn’t have a clue about current genetic science.  In fact, most of the people who have taken offense at the statement that “genetic science presently suggests that we are not equally homo sapiens sapiens” have done nothing more than demonstrate they have not kept up with relatively recent developments in genetics by interpreting my words in a manner that is not only ignorant, but precisely backward.

You see, Africans are pure homo sapiens sapiens.  Non-Africans are not. NK Jemisin, being of African extraction, is almost surely more purely homo sapiens sapiens than I am.  Or, for that matter, than PZ Myers is. 

“Previous research has revealed that Neanderthal DNA can be found in the
genomes of everyone who isn’t of African extraction. But, as Pääbo said,
“The Denisovans had contributed DNA only to people in Papua New Guinea,
Fiji, Australia, and other places in Melanesia.” In other words, modern
humans entering Asia interbred with Denisovans. But the Denisovan DNA
didn’t wind up circulating to other areas of the world the way
Neanderthal DNA did.”

So, everyone who isn’t African possesses DNA from other homo species, including Homo neanderthalensis and what is either Homo denisova or Homo sapiens denisova.  This is why I often mock those who believe in both evolution by natural selection and human equality, because humanity is not only NOT all the same under our skin, we are not, according to current genetic science, even all entirely the same subspecies.  If we apply their idiot logic, then I was actually claiming that I am not fully equal to Jemisin rather than the other way around.

That’s not the only thing that the excitable and characteristically buffoonish Myers gets wrong.  I’m not annoyed at being called a racist, I’m not demanding any apologies for it, and I’m certainly not threatening any lawsuits over it.  For crying out loud, John Scalzi has been calling me a Racist Sexist Homophobic Dipshit for months and it doesn’t bother me in the slightest since I am none of those things.  I demanded an apology because NK Jemisin broke SFWA confidentiality rules by misreading part of my presidential campaign platform, then claimed that I am a “self-described
misogynist, racist, anti-Semite, and a few other flavors of asshole.”  However, I have never described myself as any of those four things.

I assume Myers would similarly object if Ms. Jemisin claimed PZ Myers is a self-described Catholic pedophile who teaches puppetry to kindergarteners.

Myers is also wrong about my having modified my original post in any way.  The incompetent philosopher is confusing a later post for the original one because he didn’t scroll down the page.  It’s still there in its entirety.  Everything it contains is factually true, utterly defensible, and I will note that not a single person who is throwing hissy fits about it has dared to take up my offer to debate them on any of its contents.  The abysmal scientific ignorance of a collegiate biology teacher concerning the subject may offer an indication of why those who are even less cognizant of the relevant genetic science and its implications are nervous about doing so.

It appears Myers also failed to read Jemisin’s speech.  She is the one who asserted that the “racist stand-your-ground laws” were passed against people like her.  I merely pointed out WHY those laws were passed; because people were being violently attacked by the aforementioned people and needed a legal right to self defense.

Myers doesn’t even attempt to address any of the factual statements I made or try to challenge their accuracy, he merely points-and-shrieks.  No wonder he has twice run away from debates with me; he’s not capable of rational dialectic.  As for not being embarrassed, why would I ever be embarrassed by being aware of history, capable of logic, and reasonably up-to-date on genetic science?  If the hysterical left is really going to abandon history, logic, and science in favor of its precious equality myths, it’s simply not going to be possible for anyone with a functioning brain to take it seriously much longer.

Forget the SFWA kerfluffle.  The real scandal is that a science illiterate like PZ Myers is employed to teach science to college students.

SF vs science

Shattersnipe would appear to favor a rhetorical approach to the seemingly indisputable observation that not all human population groups are equally civilized:

And there is white-hot anger, so fierce you become the eye within the
maelstrom of your own rage, calm as your pulse exceeds the beats of a
marathon runner, calm as your fingers grasp and clench, calm as you grip
your aggressor’s throat and squeeze.

This last I feel for Theodore Beale.

Recently, I blogged about sexism in the SFWA Bulletin.
I wrote that piece as a self-declared comic rant, the tone inspired by
anger at men who ultimately meant well, however offensive and outdated
their efforts at showing it. I received a lot of support for having done
so; but of course, there was a flipside. My anger, said some, was
unseemly and unprofessional. My arguments were poorly reasoned. I was
preaching to the choir. I was the gendered pejorative of choice. But the
thing is, I can shrug that off. I deal out enough criticism that I
expect to receive my share in return, and whatever form that pushback
takes, it very rarely shocks me. By the standards of women on the
internet, in fact, I’m pretty lucky. I’ve received a minimum of rape
threats, I rarely get called a cunt, and if some of my detractors are
uncivil, then I can usually dish it out in return. I was bullied,
harassed, attacked and assaulted enough at school for being forthright,
female and unfeminine that written threats just don’t chill me the way
they used to. (They still chill me, of course. And I didn’t suffer
nearly as much as others. Nonetheless, the comparison stands – and no,
this isn’t an invitation to try harder.)
The point being, I have privilege, and that
privilege protects me. I’m a middle-class, well-educated, straight white
ciswoman with a functional, middle-class white family, and however much
the misogyny gets to me at times, I can draw on that privilege – on
that firmly entrenched sense of self-worth and the emotional, social and
financial safety net which supports it – and fight back. I belong to
the second most privileged group of people on the planet, and whatever
abuse I still suffer regardless of that, I have the cultural status to
counter it and be heard. As an individual, therefore, I’m hard to
oppress. I have privilege. I have resilience. I have opinions.
And I have anger….
I feel poisoned even typing that. Sickened.
Trembling. I cannot even imagine how Jemisin feels. Nor am I attempting
to speak for her. She is, without a doubt, one of the most brilliant
women – one of the most brilliant people and writers, period – active in
SFF today, and my voice in this matter is not a replacement for hers.
I am speaking because it would be a crime against conscience not to.
I am speaking because a world where men like
Theodore Beale are left to speak unchallenged by the weariness of their
opponents is not a world I want to live in. I am speaking because my privilege affords me a chance to be heard.
And I am speaking because of the bodily
disgust, the rage and hatred and putrescence I feel for members of my
own race, both now and throughout history, who speak of savages and
lesser beings, of civilisation and the right to kill those outside or
perceived to be incapable of it; who speak, as Beale does, as though
people of colour are a genetically different, inferior species of human
when compared to his Aryan ancestors.
This is my Reconciliation.
The passion of it all just gives you shivers, doesn’t it?  It’s hard to decide what is the most amusing part of this hysterical “dabacle”.  It’s a little subtle, perhaps, but I think, in the end, my favorite part is where she declares the “bodily
disgust, the rage and hatred and putrescence” she feels for the idea that “people of colour” are “genetically different”.
What is so funny about this is that it all goes back to 2005, and a WND column when I pointed out that women don’t write much hard science fiction because they have little aptitude or inclination for science.  And now, eight years later, we see a spelling-challenged female SFWA writer who is frothing-at-the-mouth furious at the idea that Africans are a genetically distinct population group, a group that therefore must necessarily be either inferior or superior to other population groups.
In other words, she is a science fiction writer who is deeply and violently offended by science.  This should suffice to explain why science fiction has qualitatively declined over the years.

But we shouldn’t be too harsh on her.  After all, she does an excellent job of proving my original point in my response to Ms Jemisin, which is that there can be no reconciliation between the observant and the delusional.  This isn’t a challenge to my views, but rather, an exemplary underlining of them.

Presenting this summer’s distraction

If there were any doubts about the wisdom of the US getting militarily involved in Syria, the combination of the Benghazi, IRS, and NSA scandals appears to have resolved them:

The Obama administration has concluded that Syrian President Bashar
Assad’s government used chemical weapons against the rebels seeking to
overthrow him and, in a major policy shift, President Obama has decided
to supply military support to the rebels, the White House announced
Thursday. “The president has made a decision about providing more
support to the opposition that will involve providing direct support to
the [Supreme Military Council]. That includes military support,” Deputy
National Security Adviser for Strategic Communication Ben Rhodes told
reporters.

Well, it’s better than a false flag event.  It’s probably preferable to give the administration the easy foreign policy distraction they are seeking than force them to generate one.  And as an added bonus, the country will receive about 800,000 Syrian immigrants, which will help replace the now-declining native white population.

The Obama administration is considering resettling thousands of refugees who left Syria during the country’s ongoing civil war to multiple towns and cities across the United States, the L.A. Times reports. A resettlement plan under discussion in Washington and other capitals is aimed at relieving pressure on Middle Eastern countries straining to support 1.6 million refugees, as well as assisting hard-hit Syrian families…. The United States usually accepts about half the refugees that the U.N. agency proposes for resettlement.

More diversity = more better, right?

Mailvox: a sincere apology

It seems I have inadvertently caused offense, for which I am indeed deeply sorry.  Remo hopped onto the keyboard and took me to task:

As a Sonoran desert toad, I find the labeling of Ms. Hayden as a
“grotesque toad” offensive. I quote the good Sir Thomas Browne: “I
cannot tell by what logic we call a toad, a bear, or an elephant ugly;
they being created in those outward shapes and figures which best
express the actions of their inward frames; and having passed that
general visitation of God, who saw that all that he had made was good.”
-Sir Thomas Browne, 1642.

I would point out that
licking *me*
brings on a state of euphoria and a series of pleasant
hallucinations, while licking Ms. Nielson would cause spastic
uncontrolled vomiting and give you herpes. Please be more sensitive in
your use of the word “toad” in the future. As you can see here our
couplings are *FAR* less offensive looking than Ms. Nielson’s.

*Ribbit*

I sincerely apologize to Remo, all Sonoran desert
toads, and indeed, the families Bufonidae, Bombinatoridae,
Discoglossidae, Pelobatidae, Rhinophrynidae, Scaphiopodidae, and
Microhylidae for any offense I have caused.  I deeply regret my
thoughtless, hurtful remarks, and in the future, will be sure to avoid
any further invidious and unflattering comparisons.

The beauty of unintended consequences

This is a lovely variant of a technique I once used in disputing a bill with an energy company.  Hey, if they record all the calls, then the information clearly exists and they have to provide it upon request, right?

Terrance Brown, 40, is on trial in South Florida for allegedly conspiring with four other men to hijack armored trucks delivering cash to banks in 2010. All have pleaded not guilty. But now Brown has come up with a unique defense: he wants the National Security Agency to turn over his phone records to the court to demonstrate his innocence.

The case, which is taking place in federal court, involves phone records – the FBI and prosecutors have been using cellphone records to demonstrate the men’s locations near the robbery attempts. The prosecution said that it was unable to get cellphone records from the time before September 2010 because the phone carrier had destroyed the records.

It will be interesting to see how the NSA tries to get out of producing the data it is so diligently acquiring.

SFWA Forum: the “moderated” posts

Since the freethinkers at the SFWA Forum are presently debating whether my comments can be permitted in the very place where I am attacked with the most badthink words the rabbits can produce, I hereby give myself permission, as per the SFWA Forum guidelines, to quote my posts here before they are disappeared again:

1. Posted Today, 03:41 AM
 

Her speech is ridiculous, her call for reconciliation is impossible, and, it should be noted, MS Jemisin is lying about me:

“For the past few days I’ve also been observing a “kerfuffle”, as
some call it, in reaction to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’
of America’s latest professional journal, the Bulletin. Some of you may
also have been following the discussion; hopefully not all of you. To
summarize: two of the genre’s most venerable white male writers made
some comments in a series of recent articles which have been decried as
sexist and racist by most of the organization’s membership. Now, to put
this in context: the membership of SFWA also recently voted in a new
president. There were two candidates — one of whom was a self-described
misogynist, racist, anti-Semite, and a few other flavors of asshole. In
this election he lost by a landslide… but he still earned ten percent of
the vote. SFWA is small; only about 500 people voted in total, so we’re
talking less than 50 people.”

I am not “a self-described misogynist, racist, anti-Semite, and a few
other flavors of asshole”.  It is John Scalzi, Patrick Nielsen Hayden,
and Theresa Nielsen Hayden who have described me that way.  I merely
posited that even if their false claims were true, I would still be the
right choice for SFWA president given my industry connections and
executive experience. Nor have I ever made any active efforts to take
away the woman’s “most basic rights”; I am in fact a libertarian. NK
Jemisin’s speech is not only ignorant, it is blatantly and provably
dishonest with regards to me, with regards to the history of science
fiction, and with regards to Florida and Texas state law.

I hereby demand a public apology from Ms Jemisin.

Moreover, based on the particular nature of her false claim, Ms Jemisin has clearly violated the Forum rules, which state “The
SFWA discussion forums are for SFWA members only, and all posts made
here are confidential. Material may not be re-posted outside these
forums without the explicit permission of their authors.”  Her false statement was clearly based on my announcement which was posted here in the forums by Lawrence Schoen.

I therefore also request that she be given a warning point by a Forum moderator.

2. Posted Today, 07:52 AM

[PERMISSION TO QUOTE REQUESTED]

She did nothing of the kind.  I have never described myself anywhere
as misogynist, racist, or anti-Semite and a search of my blog will prove
that.  The only time I’ve even bothered to address such stupid
accusations together is here, in the Forum, which is why it is obvious
that she violated SFWA confidentiality.  I have zero interest in
debating with you, Mr. Sanford. I enjoy challenges and you’re not half
as intelligent as people I’ve crushed in three exchanges.

[PERMISSION TO QUOTE REQUESTED]

I should certainly hope so.  I was warned for violating SFWA
confidentiality once because I was unaware even partial quotes were not
permitted.  I expect Ms Jemisin to be similarly disciplined.  If not,
well, then we’ll know just how impartial the moderators are.  Anyhow,
20x more people will read this on my blog than will read it here.

[PERMISSION TO QUOTE REQUESTED]

Reality isn’t racist, Mr. Sanford.  Neither is history.  They simply
are.  And you can’t escape the fact that Ms Jemisin lied about me and
about the state laws of Texas and Florida.  As some of my Australian
readers have already pointed out, Ms Jemisin has no idea what she’s
talking about concerning Australian race relations either.

3. Posted Today, 08:15 AM

[PERMISSION TO QUOTE REQUESTED]

So, if I’d simply written: “That post on her blog is one of the most
racist attacks I’ve seen in a long time.”, that would not require
moderation?  Who are you trying to kid?

Meanwhile, the President-elect, Steven Gould, notes: “Lots
of people calling for the expulsion of this guy. With reason.”

Well, my lawyer and I would certainly enjoy seeing them try to expel a paid-up Lifetime member for the thoughtcrime of expressing his opinion.  You see, I’ve already got the entire SF Forum on record, so it would be fascinating to see them attempt to defend various statements by certain authors while claiming that mine were worthy of expulsion.