What is Sasquan hiding?

And who is Sasquan protecting? Despite numerous requests, Glenn Glazer of Sasquan continues to refuse to release the anonymized NOMINATION ballots (not the final vote ballots, get it straight because you look like a complete moron when you can’t correctly distinguish between the two), because he claims, falsely, that protecting the privacy of Sasquan’s members is the paramount concern of the organization.

Glenn Glazer may well be an SJW, because SJWs always lie and he is most certainly lying.

Glazer is not lying about the ability to correctly figure out who the occasional individual is, as there are no doubt more than a few pathetic nobodies whose nominations for themselves stand out. For example, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if one could figure out which of the nominating ballots belonged to Patrick Nielsen Hayden… assuming there weren’t 40 more just like it. Of course, one can only reach a logical conclusion about a nominator’s identity, one cannot actually prove that one’s surmise is correct without Sasquan confirming it.

But Glazer is blatantly lying about the fact that Worldcon gives a damn about privacy. Consider this post from Making Light in April:

#9 ::: beth meacham ::: April 06, 2015, 12:49 PM:
Laurie Mann posted on facebook that neither John C. Wright nor Theo Beale have Sasquan memberships of any sort. I am not sure what to make of that.

Laurie Mann is the Programming division head for Sasquan. Her breach of privacy wasn’t just a one-time thing either, as there is this Facebook post from June:

David Gerrold, June 3

As long as we’re still talking about the sad puppies and the rabid puppies, there is one question that has not yet been asked.

Will Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen be attending the Hugo award ceremony? Will Vox Day and John C. Wright be attending the ceremony? What about the other nominees and the various puppy supporters?

I have been told that none of the major architects of the slates have attending memberships. So the answer is no, they will not be there.

(Some of the slated nominees will likely be there, but that’s not the question I’m asking.)

And that causes me to wonder —

Some of the puppy supporters have said this whole thing is about reclaiming “the real science fiction” from those who have hijacked it into the realm of literary merit. (Something like that.)

Okay — but if we take that at face value — then why aren’t the leaders of the movement coming to the award ceremony to cheer for their nominees? If this is really that important, why aren’t they coming to the party?

Not attending the celebration makes it look like this was never about winning the awards as much as it was about disrupting them.

In other words, Sasquan was freely divulging information – incorrectly, as it happened – about the very members whose privacy they now claim prevents them from releasing the anonymized data. It is very clear that, like Animal Farm, the privacy of some members is considerably more important than others. And their inconsistency isn’t conclusive proof of anything yet, nor do we know exactly what he is trying to hide or who he is trying to protect, it does suggest that Mr. Glazer is attempting to conceal the evidence of the Tor Books nominating bloc vote whose activities have been readily apparent since at least 2008.

Since I am informed that a number of polite requests from various Sasquan members have been stymied, I think it is now time to get a little more serious about finding out what Mr. Glazer appears to be so belatedly determined to hide from the public eye. If you were a Sad Puppy or Rabid Puppy nominator or voter who is interested in seeing Sasquan release the data, email me with your a) Loncon membership number or your b) Sasquan membership number to verify yourself and we will plan our strategy accordingly. Put SASQUAN in the subject.

And if Mr. Glazer continues to refuse to release the promised data under a false claim of privacy concerns, that will simply provide us with even more ammunition for the media, who are already interested in the increasing appearance of corruption in science fiction. I haven’t contacted them yet, but if Mr. Glazer continues to try to bury the evidence – of what, I repeat, we do not know – I will do so soon.

UPDATE: This Sasquan coverup may be considerably more serious than even the most confirmed cynic could have imagined. It appears someone may be resorting to hitherto unprecedented measures to prevent the data from being released. From File 770:

Bobbie DuFault, co-chair of Sasquan, the 2015 World Science Fiction Convention, passed away from unknown causes this morning, September 14. Glenn Glazer of the committee asks, “Please respect the families’ wishes to not be contacted at this time.”

There is that name again too. Glenn Glazer. (Raises eyebrows.) NB: If you are a science fiction SJW, please feel free to commence feigning shock and outrage now.

Running out of altruism

Pat Buchanan on the latest Islamic invasion of Europe:

“Liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide,” wrote James Burnham in his 1964 “Suicide of the West.”

Burnham predicted that the mindless magnanimity of liberals, who subordinate the interests of their own people and nations to utopian and altruistic impulses, would bring about an end to Western civilization.

Was he wrong? Consider what is happening in Europe.

Serbia, Hungary and Slovakia, small nations sensing they will be swamped by asylum seekers from the Muslim world, are trying to seal their borders and secure their homelands.

Their instinct for survival, their awareness of lifeboat ethics, is acute. Yet they are being condemned for trying to save themselves.

Meanwhile, the pope calls on Catholics everywhere to welcome the asylum seekers and Angela Merkel will be taking in 800,000 this year alone, though the grumbling has begun in Bavaria.

This is but the beginning of what is to come, if Europe does not pull up the drawbridge.

For the scores of thousands of Syrians in the Balkans, Hungary, Austria and Germany are only the first wave. Behind them in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan are 4 million refugees from the Syrian civil war. Seeing the success of the first wave, they are now on the move.

Behind them are 2 million Alawites and 2 million Christians who will be fleeing Syria when the Bashar Assad regime falls to ISIS and the al-Qaeda terrorists who already occupy half of that blood-soaked land.

Now the Iraqis, who live in a country the prospects for whose reunification and peace are receding, have begun to move. Also among the thousands pouring into Europe from Turkey are Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Afghans. When the Americans leave Afghanistan and the Taliban take their revenge, more Afghans will be fleeing west.

Africa has a billion people, a number that will double by 2050, and double again to 4 billion by 2100. Are those billions of Africans going to endure lives of poverty under ruthless, incompetent, corrupt and tyrannical regimes, if Europe’s door remains wide open?

What is coming is not difficult to predict.

Europe is going to run out of altruism long before it runs out of refugees. 

Again, 40 percent of the migrants are NOT refugees, they are Eastern European Muslims who desperately want to get on the Germano-Scandinavian gravy train. Meanwhile, the more sensible European countries such as Serbia, Hungary, and Denmark are already shutting down their borders:

Danish police were forced to close road and rail links with Germany to prevent thousands of migrants seeking to head north towards Sweden. In one incident, around 300 refugees, including large numbers of women and children, set off on foot for Sweden, forcing police to shut the motorway near Padborg for a several hours.

The reason the migrants are trying to get to Germany or Sweden is that under EU law, the asylum request is processed by the country of entry. And if they are registered in Greece or Italy, much less Denmark or Hungary, they will eventually be repatriated to their home countries.

On the art of administering the bitch slap

Judgy Bitch reviews SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police:

SJWs and feminists (I’ll use SJW to include both for this article) hate and fear the man known as Vox Day, and for very good reason: he can deliver a bitch slap like no other (except maybe Milo Yiannopoulos). Granted, Day would never call what he does to SJWs a ‘bitch slap’ – he is far more sophisticated than that. Drawing on Aristotle’s concepts of dialectic (arguing from reason) and rhetoric (arguing from emotion), Day has done a great public service and published an ebook that has a few SJWs throwing hilarious tantrums.

It’s a very kind and colorful review, and I do appreciate it. Also, I was asked to do a Hangout or some such nonsense by a group on Twitter,  but it was clear that it would work better as a themed open Brainstorm, so if you’re interested in hearing me discuss SJWs with some folks who may be friend or foe (I honestly don’t know), you can register for tonight’s session at 7 PM EST.

How’s that diversity thing working out?

Apparently diversity isn’t turning out to be as quite as “good for the Jews” as it’s been advertised. But there is no pressing cause for concern, I’m sure that the third worlders invading America will be much better behaved than the third worlders invading Europe. And speaking as a son of the Mexican Revolution, I can assure you that La Raza Cósmica is every bit as susceptible to appeals to the Holocaust as the Chinese and other immigrant populations are.

Married Holocaust survivors brutally beaten in savage Amsterdam robbery as attackers shouted ‘dirty Jews’ and left them blinded and confined to wheelchairs. Men forced their way into home of Shmuel Blog, 87 and his wife Diana, 86. They beat and kicked the pair and demanded they hand over valuables. Called Mr and Mrs Blog ‘dirty Jews’, tore off their rings and tied them up. Mr Blog was left blinded with a broken thigh and wheelchair-bound for life. Mrs Blog is also confined to a wheelchair suffering from ‘extreme pains’

It seems to me that the Learned Elders of Wye would be well advised to reconsider their previous position on homogenous white Christian populations rather than assume that they can simply relocate to Israel and China after America follows the current European example.

There is no escape from SJW

SJWs are in the process of reinventing James Bond to be more to their liking:

For decades he has swaggered through life conquering women, chain smoking and saving the world, untroubled by the sensitivities of the 21st century. In a new book, however, James Bond will be getting a dose of modern morality, as author Anthony Horowitz reveals the tricks he used to drag the spy kicking and screaming into the era of political correctness.

Horowitz, the writer of new Bond novel Trigger Mortis, said he had worked carefully to preserve Ian Fleming’s original character and ensuring his 1950s attitudes remained in tact.

But he has introduced a cast of new characters to point out the error of his chauvinistic ways, including messages about smoking causing cancer, women who give him a run for his money, and an “outspoken” gay friend.

Horowitz, who has been given access to Fleming’s own notes to research his latest update, said he had inserted “little twists” to make the story work for modern readers.

 “He does smoke cigarettes, he smokes many many cigarettes. But then what I do is I nudge him with a little reference to a newspaper article he happens to glance at which just reminds him that these things will give him cancer. With women, he has this sort of patronising carnal attitude with them which is absolutely accurate to the Bond of the books. But then by creating very strong women he is given quite a run for his money and his attitudes are challenged. I also gave him a very outspoken gay friend, who chides him and says ‘come on Bond, you’re living in the 20th century now not the Middle Ages.’”

It’s not just science fiction, it’s not just games, it’s not just comics, it is literally everywhere. You cannot escape social justice morality, you can only submit to it or fight it. And one way to do the latter, as this gentleman inadvertently demonstrated, is to black-knight it.

Controversy has enveloped the prestigious Best American Poetry anthology after it emerged that a white poet had been included in the selection after adopting a Chinese pen name – and that Yi-Fen Chou’s poem was kept in the much sought-after lineup even after the author told editors his real identity was Michael Derrick Hudson.

At the back of the 2015 edition of The Best American Poetry, which is published today, Yi-Fen Chou is revealed as the pen name of Michael Derrick Hudson, from Indiana. Hudson writes that his poem chosen for the anthology, The Bees, the Flowers, Jesus, Ancient Tigers, Poseidon, Adam and Eve, was rejected under his real name 40 times before he sent it out as Yi-Fen Chou, when it was rejected nine times before getting accepted. “If indeed this is one of the best American poems of 2015, it took quite a bit of effort to get it into print, but I’m nothing if not persistent,” writes Hudson.

At least Mr. Chou has had the sense to avoid apologizing, but it would have been even better if he had simply announced to his critics that he identifies as Chinese and to refer to him as “Michael Hudson” is deadnaming, racist, and wrongskinphobic.

This identity black-knighting is an excellent way to systematically undermine the SJWs, which is to claim whatever identities you find useful and force them to recognize them in precisely the same manner they declare war to be peace, black to be white, and Bruce to be Caitlyn. The key is to not overdo it or be too obvious – I see way too much stupid “well, I’m a lesbian in a man’s body, ha ha ha” here – and to stick to it relentlessly. If you’re a white writer, you should have at least one ethnic nom de plume to your credit.

Rationalist naivete

One of my great disappointments this year has been reading JB Bury’s History of Freedom of Thought. Bury was the editor of my much-beloved Cambridge Medieval History series, which is excellent, and so I was looking forward to reading his thoughts on a matter that is of more than a little interest to me.

But while the book is as erudite and well-sourced as one would expect, it is little more than a one-sided anti-Christian rationalist polemic, with little insight and absolutely no foresight whatsoever. It’s High Church Atheist in a manner that is about as proto-“I Fucking Love Science” as it is possible for a book published in 1913 to be.

One wishes one could bring Bury forward in time to see what passes for reason hath wrought; a thought police more authoritarian, more delusional, and more in conflict with reality than any of the religious opponents of the freedom of thought ever were. Bury’s unjustified faith in the power of reason is a fascinating precursor to the complete inability of the modern irreligious to grasp the connection between Christianity and many of the aspects of Western civilization that they value, as well as their willingness to blithely saw off the branches of the tree on which they are sitting.

The struggle of reason against authority has ended in what appears now to be a decisive and permanent victory for liberty. In the most civilized and progressive countries, freedom of discussion is recognized as a fundamental principle. In fact, we may say it is accepted as a test of enlightenment, and the man in the street is forward in acknowledging that countries like Russia and Spain, where opinion is more or less fettered, must on that account be considered less civilized than their neighbours. All intellectual people who count take it for granted that there is no subject in heaven or earth which ought not to be investigated without any deference or reference to theological assumptions. No man of science has any fear of publishing his researches, whatever consequences they may involve for current beliefs. Criticism of religious doctrines and of political and social institutions is free. Hopeful people may feel confident that the victory is permanent; that intellectual freedom is now assured to mankind as a possession for ever; that the future will see the collapse of those forces which still work against it and its gradual diffusion in the more backward parts of the earth. Yet history may suggest that this prospect is not assured. Can we be certain that there may not come a great set-back? For freedom of discussion and speculation was, as we saw, fully realized in the Greek and Roman world, and then an unforeseen force, in the shape of Christianity, came in and laid chains upon the human mind and suppressed freedom and imposed upon man a weary struggle to recover the freedom which he had lost. Is it not conceivable that something of the same kind may occur again? that some new force, emerging from the unknown, may surprise the world and cause a similar set-back?

The possibility cannot be denied, but there are some considerations which render it improbable (apart from a catastrophe sweeping away European culture). There are certain radical differences between the intellectual situation now and in antiquity. The facts known to the Greeks about the nature of the physical universe were few. Much that was taught was not proved. Compare what they knew and what we know about astronomy and geography—to take the two branches in which (besides mathematics) they made most progress. When there were so few demonstrated facts to work upon, there was the widest room for speculation. Now to suppress a number of rival theories in favour of one is a very different thing from suppressing whole systems of established facts. If one school of astronomers holds that the earth goes round the sun, another that the sun goes round the earth, but neither is able to demonstrate its proposition, it is easy for an authority, which has coercive power, to suppress one of them successfully. But once it is agreed by all astronomers that the earth goes round the sun, it is a hopeless task for any authority to compel men to accept a false view. In short, because she is in possession of a vast mass of ascertained facts about the nature of the universe, reason holds a much stronger position now than at the time when Christian theology led her captive.

All these facts are her fortifications. Again, it is difficult to see what can arrest the continuous progress of knowledge in the future. In ancient times this progress depended on a few; nowadays, many nations take part in the work. A general conviction of the importance of science prevails to-day, which did not prevail in Greece. And the circumstance that the advance of material civilization depends on science is perhaps a practical guarantee that scientific research will not come to an abrupt halt. In fact science is now a social institution, as much as religion.

I wonder if Bury would revise his conclusions in light of the “social construct” school of denial, which has produced everything from the “science” of anthropogenic global warming to multiplying sexes. Considering how ready the SJWs are to deny that a man is, in fact, a man, it is not at all hard to imagine that they would be every bit as willing to compel men to accept a false view of the sun rotating around the earth.

SJWism is the revival of the blasphemy concept, but it is far more dangerous than the religious laws ever were because it lacks a textual anchor. At least with religion, you always knew what blasphemy was and could readily avoid committing it. With the current thought police, they will inform you of your offenses after you have committed them, and neither ignorance of the law nor its previous nonexistence will provide you with any defense.

All you can read

If you have Kindle Unlimited or Amazon Prime, you can now borrow both A THRONE OF BONES and A MAGIC BROKEN at no charge. As it happens, at 854 pages, Amazon will pay more for a Prime or a Kindle Unlimited user reading ATOB than Castalia gets for actually selling a book there. However, this means that neither book is presently available in the Castalia store.

We do NOT plan to do this for most of our books, just to be clear.

Interview with Vox Day

Greg Johnson of Counter-Currents interviewed me last night. The MP3 is available there of our discussion, which he summarized as follows:

Greg Johnson talks to video game designer, musician, blogger, novelist, and publisher Vox Day. Topics include:

  • His political outlook and its formation
  • Why he is no longer a Libertarian
  • “National libertarianism”
  • The necessity of borders
  • The European refugee crisis
  • Why nationalism and tribalism are unstoppable forces
  • Illegitimate forms of identity politics
  • The problem of white identity in the United States as opposed to European national identities
  • His new book SJWs Always Lie
  • Why they always lie
  • Advice to those who wish to roll back political correctness
  • A preview of coming attractions

I think the most interesting part of the interview was when we discussed the problem of “white identity”. I think “whites” are inclined to significantly underperform in identity politics for much the same reason that “Hispanics” and “Asians” do, which is that most people who qualify as white don’t primarily identify as White in the same manner that more cohesive minorities such as Blacks, Jews, Gays, and Women (which actually means Feminists) do.

Ask a “Hispanic” what he is and he’ll tell you he is Mexican or Guatemalan. Ask an “Asian” what he is and he’ll tell you Chinese or Thai. Ask a “white” and he’ll tell you “mostly German” or “half-this, half-that”. You will almost never hear anyone self-identify as White, nor would you have 30 or 40 years ago. And a man who identifies as “Italian-American” is simply not going to see another man who identifies as “Irish” or “Scandinavian” or “German” as his goombah and proactively engage in nepotistic favoritism on his behalf.

There is no nationalism without a cohesive nation and there is no tribalism without identification with the specific tribe.

Rent seekers, not refugees

At this point, a lot of Europeans are beginning to think that Vlad the Impaler’s solution is the correct one to the violent invasion of Western Europe:

I saw an elderly Italian woman in a car that was surrounded by the immigrants. They pulled her by the hair out of the car and wanted to use it to go to Germany. They tried to topple the bus i was in. They threw feces at us, banging on the door for the driver to open it, spat on the glass. My question is- for what purpose? How do they want to assimilate in Germany? For a moment, i felt like in a warzone. I really feel sorry for these people, but if they would reach Poland – I do not think they would receive any understanding from us.

We spent three hours on the border, but failed to get through. The whole group was later transported back to Italy by the police. The bus is butchered, feces smeared, scratched, broken windows. And this is supposed to be an idea for the demographics? These big powerful hordes?

Among them there were almost no women and children – the vast majority was aggressive young men. Just yesterday I read the news on all the websites with real compassion, worried about their fate and today after what I saw I am just afraid. And I am happy they do not choose our country as their destination. We Poles are simply not ready to accept these people – neither culturally nor financially. I do not know if anyone is ready. A giant pathology is approaching the EU, one which we have never seen before. And sorry if anyone is offended by this entry.

A car with humanitarian aid came. Food and water. They just toppled it and stole everything. With megaphones the Austrians announced a message that there is consensus for them to cross over the border – they wanted to register them and let them go on – but they did not understand these messages. None. And it was all the greatest horror … From those few thousand people nobody understood neither Italian nor English, or German, or Russian, or Spanish … What mattered was the law of the fist.

The media coverage is even worse than you think. Do you know why a lot of those “desperate refugees fleeing the Syrian war” are so well-dressed in relatively clean clothes? Because 39 percent of them are from the Balkans. They’re EASTERN EUROPEAN MUSLIMS, they are not from the Middle East or Africa at all, and they aren’t fleeing anything except the societies they’ve already ruined.

About a fifth of asylum seekers to Germany in the first half of the year
were from war-torn Syria, giving them a strong claim to refugee status.
But about 39 per cent were from the western Balkans and primarily
seeking better economic opportunities, giving them little chance of
qualifying for asylum.

And, of course, one wouldn’t want to offend these poor, helpless, grateful people, so the German girls need to start dressing differently, as one school in Bavaria near a “refugee” shelter has already instructed the parents of its students:

“As our school is in the immediate vicinity, it would be appropriate to wear restrained everyday clothes, to avoid conflict. Transparent tops or blouses, short shorts or miniskirts could lead to misunderstandings. In addition, you are asked to refrain from “direct eye contact, ogling, or photographing. Derogatory or racist remarks can not be tolerated in any way.”

This is why the Social Justice ideals of Equality, Diversity, Tolerance, and Progress must be rejected, completely. Because this is exactly where it leads.

Sasquan tries to hide voting scandal?

Unbelievable. I wonder what it is they are trying to hide? Tor buying supporting memberships for its employees?

Back at Sasquan, the BM passed a non-binding resolution to request that Sasquan provide anonymized nomination data from the 2015 Hugo Awards.  I stood before the BM and said, as its official representative, that we would comply with such requests.  However, new information has come in which has caused us to reverse that decision.  Specifically, upon review, the administration team believes it may not be possible to anonymize the nominating data sufficiently to allow for a public release.  We are investigating alternatives.

Thank you for your patience in this matter.  While we truly wish to comply with the resolution and fundamentally believe in transparent processes, we must hold the privacy of our members paramount and I hope that you understand this set of priorities.

Best,

Glenn Glazer
Vice-Chair, Business and Finance
Sasquan, the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention

This is not acceptable. This is not even REMOTELY acceptable. If you voted in the 2015 Hugo Awards, I encourage you to contact Sasquan and demand that they released the anonymized nomination data.

I find it very difficult to believe they are refusing to release it because it might make the Rabid Puppies look bad; we already know that the SJW message that the Puppies voted in lockstep is completely false. So, the question is: what voting patterns tend to embarrass whom?

Let’s look at the usual suspects. Patrick Nielsen Hayden had 65 votes for Best Long Form Editor. John Scalzi had 168 votes for Best Novel and 78 votes for Best Novella. Not exactly suspicious, although I expect there is considerable overlap between Editor and Novella there.