OBAMACARE III: This Time It’s Personal.
Archive for 2015
August 30, 2015
CATHY YOUNG: Mutiny At The Hugo Awards.
Is this, as the Puppies’ detractors suggest, all about straight white males trying to protect their turf from interlopers like the women who snagged nearly two-thirds of the Hugo nominations for fiction in 2012? The Puppies’ fiction picks were indisputably male-dominated, with only three female authors out of 17; yet some of the group’s most dedicated members are women such as writers Sarah Hoyt, Amanda Green, and Cedar Sanderson. (The latter two were Puppy nominees for Best Fan Writer, which recognizes sci-fi related nonfiction work for nonpaying or low-paying magazines or websites.) And Hoyt told me in our email interview last spring that her personal worst example of the Hugos’ political corruption was a 2013 win for a white male: the Best Novel award to “Redshirts” by John Scalzi, a satirical riff on “Star Trek.” Hoyt, who dismisses the novel as “bad fanfic,” thought the award was blatant cronyism on behalf of Scalzi, a recent president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and one of the fandom’s high priests of “social justice” ideology.
Then there are the politicized “message” stories. Thus, last year’s Best Novel Hugo went to “Ancillary Justice” by Ann Leckie, whose protagonist belongs to a futuristic human civilization with no concept of gender distinctions and with “she” as the universal pronoun. The Best Story winner, “The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere” by John Chu, dealt with a Chinese-American man’s struggles with coming out as gay. (The “fantasy” part was a clunky plot device: a mysterious phenomenon that causes anyone telling a lie to be instantly doused in water.) Also high on the gripe list is last year’s nomination for “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” by Rachel Swirsky, a short story that even some of its fans concede is not really science fiction or fantasy. It is the internal monologue of a woman who daydreams about her comatose fiancé—the victim of a hate crime by men who apparently thought he was gay or transgendered—becoming a human-sized dinosaur.
Read the whole thing.
VENEZUELA IN THE MIDWEST: Illinois Can’t Pay Lottery Winners.
THE COURAGE TO LEAD: Democrats end summer meeting with no resolution to support Obama’s Iran deal. “Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the committee chairwoman, prevented the resolution from being considered at the group’s summer meeting this weekend in Minneapolis, sources told The Washington Post, which first reported the story. Obama and his White House team have worked diligently to get enough Capitol Hill votes for the resolution to pass, amid strong opposition from the Republican-controlled House and Senate.”
SARAH HOYT: What I’ve Learned From Dealing With SF SJW Types. “I was horrified and disgusted by their actions, but not in the least surprised.”
FIRST GLENN BECK’S HISTORIC MARCH IN BIRMINGHAM, NOW THIS: Nearly a thousand locals create memorial for deputy shot and killed at gas station.
Many people gathered together at a memorial Saturday evening to remember Harris County Sheriff’s deputy Darren Goforth.
The memorial was made up of flowers, balloons, posters and candles among other items.
All of the items were all placed at the same gas pump where the deputy was shot and killed Friday night. The deputy was pumping gas when he was shot in the back multiple times, according to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.
Hundreds of people were showed up Saturday evening to grieve and pray together for the family and friends of the officer.
One of those in attendance was Houston Police Officer Roland Delasantos. He said he had known Deputy Goforth since the two of them were in the fourth grade. “We really need a lot of healing, rather than anger. We need the community to understand, most of us are out here, are here to help, we are really here to do good…”
Andre Renolds, a friend of Goforth’s was also at the vigil. “It’s the uniform, it’s people out there spreading hate about police officers when these police officers are out there trying to protest and serve us…” he said.
Those gathered lit candles and gave hugs, hoping to turn the murder from hate to healing.
Hmm. Judging by the photos, the crowd was a lot more diverse than a Bernie Sanders rally. . . .
I PREFER ONSITE CONSTRUCTION BY NANOBOTS, OR AT LEAST 3D PRINTING, BUT THIS IS A HIGH-TECH EMERGENCY SHELTER. “The pods are 10 feet tall and 8.5 feet wide. They come configured with a double bed, a double bunk, or an office and can sleep as many as four people. The shape evolved from McDaniel’s teepee inspiration as he began pondering how to transport them most efficiently. The shells were designed to nestle nine deep on an 18-wheeler. ‘Essentially you’re moving 36 people per truck,’ he says. Contrast that with shelters fashioned from shipping containers, each of which requires one truck to move and houses six people. The Exo shelters fit together like stacked coffee cups and are relatively easily pulled from a truck and carried by integrated handles. The exterior shell weighs 375 pounds, the floorboard 350. McDaniel claims it takes two minutes to erect an Exo.”
AMERICA’S TROLL IN CHIEF ARBITRARILY RENAMES TALLEST MOUNTAIN IN NORTH AMERICA: Mount McKinley, 20,237-feet tall, “was officially renamed by Congress in 1917 in honor of President William McKinley, stirring criticism of the U.S. Board of Geographic Names among native Alaskans,” the Washington Examiner reports, adding that “Ahead of his 3-day swing through Alaska, President Obama announced Sunday that Mount McKinley will return to its native Alaskan name, Denali — meaning ‘the great one.'”
Well, Jackie Gleason always deserved that sort of honor. Not to mention the giant SUV produced by Government Motors.
Update: “Compromise: Instead of calling it ‘Denali’ we call it ‘Canyonero.'” Heh.™
CHARLES BARKLEY: Voting For Democrats Hasn’t Helped Blacks. True.
ROGER SIMON: Who Shot The Sheriff?
Shannon Miles (a black man) is a crazy guy, just as Dylann Roof (the white man from the Charlston church shootings) is a crazy guy and Vester Lee Flanagan (the black man who killed his white co-workers at a Virginia TV station the other day) was a crazy guy. The latter two claimed they wanted to start a race war. No word yet on Miles, but if we believe in what our grandmother’s told us – that actions speak louder than words – he’s already more than half way there.
(You will note that I am not using the neologism African-American, which I think is part of the problem, not part of the solution.)
Also obvious, Barack Obama and Eric Holder (and now Loretta Lynch) are to blame for encouraging an atmosphere of racial divisiveness and, yes, hatred in our society. Anyone honest can see – and the polls have reported – a serious increase in racial tension and violence (Baltimore, Ferguson, etc.) since the beginning of the Obama administration. The racist-to-the-core “Black Lives Matter” movement is quite simply their evil spawn.
But those are the easy targets. We have to go back further to determine “Who Shot the Sheriff?” … way back to the dear old 1960s when the civil rights movement stood at a fork in the road. I was there at the time and, sadly, perhaps meekly, I took the wrong fork.
Read the whole thing.
THIS WILL WIN FRIENDS, OR AT LEAST INFLUENCE PEOPLE: Black Lives Matter Comes to the State Fair. “The main entrance to the fair on Snelling Avenue was closed down, which must have been a terrible inconvenience to fairgoers. . . . There was no violence, but a number of passers-by stopped to argue with the demonstrators. In each case, as reported by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, those who argued with the marchers said that all lives matter.”
Despite the best efforts of politicians, the media, and the educational establishment, the spirit of equality remains strong among Americans. But as I’ve noted before, Black Lives Matter is best understood as shock troops for an intra-Democratic Party power struggle, not as a movement that’s trying for mainstream acceptance.
TRUMP’S SECRET: Rasmussen: Nearly 3 in 4 Americans Think Political Correctness Is a Problem. “Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump during the first pre-primary debate reiterated a point he’s made throughout his campaign that ‘the big problem this country has is being politically correct.’ Most Americans strongly agree with that sentiment. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 71% of American Adults think political correctness is a problem in America today, while only 18% disagree. Ten percent (10%) are undecided.” Almost a 4-1 margin. That’s pretty huge.
AT AMAZON: Designer Sunglasses for Men.
LEGAL ACADEMIA’S DIVERSITY PROBLEM: Lawyers By Practice Area; Law Professors Are The Most Liberal Among 61 Groups.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON’T PLAY THE ‘GENDER-NEUTRAL’ GAME ON A COLLEGE CAMPUS: “The truth is, liberals are name calling goons posing as intellectuals. Even if the school doesn’t mandate the policy, liberal students will do all they can to bully anyone who refuses to play along.”
But they’re not liberals in any sense of the word — and never were — so why call them that?
RELATED: “Here ze comes.”
KATRINA FLASHBACK: When Kathleen Blanco Froze.