Month: October 2015

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Everyone’s A Criminal

. . . if the feds want ’em to be.

If you get a pay check as an employee of ANYONE other than a government agency (or as the officer of a corporation), any time the feds want to “get” you they have a neat lil technicality to allow them to charge you with falsifying a “feddle gummint” document. U.S. Code Title 26 Subtitle C Chapter 24 § 3401 (c) Employee: “For purposes of this chapter, the term “employee” includes an officer, employee, or elected official of the United States, a State, or any political subdivision thereof, or the District of Columbia, or any agency or instrumentality of any one or more of the foregoing. The term “employee” also includes an officer of a corporation.”

You filled out a W-2 form attesting to its accuracy, claiming to be an “employee.” Gotcha, if they want. . .

OTOH, if you DON’T fill out the form, they’ll get you anyway.

And that’s just one of many thousands of lil “gotchas” the feds have in store for anyone they get a hard on for.

Welcome to the wonderful world of “feddle gummint” anarcho-tyranny.

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Trad-Pubs Just DGARA, Now

I’m used to seeing execrably poor editing from ~80% of self-pub books. I can almost understand lone writers either eschewing the expense of paying for good editing (content, line editing), because it’s expensive. Almost. Some, relying of “beta readers” from among their friends and acquaintances (or merely from semi-random tightwads who want a free read) think they can substitute such beta readers’ comments and observations for decent editing. They’re almost always wrong, since most of their acquaintances are no more literate (well-read) than they are, but sometimes they get a wee bit of help that way.

OK, I can almost understand that mindset, almost tolerate it. I can’t excuse it, though.

But what is worse is that books by established authors from traditional publishing houses are starting to read more and more like sloppily edited (or UNedited) books from self-pubs. Seriously, what’s up with that? Purchasing a book from a tad-pub should come with the expectation of value added in editing, at the very least! The last two hardcopy books I read by [a well-established bestselling author who shall go unnamed] had me wondering if the publisher had simply eaten its editorial staff. In the past, this writer’s books had far, far fewer errors of fact (stupid errors that kick suspension of disbelief off the rails in police procedurals/mysteries), grammar and word mis-usage than I ran into page after page after page in these last two books.

Seriously, is trad-pub simply giving up or does it expect readers to just swallow the crap anfd keep buying its over-priced, value-subtracted offerings?

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No True Scotsman

“No true Scotsman” is “a kind of ad hoc rescue of one’s generalization in which the reasoner re-characterizes the situation solely in order to escape refutation of the generalization.”1

Example:

Smith: All Scotsmen are loyal and brave.

Jones: But McDougal over there is a Scotsman, and he was arrested by his commanding officer for running from the enemy.

Smith: Well, if that’s right, it just shows that McDougal wasn’t a TRUE Scotsman.

Now, once or twice I’ve been accused of this fallacy–of “redefining” terms–when discoursing on the differences between Christians and Muslims, Christianity and Islam. The problems my interlocutors have had is that I “defined” Christians and Muslims by the standards set forth by the founders and documenters of both Christianity and Islam. Hmmm, that would seem to me to be fair, not fallacious.

When someone claiming to be a Christian acts against the teachings of Christ and the Apostles (say, the Papal legate, the Abbot of Citeaux Arnaud Amalric commanding that the inhabitants of Béziers be massacred), that would seem to very legitimately impeach that person’s claim to be Christian or to be acting in the name of the Founder of Christianity, would it not?

When someone claiming to be a Muslim acts in accordance with the life and teachings of Mohamed (say, mass murder, rape and enslavement of those who disagree with the teachings of Islam, as Mohamed’s first “victory”–the massacre of the Banu Quraysh Jews–and his explicit teachings demand), one would legitimately consider that person to be a legitimate follower of Mohamed. OTOH, “peaceful” Muslims violate both the commandments of Mohamed and disrespect his life example.

Based on the life and teachings of these two men, and the explicit commands they left their followers, reason would dictate one evaluate those claiming to be their followers based on whether or not they actually do follow those they claim to follow.

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How Can Anyone Believe Any of This B.S.?

Especially someone who’s supposedly “educated.” (Ah, but it was a British “education,” possibly the only system that can beat an Ivy League “education” for for sheer empty-headed, contrafactual numb-skullery when it comes to Islam.) Read this in the prologue of a novel:

“Years later, working in an uneasy alliance with the House of Saud, the Wahhabists returned to Mecca, shattering years of history and destroying the remains of the core of debate, of intellect, that had lit the fuse of Islam. Since then, Islamic thought has declined into madness, falling ever further into an abyss that can only result in destruction.”

Oh, utter, complete and absolute bullshit. Islam has always been just as it was started by that mass-murdering, slaving, thieving, raping, illiterate bullshit artist, The Butcher of Medina. At least 20-25% of the Koran is utter nonsense, gibberish, and 75% — the 75% or so that abrogates the Koran’s so-called “peaceful verses — or so is raging hate, instructing faithful Muslims to oppress or kill “unbelievers.” I throw the bullshit flag on this entire premise. Any so-called “core of debate, of intellect” existed either as weak rationalization for practices that denied Mohamed’s teachings or as making nearly useless gobbledegook of the genuine intellectual advances made by people savage Muslims had conquered.

The moral is “Pay no attention to the Taqiyya spread by Muslims and their co-conspirators, enablers and fellow travellers.” Islam is and always has been nothing but a brutal hate cult, with an occasional, very phony, veneer of civilized behavior. Scratch a Muslim and get a Mohamed analog: brutal, nasty, hateful and utterly savage.

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Typical Saturday @ TWC Central™

Read a book blurb. Aloud: “Highballs in the Hamptons? Not interested.”
My Wonder Woman: “You’re not interested in other people’s balls.”
Me: “You really lowballed that one.”
MWW: “If the cup fits. . . “

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Yet Another Uncontroversial “Controversy”

Clip vs. Magazine: In personal conversations–either IRW or via social media/forums, etc.–I simply explain the differences when someone misuses “clip” when referring to a magazine. When it’s misused by someone who is or expects to be paid for their writing, I excoriate such morons for not doing their homework. Such misuse in print by people being paid (or expecting to be paid) for their poor work ethic is reprehensible.

For reference, here is one type of clip–there are many–and one type of magazine (in this case, a stripper clip for [likely] a semi-automatic rifle with an internal magazine, and an external magazine for a semi-automatic or select fire rifle):

glossary_clip-vs-magazine_01-300x264

Of course, magazines for pistols and moon clips (and half-moon clips) for revolvers look a bit different to the pics above, but the differences between clips and magazines are so very clear and simple that writers who expect to be paid (or who have accepted pay) for writing articles or books who misuse “clip” to refer to a magazine are disgusting, lazy slugs who disrespect their readers with their poor work ethic.

Ah, I really should have just linked this and let it go, I suppose. *sigh* Lazy, subliterate, disrespectful frauds pretending to be writers wouldn’t care, anyway, and ordinary folks who simply want to know would just click on through and. . . learn.

“Hickock45” does a great job (as always) explaining the terms: