“When you go in the lion’s den, you don’t tippy toe in. You carry a spear, you go in screaming like a banshee, you kick whatever doors in, and say, ‘Where’s the son of a bitch!’ If you go in any other way you’re gonna lose.”
– Brian Billick
Mailvox: on flaming swords
Kickass wonders about a well-known image:
Could I get an explanation on the flaming sword picture? I thought it was a joke but googled it.
I’ve explained this before, but for those who didn’t know, this picture was one of many from a Star Tribune photoshoot for an article one of its writers was doing about my Eternal Warriors novels. He moved onto one of the big New York papers before he’d finished the piece, if I recall correctly, so it never ran, but the photographer liked them so much that he emailed a few of them to me.
I still remember laughing when he called me up after the interview with the writer and asked if “my characters, like, did anything interesting?” I mean, what was I supposed to say, no, they all sit around and discuss their boring lives? He got really excited when I mentioned that there were these angels and they got in big battles with flaming swords, until he realized that he was, after all, dealing with a writer. Which led to his next question: “You’re not, like, fat or anything, are you?” When I reassured him that I was not the pudgy little novelist he was expecting, he asked me to come down to the Star Tribune building in Minneapolis the next week and bring a sword if I happened to have one.
I didn’t, but there was one at the house at which I was staying – we’d already moved to Europe at this point – which led to the funniest part of the whole thing. It was winter, so it was cold, but it was also a bright sunny day, which led to my walking into the Star Tribune reception wearing a long black overcoat, black gloves, black shades, with a shaved head and carrying a katana. The two female receptionists freaked out and called security, at which point I explained the situation and the guards had a good laugh.
We didn’t end up using the katana, however, as the photographer obtained a few swords from a nearby theatre as well as some flame-paste, so he just picked out a rather Conanesque sword, gave it a quick coat of paste, then set it on fire while I held it. It was a little trickier than it looked because the burning paste tended to drip off, so I had to try to hold still for the photo while dodging the dripping flames at the same time. It was more fun than the usual photo shoot and I shared the photographer’s disappointment that the piece never ran. The reaction to the photo, however mockingly it may be intended, only tends to show that his instincts were correct as it made for a much more interesting author’s photo than most.
Better Ayn Rand than Asimov
I find this criticism of Paul Ryan by Paul Krugman to be richly ironic, coming as it does from a man whose economic philosophy is based on an imaginary science called “psychohistory”:
So far, most of the discussion of Paul Ryan, the presumptive Republican nominee for vice president, has focused on his budget proposals. But Mr. Ryan is a man of many ideas, which would ordinarily be a good thing. In his case, however, most of those ideas appear to come from works of fiction, specifically Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged.”
For those who somehow missed it when growing up, “Atlas Shrugged” is a fantasy in which the world’s productive people — the “job creators,” if you like — withdraw their services from an ungrateful society. The novel’s centerpiece is a 64-page speech by John Galt, the angry elite’s ringleader; even Friedrich Hayek admitted that he never made it through that part. Yet the book is a perennial favorite among adolescent boys. Most boys eventually outgrow it. Some, however, remain devotees for life.
If Ryan wants to silence Krugman’s attempts to attack him in this vein, he need merely point out that Atlas Shrugged is considerably more mature fiction than Foundation, the adolescent science fiction novel that Paul Krugman never outgrew.
Scratching back
The good professor always sends a lot of traffic to Amazon when he links my books, so it only seems fair to help him out in return, especially when it costs nothing to nobody. Download his PDF on the Obamacare decision – no registration or cost required – and apparently he’ll get to count some kind of academic coup or something. It actually makes for pretty interesting reading, and it’s only 21 pages, but more importantly, downloading it will make some leftist professor whose paper on 19th Century Transgender Law in the Third Ruritanian Republic gets bumped down a notch cry.
It’s moderately funny too. Consider the following quote: “This has led some commentators to suggest that Roberts’ holding in Sebelius was, like Marshall’s opinion in Marbury v. Madison, a sort of Trojan horse, smuggling in a victory over an important legal principle while shrouding that victory behind a win on the general issue for the other side. There are two problems with this conception: One is with the understanding of Marbury that it embodies, and the other is with the understanding of NFIB that it embodies.”
Translation: “No, you idiot Republicans, it’s exactly what it looked like. Roberts stabbed you in the back, so quit pretending you liked it.”
Another award
I’ll have to figure out where to put this one between all the soccer trophies and the gilded statue of a little boy in a wheelchair I won for my artistic cruelty. The Right Wing News pronounces judgment, which is of course entirely scientific, dispositive and not to be doubted in any way:
The 7 Best Pure Writers On Conservative Blogs
Vox Popoli: Intellectual, but raw — and always politically incorrect. It’s fun to see what Vox is going to say next.
Is it fun? I will admit that I’m not infrequently surprised and occasionally even a little appalled myself. Evolution was one thing, but how on Earth did I end up a free trade skeptic? I suppose I merely follow where the evidence, the logic, and most importantly, the potential for momentary self-amusement happen to lead.
Atheists and Daddy issues
Behold science in action. We’ll begin with the well-known observation that many atheists have serious problems with their fathers. To this, we add the fact that scientists at Boston University, the University of British Columbia, and UC Davis have all reported evidence supporting my original hypothesis that there is a connection between atheism and higher than normal Asperger’s Quotients, as well as this new study, which has the potential to explain the reason for that connection.
Older men are more likely than young ones to father a child who develops autism or schizophrenia, because of random mutations that become more numerous with advancing paternal age, scientists reported on Wednesday, in the first study to quantify the effect as it builds each year. The age of mothers had no bearing on the risk for these disorders, the study found….
The overall risk to a man in his 40s or older is in the range of 2 percent, at most, and there are other contributing biological factors that are entirely unknown.
My random thought of the day is that older fathers not only increase the number of random mutations, but also tend to behave differently than younger fathers. Certainly everyone who has multiple children knows that the youngest is brought up somewhat differently than the eldest, and at least part of this may have to do with the increased age of the father rather than “been there done that” syndrome. This means that the children of older fathers are likely to experience a double-whammy of Nature and Nurture teaming up against them with regards to the probability of their turning out neurotypical.
This all leads to my hypothesis that the reason atheists are less likely to be neurotypical and less likely to believe in the existence of gods and the supernatural is because their fathers are, on average, older. This hypothetical causal connection between the age of the father and the atheism of the child is interesting in that it would have the potential to explain both the relatively recent increase in the number of atheists as well as the reason Europe is more atheist than the United States and other religious countries.
The testable prediction generated by this hypothesis is that there will be a statistically significant difference in the average/median age of fathers of atheists and the rest of the population. The average age of the atheist’s fathers should be older than the norm, while due to their much greater numbers, the average age of religious individual’s fathers will very closely approximate it. Unfortunately, the USA doesn’t track the age of fathers, only first-time fathers, but Australia does.
1. The average age of a first-time dad in the U.S. was 29.65 in 2010, considerably younger than a Western European equivalent of 32.51 (based on the average of UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Spain only).
2. Between 1988 and 2008 the median age of married fathers increased by almost three years, from 31.0 to 34.1 years, while the median age of unmarried fathers who acknowledged the birth of their child also increased, from 27.0 years to 29.8 years. In 2008 the median age of all fathers was 33.1 years. [This indicates that the median age of all fathers in Australia was 30 in 1988.]
So, for the time being, we’ll use 30 as our approximate average age. And like we did before, let’s take an informal poll here to see if the average age of fathers of the atheists here is, in fact, above 30. Just indicate if you are atheist, agnostic, or religious, and your father’s age when you were born. Here are some examples:
Vox Day: religious-25
Richard Dawkins: atheist-26
Christopher Hitchens: atheist-40
Daniel Dennett: atheist-32
Bertrand Russell: atheist-30
John Russell: atheist-50
Skatje Myers: atheist-32
Friedrich Nietzsche: atheist-31
H.G. Wells: atheist-38
Scott Atran: atheist-26
So the average age of the father of the New Atheists is 32.7. So far so good. Anyone know how old Sam Harris’s or PZ Myers’s fathers were when they were born?
True sporting equality
Louisa Thomas proposes sexism in the name of sports equality:
Because Augusta is a golf course, and because it hosts the Masters, the announcement that the club was taking women was treated as a sports story. It’s actually a business story, and if it says something about women in American culture, then it says something about the rise of women in finance and politics.
For the story to be about women in sports, the debate isn’t about whether Darla Moore and Condi Rice should be able to wear green jackets. It’s whether Stacy Lewis, the top American on the LPGA tour (and the second-ranked woman in the world), should have a chance to compete for one.
Opening up the Masters to female players would be a hell of a lot more controversial than opening up Augusta to female members. But it wouldn’t be impossible. Give women their own leader board, and give them their own tees — but don’t give them their own tournament. Mix the groups in with the men.
I have a much better idea. Announce that women will be permitted to play in the PGA as soon as men will be permitted to play in the LPGA. No different tees, no different rules, just complete equality regardless of sex.
Anything less would be sexist and therefore unacceptable.
A strange trip to Tampa
So we’re told Joe Biden is heading to Tampa during the Republican National Convention… I wonder what sort of kabuki show starring the bumbling Vice-President is in store. How desperate are the Democratic elders to get someone else, anyone else, on the ticket? Is it just a feeble attempt to steal the media limelight or is there something darker in the works?
I was at RNC-New Orleans in 1988, as my parents were delegates. At one point, due to the black suit and shades I was wearing, I was drafted to help three bodyguards hold the doors at a Minnesota Senator’s cocktail party against some literally filthy Democratic protesters who were trying to get in. These things get a little messier on the ground than they usually appear on TV. The parties are surpassingly excellent, though.
Rotten to the core
In case you are wondering, not only is Apple an intrinsically evil, technofascist company, but the Apple Geniuses are even bigger tools that you likely imagined:
It was bad, and it wasn’t just a bunch of young punks working the system; the corruption rained down from above and pooled deep at the bottom.
Jake and Ronald both spoke with smiles and contempt about their former boss-of-bosses, a regional manager from Apple corporate who they allege ran the store like it was her own personal playground. Jake says the rest of the gang wasn’t much better. “It bends my brain to know that, statistically speaking, it’s harder to get a job at the Apple Store than it is to get into some Ivy League schools,” he says. “Yet somehow they’re staffed by some of the most inept people this side of mastering the ability to speak.”
I liked Apple a lot better back in the //e days.
Obama’s murderous legacy
Even black left-liberals are troubled by what they realize is likely the chief legacy of Barack Obama’s term of misrule:
Let us grant that the execution of Anwar al-Awlaki, said to be the mastermind behind the foiled underwear bomb plot, should not much trouble us. But surely the killing of his 16-year-old American-born son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, and the secrecy around both acts, should.
I like to think that the junior Awlaki’s (reportedly accidental) death weighs heavy on the president’s conscience. In fact that weight does nothing to change the net result — from this point forward the presidency means the right to unilaterally declare American citizens to be American enemies, and then kill them.
It seems America’s liberals and conservatives – both of whom are largely misnamed – share a common inability to grasp the obvious consequences of the actions of the politicians they support. Ta-Nehesi Coates is a rare exception to this, as he clearly sees how the precedent set by the Obama administration can easily be used against them.
The “creeper” debacle was usefully informative in this regard. John Scalzi and his fans illustrated they simply could not recognize that the ability to socially ostracize a “creep” necessarily entails the ability to ostracize any other behavior-based group, and in most cases, any identity-based group as well. In precisely the same manner, most Democrats and many Republicans presently fail to grasp that the ability to legally assassinate a Muslim who is an American citizen on the sole basis of being a President-declared enemy necessarily entails the ability to legally assassinate any American citizen, for any reason, without oversight.
No doubt everyone will belatedly begin to realize this should a future president begin exercising his power to legally assassinate SWPLs. Or church-goers. Or Jews.
This isn’t a Democrat-Republican issue, it is a totalitarian-libertarian one. Coates is astute enough to understand that even if Obama is extremely unlikely to decide to assassinate him, he might not be so fortunate with the next president. Or the one after that. The murderous precedent has been set, and it is the imperial power of the presidency to unilaterally declare death sentences that will be the chief legacy of Barack Obama.