The uselessness of the EU

The hollow nature and intrinsic inutility of the EU has been exposed:

Now, the outrage over what the open borders principle made possible – the untrammelled movement of organised murderers into and out EU countries – is being appeased with emollient talk about how Schengen might be limited to a smaller number of states or be modified to allow random checks of individuals. But the talking shops of EU ministers can churn out as many of these mock solutions as they like: governments are still (mercifully) accountable to their electorates. They will do whatever their people believe to be necessary for their own security, and they will be justified in doing that.

But it is not only the free movement of peoples and goods (which turned out to include Kalashnikovs) which has come into question. Along with the right to “tighten” France’s borders, whatever that turns out to mean in practice, François Hollande also demanded – and got – permission to ignore EU budget limits so that he could increase government spending on security and defence.

So, to return to my original question: what’s left? If national borders may be reinstated by individual governments either with hasty barbed wire or officially reconstituted checkpoints, and EU budget rules can be thrown out whenever circumstances require, what does the authority of the EU Commission and Council and Parliament amount to? Possible answer: a largely useless, self-perpetuating, massively overpaid bureaucracy presiding over Potemkin institutions whose deliberations count for nothing when the lives of real people living under real governments are at stake.

Being newer and less stable, the EU will be the first multi-national "empire" to break up. It hasn't delivered on ANY of its promises; it was never anything more than the usual credit bubble surfing and elite resource extrication. However, it should be noted that it won't be too much longer before the USA begins to follow suit. The United States is no more a nation than the EU is, the only significant difference is that it has rival ethnicities and cultures rather than national fault lines.

Bob Prechter predicted both failures long ago. And while he hasn't been right about everything, I see absolutely no sign whatsoever that he hasn't gotten both of those calls right.

Brainstorm: Urban tactics survival

It was a very interesting session tonight, although it ended rather abruptly when my computer locked up for some reason. It ended up going into more detail on martial arts and the law than I would have thought beforehand, but then, both experts agreed that the single most important aspect of surviving a terror attack is mindset.

Even if THEY are attacking, YOU are the predator. Move. React. Escape if you can, attack if you can't, but whatever you do, do not lie there motionless leaving all the initiative up to them!

The other thing I took away from it is that 12 feet is the line of delineation. If they're more than 12 feet away, don't assume they can hit a moving target. That's just two body-lengths. It is a LOT harder than it looks, even with a fully-automatic weapon. 12 feet or more, exit laterally at speed. Less than 12 feet, attack forward.

The book is sophomoric. The author is inept.

The sad thing is, Richard Dawkins doesn't know it because he resolutely runs from all substantive criticism in favor of hiding in his hug box:

Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins
The God Delusion accused of being a "sophomoric" book. Well, is there any evidence for God that an intelligent sophomore couldn't refute?

Vox Day @voxday
Considerable. Your arguments are so inept, some don't even qualify as arguments.You don't even know what "evidence" is.

Vox Day @voxday
I blew away your "religion causes war" argument once and for all because you simply don't know history. 6.98%, not 100%.

Vox Day ‏@voxday
Your worst "argument" was the appeal to Alfred Hitchcock. That's a logical fallacy that doesn't even have a name.

Vox Day @voxday
Look, atheists, you're going to need much better champions than inept rhetoricians in over their heads like @RichardDawkins and @SamHarris.

Apple design fail

Former Apple designers think the post-Jobs Apple has lost the plot:

Once upon a time, Apple was known for designing easy-to-use, easy-to-understand products. It was a champion of the graphical user interface, where it is always possible to discover what actions are possible, clearly see how to select that action, receive unambiguous feedback as to the results of that action, and have the power to reverse that action—to undo it—if the result is not what was intended.

No more. Now, although the products are indeed even more beautiful than before, that beauty has come at a great price. Gone are the fundamental principles of good design: discoverability, feedback, recovery, and so on. Instead, Apple has, in striving for beauty, created fonts that are so small or thin, coupled with low contrast, that they are difficult or impossible for many people with normal vision to read. We have obscure gestures that are beyond even the developer’s ability to remember. We have great features that most people don’t realize exist.

The products, especially those built on iOS, Apple’s operating system for mobile devices, no longer follow the well-known, well-established principles of design that Apple developed several decades ago. These principles, based on experimental science as well as common sense, opened up the power of computing to several generations, establishing Apple’s well-deserved reputation for understandability and ease of use. Alas, Apple has abandoned many of these principles. True, Apple’s design guidelines for developers for both iOS and the Mac OS X still pay token homage to the principles, but, inside Apple, many of the principles are no longer practiced at all. Apple has lost its way, driven by concern for style and appearance at the expense of understandability and usage.

I find the Apple UI almost unusable. But I'm not really equipped to judge, since I have staunchly refused to use Apple products since my last experience with one. After spending two hours trying to figure out how to do something very simple on SB's Powerbook or whatever it was, I called up a technical friend who had switched to Macintosh.

"Oh, you just can't do that," he explained. "It's not possible."

And that was before the screen failed and the battery developed a massive tumor that prevented the computer from lying flat.

A fascinating glimpse

Into the world of an NFL quarterback. It's not hard to see why the athletically gifted, but less intelligent or less dedicated college stars reliably fail once they find themselves in the deep end:

In a conference room on the second floor of the Cardinals’ Southwest-motif headquarters in Tempe late Tuesday afternoon, Garver and assistant tight ends/special teams coach Steve Heiden sit at a long table, looking up at the whiteboard. Arians is seated at the end, wearing his trademark Kangol cap, pondering his practice plan for Wednesday. He wants to make sure every play counts in his three practices this week. Not only will the game plan be about 20 plays longer than the usual 150-play catalog he uses—Cleveland’s “rolodex of coverages,” as Palmer says, makes Arizona want more options in the game plan—but Arians will be coaching a team in a hurried week, against an opponent few on his team and staff are familiar with.

Observing Arians as the plan is being finalized, you realize there is no secret to the plays that are his pets. There is a section smack dab in the middle of the white board headed HOME RUN. It means exactly how it sounds: big shots, far downfield.

Arians picks out six Home Runs per week. This week, one of the Home Runs stands out above all: Pistol Strong Right Stack Act 6 Y Cross Divide. “I love the play this week,” Arians says.

Pistol means Palmer will take the snap four yards behind center. It’s a short shotgun snap. Strong tells the fullback (backup center A.Q. Shipley, in this case) to line up to the tight-end side of the formation. Right is the side the tight end will line up on, assuming the ball is spotted in the middle of the field or the right hash. Stack tells the two wide receivers on the play to line up in a stack to the opposite side of the formation from the tight end. Act 6 is the protection, telling the two backs which linebacker to block if the ’backers rush; the fullback will seal the tight-end side, while the running back will take the blitzer from the middle or weak side, if there is one. Y Cross Divide comprises the two routes run by the wide receivers. The Y, or slot receiver, will run a deep cross through the formation and hope to take a safety with him, while the split end in the stack will run a divide route; that means the split end, likely Larry Fitzgerald, will run a stutter-and-go, running maybe seven yards downfield, faking toward the sideline, then sprinting downfield. The route is divided into two segments, the first ending in the deke to the right, and then the go.

Just one of 171 plays the Cardinals installed for their game with Cleveland.

“You pretty sure you’ll run it this week?” I ask.

“Oh yeah,” Arians says. “It ties into what we did last week running the ball. We’ll take one of the runs they’ve seen with A.Q. in the backfield, and we’ll run play-action off it instead of a run. It’s a concept, a play, our quarterback and receivers know, but we haven’t run it out of this formation or this set. Larry’s really good on the [divide] route. Plus, it’s a seven-man protection, so we’ve got probably 3 to 3.5 seconds for Carson to get rid of it.”

The play stands out for several reasons. One: Cleveland safety Donte Whitner is very aggressive. If he sees Shipley in the backfield, his study of the Cards is likely going to lead him to think it’s a running play. So Whitner could cheat toward the line, thinking it’s a run, or he could blitz to cram the line of scrimmage, or he could stay back in coverage. “He’s all over film, getting his eyes in the backfield when he never should,” Palmer says. Two: The Y receiver would be either of the two young Arizona speedsters, John Brown or J.J. Nelson, and the likelihood of one darting across the formation would cause the remaining safety, Tashaun Gipson, to shade toward helping the Cleveland cornerback over the top on Brown or Nelson. Three: Arizona tight end Jermaine Gresham, running a short cross opposite and underneath the Y cross, would likely be picked up by a linebacker and be open. Four: Fitzgerald isn’t the fastest receiver on the field, but as Arians says, he runs a heck of an out-and-up; if Palmer has the time, Fitzgerald on a corner would be tempting, because he’d likely gain half a step on the corner with the fake.

It's very cool to see how little is left to chance... and yet how big a role chance nevertheless plays with regards to the eventual outcome. There are several important life lessons to be found there. Be sure to read both parts.

Mailvox: the key to failure

Is often past success. It sounds as if Team Clinton is attempting to pull another Perot out of their bag of tricks. A loyal member of the Ilk writes:

I just received a robo-poll from "Victory Processing, LLC", asking whether I might vote for "a successful businessman" in a three-way race between Hillary Clinton, a Republican, and "Fred Strauss".  I thought you would want to know about this call, because it suggests that the Clintons are considering putting up another Ross Perot, so that they can split the Republican vote and win the election.  It also suggests that the Clintons are going to try to run a completely issue-free campaign.

The robo-pollster sounded like a pleasant, decently educated, middle-aged white woman.  She started with the usual questions -- Do I always vote in presidential elections?  Do I consider myself to a Democrat, Republican, Independent, or Other?  Do I consider myself to be a Liberal, Moderate, Conservative, or Other?  If the presidential election were held today, would I be inclined to vote for a Democrat, Republican, Independent, or Other?  Do I think that the people running the country are working for the rich and powerful instead of ordinary people?  Do I want an insider "who can get things done," or an outsider who would bring "new ideas"?  There were **no** questions about the economy, or "Is the country on the right track or on the wrong track", or foreigh policy, or immigration.  In fact, **there were no questions about any issues at all.**

Then the poll asked if I had a Favorable, Unfavorable, or Undecided view on each of Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, and Donald Trump.  It also asked about head-to-head matchups.  If the presidential election were held today, would I vote for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, or be undecided?  Ditto for Clinton vs. Carson, Cruz vs. Clinton, and Clinton vs. Rubio.

Then the poll asked if I would consider voting for an unnamed "successful businessman" in a three-way race.  The unnamed candidate "grew a small family business from 2 stores to 600 stores in 30 states, with 40,000 employees."  The poll asked if, regardless of my candidate preferences, whether I thought a third-party candidate could win.  Yes, No, Maybe, or Undecided?

Then the poll named the mystery candidate:  "Fred Strauss".  The poll repeated the four matchups, this time with Strauss as a third-party option.  This time there were 7 options: "Definitely vote for" candidate X, "Probably vote for" candidate X, ditto for Y, ditto for Z, Undecided.

At the end, the poll asked some demographic questions.  Age range: 18-35, 36-50, 51-65, over 65?  Male or Female?  Race:  White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Other, Refuse to State?  There were **no** questions about educational attainment, income, profession, or employment status.

The poll ended by thanking me for my time, and saying that it was paid for by "Victory Processing, LLC".

I hope this gives you and The Ilk some ideas about how the presidential campaign might unfold.

The other possibility is that Team Clinton is worried that Donald Trump will run as a third-party candidate if the GOP Establishment successfully denies him the nomination despite his popularity.

Which, by the way, he absolutely should do, given the way in which the GOP Establishment is now attacking him. Loyalty is only ever a one-way street for them.

Peyton always was a punk

Contrast Manning's reported behavior with Brady's when he was injured. No wonder Brady ended up with more Super Bowl rings. He was the better quarterback because he is more of a team player.

If this is indeed the end for Peyton Manning, it may be even uglier than we thought.

While the product on the field has been difficult to watch (nine touchdowns, 17 interceptions), it has apparently extended off the field, too.

According to NFL Network’s James Palmer, with Manning not playing this week due to what the team is calling a left foot injury, the future Hall of Famer has not even been near his team or coaching staff this week.

Manning “hasn’t attended any practices or meetings this week and hasn’t had a single conversation about Sunday’s game plan with Brock Osweiler,” according to Palmer. Mark Haas at CBS Denver has reported the same.

Everyone has assumed that Peyton Manning would become a successful OC or head coach someday due to his high football IQ, but I wonder if his personality won't sabotage him there too.

Scalzi: Americans are " shrieking, bigoted cowards"

John Scalzi's accusation that Americans are "shrieking, bigoted cowards" and "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" because they don't want to permit Muslim immigrants to move in next door is more than a little ironic, considering that McRapey has a) never been in so much as a fistfight in his life, b) spent the last year lecturing everyone about how SF conventions are unsafe and #GamerGate is more evil and lethally dangerous than the Waffen SS, and c) lives in the whitiest white Christian enclave he could afford.

So, this week.

    The last few days are a reminder that a large number of Americans are in fact shrieking, bigoted cowards, and that's a sad thing, indeed.

    — John Scalzi (@scalzi) November 19, 2015

Seriously, I don’t think the bedwetting about Muslims has been this bad in a very long time, which is saying something, and the panic on Syrian refugees is particularly ridiculous. Here’s a nice, juicy quote from a just released essay on the subject:

    Of the 859,629 refugees admitted from 2001 onwards, only three have been convicted of planning terrorist attacks on targets outside of the United States and none was successfully carried out.  That is one terrorism-planning conviction for a refugee for every 286,543 of them who have been admitted.  To put that in perspective, about 1 in every 22,541 Americans committed murder in 2014.  The terrorist threat from Syrian refugees in the United States is hyperbolically over-exaggerated and we have very little to fear from them because the refugee vetting system is so thorough…

    The security threat posed by refugees in the United States is insignificant.  Halting America’s processing of refugees due to a terrorist attack in another country that may have had one asylum-seeker as a co-plotter would be an extremely expensive overreaction to very minor threat.

What horrifyingly liberal commie soviet came up with this load of codswallop? The Cato Institute, the libertarian think tank co-founded by Charles Koch, i.e., the fellow who with his brother is currently trying to buy the entire right side of the political spectrum for his own personal ends. When the Cato Institute is telling you to maybe take down the pearl-clutching over the Syrian refugees a notch or two, it’s an indication that you’ve lost all perspective.... So congratulations, America. We’ve successfully wrested the title of “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” from France. Enjoy it.

So brave. The reference to France is ironic, in light of how the general mood in France right now is somewhere between "I am voting for Front National" and "kill all the fucking barbarians already". And apparently the Chinese are even more cowardly, considering that they are terminating with extreme prejudice all terrorist suspects, including those under the age of six.

It will be amusing to see how long it takes before Scalzi starts desperately trying to explain away this piece in much the same way he has been trying to explain away his public rape confession for the last three years. But not as amusing as it would be to see Saladin Ahmed behead him on stage at Worldcon, which Ahmed totally would not do because Muslims never do that sort of thing. It is, I am reliably informed, "against Islam."

UPDATE: Someone sent along this.

[Link to Vox Day’s site deleted; he doesn’t need traffic from here – JS] 

It's true, I don't. I'm already approaching four times his traffic.

Root and branch

China is already fighting WWIII. So are several African countries. Europe will be next:

Chinese police have killed 28 members of a "terrorist group" in the mainly Muslim Xinjiang region, authorities announced Friday, in the bloodiest such operation in months and as Beijing denounces Western "double standards" in the wake of the Paris attacks.

The killings took place over the course of a 56-day manhunt following an attack on a colliery in Aksu in September that left 16 people dead, said the Xinjiang regional government's Tianshan web portal. One "thug" surrendered, it added.

It was the first official confirmation of both the attack on the mine and its aftermath.

Xinjiang is the homeland of the mostly Muslim Uighur ethnic minority, many of whom complain of discrimination and controls on their culture and religion, and is often hit by deadly unrest.

The assault on the colliery was "a violent terrorist attack under the direct command of an overseas extremist organisation", Tianshan said.

China's official Xinhua news agency cited a Xinjiang government statement identifying the attack leaders as Musa Tohniyaz and Mamat Aysa, both apparently Uighur names.

Friday's reports came after Radio Free Asia (RFA), which is funded by the US government, said that more than 50 people including five police were killed in a knife attack at a colliery in Aksu in September.

Earlier this week RFA cited government and local sources as saying 17 suspects, including seven women and children -- among them a one-year-old and six-year-old -- had been killed by authorities.

You don't have to like something to understand that it is inevitable. I don't like it. I issued regular and repeated warnings for 14 years in a futile attempt to convince the USA to choose a more civilized path. This is not what I wanted to see. This is exactly what I feared would be the outcome.

If you didn't want to see suicide bombings and massacres and little children being executed as "terrorist suspects" across the West, then you should not have permitted Islamic immigration into it. Mohammedans have brought war in their wake literally everywhere they have gone from the time their Prophet led the Al-Is Caravan raid in 623 AD.

And I tend to doubt that the Islamic State's execution of the Chinese hostage it was holding is going to cause much restraint on the part of the Chinese authorities.

The Battlefield of Order is over. This is 4GW. It's going to be considerably uglier than its predecessors, and this time, the Catholic Church is in no position to mitigate it.

Caught red-handed

This is yet another reason why we need a new Wikipedia:

A crew member from "The Hunting Ground," a one-sided film about campus sexual assault, has been editing Wikipedia articles to make facts conform with the inaccurate representations in the film.

Edward Patrick Alva, who is listed on the film's IMDB page as part of the camera and electrical department, has been altering Wikipedia entries for months, in violation of the website's conflict-of-interest guidelines. Alva is the assistant editor and technical supervisor for Chain Camera Pictures, the production company associated with "The Hunting Ground" director Kirby Dick.

Wikipedia guidelines state: "Do not edit Wikipedia in your own interests or in the interests of your external relationships." As a member of the film's production team, Alva should not have been editing pages about the film or related to the film.

I'm only surprised that it wasn't a Wikipedia admin. They are the real problem. But it does demonstrate the Left's backward thinking. Rather than observing reality and acting on that basis, they act on the basis of their ideology and then attempt to modify reality accordingly.

This is why they reliably fail.

Peaceful and tolerant people

So much for the idea that Donald Trump can't beat Hillary Clinton:

An acid-tongued Hillary Clinton ripped into conservatives on Thursday for what she said was an 'obsession in some quarters' with the notion that the global spread of terrorism is a byproduct of the Muslim faith, denying that the two are connected in any way.

'Islam itself is not our adversary,' the former secretary of state said during a campaign speech outlining her foreign policy objectives.

'Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.'

If Trump wins the Republican nomination, I would expect we're going to be seeing those words frequently over the next 12 months.

Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.'
- Hillary Clinton

It's rather astonishing. Hillary Clinton may actually be a worse presidential candidate than Bob Dole and John McCain. It must be the Democrats' turn to throw the election.

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, ten or so peaceful and tolerant people who have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism have attacked a Radisson hotel in Mali and hold 170 hostages there.

UPDATE: Le Monde reports that the Malian security ministry has confirmed three deaths so far in the siege.

Social justice serves justice

It doesn't happen often, so enjoy it when it does. Sooner or later, the revolution always eats its own:

Students staged a protest Wednesday inside the office of Princeton University's president, demanding the school remove the name of former school president and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson from programs and buildings over what they said was his racist legacy.

Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber told the students he agreed with them that Wilson was racist and that the university needs to acknowledge that, according to a video posted to YouTube. But a school spokesman said the president also told students it is important to weigh Wilson's racism, and how bad it was, with the contributions he made to the nation.

Hi-freaking-larious. Woodrow Wilson was one of the worst US presidents in history. He set the stage for many of the problems we presently face today and he should be a significant hero to SJWs.

But he was racist and therefore he has to go. I look forward to hearing about Mr. Eisgruber's inevitable apology and resignation.

It's going to be even more amusing when they eventually turn on Scalzi.

Europe Belongs to Us

"Europe's anti-immigration and hard-right parties are on the warpath":

It seems like everywhere you look in continental Europe, the hard right is gaining ground.

Today, it's the turn of the Sweden Democrats.

In 2014, the hard-right party came in third place on 12.9% of the vote, shocking international commentators. By comparison, the party got just 5.7% of the vote in 2010, and 1.49% in 2006.

They've only been getting more popular since and on Thursday Yougov published a poll that puts the Sweden Democrats ahead on 26.7%, 5 points clear of any other party.

It's one of 7 polls since August that have put the party in the lead in one of the world's most open and liberal states. The Sweden Democrats have built support on the back of opposition to immigration in a country that has taken more refugees relative to the size of its population than any other European nation.

The Sweden Democrats are part of a group of European political figures and parties that don't all want to be associated with each other, but all share at least two common tenets: opposition to immigration and scepticism about the European Union. Some even advocate leaving the single currency.

First, I would like to note, as an American Indian, that I feel very microaggressed by the headline. Warpath? Seriously? Wow just wow!

Second, I would like to note that the only ones actually engaging in acts of war in Europe at the moment are the Middle Eastern migrants. Everyone, including the migrants, had better hope that the anti-immigration hard right takes power soon, because if the nationalists don't, the ultra-nationalists will.

Brainstorm: Urban survival tactics

There will be a closed Brainstorm event for Annual members only focused on urban survival tactics on Saturday; I've tentatively scheduled it for 7 PM EST. I am waiting to hear back from the two panelists I have invited, both of whom have extensive urban tactical training and military experience. We will be discussing the Paris attacks, the possibility of future attacks in the USA and likely targets, and what we in the West can realistically do about the reality of 4GW in our hometowns.

If you're interested in signing up to be an Annual member, you can do so via the Castalia store. Benefits include a free pass to both the Game Dev and Business Startup courses.

The Current Refugee Crisis

A short story courtesy of Clarkhat:

1357 U.E. (i.e. 3328 C.E., i.e. 3328 AD), Oort Cloud Commensal

After a long shift at the atelier I returned home and turned on the polyseme to catch up on the emerge re the refugee crisis.

#general

"…then we as members of the Commensal have a duty, a moral duty, to help. We've all experienced the wholesales of the refugee family crawling from their burned lander near the shores of the Achelous Sea, the father cradling his dead son as he steps out onto Ganymede. The time to debate is over, and the time to act -"

"Madame Secretary!"

"-the time to act is now. We must -"

The emergent raised his voice. "Madame Secretary! I must object. Before we talk about importing potentially a hundred million refugees, we have to have a serious conversation about whether they can possibly integrate into our culture."

The secretary didn't bother to keep the annoyance from her face. [ translator's note: all references to physical gestures are, at best, illustrative, and – at worst – ficitive ] "You're going to say 'a flood of refugees', aren't you? I, for one find that phrasing offensive. May I remind you that exact sort of language was used just three hundred years ago when the Martian Diaspora brought so many people to us here in the OCC. Are you going to tell the many proud citizens who trace their ancestry to the M.D. that you don't like their kind?"

The emergent shook his virtual head. "It's inane to compare the citizens of the Martian Diaspora to the current refugee crisis. On the Barnes scale the people of the M.D. were almost all type 1 and type 2 ideologues: Nationalists, Trade Unionists, Libertarians, Atheists, Catholics. Non-totalizers, all. The Hitlerite diaspora that threatens to swamp us now -"

"Sir, I find that offensive. This is not a Hitlerite issue. This is an inner system issue. These people aren't coming here to attack us, they're coming here because they're fleeing war."

"Madame secretary I agree, they're fleeing war – a war that the Hitlerites themselves have caused".

The Secretary took a long breath. "I utterly reject that sort of bigotry. To call this a Hitlerite issue is to blame the victims. The problem is not Hitlerism – it's a small evil group of people who are twisting the words – the beautiful words of an ancient faith – to their own destructive ends."\

Read the rest of the story at Popehat.

A silver lining

Suddenly, tens of millions of Americans paused to reflect upon the thought that perhaps there is something good to be found in everyone, even the most wicked:

ISIS has threatened to bomb New York City in a newly released video, just days after vowing to attack Washington, D.C.

The slick clip features shots of yellow taxis and crowds in Times Square and Herald Square in Manhattan, with vibrant French music playing in the background - a nod to the Paris terror attacks on Friday.

It then cuts to a man wrapping a bomb around his waist before walking into the crowds and pulling the trigger.

New York police have issued a statement to say they are aware of the footage.

Throw in Los Angeles and ISIS will soon have as much support in the USA as in the UK.

Here's one thing people should keep in mind: the Bataclan concert hall was, until very recently, Jewish-owned. So there is a reasonable chance that if ISIS strikes the USA, it is going to do so at the symbols of Jewish power in America.

If I were in counter-terror, I would look carefully at the NFL and NBA teams that are Jewish-owned, such as the Vikings, as potential targets. Especially the Vikings since the newly imported Somali community in Minnesota has already produced jihadists, and specifically, suicide bombers.

It should be interesting to see how all the good liberals who have been rambling on and on about how Islam isn't to blame for the lethal jihadist attacks react to being directly targeted themselves. In the meantime, everyone across the West should carry, practice situational awareness, and stay out of soft target areas as much as possible.

This isn't going to end until Reconquista 2.0 is complete, so don't think it's going to end anytime soon. No amount of bombs dropping in the Middle East is going to deal with the threat to the West. "Fight them there so we don't have to fight them here" has proven to be the complete failure I said it would be back in 2001.

'Once ISIS is eliminated as a governing entity in Syria and Iraq, the threat from ISIS will persist, said Rep. Adam Schiff of California, senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. 'There is a continuing aspiration to strike in the West. It's a real and present danger to the United States and our allies.'

This is why: "13% Of Syrian Refugees Support IS." And to think we thought californication was bad....

The shadow spreads

They will never give credit where credit is due. But it truly doesn't matter. The viral ideas spread. Even into enemy territory like the New York Times. And we know from whence they came:

It’s easy to think that ISIS is some sort of evil, medieval cancer that somehow has resurfaced in the modern world. The rest of us are pursuing happiness, and here comes this fundamentalist anachronism, spreading death.

But in his book “Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence,” the brilliant Rabbi Jonathan Sacks argues that ISIS is in fact typical of what we will see in the decades ahead.

The 21st century will not be a century of secularism, he writes. It will be an age of desecularization and religious conflicts....

Sacks emphasizes that it is not religion itself that causes violence. In their book Encyclopedia of Wars, Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod surveyed 1,800 conflicts and found that less than 10 percent had any religious component at all.

Actually, the correct numbers are 1,763 wars and 6.98 percent, half of which involved Islam. And, of course, Phillips and Axelrod didn't actually do any such calculation....

Urban tactics: survival

Like many guys, I found myself wondering what I would have done if I was so unfortunate as to find myself in the wrong place at the wrong time if people who belong to no particular religion and totally aren't refugees or immigrants happen to decide to express their grievances in one lethal manner or another.

Now, it should be understood that sometimes there is simply nothing you can do. It doesn't matter if you are a physical specimen with black belts in five different disciplines, including Ninja and Navy SEAL, who can shoot the testicles off a fly at 100 meters, if a 15-year-old Muslim wearing a vest made of plastic explosive happens to be standing next to you in the elevator when he decides to collect his 72 virgins.

But setting aside pure bad luck, there has to be SOMETHING you can do to improve your odds and avoid being the subject of a pavement garden or candlelight vigil after yet another epic magic dirt fail.

A few basic thoughts:

• Carry a gun if you can. Carry a knife and some legal projectiles if you can't.
• Always wear a belt that you can slip through your keychain. It can serve as an effective submission noose or a fairly nasty ad hoc flail.
• After you shoot, don't forget to scoot. Unless you're Nate, you're probably going to be outgunned. If you saw the clip of the French police exchanging fire with the Batalan attackers, you can see why it's a bad idea to go pistol against combat rifle directly.
• Face to the door. Always sit facing the door and maintain situational awareness.
• Don't just hit the deck. Hit the deck and move immediately to the side.
• There are weapons everywhere. Be aware of where they are in case you need them. Someone once asked me what I would do if attacked RIGHT NOW. I picked up a stone and threw it at him, then scooped up another handful. He was already cringing and loudly expressing his opinion that he understood my point by the time I raised my hand again.
• The police are not going to come in fast and hard. Their first concern is protecting themselves. Their second concern is preventing the bad guys from getting away. Don't think about waiting for the police, think about how you're going to win. Focus on attack and neutralization, not on simply running away, assuming you can't simply walk out another door and be safe.
• Movement and distraction are key. Think triangles. Flank and then hit from both sides, ideally with someone serving as a distraction in the middle.
• Think predator, not helpless prey.

The essential problem is one of game theory. The safest thing for the group to do is mass rush the gunman/gunmen. But the immediately safest thing for each individual to do is to remain motionless and hope someone else gets shot.

Reading the account of the concert hall shooting, the striking thing was the way in which everyone just lay there doing nothing while the gunmen were reloading. Now, it sounds like they were trained well enough to have one cover while the other was reloading, but there were well over 300 people in there; an AK-47 magazine holds 30 rounds. It reminded me a little of the scene in Band of Brothers when Easy Company is attacking Foy and Lt. Dike loses his nerve.

Despite the major and the other officers repeatedly bellowing "keep moving, keep moving", he can't find the courage to do it with the Germans shooting at them, and the rest of the troops are pinned down as well. Not until Lt. Speirs relieved Dike and took command of Easy Company were they able to get moving again.

So, the assumption has to be that most people won't do anything unless they think it is reasonably safe for them to act.

I did wonder about the balcony, though. Had the men on the balcony started hurling chairs down at the gunmen below, that would have presumably served as a sufficient distraction for the people pinned down on the floor to act. Of course, they had no reason to be thinking in such terms at the time, but now that we know what can reasonably be expected, we should think about how one might be able to do better and save some lives in the event we find ourselves put to the test.

I'm very interested in publishing an article in Riding the Red Horse V2 on this subject, so if you've got SWAT or urban combat experience in Iraq and you're interested in putting together a piece on the subject, let me know. If you're just an interested civilian, however, please do NOT contact me. I'm looking for someone with actual experience of these things.

I am dangerous, Ice...man

The SF-SJWs are still spinning, spinning, spinning the Narrative in a desperate attempt to reclaim it:

On that note, what are your thoughts on the controversy around the Sad Puppies, the group who tried to rig the reader-voted Hugo Awards to favor “traditional” sci-fi works. It was clearly a powerful, angry, and organized reaction against the steady diversification of storytelling in sci-fi and spec-fic. What exactly is happening to this genre that’s so explosive and dangerous?

CP: White straight cis men are getting very upset because they feel they’re losing something when a more diverse set of stories is represented. On the one hand, they don’t have to worry—the share of representation of white straight cis male characters in sci-fi is maybe dropping from 98 percent to 95. But on the other hand, they’re right—they are losing some measure of dominance, and they should lose this. And I think acknowledging that challenges a fluffy teddy-bear idea of what an ally is—the idea that no one is going to lose anything. Being an ally requires giving shit up, which is what these people are not prepared to do.

CF: I think the throwing-the-toys-out-of-the-pram thing totally describes Brad Torgersen [sci-fi author and ringleader of the Sad Puppies]. I think Vox Day [another author, who organized an extreme offshoot of the Sad Puppies called the Rabid Puppies] is altogether a more sinister person, with really far-right politics and a desire to upset people to get attention. He’s a serious reactionary, traditionalist, religious, pseudofascist type—he even called leading spec-fic writer N.K. Jemisin an “uneducated half-savage” because she’s Black. And I think he saw Torgersen’s toy-throwing and said, “Here is a tool I can use to hurt people.”

It's amazing to me how many SJWs simply cannot get the quote correct. Even when they're attempting to kill-quote me in an article, they don't quote it!

"Being an educated, but ignorant half-savage, with little more understanding of what it took to build a new literature by "a bunch of beardy old middle-class middle-American guys" than an illiterate Igbotu tribesman has of how to build a jet engine, Jemisin clearly does not understand that her dishonest call for "reconciliation" and even more diversity within SF/F is tantamount to a call for its decline into irrelevance."

Granted, I understand the average SJW is not capable of following a sentence that long and complex, but how they go from "educated but ignorant" to "uneducated" is really quite remarkable.

But more importantly, SJWs always project. I don't have any desire to upset people, and I certainly don't seek attention. SF-SJWs always gloss over the fact that I was writing my political columns and participating as a member of SFWA for seven years without incident or undue attention until John Scalzi and Teresa Nielsen-Hayden saw fit to start publicly attacking me. Even after that, it was another eight years before I finally got around to taking the offensive and striking back.

Nor are those the only factual errors. But never mind those. It is more interesting to see how they have progressed from declaring me a complete nonentity to portraying me in much the way they are portraying Brad Torgersen now, to seeing me as a "sinister person". To which I can only wonder, "what part of Supreme Dark Lord" did they not understand?

I suppose they find the fact that my minions are vile, faceless, and many, as well as the fact that I am the author of the book that has been #1 Political Philosophy for 14 straight weeks to be as ominous as it is problematic. It would be amusing indeed if SJWAL stays on top long enough to be dethroned by Cuckservative.

But if they are concerned now, well, just wait until next year.

Paris attackers under siege

Some of them didn't escape back to Syria; SWAT siege in Saint-Denis:

BREAKING NEWS: One jihadi is shot dead and a woman suicide bomber blows herself up in dramatic gunfight at Paris apartment where mastermind of terror attacks is surrounded by 100 officers

•     French police and special forces launch operation to storm Saint-Denis flat believed to contain up to six terrorists
•     Mastermind behind Friday's massacres, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 27, believed to be inside the Paris apartment
•     Female suicide bomber detonated explosive vest after firing on police while one suspect killed by rooftop sniper
•     Wanted man Salah Abdeslam, 26, who has been spotted in Belgium and Germany,  may also be inside rented flat
•     Three people have been taken alive from flat and arrested as well as two others 'nearby' but stand-off is ongoing

Feel free to update in the comments. And so much for Saladin Taqiyya's attempt to spin the innocence of the Syrian migrants:

Riot police were clearing the streets early Wednesday, pointing guns at curious residents to move them off the roads and telling them to go home.

Mr Marie said the officers seemed nervous - 'you could see it in their eyes, ' he said.

Resident Amin Guizani, 21, said: 'There were grenades. It was going, stopping. Kalashnikovs. Starting again'.

Residents have been told to stay in their homes and away from windows and some have been moved to a temporary shelter in the town hall. Police have confirmed that several officers have been hurt.

Caroline Chomienne, who runs a film school, Altermedia, in St Denis, was trapped in the building next to where the assault took place.

'We'd been working all night on a film and my staff had been gone for some time when around 4.20am I heard shooting. Then they became louder and for on an hour it went on - bursts of fire from all sides but also sounds like bombs going off.

'The walls were shaking it was horrific. It was like war. It was Beirut.'

Now the director is thinking of quitting Paris.

'Something like this doesn't surprise me,' she told Le Parisien, 'that terrorists have hidden here. In this district the cellars are full of weapons. Outside there is a dealer every 100mtrs. It's common knowledge around here that people go and come back from Syria with ease.

UPDATE: Police gun battle at Paris apartment 'where ISIS mastermind was holed up' ends with his 'wife' blowing herself up with a suicide vest, one jihadi shot dead and seven arrested.

Five police wounded and one police dog KIA.

UPDATE II: Suspected Islamist militants uncovered in a Paris suburb by police were planning an attack on the French capital's La Defense business district, a source close to the investigation and two police sources said on Wednesday.