Author: VD

The Olympic torch goes out:

Security officials snuffed out the torch and rushed it onto a bus at least five times because of the raucous protests against China’s human rights record.

I hate everything about the Olympics. Its smarmy one-worldism, its long tradition of glorifying dictatorships, its pseudo-religious aura, its fake amateurism, and the ever-present corruption which begins with the host city bids and ends with the athletes. I hope the Beijing Olympics are the debacle that spells the beginning of the end for this long-running, obnoxious charade.

And while we’re at it: Free Tibet!

BE sounds a familiar theme:

Great article on the 31st. This is the second time I’ve written you. The first time was about three years ago and I ripped you on an article. I don’t read you much because I think you have a shallow view of politics but it seems you’ve rankled some hairs with this one so I thought I’d take a look…

I agree with what you said but if you can take a little constructive critisism, I’d just like to make a point. You seem to have evolved into a very intellectual man but when I read this, I kept saying to myself “I’m the only one I know that would read this article all the way through”. The reason being that you write above most people’s vocabulary. I could cut and paste examples where you could have stated things more simply and succinctly but if you look for yourself, you will see many times where you could have used different language(more friendly to the great uneducated) than you did. You’re a very smart guy and you have a lot to say, so if you want it to be heard(read) I’m just thinking that you need to dumb it down a little so not just people like me will stay with it. I’m sure you won’t take offense at this and I wish you all the best.

I take no offense, as I never mind constructive criticism. In fact, I tend to find a good deal of amusement in this recurring theme of mass illiteracy. The fact of the matter is that I neither expect everyone to agree with me nor care if everyone agrees with me, so going out of my way to make my writing perfectly accessible to the lowest-common denominator simply isn’t going to happen. I tried it once at the request of my then-syndicate when newspaper editors informed them that the sentence structure of my columns was too complex for their readerships, and I found it took 3x more time than simply writing the way I happen to write. So, it’s not going to happen, and therefore my columns and podcasts shall remain media products for niche markets.

If BE thinks the columns are overly esoteric, I wonder what he must make of the Voxonomics podcasts? But I do appreciate his concern and am ever so relieved that he found the more recent column more to his liking.

A classic tale of calcio and catastrophe from the Mad Aussie:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of Italian World Cup supremacy, it was the age of Neo-Cons, it was the epoch of Treos, it was the epoch of online female sports writers, it was the season of indoor soccer, it was the season of Serie A match postponements, it was the spring of goal scoring, it was the winter of eye patches. Vox Day had the game before him, Vox Day had the game behind him, he was going direct to hospital, he was going direct from the game…

As the sun set on another woggy day, blogger at large Vox Day pondered. He pondered his team, he pondered his abilities, he pondered the task before him, he pondered victory… For tonight, his indoor soccer team, the Italian Handbags, were playing the much feared German Reinforcements. The crowd was eager. The Italian team finalised their warm ups – one by one they hugged their mothers in the pre-match ritual, while the boxheads stared at their opposition and simply rolled their eyes. They were not to do it for all though…..they didn’t do that in Vox Day’s direction. Oh no. Vox Day was to be feared, Vox Day was being massaged by a one Spacebunny, while he finished up ebook number five for the day on the Treo….

The referee had walked onto the field of play and the players were assuming their positions. Vox Day cooly strode out. He cooly strode back. He had forgot to do something. Looking at Spacebunny, he raised her hand with a smile…then kissed his Treo. “Wish me luck,” he asked of the small little device.

There’s simply no rip more effective than a genuinely creative rip from someone who knows you. It’s especially remarkable for its total lack of pity about someone BEING BLINDED! And yet, some still wonder how I’m able to endure attacks and insults from my critics with such Zen-like equanimity….

It’s a pity John Hawkins didn’t reference “Libertarian Girl” in his investigation of the travails of the female blogger. The argument for young, attractive women achieving their success based solely on merit is ludicrous, one has only to turn on Fox News or survey the non-fiction bestseller lists to realize that merit barely even enters into the equation, which is why, like Hollywood actresses and porn stars, women in the media tend to find less and less work as they garner more experience in their field.

One thing I learned from this blog is how easy attractive woman have it. When I had a blog as my real self, no one linked to me, no one left any comments, it was as if the blog existed in a vacuum. But things were different for Libertarian Girl. Every day I’d check Technorati and discover new unsolicited links. It was like I had warped into an alternate universe where all the rules had changed. At the rate things were happening, this would have been an A-list blog in a few more months. It’s funny how there have been some posts in the blogosphere saying that the political blogosphere was a boys club that discriminated against women, as evidenced by how few politics bloggers were women. Boy were they completely off the mark. It’s ten times easier for a woman’s blog to become popular.

This effect no doubt carries over into the real world. Whenever I see an attractive woman with a successful career, I’ll remember the experience of this blog and assume that she didn’t really get there on merit, just her looks.

The old editor at WND and I used to joke about how if I ever wanted another national syndication deal and a Fox gig, I’d simply continue writing my columns, but with a picture of Spacebunny at the top. If Spacebunny ever starts her own blog, I have no doubt whatsoever that she’ll quickly develop a readership 10x the size of this one. Based solely on her many merits, of course.

The thing is, while success is always nice, success that comes through something other than your own achievement is always less than entirely satisfactory. So, it’s a bit of a two-edged sword and one that one really shouldn’t begrudge.

Apparently the Law of Supply and Demand still comes as a bit of a shock to some. What, you mean you can’t subsidize the cost of health care without increasing the demand for it?

Now in Massachusetts, in an unintended consequence of universal coverage, the imbalance is being exacerbated by the state’s new law requiring residents to have health insurance.

Naturally, the economically clueless idiots behind this demand-side problem are seeking to compound it by subsidizing the supply-side. All that needs to be done is eliminate Medicare and the AMA and let the market and the individual sort it out for themselves. Yes, some stupid and unfortunate people will suffer from a lack of health care as a result, but far fewer than are now suffering from it. There is no problem with the free market that government solutions cannot exacerbate.

And you can always count on the liberal fascists to want to throw force into the equation: “Since the government is taking over the health care, doctors should not be “encouraged” to join primary-care. They should be required. If doctors refuse, they should be arrested and locked up.

The Bush administration is simply not pro-soldier. I don’t think they give a damn about the troops at all, except as another tool to be used and cast aside:

Among the 513,000 active-duty soldiers who have served in Iraq since the invasion of 2003, more than 197,000 have deployed more than once, and more than 53,000 have deployed three or more times, according to a separate set of statistics provided this week by Army personnel officers. The percentage of troops sent back to Iraq for repeat deployments would have to increase in the months ahead.

More than ten percent have deployed three or more times already! That’s completely crazy, especially when we’re not at war, and when there is no prospect of an end in sight. Even if you are foolish enough to think that trying to build a stable Iraqi democracy is the most urgent priority for U.S. national security, you have to understand that bringing a soldier home and sending him back to a war zone again and again is going to significantly harm his morale. Some men and their families can handle it, but an awful lot simply won’t be able to do so.

Fewer, longer tours would probably take far less of a toll while increasing effectiveness in the field.

A real man exits the stage:

“I have lived such a wonderful life! I’ve lived enough for two people.”

At least, that’s the case based on the results of what apparently is supposed to pass for a test of one’s subconscious racial attitude:

Average reaction time:

Black Armed:809.16ms
Black Unarmed:1037.48ms
White Armed:699.8ms
White Unarmed:782.28ms

Actually, like most of these sociological “studies”, it’s a silly test. I don’t think this measures anything but the ease with which one can detect the object in the “gunman’s” hands. The mostly black guns, wallets and cellphones are harder to distinguish in the black men’s hands, and therefore require more time to analyze the shape.

In the latest blow against the agency, court documents show a State Department employee provided personal information from passport applications for use in a credit-card fraud scheme.

As Instapundit notes, just wait until they get your hands on your medical records….

Sometimes you just have to flow with the positivity:

Overall the book is very strong. I have been following the response to it, which Vox is all too happy to publish on his blog, and have yet to see a compelling rebuttal from the New Atheists or their faithful followers. Many set out to do chapter-by-chapter reviews and end up losing interest at about chapter three. Atheists not being ones who typically like to retreat from a fight, their silence speaks volumes on Vox’s behalf. I foresee his book being the very beginning of a movement that will send the old arguments used by the New Atheists back into darkness until enough time has passed for another generation to drag them out again, as these have done. (It’s an old cycle that keeps coming around full circle, not a set of new arguments that will finally win a centuries-old war.)

While Kelly of the Rational Response Squad is certainly putting in a more manful effort thus far than any of her cowardly atheist counterparts, I have to admit that I have been quite disappointed with the pathetic showing on the part of the self-proclaimed brights. And their insistence that I should have somehow endeavored to make the entirety of my case in the first chapter is bizarre, particularly if you’ve read the first chapter of any of the New Atheist books.