Tag: media

Game of Thrones Season 4 finale

In addition to streamlining the story, Messrs. Benioff and Weiss appear to have a better grip on where A Song of Ice and Fire is going than Mr. Martin does himself. Not that I appreciated all their innovations; while apparently aborting Brienne of Tarth’s tedious wandering is a true mercy, it was just silly to see her defeating the Hound, not once, but twice. But at least a) she is a physical freak, and b) they made it look like a close-run thing, so it wasn’t too ridiculously Pink in these latter and oft very silly days.

I was wondering what on Earth Stannis Baratheon was doing NORTH of the Wall. Why does Mance need a tunnel to go south if Stannis doesn’t need it to go south? Ships, one presumes, but this was not actually explained that I noticed. And how did Stannis’s tiny force, even augmented by Iron Bank financing, so easily demolish the 100,000 strong army of the Wildings?

Despite these questions, it promises to avoid the interminable Stannis in the Snow chapters that so dragged down the latter books. And Benioff and Weiss have wisely kept the Mereen elements to a bare minimum, retaining only the emotionally powerful aspects of the Danaerys storyline – losing Ser Jorat and having to chain her dragons – rather than waste time on bureaucratic and romantic matters.

Tyrion’s escape seemed rushed. The murder of Shay was more like an accident than a betrayal punished, and it seemed odd that Tywin didn’t simply point out that he sent Jaime and Tyrion’s escape was all his doing. But Tyrion redeemed the whole scene with his final, hissed “I have always been your son”. One won’t often see two better actors facing off than in that last father-son Lannister showdown.

I also liked that Benioff and Weiss clearly grasp how boring the Bran storyline is. Short, action-packed, and full of skeletons erupting from the snow, that was definitely a great way to go. Burying Bran under a tree and leaving him there to vegetate for the rest of the show strikes me as an excellent idea.

All in all, I am considerably more optimistic about Season Five than I am about The Winds of Winter, although I would very much like to be proven wrong and to see Mr. Martin regain his fastball.

Don’t mess with an old pro

It may surprise some to hear it, but my primary influence as a columnist was probably George Will. Mostly due to his ability to deliver methodical bitchslappings of the sort he provides to a few senatorial critics. The old guy still has it:

I have received your letter of June 12, and I am puzzled. You say my statistics “fly in the face of everything we know about this issue.” You do not mention which statistics, but those I used come from the Obama administration, and from simple arithmetic involving publicly available reports on campus sexual assaults.

The administration asserts that only 12 percent of college sexual assaults are reported. Note well: I did not question this statistic. Rather, I used it.

I cited one of the calculations based on it that Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute has performed {link}. So, I think your complaint is with the conclusion that arithmetic dictates, based on the administration’s statistic. The inescapable conclusion is that another administration statistic that one in five women is sexually assaulted while in college is insupportable and might call for tempering your rhetoric about “the scourge of sexual assault.”

As for what you call my “ancient beliefs,” which you think derive from an “antiquated” and “counterintuitive” culture, allow me to tell you something really counterintuitive: I think I take sexual assault much more seriously than you do. Which is why I worry about definitions of that category of crime that might, by their breadth, tend to trivialize it. And why I think sexual assault is a felony that should be dealt with by the criminal justice system, and not be adjudicated by improvised campus processes.

If there was one thing I learned from Will, it was this: always check their numbers. Con artists always get the math wrong.

Nicholas Kristof and the Butterfield Effect

Michael Graham defines the Butterfield Effect:

It’s what happens when someone on the Left makes a statement that is laughably ludicrous on its face, yet it reveals what the speaker truly believes — no matter how dumb.

“The Butterfield Effect” is named in honor of ace New York Times crime reporter Fox Butterfield, the intrepid analyst responsible for such brilliantly headlined stories as “More Inmates, Despite Drop In Crime,” and “Number in Prison Grows Despite Crime Reduction,” not to mention the poetic 1997 header, “Crime Keeps on Falling, but Prisons Keep on Filling.”

Mr. Butterfield is truly perplexed at what he calls the “paradox” of more criminals in prison coinciding with less crime in neighborhoods. An observation that might appear obvious to an 8th grader (crooks + jail = fewer crimes) is simply beyond his grasp. Butterfield of the Times is the poster boy for the greatest conundrum facing the American Left today: How do you explain to people who just don’t get it that the problem is they just don’t get it?

 Nicholas Kristof is my favorite exemplar of this effect. Previously there was his brilliant idea to combat Boko Haram with redoubled efforts to educate Nigerian girls. And look at his column today, in which he affects to be puzzled why Aung San Suu Kyi isn’t standing up for the rights of Myanmar’s Muslims to set up madrassas all over the country and indiscriminately murder Buddhists.

  1. Aung San Suu Kyi should be one of the heroes of modern times. Instead, as her country imposes on the Rohingya Muslim minority an apartheid that would have made white supremacists in South Africa blush, she bites her tongue. It seems as though she aspires to become president of Myanmar, and speaking up for a reviled minority could be fatal to her prospects.
  2. In the absence of schools, Wahhabi madrassas are popping up ominously in closed camps.
  3. “She supports Muslims,” U Pan Tha, a 66-year-old Buddhist, told me,
    bitterly. His home was burned by Muslims in 2012 clashes, and he now
    lives in a camp for displaced people. He voted for Aung San Suu Kyi’s
    party in 1990, but he says he won’t in the elections next year. “We will
    choose the military government over Suu Kyi,” he said.

It’s an apt reference to South Africa; it would appear Suu Kyi has learned from de Klerk’s mistakes. Kristof doesn’t seem to realize that once there are enough Muslims in the USA, history suggests they will begin behaving the same way they do in Myanmar, in India, in the Philippines, in China, in the former Soviet Union, and in the Middle East. After a few schools or churches or synagogues are attacked, what the American people’s response will likely make Myanmar’s patient strangulation of the Rohingya look moderate in comparison.

There will be a second and larger scale Reconquista across the West sooner or later. It’s that or Sharia. The sooner it takes place, the less violent it will be.

Another whack of the Tetsubo

I’m beginning to get the impression that Larry is underwhelmed by the call to repentance, recantation, and self-abasement: 

Secondly, and this is going to be much more damaging for him longterm, he allowed himself to become very closely associated to Vox Day in the process. Ultimately people do judge others by their associations, and both Larry Correia and John C Wright have made very public declarations of support for Day, that I fear both will deeply regret in the long run.

One of the tactics I’ve seen them take is conflating my views with those of Vox Day. It doesn’t matter that I’ve disagreed with the man, and I’ve debated with him several times, but they sure love linking me to Vox. See, unlike me, they can actually find a couple of comments from him that they can manage to spin up some outrage over, and everybody knows righteous indignation gives libprogs super powers.

You have an issue with something Vox said, take it up with him. I did, and I found the guy to be a capable debater, and many of the insinuations about him floating around the internet were grossly exaggerated. (says the man who the Guardian has insinuated hates women and wants to keep fiction the exclusive domain of a group he doesn’t technically belong to, so I simply can’t imagine the internet exaggerating somebody’s beliefs.)

The woman Vox insulted with the infamous half-savage comment also has a long history of inflammatory racial statements, and had been throwing insults at Vox for years, but somehow she always gets a pass in these discussions about “divisiveness” (remember what I said earlier about the Ctrl H search and replace to put Jew instead of White Man in their tweets? She’s totally the best). I don’t think she likes me much either, because she gave a speech a little while ago and condemned Mr. Free Speech At All Costs… I think that’s supposed to be me, but personally I took that as a compliment, because you know, that part where I actually believe in free speech and stuff.

So I recommend a short story by somebody who made a statement they found racist? DIVISIVE! And Damien will condemn me in his newspaper. Meanwhile, an approved author writes tons of negative things about an ethnic group that it is cool to hate? Totally not divisive, and Damien will plug her in his newspaper. Now me personally, I think the concept of race is increasingly irrelevant bullshit, and I judge all humans as individuals, but I’m the International Lord of Hate.

Public declaration of support? By that Damien means I failed to join his lynch mob? Sadly I couldn’t find my jack boots in time.

One of the International Lord of Hate’s commenters pointed out what Damien was trying, and failing, to accomplish: “They want to slam Vox because he is the one nut they can’t crack, but
boy, if they can turn a few of his friends and supporters, that’s at
least along the lines of their goals.”

On behalf of Mr. Correia, Mr. Wright, and Mrs. Hoyt, I am offended at the idea they should be deemed any easier to crack than me. (As opposed to that notoriously soft and bendable reed, Col. Kratman, whose pastimes make Ramsay Snow’s look like embroidery.) Now, it is true that mi amigo latino has a different perspective on race than I do. I realize this may astonish white people, particularly of the SWPL variety, but we members of La Raza Cósmica do not necessarily think alike; some of us don’t even believe in the inevitability of Universópolis. Transmetachronopolis, yes. Universópolis, not so much.

As Larry says, we’ve even debated the matter in private, and while I did not convince him, I believe he did come to understand that my position is based entirely on sound genetic science and history rather than personal preferences. Since then, the publication of A Troublesome Inheritance by Nicholas Wade has demonstrated that my “controversial” views are entirely in line with current science and that the “Nurture not Nature” perspective is outdated and unscientific.

(Nota Ironica: the very concept of La Raza Cósmica is based on the idea that Darwinism was “created to validate, explain, and justify ethnic superiority and to repress others.” So, you see, this is why only fifth-racers like me “have the territorial, racial, and spiritual factors necessary to initiate the ‘universal era of humanity’.” Bow down, you colonial sons and daughters of the Old World, abase yourselves, you children of the Orient, kneel before me, you spawnlings of Darkest Africa. Bow to me, in the name of humanity!)

I love Larry. I have great respect for him. He’s the best action writer of our generation. But I don’t answer for him and he doesn’t answer for me. That’s one thing the Left will never accept: there is no guilt by association. A man can only answer for his own deeds, his own words, his own actions.

Which is one reason why Larry declined the opportunity to participate in the suggested auto-da-fe:

I’m quite serious about my suggestion by the way. I think if Correia wrote publicly to support the new diversity in the genre, and apologised for any perception he was campaigning against it, that might help him a lot.

Apologize for the perception? Apologize for being seen as an enemy of progress? That sounds suspiciously like the apologies Stalin used to have people sign right before he shipped them off to the gulag, so in response, Beria, er, I mean Damien, here are a few of my thoughts about what it really means when a libprog demands an apology.

Rule number one. Never apologize for something that shouldn’t be apologized for. Check out all the various firings, purges, boycotts, and cancellations. Apologizing for causing their outrage is you taking responsibility for their ignorance and inability to control their own emotions. Apologizing to the perpetually outraged means they own you. You have declared yourself guilty and vulnerable to their threats. It is like negotiating with terrorists. Give into their demands and you’re just encouraging them to blow something else up.

If I was the type of mushy headed fool that would issue an apology, it wouldn’t matter anyway, because as we’ve already seen my actual words and actions mean nothing compared to the agreed upon narrative, and that narrative is that I’m guilty of pretty much every vile thing they can think of. Luckily for me, I’m successful enough that these people aren’t particularly threatening, so I scrape them off my shoe and continue writing books.

Normal people only apologize for things that should be apologized for, like for example: “I’m sorry the Social Justice Warrior contingent of sci-fi is made up of a bunch of perpetually outraged adult children.”

I suspected that would be the outcome. As for me, I’m just wondering when all the pinkshirts and Social Justice Warriors who said less-than-flattering things about me are going to apologize to me now that N.K. Jemisin has openly admitted that she is not merely “half-savage”, but rather, “all savage and damned proud of it”.

And in the meantime, John C. Wright has produced the United Underworld Literary Movement Manifesto, complete with logo. Apparently I am the Supreme Dark Lord, Secret Warden of the Cosmic Fifth Race, and Eternal Champion of Universópolis.

Mailvox: pulp future

JG observes the likelihood that one day, the 90-pound ninja princess will be seen as painfully dated too:

Last night I was catching up on my DVR and I watched The Misfits (1961) with Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable.  So, I’m watching Marilyn with her 1950’s pointy-bra mams, her tiny waist, her fertile hips, her squeezable booty, her small feet, her delicate jaw line, and her high-pitched, almost musical uber-feminine voice, and for some reason I had the following thought: 

If she suddenly started doing kung fu and beating the crap out of all these cowboys….. that would be absolutely f***ing retarded. 

Fortunately, that didn’t happen.  Nonetheless, I’ve come to the conclusion that in 60+ years, IF we still have the technology to enable things like films, DVRs and TV, people will look at all those action flicks from this decade starring Scarlett Johansson and laugh in much the same way we laugh at “guy in a rubber suit” monster movies from the 1950s.   

It’s not hard to imagine the utterly retarded nature of our entertainment will one day be seen as the absurdist Whedon years. Joss Whedon will probably be viewed as a crazy neo-Dadaist clown famous for his over-the-top equalitarian lunacies.

Thought Police: NFL style

It’s fascinating to see the sports media openly endorse corporate thought policing. I’m sure they will be similarly fine with being suspended and fined if they write positively of homogamy in public. Peter King writes on CNN/SI:

Good for the Dolphins for fining and suspending defensive back Don Jones for being an idiot on Twitter after Michael Sam got drafted.

I would love to see Fox News suspend and fine someone for expressing a critical attitude towards any religion. Just to prove the point, if nothing else. The fact that a self-professed journalist would openly endorse political speech-policing goes to show the dreadful state of journalism in America.

The inevitable

Hello My Dearest,

How are you today, with hope you are found in good condition of health?, Dear I have decided to contact you after much thought considering the fact that we have not meet before, but because of some circumstance oblige me, I decided to contact you due to the urgency of my present situation here in the refugee camp for your rescue. Meanwhile my Name is Miss Mercy Oscar Kamau Kingara, 16yrs old female and I from Kenya here in Africa. As you may have seen on Twitter hashtag #bringbackoutgirls I was brutally kidnapped from my school in Chibok by a criminal gang on the 14 April.

My dear, haven’t meet with you before I intend to disclose this to you with trust as a top secret which I believe you will never turn me down neither disclose it to anybody until everything is successfully done I will relocate over to your country. For only $10 per day, my kidnappers have promised that I can return from here, were I am forced to be a Wife to a man who will not love me or respect me or permission me to return to my studies which I so much love.

However my Dear, all am requesting from you is for your kind assistant in transferring this my ransom for investment assistance in your Country as my legal appointed trustee as the bank mentioned and it will be my intention to compensate you; note that immediately after the transfer i will relocate over to your country or position and further my education studies and spend the rest of my life while you will be acting as my brother and my sister. Please consider my request as my life is being hugely affected here in the camp of the kidnappers

Thanks a lot in your prompt positive response to help me out. I shall give you more details of the transfer in my next mail.

Yours Faithfully Mercy Oscar.

That was fast

Nicholas Wade, the author of the excellent A Troublesome Inheritance and science editor of the New York Times, is now still the FORMER science editor of the New York Times:

Nicholas Wade, a British-born science reporter and editor for more than 30 years with The New York Times, is no longer with the newspaper — just days after the release of his latest book, in which he depicts blacks with roots in sub-Saharan Africa as genetically less adapted to modern life than whites and Asians.

Was The New York Times uncomfortable with Wade’s science or his conclusions? It’s unclear. Neither Wade nor his former employer returned requests for comment.

Wade’s last Times article appeared April 24. His Penguin Press book “A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History” arrived in bookstores on Tuesday, May 6. In excerpts from his book posted by Time.com on Friday, he is identified as a “former science editor” of the Times. Until then, coverage of his book called him a current Times journalist.

Obviously he deserved it, as he undeniably implied black people are “differently evolved” when he wrote that only 45 of the 394 genes currently deemed to be under selection are the same genes in blacks and whites. In light of such an atrocity, he may as well have called someone a “half-savage”; clearly he must be lambasted and ritualistically assailed by every goodthinking individual. I wonder if it is still acceptable to the Left to describe the fine, upstanding gentlemen who belong to Boko Haram and are so eager to host teenage schoolgirls as “less than entirely civilized although otherwise totally equal to all individuals of both sexes of European descent in every way” or if that too is a purgeable offense?

The Left is more than uncomfortable with both science and the conclusions that logically follow from it. It is now openly and avowedly anti-science. What is fascinating is that most clueless Leftists still feverishly insist that they, and not the Right, are pro-science even as they reject it in favor of various nonexistent ideals. As I have repeatedly pointed out since last August, the time for tolerating the Left has passed. Your only choice now is to submit to them or to shatter them.

UPDATE: I’m not sure this proves that Wade was not “fired”, even if he had already stepped down as science editor. “Anyway, just heard from reliable source that Wade took a retirement
package a couple of years ago.  The deal was that he could continue to
make occasional contributions on a fee basis.”

If he continues to make occasional contributions, then we’ll know he wasn’t canned for his book. If his last contribution on a fee basis turns out to have been April 24th, well, that would not prove that he was fired, but it would tend to indicate that was the case.

UPDATE 2: Not so fast. Apparently the Daily Caller author let his imagination run away with him.

“I retired from the Times about two years ago. There’s a stupid story you may have seen in the blogosphere. It is completely untrue. The writer just made that up. The fact that he saw the words ‘former Science editor’ in the piece I did in Time. He assumed that I had been fired by the Times. There is nothing to the story at all. I myself wrote the word ‘former’ in because I saw that the Time editor in putting the tag line on had said that I was Science editor of the Times. Since that was some time in the past, and is no longer true, I inserted the word ‘former’ and the writer in the Daily Caller just made the story up out of thin air. He made absolutely no attempt to contact me and not a word of it is true.” 

Faith first

We need more Christian men willing to stand up and say the same:

With all of the grotesque things that can be seen and heard on
television today you would think there would be room for two twin
brothers who are faithful to our families, committed to biblical
principles, and dedicated professionals. If our faith costs us a
television show then so be it.

It’s not much of a loss. Let the wicked immerse themselves in their own fetid stew.

The Lizard Queen DQs herself

And CNN knows it:

On May 7th CNN’s John King played a video of Hillary Clinton saying, “We have to rein in what has become [an] almost article of faith, that anybody can have a gun anywhere, [at] any time.” King quickly added, “She’s talking in the context of mental health,” but then he expressed obvious concern that this soundbite is going to make a great anti-Hillary commercial in southern Ohio, Florida, Colorado, and North Carolina, among other places.

Notice how the mainstream media will SHAMELESSLY lie on behalf of its favored candidates. Clinton wasn’t just “talking in the context of mental health”, she was talking about the expansion of concealed carry laws. While she did begin her answer in response to a question about suicide, her answer was a more broadly expansive one. But you can bet that we’re going to here the false “context” excuse when she gets nailed with her own words on the campaign trail.

Never, ever, trust a single word out of a leftist’s mouth at face value. I cannot stress this enough. They don’t believe in objective truth and they certainly feel no obligation to tell it.