SC church shootings

Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen says the FBI will be involved in
the investigation of a shooting at a historic black church that killed
nine and is being called a hate crime.

Mullen said the FBI would aid the investigation while speaking at a
news conference that was also attended by FBI Special Agent in Charge
David A. Thomas.House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford says that among those killed at
Emanuel AME Church was the church’s pastor, state Sen. Clementa
Pinckney.

Authorities are still searching for the shooter, who’s described as a white male in his early 20

I wonder if it will still be called a hate crime if the shooter turns out to be a white atheist motivated by a hatred for Christianity or a Muslim bringing jihad to America? Then again, the fact that the shooter spared a woman and told her to “tell the world what happened” indicates that the police have additional information that has not been released to the public.

The reason I’m a little curious about the simple “white racist” theory is that as a general rule, most whites who hate blacks tend to prefer the gainfully employed, church-going blacks to the thugs and welfare queens, so these days, a church would seem to be a somewhat unusual target from that perspective.

Mailvox: how to teach evolution

Mindy asks how to teach evolution to homeschooled children:

I’m off to purchase materials at a homeschooling conference in couple days. I was wondering what your thoughts were on teaching evolution to grade school level students. I want to introduce a more formal science curriculum but all of the conventional materials are saturated in evolutionary timescales and theory. 

Personally, my thoughts on creationism are rather fluid.  I don’t know that the six days of creation should be taken literally though I don’t believe man evolved from any other animal.  I would like to give my kids a firm foundation in Bible based science before teaching the conventional theory but am not sure whether to use the literal fundamentalist version to start with. Normally, when teaching younger children, we do so from the position of having a definitive answer instead of a more or less open question and yet I don’t want to confuse my first grader with my waffling.  At some point they will need to be introduced to the conventional theory of evolution.

When would you do this and how? Any science curricula that is especially good for grade school kids? I look forward to some new ideas on this. I do so enjoy your home schooling threads.

Many parents prefer to keep their children in the dark concerning intellectual concepts with which they disagree. This is true across the political spectrum. I consider this to be a huge mistake.

If you have read RGD, then you will know that my description of Keynesian economics, which I consider to be utter bollocks, is nevertheless so complete and correct that people have described it as one of the better summaries of it that they have ever encountered. My belief is that if something is false, the best way to understand its falsity is to know it better than its advocates. So read the sources and read the current champions, then critique it.

And if you’re not capable of doing that, how do you know it is wrong?

As for the Theorum of Evolution by (probably) Natural Selection, Biased Mutation, Genetic Drift, and Gene Flow, or TE(p)NSBMGDaGF, I would recommend a child be 15 or 16 before studying it. Any younger and they won’t be able to identify the obvious flaws and will be tend to be inclined to simply accept whatever they are told, whether it is TENS, monetarist economics, or magic garden fairies.

Start with an abridged version of The Origin of the Species. Then read one or two of Richard Dawkins’s books; The Selfish Gene is much better than The Greatest Show on Earth because it is an explanation whereas the latter is an apology. That will ensure that the child is better-educated and more up-to-date on evolution than any graduate of the public or private schools.

Then introduce two or three of the critics. I can’t recommend one, because I’ve never actually read any of the various books by TENS critics as I have no need to bolster my own reasons for being skeptical of the theorum. But there are plenty out there and I’m sure the readers here can recommend a few of them.

The point is that there is never any need for those dedicated to the truth to shy away from falsehood or fear it. Hit it head on. Study it. Master it. And then you will be able to explain its weak points to others. That being said, I can see the need for an Evolution curriculum; if we can find a suitably credentialed skeptic, we will likely publish one.

¡Jeb!

No, gracias. I think we’ve had two too many Bushes as president already:

Jeb Bush, a scion of the most recognizable family in Republican politics who fashioned an image as a sober-minded conservative truth-teller while governor of Florida, is running for president.

Bush made his formal announcement Monday afternoon here in his adopted hometown during an appearance at Miami Dade College. His candidacy comes after a week-long European tour and months of intensive behind-the-scenes political maneuvering that erased long-standing doubts about his White House ambitions.

Arguing that the country is on “a very bad course,” Bush told supporters in Miami that the nation had a decision to make.

“The question for me is what am I going to do about it,” he said Monday afternoon. “And I’ve decided: I’m a candidate for president of the United States of America.”

 ¡Mierda! Jeb Bush is not a candidate for president of the United States of America, he is running for the presidency of the United Nations of America and Mexico. I would vote for Michelle Obama, Donald Trump, Kim Kardashian, or the corpse of Josef Stalin before I would vote for a pan-NorteAmericanist like Jeb Bush.

And I’m the great-grandson of a Mexican revolutionary.

Updates

Since many of you have been asking, no, no one has received any response from anyone at Tor Books or Macmillan. We know at least some of the emails have been read by the recipients. Be patient, we have to give Macmillan time to investigate the situation and discover for themselves just how dysfunctional and unprofessional their U.S. subsidiary is. Remember that Julie Crisp, Editorial Director of Tor UK, left the company “following a review of the
company’s science fiction and fantasy publishing” in May, and her public behavior was unobjectionable in comparison with that of Irene Gallo, Moshe Feder, and Patrick Nielsen Hayden. 

Also, Jagi has asked that when you send her your pictures of your Tor books, please tell her what state or country you are from. She’s received them from 65 people to date.

And finally, TV invites those interested to a new Facebook group.

I would like to direct you and your commenters to a Facebook group I have started. There is a profound dearth of Facebook groups currently who support true open debate on the topic of “social justice” devoid of deletion happy moderators, and I intend to make this one the destination of choice among those who share the sentiments of the Ilk.

Back to the drachma

This may be one of the few times I will ever actively endorse the radical wing of a hard left party, but Syriza’s radicals are absolutely doing the right thing with regards to the EU and the Euro:

The radical wing of Greece’s Syriza party is to table plans over coming days for an Icelandic-style default and a nationalisation of the Greek banking system, deeming it pointless to continue talks with Europe’s creditor powers. Syriza sources say measures being drafted include capital controls and the establishment of a sovereign central bank able to stand behind a new financial system. While some form of dual currency might be possible in theory, such a structure would be incompatible with euro membership and would imply a rapid return to the drachma.

The confidential plans were circulating over the weekend and have the backing of 30 MPs from the Aristeri Platforma or ‘Left Platform’, as well as other hard-line groupings in Syriza’s spectrum. It is understood that the nationalist ANEL party in the ruling coalition is also willing to force a rupture with creditors, if need be.

“This goes well beyond the Left Platform. We are talking serious numbers,” said one Syriza MP involved in the draft. We are all horrified by the idea of surrender, and we will not allow ourselves to be throttled to death by European monetary union,” he told the Telegraph.

Syriza’s Left Platform has studied the Icelandic model, extolled as a success story by the International Monetary Fund itself.

“The Greek banks must be nationalised immediately, along with the creation of a bad bank. There may have to be some restrictions on cash withdrawals,” said one Syriza MP.  “The banks will go ape-shit of course. We are aware that there will be a lot of lawsuits but at the end of the day we are a sovereign power,” he said.

Syriza has a strong ideological motive to strike at the financial elites. They view the banks as the nerve centre of an entrenched oligarchy that has run the country for more than half a century as a family business. Forcing these institutions into bankruptcy provides cover for a socio-political purge, best understood as a revolution.

Without national sovereignty, absolutely no other political position or policy matters. Golden Dawn, ANEL, and the other Greek parties should support the Syriza radicals in this. As should nationalists in Spain and Italy. I would love to see Italy back on the lira. Heck, I still have some.

The banks remind me a little of the SJWs in science fiction.

The creditors argue that ‘Grexit’ would be suicidal for Greece. They have been negotiating on the assumption that Syriza must be bluffing, and will ultimately capitulate. Little thought has gone into possibility that key figures in Athens may be thinking along entirely different lines. 

Your Tor books

George Rape Rape Martin is on a roll. In addition to crying about his wounds, he has mocked Tor Books author Jagi Lamplighter’s attempt to show Tor Books that it is their longtime customers who are being attacked by their senior employees and attempted to belittle the number of people wanting to see Irene Gallo held responsible for her public attacks on Tor books, Tor authors, and Tor customers.

Oh, wow. How many pictures there? Twenty? “Naked with a hat” day gets a hundred times as many….

You know, one thing I have learned about internet wars is that the mobs are seldom really as big as they appear. I wonder about this “heap-load” of readers. How big a heap? How many? When all is said and done, I think more readers will be rallying to the defense of Tor against the Puppy attacks than are presently attacking the company and calling for boycotts. Time will tell, I guess….

I have been doing what I can here to try and keep things civil and find
some common ground with the Sads, at least — I have nothing but
contempt for the Rabids — but it is becoming apparent that this is a
losing cause.

I just sent Jagi the picture of my 53 books. Call RapeSquared’s bluff and send her yours at lampwrightATgmail.com. You’re going to need them for Friday anyhow.

Anyhow, I have no sympathy for the fat bastard. Not after they killed Myranda in the Season Five finale and ruined the only true love story on the show.

Before you can save civilization

You must first save yourself and help your fellow men do the same:

Benedict believed that idleness was the enemy of the soul. For the 21 st century layman, there have never been more opportunities for idleness. How many men do we know who constantly read articles on sites like Return of Kings but never actually do anything with what they’ve learned? How many of our brothers spend their free time drinking to excess, eating Doritos, playing video games, and generally wasting their lives away?

Aristotle, and later Saint Thomas Aquinas, described virtue as good habits. The virtuous man becomes that way by repeatedly doing good things. Those of us who have no plans to be monks can still derive much benefit from following a similar rule. Develop a set time for going to the gym, or reading good books, or engaging in prayer or meditation.

The idea behind monastic life is it is easier to live a disciplined life when we have friends who share the same goals and avoid those who do not. We can offer support to one another when we inevitably experience setbacks and failures. That is one of the great lessons offered by the Rule: be patient with yourself and others as you work toward your goals. Rome wasn’t built or destroyed in a day.

It’s worth noting that Benedict had no intention of saving Western civilization from itself.

Not the sort of thing one would normally expect to see on Return of Kings. It looks as if Roosh is indeed serious about exploring spirituality and eucivicism. And Beefy is right, too many conservatives are not only in love with the idea of noble defeat, but expect instant victory in a war without end.

We DON’T care

RapeSquared is still crying about the Hugo Awards:

What I saying is that you and your Puppies have dealt a terrible wound to a community that was very special to many of us. You’ve hurt people, and you go on hurting people, and you don’t seem to care… about the Hugos, about worldcon, about fandom, about any of it.

Tell it to the VFM. We don’t seem to care? That hardly does our perspective justice. Seriously, what part of “we don’t care” is hard to understand? We don’t belong to your creepy rape-fetish kiddy-diddling community and we never wanted to belong to it. We just like reading good science fiction stories and your little community of freaks is standing squarely in the way of that these days. We’re not trying to destroy it, we’d just as soon go back to not really being aware that it existed, but we certainly don’t care if we happen to inadvertently bulldoze the freakshow in pursuit of our objectives.

If you want to blame someone for the current situation, GRRM, you should blame Patrick Nielsen Hayden. If he and the Toad of Tor hadn’t launched their unprovoked public attacks on me, if they had simply left a nationally syndicated opinion columnist alone to do his job writing opinion columns, and if the toadies and torlings hadn’t followed their lead and enthusiastically piled on, then I would have happily continued to ignore your very special collection of child molesters, shambling shoggoths, gamma males, and bearded weirdos of various sexes. And if you are foolish enough to continue attacking us for doing nothing more than defending ourselves and expressing our opinions, then we will certainly begin to care about your very special community.

But I don’t think you’re going to like it if we do.

On a tangential note, how can you not want to read John C. Wright’s Hugo-nominated TRANSHUMAN AND SUBHUMAN: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth with an unsolicited endorsement like this?

Then there were the “Transhuman and Subhuman” essays. Admittedly, they aren’t stories, but in that case, being “hit over the head” doesn’t properly describe the experience. Rather, reading the author’s extremely non-mainstream views felt like being at ground zero of a nuclear explosion after being dosed with anthrax and sprayed with nerve gas.

And here I thought science fiction was all about “dangerous visions” and unconventional thinking outside the mainstream. But needless to say, the last sentence is absolutely going on the back of the hardcover. So, what is your favorite essay from the collection? Mine is “The Big Three of Science Fiction”, with “John C. Wright’s Patented One-Session Lesson in the Mechanics of Fiction” being a close second.

And speaking of a desire for good stories, it’s good to learn that Terry Pratchett’s daughter has decided to prevent the further tarnishing of her father’s literary legacy:

Terry Pratchett’s daughter has said she does not intend to write any Discworld novels, or give “anyone else permission to do so”. The legendary fantasy writer died in March this year at the age of 66. He had been suffering from Alzheimer’s.

Pratchett finished writing the 41st book of his hugely popular Discworld series in the summer of 2014: The Shepherd’s Crown will be released in the UK in August by Doubleday Children’s. Pratchett’s daughter Rhianna released a picture of the cover for The Shepherd’s Crown on Twitter, and in response to a fan who asked if it was the “final final” book by her father, confirmed that it would be.

She later added: “To reiterate – No I don’t intend on writing more Discworld novels, or giving anyone else permission to do so. They are sacred to dad.”

In retrospect, I wish Pratchett had stopped with Making Money. The books that followed were noticeably inferior, although it wasn’t until Snuff that it became obvious that Pratchett simply wasn’t able to write anymore. It would be nice of The Shepherd’s Crown turns out to be one last hurrah for Discworld, but I’m not optimistic.

Mailvox: the sorry state of SF

I thought this email from RC was interesting, as it demonstrates how Gresham’s Law applies to science fiction, with Pink SF tending to drive out Blue. Hey, even if Tor Books can’t be bothered to read your emails, at least I do:

I am writing to you today regarding the lack of professionalism of certain staff at Tor books.  I know others have contacted you regarding the contempt in which some staffers hold certain authors and a large part of your customer base.  What I wish to address is the editors’ contempt for the genre itself, and their incompetence at one of the essential tasks of producing SCIENCE fiction: getting the science right.  I am certain these are related.  The upshot is that Tor is printing a lot of stuff which ticks all the fashionable social and political check-boxes, but stinks on ice as SF.

An egregious example which I encountered recently is in the first of the Ender’s Game prequels, Earth Unaware.  There are a host of glaring faults in the orbital mechanics among other things, but they are too involved to detail in a short letter.  I will instead quote a concise example from page 261:

“The ship scoops up hydrogen atoms, which at near-lightspeed would be gamma radiation, then the rockets shoot this gamma plasma out the back for thrust.”

There is no such thing as a “gamma plasma”.  Gamma rays are photons, not atoms or parts of atoms.  Plasmas are a mixture of ionized matter and free electrons.  A high-energy proton is not a gamma ray; many cosmic rays are high-energy protons, but that does not make this phrase remotely acceptable in a science fiction book.  A well-read middle school science geek could have caught this error; I should know, I was one.

Shortly after this comes another one (p. 269):

“If it’s sucking up hydrogen atoms at near-lightspeed and taking in all this radiation….”

This is part of a plotline that plays for weeks, between a mining ship plying the Kuiper belt and Earth.  The Kuiper belt extends from about 30 astronomical units to 55 AU from the Sun (earth orbits at 1 AU).  Light travels 1 AU in roughly 500 seconds, so an object travelling at “near-lightspeed” would cover 55 AU in not much more than 27,500 seconds; on the order of 8 hours.  Even if the initial speed of the object is reduced to 25% of c and it decelerates linearly, the transit time is less than 3 days.  The whole plotline is nonsense because the author (Johnston, I’m sure; Card does better work) couldn’t be bothered to read a basic science book.  This is lousy even for fan-fiction.  Why did this ever make it to print?  More to the point, why do the editors have such contempt for the genre and its fans as to allow it, to the point of commissioning a lightweight like Johnston to play in Card’s universe in the first place?

I could not but help but notice that Earth Unaware got all the “we are the world”, social justice, anti-corporate messages lined up front and center.  The priorities are literally that obvious.  That’s why I’ve not bothered to read the other two prequels.  I don’t waste my time on dreck. I spotted this trend quite some time ago, but it was only after the highly-publicized outbursts of certain senior Tor staff that I realized that it wasn’t due to the times, but was a matter of policy.

Well, we all make mistakes from time to time, authors and editors alike (cough, tunnel), but it is pretty egregious to combine SJW message fiction with a major plot foul-up of the sort one RC describes. I haven’t read the book, so I can’t testify to the accuracy of his critique, but it does sound like a rather impressive howler.

As for the total number of emails sent, based on the CC’s Peter and I received, around 2,300 emails were sent by 765 different people that we know of. And there were others being sent as well, although we can’t possibly know how many. Regardless, I expect that enough were sent to make it clear to Macmillan that the excuses given by the senior Tor employees for the emails that they previously received was a false one.

Those senior employees have publicly attacked Tor-published authors, Tor published-works, and Tor customers. They have needlessly antagonized tens of thousands of book-buyers in pursuit of their ideological agenda. They’ve now been caught lying to their superiors about the extent of the consequences of their unprofessional behavior and violations of the Macmillan code of conduct. And that is why, at this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if Macmillan cleans house even more thoroughly than people have been demanding. I certainly would if I were in their shoes.

Then again, for all we know the Macmillan executives are fanatic SJWs whose instinct will be to dig in and defend the actions of Irene Gallo, Moshe Feder, and Patrick Nielsen Hayden. If that’s the case, Peter Grant has made it clear that the boycott, which for no particular reason at all may be christened TORDROP, will begin at noon on Friday, June 19th. And since no one has received any sort of response at all from Macmillan or Tom Doherty as yet, this is a good time to take a picture of your books published by Tor Books and tally up the total of the books and ebooks you have purchased from them. The truth is that we’re not asking for much, only that the senior employees at Tor Books be held to the same professional standard expected of a retail sales clerk or a fry cook at McDonalds.

SJWs respond

Chris S on June 15, 2015 at 6:42 am said:

I’ve emailed the poor sods over at Tor. Spoiler: it’s probably not what VD wanted me to say. I did ask them to reconsider their relationship with JCW when the current contract ends.

 [18 minutes later, he added this.]
I did say Irene Gallo’s comments were intemperate, and the use of “neo-nazi” wasn’t justified. It was also in a comment to a Facebook post. But JCW’s continuous spewing of homophobia and misogyny is utterly beyond the pale. It’s not just an offhand comment, it is continuous, on his blog, in his writing, and in his interactions with, well, just about anyone. He also hasn’t apologized for anything he said.

The two are not remotely comparable, in my mind.

In other words, he believes that Tor Books should police its various authors’ opinions, but should not hold its employees responsible for direct attacks on the quality of its own books and on the character of its customers. Fascinating.

And George Rape Rape Martin is concerned, deeply concerned, about the wounds that are being inflicted in this, the most savage civil war in the history of science fiction. RapeSquared was so upset this morning that it put him off writing his daily rape scene, which was a pity as he had a real corker in mind involving Sansa Stark, Wun Wun the giant, four dire wolves, a Wildling wight, and Hodor being warged by Bran Stark.

By now, everyone has bruises. And I fear we will all have more by the time this is done. Did you really think fandom was going to lie back and thank you for gaming the Hugo awards and pissing on fifty years of tradition?

A writer of my acquaintance, older and wiser than myself, has told me that this is worst fight he has ever seen, the nastiest and most divisive war in the long history of our field. Worse than the Exclusion Act. Worse than the Cosmic Circle crap. Worse than the Breendoggle, than the Old Wave/ New Wave struggle, than the competing Vietnam War ads. The wounds will take a long time healing… if indeed they ever heal.

Bruises? Healing? I expect a set of twelve silvered SJW skulls for my dinner table by the time this is over. My dear George, I have had Patrick Nielsen Hayden and the Toad of Tor taking shots at me for 10 years now. I put up with moronic SJWs telling lies about me for years before I finally bothered to do something about it. You think this is war? We’ve barely finished warming up. It’s only been three months since the Hugo shortlist was announced. It will be another 9 years and 9 months of us taking shots at you before we can even begin to consider calling it even.

That reminds me, I still haven’t seen a single person apologize for falsely accusing me of gaming the awards last year. I’m not holding my breath on that one.

Finally, Tintinaus demonstrates why the SJWs keep miscalculating in such an amusingly inept manner. I can’t decide if they are simply innumerate or if their devotion to The Narrative renders basic mathematics inoperative in the event of a contradiction.

From memory Beale said the reason why he was so late in reading TBP was publishers had stopped sending him review copies. He then went on to point out since his blog gets more traffic than Scalzi’s they were cutting their own throats. Of course he used his site figures for April where most of the traffic was people going to check out his slate post after the nominations announcement.

Most of the traffic? Now it’s true, there was a nice traffic increase in April, from 1,583,104 in March to 1,907,664. It slipped back a bit to 1,737,320 in May, and should be right around there again in June. Meanwhile, Scalzi’s best-ever traffic month was 1,027,644 in May 2012, thanks to numerous sites linking his “Easiest Difficulty Setting” post. I’ve averaged more monthly traffic than Scalzi ever had for 26 straight months now. It’s not even close.

I find it amusing that the SJWs keep looking at #Gamergate, or bot-nets, or anything besides what Occam’s Razor dictates. But their problem is that it’s not just me that they’re facing, it’s the Dread Ilk, the Ilk, the Sad Puppies, the Rabid Puppies, and the Evil Legion of Evil. And, most terrible of all, the Vile Faceless Minions.