Yay! I have internet again! The week in review.

So you may have noticed I haven’t blogged at all this week. That is because my stupid Century Link piece of crap internet died for the last time. I’ve put up with their garbage service and lousy speed for years because it was the only internet available on Yard Moose Mountain.

Luckily when Century Link died AGAIN this weekend I’d already learned that Digis had built a tower on our mountain. I got them to come out to install, but sadly that meant no house internet for a few days, which meant no blogging, even though there was lots of hilarious stuff going on in the world begging to be made fun of.

But last night we got our new internet, and holy moly it is so much faster it is ridiculous. I tested it out on Call of Duty. For the last year I’ve been playing using slow, laggy, jerky internet, plus I normally play while riding an exercise bike for an hour. Last night, actual good internet and a normal heart rate and I went from loser suckwad of losing to an avenging angel dispensing murder death. Yay fast internet!

So long Century Link. May your unspeakable foulness rot in hell.

But what did I not get to blog about? Lots. So let’s do a quick WEEK IN REVIEW!

First off, the greatest video ever made came out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=Z7Z4rGQi2cQ

Yes. Holy shit. That is the actual President of the United States of America running like a girl around the White House with an inebriated Joe Biden (I’m just amazed he can corner that well drunk, and since this is Joe we’re talking about, you know that isn’t water in his cup at the end). Even the Portuguese water dogs weep for America as they go by.

Side note after watching this video several times… How many freaking hand sanitizers do they have in the White House anyway?

If you ever wonder why every tyranical wannabe dictator violent scumbag in the world looks at America as being weak right now, well, there you go. Who the hell on the POTUS’s staff thought that video was a good idea? Probably the same dude who thought this was where the President should stand while making a statement concerning the Russian invasion of the Crimea.

obamaalphabetrug575

Yep… Can’t really make this stuff up.

Up next, in SAD PUPPIES NEWS, the Typical WorldCon Voter once again showed their ass to the world and demonstrated that they are too PC to live.

So the Hugo awards (you should have your PINs by now so don’t forget to nominate Warbound before the end of the month to combat PRS!) will be held in London this year. Neil Gaiman, who is about as close to a rock superstar as you get in this industry, is friends with Johnathan Ross, who is the British equivelent of Jay Leno or David Letterman. Gaiman asked Ross to host the Hugo ceremony. Ross (who normally gets like a hundred grand to host an event) VOLUNTEERED to do it for FREE. He’s hosted ComicCon and the Eisner awards (events bigger than like five or six WorldCons put together) and is also a sci-fi geek, has written sci-fi comics, and his wife is a Hugo winning sci-fi author so he actually likes this stuff, plus he’s got 3 MILLION Twitter followers, so that’s kind of a no brainer for publicity for our struggling, shrinking genre, right?

Oh hell no.

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/03/jonathan-ross-and-hugo-awards-why-was-he-forced-out-science-fictions-self-appointed

Those of you who want to end Puppy Related Sadness won’t be surprised to know that instead of saying “Yay! Publicity! Increased Book Sales for the nominees!” one of the authors got upset that Ross, being a comedian, might make fat jokes. And that made her feel unsafe. What’s the matter LonCon? You promised to make me feel safe. No. I shit you not.

Putting aside the whole thing where words make you unsafe bullshit, and how a con doesn’t just need to protect you from sexual harrassement but also the potential that somebody somewhere may actually utter words that hurt your self esteem, surely the Typical WorldCon Voter would be grown up enough to say put your big girl panties on and move on with life.

Of coure not. So then SMOF, being SMOF, immediately got their outrage on, lit up their torches and pulled out their pitchforks and began mercilessly attacking Ross. Not for anything he’d actually done mind you, but because of what he MIGHT do, never mind all of the evidence to the contrary of him being a professional in hosting award shows that dwarf the Hugos.

And Ross isn’t exactly a right winger. He’s British. 🙂

So the brigade of yippy attack dogs began nipping at him, flinging poo, and all of the usual character assassination stuff outspoken authors like me have been putting up with for years. “Why do you want all the fat people to die you hafeful 1%er?” When Ross defended himself and (being a comedian) tried to mock those mocking him, then it turning into “You sound angry.” “Yes, so angry.” “More examples of why you shouldn’t host, you hateful rage monster.” so on and so forth.

Of course, those of us who spend our lives yanking these people’s chains already have a checklist and bingo card ready for these sorts of predictable things, http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/the-internet-arguing-checklist/ we are used to their tantrums and immunized by being actual grown ups with lives, but since this was mostly lefties eating lefties, all of the hate and character assassination came as a surprise to them.

So Ross dropped out. His daughter tried to defend her father by pointing out that she was overweight and so Ross was sensitive to that sort of thing, but NOOOOOOOOOoooo, this is our designated outrage of the week and facts will not stand in our way! His sci-fi author wife and daughter had to quit Twitter because they got so hounded by caring liberals.

(on a side note, before the No Labels crowd throws their predictable fit, when I say Caring Liberals, that is the special subclass that cares so hard they like to threaten to kill people like me. One of us conservative bloggers’ favorite things to do on Twitter is see how many posts it takes to have a caring liberal go from accusing us of misogyny before they threaten to murder or rape our wives or daughters. My record is 5, though I’ve seen it done in 3) 🙂

Neil Gaiman was shocked by this outpouring of stupidity, and I for one love the comment about how he was stunned they attacked Ross for imaginary offenses and hateful things he’d never done or would do. No shit? Really? Welcome to the party, Mr. Gaiman. This is how the other half lives. Neil was apparently unaware of the Make Shit Up section of the checklist. If one half of what they said about somebody like me was true I’d be the vilest scum the world has ever seen, but I’m usually just a guy who disagrees with them and who will never back down, which obviously means I’m a white man who grew up with white privilege who hates gays, minorities, women, old people, young people, sunshine, and kittens.

LonCon issued a statement which reads sort of like the thing Maoist prisoners had to read right before going in front of the firing squad. They’re super sorry that their hateful hatemongery knows no boundry of hate, and how dare they put actual skill, celebrity, and promotional value above the off chance that one of you might pull some imagined offense out of your ass. We’re super sorry, commisar.

Anybody want to bet that if they’d gotten John Stewart or Stephen Colbert to host SMOF would have been giddy with excitement? And if somebody like me had said I feel unsafe because he may make jokes about the Tea Party, I’d have been the one to get laughed at? Not that that would have happened, because my side isn’t the one made up of easily offended glittery hoohaws.

So there you go, the latest SFWA/SMOF/Typical WorldCon Voter outrage of the week. Personally I think London should get Jeremy Clarkson to host. Then I’d actually bother to go, but mostly in the hopes that I’d get to hang out with him, drive around in a badass super car, and go to Piers Morgan’s house to punch him in the face again.

Oh, and by the way, we named our new fast internet router Privilege Whale. 🙂

The Drowning Empire, Episode 47: Brush & Ink, Axe & Armor, Part II
The Drowning Empire, Episode 46: Brush & Ink, Axe & Armor, Part I

112 thoughts on “Yay! I have internet again! The week in review.”

  1. I am so glad I GAFIAted years ago. I am amazed at how narrow minded SF fans have become. “Liberal” has now become it’s own antonym. M

    1. No kidding. 20 years ago, **I** was a SMOF. And Fandom got too wierd for ME. . . .Then I fell in amongst the Barflies, discovered Larry. . . and found the OLD fandom I knew and loved, not the stylish Glittery Hoo-hah set currently styling themselves as the Masters of . .. . hang on, not Masters, that implies domination and. . . . Well I’m sure you get the point (re-adjusting my IQ back to normal after a brief downgrade to SFWA/GHH mode. . .)

  2. Larry, just out of curiosity: Did you have a Word document full of stupid shit like this ready to go once Yard Moose Mountain was hooked back into the Matrix?

    1. Nope. Wrote that just now. My actual work week was spent writing up 30 pages of notes for my epic fantasy project I’m working on.

  3. Clarkson as the host.

    How about all three of them? Hammond and May are like Clarkson’s wingmen. Granted, Clarkson by himself ends up expousing his more right-of-center views and typically has more fun, but all three of them would end up a riot.

    But the after party where we punch Piers Morgan in the face again would be very nice. As long as someone other than Clarkson drives, because I reckon there are a few straight lines on the way there.

      1. If Piers Morgan is indeed returning to Dear Old Blighty, it would be fitting to send Mr. Clarkson a lovingly handcrafted blackthorn walking stick in hopes that he might reconsider any further episodes of fisticuffs. Throughout the ages, such walking sticks have remained a highly regarded tool of choice in the field of conflict resolution, turning the daily botheration of dealing with hooligans, hobos, and other riffraff of the baser sort into an exercise of nearly sublime meditation, comparable to the early morning practice of Tai Chi in a public park. Also, they are much easier on the fingers.

      2. Back before Piers got sacked, canned, rendered surplus, fired, I suggested a joint US-UK Top Gear, where the American hosts nabbed the idiot in New York and smuggled him to the Mojave where the UK boys would use their experience with the Reliant Robin Shuttle to put the moron into orbit*.

        *Technically, any falling object is in orbit, it’s just that most of the ones we’re familiar with have a subterraninan perigee.

  4. Good grief. Did you hear them at the end? “Same time next week?”?!? It’s bad enough that the POTUS is using his time to make something like that, but after all that trouble, implying that once a week is enough? The mind boggles.

  5. It’s a pity you can’t make it over for Loncon as I would love to have the chance to meet you, so I guess we’ll have to meet some other time (I have books that need signing, and I’d love to shoot the breeze with you about loads of stuff). Being British I will now have to apologise by saying I’m sorry I’m probably not that right wing enough, a bit like Jonathon Ross, but I’m sure we would have enough to talk about [I like wargaming for one thing, and have shot guns, sot here’s a start, though I’m sure we will disagree over 9mm versus 45 ACP, but there again I’m not as big as you, and hitting a target is pretty important, and I’m sure I’d be more accurate with a smaller round. Just saying ;-)].

    1. If I’m going to travel all the way to England, it will be to play tourist, not listen to a bunch of stuffy SMOFs tell me what a bad person I am for 3 days.

      I wouldn’t worry about political differences because comparing one country to another is usually apples and oranges. I’ve worked with the British before. One thing I like about them is that they insult each other nonstop. Culturally they’re not a bunch of whiny babies like half of America has turned in to. The English insult each other and laugh, whereas it is painful to say something in America, and then watch our lefties pause for a couple of awkward seconds while they see if it is okay to laugh or if they need to feign outrage. 🙂

  6. Just so I’m clear here: a guy who (allegedly) tells fat jokes makes someone feel “unsafe”, but (e.g.) an editor who knowingly marches in Stalinist demonstrations does not.

    That’s an odd perspective, given that Stalinists have actually, you know, murdered millions of people.

    Personally, Stalinists make me feel considerably more unsafe than fat jokes do, and I speak as someone who’s been spending way too much time sitting behind a desk in recent years.

    I’m betting that a Twitter mob aimed at excluding Stalinists and their useful idiots wouldn’t be taken nearly as seriously.

    1. Come on. Everybody knows the real danger is the people who want to make the government smaller, less able to spy on you, ruin your life, audit you capriciously for political reasons, confiscate your property at a whim, or blow you up with a drone. Obviously the real bad guys here are libertarians. 🙂

      1. Those evil libertarians will try to suck you in with all that talk of “liberty”, but just you talk to them. Sooner or later they’ll slip in that “consequences” bit, and that’s what their really after.

      2. Andrew, you forgot the bit where we opine that we might know better how to handle our own problems than some faceless entity based out of Washington DC. That’s just evil hateful talk, cause we hate on all those bureaucrats, and want them to be unemployed.

      3. Ah, the Evil Libertarian Conspiracy — they want to take over the world and LEAVE YOU ALONE. 😉

      4. Libertarians ARE scary, man. They want to take over the government and LEAVE YOU THE HELL ALONE. Can you imagine?

      5. Confirming that i plan to take over the world specifically to -not- fuck with you. Vote Sjonnar for God-Emperor of Mankind ’16!

      6. @Julaire

        “cause we hate on all those bureaucrats, and want them to be unemployed.”

        Nonsense. I don’t hate the bureaucrats. I hate the buttinskis. And I don’t want them to be unemployed, I want them to be deep fat fried.

    1. It was probably getting swamped from 10 million iterations of:

      “Achmed, you must see this, it is unbelivable”
      “Well, He did say ‘people naturally back the stronger horse”
      “But nobody exposes their weakest horses on YouTube!”

  7. Ross should make a point of mocking the LonCon fans in the mode of Triumph the Dog versus the Star Wars fans.

  8. Anybody want to bet that if they’d gotten John Stewart or Stephen Colbert to host SMOF would have been giddy with excitement?

    Oh, is it bad that I originally read that as giddy with excrement?

      1. Their asses? I was under the impression that it came from all the crap they spout whenever they open their mouths.

  9. I’m a full time writer of fantasy myself, and so you might assume my friends know who Neil Gaiman is, or what a Hugo Award is.

    Nope.

    My own fiancée doesn’t even know who or what those things are. But they might’ve had Ross been allowed to host the awards unmolested. I cannot tell you how sick I am of all this PC, “look-out-for-that-bug’s-feelings-and-emotions” garbage.

    We need a lunar colony more than ever.

    1. Ever read Tom Kratman’s ‘Desert called Peace’ series? I reckon most of us sensible people would be lining up for the privilege of being exiled to buttfuck nowhere.

      1. There’s that, or there’s the alternative. We just get a couple of NASA scientists to say there’s a lunar colony, and then we ship all the libs and progs out there. It’s easy to fudge scientific information (see Global Warming).

      2. Thing is, they won’t want to go – it’s pretty comfortable here, and they’re not the kind of folks that are willing to put in the work to make a whole new society, especially not out on the damn moon. We’d have to ship them out by force, and people who -don’t- like intrusive big government nanny states are clearly outnumbered here.

  10. What got me about the whole LonCon she-bang was the gal who started it b*tching about how they chose Jonathon Ross over her to host. How she had volunteered to host, and was an award-winning comedienne, but they chose someone else.

    This makes me wonder if she didn’t haul out her body image fears to cover up for sour grapes.

    1. I saw that. That was really obnoxious. Hey, I volunteered to host! I’m funny too! Sure, he normally commands a hundred grand for his services, he’s super famous, has 3 million followers, is wildly successful, and would bring a whole bunch to our little piddly awards ceremony, but I’m special too!

      Remember when I said that WorldCon was a tiny, insular little group? There’s a perfect example. Somebody who is part of the in crowd think that they should automatically be chosen over the wildly successful and popular outsider, simply because they exist and you owe it to them for belonging.

      The only Hugo awards I ever went to was SO BORING. It was painfully unfunny. The hosts were two insiders. They were authors. They were supposed to be funny, but holy shit, they weren’t. And I’ve even met one of them in person and like the guy, but they had no business hosting. It was HOURS of boring suck, while the guests began to pass out from heat stroke. Just because you belong to something doesn’t mean dick, and just because you’ve won awards doesn’t mean dick (that was kind of the whole point behind PRS). Meanwhile, this other dude is getting 100k to show up FOR A REASON.

      1. Wow, that sounds like a horrible corporate retreat where the CEO has decided that guy from HR can host.

      2. All the more reason for you to start your own awards. You have credibility, and Scott Card can supply aspiring deserving newbies.

        Probably kick Baen into handing out some recognition, or Brad R. Torgersen’s association.

        See, you don’t have to compete. You just have to EXIST and be better. There’s always room for another, and the wussies can stick with their dwindling fan base.

        Hell, you can probably supply all the nominees for “Best first published novel” from gamer night.

        Get Tom Kratman to officiate. Invite Harlan Ellison to show up just to insult everybody. He won’t come, so you can also offer to play any video or audio or disparaging email he cares to send.

    2. You know I’ve tried to find out about this award she supposedly won for stand-up comedy and I can’t find squat, even on her own website. I also can’t find a single youtube clip of her doing stand-up. I’m willing to believe that she’s a stand-up comedian, because why would you lie about a lousy job like that? I just can’t prove it is all.

  11. Is the glitter they use mylar based or biodegradable liberal terrific fluid based.
    And heaven help us if the wash and reuse the glitter!
    Glad your back, Larry!
    Looking forward to NRA Convention in April and GenCon in August!

    Woot!

  12. Larry –

    You forgot to comment on the Russian ‘Invasion’ of Crimea (I use air quotes because I’m pretty sure the guys at the border let them in with a wink and a nod.) – and the American response was to send a ‘strongly worded’ bit or two – send Kerry over to Kiev to talk to the Ukrainians and maybe a Russian. Have a photo op over a junk pile that was supposedly a impromptu shrine to those lost or something. (Yes, piles of refuse and old tires make a great shrine! Bonfire… maybe). Oh, and send *six* more F-15s to bolster our four F-15’s currently flying over the Balkans on some Air Dominance mission or another. 10 *whole* F-15s. I bet our NATO allies are feeling warm and fuzzy now.

    You know, once upon a time the standard answer to something like this would be to send a Marine MEU and an Aircraft Carrier to the region. Oh, and probably scramble the B-52s. Just in case.

    (I am aware Crimea appears to have voted to join the Russian Federation – we’ll see where the Referendum goes. My guess is Russian. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin doesn’t tear another chunk off Ukraine before he’s done. Its very clear that no one in the EU or the US is going to step up to help the country *we* disarmed.)

    1. Fun though it might be totalk smack about doing it, a MEU and a carrier would accomplish precisely dick in this situation. Way up the Black Sea, away from our logistics centers, with no other support… Yeah that’s a disaster waiting to happen if the balloon were to go up.

      1. The other problem is that, per a treating dating back to the ’30’s, we can’t transit an aircraft carrier into the Black Sea.

        But a couple of Virginia’s would probably have a grand old time.

      2. Hmm. Didn’t know about that. Which Treaty is it? But yeah, a couple SSNs could wreak some havoc, if the topography and environment is favorable. As a submariner myself, the notion of sinking a bunch of Russian ships that way is just… Ooooo…. 😉 That said, it wouldn’t really impact much of anything on the ground, though. So it would be strategically useless.

        Fun, though. 🙂

      3. Most movements of Carrier Air power *are* strategically useless – except in the reminder to the guy at the other end that we *can* move into their neighborhood, and make a mess while we’re there.

        If the Obama administration was serious about this in any way shape or form, some forces that equaled more then a handful would be moving from *somewhere* to at least stage in the Baltic states. Calling 10 Air Force Poges on the ground in Poland for a joint training mission, and *ten* whole Strike Eagles (assuming they were -15Es) a response to the Crimea situation makes it pretty clear what you *actually* think about such a situation. Putin is likely sitting back and having a belly laugh at Obama’s expense.

        Overall, I don’t honestly care horribly much what happens to the Ukraine, except that back in ’94 we signed a paper that at least gave the notion that if they gave up their nukes (and then a while later Obama got them some US money to dispose of a bunch of icky small arms and ammo) the Brits and the US would watch their backs.

        Makes any other deal we try to give someone have much less merit – if we can’t live up to this one.

      4. The Montreaux Convention with Turkey in 1936, barred the passage of at least some non-Black Sea nation warships through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles (I think there was a limit having to do with the caliber of gun mounted on the ship). We did ignore it at least once, in the 60’s, and Turkey allowed it, since the ships mounted rockets instead of guns. Soviets complained, but we laughed at them. There’s no specific ban on carriers but they are above a tonnage limit that bars them. Which led to the Soviets renaming some of their carriers as “aircraft carrying cruisers” since capital ships of any tonnage are allowed through the straits, if they belong to a Black Sea nation.

        Can’t see Obama actually deploying any naval forces there, it might make him look like he’s paying attention to the world around him instead of the one inside his head.

        Treaty is here btw: http://sam.baskent.edu.tr/belge/Montreux_ENG.pdf

    2. My wife is from Poland and we watch the Polish news on TV most every day (U-Verse carries a Polish channel). She says the Polish politicians look terrified when they talk about what Russia’s done in Crimea. No surprise that Poland invoked NATO Article 4. They’ve seen that movie before where Russia shows up on their eastern border, and I don’t think they like the script.

  13. So…Digis, eh? I live in Salt Lake. I got Comcast, and despite everyone telling me it’s better than CenturyLink, it’s still crappy. I wonder…

    1. I’ve had both Comcast and CenturyLink (lucky me) and CenturyLink is more reliable, in my experience. Comcast was a better run company in terms of billing and Customer Service. But they both suck.

    2. I used to have a Digis account a few years ago. I wasn’t impressed. They had overloaded the local node, so everyone had slow internet. Changing over to Comcast was an improvement when they finally brought service to our area.

      Glad it hear it’s a good experience for Larry. I hope it remains so.

    3. Digis has been doing wireless internet for a long time. They got a lot of market penetration in areas where the best alternative was ISDN/dialup. Their advantage is that if you have totally clear, unobstructed line of sight, you will get a very fast connection.

      If there are any tree leaves in the way, your signal strength (and thus bandwith) will oscillate greatly, because water absorbs microwaves. It gets worse in rain, and if snow/ice lives on the interfering leaves the signal can go to near zero.

      On the happy side, if you do have unobstructed direct line of sight, it’s a pretty solid connection. They’re competing with a lot of other companies now, including Clear 4G cellular data, and Utopia and Google fiber.

      With Larry being next to a tower, his connection will be fantastic. Good on him.

      Digis is also staffed with folks who actually know what a Cat5 cable is. That’s not at all a given for most tech support outfits.

      1. Since you brought it up… Google Fiber is AWESOME.

        I have been a sysadmin for companies that do DSL, Cable (docsis), wireless, T1s, DS3, OS192, LANs, WANs, etc for many years now. I have never had a home service that works as well as Google Fiber. So far, they are really doing it right.

        Of course, I am as fickle as any consumer. Bring me a better product at the same or better price, and we will talk. 🙂 As for right now, there isn’t any.

        Though I agree that Digis with a close tower that is not overpopulated beats CenturyLink and Comcast hands down. Maybe even an overcrowded tower.

  14. Larry, did you see the commercial with the young woman who signs up for Obamacare after a mild concussion?

    1. Funny thing is, we had a troll around here who proudly proclaimed that she had a book up for a lesbian feminist award a few decades back, but she lost out because she was ‘too radical’. Or maybe because her story sucked even by lesbian feminist trans-sister standards.

      1. I remember her! It was a FB fight about how conservative writers need to shut up now, that I copied it here after Mike Z. and Kratman jumped in and it turned into a blood bath. She was a total nutter, but the fact that her Dirty Dike Lesbian Erotica was #6,000,000 on Amazon didn’t keep her from being more of a *real* author than me. 😀

  15. My favorite part of this: The quote from Sarah Pinborough (whoever that is) saying it was ironic if the Americans criticizing Ross without knowing anything about him were the same ones who criticized Lynn Shephard for not having read Rowling and criticizing her.

    Meta-ironic, to coin a term. Showing her ignorance about Americans by conflating two very different groups of American SFFers and calling their supposed ignorance ironic.

  16. I love fat people, come the zombie hordes, I don’t have to out run them just the fat folk…and they take way longer to eat too (bonus)

    1. Ha! Jokes on you twig boy once the initial wave breaks you skinnies will start dropping like flies from starvation when all the food supply infrastructure seizes up!

  17. Larry, I’m so glad you wrote this about the Jonathan Ross thing. I wrote a blog article about it a couple of days ago that came to much the same conclusions as yours.

    http://philmophlegm.livejournal.com/292140.html

    I wait with bated breath to see who they do eventually get to host it. Who would actually want to do it now, knowing that they could be subject to that level of abuse?

    It seems like for every step forward we normal SF fans take in getting mainstream media acceptance of our genre, the leftard nerdocracy take us back three steps.

    (I’ll forgive you for thinking that all of us Brits are lefties…)

    1. I know you guys aren’t all lefties. Somebody has to be buying all those fuel inefficient Aston Martins and complaining about your gun control laws. 🙂

  18. In this version of North By Northwest, QUILTBAG feminists in the role of Cary Grant are pursued by menacing figures in sexist white Privilege-Pants. When the Q-fems learn their safe-house will be compromised by Privilege-Pants, the feminist quick-response team launches a pre-emptive tears-on-demand tactical strike using the same boo-hoo ground-to-air complaint rockets they use for lady-bugs they find on their arms.

    Humor-warrior McGuire negotiates a compromise where she will host the Hugos in QUILTBAG-approved pants with jokes like “My alarm clock goes ‘TRIGGER WARNING.'”

    Privilege-Pants Ross withdraws in shame to his hot screenplay-writing wife who shuts down her Twitter feed like the 20th Maine did to Longstreet at Little Round Top. The ladies of The View agree to jointly host the Hugos, led by that most empty of privilege, Whoopi Goldberg.

    The QUILTBAG Union is saved. The SFF will never rise again. Non-binary gendered pronouns in exciting Jane Austen Meets Jane Eyre in Space novels sweep the Hugos. Huzzahs and happy faces all around. The first Ace Bandage Award for dino-porn is awarded.

  19. You missed another hilarious video of an anti-Israel lib (but I repeat myself) having a breakdown when the UCLA student government didn’t vote as she thought they should. This is what will now and forever come to mind whenever I read the phrase “weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Granted, it’s mostly indecipherable due ro her inconsolable blubbering, but the few things you can hear are comedy gold.

    http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/03/01/lamentations-of-their-women-ucla-leftist-throws-wild-tantrum-when-anti-israel-vote-fails/

  20. Anti-Comedian Racism is what this is. They’re just prejudiced against Comedy, and now their racism is totally showing.
    And I’m sure we’ll hear about how some of their best friends are Comedians,

  21. “What’s the matter LonCon? You promised to make me feel safe.”

    Pffftt…If you want to feel safe don’t go to London period, what with their skyrocketing violent crime rate now that they’ve rid themselves of those murderous machines known as firearms.

    1. Yeah, that was one of the more particularly ridiculous/pathetic tweets. I can’t picture anyone typing that without wringing their hands while they do…. which begs the question of how they could type while wringing their hands. :-/

  22. I’ve gotten death threats after just one post on YouTube. I said something along the lines of “I’m mostly in the center, and have been cursed at by both sides for the same post, but I’ve only gotten death threats from the left”.

    To that I got “how dare you, you’re a lying piece of filth, the left would never threaten anyone. If I lived near you I’d beat you till (something I can’t remember) for lying and making false threats against the left”.

    I didn’t think saying both sides cursed at me was a threat. The threat while being told I’ve never been threatened was great. I can’t take credit for the threat in one post though, as I don’t know if anyone else riled her up before I got there.

  23. Is there any way to resurrect Benny Hill and have him host? This will surely raise no objections (-:

    This is the evolution of outrage:

    Stage 1: We are insulted by actual words.

    Stage 2: We are insulted by potential words.

    What does “unsafe” mean anymore? Since I served in the military and lived in a country that was and is struck by terrorism, I have to say that I’m stunned by someone feeling “unsafe” due to potential jokes. Unsafe used to mean physical harm or the clear potential of it. Now it’s all about feelings.

    Larry, regarding the shrinking genre sales, is there any data you can share?

    1. Your post reminded me of and old South Park episode where Kyle’s mom ruins Christmas because she gets offended when Kyle is picked to play Joseph in the Nativity for school. Then a researcher hooks up a bunch of people to a machine and starts saying words related to Christmas to see what words offend people. One old lady is offended by the word “chair”. The school ends up doing some lame interpretive dance for the Christmas pageant so as not to offend anybody, thereby offending everybody. If I could link the clip showing the people being tested for what words are offensive I would. It’s a hilarious scene. Scary it’s actually become the truth.

    1. It streamed videos okay, when it wasn’t crashing at least, because it could buffer enough to cover for their constant drops. It SUCKED at video games.

      1. Laggey video games suck.
        Nice to hear you found something that works for you in the internet department.
        My families home internet is through on of those Verizon hotspot devices and the connection seems to randomly change from time to time between either being super awesome 4g to being barely there.

  24. Those death threats and the like must have been pretty bad if Ross decided not to go.
    Personally I think I would have gone anyway just to spite them and told those throwing out death threats that it would be their funeral.

    Also I didn’t know Jeremy Clarkson punched Piers Morgan.
    When and Why? I am curious now.

    1. Piers Morgan is disliked in the UK too. I don’t remember the details on the Clarkson punch (I read about it a month or so ago), but iirc it was largely because Piers was being his usual self.

      And people cheered afterwards.

    2. Found this on Wikipedia in Morgan’s entry’s ‘Feuds’ section (lol): “In October 2003, journalist and television personality Jeremy Clarkson reportedly emptied a glass of water over Morgan during the last flight of Concorde.[76] In March 2004, at the British Press Awards, Clarkson punched Morgan three times in a clash over The Mirror’s coverage of his private life, and accusations that Clarkson did not write for his column in The Sun himself.[76] Morgan reported on a rapprochement with Clarkson in the epilogue of his book, Don’t You Know Who I Am?.”

      Just remembered, when someone started that White House petition to have Morgan deported back to the UK, Clarkson tweeted “Please America, please don’t send Piers Morgan back.”

  25. Good lord, the things I missed this week. Just when I think the lefties can’t surprise me with anything, something like this happens. (I’d already gagged at that epically weak potus video, but I’d managed to miss the whole Ross firestorm.)

    Wow, just…. wow. I didn’t think Ms McG had such a thin skin, and over comments that hadn’t ACTUALLY BEEN MADE. She imagined future attacks all in her head. Went back and looked at her Twitter feed and had my jaw fall open a few times. Really surprised, cause I’d liked her writing a lot. Ye gods….. SMH.

    On the good side of things, I finished both of Chuck Dixon’s Bad Times books that I picked up during the Book Bomb. They were FREAKIN’ AWESOMESAUCENESS! Can’t wait for #3! Thanks again for re-introducing us, Larry. (I loved Chuck’s work on the Punisher) I’ve gotta go post my reviews on Amazon. Hmmm, must find more to hold me over until Nemesis…..

  26. Speaking as a Brit, who for a variety of sad reasons probably won’t be making it to Loncon, I think that the reason a lot of people, especially in Britain, didn’t want Jonathon Ross presenting the Hugos is because they consider the guy to be a total jerk.

    Yes the guy has impressive geek credentials, being best mates with Neil Gaiman is pretty darn cool (and I was blissfully unaware of that until extremely recently) and doing a voice over for a UNSC Marine of ‘Halo3’ is practically cryogenic (a fact I was unaware of until two hours ago). And his doing Loncon for free was very nice of him. Especially since the BBC not-so-long ago thought he was worth six-million pounds a year to them.

    And the yes, from all I’ve heard the Loncon committee handled releasing the news of his presenting the Hugos and the IMHO inevitable outcry, poorly.

    But . . . he’s got this reputation for being offensive. As in people who use the word “fuck” as punctuation find him offensive. And for being smug with it.

    His nadir was when on a BBC radio show he and co-star Russell Brand left a series of lewd and crude messages on an 78-year old actors (Andrew Sachs) answer-phone. He was eventually suspended for twelve weeks. Some people thought this was harsh, others opined that if you’d done that in a regular job (regardless of whether or not your boss is a werewolf) your feet wouldn’t have touched the ground as a you exited building and job.

    Personally I don’t like the guy. (NB: This is based purely what I’ve seen of him on our screens. In person he may be a wonderful and witty fellow, but . . . ) He did a chat show where he was obviously the star and he where either bullied, or smarmed over the guests depending on how “big” they were. When I watch Sarah Michelle Gellar being interviewed I want to learn more about SMG, not how cool and funny Jonathon Ross thinks he is. Back in the eighties he was looked upon as being the next big thing and touted as a breath of fresh air; I was unimpressed.

    Caveat: I haven’t seen much of him on screen, including a major awards ceremony he apparently did drunk/stoned/abusive, but that’s because when I find someone irritating and boring, I tend not to watch them.

    Okay, his presenting the Hugos would have been a major publicity coup for Loncon, and it’s possible he might have been on his best behaviour and totally rocked. Or given his track record, it’s possible he would insulted the audience, been condescending towards awardees and generally been a dick. Which is the sort of publicity sci-fi in general and Loncon in particular don’t want or need.

    So basically IMHO a lot of people, especially Brits, didn’t like the idea of Jonathon Ross presenting the Hugos because a) they don’t like him, and more importantly b) they don’t think he’d have a done good job.

    1. Mmm… Good points, I agree on nominating Jeremy Clarkson then as that would be really fun to watch.
      He could compliment or make fun of the winners based on the vehicles they drive or use in their stories. 🙂

      1. Clarkson is kind of like the MZW of cars: witty, right of center, and can still manage to say things that piss me off but otherwise make me like him.

  27. Just saw a pic on FB of Jonathan Ross at London Super Comic-Con. Funny, the cosplayer taking a pic with him didn’t look upset or threatened at all. Go figure, right?

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