L'Ombre de l'Olivier

The Shadow of the Olive Tree
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  • Francis Turner

Brexit Out of the Box Jun 24, 2018

One of the big disappointments to me of Theresa May's handling of Brexit is how conventional she (and many of her ministers) have been regarding Brexit. Rather than treat Brexit as an opportunity to try something radically different that could reinvigorate Britain and inspire the world we're left looking at policies that seem designed to try and make sure Brexit has as little a change on Britain as possible. Given that the UK is a long way from perfect this seems a trifle odd and far from both the rhetoric of the Leave campaign and what I believe voters wanted....

By Francis Turner Vote1 2

Immigration – Cui Non Bono? Jun 20, 2018

In the last week or two the question of immigration has come to the attention of the chattering classes again. Said chattering classes are shocked, shocked that other people in developed nations are not enthralled with having lots of new neighbors from "shithole nations" (to coin a term). It might, I think, be worth examining the costs and benefits to different groups of people of immigration. First there are the immigrants, they are in fact the sole clear beneficiary of migration. Even in a case where they end up in an MS-13 controlled neighborhood, things are likely better than in...

By Francis Turner Vote3 6

Racist Science Jun 14, 2018

Diworsification is now reaching the parts other SJW trends do not reach: Engineering, Science and Technology. As proof I present the editorial from Nature this week saying that "Science benefits from diversity". This editorial is full of derp and lacking in actual science, but it is, however, educational. Now, let me be clear here (in my best Obama tone), I'm not in any way stating that Science should be a white, male, cisnormative heterosexual only activity. In fact it isn't, hasn't been since about the mid 19th century, and no one, least of all me, regrets that. There are famous...

By Francis Turner Vote2 0

I’m not Listening, It Explained Jun 1, 2018

One of the things that most marks out the SJW sort is their utter inability to tolerate an argument. If they say something (or more usually somebody) is bad then they have absolutely no interest in listening to people explain why that thing/person is not in fact bad. Instead they shout that the explainer(s) are ****ISTs ***PHOBEs etc. and that this conversation makes them feel unsafe. Now I have no idea who Jaym Gates is. It (note gender neutral pronoun) seems to be some kind of SF SJW gadfly. More specifically one that is clearly unaware of the word "irony"since...

By Francis Turner Vote11 1

John Humphrys, Bigot May 29, 2018

Given the gagging of UK media regarding Tommy Robinson, I've been wondering what the UK media does think is newsworthy. So I listened to the BBC's "Today Programme" today and heard a, umm, fiery interview between the veteran presenter John Humphrys and Clare Akamanzi, head of the Rwanda Development Board. The interview was as a result of articles about Rwanda's sponsorship of Arsenal FC. Mr Humphrys managed to display appalling arrogance, bigotry and a complete misunderstanding of economics and I was very glad to hear Ms Akamanzi rip into him and call him out as he did so. If you...

By Francis Turner Vote1 0

In England, Gandhi is Spelled Yaxley-Lennon May 27, 2018

One of Mahatma Gandhi's tricks used against the British Empire in India was to get himself arrested for reasons that would highlight idiocies and unfairnesses of Briitsh rule. In other words even though he was in fact breaking the law, by getting arrested with lots of publicity he intended to show that the law was bad and, by implication, that the British Raj was bad. Almost a century later and back in Blighty a gentleman called Stephen Yaxley-Lennon is trying the same trick. Mr Yaxley-Lennon is better known as "Tommy Robinson" and notorious as the former leader/spokesman for the English Defence League....

By Francis Turner Vote5 7

Why Government Doesn’t Scale May 27, 2018

One of the big things in Computer Science is "scalability". Scalability is how we get something that works quickly for a handful of data points also works in a reasonable time for thousands or millions of data points. When things don't scale (or when they are stressed beyond the anticipated load by too many people visiting/using...) you get things like the Twitter "Fail Whale" and if it happens too much the people that designed/coded the system get fired. Hence software developers really care about scalability and talk about choosing the right algorithm so that the system does in fact scale....

By Francis Turner Vote30 3

Sauce for the Gander May 18, 2018

Some more on the Origins saga. First, it seems that a number of big name authors are unimpressed with the disinvitation trend. David Weber (who pretty much singlehandedly revitalized/reinvented the Military Space Opera genre with his Honor Harrington books) had a long FB post expressing support for Larry Correia and disgust as Origins. Some hightlights: First, let me say that I think "disinviting" anyone from anything is a bad idea. It's usually the result of caving in to someone's lynch mob mentality, usually couched in the properly hysterical massacre of innocent photons on Facebook and the Twitterverse. And that lynch...

By Francis Turner Vote4 2

Cultural Bifurcation May 16, 2018

This is, in part, a follow up to yesterday's post about Origins Game Fair ditching Larry Correia. However, while yesterday's post was more reportage in this one I want to do some philosophizing. If you want reportage/updates skip down to the "Current Acrtions" section but TLDR Origins needs to crash and burn and people need to look at creating explicitly non SJW cons. Ancient History In the dim and distant past we had a shared culture - well each nation or region of a nation did - and the bedrock parts of that were shared across nations. For example if...

By Francis Turner Vote7 0

Hell Hath No Fury May 15, 2018

like a woman whose beloved husband has been scorned. In this case the woman is Her Imperial Majesty Bridget I, Empress of Yard Moose Mountain, Interdimensional Lady of Hate and wife of the author Larry Correia (and mother of four - this latter will become important later) Origins is (was?) a gaming fair in Columbus Ohio that had invited Mr Correia to be one of its Guests of Honor this year. Then some SJW types got their knickers in a twist and claimed they felt "unsafe" etc. to have him be there. So they complained [Aside:  the last line does...

By Francis Turner Vote9 0

If it Please the Crow May 11, 2018

may I have permission to do something that lets me pay you some taxes? Certainly, good slave. Please take a number and sit in the corner. Someone will be with you shortly next week. Meanwhile please read the instructions and be sure to have filled in form 92.5 correctly in black ink, except of course for section D which requires the blood of a virgin. Oh and when you submit form 92.5 and correctly fill out section D you must also provide a completed medical certificate 908 confirming that the blood is 1) from a virgin and 2) not infected...

By Francis Turner Vote6 0

Japan Does Energy Math May 9, 2018

Via Steve Hayward at Powerlineblog I see this article about Japan's energy plans. The article is, IMHO, amusingly wrong in a number of ways even though its main point - that Japan is building new coal power plants, is certainly true. The first thing that is wrong is the headline and this lede: Most of the world is turning its back on burning coal to produce electricity, but not Japan. The nation has fired up at least eight new coal power plants in the past 2 years and has plans for an additional 36 over the next decade—the biggest planned...

By Francis Turner Vote3 0

Climate Derp Apr 19, 2018

The Wapo (Tagline - Where Journalism Dies in Darkness) has an article about how Climate Change Glowball Worming is harming Virginia, The article is risible on many levels and is pretty much a regurgitation of a PR from the Natural Resources Defense Council without querying any of the rather iffy things that the NRDC claims. Therefore it needs a good fisking to set the story straight. [Full disclosure I'm what is generally known as a "Lukewarmer" climate skeptic - i.e. I think the earth has warmed in the 20th century and humanity (and CO2 emissions) may be responsible for some...

By Francis Turner Vote7 1

This is England, Police and Thieves Apr 16, 2018

Personally I've never been a great fan of big cities - they are usually (IMHO) nasty, dirty, smelly, over-crowded and crime-ridden - but if for the last few decades if you asked me which big city I'd choose if I had to live in a big city then the big city would have been London. This is not just because - technically - I'm a Londoner, having lived the first three or so years of my life in Dagenham (next to Barking), but because London has all the best bits of big cities (culture, history, world cuisine ...) and was...

By Francis Turner Vote4 0

Words or Deeds Mar 30, 2018

It seems to be a part of human nature to try and divide other humans into two groups. The groups can be "my family/tribe/nation" and "everyone else" or liberal/conservative, believer/infidel, male/female, comprehension of binary, or any number of others. I think that one of the fundamental divisions is the one between the people who show or say and the people who do. There’s a kipling poem called “The Sons of Martha” that many of my friends and acquaintances identify with as soon as someone shows them it - even many who would, in these gender diverse times, be counted as...

By Francis Turner Vote4 0

The Unbearable Gayness of Allah and Other British Tales Mar 23, 2018

There are times when I despair of Her Majesty's Government and wonder if it is deliberately trying to create an anti-Muslim backlash. And if so, why? In the last couple of weeks we have seen much evidence of a crackdown on the "far right" while, at the same time it appears to go soft on Muslims. This is not healthy. We learned recently that in the UK making a video joking about Hitler is a Hate Crime. The video that got Meechan in trouble was posted on Youtube in April 2016. It depicts his girlfriend's dog, Buddha, responding to Meechan...

By Francis Turner Vote5 0

In Defence of Dark Humor Mar 20, 2018

I like my jokes like I like my chocolate - dark and bitter. However, while I know many many people with a similarly twisted and cynical sense of humor, (e.g. Russians, Jews, everyone who has ever worked in any branch of the military or emergency services...) I am well aware that there are many people who don't. I get that this is a personal failing on their part so I don't blame them for it as long as they reciprocate and don't get their knickers in a twist when they encounter sick jokes Sadly these people are typically bansturbators and...

By Francis Turner Vote8 2

First they came for the sad puppy Mar 18, 2018

This post is a follow up to the one I wrote a few weeks ago about the banning of Jon Del Arroz from Worldcon San Jose (or SJWcon as it appears to have become). It seems that SJWcon is not the only place in speculative fiction where Orwell's 1984 is being used as an instruction manual. One should of course note that SJWcon's pre-banning was clearly inspired by the previous banning of Dave Truesdale by MidAmericaCon in 2016. To quote from the link (but it is worth reading the whole thing): Jim Hines gives a hilariously one-sided account of the...

By Francis Turner Vote7 3

Free Markets and Evolution Mar 7, 2018

These days, intellectuals, and those who play being intellectual on TV (coff Bill Nye coff Neil degrasse Tyson), uniformly state that they "believe in evolution". If taken literally, this is a problematic statement to a real scientist, because belief and the scientific method are polar opposites, but it's probably not a bad shorthand for "The theory of evolution, proposed by Darwin and revised and extended in the subsequent century and a half, does a good job of explaining observations of nature and predicting future events". The interesting thing is that said intellectuals usually use their "belief" in evolution to mock...

By Francis Turner Vote5 1

It’s a Fair Society, But Cops are to Blame Feb 24, 2018

Over the last day or two all sorts of background details about the Florida school shooting have come to light and the gun-grabbers' preferred narrative looks a little iffy. By far the worst hit to the narrative is that the policeman on site at the school (SRO in official parlance) stayed outside the school while the loser shot the place up. He was, apparently, joined outside by three other local cops and none of them entered the school: When Coral Springs police officers arrived at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on February 14 in the midst of...

By Francis Turner Vote8 1

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