The Games People Play

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

So, a site that shall not be named mostly because I don’t want to deal with them today, (since I have a rather tight schedule this week), has long been in the habit of “skimming till offended” and taking a sentence or two out of context which they then use to feed their mental-ward of psychos so they can engage in demonizing everyone not establishment-sf.

No site not-establishement-sf is too small, as posts by friends and distant associates with a couple of indie novellas out are scrutinized with the same avid appetite for bad-think-to-shun-and-mock as those by me or anyone else who has long been a professional in the field.

Apparently no post of mine is also either too small or inconsequential as they have now taken to scrutinizing the posts at MGC which has led to the most recent pratfall.

Anyone who follows the blog knows, unless something is really vitally important my posts are “teaching posts”.  I.e. I write the sort of thing I think might help a newby or someone who is indie and therefore hasn’t been exposed to the details, of say, what constitutes copyright violation.

These posts are often inspired by something a friend or acquaintance asks me, or sometimes by something in the media.

The most recent post to get the attention of the spin-mutilate-mock-destroy crowd, was one that used as a jumping point a public case of copyright infringement.  In the post I mention I have neither examined the claims nor interested myself in the details, so I’m not going to pronounce on the true merits.

However, what concerned me, about the case, was the way it’s being reported in the media, as a case based on the use of somewhat similar names for things, and of a band of humans defending against supernatural menace.

Again, I don’t know the true details of the case, so I never intended to (nor did) write about it.  I just pointed out as described the case would be laughed out of court, as the general description applies to Dresden Files, Buffy Vampire Slayer, and everything in between.  And the things the press uses to adduce the validity of the case (librarian and publisher confusion) aren’t.  Both libraries and publishers have confused things before that had nothing to do with each other.

What my post — being a teaching post — meant to make sure of is that no new writer, or indie writer went and shelved his work or hid it or pulled it off sale thinking they’d be next in this type of lawsuit.

The unnamed site, having read the first paragraph and seeing that a post followed, immediately went on to say that research was hard and that, without doing it, I’d done a whole post about the case.  When it was pointed out to them I hadn’t, but the case was a mere jumping off point, they claimed stupidity on my part since the post was an obvious sham or something.

I want anyone reading my post and considering its intent (to reassure newbies.  I often get asked whether someone is plagiarizing because they were inspired by a book, series or song, without any of the wording being used, or even the same elements save one) to understand this is what that site does.  This is how they are creating and widening a rift in science fiction and being a poisonous and malevolent influence.

I have — or had.  There was no break, but I haven’t talked to most in a while — friends among the readers of that site.  After years of friendship, I wonder how they can convince themselves everything I say is either stupid or not researched or somehow an attack.

I want what remains of the decent people I knew to consider if this kind of group-hate might not be a bad idea.

You see, hate is an emotion that demands feeding, and sooner or later all such groups eat their own.

We’re not the ones scrutinizing every possible blog for an offense — except when the offenses are against us — and we’re not the ones going after teaching posts in the craft for things to be offended about.

It seems like those flames of hate are running out of oxygen.  Beware when they turn on you.

Could you survive the sort of treatment meted above to a post that had less than nothing to do with the war in science fiction?  Are you sure?

Because sooner or later it’s going to come for you.

304 thoughts on “The Games People Play”

  1. I would assume your post is about writing, and if I wanted to know the merits (or lack of) in the specific case, I would go to Instapundit or Volk Conspiracy. You are, of course, free to state your opinion, it is just that in the area of writing I consider you a proven success, in law; not so much.

    1. Which is why she states up front that she was not addressing the legal merits of the case, but rather focusing on concerns a newbie writer might have based on her own experience over a good many years in the business. As a general rule I’ve found that most of Sarah’s statements come either from her personal experience or are relayed by her from any of a number of subject matter experts of her acquaintance.
      I know for a fact that she’s on a first name basis with editors, publishers, the occasional lawyer, any number of gun geeks, and quite a few aerospace professionals.

      1. By generating writer worry over being at risk of suit for infringement of the ideas of others they help insure that gatekeepers offer (an illusory) safe harbor (or legal support) for beginning writers tempted by the lures of Indie publishing.

        The occasional mandatory edit of badthought is for your own safety, after all. Preaching the consequences of homophobic behaviour, of theocratic patriarchy, or gun-clinging zealots is one thing; suggesting that an AI might worry whether a species which denies the humanity of its children-in-utero would recognize the AI as an autonomous sapient is a whole different kettle of fish.

        1. funny thing is, change those AIs to Pro-Life White Southern Baptist, and the same whinging maronies would be jumpin’ up and down going “Yeppers. Them racist godbags would shoot people for no reason anyhow … of course one of them no good Pro-Lifer SOBs would use that as an excuse to kill off ewveryone else!”

    2. Precisely. And the idea of spending several hours studying the case and writing about it would distract from what I get paid for. Note MGC has NO donation button.

      1. Pfui. You know that had you opined on the merits they would chastise for the crime of offering legal advice without license.

        It is not their goal to grapple with challenging ideas; it is their goal to protect their flock from exactly such grappling. Some ideas, after all, make the sheep resistant to shearing. Therefore they baaaaa at you, every mother-flocking one of them.

          1. They certainly do wish to protect their followers- from the ever-present danger of having an independent thought.

              1. My method of dealing with them comes from another episode: “Day of the Dove”, when they laugh at the hate-generating entity until it goes away.

      2. You aren’t responsible for their reading comprehension fail.

        From the O.P. (paraphrased) “IF” there is more to the case than reported “THEN” it might actually be a realistic copyright infringement case.

        Fairly critical bit of intro. Not your fault they skipped the critical bit. I’ve done it myself.

        Usually, the correct response is to spot one’s own failure and APOLOGISE for misconstruing what was plainly written.

    3. All right, guilty as charged. I confess that the excitement of being the first post made it quicker than well thought out.
      Still, my point is, I think it inappropriate to go off to another site and bash Sarah for ‘legal opinions’. Honestly, it is inappropriate to go off to another site and bash Sarah about her skills as a writing instructor; however, at least in the latter, it would show some intelligence on the part of the poster to know her area of expertise.
      Haters got to hate, there is nothing you can do right to that bunch.

  2. I’d have to say that the vile site in question is nothing but a collection of seven hundred and seventy types of social justice wankers.
    The truly amazing thing is that anyone still pays the least amount of attention to them at all.

      1. “Were they born idiots or did they go to special schools?”

        I’ll take “Both” for $1000.

        1. We need a term for the ‘schools’ that seem to perform frontal lobotomies on these folk, since it’s so easy for the casual reader to mistake that we’re being unusually cruel to the truly, helplessly and medically autistic and disabled, by comparing the vile folk to be on the level of their mental capacity.

          After all, autistics have no choice in their problems, the vile folk choose to be mentally brain-damaged through willful excision of anything resembling cogent thought.

  8. “Research is hard.”

    Apparently so is actually reading what somebody has written and (even harder) thinking about what the writer’s communicative intent might have reasonably been.

    OTOH, assuming people have said that which is convenient for you to have had them say is so very very easy. Getting outraged over what you wanted them to say is even easier. After you’ve worn the rose-colored glasses long enough it hurts to look at things in the harsh light of day, and besides, what tricksy game were you playing by not saying what they wanted to hear?

    1. “Apparently so is actually reading what somebody has written and (even harder) thinking about what the writer’s communicative intent might have reasonably been.”

      I know, right? The irony is strong . . . almost as strong as the idiocy.

    2. thinking about what the writer’s communicative intent might have reasonably been

      I believe they, having been indoctrinated in the high church of Deconstructionism, would assert that ascertaining the writer’s communicative intent is entirely unnecessary as the important thing is what the reader takes from it.

  9. You see, hate is an emotion that demands feeding, and sooner or later all such groups eat their own.

    True, but in the meantime, such individuals and groups can be a considerable nuisance.

    For my part, I decline to respond to them, since the response is what they want. If I take notice of them at all, it’s to mock them. “Ridicule is the unanswerable weapon,” someone or other whose initials as SA has said. But even mocking them is usually more attention than they deserve…and effort that could be put to better things.

  10. hate is an emotion that demands feeding

    It occurs to me this applies to all emotions, and you can choose which to encourage. They’ll all appear from time to time, but they only stay if you let them. We all have moments of sadness, frustration, irritation, excitement, fear, jubilation, peace… but we choose which ones will become part of who we are.
    “Which wolf wins, grandfather?”
    “The one you feed.”

    1. In theology, it’s sometimes called “inviting” a thought, or “entertaining” or “encouraging.”

      The most common example is the difference between that initial “YOWZA!” when you look at someone, and sitting there fantasizing about them.

    3. Ah. That explains a lot. All this time I’ve been feeding the wolf with the orange and purple polka dots, because it’s the only one that eats peanut brittle.

            1. Now I’ve been on a carrier that’s sailed all over those places marked “Here there be dragons” on the maps, and those $#$@ were still clogging up the lines. Did the dragons start on Weight Watchers or something?

              1. It’s Michelle Obama’s damned healthy diet program — she was concerned the dragons weren’t getting enough protein so the ships have been feeding them scrambled eggs.

                1. And skittles are high in sugar, and we all know how healthy sugar is. Why I heard Bloomerg proposed putting a moratorium on them.

                2. You try and feed a dragon Navy-issue scrambled eggs (now with even more colors) and you’ll need a bigger boat.

  12. Can I get a pass on hating anyone this week? I don’t have the energy – cough that turned into head cold. The students have been most generous about sharing their maladies. I promise, I’ll get my hate on next week, if I don;t have something else more important to do. Like dusting the book shelf, or rotating the cat.

    And what’s sad is a friend and I were chatting on the phone Thursday afternoon, and sniffing and sneezing in tandem despite being 400+ miles apart. Ah, the Midwest in winter. Ah-ah-chOOOO!!!

    Oh, that reminds me. While we were shifting stuff around to make room for the new connection to Chateau Sarah and closing the portal to the old house, we found two sacks of the cheap co-op brand dragon food. Anyone want it? It’s the stuff that really didn’t agree with Fluffy’s innerds. Either end. Apparently it is formulated for a slightly different type of dragon.

      1. Hate corrodes the soul. Disregard someone, deride him, dislike him, despise him if you must, but never hate. It’s unlikely to do him any harm, and will do you a great deal. Hate is a short blade with a thorn-covered grip.

          1. I’ve always been taken by Heinlein’s The Tale of the Man too Lazy to Fail from TEFL. But sometimes the flesh is weak and I confess to a modicum of hate, or at least loathing and disgust, for both our current fearless leader and his possible successor, the Hillabeast.

            2. I find I can only be angry. Hate requires dedication, and in the lens of time (in my mind, at least), offenses dwindle rapidly until I can only be mildly annoyed when looking back at them.

        2. Sometimes hate is neccessary for your own mental health. One should let go of it when one can though as feeding it is a bad idea and one should also be very careful about decisions made before you can release it.

        3. I tell the kids that most people truly worthy of hatred aren’t worth spending that much energy on.

      2. In the last few years I have actively worked to remove the word ‘hate’ from my vocabulary as I find it a corrosive and destructive emotion for me to be feeling. I’ll dislike something strongly but I refuse to hate it and I feel sorry for those who do express their hate.

    2. Is that the dragon kibble with the indigestible sulfur? Wouldn’t burn at the front end and coming out the back end as huge clouds of gas?

      Bury it.

      1. Is that the dragon kibble with the indigestible sulfur?

        Careful… you wouldn’t want anyone to think you’re plagiarizing Pern (even though firestone has phosphorus rather than sulfur IIRC).

          1. I recall that Rankin and Bass cartoon where the dragons ate limestone to get the gas needed to help flight and flame. I think John Ritter was one of the voices. ***wanders off to bing it***
            Yep. Based on a Peter Dickson story.

            1. Yeah, Peter Dickson (?) apparently wrote the original book as a ‘what if’ scientist’s approach on how dragons flew (I think? It’s been years since I looked up the book.) I’d always meant to get myself a copy but didn’t ever get one.

              Good reminder to try find a copy…

              1. Yup. Peter Dickson’s book is a “scientific analysis” of the dragons. IIRC the film just became available in the last year or two, along with a lot of other Rankin&Bass material. Something about an estate and copyright fight . . . I still recall the film rather fondly.

              2. Peter Dickinson wrote Flight of Dragons, which sadly I have not found a copy of myself, basically as you describe. The cartoon Flight of Dragons mixes that book with the plot and characters from Gordon R. Dickson’s The Dragon and the George, which I have read and enjoyed because of it….

      2. Don’t bury it. That’s how we got the tentacled thing in the garden last spring. And those bags keep reappearing.

        1. Box it up as a campaign contribution. We just need to tune one the movable portals to a random shipping concern so they can’t trace it back when the transdimensional tentacled thingies pop through to go after it on their loading dock.

          Which campaign is left as an exercise for the randomizer.

        3. It used to be expensive to find exterminators to deal with the tentacled things. Now we just put up an ad on Craigslist offering to sell them for $50 and let the buyer beat us down to $10. So we not only don’t have to pay the exterminator, we’re $10 ahead.

          1. As long as no one mistakes them for free-range asparagus spears again. That was a little hard to explain to the sheriff. Not impossible, but hard.

    3. They aren’t worth hating, but sometimes they are worth pointing and laughing at. They’re quite entertaining when they flail.

  13. *rubs temples*
    So you saw a news story, realized that getting the facts would be near impossible to figure out BUT that the claims involved would get folks’ attention and instead did an article on “how this stuff would apply to you”?

    And they’re saying you didn’t research it, but didn’t figure out you were explaining how it works, and that how the news was saying it worked was wrong?

    …isn’t what they did the “fallacy fallacy”? You said that the arguments for the case didn’t support it, and THEY went and said “ah-ha! She said those reasons don’t support it, so she must’ve been saying that the conclusion was wrong”?

    1. Yeah, and then went and accused someone Not In Their Fan Club of sealioning.

      Which led me to this delightfully updated definition someone posted on Reddit:

      “Sea-lioning: A hip, new term to describe that terrible, horrible circumstance when you have to actually back up your statements with evidence.”

        1. Source:

          Of course from the original it’s only sealioning if you follow the attacker to his own domain to demand an explanation/‌retraction/‌apology; but it usually just means what Reziac said: in the course of a conversation (including one which you were part of) you demanded an SJW back up his assertion with evidence.

          1. It’s still a lame attempt to create jargon. “Demanding support for a claim” works fine.

            At least “swiftboating” had the issue that the meaning “an unfair/untrue political attack” had…issues with being taken seriously when someone found out the source was “bunch of vets Kerry served with said he was a liar, and were willing to travel on their own dime to do so.”

  14. So what constitutes copy write infringement? I guess I’d need to check it out. I know that someone tried to copy write Space Marines, but this does not seem to be the same.

    3. Games Workshop tried to sue a (iirc) small press or indie author with a reasonable popular book over the use of Space Marines. Of course, this is before the legislative idiots in Congress changed the system, so all he had to do was prove prior work.

      1. IIRC, and we’re talking about the same case, it got Amazon to take down Spots the Space Marine because of the trademark on “Space Marine.”

        Much todo later, Amazon rescinded, apparently without reason given either time.

        2. Yes, Games Workshop tried to claim a trademark on Space Marine. They were strongly hooted at and have abandoned the attempt. Not least because they would fail.

          1. Under current law, if no one had actually trademarked space marine before, then they can do so, prior works or no.

            1. Not exactly. If no one had used the term as a trademark before in the particular category of commerce, hadn’t abandoned it, _and_ if the term was not actually descriptive or generic. And its among the latter that their would have been a very strong argument.

              Games Workshop was trying to bully people into folding as trademark litigation is very expensive.

      2. I wrote a popular filk in 1974 called The Outer Space Marines, and even then the concept was in the wind. I don’t think that trademark would stand a concerted challenge.

  15. We’re not the ones scrutinizing every possible blog for an offense

    Amen

    We. Don’t. Care. Unless you attack us. Even then half the time someone else has to clue us in to the attack.

    I for one have simply stopped paying attention to the ones I find personally distasteful.

    That said you can usually spot something off with them even before the mask gets ripped off. Writing Excuses used to be a podcast I recommended wholeheartedly and consistently. Then MRK joined. I stopped less than a season later. Not because of her position on the whole lady editor issue or reading her take on Pournelle and the “twelve rabid weasels” of SF – that was later – or her dressing Larry down for positions she imagined he took ( have to admit she had the class to both admit she was wrong and to show up to do so, but repeating that mistake and other positions she articulated still show some troubling assumptions about what people think or believe).

    Simply put she made the show boring. The dynamic between Brandon, Dan, and Howard was lost, and a fourth host with the time constraint meant the depth was lost. She knows her craft but didn’t add anything sufficiently unique or different in outlook or perspective to make up for it.

    As to the folks at V7x0 – well…

    The people I find terminally annoying aren’t normal IQ people. Once I outgrew “I’m smarter so I’m better” and started to listen I got along and enjoyed their company.

    Nor is it really , REALLY smart people. Im over 140 and sometimes wonder if I’m too smart to tie my own shoelaces. Some of the people here, at Larry’s, Erics’, and Ringo’s scare me as much as fascinate me.

    Its the sortof smart people who think theyre geniuses. Yes. Im talking about our local 700 club here. Petty little rule followers , “brainy” smurfs, who desperately seek approval of the right, “smart” people.

      1. I work at a University, and it’s amazing how many “super-smart” people are simply incapable of understanding basic real world concepts–such as the fact that a power strip with six outlets does NOT mean that you have six times the power. If you’ve got it plugged into an outlet on a 15 amp circuit, you still only have 15 amps, not 90, and if you try to run a space heater, a laser printer, and a coffee maker off that power strip, you’re gonna pop that breaker. This time of year I get repeated “no power” calls to the same offices and try to explain the same concept over and over.

        The point being that telling me how smart you are does not impress me. Prove it by being able to function in a complex technological environment.

        1. That’s not a matter of intelligence, it’s a matter of knowledge– if they’d accept that there’s something about how power systems work that they need to learn, they’d be able to learn it, but they don’t have the wisdom to accept that the mental equation of “push this into that slot and it will work, if it doesn’t it’s broken” won’t work for the situation.

          “How power systems work” is another thing on my list of “stuff we’re going to cover in homeschool science class.” You’d THINK basic electronics would be covered, but noooooo, it’s too practical.

          1. Snap Circuits FTW! Well, that’s how we did those lessons. Although, be careful with, IIRC, the IC component, which needs to be wired up with a little more care or it gets zapped … guess who learned this too late. Great stuff, though!

            1. *nod* Lack of wisdom. They COULD do it, if they’d just realize that there’s a possibility that there’s something to be done…

              In person, I can sometimes get this point across; it’s why I was a good tutor for the Marines. Everybody in our classes was plenty intelligent, but a lot had learned to turn off their brains on set subjects in order to function. Figuring how to get them to turn it back on could be tough. 😀

              But that was with Marines. Who’d been instructed that they were supposed to listen to me.

              The folks giving you crud about the magic strip not working? They aren’t going to really listen to you, because you fall into their filters.

              Sorry.

              1. I keep hearing people theorizing about “the two Americas” and it makes me think, “Okay, on one side will be all the great minds of the nation, the deep thinkers and the truly important people, and then over on THIS side, we’ll have the folks who have running water.”

            2. Misha, from my experience, it is a total refusal to learn what is – coupled with a total refusal to learn what is NOT.

            3. My college major prof resembled this. It’s not that he couldn’t understand, it’s that he wasn’t going to think about it anyway because he was too busy thinking about something else. He never really learned to use his computer, because it wasn’t what he was really interested in. Or to not lock his keys in his office. He just didn’t care about those things. After all, the music department could check out keys to his office to all his students and then it didn’t matter if he locked his keys in because one or another of us was always around, right? (In retrospect, I’m amazed the music department allowed that. Wasn’t like Doc ever put anything away. Had we been wiling to cheat . . .)

              He gave us all a ton of great absent-minded-genius professor stories, though. Including when five of us from his studio tag-teamed him asking for repeat explanations in theory for an entire year and he never, ever figured out why the students in that year’s theory class were getting so much better grades than usual or why he only covered a portion of the usual material. Repeating every explanation six times in six different ways (he was a good teacher, after all, just prone to talking over our heads) will accomplish that, Doc!

            1. I was in shop class; they didn’t bother to teach us about electricity, and I got stabbed with a chisel because it turns out it’s a bad idea to put people who can’t listen in the same area as tools.

              1. About what we learned inshop class about electricityconsisted of, don’t weld in the welding booth under the ventilator fan when it is raining. Because it leaked, and welding while standing in a pool of water is really good way to learn what 220V feels like.

                And no, I didn’t learn that from personal experience, but multiple people in my class did. When the air started turning blue from the language streaming out of the middle welding booth, the longtime students would immediately look at the window, “yep, it’s raining again.”

        2. Heh, heh. During my engineering career, at three different times I saw management attempt to fix things with the magic words ‘Hire more PhDs’. There is nothing more inept than a team top-heavy with book smarts and credentials but with zero practical knowledge. To be sure, things did get ‘fixed’, but in the veterinary rather than engineering sense.

          1. Oh, man. I worked for one boss who had done three different ABD post grad tours of various universities while he was dodging the draft during Vietnam. He had the inordinately elevated view of PhD holders that only those outside that holy elect peeking in over the walls could acheive. As a result we made several PhD hires that didn’t really work out.
            One new grad Information Theory PhD hire from the major private university known as The Farm, while undoubtedly intelligent and a nice guy, was unable to actually deliver anything of worth. For a year. All year long the rest of the team was asking “What is he doing?” In the end the answer was, thinking really hard very far off into the weeds while the rest of us got systems designed and built and stuff done.
            I sure some PhDs come out and know how to do practical work, but we never hired any of those.

            1. One of the side effects of being, essentially, mobile furniture in an academic environment is that you are invisible to anyone above basic administrative rank. It’s kind of amazing to me how many times I go into an office to change a lightbulb or something of that nature and as soon as the department head realizes that I’m nobody, she or he goes back to playing games or reading Facebook without a second glance. There are people who make five times what I do that I have never seen actually work on anything university related.

            2. Perhaps because Flat State is more of an ivory-painted silo than a true outpost of the ivy-covered halls, perhaps because my cohort had a leavening of older grad students, but we seemed to be pretty functional in terms of real-world stuff. On the other hand, there was the English Department . . . And a few profs in the science departments who may or may not ever have set foot outside their respective buildings.

              I know there were more than a few odd looks last year when the custodian and I were in the break room lamenting the declining quality of small engines and what ethanol did to two-stroke units, and comparing stories about getting bitten by magnetos and was John Deere better than International. (Discussing religion, in other words 😉 )

            3. Did you know the NRC refuses to grant a reactor operator license to anyone with a PhD?Or at least they used to……I do not know about it in the last 8 years.

          2. “I’ll have you know I hold a PhD.”

            “Yes — in Medieval Romance Literature. They knew crap-all about plumbing, as apparently do you.”

        3. I’m told my younger son is a certified genius, and oh heavens. I hope he marries a woman who understands “I couldn’t find my head this morning, so I put my shoes in the bathtub, the cat in my briefcase, and my dirty clothes in the oven.” I used to think those stories about Einstein and not being able to run a normal life were jokes. Uh… no.

          1. When my grandfather ran the lab for an oil company in the 1960s, his boss was a genius. Who married a brilliant woman. And was a walking disaster area of mis-matched clothes, scattered papers, missed appointments . . . Boss and #1 Wife separated, and he remarried. #2 Wife was very practical, not brilliant, and kept him dressed, organized, on schedule, and pointed him in the directions he needed to go. Grandfather said #2 Wife was a blessing to the lab.

            1. I am not genius-level, but quite smart. My mother caught on to this early and devoted my childhood years to hammering some practicality into my skull. (Some.) In high school, I had a roaring crush on a boy who was at least as smart but had not had a prescient mother; my aunt examined him and remarked sagely “The government would pay them to have children together, but they would need a wife.”

          2. When they were first married, my mom color coordinated my dad’s closet and labeled everything in the house as to what it was, what should go there, who should touch it. I hated growing up with all that so I didn’t do any of that in my first apartment. All my subsequent ones, however… *sigh* at least I know how and why it works.

            1. If your mom or a similarly skilled woman would make a line of adult Garanimals* type clothing with cheater labels, she could make a killing.

              * they’re kids’ clothes that are just about the most archtypical things you can imagine; there are t-shirts, polo shirts, pseudo-denim pants, slack type pants, cargo pants, little kid skirt/shorts, leggings, and shorts.
              You can grab any top and any bottom, and they work. You can go ultra casual with a t-shirt and kid sweater-pants, and stair-step all the way up to rather nice with a polo and slacks.

              1. lol I grew up wearing Garanimals and my daughter has a bunch, too. She’s always said she wishes there was a line for adults, too.

        4. I work at a University, and it’s amazing how many “super-smart” people are simply incapable of understanding basic real world concepts

          *grin* I work in scientific publishing, and you don’t want to know how many frantic emails/phone calls I’ve received from authors because their proof notices came on Friday afternoon … “it says to return the corrections in 48-72hrs, is Monday okay?”

          Given how poorly these people follow basic instructions, a coworker and I have been keeping a list of doctors *not* to visit if we ever need that particular specialty.

      4. It also just occrred to me that the reason that half the time we have to get clued into the attack is that they don’t actually directly attack us – but do so by a background whisper campaign, passive-agressively

    3. Certainly some ‘bold’ statements you make 🙂
      There is nothing wrong with having a normal IQ. Anyone that thinks that has some real ego problems. I have never met a person that I could not learn from.
      My IQ was once 140, but last week’s CAT scan showed: The exam is notable for some minor cerebral atrophy.
      Now, is it notable for the fact that it is *minor*, or was he just guessing I’m not 25 any more.
      I have always felt that while with age, you IQ may falter slightly, you always can make up for it by the new and fascinating way you can link swear words together.

      1. Possible:
        It’s not a matter of intelligence, it’s a matter of hubrus/pride? (And not the self-confident type pride, but the “don’t you know WHO I AM?” type pride)

        1. Absolutely. I would refer to Hollywood actors to illustrate the point that the hubris of ‘who am I’ easily occurs in persons of questionable intelligence (but good memory, as they sound intelligent when some one gives them the lines).

            1. Well, yes; ask Dot who she is and you get Princess Angelina Louisa Francesca Banana Fana Bo Besca the Third.

          2. Story.

            Guy is loafing on the job.

            This person calls him on the loafing.

            The Guy angrily asks “Who are you to tell me what to do”?

            The person tells the guy that he’s the CEO of the company.

            The Guy responds “Do You Know Who I Am?”.

            The CEO is taken aback and says “No, I don’t”.

            The Guy says “Thank G*d” and runs away very fast. 😈 😈 😈 😈 😈

            1. Reminds me of the school version with a Very Large Class and a Big Test.
              “Time!”
              * Student keeps writing for quite a while.
              * Student finishes, goes to turn in paper.
              “Late. You get a zero.”
              “Do you know who I am?”
              “No.”
              * Student shoves test into middle of stack, departs.

        3. Intelligence is recognizing what you do not know. In schools it is confused with baffling with bullshit.

          1. That sounds like wisdom, to me; I know a lot of folks with the processing power, but no idea how to use it in some situations.

            It’s like how some of the guys in my shop thought I was “crazy strong,” because I learned how to use what I have correctly. They are and were a LOT stronger than me– but they didn’t know how to use it, so I could pick up boxes they couldn’t.

                1. Known those who fit that, and those that don’t. Of those that don’t, all seem to have grown up in hard work, lower income situations, for what ever reason, but they still have some odd foibles. But having to milk the cows or other farm chores, cut wood for heat, or what ever seems to knock some common sense into them.

                  1. I think it may be just that they were given (usually through experience, AKA working their tail off) the tools to solve the problems– I know the areas where me being intelligent isn’t a problem are the ones where I have the tool set…where I can see what to do to try to solve the problem.

                    Things like dealing with people? Reading social situations? Reading music or code?
                    When I can even tell there’s something there, I don’t have the right tool for the job.

      2. Sometimes, it isn’t that we get smarter as we get older. It’s because we have more experience. IE We’ve learned from the stupid things we did when we were young. 😈 😈 😈 😈

        1. Well yes, but IQ is the measure of how fast you can match those little drawings all strangely different with a time limit. Smartness indeed is something that experience sharpens.
          The other trait is wisdom, which accumulates as you age. I have always wondered if a high IQ can assist in the faster accumulation of wisdom. I think it follows logically, but anecdotally, it seems to be a mixed bag.

          1. Having, in my youth, had an IQ in the range where the numbers don’t actually mean very much, I can assure you than nobody, no matter how smart, can know everything or even a significant fraction thereof. Wisdom is a different matter altogether, and correlates with being smart only to the extent the individual knows that being smart does not make him wise.

            I might even postulate that being very smart is an impediment to wisdom in that, when you are very smart (or very rich, or very powerful) people are less likely to contradict you or challenge your thinking, thus rendering you more subject to error and more resistant to self-correction.

            Putting it in computer terms, being smart allows your CPU to clock more cycles in a given interval but doesn’t protect against the effects of bad programming or faulty data. Wisdom is the ability to recognize invalid logic more readily and distinguish good data from bad, thus processing more efficiently.

            Being smart doesn’t so much make you wise so much as being wise makes you smart.

            1. Wisdom is the ability to recognize invalid logic more readily…
              Oh dear, I guess that means our ‘leaders’ in D.C. have very little wisdom, even when they all pool it together.

              1. What those in D.C. have is the opposite of wisdom, something which (like dividing by zero) yields pools of infinite dimness.

            2. This. I too was tested at a ridiculous IQ. I always thought of it as two things – the ‘clock speed’ RES describes combined with an ability to identify and connect things laterally across mental categories.

              And as Sarah mentions, the latter can lead to some unusual connections – and has forced me to build a mental engine for generating valid “OK, how are those things connected?” answers that satisfy explainees.

              1. Intelligence is not wisdom.

                Intelligence is not productivity.

                Neither intelligence nor wisdom is being functional, being practical, or being useful.

                I had a time in my life when the Down’s syndrome folks in my cohort seemed to be living a more productive life than I was. I dearly wanted to be productive and useful, so it wasn’t just lack of motivation.

            3. I am a genius. This allows me to make poor decisions far more rapidly and efficiently than the average person. By my mid twenties I had managed to screw up my life to an extent that it takes most people a lifetime to achieve.

          2. I think IQ can assist with wisdom IF you are sufficiently humble and/or introspective. The few times I’ve managed both it processes as “That didn’t work. Why did it not work?” *analyzes furiously* *does not repeat Thing Which Looked Smart But Wasn’t*

            Introspection is easy enough to come by. Humility, less so. 😀

            1. The problem of IQ relating to wisdom is expressed i the aphorism: “Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions.”

              Smart people a) make relatively fewer bad decisions because they process information more effectively, which also means b) smart people are better able to avoid or minimize consequences of poor decision making.

              Thus many smart people never make the jump from being smart to being wise. This is similar to the way that many bright people fail in school for lack of developing study skills until they’re out in the deep part where the undertow of poor study habits will drag them under.

              Dim people fail to learn from their mistakes, bright people make fewer mistakes — the results are much the same.

              1. Permit me to offer another one: Only fools learn only from experience.

                Though you may need to be wise enough to recognize the chance to learn from others’.

    4. accords with my experience. Because I refinish furniture, I even associate with people who rank low on verbal or intellectual intelligence, but I’ve been VERY cured of thinking I’m better than them because I know a lot of words. And I get along with them. BUT the “I am going to show off how smart I am!” people are usually both stupid and malicious.

      1. “… the ‘I am going to show off how smart I am!’ people” …

        … are great to get into a game of poker or, even better, TEGWAR.

        1. Point of information:
          Tegwar – Bang the Drum Slowly (the novel by Mark Harris, also a film); it is a game basically designed to separate a sucker from his cash. The letters stand for “The Exciting Game Without Any Rules.” When the characters in the film play the game, they appear to be making things up as they go along.
          (Wiki)

          The point of the game is that the [sucker] is too proud to admit not knowing how the game is played and can be abused for so long as his money lasts.

    5. “Nor is it really , REALLY smart people.”

      I find the contagiously dumb most difficult to tolerate as they insist on dragging everybody down. The smarter they are the more they inevitably reduce any discussion to their vanities, their manias, their obsessions.

      I much prefer discussing my vanities, my manias and my obsessions.

  17. I just wonder where they get the energy from. It takes a lot of effort to be perpetually offended.
    And then there’s all the time spent looking for things to be offended by.

      1. You do realize I hope that everyone who at all knows you is laughing their collective asses off over that one. I can hear the screams of mirth from Dan and the boys from four states away.

        1. Oh, I know what Sarah means. I’m too lazy for certain things (hating and staying angry are a couple of them) and then there are the things I decide are worth the effort, and HOO BOY when I get into those, Rhys has to drag me off to bed or meals to make sure I take care of myself.

          I think the ‘willing to make effort for things worth doing’ applies to a number of folk I know.

          1. Gigancat comes to mind. One night, while being boarded at the vet’s (who gave him the run of the place) he got out of his cage, found a way onto a counter, opened a cabinet, then a drawer, pulled an open sack of cat chow out of the drawer and the cabinet, hauled them back to his cage, and made himself quite comfortable indeed. He had never shown that much intelligence or effort before, and the vet and her staff were quite impressed. “As smart as they want to be” was how she described it. Having unlimited food without even having to move his head that much was worth doing, at least for Gigancat.

  18. You’re never going to be able to hold a discussion with these people. They’re not interested in discussion; they’re signaling their peer group.

    Your alternatives are to either ignore them or to tap the fish tank every now and then to keep them spun up.

  19. What really got me was when That Site linked a piece of mine, and one of the commenters stated they hadn’t read by work beyond the snippet provided, but then did several posts about how totally wrong I was.

    2. Now, now, why should the Bright and Enlightened sort let what you actually wrote get in the way of their efforts to prove you wrong?

      😉

    3. Every time I write a pro- sad puppies post, it gets picked up by those guys, who promptly proceed to thump their chests over it in the comments. Makes me smile. When dealing with the perpetually offended, it helps to remember that some people are their own punishment.

      In all fairness, though, I have encountered a few reasonable members of that community who aren’t just trying to win the Most Offended award for the week. They’re generally the ones who leave the echo chamber to respond on my own blog. Stuff like that reminds me that even in an online community that is fueled by hate and negativity, there are lurkers and other folks who can see through that stuff (even if they never speak up about it).

  20. A shame! I think there needs to be a lot more explaining done that copyright protects the specific expression of an idea, not the idea itself. Many new writers (as well as the general public) don’t understand this. I’m glad you blogged about it, and I think it’s a shame that anyone decided to hate on you for it.

    1. Copyright protects a possessor of money with many Lawyers. Exactly how long is Snow White (1938) protected when every American alive has seen it. The Grimm’s had the original story 1812, Disney stole it.
      Of course, then there is that ‘Flat Cat’-‘Tribbles’ brouhaha, that is close to the expression and the idea. Pity Heinlein didn’t sue. I bet if he knew about the other one’s performance at the asterisk Hugos he would have been less generous.

      1. The Grimm brothers didn’t create it, they got the story from story-telling grannies and wrote it down.

        If they changes they made make it their own story, then so do the changes that Disney made; if it doesn’t, then they stole it from the common sphere.

        1. Sleeping Beauties: Sleeping Beauty and Snow White Tales from Around the World by Heidi Anne Heiner

          A nice thumping 500 pages.

  21. Of course, the more serious side of this is how this has fed into the malicious game of telephone that Sad Puppies has been subjected to the past two years. Many of our opponents have only heard a distorted version of what we believe, a fact reflected in the absurd mainstream media articles which have been written about the controversy.

  22. Since you’ve been deemed guilty of WrongThought, you need to be proven wrong again and again to confirm the verdict and to keep their little world safe, because any criticism you levy against their RIghtThink must be crap, since you’re wrong about everything. Plus it also gives them something to do in between searching each other’s words to find something to denounce their fellow travelers about.

  23. OH CRAP!!!!! Totally Off Topic (and yet, not at all) I Just Saw Report In My In-Box That Justice Scalia Has Died.

    Let us hope the Senate is not crazy enough to accept just whomever the big o nominates.

      1. Time for some enterprising Senate Staffers to start pulling quotes from prominent Dems inveighing against replacing a liberal justice with a conservative and risking the balance of the Court.

        As if that would restrain Schumer, Reid, Durbin, Boxer, Warren …

    2. RIP. Scalia was a truly decent person. Apparently he died in his sleep.

      And yeah, I bet the Senate hearings for any Obama-favored candidate will be ferocious.

      1. If Senate Republicans cave on this it will likely be the final nail in the GOP establishment.

        Imagine if Obama got mischievous and nominated Cruz, and the havoc that cause in the GOP primaries. OTOH, Cruz is young, principled and conservative — there’s no freakin’ way the Dems would risk him taking the open seat.

            1. Mitch likes being Majority Leader and can’t be in any doubt that appointment of a Zombie justice will end that.

              In the words of Samuel Johnson, “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

        2. It is time for the Senate to offer Obama “advice” to nominate a strict constructionist, and tell him that failure to do so will result in a severe lack of “consent.” After all, they do have the power of “advice and consent” even if it usually comes down to “consent” or not. Frankly, the Senate should exercise this power more generally to keep the executive in check, but we all know partisans don’t want to set a precedent for when their guy is in the Big House, er, the White House.

          1. Obama has never, to my knowledge, appointed anyone he didn’t have a handle on.

            On the ‘let it burn’ hand, the sort of obvious bullshit decisions that his appointees help make would discredit rule of law, which is a necessary component of federal power.

            1. It’s also a vital component of civilized society. Given my location, connections, and proclivities, I could probably live well enough in such a world, but it’s not one I’d wish on my nation or on my far-flung kith and kin.

        1. Bork should not have been Borked. No one should be Borked.

          Didn’t your mother teach you that two wrongs do not make a right?

          1. Sure. She also made sure I understood what the Founders meant when they placed the starting and keeping of America above their “sacred honor.”

        2. Unnecessary. Borking involved lying about the nominee. All the Republicans need do is tell the truth about any Obama nominee.

      3. The Progressives killed him! He died from contemplating the horror of the Obama administration and of Hillary or Bernie as successor. It was all part of an evil plan of Obama and Hillary. The documentation is in those classified e-mails of Hillary’s, the ones they won’t let us see. I’m sure of it. And–

        Excuse me, my door bell just rang. A van full of men in white coats just appeared outside. Let me answer the door. I’m sure I shan’t be but a minute….

        1. Murdering him wouldn’t necessarily be out of character for Hillary or Obama. It isn’t clear what their limits are under stress, or how they are reacting to current events.

          Furthermore, medical care could have made the difference, and Obama has been busy seizing greater powers of influence over medicine.

          1. a)79 b) Neither Hillary nor Obama appear to be that competent c) If they have the capability for such killings, why now and not earlier? d) If they have the capability, do they have the self control not to go on a spree?

          2. No it wouldn’t. However he was 79, old enough to die of natural causes. Progs are also very good at taking opportunities without having to resort to anything like murder.

          3. Well: Justice Scalia was apparently found dead with a pillow over his head; it seems he was pronounced dead over the phone, and an autopsy wasn’t deemed necessary despite “conflicting reports” of just what happened to him. Gosh, no reason for suspicion or anything . . .

            For sources, you can check out Drudge’s headlines this morning, or see David Codrea’s post with three pertinent links here:

            http://waronguns.blogspot.com/2016/02/another-crazy-conspiracy-theory.html

            The thing about Hope-n-Changed Amerika is that pretty much any conspiracy theory is plausible these days; not least because of what our moral “betters” get away with *openly.*

      1. Check the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee:
        http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/about/members

        Sessions, Cornyn, Lee & Cruz are all solid conservatives. I used to have considerable respect for Hatch but he’s been in DC too long. Grassley should be under major pressure to not let Obama slide a “Zombie” (supporter of a living Constitution) through. Graham … well, he’s better than Specter, albeit not by much.

        Nobody on the Dem side strikes me as a towering intellect, but Chuck Schumer wants to be Senate majority leader and if he drops the ball on this he can likely kiss that goodbye.

        I wouldn’t be surprised to see an unprecedented delay because both sides are afraid to lose and would prefer this can be kicked down the road. Which means tha, with control of the Senate up for grabs in the next election …

        1. Sessions, Lee & Cruz are solid. To the shame of many Texans, Cornyn is as squishy as they come.

          2. Lindsey Graham is “promising”

            he won’t vote for an Obama Supreme Court nominee unless that nominee is a “consensus choice” who can win the votes of at least half the Senate’s 54 Republicans. Otherwise, Graham said, he’ll block any Obama replacement for the late Antonin Scalia as payback for the Democrats’ “nuclear option” power play that removed the filibuster for (non-Supreme Court) judicial nominees.
            [SNIP]
            I asked Graham, “So your position now, for the rest of President Obama’s term, is basically payback for the nuclear option?”

            “Yeah,” Graham answered. “It’s ‘I told you if you did this … you’ll pay a price with me.’ I drew a red line and I actually meant it.”

            “Elections have consequences,” Graham added, “and abuses of power have consequences.”
            http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/graham-ill-oppose-obama-scotus-pick-as-payback-for-nuclear-option/article/2583239

            Lotta wiggle room in there, but more spine than Grahamnesty typically displays.

              1. Forty-one Republicans are all it would take to hold a filibuster which, while unprecedented for a Supreme Court nomination, would occur in an unprecedented circumstance.

                All of us with Republican’s representing us in the Senate need to write them now, telling them to hold this line. It probably wouldn’t hurt to write any Dems up for reelection this year, even if it won’t do much good it might at least make them a trifle less staunch in doing Obama’s will.

                BTW – Power Line is suggesting Obama will send up a doomed nominee simply to make Republicans look bad and stir up his ethnic base – someone such as Loretta Lynch for whom some Republicans have already voted in confirmation.

                1. For now, I’m in Texas so probabllly my concerns would be addressed with the majority who voted our lot in, but I will likely be living in Michigan by the election and probably before confirmation so I doubt Stabby or Peters would listen to a million of me on this.

                2. Meh, just tell everyone her last name is racist, and the fact that she keeps it shows that she’s one of those internalized-racists

              2. And suddenly I’m reminded of that scene from Flint’s 1632 when Gustavus Adolphus declared his intent to “reason” with a weak ally thusly: “Steel in your spine . . . or steel up your (censored).”

                The voters need to make that clear to the entire GOP establishment, not just Grahamnesty. Mitch McConnell, for starters.

                😉

                1. Gustav was talking about his brother-in-law. The Establishment has been excellent lately in ignoring those pesky voters who put them in office. We will need to hammer the claymores in with a 10 pound sledge hammer. Where’s Tom Simpson when you need him.

        2. Agreed. My husband is convinced they’ll roll over for the Big O, but he’s a lame duck and you can rarely go wrong overestimating the cowardice and responsibility-avoidance of the career pol.

          So there’s hope.

      1. Filed under “I’ll believe It When I See It”:

        McConnell: No new justice this year
        Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced the Senate will not take up a confirmation of a new Supreme Court justice to replace the late Antonin Scalia until after a new president is sworn in 2017.

          1. There has been a recess appointment made to SCOTUS … it was done by President Eisenhower — Justice Potter — who was eventually was approved.

            1. Pro Forma sessions so the Senate is never in recess.

              We’ll know if Vichy Mitchy means a word he says next week, since the Senate was scheduled to be in recess then.

            2. Obama won’t make a recess appointment of a Supreme Court justice because such an appointment would not last into 2017.

          2. Actually, Obama’s pick of a nominee will be an interesting signal of his intentions or at least the intentions of his handlers. If he picks a very liberal candidate, he is signalling an intent to have an ugly Senate fight to create a campaign issue to rally the base – at a time when the base is demoralized at having Hillary Clinton shoved down their throats.

            If he picks a more moderate nominee, he is signaling an attempt to maintain a long term legacy of influence on the Supreme Court. Given that his previous nominees have been the mediocre Kagan and the incompetent Sotomayor … I wouldn’t put any money on Obama having any long term strategy at all.

          1. considering he thinks his sister would be a fine Justice, definitely.
            Oh, and being as his sister is just left of Mengele on abortion should give you a clue to what kind of justice she’d be

    6. Legislatures are for compromise. Compromises make no one happy. Appointing Thomas P. Kratman to the Supreme Court would make everyone very unhappy.

            1. 1. I most sincerely doubt my ability to make Tom do anything.
              2. Europe would probably refuse to extradite him if it meant he would serve on the Supreme Court.
              3. By ‘everyone’ I meant ‘everyone’.

            2. Tell him that he doesn’t have to sit, he can stand at parade rest with a full ruck if it makes him feel any better.

              1. Maybe we could tempt him by reminding him all he’d have to do is convince four people and he could bring back flogging for felony stupidity?

                  1. Actually, I posted a question about Tom Kratman becoming a Supreme Court Justice over in the Kratskeller on the Bar.

                    His response was that, unlike the Presidency, he had thought about taking that post if offered.

                    However, he believes that health & age would put accepting that post out of the question.

                    1. He could resign with the soonest (please, Lord, may it be next) Republican administration.

                      Put his confirmation hearings on PPV, variable pricing per each inquisitor — the segments with Schumer and Franken ought fund serious debt reduction. The interrogations by Senators Lee and Cruz could be offered free as in the broad public interest.

      2. Where can I sign this petition? I found out Scalia had died, and my stomach tried to relocate somewhere around my feet…the thought of Tom Kratman as a Supreme Court justice…I’m simultaneously shivering and giggling. I may need help…I can’t seem to stop.

    7. Out of the depths I call to you, LORD;
      Lord, hear my cry!
      May your ears be attentive
      to my cry for mercy.
      If you, LORD, keep account of sins,
      Lord, who can stand?
      But with you is forgiveness
      and so you are revered.

      I wait for the LORD,
      my soul waits
      and I hope for his word.
      My soul looks for the Lord
      more than sentinels for daybreak.
      More than sentinels for daybreak,
      let Israel hope in the LORD,
      For with the LORD is mercy,
      with him is plenteous redemption,
      And he will redeem Israel
      from all its sins.

      1. Lest we forget it is not all about ourselves …

        Lord, it is with fallen hearts that we send Nino, fearless defender of Your gift of Liberty and Your dutiful servant, home to You. We beseech You welcome him, provide his family and loved ones with Your peace, and guide his successor’s walk in Your path.

        And lord? If you’ve any extra lightning bolts may we recommend some targets?

  25. It has been said that God looks out for “drunkards, fools, and the United States of America.”. Please Lord hear our prayers and do not abandon us now unworthy though we be.

  26. Obama wants a third term and the Court is all that stops him from ignoring the 22nd ammendment.

    1. You know, I really don’t think he does. He has always and clearly wanted the trappings of presidency, but the job itself no. It is with complete justification that many people have referred to him as “our semi-retired” president. I’d not be surprised if he angled for some sort of position with the UN, but I mostly expect him to retreat to his preferred hobbies of golf, self-adoration, and snarking to adoring media figures about those actually governing.

      1. Bear in mind that Obama considers himself to be better at any given job than the cabinet member with the job. He also considers himself to be a better speechwriter than his speechwriters.

        And he’s a “constitutional scholar”.

        And he needs a job.

        Clearly, the appropriate course of action would be for him to appoint the best man for the job, himself.

        1. (scribbles note to stock up on popcorn) Lookin’ forward to those confirmation hearings, especially when Cruz & Lee get their turns to question the nominee!

          1. There’s a nasty rumor that Hil wants to nominate the current POTUS. Who probably would nominate himself, except that being on the SCOTUS requires, you know, work. And I don’t think Justice Ginsberg et al would have any patience or sympathy for a dead weight.

            1. “… being on the SCOTUS requires, you know, work.”

              I am confident that Obama believes that is what law clerks are for. His work would be restricted to instructing his clerks what opinions to write (and support — a standard set deplorably low by Justice Breyer), signing opinions, and interrogating appellate lawyers during verbal briefing. Surely he would appreciate the opportunity to routinely demonstrate his superior enlightenment? Surely court reporters would not publicly admit how lame his questions tended to be?

              OTOH, the least senior justice position (reportedly) entails certain menial chores which I very much doubt he would enjoy.

    2. If that happened, I think he would lose. Badly. The gentry liberals would jump off the train, and he needs them. He’s not that stupid–nor, I think, that power-mad.

    3. No, he really wants and always has wanted to be King, not President of the USA. Being President has been waaaay too much work for him, so he has chosen to do as much as possible with his pen and phone, rather than do the actual work of negotiating with the legislature to reach his goals legally. So very stressful, hence the frequent and lavish vacations, golfing weekends, “romantic” dinners with Mooch, etc. He will be much happier being a former President and receiving egregious stipends for occasional speeches and fund-raising appearances.

      1. He won’t get egregious stipends for speeches. He’ll get huge payoffs for race hustling. What fortune 500 company with a publicly embarrassing racial issue would mess around with Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton anymore? They’ll put Obama on the board in exchange for the 1st black president using his community organizing skills to make the problem stop. He’ll sit on the board of every major company in the country before it is over.

  27. Seeeee!!! Raciss ILoH did so rip everything off!

    He even has “Hunters” in his titles too!

    How does he sleep at night?

    (In an expansive house, on top of a huge pile of money, with his smoking hot wife?)

  28. I would just like to point out that Jane Jensen used the term “Shadow Hunters” for a secret society that fought against supernatural threats back in 1993 in the Gabriel Knight series of computer games. Maybe she should sue both of them?

  29. If only someone presenting a Copyright for Writers seminar spent some time on the differences between idea and expression (the latter being copyright protected) …

  30. When we started the comic it was specifically because we read and saw what was happening in places like File 770 and the comments section at Mr. Torgersen’s blog and wanted to light a candle. It’s taken on it’s own life as any creative endeavor worth doing for more than a month or two, but this is the one I came up with specifically in response to attacks like this one on Mrs. Hoyt.

    Link is here .

    Let’s see if I can get img src tags to work…I’m not actually trying to send traffic my way…

      2. Stuff usually loads if you click on the thing and it will take you to a page with only the picture on it, or if it’s the youtube “share” link.

  32. Well, the unnamed site linked to *this* article and acted all shocked you were offended. But at least one commenter is on your side.

    “Brian Z on February 14, 2016 at 2:08 am said:

    (10) Mike, your linking to her post suggested you considered it either newsworthy or else interesting, and that you would have read past the first paragraph to make that determination. I always enjoy your snark, but I thought that came off as slightly petty, even though I sincerely doubt that was your intention.

    The way your commentariat ran with the ball was kind of sad.”

  33. I just wanted to share this with y’all:

    I bring all of this up to remind people: things are not as bad as you have been told they are. Yes, they’re bad. The economy is stuck on neutral and the world is full of people who don’t really like us very much. But. You are not alone and surrounded by a gathering darkness. Everywhere across the country people just like you are repairing the damage and getting on with the job. So you do not need anybody to rescue you. You can be the rescuers, and you don’t need anybody’s permission, example, or even leadership. You can just go do it.

    Be not afraid.

    1. That was good to have read. Thank you for the link. As a faithful Catholic and Conservative Scalia obviously recognized a power beside which the Supreme Court is as naught, and a duty toward his fellow humans quite beyond doing his job well.

        1. Knowledge that one is not he is especially conducive to perspective. This is a perspective many SJWs seem to lack (or rather, they think their understanding of what is “needful and proper” superior to His.)

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