On conservative bikini "scandals"

The Other McCain points and laughs at liberals attempting to create scandals out of very little fabric:

Conservatives are not only smarter and more patriotic than liberals, we’re also better-looking. It’s high time we stopped letting liberals get inside our heads and tell us that it’s some kind of “hypocrisy” for conservatives even to acknowledge the existence of sex.

It is true. Even when liberal girls start out pretty, they rapidly end up making hags of themselves. There's something about being angry and self-righteous all the time that seems to warp a woman's face as well as her soul. Meanwhile, Cassy Fiano explains the liberal thinking, such as it is, behind these "scandals".

They like to paint conservatives as frigid, dried up, ugly old prudes, and of course, that couldn’t be further from the truth. And they hope that showing pictures of a conservative — or their family members — in bikinis will mean that other conservatives will be outrageously outraged. They’re always shocked when bikini photos do not, in fact, derail conservative candidates’ campaigns.

It seems that more than a few left-liberals have failed to understand that the American Taliban metaphor was, in fact, a metaphor. So, chalk me up a supporter of pretty conservative women in bikinis. However, I find libertarian women to be the most attractive. They're smarter, more interesting, and much more fun than their pretty conservative counterparts.

Comments ()

Blowing more futility

For once, I agree with Megan McArdle:

If you want to know why us libertarian types are skeptical of the government's ability to prevent housing market bubbles, well, I give you Exhibit 9,824: the government's new $1000 down housing program. No, really. The government has apparently decided, in its infinite wisdom, that what the American economy really needs is more homebuyers with no equity.

While McArdle wouldn't know what a real libertarian was if Murray Rothbard's zombie bit her on her bony ass - she actually voted for Soebarkah - she is correct to point out the madness of this homebuying incentive program. It does not help the economy to encourage more poor people to buy homes they cannot afford to buy and take out mortgages on which they will almost surely default.

Glenn Reynold's succinct summary is more astute: "These people are idiots. Idiots who’ve been entrusted with nuclear weapons, and their economic equivalents." Of course, this insane program might not exist if "libertarians" like Megan McArdle hadn't voted the people who created it into office.

Comments ()

Men work more

Although I very much doubt this "news" is going to suddenly bring about an end to feminist whining, much less feminism itself:

The long night of modern feminism might be about to end. A glimmer of light is flickering in the encircling gloom. A study published this week by Dr Catherine Hakim of the London School of Economics has found that men do slightly more work than the women they live with when employment and domestic work are measured together.

This is the first time I can remember in 40 years that an authoritative study on a key issue of so-called gender politics has come out with a self-evident truth that runs directly contrary to orthodox feminist ideology. The fact that it has been written and published by a woman makes it even more delightful.

Clearly Dr. Hakim doesn't understand how social studies involving gender work. If the data shows that men work more in total, then quite clearly paid work outside the home shouldn't count. The rule is always that whatever permits women to pose as the victims of patriarchal male oppression must be the relevant metric. If a man travels via ox-drawn cart on a business trip to train coal miners in Minsk the proper way to break rocks with a pick while the woman stays home watching their 23 year-old daughter, the correct interpretation is that he has enjoyed a paid European vacation while she has slaved away caring for the children at home.

If, on the other hand, a woman flies to Miami to lie on a beach with her old friends from college while the man stays home to care for their five children under the age of two, the correct interpretation is that he's been having a grand old time sitting at home drinking beer and watching television while the poor woman is absolutely worn out from an exhausting week of being dragged to all sorts of social activities in which she most certainly did not want to participate. (Roissy, of course, would put a different spin on why she's so worn out, but that's beside the point here.)

The lesson is this: solipsism is best avoided, because it makes you look insanely stupid to anyone who isn't equally solipsistic. But that somehow never stops the feminists.

Comments ()

The limited debate

The NYT doesn't know what a real deflationista is:

The split between the chief economists, whose work helps inform trading strategies recommended to investors by their firms, echoes a broader and sometimes fiercer debate among academic economists and commentators about the threat posed by deflation and what the government’s response should be.

According to the deflationistas, as they are nicknamed, a new round of stimulus spending by Washington is urgently required to stave off a Depression-like cycle of falling prices and wages that is difficult to reverse once it is set in motion.

Inflationistas, by contrast, worry more about the effect that additional government borrowing could have on the recovery. With the budget deficit expected to hover around $1 trillion a year for the next decade, they say, interest rates could eventually surge, making borrowing — and goods — more expensive. A double dip, they say, is highly unlikely.

This isn't a genuine inflation vs deflation debate, it's merely an intra-Keynesian one that completely misses the points made by the hyperinflationists and the true deflationists alike. A true deflationista is someone like Bob Prechter, who has long predicted that neither fiscal nor monetary policy can possibly prevent deflation brought about by the collapse of credit. The real debate - although it is more a question than a proper debate - is whether the central banks can print money faster than credit collapses in a fractional-reserve, debt-money system.

Given that there is $53 trillion in total credit market debt compared to $8.6 trillion in M2 and the mainstream deflationary fears have been caused by total credit merely remaining flat for the last two years thanks to the heroic debt-creation measures of the Soebarkah administration and the Federal Reserve increasing M2 at an annual rate of 5 percent, the outcome increasingly appears to favor the real deflationist camp.

Comments ()

Corrupt like a senator

Washington beats the market:

A 2004 study of the results of stock trading by United States Senators during the 1990s found that that Senators on average beat the market by 12% a year. In sharp contrast, U.S. households on average underperformed the market by 1.4% a year and even corporate insiders on average beat the market by only about 6% a year during that period. A reasonable inference is that some Senators had access to – and were using – material nonpublic information about the companies in whose stock they trade.

I suppose they're just all super-skilled econ-savvy investors, but their performance during the ongoing financial crisis argues convincingly against that.

Comments ()

Darwinianism and evolution

The vehement objections of those who believe in the evolution of the species notwithstanding, there can be no doubt that Darwinianism is a religious cult of faith. This is a simple and provable matter of observable evidence. But the key is to understand what "Darwinianism" means, for as is all too often the case, the atheists who subscribe to Darwinianism engage in their usual bait-and-switch by hiding their philosophical beliefs behind a false veneer of science. So, when the Darwinian denies that belief in the ever-mutating biological theory of evolution by (probably) natural selection is a religion, he is absolutely correct. And yet, the denial is irrelevant. This is because the Darwinian cult has its foundations in the biological theory, but cannot legitimately be conflated with it.

Consider one of the first great prophets of Darwinianism, Herbert Spencer, who stated that “Evolution can end only in the establishment of the greatest perfection and the most complete happiness.” In Revoking the Moral Order, David J. Peterson writes:

Spencer taught further that society embodied a self-perfecting process.... Using his own "scientific" methodology which he dubbed "reasoning by analysis" he concluded that creating the ideal man biologically was analogous to bringing about the ideal state of society; a realization of utopia.

Herbert Spencer, if you do not recognize his name, was the founder of "Social Darwinism", which has absolutely nothing to do with the heartless, Dickens-era capitalist connotations applied to it today. It is, instead, the religion to which today's New Atheists and progressives subscribe. This means it is entirely correct to describe a Darwinian as possessing "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe", or in other words, as possessing religious faith. However, keep in mind that the mere belief in the theory of evolution by (probably) natural selection is not alone sufficient to make one a Darwinian. That requires a belief in evolution-driven progress towards an eventual end of one sort or another.

To say that a fish evolved into an amphibian is to be an evolutionist. To say that Man has evolved beyond traditional morals is to be a Darwinian. The distinction is an important one, as is least a biological quasi-science whereas the latter is nothing more than a secular religion.

Comments ()

A sign of an indication?

In which we are informed that the Lizard Queen is now making noises about resigning from Obama's Cabinet:

Hillary Clinton raises prospect of resignation. Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, has complained of the tiring natue of her job and said she will step back from the role before the end of Barack Obama's presidency.

R writes: "I admit it doesn't actually surprise me that it is so far playing out as you predicted."* So far, so good, anyhow. I have no doubt that Hillary will resign, most likely before the end of the first term. Of course, the much more interesting question is if she intends to step back from the role in order to bring about that end to Mr. Soebarkah's presidency.


*"it is clear that he [President Soebarkah] is likely to be extraordinarily vulnerable if the Lizard Queen elects to strike against her current boss. The first indication that she intends to do so will be a growing chorus of elite Democratic opinion against Obama's conduct of the war... the more significant indicator would be her resignation from the Cabinet next year."

Comments ()

Marriage flames out

What a surprise that an orientationally-challenged judge should just happen to come down on the orientationally-challenged side:

The biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage being heard in San Francisco is that the federal judge who will decide the case, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is himself gay.

Yes, it's just TREMENDOUSLY astonishing that he decided the Founding Fathers seriously intended to enshrine homogamy and polygamy as Constitutional rights. It's pure fiction. But on the plus side, the coming battle between gays and feminists is shaping up to be the most amusing battle between two left-wing constituencies since scientists thought there might be a gay gene. Given the certainty of this decision going to the Supreme Court, it's no wonder Obama is trying to pack it with lesbians.

I'm just wondering who's got next, the bigamists, the polygamists, or the animal lovers. But at the end of the day, it's little more than one more check in the societal collapse column. This should, however, have serious implications in November as the Republican grass roots begin the push for a Constitutional Amendment in defense of marriage.

Comments ()

Against God and homeschooling

What a surprise. A man who is dependent upon government "education" handouts is a proponent of totalitarian school law:

I am not a fan of homeschooling; in fact, if I had my way, I'd make it illegal. Too often it's an excuse to isolate kids and hammer them full of ideological nonsense, and in a troubled public school system, it doesn't help to strip students and money from a struggling district — it should be part of the social contract that we ought to provide a good education to everyone.

Of course he would. PZ is a conventional godless fascist of the early 20th century variety. Totalitarians always oppose everything that strengthens individual freedom and poses a potential rival to the secular religion of the state. There is a very good reason why the Nazis banned homeschooling in 1938 and "Free education for all children in public schools" is the tenth pillar of the Communist Manifesto, while it is nowhere to be found in the U.S. Constitution or the English Common Law.

UPDATE - I realize some of my critics, especially those partial to Pharyngula, find it difficult to believe that PZ is really as stupid as I consider him to be. Perhaps this quote will help them understand that I am not exaggerating in the slightest. And try to remember, PZ isn't a scientist or a professor at an elite university, he's an ex-scientist who hasn't published in years and now teaches at a former community college. "When I told PZ Myers that in order for everyone to be equal we would have to make the smart people stupid. His response was to tell me that instead everyone should be educated. In order for everyone to be equal through education, we would have to force everyone to understand university level biology. Not only that, but everyone would have to understand university level mathematics, university level physics, university level English, and so forth."

Equality through education. The amusing thing is that PZ's idea of a solution is one of the concepts used to bring about the dumbing-down of American education in the first place. The clueless professor doesn't even grasp the basic concept of the lowest common denominator, probably because he is too close to it. Nor does he understand that educators cannot educate intelligence any more than basketball coaches can coach height.

Comments ()

There's good money in poverty

At least, at the Southern Poverty Law Center. They're certainly not poor and they don't look all that Southern either.

Comments ()

Employing the imprisoned

One in 31 adults are under the control of the correctional system (prison, parole, probation) according to a March 2009 Pew Center Report. 1 in every one hundred adults are imprisoned in jail, state prisons, or federal facilities. 25 years ago those under the control of the correctional system was one in 77 adults.... By historical standards the rate of imprisonment in the US is 350+ percent of what it was in 1980. Globally, the US is 3 times higher than the next in line for imprisonment, seven times higher than the median rate for an OCED country, and seventeen times higher than Iceland which has the lowest rate of incarceration.

After reading this, I did a little research and learned that according to the National Institute of Corrections, the cost of imprisoning my father will be right around $500,000 if he serves most of the 15 years he was sentenced. That is just over 40% of the amount he was convicted of not paying in taxes; if one takes into account the amount of taxes he actually did pay over the previous decade, the federal government can expect to be out around 13x more than they believe to have lost on his taxes alone. And that doesn't even begin to take into account all of the jobs that were lost and the opportunities that are presently being forgone as a result of locking up a proven entrepreneur. I understand the logic of making an example, of course, but I tend to doubt even those who conceptually support the long-term imprisonment of "tax evaders" would conclude that spending at least $13 to chase $1 is an intelligent investment, especially not for a nation in which the debt per taxpayer is already $120,000.

Meanwhile, John Kerry, Tim Geithner and other "public servants" who have never contributed anything in the way of creating jobs or economic activity continue to go about their business of interfering with the economy unmolested. Now, I'm not looking for any justice here nor am I ranting about the US tax or correctional systems; they are what they are and I'm not interested in their idiosyncracies. I am merely observing that the statistics related to them are another obvious sign of the structural precariousness of the current economic system.

Rather than borrowing money to imprison people, wouldn't it make more sense to hire out minimum-security prisoners on foreign contracts? That's not all that far off from how the English settled Australia, after all, and surely it would be to everyone's benefit if the US had talented business executives, computer programmers, technical experts and even movie stars available for overseas hire. Let them remain in exile for the duration of their sentence and have one-quarter of the revenue they generate go towards paying the costs of the correctional system. Another quarter would go towards allowing them to pay off their fines before they are released from the system, and half would be their incentive to perform well.

This would also help mitigate an imminent problem. With the increase in crime and decline in tax payments that have already been observed as a result of the economic contraction, it is very unlikely that the automatic reaction - to imprison all of the new offenders - is going to be an option given the way in which the overloaded correctional system is already helping drive states like California and Illinois into bankruptcy. We know that 1 in 77 is sustainable. But I don't think either the economy or the nation can hope to survive a ratio of 1 in 25, which at this rate will be reached in early 2014.

Perhaps exile employment contracts sound too exotic and potentially enjoyable to serve as "corrections". But I don't think too many people would sign up for running a technology company in Iraq, overseeing mining operations in Afghanistan, or starring in low-budget Venezuelan action-flicks of their own accord. And as the projections indicate, the system is going to be forced to change very, very soon.

Comments ()

Everyone's a winner!

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Comments ()

Good luck, ladies

If you happen to be a woman who genuinely thinks life as a middle-aged divorcee with kids is a worthwhile trade for not getting flowers and a card on a Hallmark holiday, I'd say your ex-husband-to-be is getting an even better deal:

Momlogic has exclusively learned that 31,427 women signed up for AshleyMadison.com yesterday -- which is over ten times the average number of women who typically sign up on any given Monday. Ashley Madison took a sample survey of the women who signed up yesterday, and found that:

* 67 percent identified themselves as stay-at-home moms.
* The average age was 36.
* Over two-thirds had been considering an affair before Mother's Day.

Roissy, meanwhile, correctly ascertains what are the first and third biggest signup days for Cheater Central. The days after Valentine's Day and New Year's Day. I wouldn't put too much significance on the high percentage of stay-at-home moms, though. Women who work at an office don't need the help of a web site if they are inclined to seek a surreptitious ride or two on the carousel.

All that being said, let me note that this all sounds rather like a calculated PR stunt to me.

Comments ()

Brett Favre retires again

Brett Favre's stint with the Minnesota Vikings appears to be over after a single season. Favre has informed the Vikings he will not return to Minnesota this fall, a person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press on Tuesday.,

The 40-year-old Favre called coach Brad Childress to say his injured ankle is not responding as well to surgery and rehabilitation as he had hoped, according to the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the team had not made an official announcement.

I'll believe it when I don't see it at the end of training camp. Either way, that game against San Francisco alone was worth all the lunacy. I'm glad they didn't trade for McNabb, but I would prefer to avoid a return to the Tarvaris Jackson Experiment.

Comments ()

Demonstrating ignorance

Gary Gutting of Notre Dame upsets the league of the ignorant godless:

In these popular debates about God’s existence, the winners are neither theists nor atheists, but agnostics — the neglected step-children of religious controversy, who rightly point out that neither side in the debate has made its case. This is the position supported by the consensus of expert philosophical opinion. This conclusion should particularly discomfit popular proponents of atheism, such as Richard Dawkins, whose position is entirely based on demonstrably faulty arguments.

A professional academic's dismissal of Richard Dawkins hapless arguments? Make that the league of the indignant and ignorant godless. The comments are hilarious, as the immediate reaction from the usual sort of moderate-IQ atheist is demands for Gutting to "support" or "prove" his factual statement that Dawkins's position is "entirely based on demonstrably faulty arguments". Of course, whenever someone does bother to demonstrate precisely how Dawkins's arguments are factually and logically flawed, the reaction of most such atheists is to a) refuse to read it, b) lie about the substance and attack strawman substitutes, and c) fall into an abrupt silence and hope the criticism goes away on its own.

On a tangential note, Half-Sigma's argument for superior atheist intelligence is almost Hitchensian in its self-refuting quality.

I want to address the controversy of “atheism” vs. “agnosticism.” In the comment section, some people said that agnostics are smarter than atheists. I find this unlikely. Rather, smarter people are more adept at fitting in and avoiding controversy.

That's what passes for his argument. Note how this fits the classic pattern of atheist illogic, to say nothing of the bait-and-switch of turning to fundamentally philosophical arguments instead of making any use of the science upon which they claim to rely. Half-Sigma happens to personally "find" it unlikely, (as opposed to "believing" it), ergo it must not be. But who fits in better and avoids more controversy, agnostics or atheists? Agnostics, quite clearly. So, agnostics are smarter than atheists by Half-Sigma's own metric, his real argument is that he doesn't believe (find?) that they are truly agnostic, the Archbishop of Oxford's statement that he himself is actually an agnostic who leans atheist, not a genuine strong atheist notwithstanding.

If I did not believe in the existence of God, I would be downright embarrassed to call myself an atheist these days. I don't know if it is because they are all studying butterfly collecting and evolution by something that is vaguely related to natural selection rather than history, philosophy, and literature, but they are simply incapable of presenting coherent arguments, let alone valid ones.

As for the myth of high atheist intelligence, that is one of several myths that are addressed in the Against the New Atheism slide show. You don't have to be of limited intelligence to be a militant atheist, but it most certainly helps. The ironic thing is that like Ilya Somin of the Volokh Conspiracy, Half-Sigma is neither as stupid nor as ignorant as his reflexive atheism makes him sound. Consider, for example, Steve Sailer's citation of his correct take on the results of meritocratic testing: "For example, a few years, Mayor Bloomberg and NYC schools supremo Joel Klein decided to fix the ramshackle admissions process to the gifted schools by imposing a standardized test on all applicants. Blogger Half Sigma immediately predicted that the percentage of Asians and whites admitted would rise at the expense of blacks and Hispanics, which would cause a sizable unexpected political problem for Bloomberg and Klein. All that has come to pass."

It was obvious, perhaps, but sound reasoning even so. The problem is that due to a combination of factors that tend to include familial relationships, social inadequacies, sexual obsessions, group dynamics, and intellectual pride, otherwise intelligent atheists insist on continuing to dumb themselves down by repeatedly staking out completely indefensible positions contra religion, especially Christianity. I don't mind that they do so, since it only makes it that much easier to shoot them down, but for the sake of intellectual exercise if nothing else we theists would be better served by a higher class of atheist apologists.

Comments ()

The culture of science fetishism

The New York Times belatedly discovers that sciencebloggers don't actually give a damn about science qua science.

Clearly I’ve been out of some loop for too long, but does everyone take for granted now that science sites are where graduate students, researchers, doctors and the “skeptical community” go not to interpret data or review experiments but to chip off one-liners, promote their books and jeer at smokers, fat people and churchgoers? And can anyone who still enjoys this class-inflected bloodsport tell me why it has to happen under the banner of science?

Hammering away at an ideology, substituting stridency for contemplation, pummeling its enemies in absentia: ScienceBlogs has become Fox News for the religion-baiting, peak-oil crowd. Though Myers and other science bloggers boast that they can be jerky in the service of anti-charlatanism, that’s not what’s bothersome about them. What’s bothersome is that the site is misleading. It’s not science by scientists, not even remotely; it’s science blogging by science bloggers. And science blogging, apparently, is a form of redundant and effortfully incendiary rhetoric that draws bad-faith moral authority from the word “science” and from occasional invocations of “peer-reviewed” thises and thats.

There is the salient bit: "rhetoric that draws bad-faith moral authority from the word “science”." That is exactly the same point about the fraudulent bait-and-switch so often utilized by scientists upon which I have been hammering for several years now. It is interesting that an increasingly broad spectrum of people are now beginning to notice that just as not all that glitters is gold, not all that identifies itself with science is actually scientific. Writing about science isn't science. Bitching about the Catholic church isn't science. Molesting food with malicious intent isn't science. Even teaching about science isn't science. These things may be important, they may be necessary, they may be entertaining, but they are not science. This is precisely why I have always identified PZ Myers and others like him as charlatans; they claim to be scientists on the basis of their academic credentials rather than because they are actually doing any science.

By which logic I note that I am not only an economist, but East Asian to boot. If studying Japan doesn't make you Japanese, studying science cannot make you a scientist.

Comments ()

The downward spiral

Sasquatch writes: I sincerely hope you can write a blog entry about this. I can't properly put into words how much rage I feel for those who've tried to destroy this man's life. He was falsely accused of molesting a neighbor's child and he's put together the entire journey in detailed fashion. It touches on so many of the issues you write about - abuses of the Department of Social Services, misuse of police powers, herd mentality, churchianity, and the pressure on a traditional nuclear family.

In November of 2006, I was accused by a family whom we considered our friends, of inappropriately touching their 4 year old daughter during a party out my home.  The accusation was ridiculous, as in our house at the time were more than 15 adults.  Regardless, I was arrested, placed in jail, released, lost my job, removed from my home for a year, lost all but our closest of friends, and shunned by our neighbors.  For the first time in all of my years of living in the US, I have a criminal record.  What makes all of this so shocking is I did nothing.  There was no evidence beyond the word of a 4-year old girl.

Follow the money and notice that the "victim's" family actually made a couple of thousand dollars off the accusing process. And note that it is ALWAYS a mistake to speak to the police in America without a lawyer present. Be pleasant and be polite, but do not ever offer information or cooperate in any way, shape or form. They will take even the smallest shred of barely relevant information and use it to spin a fictional narrative; their job is to find a perpetrator and feed him into the machine, not to divine the truth. Unless you wish to become a part of that narrative, you must keep your mouth shut. Furthermore, keep in mind that their assurances to you are worthless; courts have repeatedly confirmed that the police are permitted to lie to witnesses and suspected perpetrators alike.

Now, perhaps I've been living in Italy too long, but it seems to me that the man would likely have been better off spending the thirty thousand on MS-13 instead of lawyers and court fees if he wanted to get the charges dropped. These miscarriages of justice are exactly why people have historically turned to godfathers and gangleaders instead of being willing to let the machinery of the system run its course.

Of course, the primary lesson is to absolutely refuse all physical contact with children who are not your own. I'm not the touchy-feely type, so this is not at all a problem for me, but men of an avuncular inclination should take note. If you never touch other children, much less permit them to sit on your lap, your denials of any potential false accusation will be all the more credible.

Comments ()

The Writer's Lottery, part II

Vrye Denker expresses a certain degree of incredulity: The successful writing career of Katie Price? As in Jordan?

Yes. Exactly. In fact, the woman is topping the bestseller lists even as we contemplate the matter:

July 29, 2010 - One time glamour model Katie Price looks set to reach the number one spot of the Sunday Times Bestseller list with the publication of her lastest book in the Angel trilogy entitled Paradise. Katie known also as Jordan will see her novel go straight to the fiction top spot for hardbacks as her Random House publishers revealed that the book is outselling its nearest rival by two to one.

In other words, she is presently outselling the best-selling Harry Potter novel and the bestselling Twilight novel combined.  And that would be why I don't worry about how well my books sell or equate book sales with literary quality. No doubt Katie Price will, like JK Rowling before her, have an entire generation of children - girls anyway - reading too. Having written numerous bestsellers, she is obviously a literary giant and an example to be much-imitated by ambitious young writers of the future.

The face of modern literature

Comments ()

WND column

You Were Warned

The ECRI's Weekly Leading Indicators has now fallen eight consecutive weeks and has been below -10 for two consecutive weeks. … [T]here has never been a WLI plunge in history of this depth and duration, nor any dip at all below -10 that has not been associated with a recession.
– Mike Shedlock, ECRI WLI in Negative Territory, July 31, 2010

The percent change from the preceding year in real GDP was revised down for all 3 years: from 2.1 percent to 1.9 percent for 2007, from an increase of 0.4 percent to 0.0 percent for 2008, and from a decrease of 2.4 percent to a decrease of 2.6 percent for 2009.
– Bureau of Economic Analysis, Revised Estimates: 2007 through First Quarter 2010, July 30, 2010

As the government statisticians revise their statistics downward and the leading indicators suggest that the so-called recovery is nothing more than an artifact of massive federal borrowing and spending, I thought it would be useful to revisit the scenario that I considered to be the most likely when I finished writing "The Return of the Great Depression" thirteen months ago. Given the advantage of one year of hindsight, I see absolutely no reason to change my conclusion regarding the ongoing global economic contraction. "It is not over. It has only begun."

Comments ()

Mailvox: interpretive fails

Dawo appears to have a wildly inaccurate understanding of how the literary world works:

I think the present blog is not designed to encourage actual debate, and it is likewise not designed to encourage echo-chamber-style mutual affirmation. If I had to guess, I would guess that this blog is designed to maximize the writing career of the writer who blogs here.

He's correct in that the comments are just there to let people comment if they wish; I added them in response to numerous requests. But I don't think alienating pretty much every editor in both the SF/F and CBA publishing worlds with one's exotic socio-political views is generally considered to be the optimal way to maximize one's writing career. I have had no less than three negotiated book contracts canceled simply because a female member of the pub board took offense to something I wrote in a column or on this blog. One of them was even signed, so I ended up getting paid to NOT write the books. This is why Media Whores and the UK translation of The Irrational Atheist do not exist. Needless to say, this experience has completely caused me to rethink my position on female fascism and women's tolerance for opinions that diverge from their own.

In short, I don't give a damn about my writing career. In fact, I seem to recall posting about how the very concept of the professional writing career is dying out not all that long ago. By which I mean scroll down one post!

Meanwhile, Joe theorizes about my interest in Game:

Why women overrate themselves ... or why Vox sublimates himself. Man Vox, dont you have better things to think about? Your titular observations may be interesting to the ilk but boy, you likewise lower your value in your vocational pursuit for no apparent reason except for your amusing titalation of the ilk. I surmize you have unsettled issues with some so-so looker that beat you in arm wrestling one night on the bowery, correct?

Well, I'm not terribly concerned about DLV'ing. A picture being worth a thousand words and all, the following one may at least partially explain why I do not, in fact, have any unsettled issues with anyone, so-so looks or otherwise. It's not that there's anything wrong with so-so looks, it's just that they may as well be invisible to me.

Comments ()

The Writer's Lottery

Forget ebooks and technology. The main reason you have to be stupid - not just misguided, ill-informed, or stubborn, but downright stupid - in order to pursue writing as a primary career is a structural market reality explained by a man whose career as a writer is nearing an end:

Here’s how it works. Barnes and Noble and Borders, the major bookstore chains, control the lion’s share of retail book sales. They order centrally for all their outlets together, for instance there is a single buyer for all science fiction, all mysteries, etc. How, you may well ask, can these buyers read and pass judgement on, for example, the over 1000 SF titles published in a year?

Of course the answer is they can’t. Instead, an equation makes the buys of most of the books on the racks or blackballs the ones that don’t make it that far. It’s called “order to net.”

Let’s say that some chain has ordered 10,000 copies of a novel, sold 8000 copies, and returned 2000, a really excellent sell-through of 80%. So they order to net on the author’s next novel, meaning 8000 copies. And let’s even say they still have an 80% sell-through of 6400 books, so they order 6400 copies of the next book, and sell 5120....

You see where this mathematical regression is going, don’t you? Sooner or later right down the willy-hole to an unpublishablity that has nothing at all to do with the literary quality of a writer’s work, or the loyalty of a reasonable body of would-be readers, or even the passionate support of an editor below the very top of the corporate pyramid.

And there’s a further wrinkle to it because what significant independent bookstores that still survive and the non-speciality outlets like WalMart subscribe to BookScan and have access to the Death Spiral numbers too and act accordingly. If there’s a book to order at all, because in many cases if the chains’ order to net equation zeros out and they don’t order at all, the book in question doesn’t get published. Back in the day, I knew of novels that were commissioned, accepted, and paid for but never published because the chains didn’t order. Today BookScan prevents such expensive mistakes from happening by aborting them at the acquisition stage.

Voila, the Death Spiral. And I too am in it.

One should never start writing with the idea that it will be one's primary career. Ironically, I think the quality of books being published is going to improve with the end of the professional writing career. I am deeply and increasingly unimpressed with what the publisher-as-gatekeeper model produces these days. As the success of JK Rowling, Stephanie Meyer, Dan Brown, and Katie Price have demonstrated, the best way to sell a lot of books is to produce cliched literary trash that will appeal to the lowest common denominator, and furthermore, it is entirely possible to do it as a sideline. So there's no rational reason to attempt to pursue writing as a primary career unless one finds the idea of literary penury to be romantic. But if you are foolish enough to decide to play the Writer's Lottery anyway, keep in mind that you're going to be increasingly competing with people like me who write for pleasure, don't expect to make money off it, and price their books accordingly.

RGD, for example, usually bounces between a rank as Amazon's 2,000 and 5,000 best-selling paid Kindle book when priced at one-fifth the normal Kindle rate, but between its 50,000 and 100,000 best-selling book at the normal hardcover price. It's exactly the same text, so that tells us that the price elasticity of books will permit free and low-priced books to increasingly dominate the market as the market continues to move towards easily produced electronic books and the power of the gatekeepers is increasingly diminished.

Comments ()