Private Mars Rocket II

Work has entered that curious year-end hibernation period. My company gives their employees a lot of holiday time - so much so that we have only 5 working days (including today) from now until the end of the year. That, plus a liberal PTO policy, means that people are scarce on the ground.

This next bit is more of an observation than a rant, but to stay in symmetry with Thanksgiving, it's labeled a rant. Trump recently announced that he was “seriously considering” building “battleships” for the US Navy. Unlike many of his announcements, there is a small kernel of truth in the announcement, as some analysts are considering building large missile-carrying ships of 15,000 to 20,000 tons - twice the size of a current USN cruiser. The high end of that number would approximate the displacement of the USS Texas, a WWI dreadnought.

And here to the rant. I don't think Trump actually understands what is being proposed, nor does he have any idea how much ($4 billion) one of these ships would cost. I think he was half-asleep in a meeting, heard about the concept, and is now running around declaring it a done deal. Spoiler alert - there isn't even a PowerPoint about the ship, much less a set of drawings with which to start cutting steel.

To shorter myself, stopped clocks are right twice a day, especially if you're not too picky.

On the occasion of Trump's takeover of Washington DC policing (which is, like much of what Trump does, over-promised and under-delivered) I have thoughts.

I live in the Chicago suburbs, and during a visit to my parents in downstate and rural Illinois, I was told in all seriousness by a MAGA-ite that I needed a bulletproof vest to go back home. MAGA-ites are scared shitless. To them, every homeless person is waiting to jump up and shiv them, every rowdy teenager walking down the street is a mugger, and anybody just hanging out in public is a gang lookout or worse.

They operate by anecdote not data. If their sister's friend's hairdresser told a story (or posted on Facebook), that's gospel. Facts and statistics are not. (In general, "common sense" trumps fact, where "common sense" is defined as "that which confirms my biases.")

They mostly watch the local TV news, and for every shooting, rather than noting that it's in the same neighborhood as the last five such incidents, they say "those people are just shooting everybody everywhere."

Trump is a very pure incarnation of these traits. He's personally scared, unable to determine between anecdote and data, and an avid consumer of TV news, where "if it bleeds it leads."

If you have a minor fender-bender, please move completely off of the road to exchange details. Do not sit in the turning lane of a major intersection during rush hour, especially if you are 10 feet away from a store parking lot. That is all.

Comes news today that US Senator Rand Paul is upset that the US military buys lobster dinners for its troops. I note that he has not actually served in the US military. Having served, albeit many years and many pounds ago, I have thoughts.

First, given that much of our military spends significant amounts of time away from home and hearth, an occasional nice meal is very appreciated. And to be clear, the $4.6 million quoted in the article is not buying anything more than a very occasional lobster dinner. Second, I find it odd and puzzling that a member of a political party that claims to support the troops is begrudging an occasional small token of support for said troops.

Actually, I'm not really puzzled by Senator Paul. His party doesn't actually support the troops. His party wants the troops as a prop to help them with their constituents back home. They don't want to actually spend money to help them - they want to pay lip service to the concept. This is among other things that lip service is paid to, but that's another discussion.

Complaint

My feet are wide. This requires me to buy shoes that are sized "wide." This weekend I went looking for shoes, having worn out a favorite pair. (Literally - the upper was ripping away from the lower.) Two stores didn't stock any wides, one store had wide in one style only. I ended up ordering shoes online!

Compliment

A couple of weeks ago I had occasion to use Spothero to reserve a parking spot. Due to my error, the reservation card didn't work. Despite it being my error, I got a refund and a small credit!

So, over at Mad Genius Club, Dave Freer had thoughts on Sad Puppies 4. Thoughts I responded to (in part) by quoting various people who asked to be pulled from their list, including Cat Valente who changed her mind and decided to stay on the list.

This prompted a lively discussion about turning down awards, of which the following is a typical sentiment: It’s about fear that their fellow tribe members will turn on them for not supporting the tribe vociferously enough. In other words, reprisals.

To which I responded:

Or we could just take people at their word. (I know, what a novel concept.)

It’s the Golden Rule, people – if you want to be taken at your word for your motivations, then you need to take others at their word for their motivations.

*** end response ***

Discussion and Amplification of Above

I'm tired - tired of being called a CHORF, a SJW, a liar, somebody being paid off by Tor (Christ, I haven't even scored a free bookmark from Tor) or a little guy that does what he's told. Respect is a two-way street. If you want my respect, show me some, or at least pretend to.

Now, I've cast my nominating votes, and I intend to evaluate whatever makes the final Hugo list on the merits regardless of how it got there, but fair warning - my patience is shot.

Rant #1 - I take prescription drugs, which I *try* to buy via Walgreens online. For some reason, the online people don't seem to understand that I have insurance and thus want me to pay full retail for the drug.

Rant #2 - I have a credit card through Bank of America. I tried to us it at the Charleston SC airport. They flagged all transactions (including the denied ones) as fraudulent, and I have been unable to convince the online system that they're not fraud. I have also been unable to speak to a human about this.

We live in a fact-free world. What I mean by that is people feel free to ignore inconvenient facts and/or free to substitute what they want to be true for what is.

For example, 2014 was the warmest year on record. 2015 is on track to be warmer than 2015, AKA, the new warmest year on record. Yet, in our fact-free world, people can tell me with a straight face that global warming has "paused." I do not think that word "pause" means what they think it means.

Yesterday, two mopes shot up a holiday party of government employees at a developmental center. If said mopes had been white Christians, we would be told that they are "individual nuts" and nothing can be done. Since they're not, we're being told "ISIS is coming to eat you alive!" and, even though the man was born in the USA, we need to prevent Syrian refugees from entering the country.

The fact that the USA has a murder rate five times that of most industrialized countries is ignored, as is the fact that social misfits will gravitate towards any of a number of radical movements. This later fact is true whether we're talking Europeans in Europe or Americans in America. (Even crazy people have a reason for why they do what they do.)

I could go on, but I'll leave with this thought - facts are like gravity. Gravity doesn't care if you believe in it or not.

My post yesterday on Fan Writer seems to be controversial in some quarters. I don't know if this is a case of The Trouble With Stupid or malice. In any event, I shall unpack my decision. This is a bit of a rant, so those of sensitive dispositions may wish to go elsewhere.

First, per section 3.3.15 of the WSFS Constitution, Fan Writer (like Best Editor) is an award for the person. It is not, like Best Novel, an award for a particular work. It is thus perfectly acceptable to say "fan writer X is a jerk" and use that as a critique of their nomination.

Actually, it is entirely within the rules to vote based on any criterion, if you want to be a stickler for the rules. Or, people who insist on following the letter of the law do not get to lecture me on the spirit of things.

Second, David Freer is a poor writer, at least with regards to his blog. His posts are lengthy, poorly-thought-out, (see, for example, his 1500 word post on Hugo probabilities, discussed and linked to by me here) and not to me particularly entertaining.

Third, in general the Hugo nominees are asking me and the other voters for a favor. They are asking that we take time out of our day, consider their material, and in the end give one of them an award. I don't know how things work on Planet Puppy, but here on Earth, if one is asking somebody for a favor, normally the person requesting the favor attempts normal human politeness.

For those newly-arrived immigrants from Planet Puppy (and welcome, we are a nation of immigrants!) let me elaborate. Politeness means one does not accuse people of being in a secret cabal. Politeness means that one does not accuse people of voting for works (as opposed to people) because of political checklists as opposed to actually liking work. Politeness means one does not accuse people of "whisper campaigns" and when they point out the non-existence of same call them liars. Politeness (paging Mr. John C. Wright and Mr. Freer) means one does not call people "little girls" or feminine forms of their name or "trying logic with a toddler."

This does not mean one has to agree with me. It does mean that one should attempt to disagree with out being disagreeable. Now, I am a human, with all the foibles thereof, so undoubtedly I have violated this rule. Some may think that this post is an example of me violating that rule and so be it.

In any event, like umpires everywhere, I "call'em as I see'em." To me, "Fan Writer" means "writer who is appreciated by fans" and this fan does not appreciate Dave Freer.

I just read this very (very, very) long post on John C. Wright's journal. The post is driving me nuts, because it's several thousand words based on some horribly flawed thinking. Hopefully I can present my thoughts without killing nearly as many bits as Wright did.

The story starts as a reflection on Keith Laumer's 1973 novel The Glory Game. In the book, our intrepid hero, Space Commodore Dalton, is caught between two Terran political parties. In Wright's terms, one party is the Stupid Party, which wishes to dismantle the Space Fleet despite the presence of a hostile if (currently) militarily inferior alien race. The other party is (again Wright's term) is the Evil Party, who wishes to drum up a war on a pretext and then go wipe out all the aliens.

At (great) length, Wright then says, "The Cold War [novel written at height of same] was being fought by a nation that was continually being told by our intellectual class that we were in the wrong and the vilest lying-ass butchers and mass murderers in history were in the right."

If Wright had produced a physical book, at this point I would have thrown it across the room, gone over to pick it up and stomp on it, then toss it around some more.

Here's the thing - there never was nor never will be a "Stupid Party" to use Wright's term, and the intellectual class in the 1970s was not saying that "we" were wrong. Since it's clear that Wright sees these groups of people as the same, I'll use the term "Stupid Party" throughout the rest of this post. (Not that I like it, but for brevity's sake.)

What the Stupid Party really wanted in both cases was a recognition that "we" and "they" could in fact coexist. I can't speak for the aliens in the novel, but what the Stupid Party understood in the 1970s was that the Soviet Union was merely paying lip service to the idea of expansionism. In point of fact, the Soviet economy could not support expansionism, as evidenced by the hash they made in Afghanistan. What the Stupid Party (incorrectly) thought in the 1930s was that Germany was no more of a problem then founder-of-fascism state Italy, and that both states would make militaristic noises and confine their activities to beating up on Third World outposts. In short, at no time was the Stupid Party willing to hand over their freedom to some foreign aggressor.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, so meaning well is not the end of the debate. There is also a good moral discussion to be had over whether or not we should allow other people to suffer under dictatorships. There is also a good debate over the tactics of the Cold War, but that's not germane to my point.

My point is that Wright, Laumer and a number of other commentors I could think of are demonizing their political opponents. "They" don't agree with "us" so "they" must be evil or stupid or both. No, no, a thousand times no! Social and human conduct is not a math problem, with one right and clear answer. There can be multiple right answers, and even more answers that appear to be right. Failing to understand that is a recipe for stupid, irritating and condescending screeds.