Category: Uncategorized

That was fast

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a faster government U-turn:

Breaking: David Cameron climbs down on ‘back me or resign’ Downing Street has forced into a climb-down over whether Government ministers will have to resign if they want to campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, reports our Political Editor Peter Dominiczak.

Number 10 insisted that David Cameron “has not set out” whether “collective responsibility” will apply at the in-out referendum, which could be held next year.

Mr Cameron’s spokeswoman insisted that the Prime Minister had only said that members of the Government would have to resign during the renegotiation phase leading up to the announcement of a referendum if they wish to campaign for Britain to leave the EU.

Mr Cameron has not made a decision about whether ministers would have to quit if they campaign for a British exit, Downing Street claimed. It appears to leave open the possibility of ministers being able to campaign for Britain to leave the EU.

It sounds rather like the Prime Minister learned that he was about to lose most of his ministers and find himself facing a vote of no confidence only weeks after his big electoral victory.

I don’t think the usual kabuki is fooling anyone this time around. The EU isn’t going to cut Britain any slack, and even if they did, it wouldn’t matter because they could take it back anytime in the future. Sovereign or slave-state, that is the only relevant question.

SF war to the knife

One would expect Peter Grant to recognize one:

I’ve had a couple of threatening e-mails from supporters of Ms. Gallo’s position, warning me that if I (and/or other indie authors) call for a boycott of Tor books, they’ll call for a boycott of my/our books in return.  This made me laugh out loud.  As those of you who’ve read my books will know, I don’t think I can be described as ‘progressive’ or ‘SJW’.  Heck, read the header of this blog – it’ll tell you in a nutshell my position on most things!  I have grave doubts whether readers of the progressive persuasion have ever bought my books – so why would a boycott from that part of the reading spectrum hold any fears for me?

No.  It’s becoming increasingly clear that the problem lies in the corporate culture that’s taken over at Tor Books and Tor.com.  Four individuals currently or previously associated with Tor’s management and publishing activities at a senior level have now made statements that I can only regard as biased beyond logical comprehension.  They are Patrick Nielsen Hayden (manager of science fiction books at Tor);  his wife Teresa Nielsen Hayden (listed by Wikipedia as a ‘consulting editor’ for Tor Books, and formerly a senior editor there – also the publisher of the well-known web log and forum ‘Making Light’);  Moshe Feder (also a consulting editor for Tor Books);  and Irene Gallo (Associate Publisher of Tor.com and Creative Director of Tor Books).  Certain Tor-published authors, primarily John Scalzi but also including others, have spouted the ‘party line’ in their support and/or on their own account as well.

There’s an old military saying when bad things happen:  “Once may be an accident.  Twice may be coincidence.  Three or more times is enemy action.”  In the same way, I could understand one senior Tor representative holding such views.  I might even accept two.  Four is too many.  This is not coincidence.  It’s concerted, organized, deliberate enemy action.  Tor as a publisher appears to either espouse, or tolerate (and actively encourage), views like this.  The utterances of these individuals appear to indicate that the company supports lies, slander, libel and viciousness as debating and/or promotional tactics.  I hope that the reality belies that appearance;  but that’s for Tor to say, not me – and back up their words with actions.  Weasel words will no longer be acceptable in any way, shape or form.

THIS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE.

It won’t be. Let them threaten. What are they going to do, continue to not buy books from Castalia House, from Baen, and from independents? Are they going to keep not reading what they repeatedly proclaim to be terribly written bad-to-reprehensible works without ever having read them? What are they going to do, have the Board vote me out of SFWA again? Are they going to continue not giving Nebulas to John Wright, and Sarah Hoyt, and Larry Correia, and Brad Torgersen? The reality is that we have the decisive advantage here because we have long supported them.

But we don’t have to.

I have can count dozens of Tor and Forge books on my bookshelves surrounding me, and that doesn’t count the bookshelves in the halls, in the bedrooms, and in the attic. But I don’t have to buy any more. Why should I, when the Senior Editor of Science Fiction at Tor has done nothing for me except insult and attack me for ten years now? A lot of people are getting sick of their constant bullshit, even people who have absolutely nothing to do with me in any way, shape, or form.

“I’m an author, involved with the publishing industry. Does that mean that I have the moral authority to point out to you that she is making actual, factually untrue statements here? She might be a really wonderful individual, in person, but her facts are dead wrong, bordering on libelous, and taking a position on a hotbutton issue really undercuts Tor’s credibility as a politically neutral, or even tolerant, business.”
– Jim Butcher, author, The Dresden Files

Apparently the bestselling and Hugo-nominated Mr. Butcher didn’t much appreciate being described as an author of “bad-to-reprehensible” books.

Back in April, Larry Correia and I, among others, encouraged everyone to leave Tor Books out of it. We made it clear that our problems were with certain individuals at Tor, not the organization itself. But as Peter Grant points out, Irene Gallo’s comments, to say nothing of Moshe Feder’s and John Scalzi’s (now that the organization has bet its future on him, Scalzi is relevant in this regard), appear to indicate that we were wrong and our problem is with the organization as it is presently comprised after all.

What do you think? I’m interested in hearing everyone’s arguments, pro and con.

UPDATE: I would certainly hope that they didn’t.


2h2 hours ago

Happy Monday! We appreciate your comments & would like to remind you that the views of our employees do not reflect those of the publisher.

ONE BRIGHT STAR vs THE WASP FACTORY

Or, if you prefer, Phil Sandifer vs Vox Day. This is the Pex Lives podcast featuring the interview-debate I previously mentioned concerning the perceived merits and demerits of John C. Wright’s Hugo-nominated novella “One Bright Star to Guide Them” and the late Iain M. Banks’s much-lauded debut novel The Wasp Factory.

You can also download an MP3 of the nearly two-hour interview (94MB). I understand a transcript will be forthcoming.

The Devil’s own

It’s not at all hard to understand why Phil Sandifer so dislikes “One Bright Star to Guide Them”. Indeed, the strength of his distaste for it is a testimony to its depth and power, to say nothing of its appeal to Friends of Narnia, as can be seen in this exchange that took place outside the actual literary debate.

PS: From my perspective, this is the most basic disagreement that exists between Vox and me. Both Vox and I look at the problem of the world being far more complex than even an extremely intelligent person like ourselves can hope to fully understand. Vox’s reaction is to give complete trust to an unknowable higher being with the capacity for full and total understanding of the world. Mine is to instead try to fully understand my experience of the world, a task that is still staggeringly difficult, but at least feels accomplishable within the scope of a human lifetime and intellect.

I view his approach as a horrifying act of submission to an authority that is at best imaginary and at worst illegitimate. He views mine as nihilistic solipsism.

VD: I think you need to revise that. At best imaginary, at worst legitimate. Your biggest concern isn’t that God exists and His authority is not legitimate. It’s that He exists and it is.

PS: That’s actually not a concern of mine, although we should be precise here and distinguish between his authority and his power. I am profoundly concerned that your god exists and wields the power you describe. It is literally my greatest existential fear; a terror that has genuinely kept me up at night, because in the event that it is true I am knowingly signing myself up for an eternity of torment that goes beyond anything I am capable of imagining.

I have no concern whatsoever that his authority is legitimate, however. It is not, at least over what I understand to be me, Philip Sandifer. The self that I am solipsistically invested in has an independent consciousness from your god. I am but a sinner, cast out into a material world and fundamentally separated from your god. But where you view my sin as my imprisonment in a lowly, materialist prison, I view it as my freedom from the tyrant you choose to serve.

To misquote Blake, I am of the devil’s party and know it.

It is not uncommon for people to ask me why I treat atheists, particularly those of the militant or evangelical variety, with such open contempt. The reason is very simple. The only way they can be reached, the only way they can even begin thinking rationally about Christianity instead of thoughtlessly reacting to it, is for their pride to be broken first. Since their pride tends to revolve around their intelligence, it usually requires a higher intelligence to break it and I happen to be reasonably well-equipped in that regard.

It’s not knowledge that keeps men like Phil from submitting to the Most High, to the Creator God of the Universe, it is pride in the independent consciousness that they possess as a gift from the very tyrant they refuse to serve. As an arrogant man myself, I recognize that fierce and independent pride when I see it. I even admire it, to a certain extent. But I also know its futility, and worse, its sheer pointlessness.

Does the jar demand the potter admire its beauty? Is the jar foolish enough to be proud of its existence separate from the very mind that conceived it, the very hands that shaped it and brought it into being? Does the jar so lack perception that it fails to grasp it can be unmade as easily as it was made by its maker?

In what, O jar, is your petty pride?

How strange it is that those who refuse to grovel before God so readily bow before other men and genuflect before some of the most foolish ideas of Man ever conceived. And how pointless, when we know that one day every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord. Serve freely or defy as you see fit, because every path leads to the same destination, submission before the Almighty.

A Sisyphean task

A File 770 commenter attempts to counteract a common SJW lie:

Pluviann on June 7, 2015 at 3:02 am said:
OK, I usually lurk, but I see people constantly saying that Beale supports acid attacks on women. The original quote for this is from Pharyngula where Beale says:

[F]emale independence is strongly correlated with a whole host of social ills. Using the utilitarian metric favored by most atheists, a few acid-burned faces is a small price to pay for lasting marriages, stable families, legitimate children, low levels of debt, strong currencies, affordable housing, homogenous populations, low levels of crime, and demographic stability. If PZ has turned against utilitarianism or the concept of the collective welfare trumping the interests of the individual, I should be fascinated to hear it.

Beale is not saying: ‘I support acid attacks’.

Beale is saying: ‘Stupid atheists claim to believe in utilitarian ethics, but they are clearly too stupid to follow their own ethics to their logical conclusions, if they did then they would support acid attacks.’

This is a classic example of Beale’s well known rhetorical slipperiness, but I think it’s worth being clear when you quote him. Why say that he believes in acid attacks which is not true, when, from the same quote, you can say that he believes female independence is correlated with high crime or expensive housing? If you say that he supports acid throwing when he doesn’t then you just give him ideological fodder. He can say: ‘See, those silly SJWs are spreading lies about me and don’t understand my position on anything.’

Pluviann is correct of course. Except that I can do rather more than that. I can point out that the evil SJWs always lie and I can prove it by pointing out that they are lying about me again by knowingly misrepresenting my statements and opinions.

In answer to Pluviann’s question, the reason that the SJWs keep lying about this is because accurately representing my statements will not suffice to stoke the outrage they are hoping to inspire. They don’t want to honestly debate the long-term consequences of pro-feminist social policies, they simply want to drum up enough support to shout me down and disqualify me in order to minimize my intellectual influence.

As I have repeatedly said, I do not support acid attacks. I do not support honor killings. I do not support the Taliban’s attack on Malala Yousafzai. Anyone who claims that I support any of those things, or supported any of them at any time in the past, is lying, for the obvious reason that I am neither an atheist nor a utilitarian.

This comment also amused me for reasons that will soon become clear:

Stefan Mitev on June 7, 2015 at 7:43 am said:
Does anyone on the Puppies seriously expect anyone at Tor to listen to them at all after they spent the last few months (and in TB’s case, years) insulting the company, its employees and some of its main authors and accusing them of fixing the Hugos? LOL.

No, we don’t expect anyone at Tor to listen. But we suspect there are those at Pan Macmillan who will.

This comment was considerably more on point:

AV on June 7, 2015 at 7:56 am said:
Disgusting comments by Irene Gallo. Where is your professionalism? Why are you attacking customers and authors of your own publishing house? This is the third bigwig at Tor who took a cheap shot at their own authors and customers. Does anyone there have any common sense? Where the hell is Tom?

It does appear that the inmates are running the Tor asylum of late. They certainly appear to have a creative approach to customer relations.

The endless “temporary”

Paul Krugman asks why he is a Keynesian:

Noah Smith
sort-of approvingly quotes Russ Roberts, who views all macroeconomic
positions as stalking horses for political goals, and declares in
particular that

Krugman is a Keynesian because he wants bigger government. I’m an anti-Keynesian because I want smaller government.

OK, I’m not going to
clutch my pearls and ask for the smelling salts. Politics can shape our
views, in ways we may not recognize. But I’m aware of that risk, and
make a regular practice of asking myself whether I’m letting that kind
of bias slip in. In fact, I lean against studies that seem too much in
tune with my political preferences. For example, I’ve been aggressively
skeptical of studies that seem to show a negative relationship between
inequality and growth, precisely because that result is so convenient
for my political tribe (which doesn’t mean that it’s wrong.)

So, am I a Keynesian
because I want bigger government? If I were, shouldn’t I be advocating
permanent expansion rather than temporary measures? Shouldn’t I be for
stimulus all the time, not only when we’re at the zero lower bound? When
I do call for bigger government — universal health care, higher Social
Security benefits — shouldn’t I be pushing these things as job-creation
measures? (I don’t think I ever have). I think if you look at the
record, I’ve always argued for temporary fiscal expansion, and only when
monetary policy is constrained. Meanwhile, my advocacy of an expanded
welfare state has always been made on its own grounds, not in terms of
alleged business cycle benefits.

In other words, I’ve
been making policy arguments the way one would if one sincerely believed
that fiscal policy helps fight unemployment under certain conditions,
and not at all in the way one would if trying to use the slump as an
excuse for permanently bigger government.

This all sounds very well and good, except for one thing. Do you EVER recall Paul Krugman once calling for a REDUCTION in government spending at any point of the business cycle? Do you ever remember him recommending spending cuts or tighter monetary policy at all?

In 2013, Krugman wrote: “I’ve often argued on this blog and in the column that now is a particularly bad time to cut spending.” And this was four years into the Fed-reported economic recovery. Last year, he pointed out that “Prima facie, cutting spending depresses economies.” Even looking back to the heights of the 2007 and 1999 booms, I can’t find any evidence that Krugman called for fiscal contraction or anything but more spending and more taxes.

In any event, we already know why Krugman is a Keynesian. He read Foundation, he wants to be Hari Seldon, and Keynesianism permits him to wallow in the delusion of controlling future events.

This is no way to cure a gay man

You have to admire Milo’s dedication to investigative journalism. Talk about suffering for your job! He reviews Mattress Girl’s latest attempt to extend her 15 minutes of fame so we don’t have to see what cannot be unseen:

In preparing for this review, my researcher had to watch Emma Sulkowicz, a.k.a. “Mattress Girl,” perform fellatio on an overweight man eleven times. He tells me that he is now seriously considering homosexuality….  Naturally, Sulkowicz has become a feminist icon. But the activists and bloggers who supported her will be feeling a little uneasier this week, after she peeled back a few more layers on her own deep psychological dysfunction and apparently limitless ego by resorting to that age-old remedy for waning stardom: the sex tape. . . .

It’s telling, I think, that in Sulkowicz’s purported college dorm room there are no books. She has the same lack of interest in aesthetics as she does in intellectual enrichment: both in her choice of sexual partner (apparently satisfactory member notwithstanding) and the grim, bare walls with which she surrounds herself. Though I expect the austerity of her room reflects her barren emotional interior really rather well. You can tell “dad bods” are in fashion because both of the people in this video have one. But you do at least have to give an actress credit for doing nude scenes with a man who has larger breasts than she does. Sulkowicz’s size queendom apparently extends to love handles and leave the viewer sympathetic to the travails of her infamous mattress.

It’s revealing of her vanity that she insists on being filmed from four angles. Every crevasse of her unappealing naked body must be considered. Her congressional interlocutor is a gruesome sight in three dimensions, chosen, probably, to make young Emma look thinner. Which doesn’t work, I’m sorry to say.

All in all, it’s a tawdry, miserable encounter that tells us nothing about sexual assault or sex itself but quite a bit about the quasi-demonic inner workings of one Emma Sulkowicz.

My chief takeaway from all this? DO NOT ACCEPT AN INTERNSHIP AT BREITBART. You might end up working for Milo and who knows what depths of degradation and horror that may involve plumbing.

Also, Mattress Girl may singlehandedly have accomplished what legions of church leaders, upstanding citizens, priests, and moral scolds could not do, and killed Internet pornography. I hear Mercedes Carrera was so scarred by watching the tape that she has retreated to a nunnery and is seriously considering vows.

Wright vs Banks

Or if you prefer, Hugo nominee vs PhD. A few weeks ago, Phil Sandifer challenged me to a literary debate. He suggested we each select a work we particularly disliked that the other individual favored and take turns criticizing and defending it.

He chose the Hugo-nominated “One Bright Star to Guide Them” by John C. Wright. I selected one of the BBC’s top 100 novels, The Wasp Factory, by Iain M. Banks, which in my opinion is one of the worst books I have ever read. We’re doing the debate tonight, it will be recorded and broadcast later on “a lefty sci-fi podcast called Pex Lives”.

Phil is not what you would call one of my biggest fans, but he’s been here on and off of late and has comported himself impeccably, so it should be an interesting and civil discussion, if nothing else. We would appear to be rather more in his wheelhouse than mine, but it’s always interesting to venture out onto new ground.

Anyhow, I’ll let you know when the podcast is broadcast and will link to the transcript when it is available.

UPDATE: We went about 1:45 and while there was an amount of talking past each other, I think the discussion was fairly substantive on the whole. It definitely illustrated the size of the gap, or rather, massive chasm, that separates our opinions of what a good book is, but there was the occasional common ground to be found too.

I’ll leave it to the listeners to decide whose perspective was more compelling, but I was satisfied with both the case I made for “One Bright Star to Guide Them” as well as my case against The Wasp Factory. And while I don’t agree with either of Phil’s arguments, I now have a much better understanding of why he feels so differently about both works.

I will provide the links once Pex Lives provides them to me.

Turbo-charging the award pimpage

I find it amusing that the SJWs obviously know that no one outside their freaky little circles believes them anymore, so they keep repeating the same thing over and over and over and over in the hopes that someone, anyone, will fall for it. In fact, Dela is such a sensitive literateur that she is capable of preemptively judging the quality of science fiction and fantasy work in future years. Now that’s science fictional!

Dela on June 5, 2015 at 3:55 pm said:
I find all–ALL–of the Castalia House publications on the ballot so badly written, I will never again subject myself to anything from that publisher. The putrid and mostly unprofessional quality of the work was so consistent across CH nominees, all future CH nominees will automatically go under “No Award” on my Hugo ballots, as will “editor” Vox Day. I will never again let him or the Puppies waste my time as it has been wasted on reading the sheer drek that comes out of that company.

Strange, a lot of us reached a similar conclusion about reading books published by Tor Books some years ago. I still have literally piles of dreadful books they sent me when I was on the Nebula Best Novel jury. As it happens, I’d been contemplating following the International Lord of Hate’s lead and recusing myself from the ballot in the future, since I didn’t want to end up with more Hugo nominations than the likes of Heinlein, Clarke, and Asimov. That would be ridiculous. However, now that I know the SJWs are preemptively planning to No Award me, I think I would be remiss if I did not consider award pimpage for every single Hugo Award for which I am even remotely eligible for in 2016.

Let’s see. In addition to the professional categories, there is Best Fan Writer, Best Related Work, and perhaps I can throw a few doodles together for Best Fan Artist while I’m at it.

Lori Coulson on June 5, 2015 at 9:45 pm said:
I have finished hacking my way through the puppy nominees, thank Ghu.
As I said about most of the puppy entries — there’s no there, there.

When the puppies can produce short stories better than “A Rose For Ecclesiastes” or “Nightfall” and when they can write something like MY type of MiLSF, i.e. Gordon Dickson’s “Tactics of Mistake,” or even an enjoyable potboiler like “The Hunt for Red October,” or a disaster tale like “Dies the Fire” — THEN I might trying reading their scribblings again. Given the current state of their art I consider this outcome highly unlikely.

Something else — merely competent prose is not Hugo Award worthy. If there’s ever a next time for those of you who have some grasp on the basics, I remind you that you must bring your A game. As of right now, I found nothing of theirs that was worth the paper it was printed on. So, I am voting accordingly.

Isn’t it strange how suddenly a Hugo Award requires a work at the level of Zelazny’s or Asimov’s best to merit beating No Award? As I have repeatedly pointed out, every single work nominated this year is better than last year’s winners. The SJWs were the ones who declared that the likes of Redshirts and Chicks Dig Time Lords and “Equoid” and “If You Give A Dinosaur A Cookie” and “We Have Always Fought” were the very best in science fiction, and everything we have put forward are better than those utter mediocrities.

They made the bed. We’re simply stretching out in it. They have nothing about which to complain. But fortunately, one SJW has figured out the massive historical disparity in awards being given out to the /SF Left at the expense of the SF Right:

nickpheas on June 6, 2015 at 5:48 am said:
I see that the Conservatives are bitter and angry and don’t really understand people. While the progressives are more likely to be witty and humane. Is it terribly surprising that the angry bitter writers are less likely to appeal to the general public?

Right, that’s probably it. No doubt all that witty humanity being written about the Puppies has been extraordinarily convincing to third parties. Certainly it can’t have anything to do with the left-wingers running the biggest publisher in science fiction into the ground being insanely biased against everyone to the right of Chairman Mao.

Irene Gallo is the Creative Director at Tor Books. Needless to say, this is libelous behavior we will be obliged to bring to the attention of the management at Pan Macmillan.

Approaching endgame

Is there one last kick in the can? It doesn’t look like it:

Greece admitted its sovereign coffers are totally empty this week when it “bundled” its modest €345 million payment to the IMF along with others, for a lump €1.5 billion payment, which may well never happen.

And the bigger problem for Greece is that after testing yesterday the faith and resolve of its depositors (not to mention the Troika, aka the Creditors) and found lacking, said depositors no longer believe in the full faith (ignore credit) of the Greek banking system.It may have been the Greek government’s final test.

Because according to banking sources cited by Intelligent News, things today went from bad to horrible for Greek banks, when Greeks “responded with massive outflows to the Greece’s government decision to bundle the four tranches to IMF into one by the end of the June.”

According to banking sources, the net outflows sharply increased on Friday and the available liquidity of the domestic banking system reduced at very low and dangerous levels.

    The same sources estimate the outflows on Friday around 700 million Euros from 272 million Euros on Thursday. The available emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) for the Greek banks is estimated around 800 million Euros. In addition, the outstanding amount of the total deposits of the private sector (households and corporations) has declined under 130 billion Euros or lower than the levels at early 2004.

    The total net outflows in the last 7 business days are estimated 3.4 billion Euros threatening the stability of the Greek banks.

This means 2.5% of all Greek deposits were pulled in just the past 5 days! Indicatively, this is the same as if US depositors had yanked $280 billion from US banks (where total deposits amount to about $10.7 trillion)

Greece didn’t default yesterday because they said they would make the payment at the end of the month. It appears, however, that the government is merely giving the Greek people time to empty out their accounts so that they will not be bailed-in as creditors when the default takes place.