They just put up information about the new Baen Fantasy Awards.

This is a short story contest. All of the details are at this link: http://www.baen.com/baenfantasyaward.asp

I am one of the judges. No. Don’t try to suck up. I won’t see any of the writer’s names. 🙂

What we want to see: Adventure fantasy with heroes you want to root for. Warriors either modern or medieval, who solve problems with their wits or with their sword–and we have nothing against dragons, elves, dwarves, castles under siege, urban fantasy, damsels in distress, or damsels who can’t be bothered to be distressed.

What we don’t want to see: Political drama with no action, angst-ridden teens pining over vampire lovers, religious allegory, novel segments, your gaming adventure transcript, anything set in any universe not your own, “it was all a dream” endings, or screenplays.

The winners will be honored at GenCon.

Boom. I’m on a roll. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/04/29/the-politics-of-science-fiction/

Pretty fair write up all things considered. To show that I’m biased however, he links to THE CHECKLIST. 😀

Best part is from the comments, when somebody points out that the link they used to demonstrate my detractors begins with: Trigger warning: slurs, ableism, racism, sexism, transmisogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, anti-semitism, colonialism.

Yes, that certainly sounds like a Special and Unique Snowflake.

This was rather unexpected.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/04/28/hugo-awards-science-fiction-reading-politics-larry-correia-column/8282843/

Glenn Reynolds is Instapundit. He has a huge audience.

 

John C. Wright has written an open letter to SFWA. If you are keeping up on the many, many outrages and controversies of the week, I’d recommend reading this.

http://www.scifiwright.com/2014/04/an-open-letter-to-the-science-fiction-writers-of-america/

Instead of friends, I find ideologues bent on jihad against all who do not meekly conform to their Orwellian and hellish philosophy.

Yeah… Ouch. Seriously, read it. Please, keep in mind that this is probably one of the most eloquent, articulate, intelligent voices in genre fiction.

 

I’m going to talk about local politics tonight, and this post is aimed at our Utah delegates. If you know a Utah delegate, please spread the word. Our convention begins Saturday morning, which makes me wish I’d written about this sooner.

I live in District 18, which is parts of Weber/Morgan. We’re getting a new state senator.

I’m supporting Lars Birkeland. http://www.larsbirkeland.com/ He lives near me. I’ve known him for about three years now. He’s a good guy, has a great family, but most importantly, he’s a very pro-liberty, pro-business, small government republican. We’ve had many discussions about politics since I’ve lived here, and I’ve got absolutely no problem with Lars being our guy.

But because I want to be informed, I wanted to see who was up against him… Ann Millner. Ann Millner was president of Weber State University. Having dealt with career academics, that could go either way, with some of them being sharp, but many more being sheltered elitists. So off we go to Google… and holy moly, she’s a RINO. (Republican In Name Only for those of you who’ve only recently started paying attention)

Utah is a funny state. We’re the reddest of red states, but we’re still a two party system, only our democrats run as republicans and try to sneak through. So we always end up with a RINO infestation at the capitol, and they go about growing government and meddling in everyone’s business.

If you can’t tell, I really dislike RINOs. Don’t lie to our faces and then be democrat lite.

Since I got my start in political stuff lobbying for concealed carry rights for university students against the University of Utah, you can guess what the first thing I wanted to know about her was. She says she’s a supporter of the 2^nd Amendment… Let’s see about that:

http://archives.wsusignpost.com/results.php?query=SB+108+&type=body

Republican Sen. Lyle Hillyard recently introduced Senate Bill108. The bill, signed by Governor Olene Walker on Mar.17, 2004,went into effect on May 3of this year and allows students to carry concealed firearms on campus. WSU President F. Ann Milner doesn’t oppose guns, but does believe they should be banned on campus. I think the issue is about creating a safe learning institution,President Milner said. Its about helpingstudents learn. Milner went on to say that though she is currently unfamiliar with research on how guns may affect students ability to learn, she believes it is not a healthy learning environment for students to be in.

So she doesn’t “oppose” guns. She just wants to ban the legal use of them by law abiding citizens, in one of the places most likely to attract a mass shooter, because they might make somebody uncomfortable. Wow… So in typical RINO fashion she pays lip service to the 2^nd Amendment. I bet if we really needed her to stand up for our rights she’d be willing to let us keep our deer rifles, as long as they weren’t scary looking or didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings.

I went head to head against the U of U’s lobbyist testifying at the Capitol on this issue. I knew Ann’s name sounded familiar. She is one of the geniuses that brought us the whole “safe room” nonsense, so that bad people with guns would know exactly where the good people wouldn’t have guns. When the U of U appealed the legislature’s decision, WSU supported them.

On the other hand, Lars is a shooter. He kicked off his campaign at the Morgan County gun range. I volunteered to RO the rifle range for him where we let people take turns on a Barrett. (I got to shoot a Tavor for the first time, and now I want one) The happiest I saw him this year was when he got his new AR. Lars actually grasps the fundamental principles of the 2^nd Amendment.

In her speeches Ann says all of the good conservative stuff that you’d expect to say to make the delegates happy, so let’s see what else she’s got.

She’s big on Global Warming. http://www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org/about/commitment If it gets warmer, it gets colder, or if the weather changes in any way, then obviously what we need is more socialism. Fantastic.

She’s pro Common Core. I don’t know about you guys, but when I think of things that will improve the education of my children the first thing that pops into my head is more intrusive federal meddling. http://educationfirstutah.org/initiatives/ I’ve been led to understand that Education First is a partner with Prosperity 20/20, which is related to Common Core and the UN Global Education Initiative. I’m not sure, my wife is the one that keeps up on Common Core, I’m still livid about the gun thing.

I was told, but can’t confirm, that she’s been an independent all her life and only registered GOP to run for this seat.

But to balance it out she’s also been a proud long time member of such stalwart conservative organizations as the…. Well… shoot… Can’t find any.

Let’s look at her resume: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Millner College, college, more college, then some extra college, and oh, hey look at that, college. Yes. That sounds like somebody who will be in touch and understand the issues facing Utah… Okay, Utah colleges, but since we’re not electing our new dean, I’m going to have to go with the guy who works for a living on this one. Lars works at a bank. His wife runs a day care.

Just the gun issue alone kills it for me. I can’t tolerate that asinine, morally reprehensible philosophy of “I believe you have unalienable rights except for where they might make someone feel uncomfortable for totally ridiculous and illogical reasons.” Law abiding adults going to college? Too bad, no effective self-defense for you. You can just be defenseless because a concealed firearm might cause an uncomfortable learning environment to people with x-ray vision. Look how good that worked out at Virginia Tech. You know what else causes an unsafe learning environment? Getting shot to death during a crazy person’s rampage.

Luckily we were able to defeat the college’s lobbyists so that our people could be safe from maniacs. Utah allows concealed carry in schools now, no thanks to Ann.

So delegates, please don’t take my word for it. You get to listen to these people talk and grill them. Please, help make the RINO an endangered species in Utah.