Category: Uncategorized

Thus am I refuted

Aliette de Bodard inadvertently makes a powerful case against my assertions of savagery in the SFWA on Twitter:

“When I was 13 or so, I stabbed boy who was bothering me with pointy end
of a pair of compasses (planted it in his hand when he reached out)”

“to be fair, I didn’t have much body strength; they barely broke skin. He was mostly surprised that I attacked…”

“Felt quite happy (still do).”

All righty then.  I stand corrected. She only stabbed him, after all, it’s not as if she dismembered and ate him or anything.  Civilization is a relative concept, is it not? But let’s not let our expectations rise too high, as the woman actually defends “death threats… made to various writers” on the grounds of them being “performance rage”.

“[B]y “performance rage”, I mean that RH doesn’t actually intend to send
minions to decapitate all white men, or to carry out the death threats
she’s made to various writers. But I’m pretty sure she’s genuinely
furious at the cultural appropriation and misogyny that is unfortunately
rife in genre; and that posts like the one I pointed out stem from
genuine anger rather than a simple desire to rile people up.”

So, death threats are acceptable so long as one is genuinely furious.  Got it. Remember, these are the very pinkshirts who claim that straight white men are full of hate, rage, and fear.

At what point does complicity begin?

AV has a question about how responsible he is for his organization’s official position contra Christianity and traditional morality.

I have a dilemma. I work at a huge [REDACTED] company that is based in [REDACTED]. The company is publicly pro-GLBT.

This week the HR dept published an internal article describing a company-sponsored pro-gay club. There was a fairly civil discussion taking place in the comments section. (Which illustrates the obliviousness of the publisher that comments would be enabled at all). Later in the day I noticed that the Christian comments were removed and others were not).

Not huge deal, the company can do whatever they want. As a libertarian, I think its fine if they only hire GLBTs and the market can determine if that’s viable.

But it got me thinking, am I participating in evil or facilitating ungodly activities? Would Paul work there?

Clearly, if my manager asked me to sign a scroll in blood denouncing Christ, I would terminate my relationship with them. Things usually aren’t that obvious. I am sure Hitler’s secretary didn’t think anything was wrong at first either.

At what point does the negative effects from associating with worldly organization outweigh the necessity to make a living? Or as good of a living; a longer commute isn’t exactly like being thrown to the lions.

I don’t think an employee is responsible for his employer’s actions.  He is only responsible for his own. And so long as one is not lying or dissembling about one’s faith and about one’s principles, as Abraham did when asked about the nature of his relationship to his wife, then I think one can continue to work in that situation.  After all, one is expected to be in the world, merely not of it.

On the other hand, the writing is clearly already on the wall.  The fact that one can, in good conscience, continue to work there now does not mean that one is wise to do so.  It is bad enough that the corporation has embraced evil and is now openly pro-GLBT, but the fact that the Christian comments were selectively deleted indicates that it will soon be entering the next stage of actively suppressing all internal dissent.

The corporation hasn’t begun the witch hunts yet, but it will almost surely begin doing so in the relatively near future.  And that is when the ritual submissions will be required, which is when AV will no longer be able to remain there in good conscience.  Given that the clock is already ticking, I would recommend that AV begin actively looking for another job while he still has his current one.

Devouring their elders

Instapundit urges support for Malzberg and Resnick and quite rightly suspects “that the real ‘radioactive aura’ is more likely to attach to the SFWA”, while Andrew Fox excoriates the recent attempt of the SFWA’s pinkshirted stormtroopers to mau-mau their feminist forebears in considerable detail:

I feel compelled to point out, or at least suggest, that a vocal and
very cyber-visible portion of the SF pro and fan community have not been
covering themselves in glory recently. In fact, they have been acting
like a mob. A cyber-mob. And a mob is an ugly thing….

Given the prevalence of academic jargon from Cultural Studies or
other Studies departments in their comments, I imagine a goodly number
of the criticizers on the SWFA discussion boards and the broader
Internet are either university instructors or possessors of an advanced
degree from one of those programs. For many individuals under the age
of forty who have been through the university system, mau-mauing may
seem normative, or at least unremarkable. They have seen it at work
through divestment campaigns of various kinds (divestment from Israeli
companies or U.S. companies which provide goods to Israel which might be
used in security operations against Palestinians, or from companies
involved in fossil fuel production, or from companies connected to
certain figures active on the Right, such as the Koch brothers) and
through shout-downs and other disruptions of speakers invited to campus
whose backgrounds or viewpoints are contrary to those favored by student
activists.

Many of the criticizers may not consciously realize that they are
mau-mauing Mike and Barry, but mau-mauing is what they are engaged in.
Some commentators have pointed out the criticism is not censorship.
True; but in this instance, rather irrelevant. Other commentators have
stated that freedom of speech does not imply a right to a paid platform
(such as that enjoyed until now by Barry and Mike with their quarterly
columns for the Bulletin). Again – true, but irrelevant. For
what the protesters either seek to do or end up abetting is not
censorship, but what can be called shunning and shaming, an application of a radioactive aura to these two men which will make not only the future editors of the Bulletin
but also editors at other periodicals and publishing houses, organizers
of conventions, literary prize juries, and media outlets shy away from
wanting any connection with these two and their works. Remember, this
story has now broken out into mainstream outlets such as Salon and the Guardian;
people who previously had never heard of Mike Resnick or Barry Malzberg
or any of their books will now have their initial (and most likely
only) impression of them branded with a scarlet “S” for “Sexist,” as
detrimental a negative label in our time as “Adulterer” was in the time
of the Puritans. As Barry himself stated in the column “Talk Radio
Redux,” the most potent form of censorship is self-censorship,
the type that occurs in a writer’s head before he or she sets fingers to
keyboard. The mau-mauers, consciously or not, are using Mike and Barry
as cautionary examples – “Look what we’ve been able to do to the
reputations of a WorldCon Guest of Honor and to a man who has written
close to a hundred novels and over 250 short stories, several nominated
for Hugo or Nebula Awards. If we could do this to them, what do you
think we could do to you if you commit ThoughtCrime?”

The virtually thoughtless piling on is perhaps the most appalling.
So many of the criticizers whose comments I have come across admit they haven’t even read the columns in question. Once the ball of shunning and shaming
got rolling, hundreds of onlookers, alerted by social media, jumped on
the bandwagon, attracted by the enticing glow of participating in shared
moral outrage. Moral preening is on overload; industry professionals
and would-be professionals frantically signal to each other that they
are right-thinkers. According to the mau-mauers, Mike and Barry did not
merely misspeak (miswrite?); they did not have decent-enough intentions
which were ruined by Paleolithic habits and blinkered upbringings; they
are morally suspect, malign and vicious and evil. It’s burn the witch! all over again, but this time on a pyre of blog posts and Tweets.

I mentioned before that I completely understand the vehemence of
Barry’s reaction to all this. One sadly ironic aspect of this brouhaha
is that Barry is a lifelong man of the Left. He was staunchly antiwar
during the Vietnam era (see early stories such as “Final War”), and his
dream president was (and remains) Eugene McCarthy. I fully believe,
based on his writings about Alice Sheldon and Judith Merril, that Barry
considers himself a feminist, and an avid one. Condemnation from one’s
“own side” always burns hotter in one’s craw than condemnation from “the
other guys,” which can be easily rationalized away; just as criticism
(especially when viewed as unfair) from one’s own family hurts much
worse than criticism from relative strangers. Forty years ago (and in
all the years since), Barry was a fierce advocate of the New Wave in
science fiction, whose practitioners (with the sole exception of R. A.
Lafferty) were all politically aligned with the Left, as opposed to
old-timers such as John W. Campbell and Robert Heinlein. Now Barry must
feel as though the children of the Revolution are eating their elders
(as so frequently happens, it seems).

The amusing thing about this is that the SFWA folks involved, from Scalzi on down, genuinely believe that it was Mike and Barry making the organization look bad.  But they’re doing a fabulous job of doing that all on their own and they just keep digging the hole deeper… especially in light of the recent announcement of a 5-Year 4-Step Plan in which the SFWA Bulletin has been put on hiatus for up to six months while the pinkshirted task force ideologically cleanses redefines the “goals and mission of the magazine.”

As for devouring their elders, Fox may not realize quite how literally that has been true.  Although, to be fair, if Laura Resnick has not deigned to publicly defend her father, she has at least refrained from throwing in with the pinkshirted maenads.

More haircuts on the way

I’m a little surprised at Mr. Evans-Pritchard’s dismay.  What else did he expect?

Another shameful day for Europe as EMU creditor states betray South.
So much for the denials. The Cyprus “template” for banking crises is to be eurozone policy for other countries after all.

Don’t be complacent if you’re on the other side of the Atlantic.  The same “bail-ins” are coming to the USA too.  In fact, two have already taken place there, compared to the one in Cyprus.  It’s already been determined by the courts that “your” money in the bank is not yours, it is merely an unsecured loan you have made to the bank… for what is effectively a negative interest rate.

Offended by silence

This story of internecine offense-taking should be educational for those who believe that if only they remain are sufficiently nice to people and avoid saying anything negative, they will avoid giving offense to the permanently – and in some cases, professionally – offended:

Two state legislators are accusing former Congressman Anthony Weiner of displaying a “lack of moral courage” in the face of what they slammed as a “homophobic, misogynistic slur” made by a voter referring to their chosen candidate: City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. And they want him to apologize.

The offense occurred in The Washington Post, which published a lengthy story Thursday on the mayor’s race that included this scene that described Mr. Weiner’s interaction with a voter on the campaign trail:

    “You a registered Democrat?” he asked an elderly woman wheeling a shopping cart by him.

    “I am,” she said. “And I’m not voting for uh, what’s her name? The dyke.”

    “Okay. I just need you to sign the petition to get me on the ballot,” said Weiner, who then noticed the incredulous reaction of a reporter and added, “and you really shouldn’t talk that way about people.”

    “Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman said.

    “It’s okay,” Weiner responded. “It’s not your fault.”

The response left Assemblywoman Deborah Glick and State Senator Brad Hoylman–who have both endorsed Ms. Quinn’s campaign–seething.

“We are appalled by the account in the Washington Post of Anthony Weiner’s unacceptable response to a prospective voter’s homophobic, misogynistic slur in reference to Christine Quinn,” they wrote in a statement Thursday. “Weiner’s response to this blatant display of homophobia is completely inappropriate and extremely alarming. There is nothing ‘okay’ about homophobia and it’s never ‘okay’ to condone bias-based slurs or hate speech of any kind.”

They argued that such language was indicative of the larger challenges faced by female and openly gay political candidates.

“The voter’s use of the term demonstrates the challenges women candidates and lesbians in particular face, and Weiner’s failure to swiftly and firmly condemn her language demonstrates his lack of moral courage,” they added. “We demand an immediate apology from Mr. Weiner on behalf of LGBT and women New Yorkers.”

The fascist pinkshirts are not merely speech police, they are totalitarian thought police.  They are the very sort of people of whom George Orwell warned.  It’s not enough to leave them alone, because if you merely happen to show insufficient public enthusiasm for causes they consider morally imperative, they will attack you even more ferociously than those who openly oppose them.  They are the enemies of free speech, and more than that, they absolutely loathe the very idea of human freedom.

The reason the pinkshirts are always seeking apologies is because they view them, correctly, as public rituals of submission.  This is why it is a massive mistake to ever apologize to the monsters or to give them any ground whatsoever.  Stand your ground and they will fade away for the time being, (although they will lurk around and strike again the moment they detect any weakness), retreat and they will press forward with alacrity.

Remember that is always about power with these people.  It concerns power and nothing else. Note how not even being a high profile member of Team Clinton, (which those who know anything about DC are aware is not exactly unsympathetic to dykes), is enough to protect the left-wing Weiner from attacks on this front.  Being offended, or better yet, falsely claiming to feel threatened, is nothing more than a rhetorical tactic for these people, and therefore is best met with a rhetorical response.

Showcase

The Original Cyberpunk introduces SHOWCASE, which will feature free access to some of the stories by the authors being published in STUPEFYING STORIES magazine.

Welcome to Issue #2 of SHOWCASE, the free weekly webzine companion to STUPEFYING STORIES magazine and the STUPEFYING STORIES PRESENTS anthology series. Each week in SHOWCASE
we’ll be offering up previews of coming attractions, samples of what
we’re working on, reviews and comments, and of course,
new stories by some of our favorite authors—and
we hope, by writers who soon will become some of your favorite authors, too
If you saw Issue #1, you’ve no doubt already noticed some big changes
for Issue #2. We’re still working on the banner—and as of the time I’m
writing this, I still don’t know whether the new banner will be ready in
time for tomorrow’s release—but most importantly, with this issue SHOWCASE moves to it’s new permanent home,
StupefyingStoriesSHOWCASE.com.

Let’s face it, any publication that features a story entitled “Elves are Douchebags” more than merits a look-see.

Spontaneous automotive combustion

The LAPD quickly rules out foul play in the fiery demise of Michael Hastings, investigative reporter:

The Los Angeles Police Department said there appears to be no foul play in the one-vehicle accident that killed journalist Michael Hastings.

The Los Angeles County coroner on Thursday
positively identified Hastings as the driver of a Mercedes that crashed
on Highland Avenue near Melrose Avenue on Tuesday morning. Hastings’ involvement with hot-button stories has led to a
variety of conspiracy theories arising on the Internet over his death.
But LAPD officials said the incident appears to have been an accident
and that no other vehicles were involved. Officials are trying to
determine whether there was a mechanical problem with the car. The
sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case was
ongoing….

Hastings was best known for a 2010 Rolling Stone profile that led to the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Hastings was a contributing editor to the magazine.

In related news, the Federal Security Service announced that it suspects no foul play in the recent series of Russian emigrant deaths in the United Kingdom.  Has anyone informed the LAPD that it is only in the movies that Mercedes automobiles explode on impact?

Steve Sailer, who lives very close to the scene, appears to have a few doubts himself:

Nothing to see here, folks, move along, nothing to see here. It’s just
the top investigative journalist of his generation charbroiled in his
new Mercedes, so keep moving. Hey, did you hear about Kim Kardashian?
Now, that’s what I call news.

I wonder if Matt Taibbi is considering a move to Hong Kong?  First Breitbart, now Hastings.  At the very least, he should stay away from Los Angeles.

UPDATE: One of the witnesses said: “It sounded like a bomb going off.  The house shook; the windows were rattling.”

How big is the hole in the bottom?

Detroit’s Emergency City Manager claims to have found evidence of fraud in the city pension and insurance funds:

Orr ordered an investigation into employee-benefit programs yesterday, including the insurance and pension systems. He told the inspector general and auditor general offices, which both have subpoena power, to deliver their reports within 60 days. The documents should cover “next steps, and any corrective, prospective, legal, additional investigatory or other action designed to address any waste, abuse, fraud or corruption uncovered,” according to the order.

Wages, benefits and pensions took 41 percent of city revenue this fiscal year, according to a report from Orr. It showed that benefit and pension costs per employee had increased to $24,000 from $18,000 in 2000. Skipping payments to the funds and borrowing has kept the city afloat, according to the report. 

As Karl Denninger has pointed out, this is potentially much bigger than it sounds.  The suspicion is that due to the MERS-related fraud, a lot of the pension “investments” were never perfected, are already in default, and therefore a considerable amount of the money in the already woefully underfunded funds does not exist.  If fraud on a similar scale to that which took place in the housing market is discovered, it could render a number of state and municipal pension plans across the nation unable to continue to pay out benefits.

And the consequences of that would likely be interesting….

Diversity is the death of the republic

This isn’t a thought that is new to me; HongKongCharlie reminds us that the Founding Fathers knew it very well:

“The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common
national sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the
exemption of the citizens from foreign bias and prejudice; and on that
love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely
connected with birth, education, and family. The opinion advanced in the
Notes on Virginia [by Thomas Jefferson] is undoubtedly correct, that foreigners will
generally be apt to bring with them attachments to the persons they have
left behind; to the country of their nativity; and to its particular
customs and manners. They will also entertain opinions on government
congenial with those under which they have lived; or if they should be
led hither from a preference to ours, how extremely unlikely is it that
they will bring with them that temperate love of liberty, so essential
to real republicanism?”
-Alexander Hamilton, From the New York Evening Post: an Examination of the President’s Message, Continued, No. VIII, 1802″

Those
who advocate diversity and immigration are not merely foolish, or
ignorant, they are as actively and effectively anti-American as the most
antipathetic individuals who are consciously attempting to destroy what
is left of traditional, constitutional, civilized, European America.

So,
do keep this in mind:  The rabbits and pinkshirts loudly proclaim that
my opinion is outrageous, offensive, and intrinsically unworthy of
debate… despite that opinion being, in the words of Alexander
Hamilton, “undoubtedly correct”.

46 million more Americans

That’s the CBO estimate for the Senate’s immigration bill:

The Senate’s pending immigration bill will pave the way for the
arrival of 46 million legal immigrants over the next 20 years, increase
the federal debt in the same time period and shrink Americans’ average
wage, according Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Session’s critical reading
of two new reports on the pending immigration reform bill provided by
the Congressional Budget Office. But Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, the most prominent GOP
advocate for the immigration reform bill, says the CBO reports are good
news for Americans.

Marco Rubio wants more Hispanic immigrants.  That’s almost as much of a surprise as Italy’s new Congolese Minister of the Interior, whose first action in office was to argue for the importance of making it easier for Africans to get Italian citizenship.  Isn’t it a remarkable coincidence that the absolute top priority of every immigrant who achieves any political power is to bring in more people just like them?

Anyhow, this should suffice to snuff out the last remnants of any grass roots Republican enthusiasm for Marco Rubio.  And I can’t help but notice the reference to that portentous year. 2033. By the time there are 357 million people living in the lower 48, I very much doubt they will still be a single political entity.