Tag: trainwreck

So Facebook is child rape

Just when you thought “near-rape” and “regret rape” were as silly as it was going to get; now a woman desperate to escape the consequences of her actions is attempting to elevate “posting legal pictures online” to the status of rape:

When Holly Jacobs sent nude photographs of herself to a long-distance
boyfriend she loved and trusted, the 23-year-old woman never imagined
the horror that would befall her. In August 2009, less than a year after the pair mutually ended their
three-year relationship, Jacobs did a Google search of her name and
discovered the naked photos on a so-called “revenge porn” website.

“I just went completely into shock,” said Jacobs, who hired a lawyer
and eventually changed her birth name from “Holli Thometz” to Holly
Jacobs.

“This is cyber-rape,” Jacobs, now 30, told FoxNews.com. “It’s all
about the guy having control over the woman and exploiting her in a
sexual way — the same way real-life rape does that. It violates you
over and over again.”

What came next was perhaps more shocking to Jacobs. Police in Miami,
where she lived at the time, took no action. They told her that “because
you are over 18 and you consented, technically they are his property
and he can do whatever he wants with them,” she recalled.

It is sadly unsurprising that a woman would find centuries-old laws concerning private property to be shocking. Apparently we are in the process of entering the time of juris sensus, in which the way a woman feels about something, anything, is the primary legally determinative factor.

It is manifestly obvious that having naked pictures online does a woman no material harm at all. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of women, actually profit from it. Hundreds of thousands more knowingly and intentionally post pictures of themselves for nothing more than the ego gratification. This whole campaign tends to strike me more as humblebrag than horror.

Moreover, it would be absolutely insane to try to make a law against this sort of thing. As usual, the woman desperate to erase the evidence of her past behavior and her white knights of both sexes aren’t even beginning to consider the consequences.  Think about it: we already have a problem with parents occasionally falling afoul of child pornography laws due to posting cute or funny pictures of bathtime on Facebook.

Now recall that children can’t consent. So, if posting pictures taken with consent is rape, how much worse is it to post pictures taken without consent? Of underage children! In one fell swoop, one woman with poor judgment in men is attempting to turn hundreds of thousands of American mothers into child rapists.

It is, technically, true

Obama points out that raising the debt ceiling does not, in itself, increase the national debt:

Raising the debt ceiling doesn’t increase the nation’s debt, Pres. Obama declared in a speech today. In a speech at the Business Roundtable headquarters in Washington, D.C., Obama dismissed concerns about raising the debt ceiling by noting that it’d been done so many times in the past:

“Now, this debt ceiling — I just want to remind people in case you haven’t been keeping up — raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt; it does not somehow promote profligacy.  All it does is it says you got to pay the bills that you’ve already racked up, Congress.  It’s a basic function of making sure that the full faith and credit of the United States is preserved.”

Obama went on to suggest that “the average person” mistakenly thinks that raising the debt ceiling means the U.S. is racking up more debt: “It’s always a tough vote because the average person thinks raising the debt ceiling must mean that we’re running up our debt, so people don’t like to vote on it, and, typically, there’s some gamesmanship in terms of making the President’s party shoulder the burden of raising the — taking the vote.”

It’s true.  Just like increasing your credit limit on your credit card doesn’t increase the amount of money you owe; you don’t owe more money until you go out and spend more.  However, the fact that you are asking for a higher credit limit does, in most circumstances, indicate that you intend to spend more money than you presently can.

I’m going to miss the Obama administration.  I knew it would be amusing and incompetent, but I had no idea he would take it to this level.

Explaining the Flynn Effect

I think this philosophy of testing may explain the dichotomy between the fact that people are getting progressively more intelligent according to IQ tests while becoming observably more stupid in terms of their behavior:

In a pretty amazing YouTube video, Amanda August, a curriculum
coordinator in a suburb of Chicago called Grayslake, explains that
getting the right answer in math just doesn’t matter as long as kids can
explain the necessarily faulty reasoning they used to get to that wrong
answer.

“Even if they said, ’3 x 4 was 11,’ if they were able to explain
their reasoning and explain how they came up with their answer really
in, umm, words and oral explanation, and they showed it in the picture
but they just got the final number wrong, we’re really more focused on
the how,” August says in the video.

Mailvox: the futility of cancer

Nate explains both why left-wing parasites are driven to take over organizations and why their takeovers always end in the eventual demise of the organization:

They never learn. They don’t understand civilization, and they don’t
understand power. That’s why they are never able to successfully build
organizations in the first place. So they have to take over the
organizations others have already built and try to use them for their
own goals. They think that the organization itself… the name… is
what makes it relevant. So they imagine if they can just get control of
it… all that power will be theirs.

So they break the very tools they are planning to use to fix the world.

Then
they stand there with a dumb look on their face… trying to drive a
nail with a broken hammer… and cannot understand why it isn’t working.

This process is as true of the Episcopalian Church and the Boy Scouts of America as it is of the SFWA.  Some believe that destruction was always the aim, but I don’t think that is true of the average parasite who joins an organization. I think in most cases they genuinely wish to “improve” the organization and do not understand that their desired improvements will kill it.

I’ll write more on this in the next day or two, in my response to NK Jemisin’s call for further “reconciliation”. What is interesting is the way in which Nate’s description here perfectly describes her approach to “improving” SF/F.

Their analytical abilities don’t appear to exceed that of the average cancer cell. The current SFWA is rather like a collection of cancer cells congratulating themselves on how much they have improved the body they are inhabiting and celebrating the way in which they have driven most of those disgusting, unprofessional white blood cells out.  And it is not hard to imagine their alarm when suddenly the body that sustains them begins to cease functioning, for no particular reason at all.

This is something that the Society for the Advancement of Speculative Storytelling may wish to keep in mind, lest it one day find itself going the same route as SFWA.  And speaking of SASS, the organization released a statement entitled: “Statement on the expulsion of a member by another writers’ organization“

In response to requests for comments regarding the decision of another writers’ group to formally expel a lifetime member, SASS Secretary and spokesman Lou Antonelli makes the following statement:

“Although the subject in question was exercising his free speech rights under the First Amendment to the US Constitution, that has nothing to do with the standards of conduct and behavior within a private organization

“Like any private club, the organization in question is allowed to police its membership according to its regulations and bylaws. This is an internal discipline issue and not a matter of concern to the Society for the Advancement of Speculative Storytelling.

“The by-laws of the Society for the Advancement of Speculative Storytelling clearly state that members should not discuss religion or politics within its auspices, and its members are expected to treat each other with respect. Those are our bylaws, and each group operates according to its own bylaws and policies.

I note that not only does SFWA have no standard of conduct and behavior, but it previously had one that was, if I recall correctly, junked during the Russell Davis administration.  As the SFWA’s statement demonstrated, the current Board believes it can throw anyone out of the organization at any time for no particular reason at all.  If I hadn’t made it clear to everyone that I was the member to whom the statement referred, no one would outside the SFWA Board and its confidants would even know with certainty who the expelled member was.

Of course, it would certainly be amusing if the Board’s assumptions turned out to be incorrect, would it not?  Because in that case, I would not even be expelled at all. And it occurs to me that someone inclined towards conspiracy theory might even conjecture that the reason the SFWA Board refused to publicly identify the expelled member is because they know very well that the expulsion was not legitimate, that it was a sham expulsion, and they are attempting to avoid being sued for damages once the illegitimacy of their action is established.

Cease and desist

Michael Shermer’s lawyers ordered PZ Myers to immediately retract his public allegations of rape at a science conference, but based on the fact that no retraction has yet been made, it appears PZ intends to ride or die with the unidentified accuser.

This firm represents Michael Shermer. It recently has come to our attention that you have made, published, broadcasted, and are continuing to publish and broadcast on your blog numerous false, defamatory, libelous, inaccurate, and/or misleading statements about Mr. Shermer.

We are informed that on or about August 8, 2013, you authored and posted an entry on your blog entitled What do you do when someone pulls the pin and hands you a grenade? The Entry contains numerous false and defamatory statements about Mr. Shermer based on certain unsubstantiated allegations purportedly made by an unidentified woman against Mr. Shermer….

As you are the author of one of the most popular science blogs in the World Wide Web, we find your self-proclaimed intentions “to do the right thing” by publishing unproven and unsubstantiated allegations of forced or nonconsensual sexual intercourse against Mr. Shermer to be outrageous and inexcusable.  It is not accident that the Entry containing these extremely inflammatory and defamatory statements about Mr. Shermer has garnered your blog the highest number of comments of any entry in the history of your entire Blog and you clearly stand to benefit substantially from the posting of these unsubstantiated allegations against Mr. Shermer, all while under the appearance that you have some higher ethical purpose for doing so. Clearly, no matter how reasonably foreseeable it is that your actions would result in serious harm to Mr. Shermer’s name, reputation, and character in the science community, you have chosen to injure and humiliate Mr. Shermer by publishing and posting defamatory statements and comments about him.

Here is the entire letter in PDF form. What a pity this was a science conference instead of a science fiction one, or the SFWA’s Pink Gestapo could have waddled to the rescue.

I have absolutely no idea what did or did not happen, but based on the sort of women who attend science conferences and hang out with atheists, I would be very, very leery about putting too much confidence in a secondhand version of events.

First Hugo Danger, then PZ/Shermer. One would assume McRapey’s inevitable meltdown is lurking on the horizon. However, I don’t think he’ll be the next SFWA member accused of sexual assault at a conference. My money is on Jim Hines, aka McCreepy.  His volunteer counseling reminds me of the elementary school teacher with the mustache who is always pestering parents to let him take their little boys camping with him.

At this point, I find it hard to believe that any men risk attending conferences where there are going to be a lumpening of avowedly feminist women. It strikes me as playing Russian Roulette with three bullets in the chamber; these women are absolutely dying to be able to cry harassment and tell the story of their victimization for the rest of their lives.

The State does not “protect” children

Given the horrific reports that repeatedly surface from every so-called “Child Protective” service, it is eminently clear that the State should play absolutely no role in how parents raise their children or have any ability to remove children from their parents and extended families:

A foster parent in Milam County is in jail charged with murder after the two-year-old girl she was taking care of died in her custody. According to Rockdale police, emergency crews responded to Sherill Small’s home in Rockdale when they received a 9-1-1 call on Monday evening stating that a child was not breathing and unresponsive. The child, Alexandria Hill, was flown to Scott and White McLane Children’s Hospital in Temple where she was placed on life support.

Doctors determined that Alexandria had brain hemorrhaging and retinal hemorrhaging in both eyes. Detectives said the explanation Small, 54, gave of the child’s injuries were not consistent with the nature of the injuries determined by the doctors. The child was removed from life support on Wednesday and Small was arrested for murder the following day. Small admitted to authorities that she threw Alexandria to the ground…..

According to court records, Alexandria’s mother had a medical condition that does not allow for the child to be left alone with her. The TDFPS also received allegations that Hill used marijuana on a regular basis and on one occasion Hill almost dropped Alexandria while going down the stairs of the home as he was trying to hand the child to his sister. During the month of November, Alexandria was being cared for by her paternal grandmother before the State intervened on Nov. 26.

It doesn’t matter how bad the parents are.  If they commit a criminal act that merits prison, then guardianship of the children should be given to the nearest relatives, not to people whose only interest in the children is pecuniary.  There are evil and abusive parents, but the percentage of them is much lower than the percentage of evil and abusive people in the foster care system.

Predators go where the prey is. The fact that they can also arrange to get paid while being provided access to their victims is an indication that the system is entirely insane.  As for the idea that the system is regulated, well, so are banks and motor vehicles and we all know how efficient the State is with them.

Combat Barbie wear

They still won’t be able to outfight a Boy Scout troop armed with jackknives, but the important thing is wearing the right clothes will help them feel more like real soldiers.

A new combat uniform with special consideration to the female body is
now available at Fort Gordon, almost a month after the Army announced
plans to open all units and military jobs to women by 2016. The March debut of the Combat Uniform-Alternate is the first in a
series of moves the Army hopes to make in the next three years to help
female soldiers feel like more professional members, officials said.

With narrower shoulders, a slightly tapered waist and a more spacious
seat, the unisex clothing line has been in the works since 2009 and is
being issued to all installations – except Fort Benning in Columbus, Ga.
– for men and women with a smaller or more slender body.

Enough of all the talk talk.  Let’s see some war war out of our brave amazons.  Let’s see the US Army form a combat division of its most formidable Combat Barbies and send it to Afghanistan.  Perhaps they can make a reality TV show of it called “Rape, Rout, or RIP?”

The defense isn’t resting

Blogging will likely be a little light today, since I’m in the process of putting together all the information I’ve gathered into a coherent response to the SFWA Board.  Anyhow, I also found these particular quotes to be interesting, considering the way in which the SFWA president has handled the complaint process in a manner not dissimilar to his previous approach to differing opinions.

Steven Gould ::: (view all by) ::: March 05, 2005, 12:15 PM:

Does this mean we can’t make fun of Vox Day (Or VD as I like to call him) for his distressing use irrational arguments?  Of course we can. It’s like finding one of those dishes of leftovers in the back of the refrigerator that is busy creating it’s own little ecosystem. You comment on it, you drop it in the trash, and you don’t swallow it. 

Steven Gould ::: (view all by) ::: March 05, 2005, 09:57 PM:

Vox Day  From Dictionary.com:

Hack
5. Slang. To cope with successfully; manage: couldn’t hack a second job.

Yeah, you can’t front on that, Laura.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What language is this guy speaking? Is he from this dimension?… Why are we wasting so much time on this guy? When they came up with the phrase ‘kneejerk’ reactionary, they were thinking of him. 

Steven Gould ::: (view all by) ::: March 06, 2005, 10:39 AM:

Vox Day: “I do find it more than a little ironic that the very people who entered the fray making personal attacks are such delicate flowers about enduring them in return. People disagree with me. Fine. People think it’s appropriate to attack me, and not my ideas. Also fine. But it seems a little much for people to expect to be able to do so without taking any return fire.”
~~~~~~~~

Hmmmm. Listen to another series of overwritten, not-on-topic responses or wax the cat? Hear kitty, kitty….

As a person of color, I find it incredibly amusing that the painfully white Mr. Gould clearly did not understand the term
“you can’t front on that”.  In 2005.  And I find it tremendously hurtful that he would so insensitively imply that I am some sort of alien, presumably illegal.

Who are the terrorists?

How is this militarily necessary or anything but disastrous PR?

“Many were wounded in the attack, local tribesman Kaleemullah Dawar said, but rescuers delayed for fear of falling victim to a second attack, a common tactic with drone strikes.“

That tactic is known as the “double tap,” which bombs multiple targets in relatively quick succession — meaning that the second strike often hits first responders. In 2007 the FBI said the tactic as commonly used by terrorist organizations such as Hamas.

Last year a study by the NYU School of Law and Stanford Law School detailed the U.S. use of the double tap, providing first-hand accounts of its devastating effect on rescuers and humanitarian workers.

In other words, the USG is using a terror tactic against non-terrorists in the War on Terror.  Brilliant.  Even Rumsfeld understood that the key to winning this sort of amorphous war was to avoid making more terrorists than were killed.  Which is impossible if you’re going to make your own soldiers into terrorists.

Because respect

Like the SFWA member quoted below, I am bound by the confidentiality rule, but these quotes from Twitter should give everyone a sufficiently accurate image of the anklebiting junior members now running wild within SFWA, as well as for the disdain they openly display for the men, who, back in the day, created the organization and actually wrote genuine science fiction:

Jason Sanford ‏@jasonsanford 26 Jun
Pournelle (noun): Term for a well-known author who complains things were better “back in the day” when jerks could act with impunity.

Jason Sanford ‏@jasonsanford 26 Jun
I’d be nice if people RT’d last tweet. I’d love Pournelle to become a meme. Not that real Pournelle’d understand memes if they bit his butt.

Scott Edelman ‏@scottedelman 26 Jun
Sigh … what did he do now?

Jason Sanford ‏@jasonsanford 26 Jun
Pournelle is being his usual self on the
usual forums which can’t be mentioned due to the usual privacy policy.

Jason Sanford ‏@jasonsanford 26 Jun
But this may all tie in with an organization beginning with S, ending with A, and a FW in the middle.

Jason Sanford @jasonsanford 27 JunPournelle
(noun): Term for well-known author who complains things were better
“back in the day” when jerks could act with impunity.

Jason Sanford ‏@jasonsanford 27 Jun
It’s a good day when your words have irked the Pournelles of our genre. See previous tweet for definition of term.

Justin Howe ‏@JustinHowe 27 Jun
@jasonsanford Also my term for the Pournelles is “Dense Matter”. Such as, “And then we got stymied by the dense matter at the genre’s core.”

One can readily observe that there is no dearth of jerks acting with impunity these days. What horrifically nasty little creeps! Jason Sanford and his herd of never-will-bes are not worthy to so much as shine the shoes of veteran SF authors like Jerry Pournelle, Mike Resnick, and Barry Malzberg, no matter how many participation ribbons and affirmative action trophies they give each other in the pretense that they are Real SF Riters.

And in addition to snapping at the ankles of 80 year-old men, the pinkshirts are now waxing enthusiastic about [REDACTED: CASE PINK SWASTIKA] because apparently SF conventions are just overflowing with perverts uncontrollably attracted to the hairy dugs and misshapen posteriors of shambling quasi-bipedal manatees.

I shitteth thee not.

Needless to say, this is all being driven by the sort of overweight, unemployed “writers” who spend considerably more time talking about themselves – and, one is forced to presume, eating –  than they do actually writing anything. Because respect.

What any of this has to do with writing and publishing science fiction, I leave to your imagination.

The ironic thing is that [REDACTED: CASE PINK SWASTIKA] will almost surely have the unintended consequence of exposing homosexual harassers instead of the intended targets. Women, especially overweight and unattractive women, have absolutely no idea how overtly aggressive gay men tend to be in comparison with straight men. Based on the sob stories dating back decades that have been shared on various blogs, I would estimate that I have been “sexually harassed” by gay men 2x more than any ten female SFWA members combined have been “sexually harassed” by straight men.

Actually, come to think of it, I was once “sexually harassed” by a famous female author at a professional convention. [ALERT: TRIGGER WARNING!] I accepted her gesture as the compliment it was obviously intended to be, smiled, removed her hand, and continued with the conversation. But apparently the concept of gracefully rejecting an unwanted or inappropriate invitation is completely beyond the pinkshirted manatees.

Because respect.

At this point, I suspect the SFWA’s old guard is thinking “you know, we would have been a lot better off if we had simply called [REDACTED]’s bluff, maintained the membership standards, and permitted her to walk away mad.”  Lower standards seldom produce desirable results.