Sweeny Terrier: The Demon Nominator of Slate Street 6/28

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aka Dandelion Whine

In the roundup today: Vox Day, Gary Denton, Spacefaring Kitten, Alexander Case, Leonie Rogers, D. Douglas Fratz, S.C. Flynn, A.J. Blakemont, Kary English, Damnien G. Walter, Mark Ciocco and Declan Finn. (Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editors of the day ULTRAGOTHA and May Tree.)

Grimlock * The Vision

“Sad Puppies, Rabid Puppies, Irene Gallo and Jim Butcher…” – June 28

Jim Butcher takes a lot of offense at what Gallo said, and yet he stands up for her when people harass her: ….

Classy, Mr. Butcher.   Very, very classy.

I’ll be reading more of the books I have, even though I was like, ‘meh.’  I keep thinking I might because I heard they got better, and now I want to do it to support Butcher for standing up against harassment, even when he was offended by that person.

 

Vox Day on Vox Popoli

“I don’t care what you do” – June 28

Rabid Puppies is not, and has never been, a marketing campaign of any kind. We don’t need it. Rabid Puppies is about one thing and one thing only: to prevent the SJWs in science fiction from imposing their thought-police on the genre. I’m no more interested in marketing myself in this regard than Charles Martel was when he led the Franks against the Umayyads.
As several of the VFM have pointed out, the SJWs have it all backwards. They have to think that I am somehow duping thousands of idiots and fools into openly opposing them because the alternative is to accept how massively unpopular they are and how dismally their decades-long campaign to tell people what science fiction they may and may not read has failed.

 

 

Spacefaring Kitten on Spacefaring, Extradimensional Happy Kittens

“Kitten/Puppy Dialogues (on America)” – June 28

I have to say. In my opinion, Captain America is a boring, one-dimensional (well, I did claim he is zero-dimensional, but I’m not sure if that’s possible) character. Therefore, you seem to think, I also want all men put down. There’s a logical leap I don’t quite follow. I also don’t think you should do too hasty conclusions about what my gender is, because you know nothing about it.

But let’s dissect your statement a bit further.

What I’m actually disliking here is a Hugo finalist that was not on either of the two Puppy slates you’re probably promoting. In fact, I believe Captain America: The Winter Soldier was plugged by some actual, outspoken feminists, such as the smart and wonderful Book Smugglers Ana and Thea. For the record, I don’t think they are in league with the imperialist patriarchy there. Rather, they and I have a somewhat different taste as far as superhero movies are concerned.

I have every reason to believe that the Puppy-supported Hugo finalists Lego Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy and Interstellar will all be better, even though I haven’t seen the first two of them yet. What I know of them so far seems promising. A Puppy supporter criticizing me for this seems odd.

 

Alexander Case on Breaking It All Down

“Small thing bugging me about the Hugo Awards” – June 28

All You Need Is Kill, by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is published in English by Haikasoru in 2004. Gets an nomination for the Seiun Awards (Japanese version of the Hugos) in its home country, nothing at the Hugo awards.

Then, All You Need Is Kill gets a manga adaptation, with art by Takeshi Obata (of Death Note and Bakuman fame), which is published in the US by Viz in 2014 – both volumes and an all-in-one omnibus. Does not get a Hugo nomination for Best Graphic Novel.

The film version, on the other hand, with a white director, white stars, white screenwriter, and which generally is as white as hell, gets a Hugo Award nomination for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form.

That doesn’t seem right to me.

To be clear, I’m glad the film was nominated. However, the lack of nominations for any versions of the story made by, you know, Japanese people, gives a vibe that the only way a work of Japanese speculative fiction can get for a Hugo Award.

 

https://twitter.com/damiengwalter/status/615220107912937472

 

Leonie Rogers

“Frustrated” – June 28

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been working my way through the packet – which is what Hugo voters get in case they haven’t read the appropriate nominations. (I might add that I’m a prolific reader of Spec Fic, but there’s so much stuff to read, that I just don’t have enough time to read it all, so a lot of the stuff in the packet is quite new to me.)

The title of this post is ‘Frustrated.’ And I am. I’ve read quite a few Hugo nominees and winners over the many years I’ve been reading Spec Fic, and I’ve enjoyed pretty well all of it in all its varied forms. But this lot? I’m struggling through a lot of it. I’ve read all the short stories and novelettes and most of the novellas. Ho hum. Sigh. Honestly….sigh….

As an early career writer myself, I appreciate good writing. I also know that I don’t always get it right, but I really thought Hugo nominees would have it down pat. Nope. Or at least not this lot. Don’t get me wrong, there are some decent stories, and some of them are decently written, but so far, the vast majority are not exciting me at all. And as far as a couple of them go, they’re not well written at all.

I do have to thank the Hugo Packet for introducing me to Ms Marvel, though. I will actively go out and find more of her. (Apart from Phantom comics, I haven’t really read a lot of graphic novels.) In the meantime, I will continue to slog through the rest of the packet, hoping to find a gem here and there. Then I shall vote accordingly. On the upside, I’m feeling pretty happy about some of my own short stories right now….

 

D. Douglas Fratz on SF Site

“The Alienated Critic: Wherein the columnist endeavors to make restitution for his most recent profound death of productivity and steps into the fray on Puppygate”

As a result of all this, the Hugo Awards are now famous outside the field for all the wrong reasons. The New Republic even covered Puppygate, and sensible blogs were written by top authors — most notably serial blogs by George R. R. Martin — that made sure all of broader fandom knew what had happened. Connie Willis, Robert Silverberg, David Gerrold, and other deans of SF have all weighed in with level-headed views. The big losers here, of course, are the many fine authors who produced superior works in 2014 that should have been nominated, including many mentioned above, and we will know who they were when the full voting is announced.

But we all lost here. In the past, I would estimate that 90 percent of those nominated on the Hugo ballot are among the top 10 percent of candidates, making it a reliable index of quality. Everyone who relies on the Hugo Nominations and results to help choose future reading lost something this year. (Also everyone who wishes that those hours Martin, Willis, Silverberg, and others spent addressing the issue were used to write new fiction!) Thank goodness there are still other awards, including the Locus Awards and even the sometimes quirky Nebula awards, for this purpose. I hope that the Worldcon administrators will find a way to prevent future block voting, but there is some chance that (like our own government’s counter-terrorism policies) the solutions will simply make things slightly worse for all. Which is, in the end, just what terrorists seek to have happen.

 

S.C. Flynn on Scy-Fy

“Interview with A.J. Blakemont” – June 28

SCy-Fy: Thanks! What potential traps do you see in SFF blogging?

AJB: Let’s be respectful! It is always possible to express one’s opinion or disagreement without hurting other people’s feelings. SF fans tend to be passionate and opinionated, and, sometimes, they get carried away. The current debate about the Hugos is a good example. No one owns the truth: not me, not you, not this guy with hundreds of thousands of followers. No one….

SCy-Fy: Posts of yours that have had the most impact or controversy?

AJB: My recent post on the Hugos: “Is the system broken?” caused controversy. Sad Puppies’ campaign manager wrote to me. Something tells me that my chances of being nominated for a Hugo are close to zero. Well, fortunately I care naught for awards! A writer should care only about readers, period. I wanted my readers to hear my opinion, and if it means being at variance with influential people in fandom, so be it.

 

Kary English

“An open letter to Puppies and everyone” – June 28

If you read Totaled and loved it enough to nominate it, thank you. That’s exactly how the Hugos are supposed to work, and it shouldn’t matter to me or anyone whether you identify as a Puppy or not. So if you’re one of those readers, then rock on. I am humbled and grateful for your support.

But as we know, Bob, there was a push this year to nominate things sometimes without having read them, and for reasons that had little to do with fannish enthusiasm. I never asked to be part of that, and had I been given the choice, I would not have wanted my work used that way.

I’m also not comfortable with the ballot sweep. My sense from the Sad Puppies is that locking up the ballot was never one of the goals of the movement, and that it was accidental, unintentional and unforeseen. If I’m wrong, and nominating five works in some of the categories was a deliberate attempt to sweep the ballot, then I wouldn’t have wanted to be part of that, either.

The Hugos should represent all voices, so if Sad Puppies is about drawing attention to works that might otherwise be overlooked, I can support that and I’m happy to stand for it. But if it’s about shutting out other voices and other work, if it’s about politics or pissing off certain segments of fandom, that’s not something I can get behind.

The whole point of fandom is that our love for the genre unites us. It’s about having a place where genre is paramount, where literature comes first. So if that’s who you are, and that’s what you want, then I’m with you. That’s why I invited everyone to talk about books here on my blog.

But if you’re in this with some other agenda, take it elsewhere. I don’t want to be part of it.

 

Kary English on Facebook – June 28

Here’s what I hope will be my final comment on the Hugos.

As a result of this statement, I have been delisted from Vox Day’s voting preferences, which is fine with me since I never agreed to be part of that in the first place…..

 

Vox Day on Vox Popoli

“Hugo Recommendations: Best Short Story” – June 28

This is how I am voting in the Best Short Story category. Of course, I offer this information regarding my individual ballot for no particular reason at all, and the fact that I have done so should not be confused in any way, shape, or form with a slate or a bloc vote, much less a direct order by the Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil to his 386 Vile Faceless Minions or anyone else.

  1. “Turncoat”, Steve Rzasa (Riding the Red Horse, Castalia House)
  2. “The Parliament of Beasts and Birds”, John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House)
  3. “On A Spiritual Plain”, Lou Antonelli (Sci Phi Journal #2, 11-2014)
  4. “A Single Samurai”, Steven Diamond (The Baen Big Book of Monsters, Baen Books)

 

Mark Ciocco on Kaedrin Weblog

“Hugo Awards: Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form” – June 28

…. This year, we have at least two nominees that were deserving (and that didn’t have Upstream‘s impenetrable style), including Coherence (to be fair, there are some eligibility concerns on that one), The One I Love, and maybe even Snowpiercer (a film I kinda hated, but it seems up the voters’ alley). Alas, they did not make it, and to be sure, Hollywood had a pretty good year, putting out plenty of genuinely good movies. Indeed, I even nominated 3 of these, so I guess I shouldn’t complain! My vote will go something like this (I’m going to be partially quoting myself on some of these, with some added comments more specific to the Hugos)….

[Comments on all five nominees.]

 

[Very brave, Declan, pretending what I said about you was addressed to Sad Puppies in general. Now go and change your armor…]

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758 thoughts on “Sweeny Terrier: The Demon Nominator of Slate Street 6/28”

  1. Five! Lord.

    Respecting Sir Pratchett’s wishes to be left off…and Gaiman’s got enough awards, or I’d put a couple Sandman arcs in there…

    Perdido Street Station Mieville – Best Novel
    The Book of the Dun Cow Walter Wangerin – Best Novella
    The Wood-Wife Terri Windling – Best Novel
    Deerskin Robin McKinley – Best Novel
    The Madness Season C.S. Friedman – Best Novel

    And I would also want Vurt by Jeff Noon to get nominated, just so I know somebody else read it and went “Whoa, what the hell was that?” and then we could agree it absolutely deserved to be nominated but it was just a damn shame something else was on the ballot this year that we absolutely had to vote for so we weren’t voting for Vurt.

    …it’s complicated.

  2. Iain Coleman on June 29, 2015 at 8:18 pm said:
    Ah, The Day of the Triffids. An absolute classic,

    Indeed – and think of all the zombie apocalypses that owe it a debt if gratitude. 24 Days Later and the pilot to the Walking Dead make an clear nod to it.

    New Hugo idea – the vicarious Hugo. Every time a work wins a Hugo the works that clearly influenced it gets a fractional vicarious Hugo. So War of the Worlds gets a tiny bit of Hugoness from every alien invasion story, for example 😉

  3. mk41: I asked you to refrain from specific behaviour in a single specific case. It was a polite request. Your attempt to frame that as some sort of aggressive act and boundary violation has me puzzled. Would like me to stop addressing you altogether?

    This is not the first time you have asked me, and others, not to comment on certain things. And if you re-read your request, I think you’ll see that it appears to be a general request, rather than a request for a one-time thing.

    Yes, your request was polite — as was my response. I did not try to frame it as an aggressive act — I pointed out that you were asking me to make my judgment on what should be remarked upon conform to your judgment (as you did with the issue of the physical violence threats), and I asked you not to keep trying to make me conform to your ideas of which subjects were off-limits.

  4. Mr. Seavey,

    @Brian Z: You will have an awful lot of trouble gaining further sympathy for “attacks” and “dogpiling” if you persist in suggesting that not giving people awards is the same as blacklisting them. Most of us here are familiar with the Hollywood blacklist, probably the most famous of them, which destroyed the careers of many brilliant screenwriters due to their personal associations–not even their own political leanings, but those of their friends. Trying to associate that travesty of justice and shame on my nation’s history with a bunch of whiny jackasses complaining that people are being mean to them on the Internet is the kind of hyperbole that makes people tune you out as a troll.

    You have called me someone with “a very bad habit of ascribing motivations to people here on these forums rather than take their words at face value or even asking them to go into detail about why they said what they did.”

    A blacklist is a list of people to be ostracized, shunned, avoided, or denied privileges or recognition. In a labor or union context, that might mean shutting people out of employment. You might be blacklisted for a new credit card, or find yourself unwelcome in casinos. You can be blacklisted, Mr. Seavey, for failing to return books to the library within a reasonable period of time.

    I neither mentioned Hollywood nor claimed that the Hugo awards controversy rises to the same level, so you are simply putting words in my mouth that I didn’t say, against your own good advice.

    However, you get blacklisted by the local library for failing to return books that you borrowed using your own library card. A columnist for a respected newspaper called for a literary award to remove names of certain unnamed professional writers, and linked to an article linking authors ranging from Vox Day to Orson Scott Card and Dan Simmons (!) to the Charleston tragedy. DGW apparently does not mean simply that Vox Day should be taken off the shortlist, since he said writers plural. So who else does he mean? Those who associate with Vox Day? Correct me if I’m wrong, but nobody else on that shortlist has endorsed Vox Day’s controversial statements about race relations. Hence my question: who is he talking about?

  5. FFS, why are you asking us? Ask him. Is this another manifestation of your “all you non-puppies are interchangeable” thing?

  7. He is not the boss of us.

    He has issued no orders that mean a damn, has he has no authority to enforce them even if he wanted to.

    If you disagree with him or want clarification, ask him, not us.

    Seriously, how is it even relevant that he’s endorsing a “blacklist” (let’s just go with that for the sake of avoiding pedantry) that he can’t enforce and that no one on File770 has endorsed?

  8. I never make any kind of decision without asking myself, “I wonder what Damien Walter thinks about this?” Because a writer who imagines there’s someone called “Hugo Awards” that he can address that has the power to “take…writers off a shortlist” and in the process of demanding this uses a #$@#%!# comma splice is a writer who is surely well-informed on a broad range of topics and an acute judge of them all.

  9. @Brian Z.

    Welcome to the File770 Help desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misevaluation, but it is our policy here not to do others’ homework, but merely to aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn how to solve such problems.

    (with apologies to Wikipedia)

  10. @Brian Z.
    Have you read the responses in this thread? Here’s a big freakin’ hint for you, Brian: If we couldn’t figure that out for ourselves, we’re certainly not going to try figuring it out for you.

    @Jim Henley
    WWDWD?

  11. @jim Mosquito Coast is an all-time favorite of mine. Interesting to think of as sci-fi…but then I also liked O-Zone.

  12. Now, if he’d promoted a slate of candidates, and any of us had voted that slate, or consistently displayed sympathy for the resentments that animated his campaign, THEN you might be justified in treating us as his comrades.

  13. @camestros By that standard, Mary Shelley would hold the record, which would be just fine by this fan!

  14. @Will R:

    @jim Mosquito Coast is an all-time favorite of mine. Interesting to think of as sci-fi…but then I also liked O-Zone.

    Hurrah! Another Mosquito Coast fan! And yeah, I think it is quite consciously in dialog with the SF tradition of doughty, self-reliant space colonists as much or more than it’s a critique of the Robinson Crusoe tradition. (There is of course a lot of overlap.) I read Mosquito Coast as a Heinlein juvie gone wrong, basically.

    I read an awful lot of Theroux’s fiction and loved most of it. (I lost track of his work after the 80s.) But O-Zone I couldn’t get into, and gave up on within a couple of chapters. I suppose around here people would say it “bounced off of me?”

  15. @ JJ
    I reread my comment before replying to you and while indeed the first sentence does not make it clear that I was speaking of Torgersen’s post on gay marriage specifically, the second sentence provides that context. I do enough fine parsing on here myself that it’d be laughable if I asked others to refrain from it generally. Plus, you could have asked.

    Second, when I ask you not to do X, that doesn’t include a request to adopt my ideas on X. It an expression of my desire to avoid X as a topic in our common discussion which you are free to honor or not.

  17. @CPaca–
    I’d also read up to Angry Dad but after reading the comments I had to go back and read your response.
    I have to give you props for trying to engage ( I wrote them off as lost causes) but I made the mistake of reading past where you posted and now I regret it. I’ve hit a place in my life after all these years that I really don’t have time for dickheads and weasels.
    I’d really love to get the daughter’s side of this–I have a hard time believing his take on things. But Jesus, what a smug asshole and his wife should have kicked his ass to the door. “Put down the dogs and sell the house”? That told me all I needed to know about him right there.
    There certainly seemed to be a number of posters who did not like having a child that stood up for themselves.
    Oh yeah–and I wasn’t bothered by you using tranny–it wasn’t said in a perjorative way. I’ve got a number of people in my life who use it.

  20. Brian Z:

    Laertes, RedWombat, I gave you Giordano Bruno’s Infinite Slates heresy, what else do you want from me?

    Honest engagement. An oft-repeated and apparently futile request, but since you asked…

  21. Jim Henley, I see you are commenting on my posts. Welcome back. I don’t know if you have a twitter (I don’t), but since a number of people linked by the roundups have come by in the past – and DGW, who is a mild mannered reporter on the science fiction beat when he is not on Twitter fighting injustice and bending others to his will, might actually read them anyway – I hope he can get the sound grammatical (and other) advice that is lacking over there at the Guardian.

  22. @jim O-Zone sticks with me much more for the world building than for the story.

    And that characterization of MQ is spot-on. So much to say about technology, masculinity, and monstrousness.

  23. Five Hugos. This is my final list, honest!

    A nearly random tweet, Damien Walter
    An offhand Facebook comment, Irene Gallo
    N-Gram of “Steve” vs. “Stanley”, The Google
    Snapchat between L. Jagi Lamplighter and Samuel R. Delany in my head
    Reddit thread about how the price of Bitcoin is going to go back up real soon now, Various Sad Lonely People

  24. mk41: Plus, you could have asked. Second, when I ask you not to do X, that doesn’t include a request to adopt my ideas on X.

    There wasn’t really any point. I don’t regard Torgersen’s cognitive dissonance or Puppies’ physically-threatening verbiage to be off-limit topics. When you ask me not to comment on something, you are asking me to conform to your belief that it shouldn’t be commented upon.

    You are of course welcome to continue to make such requests in the future. The point of my original post was that such requests are not likely to yield you the result you are seeking.

    This isn’t personal to you — it applies to my interactions with others here as well — and it’s not acrimonious. It’s simply that I try very hard to weigh my words before I click “Post”, so by the time you’re telling me you don’t want me to remark upon a subject, my remark has usually been already been pretty well thought-through, and for me to reverse it, the reasons would have to be a great deal more compelling than the ones you’ve provided with your requests thus far.

    Meredith has several times stated that she feels Brian Z has not demonstrated dishonesty and that he is being dogpiled-on. I personally feel (as, clearly, do a number of other people here) that Brian Z crossed the threshold into definitively having demonstrated deliberate dishonesty and mendacity several weeks ago, that his behavior is destructive to this community, and that calling him out when he engages in this behavior is legitimate. As with your off-limits requests, Meredith can say that this should be off limits all she wants; I disagree, and I’m not going to give Brian Z a pass just because she thinks he should be given one.

  25. Mike:

    I see James May is ushering people he disapproves of to File 770, while staying there himself. Hard to argue with that.

    Works for me.

    The one bit of Brad’s piece that struck me as weird was:

    “The men and women of the United States Supreme Court might also be accused of arrogating to themselves the seat of judgment,”

    No. They were appointed to the seat of judgment. Nominated by presidents, vetted by the Senate…they were carefully selected for the seat of judgment in this country. We offered it to them, okayed them for it, and we pay them to do it.

    It’s that Constitution people claim to care about so much. It has provisions for a supreme court of people who sit in judgment. We call them judges, and we call it the Supreme Court.

    It’s how it works. They didn’t just up and decide to be judgy. We hired them special.

  26. Jim Henley on June 29, 2015 at 9:03 pm said:
    N-Gram of “Steve” vs. “Stanley”, The Google

    Just for you 🙂 – but seriously look at how Jim follows a similar trend to Steve. A mid 40’s peak, a mid 60’s dip and then a resurgence. I think that proves you are actually Captain America.

    https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Steve%2CStanley%2C+Jim&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=17&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CSteve%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CStanley%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CJim%3B%2Cc0

  27. Kurt:

    It’s how it works. They didn’t just up and decide to be judgy. We hired them special.

    And if you show up and demand to sit in the judgy seats, they won’t let you, even if you were up all night sewing your awesome judge robes! They’re all “Police, remove that man” this and “Contempt of Court” that.
    …
    I mean, I expect they would be, if I had done that.

  28. @Camestros Felapton: Oh that’s funny! First because I was named very near the absolute trough, and second because I’m really surprised to see the largely uninterrupted climb since the mid-60s. My anecdotal impression is that nobody names their kid Jim/James any more.

    I wonder if the Ngram results stem from “Legacy Jims.” (And Steves.) I suspect that must be the case.

  29. Another one of my five rockets:
    Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) for Sundown: Whispers of Ragnarok.

    It’s musical theater in authentic period costumes about Snorri Sturluson, the writer of the Prose Edda. No instruments (well, maybe a little bit of drumming), but rather polyphonic a capella singing.

    Sound dry? Not a bit of it. I got to see them perform it live in San Antonio at LoneStarCon III and they blew me away. If you don’t hate complex polyphony and/or Norse myth, you should check this stuff out.

    The link goes to the DVD of their performance at Balticon. There’s also a CD of the songs, and, elsewhere on the site, a downloadable album.

    I think I can embed YouTube here? Have a couple of videos:

    (Hmm, not embedding for some reason.)

  30. @MickyFinn:

    And if you show up and demand to sit in the judgy seats, they won’t let you, even if you were up all night sewing your awesome judge robes! They’re all “Police, remove that man” this and “Contempt of Court” that.

    This is just more disrespect for cosplay by traditionally male-dominated fandoms is what it is.

  31. And if you show up and demand to sit in the judgy seats, they won’t let you, even if you were up all night sewing your awesome judge robes!

    Even if the judge robes have stars & stripe front and sleeves and a repro of the Declaration on the back with a big fuckin eagle acrost it.

    Even then.

    Bastids.

  32. Five Hugos…

    Best Dramatic Presentation: Forbidden Planet (1957)

    Other four held in reserve till I’ve had more time to mull it over.

  33. “@Kurt Busiek–“They were appointed to the seat of judgment. Nominated by presidents, vetted by the Senate…they were carefully selected for the seat of judgment in this country. We offered it to them, okayed them for it, and we pay them to do it.

    It’s that Constitution people claim to care about so much. It has provisions for a supreme court of people who sit in judgment. We call them judges, and we call it the Supreme Court. It’s how it works. They didn’t just up and decide to be judgy. We hired them special.””

    This should be tattooed on the foreheads of Cruz, Santorum, Huckabee and all those other dick-wads–federal, state and local.

  34. Kurt Busiek on June 29, 2015 at 9:07 pm said:

    No. They were appointed to the seat of judgment. Nominated by presidents, vetted by the Senate…they were carefully selected for the seat of judgment in this country. We offered it to them, okayed them for it, and we pay them to do it.

    Indeed – and this a key tenet of US conservative thinking: the US is a ‘republic’ not a ‘democracy’ [with specialist definitions of both] with the difference being that rights are enshrined and legislatures have to ensure their laws conform with rights. Now I get why *I* don’t find that wholly convincing but then I’m not a US conservative. As soon as you* say that votes trump rights then you are essentially saying you don’t believe in natural rights as the core principle of your system of government.

    [*that is a rhetorical ‘you’ not actually you, as in Kurt Busiek – who clearly isn’t saying those things…]

  35. When you ask me not to comment on something, you are asking me to conform to your belief that it shouldn’t be commented upon.

    No, not at all. Please reconsider this, it’s simply not true.
    The clear counterexample in real life interaction is “Let’s not talk about X. — *rolleyes* Ok.”. The second speaker complies, but makes it clear he or she does not agree. Compliance with the request may be motivated by any number of reasons, politeness, the realisation that you can’t force other people to discuss things they don’t want to discuss (cf. the sealion strip), when the request concerns triggers it may be the desire to avoid harm, the recognition that this particular topic with this person has lead nowhere in the past and so on.

    The point of my original post was that such requests are not likely to yield you the result you are seeking.

    I believe you attribute a belief in my powers of persuasion to me that isn’t there. I don’t have any power here. My request isn’t strategic, it’s an expression of my desires. If I get what I ask for, great, if I don’t, I at least made my wishes clear.

    I agree with your take on Brian Z, I also noted Meredith’s request and was idly wondering whether you’d responded to her in similar manner. I don’t consider Meredith’s request binding in any way. But I’m glad I know where she stands so I can either address her and argue the case (unlikely) or factor it in, inlcuding ignoring it when I have other priorities. In this specific case, I have tried to avoid piling on if I thought the point was sufficiently made by others already. Maybe that contributes a little to Merediths happiness; I’d like that.

  36. Five Hugos, off the top of my head. I’ll think of a dozen better choices the moment the editing window expires.

    Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011)
    Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds (197something)
    Kill la Kill (2014)
    Jodorowsky’s Dune (2014)
    One chapter of Mushishi TBD (2007-2010)

  38. Richard Brandt on June 29, 2015 at 4:45 pm said:
    The Wind’s Hind Quarters

    Clearly, there was a Silken Windhound involved.

    Gabriel F. on June 29, 2015 at 5:47 pm said:
    To be fair, calico males and red (orange) female cats do exist, they’re just rare because those colors are sex-linked, but not 100% so. Male calicos are almost always sterile.

    For a cat to be a calico, it needs to have two X chromosomes, to carry the two color genes in addition to the white spotting gene. Male calicos are nearly always sterile because they are chromosomally abnormal.

    There’s no reason at all for a female cat not to be pure red/orange; it doesn’t require any abnormalities. It’s just that female cats are more likely than males to carry the white spotting gene in addition to even two copies of the red/orange gene, because with two X chromosomes, she has more space to store it. Male cats are less likely to get the white spotting gene, but just “less likely.” It doesn’t require any abnormalities, either.

    My mom’s cat Rosie (who will be needing a new home now because she can’t live with dogs and my sister and I both have dogs) is a red female.

  39. Jim Henley on June 29, 2015 at 9:17 pm said:

    @Camestros Felapton: Oh that’s funny! First because I was named very near the absolute trough, and second because I’m really surprised to see the largely uninterrupted climb since the mid-60s. My anecdotal impression is that nobody names their kid Jim/James any more.

    I wonder if the Ngram results stem from “Legacy Jims.” (And Steves.) I suspect that must be the case.

    Good point as these are book references to names rather than the actual name popularity – so there will be a lag from when those names were popular with parents and then those people called ‘Jim’ etc growing up and doing stuff and being written about in books. On reflection I should have picked the English Fiction corpus so as to exclude real people.

    https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Steve%2CStanley%2CJim&year_start=1800&year_end=2009&corpus=4&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CSteve%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CStanley%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2CJim%3B%2Cc0

    OK I’ll stop now – it is becoming an obsession.

  40. Jim Henley

    @MickyFinn: And if you show up and demand to sit in the judgy seats, they won’t let you, even if you were up all night sewing your awesome judge robes! They’re all “Police, remove that man” this and “Contempt of Court” that.

    This is just more disrespect for cosplay by traditionally male-dominated fandoms is what it is.

    That’s just typical SJW misandry from you – if you’re a guy trying to sneak into a convent wearing a nun’s costume, you get the same reaction. So there.

    In retrospect, I’m still not sure whether it was the beard or the fishnets that gave me away.

  41. @RedWombat: I thought Vurt was amazing. I was also really impressed by its sort-of sequel, Pollen.

  42. No, not at all. Please reconsider this, it’s simply not true.

    It is true.

    The clear counterexample in real life interaction is “Let’s not talk about X. — *rolleyes* Ok.”.

    No, that’s a bad counterexample.

    In the counterexample, one person is asking another to agree to end a mutual conversation.

    In the reality at hand, you’re asking people to stop talking to each other and to others about something because you think that conversation should end. It’s not up to you.

    Online, you control your behavior, you make your choices. You don’t get to choose for others. You can ask them to stop talking about anything. They don’t have to roll their eyes and say okay. They can up and keep going.

    You can choose not to talk about it yourself. You can choose not to converse with them about it.

    But they get to choose whether they’re going to talk to others about it.

    And they can choose to tell you, when you ask them to stop, that they don’t see it your way and decline to accede to your request.

  44. Even if the judge robes have stars & stripe front and sleeves and a repro of the Declaration on the back with a big fuckin eagle acrost it.

    Kurt, ordering your judge’s costume from the Oglaf dwarves was probably a mistake.

  45. @petrea That Jodorowski movie really was an amazing thing. Almost better than if he’d actually realized Dune.

  46. You have five Hugos, with their nameplates blank. What do you put on there?

    Without the years (which I’m liable to misremember), the first two I think of are:
    The Dragon Waiting, John M Ford
    Courtship Rite, Donald Kingsbury

  47. @Brian – If you go read the comment you’re replying to verrrrrry carefully, you might get an idea!

  49. @ KB
    – Torgersons phrase repeats the sentence on ISIS preceding it. It’s a rhetorical flourish.
    – The utter politisation of the SC nominations (and lower levels as well) is a reality distinct from the ideal expressed in the declaration. Scalia has an agenda, so does Thomas. It’s not always best to discuss them in terms of what they ought to be/do.
    – “judicial overreach” and “activist judges” are common memes on the right. In some cases they have a point. Conservatives are especially concerned with cases where rulings that reflect todays positions on issues are torturously justified by reference to the constitution, and that does happen (cf. textualist approach). In this particular case, the argument would be that it’s a states rights issue and the supreme court has no business deciding this for all states. That’s a valid legal argument. I haven’t read the ruling and thus can’t say whether the argument is compelling in this case. But it’s probably where Torgersen is coming from with “arrogated”.

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