Not all writers are created equal

And let’s face it, Martin van Creveld is damn near the top of the list of thinking writers these days. I think I may have posted this link before, but since Instapundit has a decent discussion going in the comments, I thought I’d post Ann Sterzinger’s review of Martin van Creveld’s EQUALITY: THE IMPOSSIBLE QUEST again in case anyone happened to miss it the first time:

Equality: The Impossible Quest is—by the by—one of a spate of solid but genuinely daring recent releases from Castalia House, a small press led by Vox Day.

If you haven’t spent all your money on my publisher, Nine-Banded Books, do yourself a favor and give Castalia House a look.

Day is, at the moment, my favorite fantasy novelist, despite the gulf between his version of theology—from reading his blog he seems pretty sure that in this reality there’s a single, just God up there—and mine, if you can call mine such.

Or likely my enjoyment grows from that gulf. Yeah, I know, you’ve blocked everybody you disagree with from your Facebubble, and the wrong cat meme triggers your cis-clawed stress syndrome. You poor, chicken-shit things; in fearing you might become what you detest, have you forgotten what a pleasure it is to escape the cage of your own brainham once in a while? Stretch your legs, fella!

(Cough.) Anyhow, Day’s work, both on his own writing and in co-curating Castalia House, is a beacon in the dull word blizzard. (I’ve written about Riding the Red Horse, a unique collection of military essays and military science fiction that Day and Kratman put out in December, but I can’t keep up. They’re killin’ it.)

And van Creveld’s Equality is one of Castalia’s most absorbing releases, if you’re interested in history anyway—past history, not the historical destiny of your marching-drum ideology—the sort of history that’s not only full of holes where the victors and the monks wrote over chunks of the evidence, but the sort of history that, as far as we can tell, indeed has been repeating itself rather drearily.

As van Creveld says in his preface, the histories of our other two unattainable ideals, liberty and justice, have been written before—or, rather, attempted; there’s too much to read on all three of these subjects for one guy to do it at a go. But van Creveld does his best to describe all our tragic, failed attempts at equality.

A descriptive model

Keeping in mind, of course, that Rao is not talking about literal sociopathy here, it’s merely the term he’s chosen for his Gervais Principle model. Here he provides a useful distinction between the two types of Sociopaths:

[E]ffective Sociopaths stick with steadfast discipline to the letter of
the law, internal and external, because the stupidest way to trip
yourself up is in the realm of rules where the Clueless and Losers get
to be judges and jury members. What they violate is its spirit, by
taking advantage of its ambiguities. Whether this makes them evil or
good depends on the situation. That’s a story for another day. Good
Sociopaths operate by what they personally choose as a higher
morality, in reaction to what they see as the dangers, insanities and
stupidities of mob morality. Evil Sociopaths are merely looking for a
quick, safe buck. Losers and the Clueless, of course, avoid individual moral decisions altogether.

This is why I find the Clueless of the SF world to be so mind-bogglingly stupid. While they correctly recognize me as a Sociopath who is dangerous to the system, they don’t understand that I am the proverbial Good Sociopath. And because they are so Clueless, they completely fail to recognize the Evil Sociopaths already well-ensconced within their midst.

I mean, how hard can it possibly be for anyone conversant with this model to identify a specific Evil Sociopath who has repeatedly taken advantage of ambiguities in the science fiction world’s rules in order to make a quick, safe buck? You’d think Rao was describing that individual.

Why Greece should vote “NO”

The depths of dishonesty and economic depravity to which the EU and the IMF have been willing to descend are simply astonishing:

If you haven’t been following developments in the Greek-EU standoff, you’re really missing out. This might be the best story of the year. And what makes it so riveting, is that no one thought that little Greece could face off with the powerful leaders of the EU and make them blink. But that’s exactly what’s happened. On Monday, members of the Eurogroup met with Greece’s finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, to decide whether they would accept Greece’s terms for an extension of the current loan agreement. There were no real changes to the agreement. The only difference was semantics, that is, the loan would not be seen as a bailout but as “a transitional stage to a new contract for growth for Greece”. In other words, a bridge to a different program altogether.

In retrospect, Varoufakis’s strategy was pure genius, mainly because it knocked the EU finance ministers off balance and threw the process into turmoil. After all, how could they vote “thumbs down” on loan package that they had previously approved just because the language was slightly different? But if they voted “thumbs up”, then what?

Well, then they would be acknowledging (and, tacitly, approving) Greece’s determination to make the program less punitive in the future. That means they’d be paving the way for an end to austerity and a rethink on loan repayment. They’d also be conceding that Greece’s democratically-elected government had the right to alter the policies of the Eurogroup. How could they let that happen?

But, then again, how could they vote it down, after all, it was basically the same deal. As Varoufakis pointed out in a press conference on Monday:

    “We agree to the terms of our loan agreements to all our creditors”. And we have “agreed to do nothing to derail the existing budget framework during the interim period.”

See? It’s the same deal. This is the conundrum the Eurogroup faced on Monday, but instead of dealing with it head-on, as you would expect any mature person to do, they punted. They put off the loan extension decision for another day and called it quits. Now maybe that was the smart thing to do, but the optics sure looked terrible. It looked like Varoufakis stared them down and sent them fleeing like scared schoolchildren.

Now, remember, Monday was the absolute, drop-dead deadline for deciding whether the Eurogroup would approve or reject the new terms for Greece’s loan extension. That means the Eurogroup’s task could not have been more straightforward. All they had to do was vote yes or no. That’s it.

Instead, they called ‘Time Out’ and kicked the can a little further down the road. It was not a particularly proud moment for the European Union. But what’s even worse, is the subterfuge that preceded the meetings; that’s what cast doubt on the character of the people running EU negotiations. Here’s the scoop: About 15 minutes before the confab began, Varoufakis was given a draft communique outlining the provisions of the proposed loan extension. He was pleasantly surprised to find that the document met all his requirements and, so, he was prepared to sign it. Unfortunately, the document was switched shortly before the negotiations began with one that backtracked on all the crucial points.

I’m not making this up. The freaking Eurogroup tried to pull the old switcheroo on Varoufakis to get him to sign something that was different than the original.

Once you know someone is dishonest, don’t work with them. You know, you absolutely know, that they will screw you over without hesitation every time they have both motive and opportunity.

Even if the Eurozone were a benefit to its members – and there is copious evidence, from Romania to Iceland, proving that it most definitely is not – the fact that the IMF-ECB-EU Commission triumvirate would try to play such a childishly stupid game with the fate of nations on the line should be sufficient to convince every citizen of every nation in Europe that both the EU and the Euro are disasters that cannot possibly function as advertised.

The thing is, a “YES” vote won’t save Greece, the Euro, or the European Union anyhow. It would be just one more futile kicking of an increasingly immobile can and extend the financial raping of the Greek people a little longer.

Hugo Recommendations: Best Editor

This is how I am voting in the Best Editor categories. Of course, I merely
offer this information regarding my individual ballot for no particular
reason at all, and the fact that I have done so should not be confused
in any way, shape, or form with a slate or a bloc vote, much less a
direct order by the Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil to his
388 Vile Faceless Minions or anyone else.

Best Editor, Short Form

  1. Vox Day
  2. Jennifer Broznek
  3. Bryan Thomas Schmidt
  4. Mike Resnick

Best Editor, Long Form

  1. Toni Weisskopf
  2. Anne Sowards
  3. Jim Minz
  4. Vox Day
  5. Sheila Gilbert             

Best Novel
Best Novella
Best Short Story
Best Fan Writer
Best Related Work 

Meanwhile, we are informed that No Award is an act of kindness.

Laura “Tegan” Gjovaag on July 4, 2015 at 7:13 am said:

“No Award” is a kindness.

This is an important point.

While the Puppies have been pushing the narrative that “No Award” is unjust somehow, a betrayal of all that is Hugo, unwise and self-destructive, in reality it is a useful tool, a friendly warning to potential readers, and hopefully a wake-up call to unprepared authors.

“No Award” is an act of kindness to both readers and authors.

This is good to know. I am kind.

Bail-ins are partial bank defaults

Or if you prefer, involuntary borrower-declared debt relief:

Greek banks are preparing contingency plans for a possible “bail-in” of depositors amid fears the country is heading for financial collapse, bankers and businesspeople with knowledge of the measures said on Friday. The plans, which call for a “haircut” of at least 30 per cent on deposits above €8,000, sketch out an increasingly likely scenario for at least one bank, the sources said.

Three things. First, as predicted, the bail-ins weren’t limited to Cyprus, and they won’t be limited to Greece. Second, notice that the amount of deposits immune to bail-ins has fallen from €100,000 to €8,000. Third, this is now entirely legal in most jurisdictions; banks around the world are preparing for just this scenario in your country, everywhere from Australia to the USA.

Remember, a deposit is just an unsecured loan to a bank. So, a bail-in is simply the bank unilaterally telling you that it is not going to pay back a percentage of the loan and will no longer be paying interest on the portion that it will not be paying back.

Why anyone would want to loan to such a borrower without collateral for the paltry amount of interest available, knowing that the borrower can decide at any time how much they want to pay you back (if they want to pay you back at all), is an interesting question to contemplate.

The SJW review of books

And they wonder why we so blithely ignore their idiotic, ideologically-driven opinions. An SJW “reviews” RIDING THE RED HORSE:

Disappointing and uneven collection
By Elisabeth Carey on June 12, 2015
Format: Kindle Edition
Theodore Beale (Vox Day) is nominated for Best Editor, Long Form, and also Best Editor, Short Form.

This collection is included in the Hugo Voters packet in support of Theodore Beale’s nomination for Best Editor, Short Form.

Unfortunately, it’s a very uneven collection. It includes the very good The Hot Equations, by Ken Burnside, and the very disappointing Turncoat by Steve Rzasa. There is, early on, a casual endorsement of the probable “necessity” of genocide on the grounds that Those People aren’t smart enough to modify their behavior. A point Beale’s fans will have difficulty with is that such inflammatory language makes it less likely that readers will take in the point the author was attempting to make. A better editor would have caught it and told the author to dispense with pointless provocation and just make his point.

If this is the best evidence Beale has to offer, he has no place on the ballot.

I don’t know about you, but I’m convinced. Then again, if one takes the opinion of actual mil-SF fans and science fiction readers into account, there can be very little doubt that if the Hugo Award for Best Editor, Short Form, was actually based on editorial merit, I would not only have a place on the ballot, but win the award on the basis of RIDING THE RED HORSE.

  • “The first great mil-SF anthology since Jerry Pournelle tapered off in the 90s.”
  • “This is a great collection of short stories. I’m not a huge fan of military sci-fi but I very much enjoyed this collection.”
  • “If you’ve been waiting for a new anthology in the spirit of Pournelle & Carr’s THERE WILL BE WAR series, stop waiting and buy this. Includes new and classic combat SF, nonfiction articles on warfare and science, and good introductions by Vox Day.”
  • “First science fiction anthology
    I’ve read and enjoyed since the Asimov days. Every SF story was fast
    moving and kept my interest including interest in the technology
    envisioned by the authors.”
  • “As an anthology of futuristic
    military-scifi, interspersed with essays ranging from an introduction to
    the 4th Generation of War to the advancement of laser technology and
    how it will shape the wars of our future, Riding the Red Horse really
    hits the spot for both entertainment and intrigue.”

Now, it is true, there are those who agreed with Elisabeth Carey and gave the anthology but a single star. Their opinions speak eloquently for themselves; these are the reviews in their entirety:

  • “What a piece of tripe. Exactly
    the kind of fiction that appeals to men who are insecure in their
    masculinity. My only regret is that one can’t rate this book any less
    than one star.”
  • “Bad”  

But what will be will be. It is of little import one way or the other. What is much more important is that Jerry Pournelle was sufficiently impressed with RIDING THE RED HORSE that he decided Castalia House was the right place to reprint and revive his excellent THERE WILL BE WAR anthology series. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s the only award that matters and the only vote that counts.

I should mention that RIDING THE RED HORSE Vol. 2 is shaping up to be even more formidable than the original anthology. Many of the Vol. 1 contributors are back with a vengeance, and the new contributors include Martin van Creveld, Larry Correia, David Van Dyke, and Sarah Salviander.

Ayn Rand foresaw World War T

Adam Hobbes explains why it’s necessary to resist the SJW attempt to control the he/she language:

“The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted
slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by precedent,
by implication, by erosion, by default, by dint of constant pressure on
one side and constant retreat on the other—until the day when they are
suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.”
– Ayn Rand

The public debut of “Caitlyn” Jenner represents a watershed moment
for American culture. Though most have not realized it, Jenner’s coming
out party constitutes a significant “trial balloon” on the part of the
progressive left and the media. It is an attempt to cash in on years of
carefully managed stories on transgender “discrimination,” sympathetic portrayals of transgender characters in entertainment, and the generally successful campaign of the gay rights movement and social justice activists.

The goal is simple: normalize transgenderism to such an extent that
any criticism of the concept or its practitioners will not be tolerated.
They must not be allowed to succeed. Whether the silent majority of
Americans realize it or not, the transgender issue represents the last
best opportunity to turn the tide in the culture wars. Make no mistake:
the progressives are winning.

Twenty years ago a person could openly
criticize homosexuality. Today, thanks to the Supreme Court, people who
do not enthusiastically endorse gay marriage are branded as bigots, disqualified from high-profile business positions, and generally dismissed as ignorant hicks whose views are outside of the scope of acceptable thought.

Tolerance is not a virtue. Tolerance is “the sin of Jeroboam”. Tolerance is the little compromise that leads gradually to intellectual obliteration.

Karma

It’s wise to always mind your tongue and be certain that you mean what you say. Fate sometimes has a cruel way of forcing one to confront one’s own words in unexpected ways:

“That young men succeed in suicide more often than girls isn’t really the point. Indeed, the more callous among us would say that it was quite nice for young men finally to find something that they’re better at than girls….

 “The last time I suggested that suicides should be left to get on with it, I received a small number of letters from people whose sons had killed themselves. All of them demanded an apology. I’d advise them this time to save their stamps because, you see, I don’t care. I don’t care because most nights of the week I still dream of my dad, who I saw waste away almost to nothing, eaten alive by the tumours that were his retirement gift for working with asbestos. Every day, as his legs went, as his sight went, my dad would declare that tomorrow he would be taking the dog out; he clung to life like a dog playing tug-of-war for the biggest, juiciest raw steak in the world.

“To ask me to feel sympathy with suicides after witnessing this is, I suggest, just as unfeeling and ignorant as my callousness must appear to you – like asking a starving African to sympathise with an anorexic. In a society still beset with the most vicious social deprivation and rampant cruelty to the very young, the very old and the very weak, the voluntary exits of a few hundred able-bodied young men each year are best dealt with as private tragedies rather than a public concern. Let them go.
– Julie Burchill, 16 October, 1999

This week writer Julie Burchill felt the full force of that hurt when her son, Jack, committed suicide aged just 29. Ms Burchill 55, announced the news on her Facebook page yesterday in an emotional tribute in which she blamed herself for failing him.
– 1 July 2015

It might be tempting to feel a sense of schadenfreude at Ms Burchill experiencing the full force of the pain that she derided and dismissed so cruelly in others. But it’s much better to learn from her example rather than repeat it.

Another SJW lie

As with the marriage parody, SJWs are using the public high ground to create a false picture of changing public views with regards to the Confederate flag.

Washington (CNN)American public opinion on the Confederate flag remains about where it was 15 years ago, with most describing the flag as a symbol of Southern pride more than one of racism, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. And questions about how far to go to remove references to the Confederacy from public life prompt broad racial divides.

The poll shows that 57% of Americans see the flag more as a symbol of Southern pride than as a symbol of racism, about the same as in 2000 when 59% said they viewed it as a symbol of pride.

In other words, nothing has substantially changed, but the government-media-corporate alliance has teamed up in order to sell their version of reality. Confederate flag backers can puncture this propaganda by following the lead of the pro-gun forces and destroying the careers of every politician who supported the attack on the flag, beginning with South Carolina governor Nikki Haley.

Of course, it should come as no surprise that the former Nimrata Nikki Randhawa would completely fail to understand Southern Pride. Along with Sen. Edward Kennedy, she is Exhibit A in the inability of second- and third-generation immigrants to understand the spirit of America, even though they were born inside its geographical boundaries, and even though they believe themselves to love and be loyal to America.

There Will Be FOUR

Coming very soon. If you are a newsletter subscriber, keep your eyes on your email this weekend for some offers you won’t want to miss. And we’re not only talking about the two new volumes of THERE WILL BE WAR either….